...blogging or not
This is a blog where I sometimes post things. These can include ramblings and wisdom. Also pictures. Main blog: lindagge.com
Sunday, 26 June 2022
Sunday, 8 August 2021
Number Four
Let me tell you about number Four.
Why do I think number 4 is significant?
Firstly, it’s nicely symmetrical. 2+2 and 2×2
and 2^2. Human beings like symmetry. Symmetrical objects are usually
considered beautiful and symmetrical features attractive.
Now let’s have a look at how many things there
are four of:
Four Seasons
spring
summer
autumn
winter
Four Cardinal Directions
north | east | south | west
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image credit: Honey Yanibel Minaya Cruz on Unsplash |
Four Elements
| air | water | earth | fire |
Obviously, once you master them all, you'll become the Avatar.
Four States of Matter
| solid | liquid | gas | plasma |
Four Arithmetic Operators
| addition | subtraction | multiplication |
division |
Four card suits
| hearts | spades | diamonds | clubs |
And corresponding tarot versions
| cups | swords | pentacles | wands |
Four Basic Tastes
| bitter | sour | salty | sweet |
Although there are five, the fifth one being umami.
Four Renaissance Artists (or Ninja turtles if you wish)
| Leonardo | Michelangelo | Donatello | Raphael
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Other examples:
Every four years we get an extra day. Leap year is also always of a number dividable by four (example: 2020). This is also the year Olympic Games take place (unless they're delayed by a pandemic), as well as the American presidential elections.
Rooms usually have four walls and four corners.
Pop culture examples include Marvel's Fantastic Four, four hobbits from the Lord of the Rings books/movies and four Hogwarts houses.
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image credit: Harry Potter wiki |
Examples from sports are the four tennis grand slams and the big four sports in America. Winter Olympic Games and World Cup happen every four years too.
And here are four red tealights.
Pictures mine, apart from those that have credits in captions.
Saturday, 2 January 2021
I Know What You Did In 2020
As we have just started a brand new year (happy new year to everyone!), I thought I'd do a post looking back at my 2020; the things I did, and places I visited. I like taking pictures--I have a whole other blog dedicated to it--and last year, strange as it was, was no exception in that regard.
So, here are the pics:
Saturday, 31 October 2020
Gothic Drawings
I have this little sketchpad. I input my attempts at art into this little sketchpad and then, of course, I take pictures of them. I don't draw often, it's more doodling than anything else. When I was a child I used to spend much of my time drawing. In the adulthood, I prefer photography. And writing blogposts when I feel like it.
I fill the little sketchpad with all the things I like and it turns out some of these are spooky-themed things. As it's Halloween, I thought I'd share them with the world.
A very simple first attempt, I drew this last year for the spooky season.
Monday, 27 April 2020
Novel Openings
Many have pondered this question. I haven't, really, and I don't know the answer, but what I can do is a do a little blog post dedicated to opening lines--or openings in general--of books I have read. That's really it.
If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling's whole life would have been entirely different.
~LM Montgomery, The Blue CastleAs much as I love Anne of Green Gables series and its protagonist, it's The Blue Castle that is my most favourite LMM book. It's the only truly adult one, it's heroine being 29 years old at the beginning of the book. Valancy is unmarried and lives with abusive family; a theme that is well known to LMM's readers (those that believe Anne With An E is too dark have not been paying attention) and to top that off, she gets some devastating news. The Blue Castle gives me some serious feels, more than any other work by this Canadian author.
It was a dark and stormy night.
~Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle In TimeI love this! Dark, stormy and night, can it get any better?
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
~George Orwell, 1984You may have heard of this one even if you've not read the book. At first it seems quite insignificant, until you get to that last word. But even if the last word was not what it is, I still like the structure of the sentence, it's the type that always works for me.
His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before.
~Isaac Asimov, FoundationAnother one that works for me. A name and a place, tell me more about this Gaal guy and what is this place called Trantor?
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.
~Sylvia Plath, The Bell JarThis one immediately made me feel hot. It's interesting that she mentions electrocution--Sylvia Plath suffered from depression all her life and was treated with electroconvulsive therapy.
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
~JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneIt's funny now that Harry Potter actually starts with the Dursleys, yet how else could it have started? It would never have been as good if we had started in the wizarding world, instead of our normal, muggle world.
~JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit
A variation of "once upon a time". Nothing more needs to be added.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
~Jane Austen, Pride and PrejudiceA classic! At first you're like, what the hell, then you're like, is she joking? Perfection!
There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.
~Charlotte Bronte, Jane EyreSimple and clear, takes us straight to the character, time and place.
Dear friend,
I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn't try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have.
~Stephen Chbosky, Perks of Being a WallflowerI have always liked diary entries and letters in fiction and this sounds like it was written by someone who might be socially awkward--instant like!
All this happened, more or less.
~Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-FiveThis is pure perfection. I wish I could form sentences like that.
There is one mirror in my house.
~Veronica Roth, DivergentMy favourite YA dystopian series. Out of two I have read. And it's an unpopular opinion too. What can you do. Characters looking into mirrors and describing their appearance is very cliche, but we soon find out why it is this way. Btw, the other YA dystopian series begins with the character waking up in the morning and that's overdone too.
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
~Harper Lee, To Kill A MockingbirdOne of the best known and most beloved books in the world. And with good reason. This book starts and ends with the same thing, Jem's broken arm, as the main character, Scout, reflects on the events. The opening line also mentions a brother and good siblings are one of my favourite things in fiction.
"You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"
Tuesday, 24 March 2020
Stay Home, Save Lives
Coronavirus has made everything else irrelevant. What matters now is: Stay at home. Only go out to buy groceries. Wash your hands. Keep social distance.
Never has there been an easier way to save the world. Stay at home and watch Netflix. That's literally it.
All that criticism of "kids these days" that "spend all their time inside playing video games" is out of the window (where it belongs).
Streaming services, books and games will be our saviours now. Disney Plus launches in UK at just the right time!
There is a meme going around about Shakespeare writing King Lear when he was quarantined, I don't know how far it's true or whatever, obviously nobody should be expected to write King Lear-like masterpiece but you never know, you might discover you have some hidden talents. Drawing, writing, music. Or you can always start a pointless blog.
Now you see my point about eBooks? Downloaded to your device within seconds, not a step outside required. If you don't have an eReader, you can still read on your computer or phone. Don't forget there are loads of free books in public domain!
I practically live as a hermit so this new order means little change for me. Staying indoors all weekend only for a trip to supermarket or launderette has basically been my lifestyle this winter. Even my cat is an indoor cat! It's the spring that usually gets me out with my camera--but not this year.
This post is all over the place because I don't know what to say and I had to address this somehow.
I leave you with another convo with my brother on Facebook messenger.
Brother: I've just eaten a kiwi and found out it was half-rotten. What will happen to me?
Me: FFS we're literally living through an apocalypse. One piece of rotten fruit won't make any difference.
Thursday, 20 February 2020
STOP SPEAKING FORRIN!!!
Monday, 27 January 2020
Brexit 50p Coin
No more meltdowns. This is the real deal. And it will be in circulation soon. On Brexit Day, 31st January.
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sajid Javid, unveiled the design on Twitter.
The engraving says: Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.
Because so far, you've not had those three things. The mean EU was taking them from you. But you will have those three things now! You will have peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations! Presumably this excludes the 27 member states of the EU and your nearest neighbours, who you've been shitting on for the past four years, but who cares, right? Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations except EU27 would have been too long to engrave on a coin anyway. It would be an absolute aesthetic disaster and we can't have that. And the date wouldn't fit there, which would be unacceptable. The date is crucial.
In my own opinion--because this is my blog--Sajid Javid looks a little like Gollum from Lord of the Rings on that picture. All he's missing is my precioussssss. So naturally, being the nice person that I am, I fixed it for him.
Better.
As a side note, does anyone else thinks Javid looks a bit like an alien? I always think of Roger from American Dad when I see him. He also reminds me of the aliens from that 90s movie, Coneheads (which I've not seen but I've seen its poster and some pics.) I don't support making fun of people's looks, but--it's curious, is all I'm saying. Gollum, aliens... normally you don't compare people to such creatures. You might know a guy that looks like, idk, to pick someone generic, Chandler from Friends for example. A human, you know? If Javid wasn't in the government I wouldn't find it curious. Well, if he wasn't in the government, I would have no idea the dude existed, but you know what I mean. He is in the government. Curious.
Decidedly curious.
Saturday, 11 January 2020
Fuck The King
So who is your favourite Game of Thrones character?
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Sandor "The Hound" Clegane |
Wednesday, 25 December 2019
Christmas Thoughts
I'm not a believer so the religious side of the holiday never meant anything to me. I have to make a confession here that I didn't know Christmas Day was the day of birth of Jesus... at first. I grew up in Communism so religion was off limits (also nobody in my family was religious, at least not much) so I had to wait till after the Revolution to find that fact out. When I first watched the midnight mass on TV, I was like, why are they saying that son of God was born today? *shrug* Make of it what you will.
Last year I went to the midnight mass, mostly because I wanted to experience it. I liked the whole calmness of it, the singing choir, the incense.
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some decorations, idk |
I loved the Christmas tree so much, I would spent the entire holiday season sitting by it and once attempted to go lie underneath it as if I was a present. I said to my mum: "look, I'm a Christmas present!" and the next thing I know, the tree fell. Nothing got broken or damaged and I wasn't injured, my mum put the tree back up but the funniest thing was that one of the baubles somehow got stuck on the net curtain--our tree was always next to the window. You know that glittery stuff that's on the baubles? Or at least used to be, back then? That's what made it stick to the net curtain. It was the 80s...
Because I liked drawing, during the Christmas season I would draw Christmas pictures, which just meant a giant Christmas tree with presents underneath it. Then I started a Christmas Book. I took one sketch book (I used to have loads of those), and wrote on Christmas Book on the cover and that's how it started. That particular book didn't last, I replaced it with another one, which I have to this day.
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the back cover of Christmas Book |
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front cover of the Christmas Book |
In Slovakia the custom is to eat Christmas dinner and give out the presents on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. Christmas Eve, which we call Generous Day, is also a public holiday, so people get three days off instead of two. I can't really answer if you ask me what we do on Christmas Day. Nothing I guess? Sit at home and watch TV mostly. What else? I live in UK now so I do it the local way, with turkey etc on Christmas Day ("immigrants don't integrate"). Christmas Eve I usually work, if it falls on a weekday; depending on how not-lazy I am, I prepare the closest thing I can to a Slovakian traditional Christmas meal. It's all about the food once you grow up. I like the traditional British Christmas dinner--pigs in blankets being my special favourites--and I like pince pies and Christmas pudding. I mentioned here already that I don't drink alcohol but at Christmas, I like me some Baileys.
Every year I look at how stressed people get themselves over Christmas and I find it so sad. Humans invented Christmas (or Yuletide if you like) to cheer themselves up during the bleak winter months. I'm sure it wasn't supposed to be like this. I wish it wasn't like this. I celebrate Christmas on my own terms, because I'm lucky enough to be able to do so. But not everyone is. For some it's a difficult time of year because of many issues... Hugs to you, you are valid. Some have to work, like the emergency services--we are grateful to you for watching over us.
Let's just be good to each other.
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red things |
Samaritans are available round the clock on 116 123 (UK) if you need to talk to someone.
Look after yourselves.