Once Upon a Time...

So... I had enough of blogging for a longer while, and now I guess I'm more or less back. Things are happening and I want to process them, in the best way that I know - writing. Because my friends are probably fed up with my letters, so is my diary (with my entries, I mean), I've decided to give myself another outlet.

My contract - I was librarian for a few years, so it happened, and worked pretty well for me - ended, and I have decided to actually do something intersting with my life.

I took a break from working and started thinking... and sight-seeing my lovely country, but to be honest, I was mostly at conventions for fans of fantasy, sci-fi and whatever they listed in their timetables ;) (and it was fun).

I even became a volunteer journalist for a website. It's going fine, but lately, I'm more of a reviser and updater than actual journalist. Don't mind it that much - after all, I found a full-time job in the city where I wanted to be.

And the city is lovely, truly lovely. Even the area where I live in, which is a bit on the suburbs side. Maybe especially instead of even. I mean, I love architecture and those all amazing buildings of the Old Town, but here is also nice. I have a landscape park as my neighbour. It means I've got a big city and I'm remaining close to the nature. Lovely deal if you ask me.

Also, what is the most important thing maybe, I've got my man. It took me five years. I was stubborn, incredibly stubborn, but now I have him, and that is all that matters to me. The last year dragged like hell, in the middle of it I was both sick from worry about him and at the same time determined to either have my way or walk away. The Deadline God obviously panicked, because by December we were together.

Of course there are issues. And there are difficult situations, but awhile ago I really though the ceiling is crashing down again, and now I see that bad things were necessary. I wish they didn't come from friends, but where else the unexpected betrayal comes from? Anyway, bad things allowed me to see clearer, decided what is important, what is fixable and what is gone for good... also, provided me with plains which became a common ground for me and new friends - I can understand them better and connect, by shared experience. Life is good again,

Wow, it was supposed to be a brief note... anyway, the whole point of this "brining up to speed" can be summed up as this naive comment that dreams really come true. But now I know it for a fact. I have my man, my city and a new job where I'm appreciated. Life is really good. As long as you dream.

Keep moving, keep dreaming. (jc)

A break

 Much was going on lately. My unexpected internship, classes at University, a brief trip to my sister's university town for a get-together of fans of fantasy themed books, movies and games.

 The internship is slowly coming to an end. I'm glad. I wasn't entirely happy with it; I accepted mainly because I needed money to pay for my studies, at least partially.
  The place is terrible. There's no teamwork, no trust, no healthy atmoshpere... just arguments, complaints and miscommunication. It's incredibly tiring, particualrly for an outsider.

 University. I'm working on my MA degree in English. It's both blessing and a curse. On the one hand, I'm so happy with the lectures and lecturers that I have, or my current promoter - amazing man; interested in modernism - although I'm not interested in that particular movement as a whole, I'm interested in T.S. Eliot. So I'm in good hands I hope.
 On the other hand; the quality of the remaining classes leaves a lot to wish for. Particularly poetry class. I was so happy at the beginning of the year that we are going to have a separate class to discuss poetry. Well, there's not much of discussing going on there. There's not much going there in general. During the first class we discovered that out of 15 people from my group, I'm the one who finds pleasure in reading poetry... furthermore, I'm the only one who LIKES poetry.
 And what's the best of it? The teacher admitted that she actually hates poetry herself and that she understands "us".
 Little alien... I am.

 I'm also reading an article on Hemingway's style and Japanese esthetics in his collection "In Our Time". Hemingway... and you know you will miss adjectives and adverbs for many lonely sentences, pages... though a bit of Death in the Afternoon might help (I actually mean the famous drink - Absinthe mixed with champagne ;)

 And the trip... oh, it was one of the most amazing and surprising experiences in my whole life!There are no words to describe it ;)

 One thing is for sure. I'm going there again. Next year :) 

 And those are a few illustrations (1-3 by Nielsen, 4-6 by Bauer) I found somewhere on the Internet and fell in love with immediately.
 Of course I had to share them.

Found it!

 I am so insanely happy!

 I actually found these pedants I thought I lost. I thought they fell off my neck when I was on my way back home, but today I was looking for something in my bag, and I found them!

 I have a small pocket in my bag, where I usually keep pens (a lot of them – I always carry at least ten), pendrives, shopping lists and etc. Today at the office I couldn’t find Bic pen I bought a few days ago – I thought I left it on my desk somewhere as I was writing letters late in the evening. When I returned home and couldn’t find it on the desk, I’ve decided to check my bag once again. I swear, sometimes it’s like a black hole (it’s a black bag after all) – things inside just disappear. I took all of the pens, pendrives, bus tickets and etc. and guess what, the pedants were right there, in the pocket!
 Can you believe it? I actually started crying… and then I felt so silly. All this time I was mourning it, thinking about my loss of  familiar weight of the necklace, the sound it made whenever I moved and how I instinctively reached for it whenever I felt like… brooding a bit… and I had it with me, in the bag.

 I’m such a silly cow I can’t believe it, but it’s again with me and that’s all that matters ;). Ah, never underestimate a dragon (well, dragons) – it seems like they can always find their way back!

Other stuff.

 It’s raining all the time. The weather is like in autumn – everything is grey, the pressure is so low I have this urge to remove my own brain through the nose… neither pills nor coffee are helping. I sip green tea, listen to quiet music and hope for the best.

The Hardy Tree

A friend sent me this photo. I've never heard of it, but it looks pretty awesome.

"In the mid-1860s, the young Thomas Hardy was in charge of the excavation of part of the graveyard, in the course of the construction of the Midland Railway's London terminus."
~ St. Pancras Old Church

There is a city...

 I usually say that politics, politicians and our inability to settle accounts with previous political system killed all higher feelings in me (meaning patriotism). I usually think that we're still these silly romantics believing in ideals that are no more, and that these people who died for freedom of my country wouldn't have bothered, had they known what we did with this country... but from time to time I see something like this... and I feel kind of proud... even though I know that this solidarity never lasts long enough to lead to something more permanent.

Things you own end up owning you

 I used to wear a chain with three pedants - dragons. I never went anywhere without them, never - even if they weren't on my neck, I kept them in my pocket or in my bag. My first pedant was a gift; I got it from dad when we were on a trip in Kołobrzeg (it's by the sea; nice place though I usually prefer to be on this part of seaside that has Gdańsk), the other was a gift brought from Kraków (Cracow) - the city of the Wawel dragon, and the third I bought myself... Anyway, I lost these pedants and I feel rather naked without them. I keep on touching my suprasternal notch and finding it bare annoys me.
 I can't stop thinking about this. There were times when the chain would just stop cooperating and dragons would fly, but miraculously I always found my dragons in my jeans, tangled in my sweater or waiting in my bed to be found... and now I feel as if it was my arm that got lost... as if that necklace actually defined me in some way however silly that may sound.

 I browsed through my jewellery box, quite unhappy with the loss and at the same time unable to find anything that would replace these lost pedants... and then I thought that I turned into dragon. Over the years I bought jewellery to possess it, not to wear it. Any new piece of jewellery was a treasure, not an addition to let's say a dress. All these pieces of jewellery ended owning me - I don't use them, but they use me; tempt me into buying them and then, they demand to be left alone. Like the earrings I'm wearing today - suddenly they felt too heavy and now they're winking at me as they're relaxing on my calendar...
 It doesn't sound healthy... after all, these are just pieces of metal... or clay... or glass... or wood...

 I've decided to make an effort and actually wear something else as a necklace. By the door mom said: This one is new (well, it wasn't I bought it a few years ago but never put it on), I haven't seen it before. Is it edelweiss?
 Actually it was a mandrake, but I thought that edelweiss was a nice idea and I immediately wanted to search my favourite online jewellery shop (they have these amazing things there, I particularly love Moomins - photos below) for edelweiss pedant.
 There were no pedants that could satisfy my aesthetical needs, so finding a nice edelweiss pedant is a quest for some other time ;)

 Now some photos:

The Wawel Dragon

I never saw it do it, I usually went to Cracow
in winter time... no fire then ;/

A lovely illustration by Marta Bilecka - Dudzińska
More Illustrations ♥

And some examples of beautiful Moomin pieces of jewellery from ArtFox:

Sniff

The Snork Maiden & Moomintroll

The Groke

Snufkin

Random stuff

  Still looking for a job and trying to figure out what to do with myself. Yes, I do overthink things... - generally speaking, no change in that area.

 To do something more creative (than brooding) I've decided to organise my photos in folders, and these are the newest ones. They're colourful and as I was feeling a bit down lately, so I thought that a splash of colour couldn't hurt (much). Besides, little things cheer up the best (particularly if among them one can find a cake).

A cake with black and red currant. I thought it wasn't that bad
till I watched Gordon Ramsay's show... I wouldn't have won that contest,
but still, my cake was edible and that's something ;)

A bouquet - I personally arranged flowers XD

And couldn't resist another photo and different angle.

My pride ♥. Artemisia Absinthium.
If I could do any job I wanted, I would be Absinthe Producer.
Eccentric Absinthe Producent.