Happy Birthday to my laptop

I bought it exactly a year ago. And named it Hartfield. As in Emma. For an elegant pink laptop must have an elegant name. Happy Birthday to my mobile phone too. It doesn't have a name, but it's a very helpful device, for the signal is really loud and I almost never miss calls. Besides, I can hear the best alarm-clock in the world - Maya Hakvoort's melodic voice! And I can attempt at catching the beauy around when I don't have the camera with me.

Photo: My good friend helping me translating in autumn 2008.

Sunday evening

No, I'm not ill, but I don't feel particularly well either :(

One is a Maya-fan when:

1) One cannot start working in the morning before listening to Mayas song or two, maybe three
2) One googles her name every day to see any updates for the last 24-hours and uses Google alerts for “Maya Hakvoort”
3) One checks Youtube daily for new Maya-videos
4) One plans a Vienna trip so that one can get to the concert/musical where she will sing
5) One adds books she mentioned in interviews to the reading list, ditto films
6) One gets interested in some musicals for the sole reason than Maya had a part there
7) One decides to read books on which musicals where she had a part are based
8) One thinks it’s a good idea to start learning Dutch
9) One is awoken every morning by Maya’s voice (singing “Mach die Nacht zum morgen” at 7:00, “Our time” at 7:30 and “Inside Looking out” at 8:00, depends on the day of the week)
10) One has a couple of Maya’s photos framed and put up on the wall
11) One does not feel well when one leaves their MP3-player with Maya’s songs at home. And one feels still worse when the said player is broken
12) One hears a beautiful song and thinks it will fit Mayas voice perfectly
13) One considers it a good reason for mourning when Maya has to cancel her appointment to be in a certain musical one hoped to see because of Maya
14) One thinks a trip to Vienna loses a part of its charm if a Maya concert is not included into the visiting schedule
15) One makes Maya fan-arts
16) One is considering to get a credit card only to buy Mayas new album which is not available where one lives and can be ordered only via internet
17) One’s family hates them for playing Maya all the time
18) One makes Maya CDs for all friends possible to hook them too
19) One is having dreams of being at Mayas concerts and talking to her afterwards (or even helping her to organize a concert, as crazy as that!)
20) One pays A LOT for EMS so that a present and letter one sends to Maya reaches her in time for the meeting of the fan-club. And, after sending, one starts fretting that the present should have been done better and the letter should have been written more carefully…
I wonder what she will say of my modest attempt at producing her likeness (that has already been posted here before). I just had to express my gratitude for the joy and support she gives me with her singing and acting.

Beautiful poem

On Saturday I discovered a thin book of poems I thought had been lost forever. At 4 or 5 I was absolutely captured by the romance of this. The combination of the poem and illustration still seems perfect.

Sisters

the dawn

and the sunset

two daughters of the Sun

two sisters inseparable

two sisters inseparable

but married far

married far

to their young husbands

to the West the evening one

to the East the morning one

a sea and a mountain

between their two palaces

the day is the high mountain

the night is the deep sea

the sisters are stretching their hands

but all in vain

Crystal spring

Since I tend to forget about recharging batteries, here's this photo from Saturday is the only one. I usually do not like early spring much and always feel sorry for the snow that becomes dirty and has to melt, but this year it melts so beautifully is looks crystal, the days are so clear and light-colden and the air is so fresh that I find myself loving spring!

And a crystal song for crystal winter: Traum vom Fliegen - A Dream about Flying

My Wishlist as of 14.03.2009

My wishlist:
1) In my life, the new live-CD and anything related to Maya Hakvoort for that matter
2) Picture album on Sisi, edited by Brigitte Haman, any beautiful books on Sisi
3) Sisi-Verse on CD
4) A teddybear
5) A good book on Prague with loads of high-quality pictures, another such book on Vienna
6) A new dress, tasteful and modest enough to wear to the Uni
7) A new bag for papers
8) Kronprinz Rudolf DVD (starring Max von Thun)
9) The recent Forsyte Saga on DVD if such a DVD exists at all
10) The Impressionists (also a DVD)
11) Jane Austen. The world of her novels, by Deirdre La Faye
12) Jane Austen biography by Claire Tomalin
13) Biography of Beatrix Potter
14) Biography of Elisabeth Gaskell
15) Kristin trilogy by Sigrid Unset
16) A perfect set of make-up and a mulberry or rose perfume from Ives Roches
17) Kati in America and Kalle Blumquist books by Astrid Lindgren
18) Emma critical edition or any other pretty illustrated edition of the novel
19) Several first seasons of Komissar Rex on DVD (including the Sisi episode)
20) Something turquoise-coloured to wear
21) A pretty soft towel, new rugs and rubber ducks for the bathroom
22) All those pretty things from Victorian Trading (especially the silver headband)
23) A bottle of good lavender perfume
24) New watercolours
25) A Lucy Maud Montgomery album, all the volumes of her diaries and anything on her
26) Les Miserables, for I haven’t read it yet
27) Some supplies to make a teddybear
28) Several seasons of a good German soap on DVD
29) The early seasons of Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten with Maya Hakvoort

The two wishes I recently crossed out from the list look like this:

Pink jacket from Finn Flare

and the new "Sense and Sensibility" DVD

Happy International Women's Day

We are not celebrating at home, I'm not having an extra day off all the same, for I don't have classes on Monday. But I thought I'd have a day free of translating and preparing for classes. And I spend the day drawing flowers...

And a goodbye to winter.

Radetzkymarsch

Joseph Roth's fiction
Dec 5th 2002 From The Economist print edition

IN A lull at the battle of Solferino in 1859, the young emperor, Franz Joseph, asks for a spy-glass to survey the field. Aghast, an infantry lieutenant, Joseph Trotta, hurls him to the ground as French and Italian marksmen open fire on the figure who has so foolishly identified himself as the Austrian commander. Trotta, the son of a Slovene watchman, takes a bullet in the shoulder. In gratitude, the emperor promotes and ennobles him. So opens one of the gravest and grandest of all 19th-century novels written in the 20th century.
The story traces the varying fortunes of the Trotta family. The hero of Solferino, a stranger to the social heights, grows eccentric. His son, a cautious district commissioner, lives dutifully in the paternal shadow, hoping that his own son, Carl Joseph, a well-meaning but feckless young officer, will somehow justify the newly glorious Trotta name. …

I actually have the book (It was recommended in the trabel book on Vienna, so I was tepted to buy it). Die Frage ist blos--- The quiestion is only--- when do I read it?

I am browsing through The Economist articles to find new material for classes, and found this excerpt by chance (all the interesting articles seem to have premium status).