back to school

I’m sitting in the library. I’m browsing through computer catalogues. I’m biting my nalils. Why this old piece of junk is so slow.

I’m sitting in the library. I am supposed to be browsing through computer catalogues. I’m checking my e-mail. I got two. I must reply to my e-mails.

I’m sitting in the library. I got my own computer. I came here to browse a bit the computer catalogues. My computer is much better than the guy’s in front, and slightly worse than the girl’s on the left, but at least cheaper.

I’m sitting in the library. But God, please cut off the power supply, so I could go home.

School starts tomorrow. 

Supraśl, 21 September, 4.47 pm

a double rainbow
burning in the graphite sky
as the droplets fall

Occasionally, a second, dimmer, and thicker secondary rainbow is seen outside the primary bow. Secondary rainbows are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops, and appear at an angle of 50°–53°. As a result of the second reflection, the colours of a secondary rainbow are inverted compared to the primary bow, with blue on the outside and red on the inside. The dark area of unlit sky lying between the primary and secondary bows is called Alexander’s band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it.

Diagram showing how primary and secondary rainbows are formed

1 Spherical droplet
2 Places where internal reflection of the light occurs
3 Primary rainbow
4 Places where refraction of the light occurs
5 Secondary rainbow
6 Incoming beams of white light
7 Path of light contributing to primary rainbow
8 Path of light contributing to secondary rainbow
9 Observer
10 Region forming the primary rainbow
11 Region forming the secondary rainbow
12 Zone in the atmosphere holding countless tiny spherical droplets

I CAN’T SLEEP I CAN’T SLEEP I CAN’T SLEEP

Dear Insomnia or whatever-you-are,
You seem to like me. Sorry to ruin your pretty delusion, but I like you NOT. I wish to end up our relationship. Don’t come up to my bed again. Never. Pretty please.
Last night we were discussing black holes, then we talked about my Physics test that’s coming up tomorrow, later about Tim Curry and his wonderful lips, and we were talking on and on for 3 hours. When finally you went back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about you, so I started to draw. I can’t really draw. I thought, maybe I can write then? But word seemed to be too far away for my mind to reach for it. Camera was already asleep, just like my computer and books. Only water was awake. But even this damned water, who had befriended with you couldn’t let me sleep. It became a dipole. I could feel it’s a dipole. I could feel by touching it with my tongue. You know what?
I hate dipoles.
So again, I was in my bed, trying to get an eye full of sleep. I guess I wasn’t trying hard enough, because I heard notes crawling across my blanket. It was you again, you turned the radio on and Pink Floyd started to play. I listened to their whole concert. It’s a shame autographs and lasers weren’t provided – you need to work on it really hard.
Later, I became so careless (or tried) I don’t remember a thing. You could do anything with me, rape me or sell my kidneys on e-bay, I wouldn’t mind, because I WANTED TO SLEEP. Close my eyes. Sniff my pillow. Shut down my brain. Dream.
And I did.
For 3 hours.
‘I feel good… I know that I wouldn’t… OOOH I feel good…’, my mobile sang, informing me that it’s 6:55 A.M.
‘No, I do not feel good,’ I muttered, turning of the alarm. ‘because I. Haven’t. Slept. Much.’ I hurried to kitchen and made some tea. A really strong one.
So you see. I don’t want you in my life. So get out. Goodbye, ciao and adios.
Hope to not see you soon.
Cheers,
Susan

Two homes (1)

The family home is a fundamental part of most people’s lives, so it is not surprising that both Lorca and Chekhov have placed such great emphasis on providing the audience with an insight into their characters’ homes. The significance of the homes in the plays is evident from the very beginning, as the titles of both of the family estates are also the titles of the plays, “The Cherry Orchard” and “The House of Bernarda Alba”. The home is a place which every person sees in a different light; some, like Lyuba, see it as a place to be loved, cherished and remembered “I love this house. I can’t understand my life without the Cherry Orchard.”, whereas people like Bernarda see the home as a refuge, a place to hide from the outside and a place of secrets. Whatever attitudes a person takes to their home, it is generally acknowledged to be a place of privacy for the family, somewhere that is not visible to the public. In both “The Cherry Orchard” and “The House of Bernarda Alba” all of the action takes place within the home and we are never shown anywhere other than the house or the grounds, presenting the audience with a reality that would otherwise be hidden from them, providing an interesting array of conflicting views between the characters and between the playwrights and society.

At the time of writing, both Lorca and Chekhov lived in troubled societies. Lorca’s Spain was under the rule of the fascist General Franco and was a society where traditional Catholic values were of the utmost importance and Chekhov’s Russia was undergoing a battle between traditional Russian methods and new Western ideas, as well as integrating the serfs and muzhiks into society after the Emancipation. In both of the dramas, the way that the homes are run and the problems faced within them are representative of what was going on in society at the time.

Bernarda is obsessed with gossip but at the same time wants absolute silence from her daughters and Poncia on subjects that she will hear nothing of. As soon as she hears something she doesn’t like or that is ‘unorthodox’ in her house, she will shout “Silence! Be quiet I said!” and, just like Franco, could easily adopt the name ‘the silencer’. The strict, Catholic values in society and also within the house are evident when the audience is told the story of the woman who had a child out of wedlock. The immediate response of the house’s inhabitants (apart from Adela) is that of incredulity and outrage and Bernarda says that what the woman deserves would be “a red hot coal in the place of her sin!” showing how much society opposes unorthodox and indecent behaviour, which is mirrored in the family’s attitude at finding out about Adela’s affair with Pepe El Romano “I’d have poured a river of blood on her head.”.
Read more..

9/11*

My name is Kristy. I work in Manhattan as a milk-girl, I deliver milk to cafés, bars, restaurants and shops. On Thursday morning I was in a traffic jam, talking to my friend on the phone when I suddenly heard the roar of a plane’s engines. I looked up and saw a big Boeing flying very low. I told my friend about it but she told me to ignore it. Next I stopped at my favourite Green Café because I always stop there for breakfast. While I was having my coffee and reading tennis reports I heard a big bang and a lot of noise after that. I wondered what was happening. Many people around me started to run out of the café and I heard them shout and scream.

My name is Kate. I’m a schoolgirl living in Manhattan. On Thursday I woke up at seven o’clock, got dressed and had breakfast. I left home at 8.30. On my way to school I stopped at H&M shop because I saw a beautiful, yellow-black T-shirt in the window. I entered the shop and was talking to one of the assistants when I heard a very loud noise coming from the riverside. It was really scary. People in the street stopped walking and started shouting. I left the shop and looked where they were looking. I saw that one of the towers was burning.

My name is Mary. I work as a doctor in Saint Christopher’s Hospital in Manhattan. On Thursday morning I woke up at seven, took a shower, had some fruit for breakfast and left home at 7.30. I stopped at Alfredo’s to have a cup of coffee. When I finished it I went to the newsagent next door and bought the New York Times. Suddenly I heard the roar of a plane outside. I ran out to see what was happening, but I didn’t see the plane. About one minute later I heard something like a big explosion.

My name is Franek. That morning I had a big breakfast, got dressed and left for work in Manhattan. I clean windows on skyscrapers with my friends Tomek and Piotrek. I drove to work in my new car. We met in the car park by the river and walked to the the building on which we had to work. At about 9 o’clock we were getting ready on the roof of the 50-floor skyscraper. We always start from the top and go down in special lifts outside the walls. Suddenly Piotrek shouted “Look!” and showed us something in the sky. A big passenger plane was coming towards us. In about 20 seconds it was flying very close to us. We could see people’s faces in the windows. We knew that something was wrong with the plane. It was getting lower all the time. Next we saw it hit one of the World Trade Center buildings. The noise was frightening and I closed my eyes for a few seconds.

*maoma_group were 8 and 9 on 11 September 2001

Inspiration

Julius and Adam were sitting on the opposite sides of small table. They barely had space for their elbows, because they had put there almost everything they had, meaning four packs of cards, two big mugs with some watery coffee inside, their most famous writings, also covered with Adam’s favourite drink and one pair of broken glasses.
‘I am so bored of playing cards’, said Adam. ‘If you only were a challenging opponent, it would be one hundred times more exciting.’
Julius didn’t reply. He just stared at his company, sitting still.
‘I have an idea, brilliant idea, as always’, Adam continued. ‘Instead of playing cards, we will talk. I’ll tell you what I think about you, and you’ll tell me what you think about me!’
Julius nodded slightly.
‘I’ll start, then’, he said and without any further agreement began. ‘First of all, I think your poetry is horrendous. I’ve never read anything so cheesy and teary in my life or afterlife! Dreadful, simply dreadful. In my opinion you’re being too romantic even for the romantic era.’, Adam stopped, waiting for a reaction. But there wasn’t any, so he went on. ‘Secondly – you as a person. The first word that came up to my mind was boring – because you’re bloody boring. You never say a word, and you’re calmer than our Lord is! It is not natural for a human… Or maybe you aren’t one, are you!’
Julius gazed at Adam with an expressionless face, and Adam loathed it from the bottom of his heart. He was a man of a very, very short temper, and he was about to lose it right now.
‘Besides! I bet you never had a woman!’, Adam said proudly. ‘And even if you had, I guess she wasn’t really… ‘ he raised his eyebrows, and looked down a bit. ‘… satisfied.’ he finished. ‘How do I know? Oh, just look at you. No-one can use a word ‘manly’ and ‘Julius’ in one sentence!’
Adam’s friend remained silent.
‘YOU! ANSWER ME!’ Adam suddenly stood up and hit the table with both fists, spilling more coffee. Now he was angry – no, he was furious. His face was so close to Julius’ face, that he could see every shade of blue in his eyes, and every curl of his hair in his messy fringe. After a while he backed off, still looking at Julius with anger in his eyes.
Julius bit his lip, then he looked straight at Adam.
‘And I always thought of you as a werewolf’, he said, drank his coffee, stood up and left, leaving Adam speechless.
Later Adam whispered to himself: ‘I’m about to write a sonnet…’.

Canterbury Tales (13)

Aha, so this post has a Fibonacci number in the heading. 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, … we could go ad infinitum. The Fibonacci sequence seems to be written into the world around us, embedded in mathematics, geometry, nature, art, acoustics, architecture etc. Basically, it’s about growth and learning from what we found out before to get a new piece of information.
Here at the University of Kent, there live thousands of students and rabbits. Evidently more of the latter. Rabbits are the animals Fibonacci originally used to explain his sequence of numbers in the 13th century. So while in Kent, watching all those bunnies hopping around, Gigiola Delmonte, an Italian maths teacher, gave us this puzzle to illustrate the Fibonacci sequence. Thank you Gigiola.

Imagine we put a pair of rabbits in a field and they can reproduce after one month. At the end of the first month they mate but there is still only one pair. And then each month they produce a pair. So at the end of the second month there are two pairs in the field. At the end of the third month, the original pair produces a second pair, and their previous offspring become reproductive, making three pairs in all. And on it goes. The problem to solve is for those mathematically inclined:

Provided there are no foxes around, and no diseases, how many pairs will there be in one year?