Here I am my dear Lj.

I should be keeping the record of times I want to write something here but then I’m interrupted by something or just prefer to do some other thing instead. Would anything change if I wrote each time I feel like it?

Like, I feel sick and I’m beginning to appreciate true friends who don’t mind you broken and sniveling..It could make a post!

Or, how d’you like it – I started crying right when I was saying words of congratulation to my Mum on her birthday – I had always thought it so irrelevant to cry at somebody’s party!.. I had meant to make it a post)

Or Vanilla Sky I watched – it almost provoked a huge post about love and chance, but then the wish burned out as I went to the kitchen to take my pill and came right across a plateful of fresh gooseberries..

I don’t know if I should be sad about these missed pieces of life I could have captured and had them taken down. I suppose – even if I should, then not too much anyway.

Well, as I decided to sit down and write a bit now (a book, the alternative pastime for this evening, as I’m still sick all through and not even dreaming of hanging around in town) – then I’m supposed to put some thought into it. (Just checked my e-dictionary for ‘put thought into smth’ and what I got instead is ‘put the wood on the wood idiom’. I wonder if I ever need it; who could I address it to?)) Okay.

Sorry, it’s coming out boring. What I’ve mostly been thinking of all the time that I’m home is that I feel like I could be happy far from here. I mean, this scares me, because for humans it’s so perfectly normal and good to be feeling safe where they are. I am feeling exactly this way – I’m attached to the place because this is where I know I have people who know me and who can help me out. The dearest ones live here – my Mum, Dad, my grannies, my cousins, everybody else’s cousins and uncles and nieces and nephews and etc, and I know I’m loved and needed. And God only knows how much I love them all, even those who might never be thinking of me.  And my friends and groupmates, and my university life and my tutors and my teachers from school – they all mean a whole world to me –

And here’s where I’m being inconsistent! – I think I could as well live far from here and be happy nonetheless – with the internet and telephone, with airplanes and buses.. Because I was so wrong when I was starting to think I should give up my dreams. They don’t make you an ambitious idiot, they make you know where you are going. (I hate it how I’ve put that last phrase but that’s exactly what I think)

I feel like I’ve grown older, and I’ve no regrets about it at all. It’s all good.

Here I am. I am still here, and I mean to be.

When people say that time flies, I think they say it when they realize that good things do pass, with a bit of this good old sentiment in their voice which implies they don’t want this mysterious guy called Time to make such haste.

Here’s my first university year almost behind me. I do feel a student right now. And I understand what difference it makes to be one. I now see what those older mates meant saying you are not a student until you do your first session (hm, I believe I shouldn’t follow the sequence of tenses rule here, cause it’s kind of an up to date thing). That’s quite right. Now as I look half a year back, I see a really very very fresh man. Not that I’m stale now though, just feel the ground a bit better. To be frank, I sometimes miss the feeling of having my head in the clouds, now there’s less chance to afford floating on air.

I remember the dislike I took to the university I study at. Minding my dream of studying languages and having them as a tool for my future job, I thought that dislike contradictory and wrong and wanted to rid of it. Yes, it’s now that I see I was perhaps too idealistic about what it was going to be. You kind of can’t always get what you want (c).

The academic year is nearly over, the exam session still to sail through (yes, I’m positive – hopefully, WE do it). And here’s where I say ‘we’ meaning my whole group. We are going to be in different ones next year according to our specializations and second languages, which is a great great pity to all of us. Well, change is never bad, but we are a nice group and that’s true. I came from a good school and was quite used to diligent guys around, but these ones are just fine. Both academically and humanly. They first seemed a way too keen on studies. As keen as mustard, I’d say. I myself never give my studies up but there were times me and my only male group mate were feeling deadbeats) My groupies are all different, but what I love is that we all take care of each other and stick together. It’s so great to have them, to know they will be there at the lectures and they WILL BE there unless they are just a bit too lazy to come. I can’t say they all have a remarkable knack for languages but it’s their determination and drive for the better that make them do real good progress. They are nice guys – to put that in a really small nutshell. I am happy we have been together and I hope we don’t grow too far apart in the future.

It dawned on me yesterday that my family life, I mean, the classical life of a child in a family, with home-made food and stuff, is actually over. Well, I thought I knew that but all of a sudden I realized that it isn’t a joke or something – it’s OVER! When I sometimes wake up in my dormitory room, lovely though it is, especially compared to other ones here, I know there’s just me to push myself on, to make tea, to hurry up and study. There’s just me to think for myself and hardly anyone is going to take the trouble over. Here’s when you come to appreciate the fact that you’ve got parents, and relatives, and friends – people who care. And it makes you think of a family you are going to make one day and the way you settle the relationships within it and etc.

It’s all about freedom. Right, the good thing is that you’ve always got choice. It’s good to take pleasure from not choosing the very easiest something.

Life in the dormitory.. Interesting experience! Makes you desperately want a place of your own, more privacy and freedom; but this dorm community is the world which is lovely to plunge into. So many good people you could have missed, so many freaks you think you are lucky to have met so as not to turn into one yourself, so many lifestyles you can learn from and the same many you get disgusted at. As an intercultural communication student, I guess it’s a ‘must’ experience. Very good for your learning things and people and shaping your attitudes. All who claim it’s a wretched hole – believe me that it is not so. Really cool people live here too, it’s just another good challenge.

It has come out a bit longer than I’d expected but not as full I guess.

Anyway. University life rocks, that’s the main idea.

And again – for my LJ.

Not that I feel or am much of a writer, but sometimes when I haven’t written for quite a time I feel it very strong that I’m not only missing something, but that I’m not doing something I MUST do. Maybe it’s just the need to express and let out what’s inside, but the fact is that I feel it. And today striding down the Independence Avenue I realized that:

• Knowing what you are good at is critical if you want to LIVE your life
• Doing it (sth you feel you are good at) and perfecting yourself in it is absolutely essential
• DOING things is a greeeeat deal better than thinking of doing them but never getting down to them
• It’s a great feeling to be independent but it shouldn’t be confused with being closed to others. Not that totally open though, but as much as you possibly can for good atmosphere and cooperation.
• I am quite a coward, miserable though the word may sound
• I don’t want to be – FEAR BUILDS WALLS!!! (c)
• It’s wrong if you push yourself into doing things that (no longer) bring you pleasure – you may deteriorate. There are other things to do, but as long as you keep being sensible.
• Most people are tangled up – and ESPECIALLY living in cities
• Europeans are much easier to deal with, mostly, - now I recollect (well, just to say that, here in Minsk living on my own I come to recollect more and more of hers) – that my school History teacher was right saying Europeans are that way because Christianity is much into people’s lives there, and oh, that’s a great unifying force without being forcible in itself
• Машина Времени are simply super

Here’s the list of my conclusions to which people come sooner or later if they are not complete idiots (subjective opinion but - personal).

My eyesight is getting worse, another thing to give account of. Long live carrots and bilberries! One of my friends, Nastya, who has poor eyesight - (seems we were about 14 then) only bought lollies and glazed cheesies with bilberry flavour and filling – хи-хи)

Also, I’m extremely worried by the question of my national identity. I’m at the point when I need to know what people I belong to, and this does matter to me. On the one hand, having always been told that we are Poles, and having this language as a considerable part of my childhood – the Polish school with its concerts and performances and summer camps, books, fairytales, vinyls, and the Polish radio at home and the Polish relatives and the whole Catholic thing in my life being in Polish – what I know is that I cant force myself to pray in Belorussian!

And on the other hand, the Belorussian culture is what was around me, maybe not as pure as in central Belarus but still unique and simple and its presence is doubtless! The language we learnt while still in the kindergarten, again – the fairytales, my grandparents speaking it most of the time though the mixture is evident, - well, I cant just cut it all out of myself! And Russian culture? The concept of the Russian soul – who can say it’s not true to them to at least some extent! I cannot. What blood is it that I can call truly mine? Slavic, I guess, but then I envy  the Poles, Russians and Belorussians who know who they are.

Here’s all for now.

Unusually cold spring, heh. Let the thought of the summer to come God knows when warm us all up.

Read Barack Obama’s inauguarational address today. Don’t know why I like him so, America is so far away from here but, well, its influence reaches far. And I’m not at all good at politics, I know little about it, and actually I have never taken particular interest in it – until recently. I think I’m just getting to see a bit broader and politics is so crucial a factor and this is where loads of problems stem from and people live their lives peacefully not even supposing their lives could be changed by just a couple of people.

So, somehow I believe Obama is going to make a good president. We’ll see though, easier said than done and – there are so many decisions ahead of him; responsible for half the world now, and people hope for his being wise so much… I know you’ll never read this Mr. Obama, but I wish you huge patience and wisdom and the blessing from above. Guess you’ve got it already though – you are there. Good luck!!!!! 

Dear America, I hope you don’t lose yourself, and your adorable constitutional bases, and all the people who love you and love others. And you live through your hard times just like you always did.

I’m not crazy addressing America guys. I just think it deserves being respected for a couple of things;)

By the way, Masha, they call them ‘lockers’)

For my LJ, I think

Why is it so necessary to go through soooooo much routine before I can at last feel quite free?

I want to go somewhere mountainous, - fresh air, a lot of skies, adventure, fun, a horse,

Where things are simple and I’m not sleepy and don’t have to worry

About what I shouldn’t do

And why is it all this way – people are born in absolutely different places and they can never exchange places, and a businessman with a case and in expensive shoes can never become a cowboy and I’ll never be a Canadian? And why someone is born in a stuffy town while others among American prairies?

I know there’s no one to reply, and therefore I think I’m here doing what I have to do, and my mainstay is that huge desire to see the world. I love you already, places I’m gonna see.

For my LJ

I don’t know, I can’t explain to myself what’s that inside me that makes me feel so…. so restless, so unsettled. At times I wonder how I manage to be that strong considering the life I have, and all these things I can’t change. Don’t know why I love it so DAMN much, and never want to give in. When I wake up at night I think I’m gonna go crazy right now, I think I’m gonna just shout out loud, kneel down and start crying, crying and crying and crying. But I never ever dare. When I’m home I know I MUST be strong cause what happens, God, what happens if I’m not!...... When I’m in my rented flat I just can’t do that because – because. Why should other people be troubled by this..

I miss the days when I was small and I understood little, or – I don’t know, maybe I just pretended. But I think, I really understood little. I remember when we happened to meet some acquaintances in town, my parents and I, those people always said – this girl is forever smiling. And that was true. Everyone seemed to want me never to learn what really was going on in my family, but things were turning all the other way round to me, and I still don’t know if it was good or bad, I mean, their hiding the truth. What I know is I would never wish anyone to have the same ..the same things.

When I look at myself as if I was someone else - I pity the girl a lot. And I pity her mother still more. And Dad, too. But the real me knows that self-pity is destructive, and I never think about it, I read the thoughts away, smile them away, I talk them away, listen-to-music them away, coldplay them away, roxette them away, dream and walk them away, pray them away, write them away, sometimes cry them away or I dance them away. I live them away, as you see.

I sometimes think what I could’ve become, and what I’ve become. Were it not for musicians and authors and some people I’d be very different. I’d be weak.

And very often I want to apologize to everyone who’s unhappy and miserable and I don’t know why, I don’t know if that’s okay. And very often I want to apologize to my parents because I hurt them so bad sometimes but I never ever want to do this, I’m so lost for words now. Sorry everyone, it’s me.

I wish Roger Waters and Chris Martin and Knophler and a-ha and … knew how grateful I am. They make me want to live on. If only I could change some things - I know for sure, I know 100% I’d be the very happiest one ever.

Whoever may read this, please, PLEASE, remember this little rule that matters a lot to those who are around you – be happy, feel the world’s beauty, never say ‘too late’, never say ‘I can’t’, because this matters to the whole world, to every single one, trust me.

Whatever whatever whatever whatever – it’s so nice to know there are people around you and you are not alone in the universe.

For my LJ

January 7, 2009 10.30 pm

Wake the gals up, sit up and make tea

Talk and laugh knowing it’s the time we’re supposed to be sleeping

Knowing the neighbors might be disturbed by our laughter

Say ‘you! Stop makin’ that much noise!’ nobody cares though, including myself

Talk about what’s on our minds

Put on the sheets and pretend we’re ghosts – and laugh again!

Make more tea and realize it’s too hot refuse to drink it           

Get sleepy and go to bed


Hm)

I’ve been thinking of writing here for a couple of days now, here’s my mind, below here… And just as usually I’m not sure whether I manage to put it the way it thinks. By the way, sometimes it becomes painfully clear what makes a good writer – he never has such a problem, or at least he knows how to deal with it. I don’t!!! I always think this time I’m gonna make it clear – what’s on my mind - but there’s just too much, and I think my thesaurus isn’t capable of giving a wide way to what’s inside…  Or is it my girlish curse?)

Well…

Yesterday I visited a bookshop. And…no no no not the books that stirred my – not sure what, my newborn nostalgia? longing?… - anyway.. Anyway –

Those were copybooks and notebooks. Ordinary paper things, but each year designers think of something so new, and so attractive to the eye of a schoolchild that there’s no way to combat the temptation. Simply touching them, looking at them , and then - !!! – choosing them brings such delight, joy and gladness!!! Pink and yellow and blue, with lovely teddy bears and children’s heels, with hieroglyphs (so serious and stylish), witches and fairies, with castles and nature, eyes and hands, skies and stones… with everything in the world on their cover!!! Looking at new empty copybooks makes you think how beautifully you’ll be writing in it, how much good info they’ll be keeping for you…!!!

But yesterday I bought none. Not a single one! I’m no longer the small girl doing the traditional school shopping, I simply understand I don’t need those 48-page copybooks and I think I’m gonna buy as many as I need in Minsk anyway, but mmmmmmm what lot of complex and unusual and a wee bit sad feeling it brought to me – just seeing the copybooks ready for schoolchildren, the anticipating and excited kids, the ones who really wait for the school year to start, with its…with its eveythings. So good I had it all, so good it’s gone.

A wonderful quote – ‘Don’t be sad when it’s over, smile cause it WAS’.

And in the morning I saw a street cleaner sweeping the garbage, and there were dry yellow leaves beneath her broom… What should it mean? Mum told me once – see the chestnut trees? Now they’re in bloom, like candles burning on the branches; then they stand green having their fruit growing. And when their leaves go yellow and the fruit are ripe and fall down thorny – then children go to school. It’s been a symbol for me all this time! I think the next time I live through it again will be when my children go to school…

I’ve no regret, I’ve no pain, I’m happy and I feel free, I love feeling my angel beside me, this life is wonderful. 

This day is an Irish day. Because the sky is very light grey, there’s been a little rain and the moisture is still seen on the ground and the combination of green and grey somehow stands for Ireland in my mind. And the air is absolutely still, and it is warm. So when you walk it feels like you are floating. A funny thing, on the soles of my shoes there are words – ‘walking on air’. And butterflies. Seems the best days of my life were all like this one.

Whatever some say – like, sleeping late into the day is true relaxation, and that this is how holidays are different from work – no, no way. Waking up early is what makes the day worthwhile, especially when you don’t really need to hurry to school, to work or elsewhere. Then you begin to hurry naturally – to grasp the day and do more before it’s over. And providing you are not falling down with sleepiness every now and again.

I wish to fulfill so much within my lifetime. I’ve got only one chance, and it’s here every second I’m living. It’s either yes or no, it’s going or staying, it’s carrying on or giving up, talking or keeping silent, coming closer or moving aside. Being careful or being risky. Being this or being that, being yourself or wearing a mask, and, it’s even now or never at times.

I just want to make sure I’ve got enough stamina to carry my tasks through. The tasks I’ve got for myself and the ones which keep coming into my life and need to be dealt with by me.

Well there really is a lot I wanna do. And this Irish day – it just reminded me of one of my wishes. There’s a man I only heard about but never saw him, he’s the son of one English teacher I know, and he is an interpreter and knows 5 languages and he works in Ireland. I wanna be like him, in some ways.

And I want to be through a lot of things, I think I’m happy to be here, anyway.

And I love strawberries.

Been to school today, such a lovely day and my willows look so good, and when I was coming back past the school building – heard somebody playing the piano in the big hall on the second floor, something reminded me of the way I felt some 5 years ago, such a strange thing – when you begin to feel like you of the past)) couldn’t get why, stopped and then understood the tune was… With a little help from my friends!!!! Ringo’s low and kind voice was missing but my God, who could it be playing the melody I never even associate with the legendary ones!!!  So dear and kind…

 So nice it was to hear it - on the piano.. which is so rarely touched..)

summer, summer, summer, summer……. I thought I loved winter, and  -.. well I still think I do, when it’s here, when it’s lovely, fluffy, white.

But now it’s so far away, and the summer is here, and it’s so fine, it’s so good, it’s green and warm, it’s so great for me now that I have done all I needed!.. Well, the state of having done everything is quite impossible though, in the wide sense, yet the way I mean it – concerning my education – it’s so sweet, so unbelievably real.

Today while washing my face I thought – people’s lives are so interconnected, every single one is a part of somebody else’s one, a part of others’ surroundings, a part of their minds, in a way no one might ever suspect… But one day, out of nowhere, somebody’s face comes to your head, somebody’s words, somebody’s story, some fleeting episode you witnessed…

And things seem inexpressibly simple then, you see you are just a part of the big process, you live in somebody’s memories, or dreams, somebody lives in yours, and the chaos is suddenly contained into simple lines you can see clearly, you can choose to follow, intertwining them with other lines or keeping aloof for as much as appears possible.

But you cannot be alone. You cannot, you’ve got no right – choose the remotest island on earth and settle down there and build a wall around your hut and by thinking you are all alone and happy untroubled by noise and imperfect people you’ll be making the greatest mistake, because still, still still somewhere you can never guess somebody is thinking about you, wishing you were there, washing your face or reading your book, or saying something, being good, living, living your life. Somebody is crying for you, whatever is left back there.

It’s you that is here, you and no other man in your shoes – then, maybe, it’s all meant to be like this, maybe that’s what it’s all about.

)

Here it is, everything’s over, the prom night spoken so much of since the very beginning of the year, it was like a fairytale – dresses, glosses, balloons, champagne, festiveness, fireworks –

Yes, just like a fairytale!..

Now I own a certificate, which is waiting to be handed over somewhere so unknown, and I own my freedom, and the strange feeling of having nothing to learn in certain terms, no one to reproach me for what I put on and remind me about some task I gotta fulfill.

It’s been eleven years since I came to learn what school is, since I became a schoolchild, a pupil. It’s so strange – I am no longer. And it’s stranger still – I’m glad about that. I loved school, but I think this year was just too tiresome, exhausting, killing, so very hard for me… And that is why I can’t be sorry now, can’t be missing it, or at least this is the most plausible reason for why I am not.

And now I also own my future.

And a whole lot of things above that!

MATHEMATICS IS O V E R !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT IS OVER!!!!!

I loved it at times, today at the exam it even seemed to me for a few minutes I was enjoying the tasks, but these are exceptional moments, never to occur in day-to-day life.

The lessons of Maths were the ones I always feared, except when I was in primary school, the ones I wanted to live through as soon as possible, sometimes I was even shaking, sometimes I was not understanding anything at all, sometimes I was beginning to hope I still could catch up – the thing I think is basically that I missed a lot of it at certain periods, sometimes the hope died out completely, there were different times!

And now oh my I can’t believe, and I’m happy – because I’m NO LONGER OBLIGED TO FEAR IT, TO LISTEN TO IT, TO HAVE IT, - now I’m FREE from it!!!

AND I LIKE IT FOR IT!!!