Many years ago, I have developed a simple strategy of facing compliments, because they have always made me uncomfortable: it does not matter whether I believe what is being said about me, it only matters if I believe that the person who compliments me is sincere and genuine. If they are, then it is an honour to be seen in such a way through their ( Read more... )

Solvitur ambulando, a Latin phrase ascribed to either St Augistine or the Greek philospopher Diogenes, means "it is solved by walking", or "it is solved by walking around".

Being a personal reflection on the differences and difficulties between generations among the people around me.

World War II has left a long-lasting trace on the lives of the ( Read more... )

Некоторые произведения настолько поглощаются попкультурой, что, слушая, читая или смотря их их полностью, поражаешься что и это отсюда, и то, и другое, и пятое, и двадцатое.

"Горе от ума" - яркий тому пример. "Лебединое озеро" Чайковского, оказывается, - тоже (слушали его вчера на концерте).

*****Some works get so much swallowed up by pop ( Read more... )

Being a writer is like having homework
every night for the rest of your life.
Lawrence Kasdan.

The ultimate paradox of learning is this ( Read more... )

People from large towns tend to look down on those who live in the smaller ones and in the country and call those undereducated mannerless louts many unpleasant names.

One such name, which was popular in Russia in the XIX and early XX century, is "provincial", a noun derived from the word "province", the official small territorial unit of the ( Read more... )

If, when I was a teenager, someone told me that I would one day be a fan of a singer, actor or writer, and not only enjoy their work but travel far and wide to see them perform, and what's more, approach them in the semi-public setting such as at the stage door, I would not have believed them.

And yet, here I am doing those things and ignoring the ( Read more... )

Sprezzatura is "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it".
~Wiki

The head of our Plasma Physics department at college, Dr K., was, and is, because he still occupies the same position, a wonderful man, who helped create a good working ( Read more... )

In professional wrestling, kayfabe /ˈkeɪfeɪb/ is the portrayal of staged events within the industry as "real" or "true", specifically the portrayal of competition, rivalries, and relationships between participants as being genuine and not of a staged or predetermined nature of any kind.
~Wiki.

In class, some people write notes, some sleep, some are ( Read more... )

Tsundoku is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.
~Wiki.

In the Russian higher education system, there is no tenure or "professor emeritus" status. There is also no age of obligatory retirement.

One of the best professors I have ever had, a sunny, wise, knowledgeable "grandfather", who was once ( Read more... )

Three weeks ago, one of my PhD thesis advisers and I went to a science conference in Perm, a town near the Ural mountains. My colleague can no longer fly after an automobile accident that left her permanently relying on blood-thinning medicine, and so we took a sleeper train, which covers the 1500 kilometers between Moscow and Perm in roughly 21 ( Read more... )