Dandelion Wine

Worrying about other people’s opinions? Alert for criticism? Jack Nicholson calls it “rabbit ears.”

• lypophrenia: a feeling of sadness seemingly without a cause
• drapetomania: an overwhelming urge to run away
• escapism: a mental desire to retreat from unpleasant realities through fantasy
• wanderlust: a desire to travel, to understand one’s very existence
• dysania: the state of finding it difficult to get out of bed in the morning
• sanctuary: a small safe place in a troubling world
• metathesiophobia: fear of change

(Source: ohbabyitsnatalie, via cajunmama)

“The Forty Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak
Rule Number Thirty Three 

Time to train myself not to picture how everything is supposed to be.

(via etiquetteforalady)

When you see or experience something for the first time in your life - something you didn’t expect, something you didn’t even think could happen (or something you could only dream of) - you say “Unbelievable”.

But after some time this feeling fades away, you get used to That Something and it becomes so normal. So Believable. You start to want something new and more exciting, seek for another miracle.

Is it necessarily the case? Or some things, which are already familiar to you, can still make you feel like it’s a miracle happening right before your eyes?

I believe in the second variant. I hope this feeling of miracle will never fade. This feeling of miracle that 2011 brought to me.

Thank you so much.

x

musesofdesign:

(via A Green Christmas Tree | Interior Design Blog - Interior Design Ideas, Tips & Inspiration)

Days until New Year - 9!
In nine days I just HAVE to make it! I want this tree on my wall :))) 

When you’re still waiting for the snow to fall
Doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all

WOW, looks like Coldplay know about the situation in Saint-Petersburg :D

I found this cool definition in Michael Swan’s article on how to use texts constructively (in the context of teaching English). What does it define?

It defines practically all my notebooks, overfilled with German/English words from the language classes! Especially one naughty notebook that I use for my German homereading classes - there are hundreds of words, crowding up and seeking my attention, but will I ever return to them? No! So, bye-bye, words, R.I.P.

Whats the problem? TMI. If we - students - are given too many words, we get lost in them. TMI prevents us from investigating into the language more thoroughly. This superficial way of learning new words gives us too much input, often without the essential output. It’s ineffective.

So what’s the way out of it? I say, follow up Michael Swan’s advice. His articles (yup, there’s a second one) provide basic information on how to work with texts in a more efficient way. And one of his statements is that in one text you should concentrate on a relatively small number of new words - 8 or 12. Then learn them. And then - activate them. 

Thank you.

x

I’m hanging on your words
Living on your breath
Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here

I’m hanging on your words
Living on your breath
Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here

I’m hanging on your words
Living on your breath
Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here

I’m hanging on your words
Living on your breath
Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here

…

This can go on forever - beautiful

If someone asks me, why I cannot ever become a workaholic, I’d answer with this one word - Inspiration. Thus, in my opinion there are two extremes in one’s attitude to work, and those extremes are stated in the headline.

So, workaholism.

Workaholics devote all their time to working. Working on serious stuff. In my opinion, this kind of behavior can mean 2 things: either this person (let’s make him male) has a sickness and cannot restrain himself from working even if he feels like he should have a rest, or he is continuously inspired by what he does.

The second type is actually 2 extremes mixed up in one bottle. Workaholism+Inspiration = House m.d. Not so many people can become captivated by their work of choice as Gregory House. You need some luck to find this kind of occupation – that would keep you going and eventually will become your Life. But, frankly, do we need to find this kind of job? I doubt it – it involves high risks of loosing track of your personal life. Inspiration corrupts and transforms into obsession. But these workaholics at least enjoy the process. Good for them. Anyways, they are too rare, so they are not the type I’m talking about.

What I am talking about is the first type – most of the regular people for whom workaholism is a diagnosis, who have dark circles under their eyes, who drink too much coffee and abandon their families working late-hours without gaining any satisfaction from it, without having fun.

Clinical workaholics (I should note, I’ve never met one) are a mystery to me. I’m really interested in how it feels to be obsessed by work, because I myself have never experienced anything close to that. Though I do understand it’s not a good thing to feel on my own back.

I’m also really interested in the so-called ‘part-time workaholics’. I mean people who can concentrate with all their energy on what they do during working hours, but who at the same time are able to let it all go at the end of the day. For me they are also a mystery, though in this case I can say I’ve met plenty of them. This is not sickness. This is just self-control, or self-management. And those are not extremes, those are things that make sense.  They win my affection.

I lack self-control. I am not controlled by ‘self’, I am controlled by inspiration.

So, Inspiration.

Here I’m gonna look at myself as a perfect example on Inspiration-dependent person. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to find inspiration when I need to do something, but sometimes I fail.

I can devote all my energy to washing the floors while I need to be preparing for my German test. I can put 100% of my energy into preparing to my German test which I have in one week, rather than to prepare for the English test, which is tomorrow. I can translate Life Reports from David Brook’s blog while I have to translate a web-site for which I have a strict deadline. Should I continue? I think I already made myself clear. I do only the things which I feel like doing, but not the things which I have to do. And to this point I’ve been lucky enough to come through unscathed.

For me today the question is, should I fight myself and make myself more organized, and break/restrain some of my branches (yup, I consider myself to be some kind of a tree with lots of branches pointing in every direction, growing and developing freely….none of those branches are able to reach the sky, though), or should I learn how to live with those gusts of inspiration which (and I feel it) can actually lead me somewhere? Or, probably, I should just find a better balance between inspiration and self-control?… Yup, balance is always a good answer.

Thank you.

x