Adwaith – “Mwy” (More).

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Today I’d like to share a new song from Adwaith, it came out last week. They are a very successful Welsh-language girls band from Carmarthen in southwest Wales. The fact that they are a girls band feels important, despite I’m aware that one of them has said that they didn’t really think of themselves specifically as such when starting the band and didn’t go into it with the mission of being a girls band, but since people were stressing that a lot when talking about them, they soon realised that really are relatively few women on the Welsh music scene. They are also actively involved in promoting women in Welsh music.

 

“Adwaith” means “reaction” in Welsh. According to the members, one of their mums asked what the word “reaction” is in Welsh and they ended up thinking that would be a great name for a band. They make indie pop/rock/post-punk music. The group consists of Hollie Singer (vocals and guitar), Gwenllian Anthony (bass, keys and mandolin) and Heledd Owen (drums). Hollie and Gwenllian were friends since early childhood and formed the band together and Heledd joined later. 

 

I don’t remember exactly now but I think I first heard them on Cymru FM (which is not to be confused with BBC Radio Cymru; Cymru FM is an online radio station which for the most part just plays music). In any case it was summer 2018 because I remember I first heard them around the time when I found out I failed my high school final exams. 😀 Until now, they have released two full-length albums and played in many different countries. 

 

This very energetic song is a single from their upcoming third album, which is going to be a double record and said to be their most ambitious release so far. It sounds very exciting and I’m really looking forward to it. Hollie Singer said that this song is about a reconnection with one’s homeland and finding a sense of belonging. 

 

Question of the day.

What’s your earliest memory of using a computer? 

 

My answer: 

 

I suppose that would have to be during Computer science in first grade…? I don’t remember a whole lot about that, other than that we were learning to (touch) type, actually probably because that’s the only thing we were able to do on a computer at the time. There were Braille letters on the keys so that we knew which keys were where until we’d memorise it, and for the first couple years of my education there still were those old, formant Polish speech synths, one called Readboard/Speak and the other called SMP (though I obviously didn’t know such things at the time lolll), and I remember that some kids were initially a bit creeped out by them because as you’d expect they sounded very unnatural and unlike normal speech (especially when you compare them to what is available now like AI speech synthesis). 😀 For me it took a really long time to learn to type properly and confidently, ‘cause it’s something that requires some coordination/motor skills and I don’t have a lot of that to spare. I struggled with it and typed veeeerrry slowly for the first three grades, by third grade I could touch type somehow but it definitely wasn’t fast and I was definitely not very comfortable with it, so when I went to the inclusion school in third grade for two years, there was a blind lady there who taught all the blind kids things like Braille or basic computer skills, and she worked with me on that too. But I think I always did a lot better when I didn’t have someone sitting next to me and observing me. So in the end I kind of taught myself to type properly, once I got a computer via funding, as you can apply for it to get assistive technology here. There was one girl who was coming to me for quite some time and teaching me how to use all those devices that my Mum got me with the funding, so once I knew the basics of how to navigate the Internet with a screen reader, what is Google etc. I just taught myself to type better through a lot of regular practice, without it even feeling like an effort. Come to think of it, it was very similar to how it was with my English, although at school I was way better at English than at typing. 😀 And now I can type pretty fast. I mean, it doesn’t feel all that fast to me, but people often comment loudly “Whoa, how do you type so fast?!” Which is a little cringey. 😀 

 

How about you? 🙂 

 

Question of the day (8th May).

What hobby would you have if you had an infinite amount of money? 

 

My answer: 

 

I think that would be horse riding. Which is already my hobby, but I think if I had an infinite amount of money, I could invest myself even more into it. I could have my own horse, maybe even a whole stable. As a rider, I think having a horse that would be just mine and that I could properly bond with would be quite exceptional and my riding skills would probably benefit from it too. 

 

You? 🙂 

 

Song of the day (8th May) – “Christy-Lyn – “Gillian’s Waltz”.

For yesterday’s overdue song, I picked this very happy-sounding waltz played by Christy-Lyn. She is a harpist and harp teacher from South Africa, She is also the founder of the online learning platform and YouTube channel called Learning the Harp. I’d previously shared her version of the nightingale by Deborah Henson Conant. This tune was written by Scottish fiddler Gordon Gunn. 

 

Question of the day (7th May).

Under what circumstances, if any, would you give up your pet? 

 

My answer: 

 

Huh… That’s such a hard question. I really like to make life harder for myself I guess, choosing such difficult and weird questions (and answering them publicly). Of course the first answer that comes to my mind, almost like an involuntary reflex, is: “I would never, ever give up Misha!” But would I not? Upon thinking a bit more, I think there could be circumstances in which I’d likely at least consider it. 

 

The first such situation that comes to my mind, and that I’ve actually thought about a lot before, is if I were to live on my own. Looking at it very selfishly, having Misha around would be even more helpful for me in such case, what with the sensory anxiety thing and all. Sometimes when I’m particularly depressed, Misha is the only thing that makes me feel at all like getting out of bed, so if I didn’t have the commitment and comfort of Misha, I can easily imagine a situation where I’d sometimes basically rot in bed all day and seek escapism in sleep. But looking at it with Misha’s needs in mind, which is obviously how one should look at it, since he’s largely unable to meet his own needs, I don’t think I’d handle the responsibility of being his sole carer well. Mostly purely practically, but to a lesser extent also emotionally. Practically, because I can’t realistically imagine being able to deal with it if he for example vomited somewhere and I wouldn’t know where, or that he did at all. Until I’d step in it accidentally. 😀 I could become a lot more strict about how much food he eats daily and stick to it more firmly than we do now, when he practically eats as much as he wants because he’s skinny anyway and I sometimes wonder if he has some incurable case of tapeworm or something. And I could have no plants, as Misha’s zealous phytophilia is another reason for his frequent vomiting, but then I guess that wouldn’t be so good because he needs to get those hairballs out somehow, that’s just how cats work. Thankfully, Misha, despite his delicate and easily unsettled psyche, has so far been exceptionally healthy physically. He’s only been seriously ill once, and even that was at least partly caused by extreme stress. Yet, he has one weak point with which he has problems regularly, that is his eyes. He gets tear duct infections and conjunctivitis a lot. And when he does, he needs to be given eyedrops. Which I would never even attempt to give him as I’d be really scared of hurting or inadvertently harming him. And he’s getting older, not younger, so there’s a possibility that his health might get worse with time and he might need to have pills or other such administered. But the biggest practical challenge I see is simply that it can be very hard for me to judge how Misha is feeling or if he needs anything. I can judge that pretty well if he says something, because he has a lot of different sounds for different things, but he’s not very vocal and will often not say anything no matter what. I can also figure some things out when holding him, like he always feels significantly heavier and more limp, and just kind of different, when he’s tired or sleepy. But he’s generally wary of touch and closeness and it can only be on his terms, so that isn’t very reliable either. My Mum can usually tell his mood pretty well just from looking at him or his body language, but I have to mostly rely on gut feelings and whatever minimal communication he graciously decides to have with me. So I’d constantly be stressing that maybe he’s feeling really unwell and looks very obviously ill or something and I won’t know at all. And emotionally, I think it would just be scary being solely responsible for such a little creature long-term and I’d feel terribly inadequate. So I’d definitely leave him with my parents, if they’d still be around, or give him away to one of my siblings, or if they wouldn’t want him (which is likely), maybe he could become the cat of whoever would be to live in this house after us, if they were decent people and wanted him, so that he wouldn’t have to change houses. Otherwise I’d put him to sleep. 

 

Another situation in which I can imagine deciding to give Misha up would be if he became really unhappy again, like he was before my parents made it possible for him to go out on the terrace, and would otherwise have to be put on his happy pills again. The last time they clearly didn’t work for him, I mean they did calm him down for sure but they hardly made him any less sad, they just sucked life out of him, so I think for him it would be just as well if we simply let him go. My Mum was very seriously considering it in the past, when he would basically just walk every single day from one window to another and cry his heart out very loudly because he wanted out. That’s hard to live with for everyone involved. And it might seem like a cruel decision in this age when we as society seem to be more mindful of the lives of animals than fellow humans, but as sad as it may be, Misha doesn’t have an immortal soul, so letting him live in constant sadness for what he couldn’t have would be just pointless torturing him, and ourselves too. Same if he became seriously and chronically ill, especially if it would be something painful or very distressing for him for example because of having to take loads of pills which he hates as any self-respecting cat. 

 

And one other thing that comes to my mind, though is highly unlikely to happen – if Misha would become aggressive, I mean seriously, mindlessly, repeatedly aggressive. Because Misha is so nervous and quite easily destabilised in one way or another, it’s not uncommon for him to lose his shit completely during play and just throw himself at the person he’s playing with and cause a great deal of minor yet painful injuries. 😀 I sometimes feel like maybe it wouldn’t be a problem at all if only we played more with him, because as it is, he plays with us quite rarely, and he enjoys it, as Russian blues are known for being playful even at a mature age, but because it’s so rare for him and normally his life is rather boring, he’s not used to this level of stimulation and becomes a bit too invested. His favourite victim in this respect is Sofi, whom I guess he sees a bit like a big toy, and sometimes he’ll even jump at her out of the blue for no apparent reason other than that she’s walking past him. Mum and I know now more or less how to calm him down when he’s like that with us occasionally and how to calm him down when we see that he’s starting to lose it and puffing and thumping his tail, but Sofi always only worsens things by yelling “Misha! You idiot! That hurts!!!” Or hitting him or something, which Misha doesn’t really get in that state. I think sometimes he is surprised by it himself and it’s just an instinct that is stronger than him. But if Misha became very aggressive and it would be hard to improve or manage, I would definitely seriously consider giving him up. 

 

How about you and your pets? 

 

Song of the day (7th May) – Moddion – “Golau Cyfarwydd” (Familiar Light).

Hey people! 🙂

 

Last month, I shared with you a song from Carcharorion – a Welsh electronic music duo consisting of Gruff Pritchard and Huw Cadwaladr. And, if you read that post, you might recall that I mentioned Gruff Pritchard’s solo project, Moddion, and how much I enjoyed listening to his debut EP which came out last August. So I thought I’d finally share something from it. It seems quite underrated because, to my knowledge, even the Welsh-language music world wasn’t talking very much about it, unless perhaps some mini blogs as weird and niche as mine so I didn’t see that. 😀 

 

Gruff Pritchard is originally from Caernarfon but based in Cardiff. He is probably best known for being the guitarist and vocalist and one of the founding members of Yr Ods, a five-piece indie/pop band who have been very successful on the Welsh-language music scene and so far I’ve shared one song by them, from their concept album Iaith y Nefoedd. As far as I know, Gruff has also been an actor. 

 

Moddion’s debut EP is called Golau Cyfarwydd, and as I mentioned in the Carcharorion post, it has a distinct sound from both Carcharorion and Yr Ods, although it’s also definitely not dissimilar from the latter. The whole EP is written and produced by Gruff himself, and released on his and Griff Lynch’s record label, Lwcus T. And you guys probably know by now, since I’ve said it so often, that I always really appreciate and respect both musical versatility (which is a very common thing to find among Welsh artists) as well as albums which are largely created by one individual, as it gives you a more coherent sense of who they are and what they’re all about, so to say. Purely musically it’s also very much my thing. It’s very deep, reflective, just a little bit quirky, decidedly melancholic and dark-sounding, but definitely not devoid of warmth and light and far from depressing. In fact quite comforting in a cosy sort of way and, well, familiar, yet different. 😀 For whatever reason, it gives me a strong Scandinavian vibe, so I feel tempted to say that it’s like a mix of hiraeth and hygge. 

 

As for the title song that I want to share with you, I have to say that I surprised myself very massively and positively when it comes to it, because I was actually able to write a translation of it by ear. It’s probably quite crappy, and I am sure that it has some mistakes, or things that I could have translated better into English (after all, neither is my native language), and there likely are some bits that I misunderstood, but it should be enough for you to get an idea of what the song deals with lyrically. 

 

Dear friend, 

Where does time go? 

I’m on my back, 

You’re in my head, 

Shall we have a chat when we get back in order? [?] 

 

Sunflowers and summer heat, 

A peak of luxury [???] in the dull winter. [?] 

 

Where shall we look for the familiar light? 

Today is a new morning. 

 

I have a painting, 

Of the hours stretching, 

In a colour you chose, 

And a paint I stole. 

The short days, 

Are getting the best of us, to be honest, [?] 

Shall we stir things up soon? [?] 

 

Willow in the red sunset, 

I’m lost, 

In the mist of the dusk. 

 

Where shall we look for the familiar light? 

Today is a new morning. 

 

Where… 

 

Dear friend, 

Where does time go? 

 

Where shall we look for the familiar light? 

Today is a new morning. 

JenliSisters – “Celtic Ballad”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Another female folk duo I discovered very recently. JenliSisters are Mathilde and Heloise de Jenlis. I don’t know very much about them yet, but as far as I know they are originally from France and it looks like they’re either based in Belgium or Ireland, or used to live in one country but moved to the other. Mathilde plays the violin and Heloise plays the harp. I think it’s a beautiful piece. 

 

232 Strängar – “Gånglåt Från Småland” (Gånglåt From Småland).

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Today I’d like to share with you a song from a very interesting Swedish folk duo that I only discovered earlier this week and really like. 232 Strängar (or 232 Strings in English) are Frida Höfling and Emma Engström. Frida is originally from Helsingborg plays the violin and the beautiful-sounding harbanger fiddle (which may be the national instrument of Norway but is also very much present in Swedish folk music too) as well as the cow horn. She also has an interest in kulning, the vocal technique which has been used in the Nordic countries since the ancient times as a herding call, and now is a form of music in its own right. This song doesn’t include kulning, but I’m pretty sure that I must have shared some music involving kulning on here before, because I am a total sucker for kulning. Emma hails from Varnhem, and she plays the piano and the accordion. Both of them also sing. 

 

This song came out just last month. As you can see from its title, is a gånglåt, which literally means “walking tune” in Swedish, because of how its tempo resembles that of a slow and stately walk. This particular tune has its roots in the Swedish region of Småland (that’s where Astrid Lindgren was from). 

 

Sywel Nyw & Endaf Emlyn – “Traeth y Bore” (Morning Beach).

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Last month I shared with y’all a song by Yr Eira, a Welsh indie rock band fronted by Lewys Wyn, who is the younger brother of Griff Lynch (my new faza peep). Sywel Nyw is Lewys’s another project. As part of which, in 2021 he released one single a month, in collaboration with various fellow Welsh musicians. Traeth y Bore is the ninth of those singles, written together with Endaf Emlyn, who is a very important figure on the Welsh-language music scene. He was one of the pioneers of Welsh-language psychedelic music (psychedelic-sounding stuff is something that a LOT of Welsh bands do nowadays, by the way), and released the first Welsh-language concept album (Salem). 

 

The lyrics of this song were written by Griff Lynch, and allude clearly and deliberately to Endaf Emlyn’s debut album, 1973’s Hiraeth. I happen to have a bit of a sentiment to this album. I found out about it thanks to Plu (the alt-folk trio of siblings Elan, Marged and Gwilym Rhys, a lot of whose music has been featured on here), as they did a cover version of Dwynwen which is originally an Endaf Emlyn song from the Hiraeth album. Also the time when I first discovered and listened to Hiraeth was just a really cool time in my life so I simply associate it with that too. And, while I’m not that well-versed in all the lyrics nor do I understand all of them, I Donn’t know every single word here either, I can definitely see the connection specifically to Dwynwen. Musically this song was also meant to have a similar feel to Endaf’s music and imo it absolutely does. I like this warm and kind of serenely uplifting quality it has, and as you may know by now, I always like me a good song that’s related to the sea in some way. 

 

Valérie Milot & Antoine Bareil – “America”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Valérie Milot had been mentioned twice before on this blog. The first time I shared her performance of the first part of Germaine Tailleferre’s Sonata for Solo Harp, and the second it was Transfigured Sentiment by Marian Mozetich, which she played with her long-time friend and collaborator cellist Stephane Tetreault. Today I have another interesting piece played by this Canadian classical harpist, together with violinist Antoine Bareil who is also her husband. In 2011, the duo have released an album called Old Friends, which is a classical tribute to Simon & Garfunkel. I have to say that, , more often than not, I tend to not be a huge enthusiast of classical arrangements of pop songs, unless said pop is very quirky, and I’m especially picky when it comes to the harp. I also don’t have any stronger feelings for Simon & Garfunkel, despite I was once told that, as someone who considers herself a folkie, I absolutely should. 😀 So I was really surprised when I first came across this album, because I ended up really liking it, despite totally not expecting it! Milot and Bareil’s arrangements are very creative and original. But it’s their version of America that is by far my favourite. It’s sounds so fun and kind of whimsical, but also just beautiful! 

 

Question of the day.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

In connection to a recent question I asked you, about what it’s like to be you, here’s a somewhat similar one:

 

If you could swap lives with someone for a day, living their reality, who would you choose and why? 

 

My answer: 

 

For the purpose of answering this question, I’m going to assume that, in the process of swapping lives, I’d still retain at least some part of being me, like my real identity or memories/perspectives from my actual life. You could say that in this case you aren’t really fully swapping lives and that it’s illogical, but otherwise it’s kind of pointless to think about being someone else I guess. You feel free to approach this question however you want though. 

 

As much as, a lot of the time, being Bibiel couldn’t quite be called lots of fun for an average person, and as much as I love to imagine what it’s like to be other people, I don’t often have those kind of thoughts like: “I wish I could swap lives with them.” I think in large part it’s because at least what I’m currently dealing with is something I’m familiar with, I’m used to it. It would suck having to get used to a different reality. I hate changes. And also, somehow a lot of people about whom I’ve thought at times that I’d like to swap with them because they seem to have a cool life, at the same time don’t seem to have a very interesting brainlife. Maybe you don’t need an interesting brainlife when your external one is okay, but still, I’d feel weird without one, I guess. That being said, there is one person about whom I regularly, if fleetingly, think that sometimes, I’d really like to live a life like hers, even if that means having no brainlife. Just to see what it’s like being more or less normal. So living her life for a day is actually something I’d be theoretically interested in, because if it would turn out to be too normal and boring for me, I could just look forward to going back to being Bibiel again. 

 

This person is Sofi! Sofi’s always had a so-called “easy life”. And I mean totally objectively. Lots of people notice that about her, it’s immediately apparent from how she sees the world and just what she’s like in general. The only “uneasy” thing about her life is that she seriously seems to attract envious, jealous and toxic girls who scheme against her, it’s been a case even since she was in preschool, and loser boyfriends who retaliate very painfully when she breaks up with them, it’s a never-ending cycle. But because generally Sofi is fairly sensible, I think at some point she’ll just learn to avoid the wrong people and even this will no longer be a problem. Another potentially “uneasy” aspect of her life now when she is a teenager is that she hasn’t come to terms with her height, and she’s very tall for a girl. Which most people see as a positive thing, but everyone feels entitled to comment on whenever they see her for the first time, or even every time they see her: “Wow, you’re so tall!” Or even as ambiguous compliments as “You’re huge!” (She’s not huge, she’s actually very thin and, as my Mum says, “reed-like”)), so that doesn’t really help her self-esteem either but at the same time she knows that it’s bullshit and that her height is a total advantage for her. It’s just not fun hearing everyone comment on it as if you were a total alien who’s landed on the planet of Little People. If you asked Sofi now, whether she considers herself to be happy, or even if she thinks she’s normal, she would say no, but then so would most teenagers probably. It’s really not much fun being a teenager, contrary to the popular belief (as if people who subscribe to this belief have never been teenagers themselves). Not to mention that it’s very unpopular to be normal. But I think everyone who met Sofi, vs any random teenager who has some other issues not stemming basically solely from being a teenager, would agree that it’s way easier being Sofi.

 

So I’d want to be Sofi for a day and find out for myself what it’s like being a spoilt kid who always gets what she wants from life and from people just because she’s nice and good-looking, and whom everyone likes, except those who envy her something. For the past year or so, Sofi has been through a rough patch for Sofi’s standards, and while normally she’s very happy, now she’s been quite depressed or at least saying all the time that she is. So I’d like to be in her brain and see why actually she is so depressed, because so far, no one has solved this mystery, not even a therapist she saw last year for nearly half a year. Maybe then, after I’d go back to being Bibiel, I’d be able to understand her better and possibly help her somehow. And besides, I’d be interested to know what it’s like having loads of friends, whether such people seriously don’t get drained from it or are they just good at faking it, what it’s like always knowing how to behave and what to say, whether it’s really such fun sitting all day doing your nails and watching one and the same soap opera over and over again, what it’s like when your biggest problem of the month is that you’ve got another bout of acne (I’m not saying that it’s not a problem, obviously for everyone the biggest problem is the one they’re dealing with, it just never really was something I had to deal with much and I wonder if it would be so soul-crushing for me as well). I could see first-hand what it’s like liking school, and especially for social reasons. I would have no qualms about seeming ungrateful when people did something for me but it didn’t quite match my expectations, and would just tell them straight in the face something like: “Mum, this cake is… hm, kind of strange. Why didn’t you just buy one in a shop?”. I’d tell people things like: “If you have a problem, you have a problem!” Or if someone asked me to do them some kind of favour, I’d happily reply: “In your dreams!” (These are actual things that Sofi says hahahaha, I used to have a whole file of “Sofi’s Selfish Quotes”) and people would think it’s just me being cute, and I wouldn’t cringe the slightest bit about it, just think I’m really smart and witty. I’d have the most infectious laugh in the world and everyone would laugh just because I’m in the same room as them. Or, well, at least that’s often the effect Sofi has on me, maybe not so much on other people. It’s enough for her to laugh and it makes me laugh too. I’d be able to cry over a moving film or song. Everyone at school would be my copycat and want to dress just like me. I would have no problems discussing my ever-changing love life with my own mother. I guess most teenagers would envy Sofi her Mum and that she has such good relationship with her and can tell her most things. Even my Mum is surprised sometimes at how open Sofi is. I wouldn’t be ashamed of using big, emotional, dramatic words for small, everyday things. If someone would tell me something I wouldn’t like hearing, I’d have no problem telling them half-playfully: “Oh no, don’t say that, it hurts me!” I’d have fairly limited introspection, and while I think on one hand that’s kind of boring, on the other maybe it makes you focus more on the external world or something. I could find out why it’s so fun to play Brawl Stars, or what life is like when you love roller-skating. I would love adrenaline and want lots of stuff to happen to me every day, especially if it includes people making surprises for me or buying me things, as long as they’re actually cool, ‘cause if they’re not, well, I won’t be impressed and they’ll have a problem. 

 

But I’d probably struggle with some aspects of Sofi’s brain. Sofi sometimes says that she’d like to have my brain for thinking, because hers is too slow. Sofi was a premature baby and our math tutor said it might be because of that. She is quite a slow learner, in the sense that she actually has to spend time on studying, like outside of her homework and being at school, she just has to sit down and study for an exam or else she’s going to fail it. Which I think seriously sucks, I hated studying like that and very rarely did it, I never knew how people do it. And I was lucky enough that my brain appears to have sponge-like qualities in that it absorbs a lot of stuff without me having to actively try to absorb it. It can have its downsides too, but at school it was certainly useful. And it makes me feel sad for Sofi that the way she has to learn is basically memorise the whole lesson, it seems quite inflexible, because if a question is phrased differently on the test than it was in her textbook, it’s already going to disorient her, or if the teacher wants her to answer with her own words. Or she has real trouble learning new words or names or things like that. She’s also not very good at math and has very similar math issues to mine though there are some differences between our respective math difficulties too. I suppose that if something went wrong in the swapping process and I weren’t able to go back to being Bibiel, what I’d utilise a lot is how Sofi’s brain is good at all things crafty and manually creative, or “plast plast”, as we call them between each other (there once was a Polish children’s TV show called Plastelinek and Friends, about one creature called Plastelinek who was made of plasticine and he visited schools and taught kids art or something like that… I don’t remember it very well anymore. But in any case, whenever he was happy or satisfied with something, he’d characteristically exclaim “Plast plast!” In a funny way) She draws really well and can make really detailed figurines out of plasticine, she also used to do water colour painting before she went to high school, all kinds of things like that. Now she hardly ever does anything creative because on one hand she indeed has very little time with all the schoolwork and endless studying, and on the other, when she does have time, she loves to just procrastinate. So she talks a lot about how she’d like to draw more again, or even just do something basic like read a book, but instead she lies on the couch playing Brawl Stars. So I think, if I got stuck in Sofiland, I would at least try to go back into those plast plast things and develop them as much as I could and get something actually interesting out of life this way. 

 

In practice though, if I were to swap lives with Sofi for a day, I probably wouldn’t be able to learn or understand much about what it’s like to be Sofi, because, assuming like I do that I would go into it with my Bibiel identity and Bibiel experiences, I would spend all that day adjusting to having functional vision and freaking out about it, lolololol! It would be interesting to be sighted for a day, but probably also really scary and I’m not sure it would be enough for me to get used to it and learn to use the sense of sight properly. 

 

Also, another practical reason why I wouldn’t be so happy with that swap is, well, it’s supposed to be a swap, right? So not just me being Sofi, but also Sofi being me? I’m not sure either of us would be willing for that to happen. Sure, Sofi wants my thinking brain, but not anything else. 😀 And I’m not keen on the idea of letting her into Bibielland. I don’t see why I could ever want such a thing, it’s scary. So if I were to be Sofi for a day, I’d much rather someone made Bibiel dissolve or something for the time when I’d be Sofi. 

 

How about you? Would you want to be anyone else at all? 🙂 

 

Y Bandana – “Llafn y Llif” (The Sawing Blade).

Hi people! 🙂 

 

For today I picked another song by Y Bandana – the Welsh pop rock band formed by brothers Siôn and Tomos Owens, their cousin Gwilym Bowen Rhys and his friend Robin Llwyd Jones, which disbanded in 2016. – It comes from their sophomore album, Bywyd Gwyn. I actually did a translation of this song, but was unsure of too many things and whether I got them right, so am not going to share it. But I can say that, as far as I can tell, this song describes the way one feels, mentally and physically the morning after a wild night of drinking or other partying. There’s quite a lot of interesting and vivid descriptions there, but the one from which the song takes its title is how the lyrical subject feels that the sawing blade is sawing into his head, which hurts to even imagine! I can kinda sorta relate, because while I don’t drink alcohol at all anymore, I get migraines, and waking up with one can sometimes have a fair bit in common with having a hangover, I think. 😀 

 

Question of the day.

What was your fifteen minutes of fame? 

 

My answer: 

 

For me, I guess I could consider that to be when I was in a radio programme for children. I think I was six years old if I remember correctly and it happened because of my honorary aunt. She was a real estate agent and my Mum met her when she was looking for a place to possibly move into for some time during the year so she could be closer to my school, which didn’t happen in the end. But when she phoned the hundredth agent that day and told her about our situation, she said unfortunately she couldn’t help us, but that she lived really close to the school so she could be like my aunt and visit me at school and stuff so that I had someone there. We took her generous offer, and she indeed did that, and I visited her at her home on many weekends and enjoyed it a whole lot. I believe I’d already written about her in the context of how I first tried couscous, and that she introduced me to lots of sophisticated food that my family normally didn’t have a habit to eat at home. She also happened to share my passion for glass and porcelain figurines, and generally beautiful figurines and we exchanged some, and she even bought me a few. She would also often come when I sang at a school contest or anything similar, despite it was quite risky apparently, as I guess she was ill with something that affected her immune system so she caught bugs from people very easily and was very often more or less ill. Sadly later when I was in primary school she moved with her daughter to the city, we sometimes talked on the phone and I remember that she got more ill there and also her granddaughters had what sounded to me like some serious health issues, but eventually we lost touch altogether. My Mum and I tried to find her years later and find out where she might live now, but unsuccessfully.

 

And one other thing she did for me was she got me a place on that radio programme, because at the time I was really into all things radio, and she happened to know someone who worked in one Catholic radio station where they had a programme for kids on Sundays. That station doesn’t exist anymore, or it sort of does but under a different name and has a rather different profile though it’s still sort of Christian. And of course I was really excited about it. My Mum came and my honorary uncle drove us both there. But honestly I don’t even remember much about the programme itself anymore, and would probably remember even less if not for the fact that my aunt recorded it on a tape so I think my Mum might still have it. I guess I sang something there and just talked about Bibiel stuff. I can vaguely recall that part of the actual programme was about some biscuit recipe and then the lady who presented that programme asked the kids who were listening to call and say if they had recently made some food and some girl called and won a board game. Also I remember that the presenter lady told me that my Mum and uncle were sitting behind glass in the control room or whatever it’s called in English, and for whatever reason that made me freak out a bit and the whole time the programme lasted I was thinking about how they’re watching me, as if that was a big deal or something scary, even though I knew in advance that they would and I was very happy with it. 😀 But yeah, overall it was a lot of fun and I was over the moon to have that experience. It was only a local station broadcasting for Warsaw and the surrounding areas but for my family it was a big deal. 

 

Also another situation because of which my family used to say that I was “famous” was because there was a film about my preschool, I think that was a year before that radio thing and there’s quite a bit of me in that film, and some people I know who watched it still laugh at some weird or funny things that I said in there haha. Like when we were saying what we want to be when we grow up and most girls wanted to be mums, and Bibiel shared her new-found knowledge saying: “I won’t have a baby, because when women want to, they have a baby, and when they don’t, they don’t.” I’d seriously thought that it was less simple than that so it was a revelation to me when I figured that out. It was basically just a documentary about the preschool and how blind children live and what their early education/perception of the world looks like. I suppose for uninvolved people it’s meant to be inspirational or whatever, but my Mum and I find it quite depressing, whereas my Dad finds it pleasantly nostalgic so he actually still watches it when he has nothing better to do. 

 

How about you? What has brought you a bit of fame in life? 🙂 

 

Blankiflur – “Sjá þig” & “Love You”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I have a song in Icelandic! Quite a rare thing on this blog. Blankiflur, which is the Icelandic/Old Norse version of the name Blanchefleur, is the stage name of Inga Birna Friðjónsdóttir. I – probably like a lot of other people from outside of Iceland who know about her – have first heard about her because of the Icelandic TV music competition called Söngvakeppnin, which she took part in this year. Söngvakeppnin determines who will represent Iceland at Eurovision each year. Blankiflur didn’t make it to the final, which I think is a bit of a bummer because in my humble opinion her song was better than the one which actually won, but nonetheless, I’m sure it must have introduced Blankiflur and her music to a wider audience. I am sharing this same song that she sang in Söngvakeppnin, both the Icelandic and English version. 

 

Sjá þig: 

 

 

Love you: 

 

Triona Marshall – “The Marquis of Huntley’s Old Snuff Mill”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose a traditional tune, originally coming from Scotland. Triona Marshall who plays it is an Irish harpist hailing from Port Laoise. Aside from being a solo harpist, she has also performed with The Chieftains. 

 

Question of the day.

What’s the worst case of computer illiteracy you’ve ever seen? 

 

My answer: 

 

Being just moderately tech savvy myself (which for non-tech savvy sighted people in practice often means very tech savvy, because as I often say, if you’re blind and want to use technology even for fairly basic stuff, you often have to get a somewhat better grip on it than an average sighted person, even if you don’t want to do anything beyond average like programming or whatever actually tech savvy people do), I’ve seen my fair share of computer illiteracy, even within my own family. My Dad is particularly bad with technology. He doesn’t feel bad about it at all though, he has no reason to want to get good at it and I totally get it. He does need to do some things that involve the use of a computer as part of his job, but when I started to work for him, that became my field, so I wrote emails on his behalf to clients or truck dispatchers, printed out the paperwork he had to do. Theoretically I was supposed to also handle his bank transfers, in fact I suppose that was the main point of my job officially lol, but very wisely he didn’t let that happen and instead I made him coffee, while my Mum did the banking part voluntarily, until he decided he feels safest dealing with something as important as money himself. And even though he officially fired me last year, it’s become a routine for both of us that I do all the tech stuff for him unless I can’t do something ‘cause it’s inaccessible or something. But still, he uses a computer leisurely as well, and makes those bank transfers on it, or looks up Marine Traffic so he can try to predict when there will be something for him to do and when he can relax a bit, as he likes things to be predictable but his job isn’t really. So sometimes it’s quite hilarious for me to observe how much he struggles using a computer and making sense of things. It seems all really confusing for him.

 

For one thing, he types with just one finger which is super slow and he makes typos all the time. It took me a lot of time to learn to touch type properly so I get it, and obviously he has no need to learn to touch type, but from my current perspective, it’s funny, and it’s funny even to Sofi who doesn’t touch type but still types very fast. 

 

He’s also quite suspicious and almost paranoid by nature, which also extends to online privacy. He is absolutely convinced that it’s like opening yourself to evil when you register/log in somewhere, and they have access to all of your data, including probably your innermost thoughts that you think right before sleep. He never listens when we tell them that, actually, there are situations, sometimes, when it’s quite a bit safer when you log in vs just being a guest without a password. So he doesn’t log in anywhere. Unless he is already logged in but doesn’t know about it, like for example he uses YouTube on his laptop unknowingly from my Mum’s Google account, and then thinks that they show him TradCath stuff because they track where he goes, including our church, and think he must be interested in TradCath content (he’s not really unless it’s apocalyptical and blood pressure-raising, but Mum is). On his phone it appears that Google have somehow persuaded him unknowingly to create an account and he’s not aware that he has one, which he’s logged in to on YouTube and Google Maps (he loves travelling around the world on Google Maps, which is one tech thing that I can’t really do effectively but he can, so if I’m interested in some place we “drive” there together and he’ll describe it for me, and feel great about himself, as will I for making him feel this way). He has more email accounts than Olek and I together, which various people have helped him create, but doesn’t use any of them and doesn’t remember the passwords to them. He’ll write it on a piece of paper, not writing the email address that it’s associated with or anything, then put the piece of paper in a sea of other papers in his desk drawer, including other pieces of papers with random passwords, and be like: “Bibiel what’s my password?” How would I know such intimate details of his life? So then he’s mad at the whole world. On the other hand though, he grumbles at people on online selling platforms (like our equivalent of Ebay), that they don’t always publicly share their phone numbers. What about THEIR privacy?! 

 

Still, despite my Dad providing all of his children with near-daily entertainment of his computer illiteracy, the ultimate thing I’ve heard of, and that still makes me laugh after over a decade since hearing about it, is what Olek once told me about his friend’s mum. She wanted to ground him from the Internet ‘cause he was playing games all the time, but she didn’t know how to do it, but then suddenly had a lightbulb moment when she saw the “Internet Explorer” icon and clicked delete. “See?! I removed the internet! Now you can’t play those stupid games!” But obviously she just deleted the shortcut to Internet Explorer from the desktop, not even the app itself! We were both in fits of laughter when Olek told that to me. Even if she did uninstall Internet Explorer, I guess no one cool used it by then, except some blind people as it was very accessible with screen readers, so he still had Chrome or whatever else he actually used. But, cleverly, he didn’t let his mum know that she didn’t quite do what she thought she did, and pretended to be all angry and frustrated. 😀 I wonder if she ever found out. 

 

Oh and speaking of the internet, just now I remembered that my gran thinks it’s called “eternit” (which is the Polish term for building materials made of asbestos and cement, no idea what it’s called in English), which is a source of great amusement for everyone on my Dad’s side of the family. Even my Dad knows it’s internet, not “eternit”. 

 

Your turn. What’s the absolute worst you’ve witnessed, or heard of? 🙂 

 

Casi & the Blind Harpist – “Another Lover”.

Hi people! 🙂 

 

Yesterday I promised to feature another song by Casi & The Blind Harpist today, and here it is. Such a beautiful song, very interesting musically and mature lyrically! 

 

Question of the day.

What is something you will always say no to? 

 

My answer: 

 

I like to think that I’m reasonably open-minded but actually a LOT of things. Basically any kind of socialising which I do not feel obliged to take part in (like an important extended family social occasion or something) and in which there is totally nothing for me other than just the socialising itself, especially if it’s a large group of people or people I don’t know. But even if it is something that I do feel obliged to take part in, or something that I could at least theoretically gain something from, sometimes I’ll still say no if I’m too drained or it feels way beyond my capacity. 

 

Anything like bungee jumping, sky diving, basically anything that makes me feel gravitationally insecure, I’ve never even flown on a plane because the idea feels massively scary, although who knows, maybe I’ll have to face it some day as those can sometimes be hard to avoid. 

 

Cigarettes, I think I already wrote a post on that and why, let me find it… oh yeah, here it is, should you be interested. Same about drugs, at least hard ones for sure, and these days alcohol practically too as it makes me feel awful.

 

Speaking of substances, coffee in social situations or whenever I’m stressed. – This is hard, because I love love LOVE me my strong, black coffee as many of you will know, but, as I’d written on my blog at the time when I’d made that discovery, I can’t really have it anymore because suddenly something appears to have switched in my brain at some point and it makes me super jittery and anxious and I feel like Misha – only able to go under a blanket and shake – except unlike Misha I can’t even fall asleep. I used to tolerate coffee really well and just totally couldn’t understand people who had a problem drinking coffee past certain hour, it never affected me much. But, well, things have changed, and then it also took quite a while for me and required someone else to point it out to reach the conclusion that it’s the coffee doing this to me and either I quit it or it probably won’t get better. Surprisingly, despite my love for coffee and heavy reliance on it in booting my brain in the mornings, I guess I wasn’t quite an addict on a physical level as I was worried I must’ve been because, on a purely physical level, I had no problem quitting it cold turkey. But I still miss the taste of coffee like a freak, and it’s been a couple years since our breakup. It’s probably because my parents are coffee drinkers too so every morning the sound of the coffee grinder cruelly invades my subconscious, ‘cause usually my conscious brain isn’t quite on yet. And every Sunday after church I hear people happily making plans for having coffee soon, and then blissfully and mercilessly slurping it (though that last bit is mostly just one peep’s domain 😀 People as stylish as my Mum never slurp.) Good thing at least that I can’t smell. 

 

Decaf is sacrilegious. Green tea – I can drink it but don’t really like it much at all. – I love cocoa so if I really miss my coffee I’ll have a mug of very strong cocoa and play pretend that it’s coffee, but as good as it is, it’s just not. Clearly it’s not if it doesn’t make me feel the slightest bit anxious even though supposedly it has some caffeine. Or I’ll pop a Kopiko candy if I happen to have those. I will also never say no to properly-made, creamy iced coffee, as that’s more like a dessert or something than actual coffee so it doesn’t affect me negatively either. But sometimes, just sometimes, when I’m having a chill day and nothing much to deal with, I’ll have that cup of coffee. Of course, I’ll always regret it later and wonder what the flip I was thinking, but at least I can deal with the consequences of my whim privately and discretely. So that’s why I always say no to coffee in social situations or when I’m away from home. 

 

Hm, what else…? Piercings! I feel like I’ve mentioned that one already but not sure. But yeah, one thing is I see no reason to want to have them, even something as basic as having my ears pierced (I actually used to love clip-on earrings very much and had a large collection of them, which was no easy feat as it’s hard to get tasteful and fun-looking clip-on earrings, I still do have them, but now somehow I just don’t care anymore or maybe it’s just that I have nowhere to wear them haha). Maybe I wouldn’t be so “no” about it if not for my grandma, who, for whatever reason, kept nagging me when I was younger that I should get my ears pierced, just because Mum and Sofi do, and THREE flipping years in a row I got earrings from her as a birthday present. I really don’t like people telling me like that what I should do, I’m gonna do exactly the opposite if you harass me like that, and with no sound reason for it other than just because you want. Why would I want to do everything that Mum and Sofi do? She seemed to think, for some reason, that it’s the pain I’m scared of, or something, even though I told her that it’s not the case. So, I will always say no to piercings (for myself, I totally don’t mind if other people want to get them), just because. I think theoretically I’d be more inclined to get a tattoo, but I’m not going to do that either, firstly because it goes against my religious beliefs, and secondly because, while it used to be a kind of quirky thing, nowadays it nearly feels like it’s rarer or weirder not to have one, and I’ve no idea what I could even get… A sleeping Misha…? 😀 Endless cringe! 

 

Oh, one more thing that popped into my brain, that might seem particularly glaring considering that, as I said, I like to think I’m open-minded. I will always say no to going to museums. Well, at least almost always; maybe there are some that would actually work for me in that I’d find them interesting and simultaneously they’d be accessible enough that I could actually get something out of it, but generally, I’m quite prejudiced against museums. I kind of wish I were not, but oh well. While these days there is an increasing number of museums that have introduced at least some level of accessibility for the blind, in my, obviously very personal, experience, visiting museums is just deadly boring. Those I’ve been to on school trips as a kid that had accessible exhibitions or something were just not my thing, and the ones I happened to visit my family were an exercise in patience for me at best, and a total waste of time and lack of brain stimulation at worst. Worse still, when you go from one exhibit to another while people take their time to look at it, perhaps there’s a guide who talks about it etc. that’s a whole lot of standing in one place, which is even worse when it’s summer, and it usually is when you go on a trip. And my system doesn’t do standing in one place for prolonged periods when it’s hot, so I start feeling faint quite quickly, and then I feel guilty for spoiling everyone else’s experience and causing drama. Thankfully, except for my Dad, no one in my family is particularly into museums either, especially not Sofi, so they  don’t do that anymore, and even when they do, I’m not a kid anymore so am not expected to go along. 

 

Well, I guess that’s enough. Sorry if this post maybe lacks coherence or something. It looks like I jinxed it a couple days ago bragging about how well I’d been sleeping ‘cause last night I got no sleep so now I’m having a zombie day (which is how I always call the day after a night of no sleep). I don’t mind it overly (at least it means that, provided I get good sleep tonight and not too much of it, my brain clock will reset and be back on track again, which feels great), but the thing is, when I’m having a zombie day it feels like I’m not making sense when writing in other languages and like my writing is totally unhinged. I guess I do ‘cause no one has actually told me that I don’t, but that’s just how it feels to me. Zombie days are great for wild out of the box thinking, making conclusions with your intuition only and not questioning them, imagining stuff, feeling dizzy all the time, wearing layers of clothes and still being cold, having cool deja vus, making weird discoveries or wallowing in your grossest feelings; but not so much serious and ambitious intellectual pursuits like blogging. But I guess it’s my effort that matters in the end. It can’t be complete gibberish. So if my writing today feels off to you, too, now you know why. 🙂 

 

Anyways, how about you? What things are just a total no to you and always will be? 🙂 

 

Casi & The Blind Harpist – “One Evening In April”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Although I’d already featured two (or four, as they are in both a Welsh and an English version) songs by Casi in the past years – Dyffryn/Rooted and Nefolion, I would really like to share something else by her now. And while, strictly speaking, over here it’s still more like an afternoon in April, I think this beautiful, cinematic-sounding song feels very appropriate all round. It comes from her EP Sunflower Seeds. For those unfamiliar with Casi and her work, she is a singer, songwriter and poet hailing from the Bangor area in North Wales, in the Eryri/Snowdonia mountains. I absolutely love her music and find it appealing on so many different levels but also just plain fascinating, it really resonates with me in an oddly powerful way. It’s so intense, dark, and “hiraethful”. 

 

I can already say that tomorrow I’m going to share one more song by her. 🙂 

 

Question of the day.

Which artificial flavour tastes the least like its real food counterpart? 

 

My answer: 

 

In my opinion, it’s totally strawberry-flavoured things. I absolutely love strawberries, but basically anything artificial that is strawberry-flavoured is meh at best to me and not much like strawberries. Both of my siblings, who I guess love strawberries even more than I do, actually like strawberry-flavoured things a lot too. Oh and cherry-flavoured stuff is usually yuck! I like cherries, don’t love maybe but certainly don’t mind them, but anything cherry-flavoured (perhaps except for cherry jam, totally sucks). Also peach-flavoured, I used to love a lot of peach-flavoured things as a kid and there still are some that I do, but for the most part now I think they don’t taste much like actual peaches. 

 

Do you have any flavours that you feel this way about? 🙂