Pre-departure NYE

I'd like to say my NYE was filled with champagne and good friends in the D, alas I am leaving for Barcelona tomorrow (!!!!!) and therefore, in place of going out and enjoying myself, I have been frantically packing for the last 12 hours or so.

I'm just hoping that I don't forget to bring something essential; some object without which I would inevitably never make it to Barcelona/be sad and lost in Barcelona/get all my shit stolen/fail all my classes/become deathly ill/etc. Too many things to worry about, ugh.

Still, having spent a very very quiet evening in my house painfully prioritizing which pieces of clothes are not actually necessary to bring (Bird sweatah :( ) I have come to realize that sometimes a quiet evening alone is what the doctor ordered when at this particular level of anxiety.

On that note, despite my desire to post Juju's fave New Year's Song (Dobry Vechir Toby, performed ridiculously by a bunch of Ukrainian quasi-celebrities), I found a much more appropriate щедрик (new year's song) to match my particular brand of 2010/2011 NYE.

I should mention:  Ukrainian NYE is actually January 13 and, in its true form, is super folk-y and pagan. For this reason, almost none of the щедрівки (NYE songs) mention god/jesus/etc and pretty much focus on hopes for a good harvest, fertile wife, etc--only the most important things in life, you see. 

"Carol of the Bells" in its original form is one of these NYE carols, and therefore has very very similar lyrical narrative to the below song--a little swallow flies on this good night, it starts to sing and greet the good people, "Come out and look at the sheep pen, where you have great bounty and flocks. Your livestock is great and you're going to have lots of money!" 

Meaning: all about the harvest, 0 about jesus. Just like I like it.

Hint: 1:20 or so is when it really picks up.

... Anyway, heritage aside, happy 2011 everyone! Hope it is as great as 2010. :)

Ukrainian-French-English dictionary

So, upon my first 15 minutes of being home (2 weeks ago) I somehow came upon one of my favorite books from childhood: a super-cooky Canadian-Ukrainian Richard Scarry illustrated dictionary. 


Behold:

According to Andy Dzul, the reason this wonderful publication even exists is because the Canadian government subsidizes all books published for the cultural education of minority groups (i.e. Quebecois, Inuit, and, most importantly, Ukrainian-Canadians!!!) 

This also explains why all books we ever encountered in Ukie school were all printed in Canada.... I guess before I just always assumed the Ukrainians of the Great Canadian Plains made mad bank off of harvesting beets and/or tourism to the world's biggest pierogi and utilized their extra cash flow for the good of obscure Western-Ukraine-via-1945 textbooks. Guess not.  Still, further proof that Canada = a great place.

Millions more pics after the jump! Click "Read more," yo.

My evening in bunnies.

As I waited for Ellin to come get me, I had quality bonding time with kicha!!!!!!!! Significant event, guys, I'm serious!!!

 For the purpose of full disclosure: we are actually not as big of bros as the above kitty and rabbit, but, you know, she will let me pet her sometimes, as long as I don't attempt to pick her up and/or chase her around the Christmas tree... and I comply. I am putty in her tiny paws.

Then Ellin arrived! And so...

After that prominent moment in my life, I went with Ellin to go see Black Swan. 

What can I say that hasn't been said? Portman was being a Portman: every bone visible, every gasp—of which there were roughly a billion—audible.  

It was really was not as scary as I expected... For most of the film, the particular brand of body horror seemed to entail a lot of bloody fingernails and toes, which is actually NBD compared to what it could be (see: Jeff Goldblum as giant poop-muscle-carnivorous-vagina-monster-fly-thing in The Fly), srsly.

Let's be real:  NP's nails falling off and rash-thing were significantly less disturbing than a) her psychopathic mom, b) her zut-alors-sexual-harassment-what-izz-dat?? french ballet director, and/or c) the grossly protruding rib cage on her 85-pound frame. Real talk.

Re: C) - I guess that level of painfully anorexic is true of many ballet dancers, but, seriously, nothing ruins a good lady-on-lady sex scene like disturbingly sharp shoulder blades (accentuated with creepy wing tattoos, no less) as the focal point of the entire scene. Thanks for nothin', Aronofsky.

(On that note, shout out to my homegirl/compatriot, Mila Kunis.  Making the homeland proud.  Further evidence that Ukrainian (quasi-?)lesbians will one day rise against the oppressive dynasty of Cholodenko!!! Suck it.)

Finally: as for the scene in which she masturbates on her bed... It's 5 minutes of her lying on her stomach gyrating violently. I mean, really? Who does it like that? Seriously, of any gender? Wouldn't your hand fall asleep?? To me it looked more like an ab workout and less like anything vaguely pleasurable. I know the director staged this shot to seem super-extra intense, and therefore her humping of the bed seemed necessary, but it was toooooooooo much. Of course, the whole time the wonderfully/typically skeptical Detroit audience around me was just like, "LOL WUT, that does not work, bro. LOL LOL." I'm still perplexed. Aronofsky, you are a silly man.

So, yes, in short, I liked it. And also now have extra motivation to not live with my mother until I am 28, jesus.

And then...

I talked to a certain bunny. Missed a certain bunny. Was wearing this bunny's WHPK shirt all day. :(

And then I was like,

"OMG WHAT SOLAR ECLIPSE?? 

Jk, this is anticlimactic, back to RHOBH. Camille Grammar, you are a minx."

And finally...

SLEEP.

proletariat, trotsky, lenin, stalin, beria, malenkov, khrushchev, brezhnev, gorbachev, yeltsin aaaaaaaaaaand SANTA

In order to blend the past 14 hours of studying for this Soviet history exam with the Xmas spirit that has taken over every inch of the world,  I present: 

Soviet secular Santa, Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost)

Seriously though, check the link above. So many choice quotes. Not only do I now understand the level of manliness that Ded Moroz has reached, but also I have a taste of the general life perspective of Russian Wikipedia editors:

• ... Santa, just another Western spy: "Ded Moroz brings presents to children. However, unlike the secretive ways of Santa Claus, he often brings them in person, at the celebrations of the New Year and at New Year parties for children by the New Year Tree."

• ... kind of like Santa, if Santa was a REAL SLAVIC MAN (which FYI he is not): "The traditional appearance of Ded Moroz has a resemblance to that of Santa Claus, with his coat, boots and long white beard... Unlike Santa Claus, he walks with a long magical staff, does not say "Ho, ho, ho," and drives no reindeer but a troika or just walks."

• Like all great Russian leaders, his power comes from egalitarian diplomacy: "Initially Father Frost used to be a wicked and cruel sorcerer who liked to freeze people... at first he stole children and brought them away in his gigantic sack. To ransom the kids, their parents had to give him presents."

• Also, he will bring you 4Loko: "The citizens of the Soviet Union did justice to both the western type of New Year's and the western type of Christmas, by combining the midnight drinking of the former and the gift-giving and family cheer of the latter in ample measures."

• Finland's gifts are brought by ... a goat? A goat that Ded Moroz ritually slaughters for the benefit of all the small children of Russia. But, seriously, a goat?: "Ded Moroz, and on occasion the Belarus Dzied Maroz, are presented in the media as being in on-going détente with various winter season counterparts such as the Estonian Santa Claus (Jõuluvana or "Old man of Christmas"), the Finnish Santa Claus (Joulupukki or "Yule Goat"), and other Santa Claus, Father Christmas, and Saint Nicholas counterparts. The détente efforts portrayed have included one-on-one meetings, group meetings and friendly competitions."

So, in short, Ded Moroz: making your Christmas seem like a pussy since the October Revolution. Hollah.

this was my summer 2009 blog. but then i never updated it. (summer 2009 was not so interesting, admittedly, so most of my posts would have been pretty sad and alternately waterlogged or dying of heat.)

now i'm starting this thing back up, mostly because its title is too precious and i wanted to blog about life outside of the majestic midwest.

am i excited for barcelona? ehhh. i don't speak catalan and feel ambivalent about living in an american bubble the whole time.

still, it is finals week, so any/all hopes for a future life in which i do not simply swelter all day in sweatpants seem like a good thing.

i also might update about christmas festivities. ehh.

okay okay back to 15 page spanish paper.........................