making the matrix

55 push-ups and 80+ sit-ups. Still no running. I recovered from that nasty cold, but now the weather sucks big time.

A totally not politically correct depiction of the Polish history during the last few centuries. Just what I needed for November 11.
Fuck yeah :]

Except that I'm not.

But since I left convert_me I don't waste time on endless disputes, learning fancy words and irritating over entries how nice and luvely Islam is - and I can waste it on something else. Like, for example, working out to be able to pass the APFT test for US military recruitment and in the same time motivating syntaxia to do the same. You can check your own APFT requirements here.

My APFT is 68 push-ups, 73 sit-ups and 2 miles in 14:13.

My results as for today, November 8, is 50 push-ups and 80 sit-ups. I didn't run because I'm a bit cold, but my running skills were always very poor. It will be the hardest part for me. I'll let you know when I'll get better.

PS. Although I decided not to participate in LJ disputes, vonheston keeps notify her friends' list about the current drama, so I guess I'm still in touch ;)

Cé qu'è lainô, le Maitre dé bataille, Que se moqué et se ri dé canaille; A bin fai vi, pè on desande nai, Qu'il étivé patron dé Genevoi.	The One above, the Master of the battles, Who is mocked and laughed at by the rabble, Made them see well, on a Saturday night, That He was protector of the Genevese people.
I son vegnu le doze de dessanbro Pè onna nai asse naire que d'ancro; Y étivé l'an mil si san et dou, Qu'i veniron parla ou pou troi tou.	They came on the twelfth of December, On a night as black as ink; It was the year sixteen-hundred-and-two, That they speak of, at the earliest (hour).
Pè onna nai qu'étive la pe naire I veniron; y n'étai pas pè bairè; Y étivé pè pilli nou maison, Et no tüa sans aucuna raison.	On the blackest night They came — it was not for drinking — To plunder our houses, And to kill us without any reason.

This is a part of a poem "Cé qu'è lainô"written in the Franco-Provençal language around 1603. The poem tells the stroy of Catholic-Calvinist wars in Switzerland. Just as Catalan and Occitan are somwhere in between French and Spanish, Franco-Provençal is between French and Italian. In fact it's so similar to French that once I've seen the translation of these three verses into French and the rhymes were conserved.

Anyway, just wanted you to know that ;)

http://helpbatnha.org/2009/09/bat-nha-monastery-completely-destroyed/

I am speechless. In the last months the situation in the monastery was getting worse and worse for the monks, the electricity was cut off and they were threatened several times, but this... Even before that we, Ben Viet, a site about the political situation in Vietnam and issues of the Vietnamese immigration in Poland, were receiving many articles and notes about police reprisals of Catholics and Buddhists in Vietnam. Clearly, the Vietnamese regime is very egalitarian with their treating of religious organizations. Buddhist monks are enemies of the state just as Catholic priests.

(x-posted to buddhists and vietnamese)

So... seriously... Why would I need God?

( Stay away )

http://www.the99.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_99

Me likey. "The 99" is a comic book about an international group of superheroes with their powers associated with each of the ninety nine attributes of Allah. The main storyline draws from Islam and the history of Middle East, but in fact - and this is what I like about this project - the characters are normal young people who simply value the cultures of their respective countries, but are far from being zealots. The first pages of the first book make it clear: fanaticism is the main evil of the series and The 99 are entitled to fight it. Maybe it's a bit too distant comparison, but as I read the first book (it's available free to download from www.the99.org, as a PDF) I couldn't stop myself from thinking that The 99 is to tolerance and culture what Captain Planet and The Planeteers were to ecology. Each of the heroes of The 99 comes from another country, they're open-minded and tolerant (mostly) and in the same time they respect their cultural heritage, family values, etc. The main antagonist is a guy who wants to dominate the world and destroy the diversity of cultures.

Most of the heroes who showed up till now (about twelve I think) come from Europe, Middle East and Southern Asia. The headquarters of their organization is in Paris. I wonder how they communicate since most of them are teenagers or twenty-something and not necessarily big fans of linguistics, but somehow they get along. It's... hmm... interesting, though I'm not sure ifthe authors intended the pun, that the superhero from United States is on a wheelchair and his power is to inflict pain on his victim by stimulating the pain nerves with willpower. He can do it when he's angry.

A few days ago an organization called "Iowa Atheists & Freethinkers" displayed atheist ads on public transport buses in Des Moines, Iowa. The ads were so highly offensive that they had to be removed immediately and the governor, Chet Culver, felt "personally disturbed".

In fact the ad is so offensive I decided to put it under an LJ cut.

( Beware! )

It seems to me that we brought our English to another level. No longer we use English in our internet conversations because some of our non-Polish friends may read it, so it's polite to write in a language everyone knows. We use it because it's natural. We're becoming truly bilingual.

• Sarcasm, checked.
  
• A cane, checked.
  
• Genius, obviously.
  
• Stubble, checked.
  
• A motorcycle, basically checked. A scooter, but one of the bigger ones.
  
• Miserable, checked.
  
• Alcoholism, developing.
  

Do you think it would be hard to get a degree in diagnostics?

EDIT: Alcoholism added.

( My dear diary )

Hello, world.

I think it's time to admit that I should start learning a third language and it shouldn't be Vietnamese.
I mean, OK, Vietnamese is very "exotic" (from the European point of view, at least) which is always a good enough reason for me to learn something new, and it's relatively simple in comparison with other "exotic" languages I'm quite interested in, like Pali or even Japanese. Though Japanese is hardly an exotic language in these circles... whatever. The point is, it's definitely NOT a good idea to seriously attempt to master Vietnamese as the third language.

One of my skills, if I have any at all, is finding out missing data from the context. It works in virtually all fields: from tracking down bugs in programming code, because my guesses about what's wrong are usually quite right, to aikido techniques where often I'm able to quickly catch the details of how should I move in order to optimize my performance. And to learning languages as well.
My learning curve starts with a lot of pain and tears, forgetting the words, messing up the grammar, and overall irritation. Then I usually abandon my attempt and turn to other things like, uhm, messing up my life. But in two cases I stepped over this starting flat line, to the point where all the right elements fall in right places and I start to understand the whole thing.
The first case was English and with it I moved even more forward, reading fantasy novels in English, watching movies with subtitles (even with Polish subtitles - it's still a good way to learn the language if you just focus on the action and look down only for words you didn't hear clearly), and... Ah, yes, five years of lectures in English at my university helped as well, though too often they helped because I was forced to learn what mistakes my lecturers were making.
Now I use English in my work, on the internet, and when chatting with friends, which is a bit weird, because for most of them know Polish is the native language. There is one problem I see, that since we're all interested in simple communication, I tend to ignore grammar errors. But this is a minor issue and all I have to do is stop being lazy and check my e-mails before sending them out.

The other case is French. French was shoved down my throat in the high school, about ten years ago. I wasn't able to master it then. I was left behind during the first year because of this starting flat line of my learning curve, and I've never catched up. I was just crawling from one semester to another. But eventually the torture left its marks on me and now I'm able to read comic books in French, partially because I know the words and the grammar good enough for comic books, and partially because the context in comic books is usually very obvious.
So French is, as a matter of fact, the only language I can consider seriously. I'm already over the flat line so I'm pretty sure that if I signed for a language course, I would make significant progress. But there is a problem: I have no interest in France, French history, French culture, French whatever. At all. It's a bit strange considering that I'm pretty much interested in a zillion of other languages and cultures. Spanish is so funny and dynamic. Latin is so beautiful. Ancient Greece kicks ass. Pali is the language of early Buddhist texts and there are megabytes of Pali literature available freely on the internet, along with tutorials, dictionaries and grammar help kits. And I don't want to even start with Japanese or Vietnamese. But French... nothing. There is a vacuum, an empty room somewhere in my mind with a small note pinned to the door: "This is what interests you about France. Just pass along."

I'm doomed.

MJ tribute mixed with religion in a webcomic strip. Tatsuya Ishida at his best.

( I put it behind the cut because it's a large pic )

I want one

Dear European Union,

After the upcoming elections I would like you to:
1. Become one big country, with one army, one foreign politics and the same set of rules for everyone when it comes to economy.
2. Cut down your bureaucracy to minimum and then cut it down some more.
3. Decentralize what is left. Decentralize it so much that the county level will become the most important.
4. Let me run my company as I want it, without any aid and without any obstacles from you.

Your Citizen

http://theoystersgarter.com/2009/04/20/vampire-ecology/

It proves that the vampire model presented in Buffy The Vampire Slayer is pretty damn realistic, whereas Twilight sucks :P

Soooo... When I was 15 I trained karate kyokushinkai for a year. I got the best sensei ever and the trainings were so tough I have no idea how did I survive. The decision to train there was probably one of the best, and one of the first serious ones I made.

It also gave me a knee injury which was the main reason why I left. The knee seemed to heal over the next few months, but the injury was a sneaky one and just recently I've found out that it's still there. It's a bit serious, so I'm going to have a surgery near the end of May. They're gonna cut me to pieces, aaaarghhhh!!!... Well, no. The operation should be simple and I'll go home the next day (or, more likely, I'll go straight to work). But anyway it means that I have to save some money and after the surgery I shouldn't walk too much for a month or two, so this is a no-no to my planned trip to London in June :(

Ahh, well. Will there be a day when I won't have any debts and I will be able to simply enjoy a free *gasp* week? Next year, maybe. Till then.

Vampire rumors spur alert at Boston Latin

I think the guy in the white blouse looks suspicious.