Merry Christmas!

A lot of people complain: "I don't feel the mood of the Christmas"... Nowadays the Christmas is worse because there is no snow, people are in hurry, the technology is so developed, there is absolutely no traditional values...
The mood of the Christmas depends on you! You won't see the magic of Christmas until you stop complaining.
If you still don't believe me that Christmas can be magical even nowadays, see this short video. It's a story of the Nativity... but in the XXI century. On one hand it's for fun and, on the other hand, it's exactly the same story.

I want to wish you Merry Christmas!

Scrivener

Recently I wrote a lot about movies, this time a completely different subject: software. I want to focus on a writing one, named Scrivener. This software costs 45$ (+ tax fee, depending on the country; e.g. for Poland it is 23%, so about 9$). Thanks to its license, you pay only once and you can install Scrinever in every computer you have.

I recently started thinking about a good writing program (other than Word), basing on my experience. While working on my licentiate, I wrote a lot of fragments of my work in a lot of files. I think I spend more time wondering where the heck I saved an important fragment and looking for it in my computer disk, than in writing itself... In addition, in my licentiate I analysed computer games and vocabulary manuals, so I needed to switch between games screenshoots, books pages, various charts, online articles, etc. very often. It took me a lot of time, too.

That's why I was scared when I though one day I will be through the same process while writing for my master's degree... Fortunately, I learnt about Scrivener :)

The main advantages you can see in the video below.

However, even if it's so good, it also has some disadvantages. Writing settings are more hidden than in Word, there aren't so many shortcut keys than in Word. What's more, Scrivener is available only in English, so do its interface. If you are used to writing in a Polish software, you can be confused with English terminology and you need to check it out. On the other hand, it's a great opportunity to learn English :)

Mixing languages is also horrible. Word automatically detect, in which language you write, while in Scrivener you need to switch between languages manually if you want to have a check spelling. What’s more, the Polish dictionary is so bad that it sometimes underlines the most basic words, like był (was). I’m so irritated by the Polish dictionary that I don’t use it at all :< On the other hand, English dictionary is just lovely and you have immediately access to a definition, synonyms, thesaurus, collocations, etc.

It is worth mentioning that Scrivener is not for formatting. If you finish your work, you should copy it for Word, because it’s easier to format it. Scrivener is perfect for writing, not formatting.

I will lie if I say Scrivener is for everyone.

It is definitely much more complex than Word and it takes long hours to learn how it works.

If you just want to write, and, what's more, you are an organised person, Word is absolutely fine for you. However, if you are such an unorganized and clumsy person as me, it would be more troublesome... 

You can download a free 30-days trial and then decide whether to buy it or no. In my case, I was so enchanted by this software that I bought it just after a few days of testing it :) 

Even if Scrivener seems complicated, for me it's absolutely amazing.

Yeah, even this post I wrote in Scrivener :)

Playing - a matter of gender?

In the beginning, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for writing again about animation... I can't help I love it so much^^'

However, this post it isn't about movies. I want to draw your attention to a very important problem: forcing children for playing what their parents want to play.

In this Christmas clip you can see a boy that wants to buy a toy car and a doll within it. However, his mother forbids him doing so.

When I first saw it, I thought "It is exactly my situation when I was a child". Whenever I wanted a toy like a car or a plastic gun, everyone in my family said "It's not suitable for a girl"… Well, I understand them. I have a brother and male cousins, so my family wanted me to be girly, even though I didn’t want to. Well, maybe the fact I didn’t play cars explains the fact why I love cars so much now :p

So, in short, children are just children and should play what they want. It shouldn't be a matter of gender, because they need to experience the world.
It's my opinion, at least.

"The House of Small Cubes"

One more time about animated movies!
This time a little different one, because it's more suitable for the adult audience. It's "The House of Small Cubes" by Kunio Katou, aired in 2008.

It's difficult to tell anything about the plot, because... this movie hardly has a plot. It's about a daily life of an old man (we don't even know his name). One day he losts his favourite pipe in deep water. Instead of buying a new one, he decides to dive to take it. This "journey" brings back memories about his past and relatives.

This short animation is in general about the humanity: loneliness, evanescence, love, family, senescence, memories... It shows us that a movie doesn't need to have a complex plot to be touching.

For me, "The House of Small Cubes" is just beautiful. I can't find any other epithetes to describe the warmth you feel in your heart as you watch it... Thankfully, this opinion is not only mine since it won several prizes in different festivals, including the Oscar award.

Well, it lasts only 12 min and it is definitely worth seeing. I strongly recommend it to you.

The full movie you can see here:

"Ernest and Celestine"

In this post I want to tell you about an amazing French movie, "Ernest and Celestine".
People usually don't like animated movies, because they connect them with stupid series for small children. I don't deny it - there are plenty of them... But still you can find some fantastic animated movies good for all the family. One of them is "Ernest and Celestine".

It's a story about mice and bears living in the same city, but being in a hostile relationship. The main character, a small mouse Celestine, doesn't agree with everybody's opinion. When one day she meets a bear named Ernest, she doesn't see him as a foe, and she even becomes friend with him. Unfortunately, both mice's and bears' societies don't approve this friendship...

This movie has not only the interesting plot. There're also beautiful music and lovely pastel colours which you can see in the trailer below.

NaNoWriMo

Like every time in November, also this year NaNoWriMo is starting! :)

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a creative writing project. It isn't a contest, so there are neither winners nor losers. Participants should write - a book, a novel, a short story, fanfiction or whatever they like. The main goal is to achieve 50,000 words, but, as I've already written, it's not a contest so nothing'll happen if you won't manage to do it. It's just for fun, after all!

NaNoWriMo FAQ

There are some events connected with NaNoWriMo. For example, last year in Polish group there was a challenge - in your story you should use a word "sówki" ('owlets'). People exchanged their sentences with this word and some of them were just hilarious :D
There are also some meetings in real life. This year in Poland there were meetings in Poznań and Warsaw (3 November) or there will be one in Wrocław (11 November). People discuss and write there, so it's necessary to bring a notebook, tablet or anything you can write in.

It's still some time until the end of November, so if you have some time, you can join and take pleasure in writing! :)

"I like maps, because they lie"...

I like maps very much. I can't explain it, I've always been like this. I can stare at a map for hours and I'll never be bored.

Above my bed there's a huge map of Poznań which you can see here:

(I'm sorry for the mess in my room^^')

I find interesting collecting maps. Nowadays people usually use Google Maps or other online app, but having a paper map has a lot of advantages. When you go on a long trip, especially in mountains, you can have some difficulties with charging your battery. In these situations paper maps are irreplaceable. What's more, you can easily mark by pen places you wanto to see.

Don't forget about old maps! It's nice to see how countries' borders change.
In my room is hung the map of Europe in XVI-XVII century:

One of my favourite poems is the Wisława Szymborska's last one - "Mapa" ("Map"). The same here, it's on my wall:

English translation by Clare Cavanagh:

Flat as the table

it’s placed on.

Nothing moves beneath it

and it seeks no outlet.

Above—my human breath

creates no stirring air

and leaves its total surface

undisturbed.

Its plains, valleys are always green,

uplands, mountains are yellow and brown,

while seas, oceans remain a kindly blue

beside the tattered shores.

Everything here is small, near, accessible.

I can press volcanoes with my fingertip,

stroke the poles without thick mittens,

I can with a single glance

encompass every desert

with the river lying just beside it.

A few trees stand for ancient forests,

you couldn’t lose your way among them.

In the east and west,

above and below the equator—

quiet like pins dropping,

and in every black pinprick

people keep on living.

Mass graves and sudden ruins

are out of the picture.

Nations’ borders are barely visible

as if they wavered—to be or not.

I like maps, because they lie.

Because they give no access to the vicious truth.

Because great-heartedly, good-naturedly

they spread before me a world

not of this world.

Introduction

Welcome!
In this blog I'm going to tell you about everything I like or I find interesting. Unlike my previous blog, this time I don't have any specified theme. I think (and hope!) that mixing themes will be better than dealing constantly with one and the same thing, both for my readers and me.
Anyway, we'll see how it'll look like :)
See you in my first post!