Hey people! π
What fictional character does everyone else love, but you despise?
My answer:
I can’t think at the moment about a particular example that I would really really despise but there are a lot of fictional characters that people seem to like and to be oohing and aahing about while I find them boring at the very best. I think what first comes to mind is the Twilight series and especially the two main characters who are so dull and cliche.
You? π
Do you enjoy thunderstorms?
My answer:
Yes and no. Yes, because there is something exciting about them, I don’t know, I’m probably weird… I mean, I’m weird for sure but probably also in this respect. π I love the sounds of storm, sometimes it makes me feel kind of slightly high when I hear and feel the storm. I also liked storms as a kid when I was very interested in all things radio because it would often carry radio stations from a far with itself, that would never ever be reachable in my region in normal conditions, so I always liked to search for such things straight after a storm.
I dislike them though because sometimes they can be really scary, and in any case, I guess no one likes the idea of something being damaged due to lightning or someone being struck with it. Also often storms screw up the Internet, they did especially when I lived in the country as a child, our house was rather high up so it was also an additional factor and we’d usually be affected in this way after a storm that there would be no Internet and sometimes for quite a while, and sometimes power would go out too. These days I also don’t like storms for additional reasons. We’ve had only one storm this year so far, just a couple days ago, and, as it happened, when it started out, I was doing a piece of writing on my computer, and I realised that now that I have a desktop computer rather than a laptop, and no real surge protection, I’d just have to put it off and turn the computer off until it’s over, if I don’t want something to get fried. π While it wasn’t a problem in that case, I can see how sometimes it may be, when a storm would interrupt something more important that I’d be doing. Another reason why I dislike storms these days more than in the past is that Misha sometimes gets scared of them, and when Misha is scared, that doesn’t make me feel good.
You? π
Hey people! π
It’s Mother’s Day here in Poland, so I thought I’d share a song that both my Mum and I like. It’s actually my Mum’s favourite song as of late. I completely didn’t associate this kind of music with her, but she likes this song, and when I heard it for the first time, I started to like it too. Generally our tastes aren’t incredibly similar.
Blue Cafe is a Polish band which I used to really hate, and am still not a huge fan of at all. They used to have a really awful vocalist, now they have a different one who at least can sing, but this song of theirs is one of the very few that I like and it always makes me think of Mum.
Hi people! π
What are your opinions on zoos?
My answer:
I’ve never been a huge fan, probably mostly because the animals I like the most and have the strongest connection to are the ones that are used to people and live with them, especially cats and horses. Besides, it feels a little boring to me since I can’t really even engage with the animals in any meaningful way, as you can’t touch them or anything. I remember when I went to the zoo for the first time when I was 5, it was shortly after I went to the boarding school (or rather nursery), and by then my parents would visit me every weekend there for a year or so. And on one of those weekends we went to the zoo which wasn’t very far away from the school, and I was so excited, because I loved bears at that time, and when Mum told me some time ahead that we’ll be going to the zoo, I was telling everyone that I’ll take some honey and will be feeding the bears honey with a spoon. π But in the end I guess there actually were no bears, or at least I can’t recall that haha. it feels a bit like a museum or a gallery to me, and these kinds of places usually aren’t that fascinating to me, often even when the theme of it is interesting. I guess I’ll learn more from reading about it than wandering aimlessly around. Especially that I have some marvellous talent for nearly fainting in entertainment places like that. I’ve never actually passed out but I could feel really weak and drained and pretty close to it anyway. Probably because you typically visit such places in late spring/summer when it’s hot, and you often have to stand in one place there for a longer period, then move a few metres to another place where there is another object/animal/whatever and either listen and learn about it when you’re at a school trip or with a guide or something, or just wait while everyone else is looking at it if you’re only with sighted people, rather than just walk all the time or sit, and heat plus long standing in place makes my BP drop. So it feels very unpleasant, stressful and darws too much bad attention for my liking. Also, despite I am not some extreme and crazy animal rights/environment advocate or someone who would want to humanise animals in a serious way, I always find it sad when I happen to be at the zoo that all those poor animals have to be there and had to lose their freedom just because of our human whims because WE fancy seeing wild animals in real life. Sort of similar to circus in a way, both because it’s something I can’t really engage in, and because it involves wild animals only that circus seems generally more cruel and unethical than zoo, and the whole circus thing doesn’t really make much sense to me, I mean I can’t quite get it what’s exactly so funny about it, it seems a little primitive kind of entertainment to me but maybe I’m just either too stiff and lacking humour or it’s beyond my cognitive abilities to get it. π I know that the zoo is a form of education so that people can actually see the animals, but I’m not sure if we necessarily have to see something face to face to be able to learn basic things about it unless we are scientists. I also understand that sometimes it can be life-saving for some endangered species to live in the zoo rather than in their natural habitat which may not be a safe place, but I guess those are exceptional cases and zoos don’t consist of only such animals but also such that would be perfectly fine in the wild.
I don’t have any huge dislike for zoos or am not against them in general, but they are just not really my thing, I guess.
How about you? π
Who in your life knows you best?
My answer:
I think I have to say my Mum. She knows a lot about me and I can be open with her about a lot of things. It’s not like we understand each other without words or anything like that, and she often says that it’s hard to figure me out because I “hide things” which is true, but still, she’s quite good at figuring me out. π
Who is it for you? π
Today I have a beautiful Celtic harp piece for you, as I’ve been listening to a lot of Celtic harp lately. I mean, I always do, but recently it’s been more than I had done it in a long while.
Celia Briar is a harpist from New Zealand, plays Celtic harp. She used to tour a lot and have a lot of concerts in different countries, but I don’t know if she still does. She’s also collaborated with Irish flautist Bev Whelan. I’ve heard that she currently resides in the UK. This piece comes from her 1995 album which is all very beautiful, I couldn’t decide which piece to choose for this post, to the point that in the end I decided to choose at random. π Hope you enjoy. π
Hey people! π
What’s the most bored you’ve ever been?
My answer:
I am generally not someone to get easily bored. There is that sort of saying that intelligent people don’t get bored. And, while I don’t think it’s very true and exact, it does make a good point. When you can rely on your brain to provide you entertainment rather than wait for the right external circumstances, you have it much easier and more interesting. But I believe that there are such situations that you really can’t not get bored in, regardless of your IQ. The imagination and your thoughts alone can be a good way to occupy yourself, but if it’s the only thing you are left with and are unable to do much more, that may not be sufficient for a longer period of time. The situations I usually get most bored in are in big gatherings of people, that is. Usually I feel a lot of anxiety when socialising, especially in large groups of people, but sometimes it happens that the anxiety lowers a bit with time and then boredom creeps in. This often happens to me at all sorts of bigger family gatherings where I don’t feel so awfully anxious that it would be the only thing that would be constantly on my mind. It does happen to me sometimes that I feel both highly anxious and very bored at the same time and that’s a very awful combination and feels strange in the brain, like, it’s hard to deal with it when you’re both over- and understimulated in different ways, right? π I tend to feel bored in such big groups of people because I usually end up being the passive observer rather than the one actually participating in what’s happening. I do love observing people very much, analysing how they behave, trying to figure out what they are thinking about or feeling etc. But if I’m supposed to be around a lot of people for some longer time, you can’t do just it all the time. As it usually happens, most of the things they talk about aren’t overly interesting to me, assuming I have any actual clue about what/whom they are talking about, and having to sit in one place for hours just taking in a lot of meaningless nonsense isn’t one of my most favourite activities. Sometimes I go into my Brainworld and daydream or something but you have to be careful with such things in case you float too far away. π I like my extended family and have mostly normal or good relationships with them apart from some exceptions who won’t even admit openly that they have a problem with me but rather let me know via someone else, but I don’t feel a strong sense of belonging with them, which I think is part of why things are the way they are. I often have no idea what they are talking about, or just am not interested/knowledgeable in the topic so I have little to say usually, even without the anxiety at play.
I can also get massively bored watching movies, mostly because I can’t focus on them for some reason, even when they are with audiodescription and interesting to me, I just have a weird problem with movies. π
But I think the time when I was most bored ever would have to be when I was 10 and recovering from the Achilles tendon surgery. The whole thing was quite scary, not because the surgery was scary or complicated or anything but because I think I wasn’t ready for what was coming next, no one has really told me. Or otherwise I don’t know what made it so scary, anyway I responded to it very badly. As I wrote on here earlier, after the surgery I had to have casts on both legs for 6 weeks and then physical therapy, the amount of which depends on a particular case and for me it was about a month I guess. My surgeon was slightly overzealous, because apparently my casts were waaay bigger than they needed to be, I had them from my thighs all the way down to my feet so that only my toes stuck out and I was unable to bend my knees so my legs always had to be stretched out (I guess that’s why now I always sit with my knees bent or even legs curled up whenever possible π ). So basically I couldn’t walk at all and that was quite a surprise, I somehow didn’t think it would be like that. It sent me into a freakout because right before my surgery, I was put in the room with a much older girl about whom I’ve also heard that she had contracted Achilles tendons in her both legs and that she was after a few surgeries already and actually could barely move or do anything on her own. I only learned much much later from my Dad that she had an accident as a very small child and the Achilles tendons were just one small issue of the multiple ones she had and her mum had told him that that time she was there also to correct her tendons. But you know how kids can think, I was pretty sure that I was going to be a similar case to her for some reason and would have to be fed and all that. At the same time, it was a hectic time for my family, because Zofijka was only a few months old, and we’ve only just mmoved houses, and the house we were living in was still not fully arranged, my Mum was running around madly getting all sorts of stuff for it and taking care of Zofijka, and helping me with showering and such. I didn’t have the Internet yet, not even a computer, and since I didn’t have any other transport mode other than someone carrying me, I spent most of the time in my room. I was bored like shit and just as my muscles were stagnating, so was my brain, and I was awfully sensory deprived or something, which sent me spiraling down into ANxietyland, and I had all sorts of weird anxieties and other intense stuff like that. But in a way the boredom was even worse than the anxiety. I could read some of the modest selection of the books or kids magazines in Braille that I owned or borrowed from the library, if someone would get me something, as my bookshelves were quite some distance from my bed, and while I could get to the lower shelves on butt, I could not climb back up on to the bed with my ultra heavy legs. π So I would usually ask someone to give me something to read, but most of the books and magazines I had were not signed in normal print so no one knew what it was, so I ended up reading the same things over and over again. I was in the integration school at the time so my class teacher visited me occasionally and did some school work with me, or sometimes my grandad came when he had time, as it was back when we lived in the country with all my Mum’s family, and sometimes Mum brought Zofijka to me. What helped me the most in those difficult times was Polish Radio Bis (BIS standing for Very Different Station) which was a public radio station mostly addressed to the youth that existed back then, which played a variety of music from genres like rock, alternative, reggae, folk, hip-hop, electronic etc. generally the quirkier the better, and had some educational and cultural programmes, including some that focused on teaching languages, and I was in love with Polish Radio Bis at the time, and even in the word bis used in whatever context. Radio BIS doesn’t exist any longer, but I still miss it and can’t get over it! π And I still love the word bis. There is Polish Radio Programme 4 that has a very similar formula but, meh, it’s not the same at all. There are different people, different music, different programmes, even if some of the things stayed the same, and I don’t really like them half as much as I did BIS. Anyways, during my recovery from the surgery I even called Polish Radio BIS a couple times, but wasn’t on air, I just chatted to the people in there and wanted to tell them how much I like Radio BIS (read: how obsessed I was with it, but they didn’t seem to mind my obsession and some were very amused by it).
Generally though I had nothing to do all days, and all nights, too, as my sleep cycle was, quite naturally, ALL over the place. I remember very vividly how a couple days before my surgery I talked to my grandad about it and he told me something like that my legs will need to recover and they’ll be in stagnation. I didn’t know what stagnation was, so he explained to me that if I was left alone in a room where no one would come and it would be totally silent, I wouldn’t have any books, music, radio or any other contact with the world, this would be stagnation and I would fall into it easily in such circumstances. And so it was going to be the same with my legs. And then when I was after the surgery already I was thinking that, although I wasn’t completely cut off from the world, his example was so eerily accurate, since it weren’t just my feet that were stagnating, but my brain as well. The weirdest thing about all that is that the surgery actually didn’t work out, so it was rather pointless in the end. π
So yeah, the time I was most bored was probably that.
How about you? π
So, have you guys already heard about this new WordPress block editor thingy? How do you feel aboutit?
If you feel similarly to me and much prefer the classic one, go over to
and speak up about it, share the post with your readers so that we can have control over our blogs.
They say that we’ll be able to switch between the old and new editors, and if so, it’s great, but the message from their post on this seems to be a little contradictory imo, and I wonder for how long we will actually be given the choice.
As I already commented on the Cyranny’s post, I’ve just tried the new editor out to see what I should brace myself for and if it’ll be as bad for me as for many others, and found it really unfriendly and not really particularly cooperative. It took me about half an hour just to get out back to the classic editor, and it seems like the fact that I did it was only a sheer accident, haha.
I know that there were huge issues in the past with this block editor’s accessibility for screenreaders, and I have to say that, while it isn’t particularly user-friendly and intuitive, the accessibility with my screenreader (NVDA) isn’t bad, as much as I could tell from just testing and not writing an actual post and not being a huge tech savvy, which was a positive surprise, however I’ve heard that apparently there are some significant problems accessing it with another popular screenreader (Jaws). I can’t see for myself if that is the case and to what extend it is unusable as I don’t have Jaws (and even if I could, I’m not keen on the idea of voluntarily interacting with that thing again π ) but if it really is, something seriously must change here.
A couple days ago, I’ve been nominated by Meg of
for the Sunshine Blogger Award! Thank you so very much, Meg! π So, since it’s been a few days already since I was nominated, time to finally make the award post.
1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to their blog so others can find them.
2. Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
4. Notify the nominees about it by commenting on one of their blog posts.
5. List the rules and display a Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or your blog site.
Before we go further, just a little clarification, though I’ve said this before when doing award posts. There’s no logo to go with my post, since I’m blind and getting this on to my post seems a bit of a hassle that I don’t really understand how to go about. I know that some blind people do display award logos and similar things, so probably if I really really tried I could get my head ’round this, but, oh well, there are so many more fun and less abstractive things to do in life, and I’m also very minimalistic when it comes to images because they seem to be very distracting for people so that they don’t see the more important things. π
1. What is your say on all positive approach to life?
Oh no no no! Positivity is okay, optimism is okay, but I’m allergic to people who tell me to always be positive and similar bullshit. I’m allergic to people who tell me what I am supposed to feel and think. If there’s anything that is mine in this world, it’s my brain and no one will tell me what I should do with it. It’s probably because I’d been exposed to such people a lot and actually found it very toxic and invalidating, because even if I wanted… well sheesh, you can’t always be positive when you are depressed, plus suicidal like I was then, right? Also I’ve learnt to suppress my feelings early on in life and still haven’t really managed to unlearn it even though it’s better these days, and that’s why I probably respond the way I do to when not only I feel like I have to suppress what I feel but also am supposed to feel something vastly different. And I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to my brain and feelings and all that. Just like constant, all negativity approach is wrong and toxic, so is with positivity. I consider myself a defensive pessimist, and that has been working really well for me since I’ve adopted this approach in life. But, at least in my view, being a pessimist absolutely doesn’t mean that you have to be negative all the time and about everything, grumpy and complaining and make other people feel miserable. I really enjoy appreciating all the good things in life, relishing them and I love the fact that although I have depression, I am nevertheless still quite a hedonist at least when I’m at what I consider my normal, and I like to be enthusiastic about things. Just not about everything, and not all the time, and not when someone tells me to. And thanks to my defensive pessimism, when something in my life turns out better than I expected, the more happy and positively surprised I can be about that. Oh, that was a bit of an essay! π
2.Β What you do at times of writerβs block ? Also mention reasons for a writers block, if any?
Sometimes I just wait it through and don’t stress overly. At other times I use some writing prompts, music or other stuff to inspire myself, it also depends what I am writing. Sometimes I just have to get through a difficult period and then my writing brain is back to normal after some stressing event is over. And as for the reasons, as I said, stressful events can give me a writer’s block, or particularly low mood and energy. But most of all I guess it’s the emotional overloads that can block me the most in any way of expressing myself, especially that when I experience them I usually have particularly low self-esteem to the point of self-loathing so even when I write something I usually don’t like it. Sometimes I try to write anyway and it can help if I push through, but at other times it’s downright impossible and then I have to wait until it passes, or try to get rid of some of those emotions that are raging in my brain in some other way.
3.Β When you started or even now do you feel like deleting a frank post,Β overthinking that itβs too bold ? What you do if it happens?
Yeah it happens sometimes that I write a very candid post, and then decide mid-writing that actually I shouldn’t be writing this, either because I don’t like what I wrote in general or it feels like exposing myself too much or sometimes I’m scared that someone whom I don’t want to will read it if it touches on some very sensitive topic. Then I sometimes delete it altogether, but at other times I keep writing it anyway, even when I don’t feel fully convinced about whether what I’m doing is right and feel like it’s very risky. But I rarely delete posts after I publish them, unless some time passes and I decide that for some reason they’re not right, too candid or vulnerable or whatever.
4. Do you believe in planning to the last detail or rough plans or no plan at all?
Hmm hard to say. I’m not a spontaneous person at all, but at the same time I hardly make rigid and thorough plans for anything. I like to be able to know what I’m going to do soon, and I really like routine and hate changes, but meticulously planning very far ahead is boring, so I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.
5.Β What is the weirdest flavour or combination you ever found in a drink or snack?
Chocolate with sea salt! My Mum used to have a phase where she would buy lots of chocolates with really strange things in them – like chilli, some weird alcohol fillings, or sea salt. – I found the sea salt in combination with chocolate particularly repulsive. I loooove love love salt, I mean, I used to eat just salt alone from the salt cellar, and my uncle who was a mariner got me lots of salt crystals from the Dead Sea years ago and I was licking them whenever I needed my salt fix, lol, my grandad used to say that it could have something to do with the fact that I have low blood pressure all the time but I’m not sure if there is a relationship, I guess I just simply like salt, and I also love chocolate, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t or don’t think I do, but together they’re just yuck.
6.Β What is your most embarrassing moment?
I can’t recall one that would be the very most embarrassing, when you have AVPD a lot of things feel embarrassing whether they are or not, so I thought I’d share a recent thing that happened to me, that was quite embarrassing but also very funny. We were in church last Sunday and I was sitting next to my Dad, listening to the homily, and I had a scarf on my face since we’re still having some restrictions in place, but rather lightly at that moment because there was only me and my family sitting in the pew, there is some distance between pews and it was very warm in there, and I wanted to avoid getting overly hot as it happens to me quite a lot in church and then can get embarrassing when my bp is dropping and I’m all dizzy and have to get out or pray that I won’t faint or something. When the homily was over, there was a brief moment of silence, and I suddenly felt like I was going to sneeze. Unfortunately it happened faster than I thought and I didn’t even manage to get out a handkerchief or cover my face more tightly with the scarf in time, and since it was so quiet, I’m pretty sure the whole church has heard me sneezing. π Sofi immediately hissed that “Whoa, attention, Bibiel is giving away corona for free! Who wants to adopt a little virus?”, and then Dad started giggling, then I started laughing, and as is usually the case with me in public places where it’s not that appropriate to laugh, when I’ll start to laugh I can’t seem to be able to stop that easily, even if the reason is rather trivial and not that very funny, so I continued to try not to laugh at the whole thing for quite a few minutes. I guess that’s early signs of hysteria. π My Mum and my grandma are exactly the opposite, they start to cry in church, cinema, theatre, official events at schools etc. very easily and seemingly over anything, while I get fits of laughter for no reason. I guess it’s worse because crying, while also awfully embarrassing, seems a bit more acceptable in such settings. π Anyway, I’ve been thinking that now, and after the coronavirus, sneezing, coughing, or even sniffling or grunting, are going to be way worse and shameful than burping or farting. Too bad for people with allergies like me. π
7.Β Are you a dog person or a cat person? Why or why not?
I’d say a cat person, just because I seem to get along better with cats and understand them better, and especially since I’ve got Mishmishbut it’s not like I dislike dogs, they can be very sweet too, I love to play with our Jocky for example. I just don’t get along with them quite as well and we’re not on the same wavelength. Dogs seem to like me a lot for some strange reason, even more than Zofijka so she’s always envious when we are at someone’s place and their dog is all over me rather than playing with her, but I much prefer the way cats show their affection rather than have a dog jumping all over me or licking my face haha.
8.Β If you had the opportunity to pick one superpower for the rest of your life what would you choose: time travel, teleportation, telepathy, psychokinesis, invisibility?
I used to want to be able to teleport as a kid and that still would be cool, then I thought that telepathy was the best since you could have so much insight into other people’s brains, but I’ve read a book about a boy who had that ability and that seemed quite overwhelming to have all the bullshit from other people’s brains go into your brain, I think I’d drown in it. These days I think I’d like invisibility the most, as long as it was so that I’d be able to choose when I want to be invisible and when not, rather than be invisible all the time.
9. How do you cope with stress or anxiety? Any special tricks youβd like to share?
Misha helps me the most. If you have an anxiety disorder or are just not very tolerant to stress and don’t have a pet, I highly recommend that you get yourself one if you are able to in your life situation. Music helps me especially with the sensory anxiety stuff, as do some other distractions that can occupy my brain really well. Distraction won’t always make your anxiety go away, sometimes it won’t work at all, but it’s always worth a try. Good sleep is key. It won’t always mean that you’ll feel completely fine and not anxious after a restful night’s sleep, but if you’re sleep deprived and have anxiety issues, I’d think you have it pretty much guaranteed that you will experience a lot of anxiety, more than you would otherwise. I also take medication for anxiety and although I didn’t do it for many years, even though I’ve had anxiety all my life, now I can’t imagine not having a help like that at all and often wonder how I actually got through some anxiety-provoking stuff in the past without it, when my overall mental health was much worse. My anxiety is generally of a chronic rather than panicky and coming and going kind, I have different types of anxiety, but when I get panic attacks or when my anxiety increases significantly in a short time, what I do is I try to think in another language. That is, not Polish and not English. I’m already fluent in English enough that English doesn’t work, and I tend to think about the things I feel more often in English than in Polish these days. But I try to think in other languages that I know. That is Swedish and Welsh. First, that provides a distraction and of course these languages are something I like. Second, it just is a good exercise for practicing my language skills. And third, it slows my thoughts. When I’m anxious my brain is racing with lightning speed, and since I’m not that very fluent in Swedish, and especially not in Welsh, it takes time for me to form thoughts in these languages. ALso Swedish is generally very simple so it’s strange how I can start to think more rationally in Swedish. There really is something in what people say that with each language you know, you get something a bit like a new identity. Often that language trick will actually help me to better realise what I am so anxious about, or will simply help to calm me down. Again, this doesn’t work always, because sometimes it’s impossible to focus, but when it does, my brain can slow down a bit.
10. Is the universe finite or infinite? And why do things even exist at all?
I think it’s finite but really really REALLY huge. And I think if something exists, especially when we are talking about living beings, there most certainly must be some very clear purpose to it, even if we don’t know it yet, or struggle to understand it. I’m sure we’ll all know it some day.
11.Β If you had one week left to live what would you do?
I would make sure that Misha would be well looked after and treated, have everything he needs for his whole life after I wouldn’t be with him. I mean my Mum is his main feeder anyway so he wouldn’t go hungry but they don’t know his habits quite as well as I do, or his dislikes, so I would do everything that I could to make sure that he would have someone who would always care for Misha and not make stupid tricks on him like scaring him with the vacuum cleaner just because it looks funny. I don’t know who it could be though, probably Mum because he is very attached to her even though she often gets irritated with him and screams at him which he doesn’t like. I would make time for saying a proper goodbye to my family and would spend a lot of time with them, I would probably have to explain some things about me to them. I think I would give most of my things to Zofijka. I would spend a lot of time preparing myself for death spiritually so that I could die happy. I’d like it to be a possibly happy week during which I would do some things that I never did before but that I would be sure that I’d enjoy them. Nothing spectacular or extravagant, just small, pleasant things. And I would like to do something really helpful for someone.
I’ve recently nominated quite a lot of people for the Real Neat Blog Award, but this time I just nominate everyone who reads this post. And you can answer the questions that I was asked, as I don’t really have many ideas at the moment.
Hi people! π
I’ve found a new British artist that I really like lately. Her stage name is Hamzaa, which apparently comes from her stepfather’s surname, and her real name is Malika, and she has a gorgeous voice. This song of hers is my absolute favourite, also because I think the lyrics are quite cool.
Hey guys! π
I’ve heard about Rebecca Ferguson a couple of times over the years, and I’ve also heard some of her music, but previously somehow it didn’t make a strong impression on me. But recently I’ve heard more of her music and I realised that I actually like her. She has a really cool voice and I love her Liverpudlian accent. I think this song also has great and relatable lyrics. Who’s your uncrazy? For me, it’s undeniably Misha. π
Hi people! π
What would be the absolute worst name you could give your child?
My answer:
Well, it depends on so many things, in my opinion. It depends on whether we are talking objectively what is the worst (most harmful) way of naming a baby, or rather the worst way of choosing a name for your baby, or subjectively which name I dislike the most. If we’re talking about the latter, just as I know lots of beautiful names that I love and could give my children, I’ve also learnt about lots of names from all sorts of cultures that I intensely dislike and it’s hard to pick just one that I would dislike the most and think that it’s the absolute worst. If we’re talking about the former, I think there are lots of ways to do it wrong, but then even when we’d try to look at it objectively everyone has so different values and opinions when it comes to ochoosing a name. And there are so many names out there that I’ve heard about over the years and would have never thought in the past that anyone coould ever use, yet people do use them. Shooter, Lucifer, Legia (as in Polish football team Legia-Warsaw, or at least I’ve heard about a daddy wanting to call her daughter this, but I don’t know if he succeeded with our back then quite strict naming laws), Google, Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116 pronounced as Albin, or A, also pronounced as Albin (an “artistic” creation of Swedish parents Lasse Diding and Elisabeth Hallin, though the boy didn’t get named either in the end, but was nameless for some six years instead), or some eccentric Puritan names like Silence, which are all quite extreme examples of really bad ways of naming your child. But it’s hard to pick the worst, really. Then there are people like my Mum who flinch at every normal name they’d never heard onn a real person when they first hear of it being used on a baby. Recently our distant relatives called their baby boy Noe (Noah in English) and while Noah is very popular in the US, Noe is not so much in Poland, even though the N as a first letter is quite a trendy theme at the moment in my view, although a bit more for the girls, and Biblical boy names have been ruling for a while, and short names have been getting a lot of attention as well. The reason for Noe not being in favour is probably that it ends in -e, while it’s rather uncommon (and may feel unnatural for many people) for a masculine Polish name to end with a vowel other than -i or -y. I don’t know any guys called Noe personally. Anyways, my Mum told me that in a very horrified, indignant voice, and when I said “So what? Noe isn’t a usual name, but I don’t see anything wrong with it if they like it so much”, she was even more horrified and like: “But how will they call him, in normal life, every day?! Ark? There’s no nickname for Noe!”. Oh yes, that’s such a dilemma! But Poles like their nicknames. My Mum’s name is Anna, short enough, right? But no one calls her Anna, just as hardly any other Annas are just Annas. A Polish Anna usually automatically goes by Ania, unless she’s prepared for a life-long battle of correcting everyone. I love the name Anna so much but Ania is so superficial and bland. So I said that nicknames are only a matter of creativity, at least in our language, you have pretty much endless possibilities, and after all there are no rules that one nickname works with only one name, no one said at all that your nickname has to be related to your birth name. So if he likes to go by Ark indeed, why the heck can’t he? I’m sure it’s better to be the only Noe in school than the 30th Jakub, especially that the name is – like most Polish names – very straightforward in spelling, declination and what not, so should not be overly stigmatising or burdening unless he keeps bumping into such strange judgy people like my Mum. π Or yesterday Sofi told us that there’s a boy called Michael in her school. The Polish version of Michael is MichaΕ, and Michael on a Polish person certainly would feel a tad pretentious to most Polish people (including myself) because the spelling is not in-line with our phonetics, because we have our own native form of the name and despite it’s now legal to use names from foreign cultures with non-phonetical spellings, it’s still a new thing and generally it tends to be a bit of an informal naming rule for most people still not to use names from different cultures if we have a native equivalent or if that foreign name doesn’t adapt well to the language. And the boy doesn’t seem to have foreign roots or anything. So my Mum rolled her eyes and was like: “Really…? He’s Michael! I thought they were such normal people!”. π So, as you see, it often doesn’t take much to shock people, even though I personally think that, while I would never call my child Michael in Poland and while it is a bit pretentious, it’s not harmful or somehow really stigmatising in a major way.
So, let’s just talk about what I would try to do or avoid doing when naming my potential baby, some rules that I would stick to, not necessarily about my personal style as such but more like to simply make sure that my child’s name will be at least bearable to them to live with for their entire life.
I would avoid names that feel dated and not ready for a comeback yet, so names that are typical for either my generation or the generation of my parents, because by the time my child would go to school or something, it’s likely that the name would feel cringey to their peers if it was massively popular in, say, the 90’s and then has become much less popular so that it’s associated with the 90’s very strongly and is more common among the mums or dads. I’d also try to avoid names that would seem “seasonal” to me. Ones that get a lot of usage in a short while and then quickly fall downwards in popularity to never come back again.
Unless the child would have some foreign heritage in close family, I would not use a name that could be difficult to spell here, because Polish is a phonetic language and almost everything is spelled as it’s said. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be a known Polish name though, for example my long-time favourite for a potential baby girl is Saskia. And I’ve just looked through the popularity list for the whole Polish population and couldn’t find the name Saskia there at all, so if there are any Saskias here there is less than 100 of them. yet still it ends with an -a, as a proper, traditional Polish feminine noun should, and poses no pronunciation or spelling dilemmas. I think, like most people, I’d be in that category of parents who want something unique but not too qree8tyv.
I have nothing against people using unisex names, but it’s not a thing here, and that’s probably part of why I am not a big enthusiast of them myself, with some exceptions. But I would definitely try to avoid unisex names, or at least those that are rather similarly often used for both genders, I would mind much less names like Evelyn (which is an adorable name) which use on males is pretty much historical from what i know. If I’d want to use a word name, in Polish I’d probably never do it at all because there are only few traditionally used word names and the idea is still very new. If I were to use an English word name, I’d likely use it for a middle, especially if it’s a frequently used word, or has some very specific associations. Though the word names category is very broad, I guess even Jack could count, and I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with using names like that as they’re well known as names and very normal. My long-time word name favourite is Hyacinth, and I’d be also happy to use that, and surprisingly, on either gender. But that would only be if I lived in an English-speaking country.
Because I believe in that name & personality thing as you probably know, and I would really hate to give my child a name that wouldn’t miss their personality, I would be careful with using family/honour names. Of course honouring someone is a great thing, but I want my child to have an identity of his own, so I would never give him a first and middle name of his grandad, rather, I’d use first name of his one grandad and second of the other. And I’d never do things like promising someone ahead of time, before seeing my baby, that I’ll name my baby after them for sure. Generally I think I would want to have some names prepared before the child’s arrival but I would not make a definite decision before seeing the child and spending some time with them, I must get a feel of them, I don’t want them to be conflicted internally. If there was a tradition in my family of using family names from generation to generation (which there sort of is because me and my siblings, my Dad and all his siblings all have middle names after our parents), I’d break this tradition if I thought that the name would clash with my kid.
What would be the worst name/way of naming for you? π
Hi people! π
Are there any food combinations you hate?
My answer:
I think quite a few, but what comes to my mind right now is that I hate the combination of spicy with sweet. I love love love spicy food, spicy condiments etc. and I love a lot of sweet things as well, but together they taste gross. I hate things like chocolate with chilli, or sauces that are kind of both sweet and a little spicy, or some crisps are like that too, spicy with a bit of sweet-ish flavour, it’s yucky. If something is spicy, then I want it to be really spicy, and not something in-between. Similarly, there are probably even more things that are both spicy and sour/vinegary, especially crisps or sauces/ketchups. I really like things that are really really spicy, and when for example I want to buy a hot sauce for something, I know a couple that I know are really good, but when I buy something new that I haven’t tested before, chances are quite high that, instead of being spicy it’ll only be spicy-sour or spicy-sweet. My Mum dislikes spicy-vinegary things as well, generally some people say though that I’m weird, because lots of things aren’t spicy enough for me, even if they don’t contain any taste combinations like that, haha, so perhaps indeed my perception is different or something.
You? π
Hi guys! π
Which pet made the most impact on your life?
My answer:
That surely has to be Misha. My family used to live in the country throughout my whole childhood, so whenever I was at home I was surrounded by animals, we’d always had a dog there and lots of cats around the backyard, some more, some less wild, and we’ve had aquarium fish since I can remember, and I also had a hamster for a brief moment, and when I was a bit older we also had a cat called Kiki. And now, except for Misha, we also have our dog Jocky. But I’ve never bonded with any animal as much as with Misha. That’s probably partly because I am not as much a dog person as I am a cat person, which isn’t to say I don’t like dogs, I do like most if they’re not overly intrusive and exuberant towards me when barely knowing me, but I just get along better with cats. And partly it’s also probably because I simply didn’t really spend that much time with those pets, as I was at the boarding school most of the time. I even hardly remember our cat Kiki, even though it wasn’t that very long ago that he was with us, I didn’t feel particularly emotional about him, even though i liked him. The only bit I remember more vividly is when I accidentally closed him on the terrace in the middle of a snowy, windy, winter night, and no one in the family could figure out how he managed to not only get on the terrace but also close himself there – long story and i’m pretty sure I’ve talked about it in some earlier post. – Also as I’ve said many times before, we are really very much like brainmates with Misha, and even though one may easily think that in some respects we are a really badly and absurdly paired couple, at the same time we have an awful load of things in common so we can simply get along somehow, I like to think that we do really well, even though it’s hard sometimes even just because you can get most information from him via eye contact and he’s extremely hypersensitive to touch. Misha has been a huge emotional support for me, which I can’t say at all about other pets that we’ve had, and I have a personal relationship with him, which I also didn’t have with the other ones and don’t really have a very strong one with Jocky even though I like him and he seems to like me crazily for some reason and we like to play.
You? π
Hey guys. π
What, if anything, have you ever re-gifted?
My answer:
I’m sure I’ve re-gifted lots of things, though I don’t remember anything particularly specific. When I was a kid my more extended family often felt pressured to give me some presents for birthdays or such, while they didn’t really know me well, so I often got lots of jewellery or cosmetics that were totally not my style, I’ve even got three pair of earrings from my grandma even though I don’t have pierced ears, so I think it would be mostly those kinds of things that I’ve re-gifted.
You? π
Hi! π
What’s one pet peeve you wish you could get rid of, because it hammers your enjoyment of life?
My answer:
I have a lot of pet peeves, though I’m not sure there are any that affect my enjoyment of life overall on a consistent basis. But one thing that I put way more attention to than I would like is the way people speak. I mean, I love language, so in a way it’s completely normal, but it can really be annoying to me when someone uses a word not knowing its actual meaning, or their grammar is bad or something and they’re not doing it on purpose but clearly out of not knowing that they’re making a mistake. I often wonder how can people not know such basic things, and when someone’s language skills are particularly poor (like my gran for example) then it’s hard for me to communicate with such people, because I’ll either have to hold back bad fits of giggles at how ridiculously they speak, or will be meticulously registering every word they say wrong and feel annoyed at their linguistic ignorance, and I then might not be able to focus enough to actually follow what they’re saying as a whole. And I am not a language purist overall, I don’t think so anyway, when I speak or write in Polish I use lots of colloquialisms together with very sophisticated words, archaisms, sometimes don’t care about grammar rules because I feel like something sounds better another way than it’s usually said or better fits what I’m saying, and after all I don’t always know everything about it either, even though I do know a lot and have some sort of a language intuition I guess so people often ask me about some language things, how to say or spell something and I usually get it right even if I haven’t used the word ever before, but just as I said, not always, no one’s infallible. So it’s a bit like my own pet peeve irritates me, lol. π Sometimes it gets even worse because I’ve found myself correcting people pretty much automatically, and while I don’t think anyone of those people felt hurt or pissed off or anything, or some luckily didn’t hear me doing that or seemed like they didn’t understand what I was actually alluding to, haha, I think it’s generally quite a rude thing to do, even though that’s not my intention. But my Dad for example does like when I correct his language mistakes, and it’s him who makes them most often of all the people I talk to regularly, the rest of my immediate family is quite language-conscious and my Mum is a bit like me, so maybe that’s also why I have that habit of correcting people. It’s strange because normally my Dad hates being told that he’s made any mistakes or that anything is his fault and has real trouble admitting it or apologising, yet as I said he does like me to correct his language mistakes. Then again, usually he does the same ones over and over so it does little in practice, and always says “not in the least/not at all” instead of “at least” (the former is “bynajmniej” in Polish, and the latter is “przynajmniej”, LOTS of people confuse that). Of course that applies mainly to Polish, because I’m not good enough myself with other languages to spot such things, though sometimes when I do know that someone said something wrong for sure in English it also makes me flinch, like pronouncing niche as nitch, ew how gross! But I myself used to pronounce niche even worse some years ago, that was really funny. I used to think that if there’s clichΓ© and it’s pronounced like CLEE-shay, then niche should be NEE-shay, or actually, because I was more familiar with the word clichΓ© in Swedish, where it is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, my English pronunciation of the word was also more like nee-SHay! π Isn’t that so absolutely fanciful and snobbish and over the top? I was really surprised to learn that it’s NEESH, and quite happy, because then it sounds almost just like Mish, just like the Polish word for niche (nisza) sounds almost like Misha. It’s certainly better than nee-SHAY, in any case.
But yeah, it wouldn’t be bad if I didn’t have this pet peeve as strong as I do.
You? π
My Inner MishMash 