the modern world of confusion

In response to:Feminist in high heels

2009-03-17T03:48:46+01:00

Feminism has nothing to do with traditions or morals or anything else - it has to do with freedom of choice. It's got nothing to do with not wearing a bra because men don't - that is feminist extremism. Moreover, we're built differently and as well as acknowledge those differences, we also have to appreciate them.

Feminism has had it's turn and it's great for what it's done, but it's time to evolve our conscious minds beyond the discrimination that it also creates, as well as the discrimination it fights. Your are a woman, but you are also a human (huwoman? :P), and with that right comes your right to choose your own path of liberty and freedom. Feminism started off on the wrong foot, and it's that wrong foot that still leads today. Remember people - it's about freedom of liberty and choice, not the fact that you're a man or a woman.

In response to:Feminist in high heels

2009-03-02T01:25:00+01:00

Feminism was created in large part to give unattractive women more access to mainstream society.

In response to:sleeping pills

2008-11-28T15:02:58+01:00

I hate sleeping pills, too, but in the circumstances perhaps they helped a little bit - & to hell with the German translation?

In response to:title-4283064

2008-07-27T21:05:06+02:00

Well, I do hope you're not into stabbing either of your own eyes, but I empathise with your frustration, having missed a First in Finals by the same sort of percentage.

Great to hear from you. Forgive me not responding when you sent this Comment, but for some reason BCUK didn't send me a copy of it by e-mail and I have only just stummbled across it.

I moved to Brighton at the end of February, and it has taken me ages to unpack, settle in and meet new people. Not being a drinker, I go to a couple of cafe/restaurants a lot and know well how little the staff, mostly non Brits, are paid - one pays £3.80 an hour, with the rest up to minimum wage paid by the 10% service charge. Disgusting.

Actually, I am starting an English Conversation class for them and others this week, which I will enjoy doing. Most of those who plan to come are Polish, as you might expect, but also a couple of latin Americans.

38 books? You've counted them already!? (But by now, of course, it is almost the end of the month)

I love Scotland and completely understand your feeling of affinity with it. I worked in the Uni of Strathclyde in Glasgow for five years.

x alec

In response to:title-4283064

2008-07-18T14:28:14+02:00

Hey, nice to hear from you! Exams are over and I passed without any problems, actually missed a distinction by 1,75% which quite frankly makes me want to stab myself repeatedly in the eye.
Still in Oxford, scouting for my college and working in a bar. It's not fun and it's bloody exhausting as I am working something like 60h this week but I desperately need to earn some money. Other than that I have been enjoying cheap tesco's value food and significant amounts of booze, so all is back to normal. I'm flying back home at the end of this month with 38 books which I have to read over summer. Then coming back to the UK in September and going on a road trip to Wales with some friends, then buggering off to Scotland for a couple of weeks before the term starts. Probably spending New Year's eve in Edinburgh as well which should be lovely. Scotland has generally become my new home and it's where I can be generally found if I'm not in Oxford. I am still very single but feeling a bit better now (Chris is finally gone from the college and I am slowly moving on- apart from one time when I got very drunk on Snakebites and whisky and sent him a massive e-mail overusing words such as 'pain', 'sorrow' and 'love of my life'. Ouch. I really really really DID regret it when I woke up in the morning.
Anyway, how are you? How is life, has anything excited happened? I am so behind on real world. x

In response to:title-4283064

2008-07-18T04:29:22+02:00

Do hope your exams went better than you feared. Are you back In Poland now? It would be great to hear from you some time. x alec

In response to:title-4283064

2008-06-08T20:24:06+02:00

All the very, very best for you exams

In response to:title-4283064

2008-06-07T20:25:59+02:00

You can use the free translation online! :)

In response to:accents

2008-04-18T13:17:49+02:00

My accent causes me more irritation that it's worth. I'm Irish but I live in Germany.

Most people don't think I have an Irish accent except for middle aged Irish people. This is because I pronounce my THs very clearly (I'm a teacher and I have to), but I do not inflect every sentence upwards in the American question way, and I do not pepper every sentence with the word 'like' in the way that more Irish people my age do.

So even though most people my age think I don't really have an Irish accent, my parents and their contemopraries think I have a better one than most people my age, and I agree with them.

But, on the whole, who cares?

In response to:accents

2008-02-29T15:04:25+01:00

At least you've started speaking their accent. It's a goal I would like to achieve soon. Visit me sometimes.

Greets

In response to:accents

2008-01-08T14:31:12+01:00

Oh, and I'm ashamed to mention that I did blog about chavs once :(

In response to:accents

2008-01-08T14:30:16+01:00

Nice post: which proves my point that people from outside the UK often have grammar and vocabulary that puts many natives to shame.

I discussed this point with a German friend recently. They have lots of accents there too: some are considered "better" (= more posh or sophisticated) than others, but I think they are mostly regional rather than class-based.

In response to:accents

2008-01-07T08:52:37+01:00

It depresses me to hear children adopting the glottal stop in imitation of the characters in East Enders. It gives them street cred with peers, I suppose, but it jars and is just as phoney as any other attempt to put on a different accent to try to become something you are not. Surely the only time we should modify the way we speak is to make it easier for other people to understand us. WHA'A LO' O LI''LE BO''LES is fine if you are a cockney, not otherwise.
Sheila xxx

In response to:accents

2008-01-05T23:22:12+01:00

Keeping my foreign accent here seems to be a blessing. Not even the French ever mistake me for being English, and I feel rather welcome there, despite all the horror English stories of going to France. Here as well, about half the accents I don’t understand or recognise as English at all. My accent, on the other hand, every one recognizes as non-English.

I would never even consider taking 'get the correct accent' type of training.

In response to:Procrastination

2008-01-05T20:54:16+01:00

ha! I've been discovered by a person from the real world. Scary ;)
I haven't written any of the summaries. And I don't even own 'Dammerung'...
do you think they can do something horrible to us if we fail collections? Just wondering...

In response to:Procrastination

2008-01-05T19:43:18+01:00

LMAO Just came across your blog whilst trying to find an online summary of 'Von Morgen bis Mitternachts'. I'm in pretty much the same boat as far as the work goes, so you can rest assured that you won't be alone when it starts raining limbs ;)
See you in a few days.

In response to:accents

2008-01-04T19:35:49+01:00

oh polish - as often you raise so many interesting points here - and I would like to come back to them (and your latest comment on my blog) when I have ha'd a little longer to recover from this flu (and thank you, I am recovering).

To the northerner, it sounds as if southerners have added an 'r' to grass or past. Scots can say past somewhat like southerners because they roll their "r" when they are in the spelling - eg lore as opposed to law, arse is different to ass.

One of the reasons so many of my friends are foreigners (including Americans) is that they don't judge by my accent. (Also, for the same reason it's good to blog). English people tend to assume a whole lot of things about me when they hear my posh "BBC" accent, few of which are true. (Scots just hear a "bloody Sassanach" aka Englishman, which is quite refreshing.) Some of my Uni friends deliberately took their accents downmarket amd started using gutteral stops - but that has never been my style.

I would advise you retained just a hint of Polishness in you voice to avoid some of this mayhem of cultural categorising - it's probably marginally better to be regarded as a foreigner than allocated a British class.

But there's so much more to say...

In response to:Procrastination

2008-01-02T19:14:19+01:00

I love Murakami. He is the most addictive author I've ever come across, because I'm never quite sure what he's on about, what the point of what he is writing, yet I read, read read.

I'm about to start The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The strapline reads 'When Death tells a story you really have to listen'

It is bound to cheer me up...

:)

In response to:Procrastination

2008-01-02T18:59:22+01:00

I did The Trial at school ages ago, quite liked it as well. We're doing the Metamorphosis now, only obviously in Gemrna. I actually quite like Kafka tho I find that if I read him too much I get rather suicidal. Not the most cheerful writer I dare say.

If you like dreamlike descriptions- ever tried reading Haruki Murakami? I absolutely adore him. His books are incredible if very confusing but that generally seems to suit my state of mind.

Hope your flu isn't too serious and that you're not feeling too bad. Hope you get better soon, love from Poland in the meantime :)

In response to:Procrastination

2008-01-02T17:16:01+01:00

I first read Kafka's The Trial at boarding school when I was twelve and had bad flu - a lot worse than now. It was a wonderful, confusing dreamlike experience.

But I have never been examined on the subject.

In response to:Oxford

2007-12-31T01:55:03+01:00

Nice gameplan! If you become Queen can you grant me the title "Lord Znethru of Ashby-de-la-Zouch"?

In response to:Oxford

2007-12-30T16:57:00+01:00

Well, thank you. Maybe I could hand it out to prospective dates, enriching it with a description along the lines of:
'an insecure, slightly needy and over-intellectual Polish girl is looking for the new Love of Her Life, having lost the previous one. If you are tempted by the picture of her not managing to look sensible even in the full Oxford sub fusc, please leave her a note in her pidge hole, The Queen's College.'

Speaking of which- this photo is actually an evidence of me commiting a crime. I'm not technically allowed to wear the mortarboard until I graduate. It's 50 quid fine if some academic supervisor catches me out.

In response to:Oxford

2007-12-30T14:14:50+01:00

On the contrary, it succeeds!

In response to:Oxford

2007-12-30T13:20:36+01:00

Thank you :) The expression was my reply to: 'try too look flirtatious' I quite obviously failed but the outcome is rather amusing I think.

In response to:Oxford

2007-12-30T01:17:07+01:00

It's my favourite photograph of you so far :)

In response to:title-3393396

2007-12-11T20:50:14+01:00

Yes, it is over-over-over. I spent the past two months trying to delude myself that it might not be, that he might come back. but he isn't coming back. I think he's about to start going out with someone else. And today, when I phoned him, he said something along the lines of: 'Accept it, we're over. You're not in my life anymore.' I just don't quite understand how I managed not to move on at all in the past two months.
My friend said that I was a mess and that she was disappointed because I wasn't moving on at all. But then she's in England so she can't help me much.
I probably will stay in Oxf next summer and get a job. Overspent massively in the first term so it's either that or quitting uni. The problem is I don't have anywhere to live, in London or in Oxf. My college accomodation is only for the term time so I'll have to look for someone else.
I know that I've got to be strong and stuff but right now I don't know where to get that strength from. I used to take it from love but now it's gone.
Getting my root canal done sometime this week. I suppose at least the physical pain might take my mind off the mental one.
Hell, life sucks. And then you die.

In response to:title-3393396

2007-12-11T16:36:36+01:00

That's so understandable - which of course deson't make it any easier to bare. I really is over-oveer-over, is it?

Perhaps for the easter, you'd feel better staying in Oxford, or eg, coming to London?

In response to:title-3393396

2007-12-11T15:47:02+01:00

Hi, thanks for still reading the blog :) I haven't seen your post yet but I'll have a look... hope you're ok there, I just find myself sinking so low here... turns out Im not over Rob at all. I can see it now that all the Oxford excitement and the state of having a constant essay deadline crisis are gone. I just don't know how to cope with everything anymore.

In response to:title-3393396

2007-12-04T17:21:26+01:00

Great to hear from you. Your post made me smile a lot - and shed a little tear for your heartbreak. It's wonderful you're enjoying Oxford and Queen's so much. Hope next term you'll find time to blog from there.

Meanwhile, hope you'll keep in touch from Poland. Did you read my post when, back in September I saw your future new Prime Minister's head among a scrum of photographers, campaigning in Tesco's car park, Hammersmith, London?

In response to:root canal.... ouch...

2007-12-01T12:40:35+01:00

Pain is only pain. It passes. I try to tell myself that anyway!

PS I live in Oxford and I go to Queens College sometimes for concerts.