A short story

Every Thursday we have half an hour or so of pause between the classes, so we usually go for a coffee somewhere nice. This week we decided to go to "U Przyjaciół", a lovely and cosy cafe with an amazing ambiance. It's decorated with photos of actors and scenes from the theatre with the same name, located near by. Every table is separated with red curtains and has a little nightstand with a drawer in which small pieces of paper with poems or, simply, words someone wanted to leave there can be found. It's a magical place I like to go to from time to time, but that's not the main story.

There are 2 very friendly cats living near the cafe, and the people working and living in surroundings take care of them, feed them, etc. Let me present you 4 photos of a new friendship that started quickly and ended up painfully.

I was used as a staircase. And this face shows pain.

Is there anything more beautiful than a friendship a cat can give us?

Spike the Lizard

Recently I've discoverd one of the best Instagram accounts called the_lizard_spike. As the name says, the main theme of this account is a lizard called bearded dragon named Spike. According to the description, he's 8 years old and loves bugs. And the best thing about him, is that he's completely clumsy, and a bit chubby. I'm totally in love with some photos of him trying to scramble into his tiny hanging bed made of net. Here are some examples:

The struggle is real, but he doesn't seem to be bothered. He tries as much as he can, and if he can't achieve his goal, he just falls asleep hanging, pretending everything's fine. Me? Too chubby to climb to my own bed? Nonsense. I just love sleeping like this. I consider this lizard as an inspiring role model to overcome any difficulties in life. You can't achieve something? Try hard every single day, but if you don't succeed anyway, find a way to feel comfortable about it.

And that was an episode of "How to make a coaching-ish pep-talk out of an Instagram of too chubby lizard".

Yesterday I decided to go back to my old Tandem account, refresh it a little bit and see if I can find someone to practice japanese or spanish with. I must say, I have a sort of toxic love-hate relationship with this app.

On one hand, it's quite popular app that gathers people from all around the world, willing to practice languages and share their culture, exactly what I'm looking for to step out of my comfort zone and improve my active language skills, so I can finally stop sweating like Mariusz Pudzianowski trying to move a whole lorry each time I have to speak during English classes.

For now, it may sound perfect, but let's move to "the other hand". So, there's a massive amount of people that, apparently, cannot see the difference between "Tandem" and "Tinder". But a bunch of naked torsos instead of life-changing cultural and linguistic exchange isn't the biggest problem, neither is a one message from a Turkish man that you have literally nothing in common (no common interest in a particular language or culture, no common hobbies, n o t h i n g). But the things start to get quite overwhelming when it becomes a massive attack of messages of random people clearly interested in "finding a polish wife" or "talking to a beautiful girl" (I did not invent it, these are actual quotes from their profiles), and almost nobody interested in learning things. Sometimes it's depressing not being seen as a language exchange partner, actual human being who wants to learn new things and expand knowledge. It just repulses me. But sometimes the attempts are so awkward that I cannot resist laughing. Like this one I saw yesterday. What was that even supposed to be?

Making jokes of somebody's appearance. That's a new level of starting a conversation 👍😄

Living the Italian dream

I personally think that one of the best options to practice listening skills when learning a language is youtube. Finding a channel that's about things you´re interested in helps to expand our vocabulary we're actually going to use one day (I remember cramming kanjis for words like "a triptych" or "a racket" that's used only in whatever japanese game it was). So, to practice a regular, conversational storytelling in Spanish, I usually watch videos of Javi Alonsox. Lately, I found one of them called "My italian love story", and because it was my day of practice, I watched it and it was one of the best videos he's ever made.

At the beginning he explains that they went to Roma on a trip, and while his class was looking at the famous Trevi Fountain, some handsome italian guy approached him and asked if they had met before. They started to talk and flirt a bit, but unfortunately, his class was about to move on, therefore, he apologized and rejoined his group. Apparentely, the handsome italian guy didn't want to let their new relationship go and that's why he followed Javi and during the free time he chated Javi up again, asking if he wanted to explore beautiful Roma with him. He agreed and had a lot of fun, but something was not alright. Random people were looking at them in a strange way, giving them presents etc. Finally, the handsome italian guy revealed that he was a singer and Javi looks exaclty like his singing partner - Isabela, but he's nothing like her, because she's awful and can't sing. (At this point I started to suspect something)And here's where the story goes totally wild, Javi fakes an illnes to sneak out to meet our italian friend, he basically lives his italian dream, faking being a famous singer. He's even asked to perform with Mr.Handsome, and, of course, he says yes. And here comes the plottwist. Javi meets the real Isabela, which warns him, explaining that she left Mr. Handsome, because it's him who can't sing and uses playback, that Mr. Handsome wants to use Javi to damage her reputation. Javi was devastated, but together with Isabela, he made a plan to end Mr.Handsome and Deceitful's career. Isabela turned off his playback and, after he ran away crying, goes out on stage and sings with Javi, while the crowd goes wild. 

Many people who watched that video, didn't realize he actually made one of the gratest trolls in his youtube channel's history. He actually told a whole plot of The Lizzie Mcguire Movie as if it was his own personal experience, with a total pokerface. Just at the end of the video, when the button "subscribe" shows up, we could hear him singing the song that Isabela and Lizzie were singing together: "What dreams are made of". And I trurly respect him for that troll.

Let's get to know me

Hi, everyone, welcome to my personal blog, in which I'm going to write about many things that caught my attention throughout the week, in order to (as you've probably figured it out already, looking at the tittle of the blog) obtain an English course credit (just as the Spice girls sing, I really really want it). So, let's get started.

I found some questions on tumblr that may help me with introducing myself without writing about my previous major, which was Japanese philology, and reasons why I decided to come back, just like the Prodigal Son (or in this case - Daughter), to Spanish.

1. What makes you feel old?
Hurting back at the age of 22.

2. Most prominent childhood memory?
Finding out that my dad lied and that "kaszanka" isn't a chocolate sausage.

3. Do you believe in horoscopes?
I don't, but I've read once a quite elaborate horoscope and it said that Gemini tends to constantly look for a perfect partner, so, unsatisfied, breaks up with each of them and ends up as a prostitute, and I hope it won't turn out to be true.

4. What are some things you did as a child that you no longer do?
Eating toothpaste, believing my dad (-->question 2)

5. What is the weirdest dream you've ever had?
That I met a bunch of babies and I tought them some out of date expressions like "W rzeczy samej", "Wyborna herbatka", etc. Then I hid in the bushes and watched the parents picking them up and wondering why those are their children's first words.

6. What instantly ruins a conversation?
"I'm tolerant, but..."

7. What bad habits do you do?
Leaving everything to the last minute, checking OLX when I NEED to go to sleep (so I end up looking for next 2 hours at tables, trenches, vases and tractors I obviously won't buy)

8. What is the creepiest toy ever made?
This.

Aaand yes, it's made with real teeth.

9. Which medium do you use for expressing your artistic emotions? (singing, writing...)
Drawing. That's why a main theme of this blog's design is art and painting, but to make it more personal, I decided to put my face on it :))).

Bye, bye, bumblebees. See you next week.