Happy Holidays!

Warm wishes to all the readers of my blog!

The year of 2007 is about to end. This year I've made my last New Year's dream come true. When the clocks were beating the beginning of the new year, I thought that it would be great to celebrate my 20th birthday somewhere in America... In four months I would become the winner of UGRAD, and in eight months I would go to St. Louis. I wish that all your good dreams will be fulfilled as soon as possible. And I have to choose a new wish for this New Year...

The coming year is expected to be even more brighter and adventurous. I am going to travel to Washington, DC once again. In May, I will be heading back to Ukraine to revive the English Discussion Club and celebrate my 21st birthday. I will also meet new groupmates in my home institute studying at the other department since my discipline studies have moved there) and have the whole summer without camp practice or preparations to go abroad, just with the computer and books. However, I want to get to Youth CAN, per advice of my friends in Ukraine, so... I don't know, what surprises the year of 2008 will show me. I want it just to be good... It appeared that I am a great adventurer, always looking for new horizons. I will try to reveal as much of them as I will be able.

As I've told you, I will be meeting New Year at the First Night in St. Louis. From January 2nd till 5th I will be in Washington, D. C. on the mid-program workshop for all UGRADers from Eurasia. I hope to bring exciting reports (I will see my new adviser in person, at last) and winterish (or not so) photos of the U. S. capital.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Or, Season's Greetings!
See you in 2008!

Britannica is Now Free for Bloggers

Today I've received a new issue of the daily calendar in English and noticed a new feature of its links to Encyclopaedia Britannica Online were different - they linked to the full versions of the articles. Now every article in Britannica has the Share Full Article link, and people can view enhanced content by following those links. placed in blogs or somewhere else, without buying any Premium access.

I wonder what made Britannica to allow links for full articles? The have less subscribers? They want to draw more people? Or they are afraid of Wikipedia? The articles in Wikipedia are up to date, include all the topics you can imagine on every language. I am planning to contribute to it, when I have a spare time (especially to movies' articles, with all my DVDs and access to scholar databases through UMSL). But when I write a research paper, the Britannica is a more authoritative source, than Wikipedia. And I would use either its paper variant in the library or online resources. So wait for posts, which will allow me (and all the readers) to use all the Britannica texts via my own blog.

I suggest you seeing the full article about Christmas in Britannica. It's just high time to learn more about this holiday, just passed for Catholics and still coming to my native Ukraine where the Eastern Orthodox church celebrates it on January 7th (update: it's still invisible to me, even if I test the link on a remote machine after signing out from my Google account).

First Night 2008 in St. Louis

Today, I've already bought an admission button to the First Night 2008 in St. Louis as its price before the new Year's Eve was $2 less, so I've chosen this Friday as a trip day (to use the daily metro pass as much as possible before its end with the semester wrap-up) to go to the MetroRide Center in the downtown St. Louis.

The America Center was a big structure with long empty halls and small MetroRide section in the right corner, under the Explore Missouri title.

First I thought that the center would be in a skyscraper on the other side of the street. I entered large halls, filled with piano music (though nobody was seen playing a lonely piano) and after checking out first two floors it appeared to be One US Bank Plaza. Well, I have nothing to do with their ATMs, which looked very small in comparison with covered corridors and elegant (not for full people) elevators in the grand hall. Only then I figured out where the center I needed was located.

After purchasing the button (without any map, as the site promised), I decided to come back and read the Friday's issue of St. Louis Post-Dispatch on my ride back to the campus. Though I wanted a Thursday's edition (with movie pass quizzes), I have not found it in all the places (including those, where I saw a Thursday's issue on the Friday's evening the week before).

The MetroLink station in downtown St. Louis was more like a real metro, underground with fearful noises of approaching trains and separate east- and westbound entrances on different sides of the street. The smiling guard asked me to show the ticket, and I was to glad to show my daily pass (I don't like the days when nobody checks your fare, for one can ride several days on Metro without meeting controllers). And again, the station even with modern indicators and lights looked as it was fifty years old at least because of bricks it was made of). MetroLink was build only 14 years ago, but older station in my native Ukraine's capital city Kiev look more beautiful.

So, this New Year would be the first, which I will be meeting at street. The program offers dance collectives, comic shows, historical movies (interesting...) and two fireworks with the second one to celebrate the coming of the year 2008).

The festivities from the Grand Center district of St. Louis will be aired live on the local PBS affiliate, KETC, starting at 10 pm on December 31st, 2007.

Hulu, the New Way of Watching Videos

I've found a lot of stuff in today's USA Today newspaper to google and expand articles with related videos (such as ads or songs discussed in the issue), but in the second half of the day I received an email, that made me explore the other website for the rest of the day.

At last (after just some two months) I've received an invitation to the private beta testing of Hulu.com, a video service that allows to watch videos from Fox, NBC, and other networks online. Sorry, folks, there are no invites here, all you can do is to wait. I suggest going there right now to sign up for a list of beta testers.

A little history... I first learned about this new service during my professor's lecture in the introduction to mass media class. He wondered what the developers have been smoking while they were choosing the name for their startup... Actually, he mixed the name up with lulu (that name would be really fun as it means WC or a sexy baby).

Season's Greetings!

In US, not everyone celebrates Christmas holiday season these days. Africans have Kwanzaa, Jewish are happy with Hanukkah, etc. So how not to offend anybody? Politically correct Americans found the way to say it:

Gender Neutral Bathroom

Is this all about political correctness? The following picture is found in my dorm on the second floor's bathroom (for one person) in my dorm:

The Golden Compass

I could not wait to watch The Golden Compass, a screen version of the first book (elsewhere named Northern Lights) from Philip Pullman's trilogy His Dark Materials. Now, after finally seeing it in the movies, I want to buy the whole book set as, to my mind, all the events in the movie happen too quick. Or, I should have not read the plot in the Wikipedia...

Christmas Tube

In today's issue of St. Louis Post-Dispatch there is an article about alternative videos for the Christmas found on YouTube. Many of them reveal American traditions of celebrating holidays, especially Christmas, which is celebrated here on December 25th. How the dog can spoil the shot: A skillful dog helps the family to get rid of holiday wrapping: The Christmas Tree is an obligatory element of the holiday...or the consumer culture? Some videos are hard to find (why didn't they embed player on the site or publish links?). I was lost amidst videos with similar titles while seeking for Let Me Out! (duration: 6:49) about the third-year-boy, whose head got stuck in the fence. Lazy Tuesday, I Love a Piano Style is a parody of "Chronicles of Narnia (Lazy Sunday)", staged on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" show, which spoofs American lifestyle: The trailer of "A Christmas Story" classic is recut into "A Christmas Gory" (Gory - involving bloodshed and killing): Is it possible to make the scenes from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" simultaneous with Outkast's song "Hey Ya!"? It appears that possible... And it is done perfectly! You don't love ads, don't you? Then check out this new year tree offer (beware of the language)... Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday (which they observe instead of Christmas). Now listen to some Christmas carols in an interesting performance: Santa is a...ninja? A tribute to political correctness: a song for all holidays in this time of the year.

Harry Potter on the Halloween

As the Halloween party would be tomorrow, the actual eve of All Saints' Day was marked by the screening of the latest film from the Harry Potter series. Though I haven't seen four preceding movies or read any of Joan Rowling's books, I decided to go to the Pilot House in the Millennium Student Center, as it was free. And after all, it was not such bad as I had expected.

Perhaps, I should buy all the DVDs to be in the course of the franchise matters. Before watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I had to read Wikipedia thoroughly. But who knows. I am not a fan of Harry yet, but I do not treat him badly now.

Control

October is full of movies. Today, I watched Control, a biopic about the life and death of Ian Curtis, who was the singer of a pioneering English rock band band Joy Division. Again, I have received a movie pass from the university newspaper a week before for a regular run of the film.

As always, I headed to the Tivoli Theater alone (after a failure to go to the movies with my campus Russian friend since she fell ill then). But at the Delmar Loop metro station I met Katia, who was a graduate exchange student from Russia. She appeared to be interested in watching the movie (though it was Tuesday and not a weekend day), and I was glad to say, that the pass was for two persons. After she parked her byke in her shared house not far from the place, we went to the movies shortly after the lights were turned off, and nobody even asked for our tickets.

Besides the official site, I've found one more, also claiming to be official. They both were in flash, but I like the latter for it features the music from the film that creates the mood of the film. There is also a special site for Canada. The film is made in Britain (and British English was hard for Katia to comprehend at first) in black and white. It created the atmosphere of the 70th, and the tunes from the movie played in my head long after the film was over.

And today I was not alone watching the film, finally.

Into the Cinema Again

Sean Penn directed a wonderful film, Into the Wild, based on a book which was in turn written after a real story. I was shocked by the fact that a young college graduate gave all his money to charities and traveled across America to meet his death in Alaska. The pre-premiere film screening draw a huge crowd to the Tivoli Theater. I was lucky to find an empty seat in the first row even having a free pass received, as usual, from the university newspaper, and people were coming long after the movie was supposed to start. The production company also hold some sweepstakes after the film with the prize being the original book by Jon Krakauer, which I am definitely going to buy right in the theater's box-office.

As each good film does, Into the Wild made me cry. It is that kind of a movie that arises questions about human values. Is money important? If not, what is important? The protagonist, Christopher MacCandless, chose the way without money, full of adventures and interesting meetings. But it all lead to his death. And the main character is too perfect in the movie, especially in the scene where he doesn't want sex with an underage girl who loved him. Many would consider him stupid for his attitude towards money and sex. Me? I still need to think it through.

Lars and the Real Film

A free pass from the UMSL university newspaper for a new interesting (i.e. independent) comedy, Lars and the Real Girl, brought me to Tivoli again. By the way, it was a pre-premiere showing, and I was even mistaken for a journalist in the movie theater foyer, may be it's fate for me to pursue Media Studies in US?

It was a beautiful movie about simple things, told in a new way. The flash site of the film has some videos (the most interesting thing there, in fact). The plot is fascinating: a lonely man announces his new girlfriend, which appears to be a life-sized doll. I strongly recommend seeing it once it runs in the movies and becomes available on DVD.

Knocked Up

Next in the series of free university screenings in the Pilot House inside the UMSL Millennium Student Center, a fresh American comedy about unexpected pregnancy Knocked Up  appeared uncut, and some scenes shocked snobs at the screening.

As for me, it was a typical American comedy with usual toilet humor. I am not going to buy a DVD with such a foolish movie (I would not even paid for it in the real movies).

Death at a Funeral You Will Laugh to

I was laughing... The other viewers too. A perfect British black comedy named Death at Funeral was also the first movie I saw in US after having found a beautiful independent movie theater called Tivoli just a few netro stops away from the university in an entertianment, cultural and restaurant district called Delmar Loop.

I think, I will see many movies there...

Заметки из Америки

Добро пожаловать в мой блог!

Когда я пишу этот пост, мне почти 20 лет, и я только что получил грант на годичное обучение в США в Университете штата Миссури в Сент-Луисе (University of Missouri-St. Louis, сокращенно UMSL - произносится "амсл") по Евразийской программе обмена студентов (Eurasian Undergraduate Exchange Program, или UGRAD), которая позволяет студентам из стран СНГ стать настоящими лидерами в своих странах, побывав своего рода культурными послами своей страны в международном сообществе. В Америке я представляю Украину - ставшую независимой после распада Советского Союза страну, в которой я родился и вырос, и флаг которой находится рядом с моим ноутбуком на столе в моей комнате в студенческом блоке новейшего общежития, именуемого Oak Hall (oak - дуб). Программа финансируется Бюро по образованию и культуре (Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs - ECA) и администрируется Советом по международным исследованиям и обменам (International Research and Exchanges Board - IREX). Два семестра я буду обучаться тому, о чём всегда интересовался с детства - журналистике (Media Studies). Да, моя работа в школьной редколлегии и создание стенгазеты на гуманитарном факультете Горловского государственного педагогического института иностранных языков не прошла даром.

Я - авантюрист - сегодня я тут, а завтра - где-то в другом месте. Обо всём, что я вижу в мире, обо всех, кого я встречаю, обо всём, что мне интересно, я и буду писать в блоге. Заметки в блоге будут вестись на всех языках, которые я знаю. На данный момент их три - русский (мой родной), украинский (язык моей страны) и английский (язык мира). Изучаемые в вузе латинский, старославянский и древнерусский я уже позабыл, да думаю, никто из читателей тогда не поймёт меня (да и я тоже). В планах - выучить ещё несколько языков, а в перспективе - стать полиглотом. Запись в блог будет делаться с лингвистическими пометками, так как я считаю, что каждому человеку всё должно быть понятно на его или её родном языке. Все лингвистические заметки - сугубо субъективные и не претендуют на абсолютную правду.

Ещё раз приветствую всех читателей в моём блоге, в который я буду писать как можно регулярней (иногда задним числом, для правильного порядка события) и так долго, как смогу узнавать что-то новое и передавать свои впечатления всему миру.