Tea With Tarvos - Tarvos' Log 2019

[tarvos]

I have mostly rested the past week, but this week I have been getting into a Polish detective series called Ultraviolet, which I am watching in Polish with Polish subtitles, which works (for the most part). Not that I understand every detail, but I understand enough to follow the plot, which is enough for me in Polish, as my Polish is not that impressive.

I'm still reading Capitães da Areia, and I also watched two episodes of Ice Fantasy, which is a Chinese fantasy series.

[tarvos]

This past week I actually, shocker, managed to finally finish Capitães da Areia (amazing book, by the way), and I have moved on to a collection of poetry by Marina Tsvetaeva. Fun fact: Marina was bisexual, and during the beginning years of her marriage to Sergey Efron, she had a stormy affair with the lesbian poet Sophia Parnok. Some of her poetry is dedicated to this. She also had another affair with a woman later on, and she wrote a novella for her.

I generally really like Tsvetaeva's poetry, especially because she uses a lot of stylistic effects and constructions which I use in my own poetry. She is very strict with meter and rhyme, something that I enjoy. Her poetry is also fairly easy to read and not always so vague as to the meaning.

I've also noticed that my Polish has improved and that I am becoming more capable of reading it, though I still have like, no idea, about the grammar...

As a bonus, I am appending one of my own poems here, written in Russian. It's old, so some of you may have already seen it, but anyway.

Смерть Королевы Единорогов

Обнаружили труп рядом с дорогой
дорогого моего единорога.
Жила она в стране чудес по-прежнему,
счастливо и долго в волшебном лесу.

Единороги наши права поддержают
Своими жизнями защищают:
Дают нам выбрать будущее и потом
Сохраняют наш выбор одним рогом.

Но в сказках никогда не бывает,
что главный персонаж не страдает.
Да, враги есть же, в стране чудес,
По имени так называем - мракобес.

Наш мракобес в своих тьмах жил один
Никого не касался вот этот кретин.
В начале, в порядке казалась всё,
Но скоро узнаем, да видим враньё.

Никому же не нравится одиночество
Вот и нашему мракобесу особенно.
Прожил так же не всего лишь год
До тех пор, как он придумал комплот.

В дождливом дне он вытащил нож,
Ползая по земле, на змея похож.
Думая только о том, как бы отплатил,
Как бы угрозил, расколол, да убил.

Встретил он первую, отрезя ей рог
Сильным ударом, как только он смог.
Тогда к второй, и выколол глаз ножом
Пока жертвая кричала раз за разом.

И тогда он к третьей пришёл втайне,
Чтобы не заметила его в темноте.
Королеву до смерти мракобес напугал,
Угрожая ножом, пока он орал и орал.

<<Ты не дала мне жить, как и все!
Мне даже пришлось спрятать в темноте!
Теперь за страдания я тебя отплачу,
Смотри пока тебе отрезаю голову!>>

Как им сказано, так им сделано всё
Рядом с дорогой шло страшное кино.
Утром нашла я её кровавое тело
Так умерла наша любимая королева.

[Ezra]

It reminds me of my own poems back in the time. Though they were not that pessimistic and, while featuring different facets of death, were way more cheerful .

[Saim]

I have mostly rested the past week, but this week I have been getting into a Polish detective series called Ultraviolet, which I am watching in Polish with Polish subtitles, which works (for the most part). Not that I understand every detail, but I understand enough to follow the plot, which is enough for me in Polish, as my Polish is not that impressive.

Is it any good? I watched the first episode a while ago and was kind of unimpressed, but maybe it picks up from there.

[tarvos]

And more grammatically sound, I assume?

Is it any good? I watched the first episode a while ago and was kind of unimpressed, but maybe it picks up from there.

I like it. But I like crime series in general and I am also watching it to improve my Polish. I don't really think too much about the plot or things when it comes to series like that.

[tarvos]

I finished Ultraviolet and have been reading some more Tsvetaeva poetry. That's about it.

[tarvos]

I have been fairly unactive with language learning. I notice that I've become quite uninterested in traditional language learning using textbooks lately (it bores the shit out of me) and I've been doing maintenance on languages I already know. I'm still on the Tsvetaeva tome, halfway, and because it takes so long, I already started a Swedish detective by Anna Jonsson called Alla de stilsamma döda, which isn't that interesting so far (I remember the first book I read being better).

Apart from that my life has been filled with very tiring other activities, namely chess tournaments, going to Metallica shows, and that sort of thing. I also don't do a lot of language learning when I'm at my partner's place, partially because I like watching Netflix shows in different languages but my partner balks at anything beyond English when they're tired, but also partially because I don't spend my entire week there yet and relationships also take up some of my energy.

I did finish watching Quicksand (Störst av allt) (a Swedish courtroom drama) and am now watching the Swedish-French co-production Midnattsol.

[tarvos]

I have nearly finished the Tsvetaeva tome and I also finished Midnattsol. I'm not doing much outside of that, except waiting for the information on my entrance exam for the interpreting course. And in that case, it's back to Spanish.

I know that I haven't posted much here, but apart from the above, I am pretty much just maintaining all my languages in the usual ways. I have been planning a trip to Portugal for fall 2019 with my partner, but we'll see how that all turns out.

[tarvos]

In my quest for more languages, my partner turned me on to the Japanese visual novel / anime / a lot Fate. I am now watching the stay night anime with English subs because Netflix doesn't have Japanese ones and my Japanese is bad.

Oh lord help me I am crossing over into weeaboo land! If I start punctuating sentences with soo desu ne we will know whether I have succeeded.

[David27]

It gets the best of us. Lucky for me, I found and love “Terrace House” a Japanese reality TV show that I am obsessed with, that my wife likes, and that gives me what seems like hundreds of hours of available Japanese exposure without just diving into anime (what I started doing prior to Terrace House). I’m sure it’s really just delaying my full weeaboo evolution.