Question of the day.

What are you most proud of yourself for?

My answer:

Honestly I’m not proud of myself particularly often, it’s a bit of a weird feeling to me, but I’m trying to be more often, even if I’m just forcing myself to feel it because I think I normally should. If I do more or less genuinely, it’s usually because of my linguistic achievements. Like the one I’ve posted earlier today, in one of my song of the day posts, when I was able to understand a larger portion of spoken Norwegian for the first time. I’m proud of myself for learning English mostly on my own, of course I’ve had it at schools for years but I’ve only really learnt it when I started teaching myself, schools are rubbish at languages, and I’m proud of how quickly and how far I’ve gone with it, though I have a feeling like it’s not exactly something that I’ve achieved thanks to myself – my level of fluency, that is, and the pace of my English learning. – I mean of course as a Christian my way of thinking always is that we should be thankful to God for our talents and that without Him we wouldn’t be able to do anything, and of course I wouldn’t achieve quite as much if not all my pen pals and other online friends and such, because it’s the contact with the living language that matters, but I feel like I’ve got more than just an ear for languages. When I look back at my English journey, it feels like a miracle, because of how quickly and unefortlessly it happened that suddenly I was able to think in English with no problem, in some instances that comes to me even easier than in Polish, or without realising it instantly that I’m thinking in English, and suddenly I’ve got quite an English accent that a lot of Polish folks say is British. You’ll hear so many stories of people – whether linguistically gifted or not so much, but still trying to learn a language – putting so much hard work into their learning, or at least having some fancy methods that work for them or that don’t work. Neither was true in my case. It was similar with Swedish as well, though only to some point, I still don’t consider myself fluent in Swedish though my Swedish is good and definitely comunicative. I wonder why Welsh is such a slippery slope then. I’m not used to that hahaha but I mostly like it, I’ve got something to occupy my brain with. Oh gosh! I nearly forgot! I have a news for you people! Does anyone remember my “Reasons Why I’m Learning Welsh” post? One of my reasons was that I wanted to learn to say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch properly and by heart, just for fun and for quirkiness’ sake (Llanfair Pg is a small town in north Wales). For a long time I was only able to read it fluently, which was still a huge thing for people who knew it, but not for me, because after all I knew Welsh phonetics and then it’s easy to read pretty much anything in Welsh. But, just today, I came across Llanfair PG somewhere and tried to say it just from my head without looking at it and… I just got it right. I did it once again and I got it right, and then I looked it up online to make sure I really got it right, and I did! now I can say it. There is such a Polish website called Nonsensopedia, aka encyclopaedia of humour, and they say something like even if you poop your pants here and now, you won’t say it. I’m not sure what has pooping to do with that but I assure you I didn’t poop while saying that. 😀 Isn’t that a reason to be proud of? I’m not a Welsh native and I said Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch about 5 times today and didn’t poop. Yay me! 😀 And stupid Nonsensopedia, maybe the person who wrote that article just had diarrhea, and thus really lacked sense of humour! I just wonder why it took me that long, but I guess if I really did work hard on it I could nail it much earlier. I like it though how spontaneously it came. So typical of my brain. 😀 Now I guess I need a new Welsh goal in place of that.

How about you? 🙂

Mari Boine – “Gula Gula”.

This is a typical, classic example of a Sami joik, and I really like the feel of it! Sadly, again, I was unable to find a reliable translation. One that I found, but somehow don’t think it’s perfecty reliable, would indicate that the song is about the Earth, that it is our mother and that people need to go back to their roots and where they come from, and save the Earth from the pollution. And gula would mean listen.

 

Question of the day (29th September).

What’s the greatest trip you ever took?

My answer:

That would be my week long trip to Stockholm. I’ve written about it many times so I won’t again, but that was simply wonderful, albeit very challenging and extremely emotionally exhausting.

Yours? 🙂

Song of the day (29th September) – Mari Boine – “Alla Hearrá guhkkin Osllos” (Hey, Mr. Almighty Down There In Oslo).

Here’s another Mari Boine’s song. I originally wanted to share it with you on one of the future Sami National Days (February 6), but I might as well do it now ’cause why not. This is a very interesting song for someone like me who is passionate about endangered languages and rights of the speakers of such languages, media in endangered languages and all that. I have no English translation for you, and I can only clearly understand one word in the Sami lyrics – “giella” which means language. – But, hey, not all is lost! There is a part in Norwegian in the lyrics, and actually, that Norwegian bits and pieces are of very deep historical and personal value for me, because that was the very first thing I was able to understand in Norwegian. I don’t speak Norwegian, mind you, but of course Swedish and Norwegian are close enough to be very much mutually intelligible. I used to be frustrated because I could never understand more than a word, or a small string of words in Norwegian, and that if I was lucky, I didn’t even understand svorsk too well (svenska – Swedish – +norsk – Norwegian – =svorsk). I still often don’t understand Norwegian too well but am often able to at least figure out the context. And that Mari Boine’s song was the first ever spoken – or sung, but I don’t think that matters – word, much more than a word actually, that I understood. Not all of it but I definitely got the gist of it plus some more than a gist, I’m not sure about one line. Bibiel is so smart, yayyy for Bibiel!!! 😀 And thus, Bibiel can tell you what the song is about.

“Hey, Mr. Almighty, down there in Oslo. Do you have time to listen to us? We watch Tv evening after evening, but don’t hear anything in our own language. Hey, MR. Almighty, down there in Oslo. Do you have time to listen to us? We listen to us? We listen to the radio day efter day, but hear hardly a word in our own language. Could you give us a little bit more? Language has such a great power [or your language has such a great power, I’m not sure] (…)”. And then I only understand that they are afraid of something, I am half-guessing that that their language will disappear. If there are some Norwegian peeps out there (or even better Sami!) I’d appreciate any corrections. I’m assuming that the Sami lyrics are mostly the same.

The song was released on Mari Boine’s 1986 album, originally, and, while I don’t know what was the situations with the Sami media back then, and I have no idea if they have their own TV right now, I do know that nowadays, there is a public radiostation called NRK Samiradio in Norway. I’m not well acquainted with it and I don’t know if it is sufficient for the Norwegian Sami community’s needs, but I’d think the situation has improved since the 80’s. There is also SR Sápmi to which I listen a lot, and some Finnish Sami radiostation as well. I also have no idea who the Mr. Almighty exactly is, as I don’t have a broader background context about the song.

Oh, and I forgot to mention one more interesting thing about Mari in my previous Mari Boine post. She is a paternal relative of Kevin Boine, whose song “Komm Till Finnmark” I featured on National Sami Day this year. Apart from the joiking, and even despite Mari’s huge musical versatility, the difference between their styles is vast and almost startling hahaha!

 

Question of the day (28th September).

What are your plans for today?

My answer:

It’s 6 PM already here, and, especially that today I’ve been awake since before 7 AM, I’m not having much planned for the rest of the day. I am hoping to catch up with all my overdue blog posts, eat something, have a shower, go to bed, and do some Welsh before sleep. If I’ll find the time maybe I’ll pop in to Dreamland for a little while with some good music, and I’ll probably spend another little while with Zofijka before she goes to sleep.

How about you? 🙂

Song of the day (28th September) – Herman Rundberg ft. Mari Boine – “Fillii Fillii”.

Hi guys! 🙂

I’d like to share with you a couple of songs by the sami singer from Norway – Mari Boine. – She is quite known in the folk music world, I’ve even heard about her quite a few times in Polish media, and she is surely the most widely known Sami musician. She not only does yoiks and typical Sami music, but she also blends it with other genres, like jazz, or pop. And this piece is quite an interesting mixture of electro/dance and folk. Sadly, Sami languages, even the most popular North Sami in which I assume Mari sings, is not widely known, hence the lack of an English translation online, and I can’t even tell you what Fillii Fillii is supposed to mean, I have no idea. I hope I will know some day. The song is cool though.

 

Maire Brennan – “Oró” (Oh”.

Hi people. 🙂

Today, a song by Maire Brennan I want to share with you is a very lovely Gaelic lullaby. I love lullabies, I have a whole collection of them, and this one is among them. Not quite as brilliant and breathtaking as her sister’s “Song Of The Sandman” but very beautiful too. Here are the English lyrics.

 

Oh my little babe
Always stay by my side

Oh my darling
You give me hope, my darling

Sleep peacefully, sleep peacefully
Sleep peacefully, my sweet child…

Oh my little babe
Take my sure advice
My peaceful love

Oh my little babe
And a prayer from my heart
For the life in front of you

Sleep peacefully, sleep peacefully
Sleep peacefully, my sweet child…

Winter is coming and I’m happy, but they say I’m not normal.

Hhrrru? 😻

It’s Misha. I haven’t posted for a while because my life was very boring and I didn’t know what to post about. How are you pets and peeps doing?

I feel that the winter is slowly coming to us, and I’m happy about it. I’m getting more sleepy and there are more cosy and warm places around to sleep in. The radiators are so warm. My favourite one is in the living room, it has a space for me to lay on it, and there is a basket just for me. I also like snow. I think it will be a while before it comes but I really like looking at it. Zofijka even let me out for a little while a few days ago, but on the leash. I hate that, I’d like to be able to go where I want. She let me walk around the backyard, and I was so extremely happy to see the sun, and smell the fresh air, that I just fell on the ground with joy and rolled around in ecstasy, wanting to make my whole fur smell like the air outside. Zofijka was looking at me as if I was crazy but she doesn’t understand anything. Then she wanted to take me back home, but I didn’t want to go. I wanted to run away, and I almost did, but she caught me and yelled at me that I’m not normal. I would like to know why. Is it not normal for a cat to want to be out and about? It’s not normal (and selfish) when a human is unable to understand such a basic need. I think it’s not normal that they keep me in literally ALL the time, except for those short walks maybe once a month or even less often.

Do you think it’s not normal that I want to be out? Do you like to spend time out in nature, does it bring you pleasure? For me, it makes me euphoric!

Mishpurrs.

Misha 💜 💚 💙

Maire Brennan – “Misty-Eyed Adventures”.

Hi guys! 🙂

I really love this Maire Brennan’s song. It’s so gentle, but so atmospheric and dream-like. I always like all those journey motives in Enya’s music, and it is present in Maire’s as well, and very much so in this song! I hope you like it too. 🙂

Maire Brennan – “The Mighty One”.

Here is another song by Maire Brennan, also about God. I think the sound of it is very powerful, and it has more of an ethnofolk feel. The chorus is in Irish, and here is what it means in English.

  All my blessings from my heart to you
Isn’t the view delightful?
My blessing from my heart to you
And glory be to God

Question of the day (25th September).

If you could design a city or the place where you live, what would you create?

My answer:

I don’t think I’d change much. Perhaps I’d make sure there is free Internet across our town, create more local shops, and some restaurant. There are a few restaurants but I think there could be something more sophisticated but also with good food. We have one place very close to us, it is a pizzeria and they have loads of good food, and then there is another one that is in hotel, it is incredibly luxurious and rather expensive, but the food only looks good and tastes rather bland. I’d like to have an international food shop here, we used to have foodtrucks coming to us regularly but now it’s not as often. My Mum says there’s a big need for a good confectionery. We have a family park here, and I’d invest more in it, and I think it would be nice if the confectionery was there. Also I’d try to make the town more accessible for people with all sorts of disabilities. It’s hard, because sometimes when you want to make something accessible for example for wheelchair users, like lower curbs, it becomes more difficult for the blind who walk with white canes and need them to orientate, and vice versa. But I’d just try as much as possible to make it friendly for all disabled people, and despite our town isn’t very big, we have quite a lot of them.

How about you? 🙂

Song of the day (25th September) – Maire Brennan – “Perfect Time”.

Hi people. 🙂

I’ve recently realised that I’d never shared with you any of Maire Brennan’s music. Not that I love her so very much, but she’s quite an icon of Celtic music, and she does have some songs I like. Other than that, she’s Enya’s sister! I’m not very keen on the type of voice Maire has, but, as I said, some of her music is really good and she is also a harpist, though there’s no harp in the song I want to share with you now. I’d like to dedicate a few song of the day posts to my favourite songs of hers. If you have listened to some more famous Celtic music bands, you may remember Maire from Clannad (famous for “Robin, The Hooded Man” in the 80’s, for example). And Clannad has also loads of great music, but I won’t be sharing theirs now. Maire Brennan is also known as Maire ni Bhraonain, Moya Brennan or, in her earlier days, as Mary Brennan.

Maire was raised in a Catholic Irish family, but she’s now a member of evangelical church, and a lot of her songs are more or less religious. This one is as well. I think it sounds really good, though of course as you know I prefer Enya’s music far more. This video doesn’t have the best sound quality, don’t know how about visual, but there are so many versions of this song, I believe from different albums, that I had a hard time finding the one I like best and I found it in such a bit rubbish quality.

Question of the day.

Hi guys. 🙂

My question for you today is more of a fill-in, actually.

In the event of a storm we should always…

My answer:

…make sure we have something, or someone, that will help keep us sane and won’t let the storm hit us too hard. Or if the storm does hit, it’ll give us at least a little bit of stability that we can keep in our lives.

What do you think? 🙂

Question of the day.

Hi people. 🙂

My question for you today is:

Where have you been?

My answer:

I’ve been to Dreamland last night, finally. It wasn’t a very restful night for some reason but I did get some sleep and am not a Zombie anymore.

I’ve been living here where I live for almost 4 years now. Unbelievable! And what is more unbelievable when I look back at it is how quickly I adapted to living in this house. I’m very happy that I no longer live on the same backyard with my Mum’s family, and that we live in such a lovely place. In a town, where everywhere is near and you’re anonymous, but almost like in the countryside – on the outskirts and a lot of people are actually farming here so it doesn’t feel like a real town, not in our area of it anyway. –

I’ve been to four foreign countries in my life, not that many I guess. Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech and Sweden. All apart from Sweden were only day trips, but I enjoyed staying in all of those.

I’ve been to loads of wonderful and scary places in my brain world, and I’m sure there are still many that I haven’t discovered yet.

How about you? 🙂 Feel free to answer this question in whatever way you like. 🙂

Brain, what do you want from me?

I’m seriously starting to wonder what’s up with those flippin’ Sundays! I’m recently getting Zombie days exclusively on Sundays, and this month I’ve hit a record. Three Zombie days in a month, all Sundays, including this one. If you don’t know what a Zombie day is, it’s the day after a sleepless night. I call it this way at least. Mondays used to be most often my Zombie days back when I was at school, and I guess that was even worse. To not be able to sleep for the whole night and then having to start a week in the Zombie mode, grrrrr yuck!

Another thing that I’ve been wondering a lot today is what does my brain want. I never know that during a Zombie day. I never know what I want. A Zombie day probably means something slightly different for everyone. For me, it’s a weird, floaty, dream-like, hazy, unreal feeling in my brain and my whole body. I often catch myself wondering “Is all this even real?”. I often get deja vus when I’m a Zombie, and my sense of time is changed. It’s like there is almost no time passing if I don’t look at the clock. I’m often a bit hyper in the morning, and then go into apathetic and zoning out, but I won’t go take a nap because my sleep cycle needs to reset. Sometimes I even mix languages like today. I feel like I’m losing control, and I’m often very anxious, jittery and even very panicky, but I can’t take my med ’cause in such a state of mind it’ll make me fall asleep while walking, as was the case with my horse Łoś, instead of muffling the anxiety. I am cold and weak and obviously lack the energy, am dizzy, and towards the end of the day if I’m really worn out I sometimes get little creepy hallucinations that make me want to scream with fear but I’m too scared to do that. Is that even normal when you have just one Zombie day? I’m more creative and coming up with bizarre, completely out of the box, apparently illogical but very logical ideas and solutions and theories, and the cool part about them is that I still love them the next day and often listen to my Zombie brain and take what it came up with into account. Perhaps it works like for people who apparently get the solutions for their problems from dreams? I can be a bit impulsive so I try not to do important things or such that need a cooled down perspective on a Zombie day, and I can easily go from something even quite close to euphoria to the darkest depression and an emotional overload, and when something is not going right, I can easily slip into hopelessness, it just feels like things are always going to be this way.

But most of all, I don’t know what I want! It’s so frustrating. I mean, I often don’t know that anyway, but in my Zombie mode, that affects even the most basic things. I’m faint and starving, and badly nauseous at the same time and I don’t know what to do with that. I think for like 15 minutes, “Am I hungry?…”. I decide I am, and then I can barely eat anything. Do I want to write a post, or take a shower? Does it matter? Perhaps not, but I have to do one thing first. But first I’ll rather just sit for the next 15 minutes with my Brain in the Zombie zone.Do I critically need a nap, or can I stay awake until the evening? Yes, I give up, I need a nap! I lay on the bed, and although my mind is swirling between the real world and Dreamland, it can’t quite decide on any of those. Do I want to drink green tea or cocoa? Do I actually want to drink anything? Is it better to be around people and be scared of people or alone and scared of my own brain? How can I know all those overwhelming things if even my brain doesn’t care to decide? Zombie days are weird.

But at some point, there comes a moment when all the controls in your brain go bright red, and suddenly you realise: “YAY! It’s time for sleep! That’s what I want! Sleep, sleep, sleep and sleep!”.

And now I’ve come to that place. I know that what I want is to

wrap

uptightly in all the possible blankets in my room, wrap Misha up cosily and snugly in his bed, and float away into Dreamland. Switch off my brain finally, in desperate hope that when I’ll wake up, it will reset, change the layouts and show me different worlds, both the outer and inner one. Perhaps the Zombie day was what my brain needed. It has been cluttered with unimaginable for me amounts of worries and ruminations over the last week, and a Zombie way is quite a smart way to do a reset. Only, will it really work this time? I am desperately hopeful and deeply sceptical at the same time.

But I guess the time is flying by, my precious seconds of potential sleep are flying away, so, for now I’ll leave you to it, and hope that, whatever is the time where you are, the next time you’ll be sleeping, it will be a really healing, powerfully regenerative sleep.

Do you often get Zombie days? How do they feel like for you?

 

Question of the day.

Hi lovely people! 🙂

My question for you today is very simple, and feel free to answer it whatever way you want:

Where are you going to?

My answer:

The only goal I am capable of seeing right now is – to bed! – As soon as possible. I am having a Zombie day and not a good one… wooow, I’m really so bright and eloquent today, ain’t I?! Has anyone ever had a good Zombie day. Can a Zombie feel good? I have an ambitious plan of writing something more today, maybe some stream of consciousness post –
I’ve written some pretty good SOCS stories in Polish over the last couple of weeks, inspired solely by music, but no, don’t worry, I’m not gonna try to write a short story here today, just a bit of a ramble, just because I haven’t posted much of such stuff lately. And then I’m going to take a shower, wash my brain (that is hair obviously if you’re a newbie) and go to Sleepland.

You? 🙂

Question of the day (21st September).

What frivolous thing do you really want, but couldn’t possibly have? My answer:
I understand frivolous as something you want, but don’t need at all, just a whim.
In my case, that would be a harp. I mean my own harp. Preferably a Celtic harp, though there are still lots of kinds of Celtic harps, but I don’t know which one I like the most. And if you don’t know me well enough, no, I don’t play harp. And even if I wouldn’t ever learn to play it, I would take great pleasure in just having it. I consider people who are privileged to have (not rent) their own harp very lucky in life. What would it be for you? 🙂

Song of the day (21st September) – Maja Koman – “Invisible”.

I once shared with you an earlier song by Maja Koman, called “Babcia Mówi”, and I’ve become much more familiar with her music since then. She is a Polish artist, who often writes sarcastic, or humourous lyrics, which are often thought-provoking as well. I don’t always agree with them but I like her creative spirit and the way she arranges her music and her lyrics’ style in general, and she has loads of great lyrics indeed. Apart from writing songs in Polish, she also writes them in French and English.

While “Babcia Mówi” was a funny but thought-provoking piece about the lack of true men in the world, this one is vastly different. Not only because it is in English. The feel of it, as this time you can see fully on your own, is very gentle, and the lyrics vulnerable and honest, but very inconspicuous. I really like this little piece, and I think the harp in it makes it the more appealing and intimate. 🙂 Also I can relate to the lyrics a lot.

Question of the day (20th September).

When was the last time you begun a new chapter?
My answer:
In a more literal way, today – I’ve been rereading “Jane Eyre” and have read at least two chapters today. – 😀 But what I’m asking you and myself is more about life in general, though feel free to answer this question how you’d like.
The last time I begun a new chapter… I think a proper, major, separate, key chapter in its own right, was when I’ve got Misha. It has changed so much in my life, and now I can’t even imagine easily not having him in my life. Then there was also starting my new, current blog, but since I’d done it multiple times in the past, it didn’t have that feel of a brand mew beginning. You? 🙂
PS: Let me know if anything looks different/weird/worse about this post, I don’t think it should but just in case and out of curiosity. I’m writing this via email on my brand new Braille-Sense that arrived yesterday. I’ve also got a new PlexTalk, and yes, the computer, but turns out my scary adjustment process (and a lot of the stress) can be postponed for some more. Something in it got broken on the delivery so I need to send it back to the company who helped me get it so that they can fix it. Nothing major, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem, but bad enough that you can’t even turn the computer on.

Song of the day (20th September) – Maisie Peters – “Feels Like This”.

Hi lovely people. 🙂

This is a song from an artist I really like recently for the feel of her music and her youthful voice. I’ve been listening to a lot of similar British artists on Spotify lately and I’ve seen Maisie Peters as an artist similar to many of them, so at some point I just had to check her out and liked her pretty much immediately. Her music has some simple charm. This song is my most favourite from her, I love the sound of it!