ellestra | Entries tagged with birthday

Today's date is the same in both directions - 15-10-15 - day-month-year or year-month-day (it obviously only works for two digit year and it doesn't work for American dates but what sane person writes dates inside out). Of course that happened every month this year (and for past few years and will continue for few more years) and is going to be even cooler next month but none of these are on my birthday so this one is special for me. Next cool one like this comes on 15-10-51.

For past few years I go on a trip the weekened before. We call it birthday trip because we both have birthday around that time. This year we went to New Orleans. Photos below.

Streets of New Orleans - French Quarter

Sunrise over Mississippi

Second line - for wedding (I also saw a funeral but I don't think I should be posting it on internet - it was in the news anyway)

LaLaurie house if anyone's interested

St. Louis Cathedral outside and inside

Cemeteries

Garden District with the mansions - including Anne Rice house

I spend last weekend travelling. It was a birthday trip for me and my friend - we are both from mid-October. We went to see Charleston and Savannah. Just as weather here got bad and it got cold and rainy we went South. This might be a strange concept since North Carolina is already far south from my point of view (I'm from 52^o and here is 35). There doesn't seem to be much difference from Poland's perspective between here and Savannah (32) but there was this weekend.

Here the weather broke down - it was raining, it got colder (below 20 even during the day on Sunday). There I was swimming in ocean on Sunday and the water was warmer than 20 ^o, much warmer. It was still hot and humid even in mid October it was around 30 in both cities. With the humidity it was almost too much. I don't know if I could do it in summer. They also have palms and Spanish moss (or as we apparently call it in Polish - oplątwa brodaczkowa - lets see a foreigner who can say that).

I think the front that brought the cooler weather has reached them now too but it felt so weird when we came back to drizzle and leaves that suddenly seemed much more yellow. So here's my picspam to all of you in cold, autumn weather:

We all got sent home early today. Hospital clinics got closed. Extra buses were running. And streets were getting closed. All because there was an American football match, sorry, game this evening. I thought they only happened on weekends but this is something special for some reason (don't care enough to search) and even though the game was to start at 7:30 everyone was evacuating before 3 pm. When I was leaving with tons of other people the music was alrady blasting from stages before frat houses. Apparently the game is still going on. I have no idea what is taking so long but I wonder how that works for the people who have to go to work tomorrow morning.

But the fact that the campus was basically dead already today meant I didn't have to feel guilty about my birthday lunch with a friend. I just had a birthday, she just had a birthday and we exchanged gifts and had fun. My niece also just had a birthday and I paid for her Furbie and my mum just said it's a hit - she takes him everywhere and every other kid wants their own - including her brother. Frankly, I'm jealous - I always wanted an interactive pet toy. I read way too much sf as a kid and though they were real. I can't feel bad about getting it for her even though it's horribly overpriced.

I also just came back from a birthday trip with my friends - we left on birthday of one of them and came back on mine. That was fun few days. The post you all saw were written before I left and showed up on schedule and I'm happy to know it worked. We went to the Smoky Mountains. I haven't been there yet because I didn't have anyone to go with until now. It was fun and beautiful but mostly cloudy so the colours never looked as bright as we hoped. Still, it was very pretty and we saw waterfalls and autumn colours and some awesome dawns (it's easy when sunrise is after 7:30):

Now, I only have to write my brother a birthday card - he's from October, too and then have last one birthday lunch with some other friends and I'm done celebrating for this month.

Mondays are not good days at work (even without the whole Monday thing) and today it was also raining since with drizzle alternating with real rain. And, although, the day was pretty warm the cold nights combined with rained made it feel like a real autumn day even though leaves are barely changing colours yet. I knew it was going to be this way so I decided to do the whole birthday thing during the weekend.

On of the things I did was going to the cinema. I've been planning to see a movie for a long time and just postponing it over and over again. But this time I decide I just have to do it. For birthday's sake. So I went to see Looper because I saw so many conflicting reviews I wanted to decide for myself.

When my parents asked me the next day (that I spent skyping with my family) what it was about I told them Bruce Willis travelled in time but then I realised that was 12 Monkeys. This time he was a B plot. This movie was about JGL not travelling in time. And I could nitpick it but then I could also explain it as it made prefect sense in a way but the important part was that it was fun.

I liked the future of loopers that is like the whole world became a bad neighbourhood and the social structures seem to be in complete shamble. I wondered how come in 30 years it rebound so the law can enforce both time travel ban and find every murder victim. It didn't look like police state much - Bruce Willis was still a gangster.

I loved the whole TK promise and the kid going the whole It's a Good Life on whoever angered him. It was cool visually but both made sense in the story and felt like a cheap shot with including superpowers in the mix.

I'm pretty sure Kid Blue was young Abe. I kept thinking that most of their problems would unhappen if they finally killed him. And then it was too late. I'm not even sure he died really.

The hardest part was the understanding how time travel works in this universe. It doesn't nullifies whatever future versions did so far just catches up with them in real time. It doesn't make much sense but it is at least consistent. It's like the future versions became quantum flux of all their possible pasts with the one they lived being most clear until their past selves do something and that past becomes fixed. It took me some time to get and then it took me some time to get why Rainmaker became himself in the world with no Old!Joe coming for him because the end showed a perfect reason for him to hate all loopers and killing them (Young!Joe even tells the story about wanting to kill all the men who wronged him and his mother). But then I read someone explaining that before Young!Joe he didn't accept Sara as his mother and would probably kill her eventually and turn bad. And then I thought that maybe in different versions there were different loopers who tried to kill him. In the end what matters is that Young!Joe decided not to accept the version his future self created and it did matter to Sara and her son.

I liked how Bruce Willis became villain of the story. Killing children just because he wasn't ready to give up his life. He was so bent on having it exactly as he did so unable to give up his happiness, not even to save his wife that he became a monster his younger self despised so much he decided to sacrifices himself even though we saw the same selfishness in him before.

I think that the best part of this story was showing the fallacy of changing the future by travelling to the past. If it is changeable you by default introduce so many uncontrollable variables that what you create won't be what you intended. And this is why the movie was worth watching.

Emily Blunt was awesome. JGL make-up was horrifying - he looked like a botched plastic surgery victim. Bruce Willis was badass. Garret Dillahunt showed us he didn't lose his ability to play creepy kickass. Fun was had.

Today is Maria Skłodowska Curie's 144 birthday and she got her own Google Doodle. Or rather it was yesterday as it's already after midnight in Poland but I was too busy today to post earlier. This year it's also centenary of her second Nobel Prize, the one she got all to herself. This is why this year have been declared Maria Curie's year by Poland and France and UN has declared 2011 International year of Chemistry in her honour. I wrote about her before so this time I just link to the very good Smithsonian article. Reading it reminded me once again how much better it got since her time. The fact that it's been 100 years since she got her second Nobel Prize made me also realise that it's been a century and we are not there yet. Women are still looked down on in science and many of them drop out from the academia when they have kids. And it's usually the same thing she was accused of - they are accused of being bad mothers when they don't stay at home and take care of kids and when they do stay they fall behind their male colleges. I admire those of my friends who came back and continue in science. I'm also glad I know some stay at home dads who took break from their science career to take care of the baby. And are happy about it. The changes are coming and so will the representation in the Nobel laureates.

It's my birthday today and I spent the day talking to the family and celebrating. I managed to go out both yesterday and today despite hanging on the edge of the cold by my fingertips for the last three days. My throat is sore but I only have almost running nose (my sinuses are hurting but not producing much mucus - yet) and almost cough (I feel like it but never actually do it). This means I feel sick and want to just stay in bed and sleep all day long but I don't look sick so people are easily fooled into thinking I'm fine and agreed to hang out with me. It is a weird state. I almost feel like a Schrödinger's cat neither and both at the same time.

I slept through my actual birth time. It was 1:30 p.m. back when I was born. Of course, back then, it was winter time and now it's summer time so now the actual anniversary is at 2:30 p.m. In Poland. Here it was 8:30 a.m. and I was still asleep. I didn't sleep through the whole day because I turned the computer on and I kept getting skyped by family when I learned that my nephew swallowed a battery and is in hospital since Thursday and my cousin has a new cat (Maincoon) for two weeks and my uncles new house is almost ready and they just got the internet connected. I started to feel so out of touch. I was so busy lately I'm only in the right timeframe to talk with Poland during weekends. It almost makes me want to reconsider my decision to stay.

I just started the paperwork for the visa extension. I want to finish the projects I'm working on - especially the human one. I also just started to get used to the place and connect with people here and to have a group big enough to go out an celebrate a birthday with. So I'm going to stay put for now. I suppose the asthma will make me leave eventually anyway.

I had really nice time this evening and I thought what would make the perfect ending for this day and I noticed there is a new Muppet movie trailer. It has NPH doing Mana Mana and Gonzo torturing Jack Black and I'm going to share it with you now:

Today is my birthday and to my surprise I have a lot of plans so I'll leave in a short while. So all I my activty online today is spamming with trailers for new Syfy webseries Riese

It looks quite awesome - I wish more Syfy was like that instead of, well, syfy

Today is my birthday and I was busy so all you get is me:

This is how I dress for work as the renovation still is not over :P

My nice just turned 1. It's hers birthday (actually it was yesterday - I was so busy I didn't notice it got past midnight but it's still 7th in western hemisphere) so I decided to celebrate. Her age can now be measured in years. And since I'm also due for another drawing of mine - this is dedicated to her.

Pale Horse by ~Ellestra7 on deviant ART

She is to young to appreciate it for now but little girls love horses. I know. I have to draw them.

Happy birthday kid. You'll get proper present when I see you on Saturday.

Today is my birthday so I decided to check if something interesting happened on this date. This is what wikipedia has. Some of the ones that grabbed my attention - on this day:
China send first manned space mission;
Police got Jack the Ripper's "From Hell" letter;
The first submarine sunk;
Mata Hari was executed;
Hermann Göring poisoned himself;
The first oral contraceptive was synthesized by Luis E. Miramontes;
Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

So feeling bit down I checked famous people born on this day:
writers : Mikhail Lermontov and Mario Puzo;
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault;
Lee Iacocca;
actors: Dominic West and Ewa Błaszczyk;
Nobel laureates Peter Doherty and David Trimble;
musicians Chris de Burgh and Tito Jackson;
and Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson and Prince Christian of Denmark.
Pretty differentiated group of people. But ever since I was in a class with four other girls (well two of them were twins but fraternal) born on the same day as me I gave up on the idea that common birth date means anything. Astrology my ass, science you are not.

The most interesting was finding out Tadeusz Kościuszko died on my birthday. And with this optimistic note I will end.

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15-10-15
This was the furthest South I've ever been in my life
October Girls
Due to time zones I woke up right after my birth anniversary today
12x12
I don't even know when it happened but I'm that age now
It's this time of the year
Birthday
Celebrating
Birthday

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Thoughts, ramblings and other stuff

Entries tagged with birthday

15-10-15

This was the furthest South I've ever been in my life

October Girls

Due to time zones I woke up right after my birth anniversary today

12x12

I don't even know when it happened but I'm that age now

It's this time of the year

Birthday

Celebrating