anya's lj

Syke. Well, no and yes. Yes being that nobody reads my stupid crap here, not including the ever increasing swarm of bots...
Oh, and  I'm suddenly just paranoid  fo5 years late.

That and I'm canceling this account come October when it expires since I hardly ever bother to write or even read posts here anymore. Plus, not only is it really empty and boring around here (no offense to my remaining friend  here that still update!) , but a lot of things concerning "livejournal" just seem vastly........off. And pushing some serious suspect. Fishy, that is.

Sucks 'cause LJ - despite the common irritations - has always been delightful to me. Now not so much....and that makes me kinda sad/mas. Love you all, nevertheless!

What the hell.

So, I receive email notifications for friends birthday and such. Always have. Well, I received 2 emails today from Livejournal notifying me of MY birthday (which is tomorrow, thankyouverymuch!) and another one for ex_anyasm654 ?!?!?!

OK. First of all, who the fuck is ex_anyasm654 ? Is this some bot or is this part of my account that I never knew about?? Because it's my name and with all my personal information, yet without a single journal entry on *her* homepage. What's up with this? 

And secondly, why am I a friend of anyasm?!? And, yes, that would be me - myself!! Curious, I checked the Add/Remove Friend page of my account and I (anyasm ) is listed as being my friend. Since when am I a friend of myself?! This is definitely news to me. Oh, and while I was on that page, ex_anyasm654 did NOT appear on the list.

Needless to say, I am really confused and also halfway pissed-off that I have to write in my journal about my stoopid LJ account bs and probable account hijacking that I don't even understand or nor know how to even explain all the other (yes there's more) weird, tweak-y things involved with my Livejournal account.

Maybe I am worrying over nada and am an idiot and all, but I don't care. The internet techie stuff is pretty much all mumbojumbo to me and it's not my profession so I need answers.

Anyone care to help me out?
Pretty please?

Right off the bat, I was going to say 'sight' but after actually thinking about it for more than just one minute, I've decided I'd choose to keep 'touch'. Hey, if Helen Keller did it, then I could theoretically do it too! Plus, today there's many more supportive options in coping with blindness and/or deafness especially in the surgical realm of things. Surgery, albeit nowhere near to being a perfect solution, has undoubtedly advanced at warp-speed, and it can't be too far off from the day that it is perfected and the perfect option.

What in hell's fury am I trying to say?
It's 2am and I should be in bed - not answering silly writer's block questions! Add to it that I know absolute crap about medicine/surgical procedures, etc. But what I do know is that if I only had 1 out of the 5 human senses, I'd definitely off myself within minutes of leaving the womb, praying all the while that reincarnation really does exists so that I could give life another go around.

By Sergei Chernov
Staff Writer

A man died after being detained by police in St. Petersburg, Interfax reported Thursday. The case is the latest in a recent wave of violent incidents involving police officers.

According to a statement from the police, a police officer used his foot to “push away” the man, who was allegedly drunk, in the process of detaining him on Nov. 2 because the man “leaned” on the officer.

The following day, the man was taken to the city’s Mariinsky Hospital, where he died of a burst bladder on Nov. 12. A police officer was detained on suspicion of injuring the man on Tuesday.

The case is one in a string of violent incidents involving policemen, the most recent of which was reported on Tuesday (see page 15), when three Moscow police officers were detained after beating a man to death in Moscow. They were reported to have been drunk when they assaulted the man.

The year’s most infamous incident happened in April when Major Denis Yevsyukov went on a shooting rampage, killing two people and injuring seven in a Moscow supermarket. He was also reported to have been drunk.

Maxim Reznik, the leader of the local branch of the Yabloko Democratic Party, said such incidents were no longer news in Russia.

“Sadly, the collective image of the Russian police today is not Uncle Styopa [an idealized Soviet policeman from a children’s poem by the late Sergei Mikhalkov], but the infamous Major Yevsyukov,” Reznik said by phone on Thursday.

Reznik said that the Russian police force’s two main problems are involvement in politics and corruption.

“The police feel that they don’t serve the people, but the corrupt bureaucrats — and people treat the police with contempt and fear,” he said.

“Feeling their necessity and impunity, [the police] themselves plunge into corruption and have become a repressive body. Some officers from Precinct 76 were detained in St. Petersburg recently for extorting 25 million rubles ($860,000). I’m not surprised that it was Precinct 76, because that’s where representatives of oppositional organizations were taken many times. “

Although there has been much discussion lately about the necessity of police reform, Reznik said the police could not be reformed without changing the way authority is structured in Russia.

“It’s impossible to think that we’ll change the bad policemen for the good ones now, and everything will change,” he said.

“There are good and bad people everywhere, but the system should be built in such a way that it helps the good ones, and doesn’t show indulgence toward the bad ones. There are good policemen even now, but it’s simply not their time.

“The police should be under very serious control from an independent parliament, which doesn’t exist; from an independent media, which is mostly under the control of the bureaucracy; and, of course, from an independent court system.

“An independent parliament, media and court system — all of this is called ‘democracy;’ there’s no other word for it.”

SOURCE

Forgive me for the bad quality these pictures have turned out to be - my digital camera is practically broken and nothing turns out good. Oh well, better than nothing, right? Besides, Christmas is only about a month away and then there's my birthday in late January *hint hint!!!*

Russian Orthodox Church -
This church is right down the street at the end of the block from where our friend lives in Chicago (and where he kindly let us stay for 4 days). The 'hood is dubbed Ukrainian Village - and yes, there are a lot of Russian/Ukrainians/Belorussians in the area.






Quick side note memory: One morning on our way to get some coffee, we encountered two crusty-looking men grumbling to each other in Russian walking towards us on the sidewalk. One of the men suddenly cleared his throat and repulsively hocked a massive loogie, spitting at the concrete, only milliseconds before passing us. Ew, so nasty and impolite. Looking up at Vasya, I was astonished to see him start laughing. And laughing hard, too. I asked what was so funny and he replied: "Gopniks! In America! I just can't believe that gopniks are living here in Chicago! The madness!" Yeah, it really is a small world after all (sorry for the cliché) and quite interesting to see that culturally learned behavior and such doesn't easily die, even when re-establishing oneself across the other side of the globe.


Anyways, minus our fellow gopniki, I really loved this neighborhood and everything about it - it's just so quaint, easy to walk around, and totally neighborhood-y while being only a short bus ride from the hubbub of downtown. Kruto, da?!

Yesterday:

- STILL living the ghetto fabulous life without a refrigerator and now the Exxon guys ask me if I'd like a bag of ice with any purchase I make. At least we upgraded from the cruddy styrofoam ice chest to a full-size Rubbermaid cooler!

- I got pulled-over for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, while driving to an extremely important meeting. And I was unforgivably late because of that cop bastard.

- Discovered water leaking under the bathroom sink. Now I get to call a plumber - yay!

- I rear-ended my new car into a fat, yellow, concrete post which I somehow did not see. I started crying on my way home...

Wrote a REALLY long post on LJ about a bunch of stuff I wanted/needed to get off my chest (the first in a looong while), only to hit the wrong button when my mouse suddenly went bat-shit crazy, deleting ALLLL of it. And no, the 'restore draft' thing didn't work. *cries* (yet again).

- Decided to get drunk off of Lambic (Framboise), which seemed like an excellent idea at the time. But it just ended up making me drowsy and feeling like a whiny lush.

Last night And here i was counting on everyone 2 b too hungover from halloween parties to come out . :P

I'm really not a "weather buff" or even hold much interest in the subject, but ever since living in Russia (especially Saint-Petersburg), I can't help being much more aware of the daily temperatures and climate conditions. Oh, and being married to a marine engineer who's interested in all things meteorological doesn't hurt either. That said, this year has seemed especially cooler than normal, particularly this month of October. It is effin colddddd!!!i I'm  disappointed because it is Vasya's first time living here in the USA with me and I wanted him to experience first-hand just how disgustingly humid and miserably hot it tends to get here in the summer. Naturally, it was the coolest summer I can ever remember, and he probably thinks I made the whole thing up and am just a big ninny. When autumn started, I assured him that September and some of October are usually just extensions of the summer but with dryer air and cooler nights. Yeah, well now I look like a liar, too, because there's absolutely no extended-summer-feeling about it being 39°F (4°C), overcast and drizzling. And it's been relatively this damn cold for more than a week! Goddamn. Maybe I will just blame the weather - the weather Vasya apparently brought with him from Russia. 

Бугьте Здоровы, Мои Дорогие Друзья!

:)))

External Funding Opportunities for Graduates

Academic-Year Scholarships
Council of Higher Education Scholarship
Jacob K. Javits
Ford Foundation Predoctoral Diversity Fellowships
AAUW Educational Foundation Fellowships
Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans
American Council for Polish Culture
The Kosciuszko Foundation Tuition Scholarship
Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship
National Security Education Program (NSEP), David L. Boren Fellowship

( The Cut! - click to read more... )

"twitter is the autotune of the internet, producing worthless material."

                                                                                                                                                               -- agyoi (on 10/14/09)

Okay, this one is actually legit, but everything after the cut may not be... They're the kind of questions that make you want to bathe with a toaster (or SPOILER ALERT: poisonous jellyfish). I assume some of them are fake, but I sadly guarantee a
good portion are serious. And, well, *pouring out a little liquor* it's been real, humanity.

Hit it for a dozen or so of the worst questions ever asked...
 

( Hit it for a dozen or so of the worst questions ever asked. )

 

Source:
http://www.geekologie.com/2009/05/the_worst_and_saddest_of_yahoo.php

Got an email from Lucia at Proz.com (a translation service). I'm posting a copy of that email in case anyone is interested in entering it - you don't have to be or become a member to do so, but you should probably be literate in both English and Russian. :)))

Here's what the email said:

Dear Xxxxxxx, Another edition of the ProZ.com literary translation contest (theme: "business") is now underway, and entries in English to Russian are being rated by site users in what is known as the "qualification round". You are invited to stop by and rate a few entries; this will help ensure that the best entries make it to the finals. Note that you don't have to be a member to provide feedback to contestants and rate entries. Regards, Lucia Leszinsky Member services and support Contest coordinator

Oh this is just perfect.... does this "new" law even make a difference?

http://thefastertimes.com/mexico/2009/08/21/mexico-decriminalizes-drugs-for-personal-use/

The stars are fascinating tonight - a multitude of a thousand flickering fireflies, each one outshining the other.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/07/georgian-blogger-accuses-russia

While watching one of the local news channels the other day, a story about a man who had been discovered inside of a burning minivan around 4am the previous week suddenly came up. I gasped when I heard that the burned body was identified as a 45-year old man nicknamed "Ebou" who lived in Takoma Park. It couldn't be him, it couldn't be! But when the camera panned into a familiar-looking Exxon station where he'd worked at near my mother's house for over 15 years, my heart just basically... burst. I couldn't believe it - I mean, I still cannot believe it. Who would want to burn one of the nicest people ever to have lived on earth? Why would someone murder this loving, hard-working husband and father of 3 young girls??? How could this have had happened?

Ebou was the most genuinely kind, humble, friendly, intelligent, big-hearted man I have probably ever met in my lifetime. We had countless conversations over the years every time I would come in to get gas. I couldn't help but always leave there with a big smile and a happier outlook on general life after having talked to him. And I couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed whenever he was not working. He always went out of his way to help me and my family in any way he possibly could. The last time was when he helped me change the front headlight bulb to my downtrodden, quirky VW. He was such a joy, such a refreshing person and I am honored to have known this beautiful, first-rate man. I cannot fathom the pain and anguish his family - which he loved so much & never failed to talk about - must be going through at this time. I hope with everything in me that this horrific incident   crime will be resolved and that the truth of what really occurred that terrible night will come forth. You and your family are in my prayers, Ebou, and you will never be forgotten. I am blessed to have known you. May you forever rest in peace.

I will probably write/post more about this because a whole bunch of people are deeply saddened and outraged by what occurred. And, because, let's face it, he was from Gambia and the cops probably see this as just another black man who was murdered in America, this case will probably never be a top priority. But hopefully we can change this "outrage" and anguish into something worthwhile and push the police to work a little harder.

My beloved ferret, RC, died yesterday at about midnight. He had been battling, not one but two,  heart-wrenching, terminal diseases - insulinoma (a cancer) and adrenal disease - for most of his unfairly short life of 5 years and 1.5 months. His poor little body just finally gave out on him...

One minute RC was laying next to my husband  wrapped loosely in one of his blankets and smothering him with kisses. And in the next minute my husband was running out of the room carrying a limp RC and yelling: "RC's not breathing! He's turning blue!!!!" At first I thought he was having a really bad seizure again, on par to the one he suffered last week, which was the worst episode we'd witnessed him ever having. So, I rubbed a load of KaroSyrup on his gums in panic while intensely rubbing his paws and neck. But he wasn't grunting or pawing or even the slightest bit muscularly tense , nor had he any tell-tale signs of seizing for that matter, instead he was as floppy as can be and unmoving.  Plus, he was progressively turning blue. My husband even tried CPR on him while I frantically massaged his heart. When his lukewarm body suddenly grew increasingly hot, it gave us a sudden false sense of hope that he was coming  around. But as fast as he seemed to have warmed up, his temperature plummeted again. Then he was cold. Then, nothing. We couldn't even find a pulse. Tried CPR again, in vain. He was gone.

His health had really deteriorated at an alarming pace over the last 6 months and was having seizures frequently (in the past month he'd have at least 1-2 per week, temporarily revived only after I rubbed KaroSyrup or sugar-water on his gums). We had upped his dose of Pediapred to twice a day, administering .3cc's at one time. Until recently he had never had a problem with me giving it to him. But lately he had been putting up a fight, as if to tell us that he couldn't be bothered anymore, to just let him rest in peace. The last couple of days, he wouldn't touch his food unless I literally placed some kibble (slightly dampened to his liking) in front of his face. I mean, he wouldn't even finish the ferretone I always gave him as a reward for taking his medicine, which was just unheard of for RC - ferretone was like yummy ice-cream to him! The only thing he seemed to really want from either of  us was to lie down while one of us scratched his chin and neck.

I'm so thankful that he was not alone when he died, that he was with Vasya and all cozied up. He made my life so happy, even when I felt my worst. He was such a sweetheart and while laid-back, his playfulness and curiosity was abundant, he was always up for some serious goof-off time, to say the least. I can't begin to explain how much he has meant to me and how much I will miss his little self being present in my life/world. His character and persona was a rarity and I will treasure him in my heart forever.

Go to the light, my little best-boy-ever! Go scamper anywhere you will, without pain and lethargy, and be reunited again with the loves of your past life - Silver and Ginger and Asher. Be free, little man, my little polar bear, and know that your love is unending...

I am so sad.