choice is what moves us

brownies (higher)

i recently finished 2 books: one is “woman in the dunes”, by kobo abe, and second is “my sister’s keeper”, by jodi picoult.

moral of the story, in both, as coincidental as it was, is that people care about having their personal freedom of choice. while their actions might be the same at the end (staying or leaving, donating a kidney or not), the moral, the intent behind the action is far more important to them – but rarely to those who surround them.

its almost like art. it is the intent that makes a piece meaningful to the artist – even if the public never cares.

i’d highly recommend both books, even though they are completely different in style, they make an excellent match in story. woman in the dunes is rough, gritty, pressing on you from every angle, and drives its point hard:

“I have a one way ticket to the blues, woo woo”. If you’d like to sing – please, go ahead. In reality, the last thing that a man who has been given a one way ticket will do, is sing like that. The shoe lining of the people, who have a one way ticket, is really thing, and they scream if have stepped on the smallest pebble, and won’t move further. They would like to sing of a ticket to the blues that goes both ways. Only a man, holding a return ticket, can hum to himself a sort of sad song about a one way ticket. It is because he is afraid – afraid that he will lose it, or it will be stolen…

(rough translation to english from russian which was translated from japanese. some ommissions.)

i can’t think of an equally poignant quote from my sisters keeper, it felt far more gentle, if still very painful, just on a different level – here, everyone suffers, and most realize their suffering, but like abe’s characters they keep on digging themselves out.

i guess this comparison makes no sense if you haven’t read one, or even both of these books, but i really hope that one of you will pick it up. here is the russian version of woman in the dunes.

i’m going to go sleep, so that tomorrow i can dig sand of assignments again.

can’t move my neck

this entire day has been a small nightmare as i’ve had a headache, and an incredible neck pain that basically means that i spent the whole day in bed. LA gave me tigerbalm which i’m rubbing every so often to burn away the muscle pain but i still can’t really move or do anything. i’m tired. i want to be healthy, and not tired, and i’ve been sleeping poorly lately. whats up with all that? is it the season change or something?

feeling good (or not)

butter sculpture

the past few days have been riddled with mixed feelings. on one hand, i was wearing a very cute “feeling” shirt (it says “FEELING” on it, and the shirt is light, cute, baby blue), on the other, i was feeling sick and tired and very very unwell the entire of friday. i even skipped class, for the first time, as i couldn’t concentrate on something like an email, let alone a hard math class.

i have a big assignment due on sunday wednesday thanks to the extention, in AI. i can’t wait to be done with CS courses. no clue how i ended up being so far into the degree, but i’m glad i’m almost done. at least i did learn some useful things i’ll be able to apply in the facianating field of web management! haha.

i took pretty pictures today as first i made breakfast, and then lesley ann. my favourite one is the butter uptop there. i really really love it, even though its just butter.

i can’t wait to be done with the assignment.

also, i ate sushi take out today. it sucked, compared to toronto’s sushi that i love, but it was not as bad as bad sushi could be. appreciate your luck, people, i’d kill for a nice salmon piece right now. yuuummmm….

weighing chocolate

pan art

cooking space

russian pancakes

hunter valley and recipes

sunset climber pouring wine glass (minimalism) tw215 glass (abstract) baked pretzels

today i have cooked these pretzels. the only thing i changed is that i glazed them with egg white instead of baking soda. they looked and tasted delicious, but i’m getting bored!

lately i’ve been making bread quite often. it started with this recipe, and then i was changing it around quite a bit, until i’ve tried pita breads, and other pretzels, and general experimentation. i AM improving – the kneading of my dough definitely has risen (and speaking of rising, when my dough rises, like today, it looks GREAT. just yummy.)

lesley ann has been asking me quite a lot lately to make this carrot cake, thus i shall do that tomorrow (after gym, heh). last night she made these awesome coconut/chocolate squares which were SO awesome. i can’t wait till she does them again, and i’ll be stealing the recipe.

i’ve also posted some photos on flickr from my recent hunter valley trip, on saturday. it’s been fun! i think the fun is reflected by that i had to fix the horizon on all the photos in the last half of the day – its crooked everywhere! (and i remember trying so hard to keep it straight…)

i know comments are down

as you might have noticed the comments aren’t working. i am working on solving that – i have no clue on what is actually WRONG, but i have a strong suspicion that it has to do with the “blog.olya.org” resolving to “www.olya.org/blog/” where as it should stay as “blog.olya.org”. if anyone (kevin? :P ) knows what makes this happen, comment.. err, email. otherwise i’m going to wait till my genius cousin mike who’s excellently hosting us will try and fix this.

we’re baaack!

after some crazy restores, we’re back online!

summary of past week:

saturday: camping & rockclimbing
sunday: rock climbing
monday: slack off (i think)
tuesday: go into the city with anja, the girl from new zealand
wednesday: insane day of classes
thursday: day of classes, rock climbing
friday: big shopping with taxi delivery
saturday: wine tasting tour for entire day, and big party at the apartment in the evening
sunday: rock climbing, again

and tomorrow is monday and I WILL SLEEP IN OR SOMEONE WILL GET BEATEN WITH AN INFLATABLE BALOON.

some statistics

ohmygod update

okay, shame on me about blogging so shamelessly about all the insects and things i’ve seen. about 5 minutes after i pressed “post”, a huntsman crawled out to the ceiling of my bedroom. most. paranoid. feeling. ever. it was a small one – only 7cms in diameter (about same size as a smoke alarm), but i hid under my blanket the entire time oleg was trying to get it. the part that i missed, thankfully, is that after oleg missed the huntsman (not thankfully), it jumped down onto the window sill. it even might’ve went on the bed. its too freaking fast. anyway, after i saw how it squeezed itself completely flat into the crack of the windowsill, i crawled out of bed and far away, until oleg flicked it outside.

lessons:
– no more windows open. ever.
– those things are fast.
– and they can be very small when they want to be. PARANOIA BZZZZZ.

good night! … i hope.

oh yeah. photographs from last 2 parties, and, well, the huntsman.
——————————————————-

university

weeks in sydney: 4
week of classes: 3rd
number of classes i’m taking: 4
number of exams i’ll have: 2
number of textbooks i need to buy: 2
number of textbooks bought: 1

enterntainment

number of times i went to the movies: 2
days off in the week i have: 1 (but almost 3 if i leave after 12pm on friday and skip the tutorial on tuesday)
cost of parking ticket on our first day in sydney: 175$

internet

cost of internet that i get from university: 4.4c/meg (that’s $50 for each gigabyte)

how much have i spent in the first 3 weeks despite not *downloading anything other than pages* (not even photographs): you don’t want to know. or rather my parents shouldn’t know :p

cost of wireless modem that we bought to get away from that: $70
cost of wireless router to connect to the modem to share the internet: $40
cost of monthly plan at 12gig, 512kbps download, 128kbps upload: $90
cost per person: $10 for lesley ann, $40 for me and $40 for oleg
do we actually get that speed? only for australian websites, and even then not always.
is it still worth it? hell yes.

insects

section 1: bites

number of bites on my left arm: 16
number of bites on my left leg: 5
number of bites on my right leg: 0
number of bites on my right arm: 3
is it bed bugs? unlikely, couldn’t find any traces. looks like mosquito bites.

section 2: spiders

number of spiders seen: a lot
number of significant spiders seen: 1, a huntsman in our bathroom. (visualize: i’m walking in without contacts, put my contacts in, look up and see this reflection in the mirror.)

section 3: cockroaches

last night, on the way to the movies, how many times i jumped from my own shadow (thinking its a cockroach or some huge crawly animal): about 70
last night, on the way from the movies, how many times i jumped from my own shadow: 0
last night, on the way from the movies, cockroaches seen: 4
(biggest one was about 6cms long. right next to my foot.)
did i jump? yes.

food

amount of times i made bread from skratch: three!
carrot cake: once, and very very good
oladushki: twice, also very very good
ate honey mustard chips: endless. very VERY good
drinking: water, lots of awesome juice, green tea
coffee: once (at home)
cappuccino: 5 times. it is amazing here.

my room

things on the wall: only 3 4, all 3 are calendars (hesi’s, ansel adams, and UNSW’s). can’t find posters! aaargh. and sometimes a huntsman.
pillows: 2
lamps: 2
spiders: 0 (so far). funnily i typed that 5 minutes before a huntsman crawled in. make that 1.

new zealand index

myself 01 – jan 19: new zealand trip, flight there
02 – jan 20: due north
03 – jan 21: island in the sun
04 – jan 22: everything in this garden is lovely
05 – jan 23: rotorua – the fumes are chocking me
06 – jan 24: rotorua to national park with stop at thermal wonderland
07 – jan 25: whole day at national park
08 – jan 26: national park to wellington
09 – jan 27: trip to the south island
10 – jan 28: kaikoura to geraldine – long drives and changing cars
11 – jan 29: geraldine to twizel, the day hike that killed us
aoraki12 – jan 30: sunrise over mountains (twizel to all day bay)
13 – jan 31: all day bay to dunedin, penguinds and internet
14 – feb 1: dunedin to fjordland
15 – feb 2: milford sound sea kayaking
16 – feb 3: full of doubtful sounds
17 – feb 4: fjords to queenstown
18 – feb 5: queenstown to wanaka
19 – feb 6: whole day in wanaka
20 – feb 7: wanaka to haast
21 – feb 8: haast to frans joseph
22 – feb 9: at frans joseph
23 – feb 10: frans joseph to hokitika
24 – feb 11: hokitika to arthur’s pass
25 – feb 12: arthur’s pass to christchurch (day at christchurch)
26 – feb 13: flight back