sobota, 20 grudnia 2014

The music I’m crazy about. Part 2: Slovenian rock

I love foreign languages. The music which I listen to is connected with that passion. I like listen to many kinds of music in many different languages. Sometimes the lyrics of the song aren’t so important to me. I like to listen to music in foreign language even if I don’t understand what the song is about. It is sufficient that I like the sound of the language and how it fits the music.

One of my favourite rock bands is Siddharta. It is one of the most known Slovenian rock bands. It was founded by four friends: Tomi Meglič, Primož Benko, Primož Majerič and Boštjan Meglič in 1995. In the course of time the members of the band has changed a little bit. Today the band consists of five members: Tomi Meglič (vocals and guitar), Primož Benko (guitar and back vocals), Boštjan Meglič (drums), Jani Hace (bass guitar) and Tomaž O. Rous (keyboard).


The name Siddharta comes from the title of a book written by a German writer Herman Hesse. They play songs in Slovene and English. Here is one of my favourite songs of Siddharta, Napoj:


At the beginning of 2014 the band gave a big surprise to their Polish fans. They recorded the Polish version of one of their biggest hits 'Samo edini' ('Samo jedyny'):



I feel very lucky because I had a chance to know the members of Siddharta in person after one of their concerts in Poland in 2013. Until now I’ve been only at three concerts of Siddharta. I can’t wait to another one and I hope that in the future I will have a possibility to go to their concert in Slovenia. I also would like to learn Slovene. Here is a photo of me and Siddharta’s vocalist Tomi:


piątek, 12 grudnia 2014

The music I'm crazy about. Part 1: Ambient music

I decided to put aside my dreams for some time and dedicate a few posts to music. Recently, during our English classes I presented a podcast which was an interview with Brian Eno. He is an English musician, composer and music producer born in 1948 in Woodbridge.




He is a pioneer of one of my favourite music genres called ambient music. It is an experimental electronic music which as distinct from classic electronic music doesn’t contain linearly developed melodic line and tracks are composed of dispersed composition of sounds. Eno came up by accident with the idea of making music which isn’t a focal event but the surrounding or the background of our everyday activities. One day he had an accident, he was hit by a taxi and he was immobile for some days. He was lying in bed and listening to music but one of his speakers had failed and he couldn’t move from the bed to change up the volume. It was raining outside and the only thing that he heard was a sound of raindrops beating against the window and from time to time some notes of a harp coming from the player. This way he discovered a new way of listening to music.

Why do I love ambient music? I came across this genre for the first time about three years ago. I found it very strange but beautiful music. It is usually very peaceful and relaxing. It helps me to relax and calm down after a stressful day. It also helps me to concentrate during learning and is very inspiring during working on something. Listening to it is like a trip to another place on the world. If you have never had to deal with ambient and want to listen to it for the first time I recommend you to sit comfortably and close your eyes so you could derive more pleasure from that. Here is the first piece of ambient music that I heard and also my favourite one: An Ending (Ascent) from Brian Eno’s album Apollo:




Another ambient music I listen to: Biosphere, Boards of Canada, Tim Hecker, Ous Mal, Clubroot, Amiina.

niedziela, 30 listopada 2014

A dose of creations of my imagination

It’s high time to present some examples of my unusual dreams. As I wrote in my first post I have a notebook, or rather two notebooks in which I write down my dreams. I started to do this almost four years ago and I have already gathered more than 100 dreams. Unfortunately, a lot of my dreams disappeared from my mind before I could save them. I chose three dreams that I think are weird, funny and contain some elements and situations that could never happen in real life. Here they are:

“Pre-Easter shopping”
It was a sunny morning of Easter Saturday. My mother just prepared a basket with food to take it to church but she suddenly noticed that she forgot to buy bacon. She said that it was very important ingredient of the Easter breakfast and she asked me to go to the shopping center to buy a piece of bacon. When I went there the stalls with food were almost empty because people bought everything. I asked each seller if he had a little bit of bacon. Unfortunately I heard only negative answers so I decided to buy a piece of cheesecake instead. I thought that for my mum there was no difference between bacon and cheesecake. When the seller was packing the cake I reached for my wallet. Suddenly I saw a man dressed in black with a balaclava on his face running at me. He quickly approached me and started tickling me. I couldn’t stand it, I was laughing and I fell to the floor dropping the wallet. The robber grabbed my wallet and run away from the shopping center. Nobody even reacted to that situation…

“Walking in the forest”
Me and my boyfriend went for a walk to the forest. I was afraid of wild animals. He wanted to calm me and told me how to behave in case of attack of a dangerous animal: ‘When you see a wild animal you can’t go away! You should jump in the bushes, walk on all fours and growl as a dog. All the forest creatures are afraid of dogs and wolves. If you pretend to be one of these two other animals won’t do anything bad to you.’ We were continuing our walk when suddenly I heard the snap of branches and purr of an animal. We started going on all fours and growling in the bushes. The animal was running in our direction so I growled louder and more threatening. When the animal approached us I noticed that it was a huge bear. I thought that the method of growling didn’t work but when the bear was very close to me it fell to the ground and died. My boyfriend looked at me with a big surprise on his face and said: ‘I was just kidding with that growl!’



“Good always wins”
I was on a private, fenced territory and I couldn’t find the exit. I saw a barn and I entered it. There was my friend and an old woman. My friend told me not to listen to the woman because she was a witch and she could cast a spell on me if I listened to her words. I realized that we were prisoners of that witch. Then the husband of the witch called her and when she went out of the barn I started to mull over a plan of escape. My friend wasn’t optimistic of that idea. She didn’t believe in our success. Unexpectedly I noticed that the woman was far away with her husband and they didn’t see us. I caught my friend’s hand and I started to run towards the fence. The witch saw us and began to chase us waving the wand. Fortunately, at the last minute we managed to jump over the fence. We hid behind two trees which suddenly quaked and their roots emerged over the ground. The trees flew away with me and my friend embracing the trunks and they took roots in the lawn next to the house of an old couple who were good people. They were very happy to see us. The woman showed us the destroyed house of the witch in the far distance and said ‘You defeated the witch! It’s true that good always wins!’

wtorek, 11 listopada 2014

The only remaining flash of creativity

In reference to my previous post I would like to write about how my creativity and imagination have changed in the course of time.

When I finished elementary school, my mind was still full of ideas. I found a new way to realise them and I started to write poems, stories and lyrics for songs. Initially I didn't want anyone to read them, but one day I showed some of my compositions to my ex-best friend. Unexpectedly, she also began to write. Then I noticed that her poems were very similar to mine. Probably for that reason I lost the inspiration. Even if I had time and wanted to write something I lacked ideas.
In upper secondary school I wrote only a few short poems. Anyway, in the drawer in my desk there were a lot of sheets of paper with some incomplete lines written on them.

Besides poems I was using my imagination also to create some handmade gifts, decorations and jewellery. I used to spend all my free time making bracelets, earrings and other trinkets for my family, friends and for myself. I’ve never used any model, I have always invented my own designs for jewellery. However, as time goes by, the number of my projects has decreased. Fortunately in this case the inspiration didn’t disappear at all. It still happens that I create some handicrafts but only occasionally.

I would like to tell you something more about this hobby. If it comes to jewelry I like the most to make earrings and bracelets with colourful beads. I like floral patterns and vivid, warm colours, not pastel (and I hate pink!).




A lot of my friends think I’m crazy that I have the patience to create something with such tiny components. Nevertheless I love it and what’s more my patience is almost unlimited. For example when I drop one bead I don’t take immediately another one but firstly I have to look for that first bead everywhere. 


Except jewellery I like to make also gift boxes, greeting cards and other useful decorations.

Now I have problem when I have to come up with an idea to do something. It refers not only to artistic activity but also to other areas of my life. I wonder where is my imagination now? And I guess it hid somewhere in my dreams, given that they are so unusual, intriguing and complex.

At this point it would be good to quote one of my weirdest dreams but unfortunately I can’t trust my memory and the notebook with my dreams isn’t in my reach now. Therefore I will continue this subject in my next posts.


niedziela, 26 października 2014

My childish dreams

I’ve been thinking for a long time about what to write in this post and I decided to start with the very beginning, this is to write some facts about my childhood and my dreams from that period.

As a child I was very creative. I used to spend a lot of time with my three years older sister and with my four years younger brother. We used to invent our own games and outdoor activities. We preferred also to play with own-made toys than those bought. And it was almost always me to come up with an idea.
My parents were always saying that I had an overactive imagination. Probably because I used to tell everyone some invented stories which sometimes were very plausible (no matter if the listener was my peer, an aunt, a neighbour or just the saleswoman from the local grocery store). There were a few cases when someone believed in my words and my mum had to explain the situation.
When I started to go to school I could use those fantastic abilities to write stories for my Polish homework. Then my stories began to be more unrealistic. Teachers were always fascinated with them. Also my classmates used to like to listen to my essays.
Another fact which I find worth to mention is that I loved to watch animated television series. Initially me and my sister watched for example Moomin, The Smurfs, Maya the Honey Bee and Gummi Bears. Among them Moomin was my favourite one. Then my sister discontinued watching series for kids and my brother turned into her place ;) I remember those times when every morning we woke up at 7 am and jumped into my parent’s bed which was situated in front of the TV. That time began the program for children with lots of cartoons!

I listed those facts because I think they had an influence on my childish dreams. First of all, in my childhood a big quantity of my dreams was animated! They looked just like the animated TV series. I saw both animated places, objects, animals and people. If it comes to characters they were both invented and real people who I know. I also saw myself as an animated character not only once. Have you ever seen an animated scene in your mind during the sleep? I guess some of you could see something like that. But I think it is less probably that your dreams have the titles, subtitles and end credits. My dreams had these elements.


Now I remember only one of my animated dreams and I want to tell you it:

"Prince Ludwik"

In a strange place, somewhere outside my house I met a boy. He was rather short and slim. He had beautiful brown eyes and his blond hair reached his shoulders. The only thing which I found odd was his clothing. He wore white tight trousers, white blouse, brown shoes and something that looked like a short cloak. It was dark blue.
The boy smiled at me and asked my name. Then it was his turn to introduce himself to me:
‘I am Prince Ludwik.’ he said.
I was surprised and very happy to meet a real prince. Then he asked me if I would like to go to the castle, which was his house, and be a guest on the ball. My answer was positive.
We danced the whole ball together and in the end of the party he asked me to be his wife. I said yes and I became a beautiful princess.
Since that time I started to live with Prince Ludwik in the castle, I had a lot of beautiful dresses and I was very happy.

The end

At the end of the post I would like to introduce the companion of all my childish dreams. It is teddy bear hand made by my mum. It is called Misiu Krzysiu but my foreign friends know it as Teddy Bear Christopher. When I was a child I slept with it every night!

P.S. Misiu Krzysiu used to be snow-white but it's been 19 years since I got it.

środa, 15 października 2014

I had a dream...

Hello!

A few months ago I had a dream about a blog. It was my own blog. I thought it couldn't be a coincidence. It must be a destiny! So I decided to start my first blog and now I have an opportunity to do this.

My dreams are very important to me. I'm not sure if they have any special meanings but one day I decided to start writing them in a notebook because I don't want them to vanish from my mind. 
In my following posts I will write about my real life and also about how my life looks like in my dreams! You will know what I like and what I hate, what I want and what I'm afraid of. I will tell about what happened in my life appealing to my dreams. If you want to see my little world you are welcome to read my posts :)