The One Where You Look Into The Wardrobe And Think You Have Nothing [Appropriate] To Wear

Oh my, I'm turning into a real woman...

Stay tuned.

The One With The Origami Cranes

An ancient Japanese legend promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane. Some stories believe you are granted eternal good luck, instead of just one wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury.

I've got injured and so I'm not able to act out and decompress the way I usually do - by some physical activity, most preferably: dancing or running.
So I'm making origami cranes in order to, well, just do something that will take my mind off my life.

(Yeah, it's been a tough week... Fortunately, remote virtual hugs help to some degree).

Stay tuned.

The One With Prince Charming.Or The One With The Most Sensible Decision.Or The One With The Problem With Relationships

It's just that - I'm no princess...

But is the sensible choice the right one?

And the problem with relationships is not that you can mess up your own life - that's actually the easy part.
The real problem is: you can mess up someone else's life - and have to learn to live with it.

Stay tuned.

The One On Monday Morning

You read and learn how to write clean code.
You feel guilty about having left the mess in the code on Friday afternoon. You're aware it's messy - but there was not enough time to do something about that, you were to busy testing, trying to figure out what to do, and so you let yourself do it sloppily.
You feel guilty and can't wait to make it right first thing on Monday morning. You even dream yourself perfecting the code!
And then you come to work to see the piece of code magically cleaned and made beautifully simple and simply beautiful.
I think that was more educating then if I had actually done it myself.

Stay tuned.

The One On The Third Thursday Of November (Or The One With Four Almost Stereotypical IT Guys And One Least Stereotypical IT Girl)

Cheers!

Stay tuned

The One With The Chance Encounter

Obywatel (The Citizen)

My 6-year-old niece is great at the memo game and beats everybody at it.
The Citizen is like that game. The director shows you a piece and requires you to remember every little detail of it; then, some time later, you are given another piece and required to recall that previous one. If you fail, you won't get your prize, which is the satisfaction of getting the story - the connections, the true motivations - right, and instead of a coherent plot, you may end up with a set of ill-fitted, though still funny, puzzle elements. Moreover, it takes some national and personal self-distance to appreciate the film, since - while staying witty and humorous - it is often exaggerated, reflected in a distorting mirror, and I guess not everybody may like what they see in that mirror.

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You have probably heard that U2 published a new album. What you might not have heard is that the deluxe edition of that album contains bonus tracks and alternative versions of the original songs. And - as is always the case with U2's B-sides - it's a treasure.
This one is not my favourite from the set of Songs of Innocence - but it's the one that, in my opinion, gains most when listened to in the acoustic version:

Stay tuned.

Th One With The Illumination

Let there be Light!

I was smiling the whole time while coming back home today. I guess it was partly because I had done pretty well at my Irish stepdance classes. But mostly because I had done well at work and made a few lights turn on.
Newsflash: I have a new job!

Rewind.

Getting to know my way around the application I'm going to be developing. Found a bug that nobody else had spotted before (I was the first person to try the application on a computer using Ubuntu OS and equipped with two monitors - which were the only conditions when the fault manifested).
Easily fixable.

Rewind.

First days in my new job. I mostly keep staring at progress bars, download and configure various frameworks. Understandable, since I have to set up my work environment before I can actually start working.
Nonetheless, everything here looks promising.

Rewind.

I had been looking for a new job for almost two months. And it finally paid off. All of a sudden I got responses from almost every interview I had participated in - and everybody wanted me to work for them.
How was that possible?!

Rewind.

I've just quit my job. I got back after two weeks of vacation time and realised it wasn't worth it to stay there a day longer. It was high time for me to move on and find something new, something suited to my talents and my needs.
It was really the matter of now or never.

Stay tuned.

The One With The Tea Spiced With Corkscrew

Yesterday, while packing, I put my corkscrew into the teapot as a means of saving room.

Today, I unpacked and made some tea. Using that teapot. With the corkscrew still in.

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I tried to find a nice jogging route, but all there is here are cul-de-sacs, dead-end streets, and enclosed compounds. So, as you can imagine, there was plenty of turning back.

Stay tuned.

The One With The Spinach And Avocado Pasta Sauce

Funny, how memories emerge at most unexpected moments. Turns out it's enough to make good dinner. Or spot a sparrow.

Stay tuned.

The One That Feels Right

As of today I am unemployed (at least unofficially).
And the happiest unemployed in the world I am.

Stay tuned.

The One When You Speed Up

There are some things that can make you run faster.
Anger, for instance.
Or thunderstorm.

But I think anger wins this competition.

Stay tuned.

The One With The Vanishing Cream

Over the years a few [important] people vanished from my life. Usually the process was gradual - except for one case when I was directly told that I was not a welcome company any more.
Today a question arose whether it is better to be silently ignored or to be told to your face that somebody is tired of you. And the opinion was that it is easier to swallow that bitter pill if it is served delicately, just a hint, something given to understand between the lines.
I do not agree. When a friend let me know me that he did not want to continue the acquaintance I spent one evening crying, I drank a bottle of wine, and - eventually - I got over it. But when someone simply fades away you can never be sure whether it's because of lack of time, or because they do not care so much, or they really do not see that something is cracking here; or it's actually you. You do not know, you can never be certain - but you have hope... and that hope is killing you.
So - no, thank you for trying to spare my feelings. I prefer the clear cut.

From a favourite childhood cartoon - one of many.
And one of many I have never stopped watching.

Stay tuned.

The One Not At The Campus And That Should Have Taken Place A Month Earlier

ca. 9 AM // btw, I HATE running in the morning

24 minutes and 35 seconds later // or 5 kilometres

I've got wonderful friends.

Stay tuned.

The One When You Try Your Best, But You Don't Succeed

Sigh...

Stay tuned.

The One With Batman And Robin, And The Dumplings

I went to collect my race package and noticed plenty of people heading for the same direction. I started seriously wondering why on earth so many runners had figured out that they would pick up their packages from the race office first thing in the morning... I stopped wondering when I saw Batman and Robin among them and it dawned on me that most of them were gathering for the students carnival procession and not for any marathon-related purpose... Oh, so that was the reason why the faculty felt so deserted and calm, and peaceful, and a great place to procrastin..., eee..., to work!

My new musical discovery:

Stay tuned.

The One At World's End

Saturday

7.30 a.m. I had found a person going to the Dębno marathon and willing to take passengers. There were eight of us and turned out to be a varied company: Tadeusz, the driver, and his wife, both members of runner's clubs (plus his father as a backup driver); their friend, Monika, participant of half-marathons and marathons all over the world; Andrzej, one the fathers of the Cracovia Marathon (!); his friend, Stanisław, who used to work at Wisła with women's volleyball team; and a nice, quiet guy, whose name I never got...
So the journey was full of tales of marathons and sport events.

Slept at the gymnasium, where I shared the floor with a hundred other runners. And a few of my travel companions - despite them being real, well-known sport VIPs (constantly some officials kept recognising them and starting a discussion), they did not bother to get a hotel room or something like that, but instead they just shared our common area.

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Sunday

Trying to relax before start, I read some running related quotes displayed on a board at the marathon headquarters. Two favourites of mine being:

At the finish line of a marathon you can feel that you are worth the air you breathe.

And if you aren't bone-tired and don't feel like vomiting, then it means you could have run faster...

And to top it all:

Quotations are prosthesis for mind.

Start
Surprised greatly - nobody ran for their lives, nobody tried to get ahead of everyone else and trample me in the process. Amazing.
In company of two of my travel-mates.


5km
Lost my travel-mates. Found my own pacemakers - two guys running at ~6min./1km.


13km
Lost two minutes trying to resolve problems with my mp3player - turned out it was set to repeat one folder and I did not want to listen to the Twilight soundtrack over and over again - I wanted to listen to New Moon (Twilight Pt. 2) and Eclipse (Twilight Pt. 3) as well ;D


17km
The leader overtook us. For him it was 34km - so he was literally two times faster.


25km
Lost my pacemakers when they met some friends who delayed them.


36km
Made it by myself, keeping nice and steady pace. Until my stomach almost betrayed me and I had to slow down.


40km
Saw Tadeusz and Agnieszka heading for the finish line. For me it was still one more turn.


Finish
4:28:20 - my personal best.
And I had seriously feared that I would not finish within the time limit.

After quick shower (no queue - one ladies room seemed to be enough to handle all the female participants), I went to get my recovery meal. A girl - a teenager, one of the many volunteers - immediately came to me and asked if she could get the meal for me, told me to sit down and wait as she would bring me everything. That was so sweet I almost cried. Really, the people were wonderful.

All my travel-mates made it. We got back to Kraków at 3 a.m.

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What you can say about the Dębno marathon:

• At world`s end.
• The oldest marathon in Poland (how come?!)
• Expensive - the registration fee is extremely high in comparison.
• They provide no sport t-shirts (despite the extremely high entry fee).
• There are no pacemakers ("they could not afford it" - despite the extremely high entry fee).
• Small time limit - 5 hours, whereas it is usually 6 or 6,5.
• Route made of four overlapping circles, very confusing, especially at the beginning.
• Hot spot connection at the headquarters kept freezing.

However!
They also have the nicest, the kindest, the keenest, the most helpful, the most dedicated volunteers! I mean it. Had it not been for the crew, I would probably not count it as a memorable event. They made all the difference. They were everywhere they were needed, they knew everything they should, they helped you before you even had thought of asking. And they smiled sincerely.
Plus all the supporters on the way - also very involved, despite their small number (small town, small villages), very engaged.
So the people made up for everything else.

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And why all that? The plan is to finally get the Crown of the Polish Marathons and so the Dębno Marathon is the first step (of five).

Stay tuned.

The One With White Chocolate Coated Blackcurrant Filled Gingerbread

I have visited some interesting places in Europe, but I still have lots of catching up to do when it comes to my home country. The cities are what I want to experience particularly. Last time it was Poznań. This time - Toruń.

Toruń's Old Town consists mostly of timber framing constructions, red brick historical buildings and ruins. Oh, and bizarre doors. You can feel it has different style than the cities of Southern Poland. For me, it resembles some Northern Dutch towns.
Plus there is plenty of nice museums and a great science centre nearby.

Some more photos

Stay tuned.

The One Where Life Happens

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

John Lennon, Beautiful Boy

I'm still here. Not dead or anything. Just busy with life that has been happening to me recently.

And I have even found time to make it to the movies!

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Fast-paced, sometimes extremely witty and stuffed with historical and cultural references (far beyond children's comprehension), sometimes a bit silly, but all in all - enjoyable.

Stay tuned.

The One With 9 Hours

Of Dancing.
9 hours of dance classes within 5 days.
And it looks like it's going to continue this way for the foreseeable future.

Two months ago, when I got an email informing that the Scottish highland classes I attended were to be cancelled, I literally cried.
Now... Well, seems like things are going in a totally opposite direction than what I had expected.

The lucky song that brought the changes:

Stay tuned.

The One Once Upon A Dream

It has been a second time I learnt at the exam almost as much as during the whole course. One adequate question seemed to be enough to force me to rethink what I thought I knew.
An instructive experience.

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I've had a dream. I dreamed that for a single moment, for just one perfect moment, everything was all right.
And then I woke up.

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Btw, Melficent is coming and it's coming with a thud!


Rumor has it Angelina Jolie handpicked Lana Del Rey to perform Once Upon a Dream cover for the movie - and I cannot imagine a better choice!


In case you are not familiar with Disney's classics and do not know them by heart as I do - a frame of reference:


Stay tuned.