Task sixteen: Close my studies

I thought that I should add it here to make it happen. This week I found myself in a very complicated situation. It turned out that due to some changes in the rules of studying, combined with a huge bureaucratic mess in one of the units of my unversity and my gap year which I took two years ago... I don't exist. If I don't exist I can't defend my MA dissertation and close my studies. If you ever read anything by Franz Kafka, Trial or Castle, you know what I mean. Okay, there was some procrastination from my side and it's my fault that I lost my laptop (containing a hard drive with half of my MA dissertation) and some minor mistakes could be avoided, but still, I drop shadow, I see myself in the mirror and my ankles hurt after yesterdays workout, so I'm more than sure that I exist and therefore I can defend my dissertation, close my studies and move forward with my life. Have you heard it, Warsaw Universty!? I dare you! 

Just in case, my cat is banned from entering my bedroom.

Blood, sweat and tears

If you can see this post, it's probably because I wrote it yesterday and set in this awesome Blogger schedule to post it today. And it happened, because today I can't move. (See how provident I am?). Yes. My dream number one is in progress, I got myself a gym membership and from what I feel it hurts.

And I'm not sure if I would do it, if our district sport centre wasn't Rivendell. I'm totally serious. I don't know who was the architect, but he decided to design the swimming pool, ice rink, gym, squash hall and all those things I can't even remember in a Lord-of-the-Rings themed building. And it's not only my interpretation, he mentioned his inspirations in some interviews:

I can totally see Galadriel sliding down to the water!

I had a gym membership. Once. Long long ago, in a country where the food was so incredbly awesome that going to the gym was the only way to fit into your pants. And still in the end of my stay I was wearing dresses only. You must know, that I never was a sporty person. I just didn't understand a concept of catching a ball and running and being superfast and all this stuff. Seriously, what did that ball do to you? Let it be. Leave it alone. You both can sit next to eachother and coexist in peace. Probably, Polish primary sport teaching program, designed for big kids with long legs, making short kids with short legs come to the fnish of a run as last, wasn't really encouraging either. You must admit that getting that membership was a big thing. After I bought it I aleady felt my external oblique muscle getting stronger. But you know, buying a membership is just a first half of the game. The other part is to go and actually run. 

So yesterday I made sure that I have all I needed, including a fancy t-shirt from which everybody could see what's my attitude towards sport and English grammar:

Thanks God, a coach didn't speak English, or that spelling mistake tricked him, or was simply corteous enough not to pay attention. He showed me all those threadmills and all the stuff that I'm never gonna use and let me run. So I did. I can't remember for how long I ran, but there was Justyna Kowalczyk on TV, our best cross-country skier winning something apparently important, so I felt like it's my patriotic duty to run along and support her mentally. You must know, people, that Poland is famous of nichee sports, such as ski jumping, cross-country skiing or simply racewalking, confirming the stereotype of Poland as "that poor country with loads of snow and no cars". Because nothing is better to win a race, than just walk to the finish.

Anyway, seing other people sweat gives you the spirit for fight. Then, they changed channels and it was even better, because there was a program called "Knockout Sportsworld", which was a werd combination of MMA and lucha libre with people smashing eachothers faces in most spectacular ways. However, I'm still waiting for rugby. There is no better backgound for running than watching a bunch of very big, very dirty and very pissed guys fighting for a ball. It's all about sweat, blood and tears. Almost like my yesterdays workout. Ahem.

Number nine in progress

I know, I was slacking lately. I haven't written a single post for a MONTH and I can't even find a good excuse. I guess that watching first and second season of Game of Thrones is not convincing enough. Well, believe it or not, I had a lot to do. Like making dream number nine, which is See the Northern Lights, come true. 

My friend Milena found out that this year Northern Lights will be at the peakest peak of its activity for 50 years. Okay, I must admit, I was a bit skeptical in the beginning and found quite contradictory statements on some scientific sites, but it turns out that she was right. I joined their group, we did some research, we chose Tromso in Norway instead of Rovaniemi in Finland, we saw way too many Northern Lights time-lapse videos and I was all like this:

And then I did some maths. And I got all like this:

Just because Norway is so damn expensive and what I was gonna pay for flights there and back could feed a small African country for a year. So I spend few sleepless nights imagining all the fun that Milena and the gang would have without me, and trying to calculate the value of my kidneys. Because, people, we are talking about a country where a combo meal at McDo costs 90 NOK, which is around 50 PLN, or 17$ or 13 EUR. Now try to imagine prices of trains, flights and accomodation. So I gave up, trying not to think about all this fun I'm missing, living in a rustic red Norwgian cabin with small white windows, wearing hand-made nordic sweaters, hanging out with reindeers and seing awesome Northern Lights.

And then my mom convinced me that I should go. Because I can always earn it back, and it may be difficult to find another group of people who'd like to go, and the next ocassion for such spctacular lights will be around 2063. So I decided to go. And then miracle happened. I got the only seat in Ryanair flight from Warsaw to Oslo that costed 1,02 PLN. I'm serious. It's like 0,25 EUR. And it was the only flight I could book. And then, Norwegian dropped their prices for the flight from Oslo to Tromso for like 40%. And I found a scandiblonde CSer, who is willing to host me in Oslo. Apparently, the world wants me to hang out with reindeers. 6 February, people, a little more than a month to go. Yay!

Ten: done!

Do you remember when I aimed to own a horse? It's done. Checked.. Her name is Kropka and I don't own her.

Yeah, some of you may say I'm cheating and it doesn't count. I was wondering if it counts and the answer is, that I need to express my goals more carefully.

Because, as I said, what I wanted is pretty much independence and having a horse to care for. And, thanks to my friend Ula, my dream came true. Ula is a cousin of my friend from high school. She got Kropka in early spring this year, but short after purchasing the horse it turned out that she won't be able to ride it for the next six months. And here came one of the greatest surprises ever. She asked me to take care of her horse.

Which meant becoming familiar with all this specialistic stuff. Like ummm... martingale. Or applying birch-tar on her hoofs (and sitting alone in the back of the train on my way home, because I smelled with it so much that no one wanted to sit next to me). Or giving her legs a massage with a cooling balm. And discovering later that doing it with bare hands in November may make give you frostbites. Okay. Not a serious frostbites, but it felt like it. Like... ummm... I couldn't feel that I actually had hands.

But...

for all the pain you get when a 700 kgs animal steps on your foot, and doesn't want to move...

for all the embarassment you feel when you have to clean up 3 kilograms of warm, steamy poo, which your horse fancied to have, right in front of local Tesco, during your afternoon ride...

for putting your hand into her mouth to make her take a bit...

you get a wind in your hair when you're galloping trough an open field. And that's it.

Well, you also get a super classy look once or twice a year, but I'm telling you, wind in your hair is better:

You can't really see a wind here, but I can assure you that we heard some buzzing in our ears anyway. I'd blame mulled wine they served. Kropka enjoyed a sip as well.

Task fifteen: Learn to code

Recently I had a fight with my friend Ozmen. We discussed about female programmers. Ozmen said that girls are capable to code, but they shouldn't be doing this, because it's not girly. According to Ozmen it's like driving a truck, which is also not girly. Because you know, when a girl codes and drives a truck, no guy wants to date her (indeed, I don't really recommend doing it simultaneously). We ended up with me saying he's a sexist jerk and trust me, I usually am nice to people. 

And no, I'm not gonna prove anything to anyone. I really want to know how to code, because first of all, I believe that soon it's gonna be like writing and reading. A must. No one was ever encouraging me to develop my left cereblar hemisphere. I'm not sure if it happened because I'm a math-ignorant and I can count to potato or if it didn't happen because I'm a girl.

And girls should draw, dance, write and drive strollers and trolleys.

I want to check it. I want to be able to create any website I want. I don't have to do it, but I want to know I can do it. And if I won't like it, then I'll go back to my usual drawing, writing, arty, creative activities.

And if it's gonna make this topic any easier to Ozmen, who is a web developer himself, I can use girly accesories. Such as:

Eight: done!

Okay, remember how I wrote, that I want to do something moderately crazy with my hair? Moderately enough to find a job? Don't expect any sort of Rhianna or Lady Gaga style, I just dyed part of my hair blue. Electric blue. And actually I have a job and new offers keep coming! Maybe this is what brings me luck, probably I should dye it all pink and blue.

It all took 24 PLN for a toner and 30 PLN for whitening my hair. It's my green-haired sister and I:

Task 14: Get a professional photo shoot done

Because who said it's all gonna be for higher purpose?

Wait, I think it was me.

Anyway. I won't be 24 again, and I imagine myself sitting in an old armchair, and looking at pictures from when I was 24 and still had my own teeth. When I was 8 I wanted to be a war correspondent, taking pics in the heat of battle, I never had those dreams of being a model or even a singer (I had a crush for Prince William though, I would be a perfect princess, Kate Middleton is a tough competition). So... with all the vanity I have, yes, I want to have a nice picture of myself taken. Does anybody know a good photographer?