Dear Diary,
I am exhausted. I am exhausted and super-tired. I do not know if those two things are not mutually contradictory or whatever, but I am all that and much more.
I have decided to take a break yesterday. I just did. I had to go to jail))). No, not for anything I have done. It’s part of my work role. I have to go to juvenile jails and help them with fugure out processes and procedures.
Well, I had to go to jail. It drained me. It drained me completely. My brain decided to take a break and went away into ‘where would I want to go for holiday’ mode. Thus, there was no post yesterday.
However, I’ve decided to keep day count. Thus, today is DAY 19 of my writing challenge (I have a weird type of calendar, don’t I??? But if you listen to some wise men and women, calendar it a thing that was unloaded on humans without their wanting it really).
Anyhow, today is DAY 19 on the calendar of my writing challenge and today’s post will be about Things I never thought I will like.
Why? I was listening to Tchaikovsky on Youtube yesterday and thought… If anyone would have told me that I would like classical music when I was 16 or even 20, I would have laughed.
So, here we go
Classical Music
Growing up, classical music was fed to us from everywhere: school music lessons, concerts we HAD to go to, TV (there was a special classic piece that would play on TV non-stop, when something serious happened in the country – “Swan Lake”). We, as kids, were sick of it (classical music). Some of us had to do 8 years of it on top of regular school – Music School.
I could not stand it. I loved pop and pop and pop. I knew all Soviet pop stars by name, sight, songs. I even knew all the lyrics to their songs. I befriended some of the stars and music journalists and was going to become a music journalist myself.
So, I was as far from classical music as one can get.
However, motherhood changed it all. First classical CD I ever bought was for my unborn yet daughter – Classics fo Babies or some such. I listened to it non-stop (you know there is a belief that kids can hear music from mother’s womb. So I wanted to introduce my baby to the best of the human world). I listened and I liked it.
Then, I bought some more CDs… I was hooked. Now I listen to Mozart or Chopin or Vivaldi at work and even have my own favourite pieces.
By the way I do not know names of current pop stars, let alone their songs
Heavy Literature
At school we were made to read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy at 15 and Bulgakov at 16. A very few of us liked those heavy pieces, even fewer of us understood any of it.
For me personally, Bulgakov at 16, then at 20 and then at 30 odd were three different writers and three different novels. I hated “Master and Margarita” at 16, liked it at 20 and fell in love with it at 30.
I only just now started to re-read Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. To tell you the truth, I can’t find what is so great about Tolstoy, but Dostoyevsky… I find him a very modern writer.
Old Movies
They surprise me. They amaze me. They make me laugh till I cry and make me cry with the characters. They are so naive in places that it touches some hidden string in my heart. I forget all about all the critical theory education I have when I am watching them. They are like… like old movies.
Buckwheat
To mix this post a bit and bring it a lighter note, I can solemnly admit to hating buckwheat when I was a kid.
We lived in Saint-Petersburg. My parents were very young. Money were short. Supplies were even shorter. Buckwheat was on the table very often and was considered a height of cuisine (hard to get and good for you).
No amount of condiments or additions in form of sausages, sauces or vegetables could hide the fact that it was BUCKWHEAT…
Now.. I can eat it on it’s own with butter… Go figure
I might think of more but these are enough for now
Svetlana Tishchenko 