Bricked

Last Friday, my phone died. It was acting weird the evening before, constantly rebooting while I was installing updates, but it had performed its proper alarm clock function in the morning. Then it somehow turned itself off, and never came back on again. Apparently in techy terms, it's 'bricked'; no more use for it than for a brick.
Now I had been mentioning to people that I wanted to get a new phone sometime soon, because it was starting to get slow and full and obnoxious, but this wasn't really the way I wanted that to go. Same thing happened with my laptop; I mentioned wanting to get a new one, and it promptly got stolen. Somehow the universe and I are getting our signals mixed.
Anyway, luckily I still had my work phone on me, so I could contact the people I was at a convention with. But other than that, I had nothing. I couldn't contact people, I couldn't check my apps, I couldn't even register how many steps I was taking. Also, I knew there would be a pretty big chance that all my pictures and contacts (the only phone number I know by heart is my parent's land line, otherwise I'm blank) and chat history would be lost forever. Sounds like the perfect time to have a major freak out, doesn't it?
But I didn't freak out.
I felt uncomfortable about not being able to reach out to people, to have a way of connecting with them. If someone somewhere needed to tell me something, or had a problem, they couldn't reach me. But otherwise, it didn't feel like a major drama. It was the same when my laptop crashed: I felt a mild panic about having lost so much data, only to remember that most of that data didn't really matter that much anyway. I mean, I would be really really sore if I lost all my pictures, but I make regular back-ups of those, and otherwise; what's there to miss? Lots of music files I didn't really listen to since I installed Spotify. Several games I'd been halfheartedly playing, and gained some levels in, but lost interest in months ago. My chat history. Now that is a thing, because I am one for going back and rereading old conversations when I have nothing to do (long train journeys without wifi). So that will be a miss, although people are already working hard to get me a new chat history. Also, my personalised settings; my ring tone, background picture, etc. Some of those have been the same for years, and I will miss them now they're gone. I may get them back, in time, but they're not the first priority.
So, in short; my life didn't fall apart when my phone broke down, it just got a bit less cluttered and data-heavy. Also, it feels good to know that the major function of my phone, for me, is to be in touch with the rest of the world. That was the thing I missed, not some game or Facebook or whatever. And although I missed being able to communicate, having a quiet weekend without contact wasn't so bad either. Makes me feel like less tech-addicted than I feared!

Anna Karenina

For the past couple of months, I have been reading one of the absolute classics of 19th century literature: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. In English, although it is a Russian novel, because a) my Russian isn't that good, and b) careful Googling told me that this was the best recent translation of the novel. It's 800+ pages, and it took me a while, also because I read three Dutch non-fiction books in between (none of which is really worth mentioning). It took a while not because it was difficult, or boring, but because it was simply very very long. I can take my time reading a novel because I think it is especially beautiful, and I want to give it the attention it deserves, and I can take my time because there isn't any way of getting through it quicker. This was a case of the latter.

Anyway, Anna Karenina. I had not seen the film nor did I know anything about this story, except for the fact that it was about someone called Anna Karenina (whom I pictured somewhat like Keira Knightley, probably because of the film trailer). Neither was really true. I mean, there is a character called Anna Karenina in the novel, and she does play a pretty big part, but then there are dozens of other characters who also play pretty big parts. And Anna influences them, in a way, but not all of them, and some characters never really meet her at all. She is pretty radical in her actions and thoughts, but so are some of the others. So although she is supposed to be the heroine, you could just as well have called the thing "Konstantin Levin" or "Pre-revolution upper class Russians" (although Tolstoy of course didn't know about the revolution at the time of writing). But I can see why he went with Anna Karenina, and I don't mind the title, but it kind of gives you the wrong expectations. Also, from the description, she looks nothing like Keira Knightley.

On a side note; Russian names are really impossible. I mean, the women I can somehow grasp, because they are Anna and Kitty and Dolly; nice, logical names. They do have three or four other names, and nicknames (Kitty and Dolly are short for Ekaterina Alexandrova Sherbatsky and Daria Alexandrova Oblonsky), but at least you can keep them apart. But the men! There were two who I just referred to in my head as AA and SA, and every time the perspective switched to one of them, I had to remind myself whether they were Anna's or Dolly's husband. When they were in the same room, or even worse; talking to each other, I really couldn't keep up who was who. And in some cases, I didn't realise that two separate names actually belonged to the same character until I was a couple of chapters down the line. They should really sort that out.

So what is the novel about? Life, in general. People living their lives. People thinking about their lives, how they live them, and what they can and want to change. The main events of life; birth, love, marriage, death, and in the case of the Russian aristocracy: drinking, gambling, horse racing, and a lot of debt. Not much really happens, that is to say, no invasions or wars or life-changing events, except for those mentioned above. And the really life-changing stuff that does happen is described in a few lines, almost off-hand, like 'oh yes, and then he died'. 

The thing that gets most attention is what the characters think about all these events. And they think a lot. Some of it is just Tolstoys own political propaganda, but most are really universal human thoughts and emotions; the stuff that keeps people up at night, or the way people think about each other. The decisions that they make, and what they think of those decisions, and how they justify things to themselves. Most of it is recognisable, sometimes almost scarily so. Whether he writes about a man going to court his future wife, a woman thinking about her new-born child, or a man sitting with his dying brother; these characters come to life, they are real people, with real thoughts and emotions. It took me a while to get through, but this was not because of those sweeping, strongly emotional passages; sometimes 30+ pages (description only, no dialogue) would whisk by as I was carried along on someone's musings.

So I can see why this novel survived and became one of the classics; it is about the fundamental human emotions and experiences. There is a lot of stuff in between, some of which would be edited out if the thing would be written now, but that's the nineteenth century novel for you. Between the lines and main events, you can find what makes humans human. And since Russia 1878, that hasn't changed all that much.

Windowsill veg patches

Remember those veg patches I told you about last year? You could get them this year as well, if you spent 15 Euroes on groceries (someone in the marketing deparment must have gotten higher targets). Now I don't usually spend that much on my shopping, but other people I know do, and they were kind enough to donate their veg patches to me, because of my supposed 'green fingers'. So in the end, I got 11 veg patches, which I was going to raise in a gardenless home.
Also living in this gardenless home is a hooligan kitty, who likes to eat everything it can, and otherwise destroy things it can't. So I put my veg patches in a little plastic greenhouse, to protect them from kitty harm.

Veg patches in protective casing

Cute, hey?
They are: red beet, green beans, cherry tomato, spinach, radish, fennel, thyme, endive, gherkin, courgette, and watermelon. Yes, watermelon.
As you can see, in this picture some of the plants had already started to grow, while others were hiding underground. I put those plants big enough (according to the very precise instructions on the little cards) into bigger pots, planting them out to their individiual wishes. They were growing nicely, apparently safe from feline harm.
In the end, I had four little patches left in the green house: thyme, gherkin, courgette and watermelon. And this is when the kitty disaster struck. One day, I had just gone out to get some groceries, and when I got back I found the thyme upside down, and all the little cards pulled out. Which meant that I had no idea which was the gherkin, which the courgette, and which the watermelon. I made an educated guess, but I'm still not sure whether I am raising the correct plants under the correct name...

Anyway, they all sprouted! 100% success rate!
I planted out the remaining mystery plants to their (probable) specifications, and for a couple of weeks now, my window sill has looked like a mini jungle.

Fennel, radishes, green beans, spinach, cherry tomato, and red beets.

Endive, possibly watermelon, possibly courgette, possibly gherkin.

You may notice that the thyme is missing. After my 100% success rate in sprouting, I somewhat failed in raising, with the thyme never really growing properly, and finally just disappearing into it's container. But still, 10 plants is more than enough for just a windowsill.

The spinach is starting to flower, which means I will have to eat it soon. All the other plants are still miles away from producing anything, but it looks nice, and apart from a bit of watering and turning (they really like to grow towards the sun) they're no bother at all. And best of all; no slugs!

Musical investigations

Wow, it's been a while. And in all of that while, nothing really interesting happened, which is probably why I haven't felt like writing a blog post. That is to say, lots of things happened, but they were mostly along the lines of work, meeting with friends, watching movies, etc etc. And I've been reading the same novel (Anna Karenina) for at least two months, so not much to say about that either.
But! There are developments on the musical side of things. Some time ago I wrote about discovering Spotify, and coming to the conclusion that I treated it pretty much the same as any other technology; stick to what you know. But things, they are achanging.
First of all, some big company decided that they would share all The Beatles songs with the rest of the world anyway, which was pretty nice. But more importantly, I've been looking up new music myself. Not really 'by myself' as such, but I've been getting recommendations from others, or hearing songs on commercials, or on the radio (and checking which song they are by using the nifty app SoundHound) and I've added those to my music. And then (this is the magical part) I go to that artist's page, and listen to their other music. Not all of it, of course, but the top 10 songs at least.
Which has led me to discover the following artists:

Ludovico Einaudi: man, he is brilliant. I know nothing about this man, apart from the fact that his song Life was used in a commercial. So I checked him out, and found a treasure trove of beautiful instrumental music, most of it just a piano. My absolute favourite is Nuvole Bianchi, which has almost 40 million listens on Spotify, and is hauntingly beautiful. I'm still trying to find the sheet music, to be able to play it.

John Mayer: I thought this was some guy from the 60s, but apparently he's quite a bit more recent. I heard Heartbreak Warfare on the radio, which I loved, and then I checked out some of his other songs, which were really nice as well. Mellow, but not sleepily so. He can get a bit whiny, but then we skip to:

Modest Mouse: can you believe this band name? Too cute! Anyway, someone recommended Dashboard (which has a very funny video clip too), and then I looked some more on their page, and found out they're the guys from Float On, which was also used in a commercial (sad, how many songs I know mostly from tv ads).

Muse: I've had lots of friends who were into Muse, but somehow I'd never really listened to any songs. Now that I have, I find them a bit too aggressive for what I would normally listen to, but there are times when I like that uptempo shouty stuff, for example when I try to hammer out some minutes for meetings.

I could go on and on (The National, Wolf People, The Raconteurs), but most of them are kind of the same music as I've always loved (Ludovico Eunaudi is like Howard Shore and Philip Glass, and all the other guys are your regular middle of the road band, leaning slightly towards the countryesque). So technically, I haven't really evolved that much, especially when you compare it to the friend who has suddenly decided she's into 'gangster rap'. But still, small steps towards more musical open mindedness.