Away for Christmas

As someone on Facebook has reminded me... I did have a lot of bad luck when it comes to travelling... and I haven't talked about it much lately... mostly because I didn't do any recently... in the span of a year I moved into four different places so I didn't really have time to travel anywhere exciting... I didn't say anything during my last trip to see my family in October because my mind wasn't even on this blog... shameful, I know...

I did, however, go for Christmas this year.

It's rare for me to actually be with my family for Christmas since I usually have to either work or go to classes. It wasn't that difficult when I was still living with my parents because it just meant we were spending an evening together instead of the whole day but now it's just not doable if I can't take at least a week off to leave England.

BUT WAIT?!

Do people not get Christmas off?! Why yes... people do get the period somewhere close to the 25th December off... I usually get bored during that time... I was kinda annoyed that my workplace decided to not open on that day... if I knew sooner, I'd probably try making some plans so I don't die out of boredom... on the plus side, I did get holidays without any problems and there were no classes to attend to in the first week of January so I did get to spend Christmas with my closest family... that would be fourteen people currently... though my dad couldn't make it...

WAIT WHAT?!

You can blame Julius Caesar for that.
While most of the world follows the Gregorian calendar for religious practices, I do not. Thus I have Christmas in January. I also have New Year starting on the 14th January.

Anyway...

The process of going from one country to another wasn't all that bad this time around. Neither was the last time I did this, strangely enough. There was hardly anything exciting going on. I went out of the house a few hours early to spend some time with someone . After two hours of chatting I went to catch my train...  I feel like crying just thinking about it... I went to London, I went underground and had to wait half an hour at St Pancras... incidentally they had this really cool tree at the station... it was so cool that I had to do the unthinkable... I took out my phone and snapped a photo...

 

But what is so awesome about this tree that I just had to make a photo of it? I'm glad you've asked, my theoretical yet non-existent reader. Well... in my infinite wisdom I have made a close up specially for YOU...

It's made out of LEGO... most awesome indeed... Lego Christmas Tree... so shiny...

MOVING ON

I caught the last train and had to spend the next couple of hours waiting for my plane. I may have fallen asleep somewhere between Brighton and London but what kept me awake was the paranoia of one of those people at the airport secretly being a brain eating alien from outer space. In order to keep my crumbling psyche intact, I decided to train my Pokemon and beat up two Gym Leaders on my quest to becoming the greatest Pokemon trainer in Unova!

After check-in I decided to dine at an airport restaurant, for breakfast. You see, I always hear tales of how bad the cuisine there is but I've never tried it myself so I couldn't in evil conscience say that it is bad. Now I can say that it's not bad but it's definitely overpriced. Compared to one restaurant in Brighton, the breakfast at Luton is half the size and twice the price. That's really not my idea of a good meal.

The plane was not delayed by a day nor did it crash. Yet something else happened which I haven't had the pleasure of experiencing until that day. Mainly, the announcer was telling over the megaphones that the plane is about to fly off and that all passengers for this flight should hurry up before they get stranded on the airport for all eternity. Strangely enough, everyone was still in line because the plane didn't open the door yet. Some people chuckled... some got annoyed... a kid punched my knee...

I slept through most of the flight. After landing I got my luggage and went to catch the bus, which was already at the parking lot waiting for the driver to finish his break. I slept through most of the ride too. Then I got picked up by my mom and sister...

It took me 12 hours to get from point A to point B so it wasn't bad at all on my usual standards...

Christmas went well... I played on my 3DS with my two Sith Apprentices... though I ended up with a 40 degree fever shortly afterwards and had to delay my flight... which meant I spent New Years in bed instead of with friends like I was planning too...

and I'm still coughing... but there are plus sides, mainly the image below...

It's been so long...

I haven't posted in a while... mainly because at first I didn't have what to write about... at first... then everything blew out of proportion and I didn't have time to say anything...

After all the semester ending madness subsided, with me being sick for a week at the end and running madly to catch up... by the way, it is very unpleasant to have a rather nasty fever while there's a party downstairs... then I had a week to prepare myself for a journey to Poland.

I am too lazy to check if I said anything about it already but I am not going to apologise for repeating myself (my blog, I'll do whatever I want with it!): My dad had car issues and I had to deal with an insurance company, the repairs garage and the lack of communication between them. Later on I had to deal with the rental company too... and it all lasted a month at the end of which dad got a cheque (that had problems going to its destination) and a broken car so he had to buy a new one.

We were supposed to go to Poland by car but it broke down and couldn't be repairs so I had to buy myself a plane ticket and repack everything in my possession for that trip since my landlord decided he will be painting the house. That was not a nice day to have. At least I managed to buy cool toys for my little Siths :D

and then we had one week with parents, which was okay and then a week without parents, at the end of which I went to a con in Warsaw... I'll have the report posted soon enough with some seminar reviews/reports/stuff... naturally, I spent some time with Vegael, watching films and hanging out... he can still be annoying but he got me a really cool external hard-drive full of anime so I won't stab him... for now... oh... and he was happier about getting Darkly Dreaming Dexter than I expected...

In the recent weeks I spent a lot of time with the Godmother of my oldest Sith Apprentice. She's a fun gal and we hanged out in town, the streets, the malls, the parks... we even saw Terminator Salvation together... and I cried, it was such a moving film... I'm a terrible wuss...

Last time we were out together some drunk guy wanted money from us... even though we refused, he kept following us until he grabbed her by the arm... and I had to be MANLY... apparently, my manliness causes people to give up... then we went to eat some kebab... and I had a chuckle when she ordered a kebab without kebab...

Other than that, I borrowed a book on Shamanism and Hungarians from Książnica Podlaska's director... my poetry book is starting to look like reality, finally... I will have a print run of 300 copies.

I regained the ability to use maps in my online games... which makes combat all the more enjoyable... I like it when players have to decide between a Move and a Dash, who to attack and where to place themselves from tick to tick...

I might be running yet another Exalted game though this time it will not be on RPoL and it will involve different things from player characters... seduction and torture will be a more viable part of it than in United We Stand...

First episode of mine and Daniel's podcast... where we topple how to make a campaign using one of mine as an example (Saint Christopher's Orphanage for Lost Children!)... has been recorded... four more to go and we'll be looking at releasing them to the public...

and I think that's all... I better go write some emails to people... oh... and I might put something on DeviantArt... some character fiction at least...

I'm back in England

After 15 hours of getting from one country to the next... which wasn't such a bad trip knowing my track record, it was actually quite an enjoyable one this time around... I have done a lot of things over the past few days...

1. Shopping = new laptop, new router, enough food to go by
2. Updated my RPoL games = making nearly half a dozen new threads is not easy, especially if you go through a time lapse
3. Cleaned my room = it's not that my room was untidy when I got here, but with the stuff that I brought back with me, I had to reorganize a lot of things, put away everything I won't need for this academic year and make room for all those papers I'll inevitably get from my tutors this year
4. Cleaned the refrigerator = because going by the amount of unclean dishes in the sink, how empty and frozen the fridge was and all those pizza boxes lying around I'm apparently the only using that thing
5. I informed my landlord of my return
6. I went through all the letters I got...

Here's the thing, aside from the bills that I'll split up with one other room-mate, I received a very peculiar letter. Apparently, everyone who was living here the previous year must pay council tax!

See, in England you pay this thing called council tax by which your money goes to the city council, police and fire brigade... it's all cool if not for the simple fact that we are all full-time students, thus exempt from this tax. What's even more annoying is that I'm apparently the only one living here from the previous year, so I have to go to the city council now and someone make it apparent I not only shouldn't have been required to pay but I'm also incapable of paying 1,514.18 pounds...

on top of that, I still have letters to write...

Semester End

I'm out of my last exam for this semester.

It's definitely one of my worst semesters and I'm still worried I'll either fail or get expelled. Time will tell... which won't be that long...

My laptop is still out of commission and tomorrow it goes in for repairs.
Meanwhile, I'm going back home on Monday.
The plan is to sleep in the afternoon, wake up near midnight, go in for a train, arrive at London, use the tube station, get on a train to Luton. I should be there at about 2AM, then I'll wait 4 hours, go to check in, wait another hour or so, board the plane, sleep for 2 hours in the air, land in Warsaw at about 8AM (or near 9AM, I don't remember off the top of my head). After that I would need to wait an hour for a shuttle bus that'll take me to Białystok in 3-4 hours, then I'll just take the ride home by bus and I should be there by noon...

Knowing my luck, something bad is bound to happen... I can feel it...

I'll write more on how the semester went later on, when I'll have internet that isn't public domain...

Travel SMASH!!!

I hate travel... there's always something going wrong when I move between countries!

Last week I had to give my laptop for repairs due to a screen issue which needs to be dealt with before I have to write essays. Otherwise I would have trouble passing the semester. Since I was a bit bored I decided to clean my room a bit. Naturally, this caused me to accidentally throw away the notes about my plane. Next thing to do then was to go somewhere with a working internet connection and check if British Airways has some option for me to regain the lost information. Their website didn't help, so my last line of hope was in calling them. Which ended very fast as my phone run out of credit and I had no money to top up! Some of the people I know tried to help me out the next day but British Airways had their line too busy. I would have had to wait more than 15 minutes to talk to someone. On Saturday, before I head over to Heathrow with my dad, we call them again at 6am. Success! The information was given and I was happy to know what plane, time and terminal I had to arrive at.

You'd think that was it for the problems!

Upon arrival in Warsaw I was supposed to wait a few hours for a bus to Białystok. Naturally, after an hour of waiting my mum calls me to tell me the bus was cancelled. Luckily there are still intercity buses working outside the airport so I get into a taxi and head to the bus stop. More than an hour of standing in the cold, the bus just did not come. My last hope in a train, last one leaves in an hour! I get into a tram without a ticket because the ticket shops were all closed by now. Forty minutes later I arrive at the station, locate the ticket boot and get into line. I made it in time! I enter the train and find a secluded place at the back to sit in, then I try to remain awake for 2 hours, remaining vigilant so that nobody steals my stuff!

Finally I managed to arrive at my place of destination.

I hate travel...

Return of Me

This was a very long and tiring month, apparently, it's not going to slow down now that university started. Here is the gist of what's been going on...

The Visit
As you may know, my parents visited me before I left for Poland. We went to Stonehenge, where I had to translate from an audio guide and after going round the rocks, we were slightly disappointed... then we tried to visit Legoland Windsor but the prices killed that idea so we ended up near Buckingham palace.
Of course, after being nearly done visiting, my housemate (who moved out months ago) calls me and asks me why are my parents staying in his empty room. Apparently, he had in plans having his friends over in a house he doesn't live in any more!
My parents weren't happy with the turn of events, but we got back and they left. They had in mind staying for one more night before leaving so I was a bit afraid about my dad driving across England instead of sleeping. But when I woke up in the morning, they were fine.

I have to say I was very proud of my sister when I revealed the sun behind the curtains one morning and she used her arms to cover her face and hissed... that was so sweet!

Invading London
My cunning plan was perfect! Spend money for tickets to London under the guise of buying shoes for my sister and meet up with Insane Prophet and Revamp. It was fun, plain and simple, and I managed to get a copy of Scion: Hero. When we were in the RPG Store, I said about a possibility for me to translate RPG books and I was shocked when Insane Prophet said "You're not only able to do it, but you will do it right." or something like that. I felt extremely flattered and didn't know what to say, and I still don't know... It was a day well spent.

Busy, Busy, Busy!
After getting back to what was supposed to be a relaxing month, a prospect of joining the team translating Legend of the Five Rings came up. Since I was a bit bitter about not getting into the World of Darkness team, I took the job.
10 pages a day is really hard work... especially considering I was still active in the local literary community. Visited a few authors, talked a bit more about publishing my own poetry volume and went to the theatre under recommendation. A very nice spectacle, but since it was about Wyspiański, you probably won't understand a thing if I start talking about it.

Meanwhile, the Head Translator for World of Darkness invited me to join his in-the-works webservice about the game. After being done with the translation, I quickly translated my Cyberians write-up and he did like it!
So now I'm in two WoD webservices...

Naturally, my sister watched a lot of Heroes while I was there, some episodes with me, some without. While I watched the whole Samurai 7 series as a way to get into the mood of translating. (My excuse is extraordinary!)

Back to the Future
I like travelling but I hate getting from Place A to Place B. The places are fine, but the "getting to" is horrible. Something always goes wrong. This time I had to be stupid enough to use the wrong PIN with my card so I was stranded on the airport and if it wasn't for a friend, I would be stuck there... Thankfully, she greatly helped me out and I managed to get back here. I guess I deserved the 5 hours I had to wait in Luton.

There are new housemates in the house, I met two of them already and they seem fine. It shouldn't be hard to survive this year, even considering it's my second and it's going to be harder. Although, last year was quite easy and boring.

Apparently, the university's online database has me as a Literature student... this needs corrections!

Lack of Time

Why is it that when there is a lot to write about there just doesn't seem to be enough time for it... this is my excuse for why I might disappear from the net soon and why such a late and short update...

Friday - mother and sister arrive, me and a Czech friend (her car) went to pick them up
Saturday - dad arrives, we go visit Brighton
Sunday - we go see Stonehenge and London, due to housemate trouble, they had to leave at 22:00
Monday - Bank holiday, me and sister sat at home and spent the time being siblings!
Tuesday - we go search through Brighton shops
Wednesday - Czech friend comes to take us to a Polish friend, we talked all four about stuff and relaxed, ended the day with searching through Eastbourne shops
Thursday - we stayed at home and were siblings again!
Friday - we went to London to meet Insane Prophet and Revamp, I bought Scion: Hero
Saturday - we were siblings again (sister was recovering from bad feet-pain), parents arrive late in the evening
Sunday - early in the morning dad takes us all to the airport, noon spent flying, rest of day on the road to Białystok
Monday - spent on being with mum and seeing grandpa for a moment
Tuesday - search for books for my sister high school and regaining my sleep pattern which was drained of hours last week
Wednesday - I make talks about a translation job

Right now I am contracted to translate 120 pages of Legends of the Five Rings for the Polish market. I have 2 weeks to be done with it, thus I shall be busy once more...

Christmas of a Criminal

6th of January... Christmas Eve, everything is packed and it's time to go back to England. This time there were no problems with the planes. But I have bad karma when it comes to travel it seems, as I experienced the blocking of my bank and I couldn't buy myself a train ticket. I was 30p short, I thought about calling someone I know in London but I couldn't bother with it being past 8pm. Then I checked the train prices and noticed I could get into Horsham so I phoned Seven to check if it would be okay with them if I'd stay over-night since I was coming over the next day anyway. But they were out and I couldn't hear what Seven's son was saying, I hate calling from Victoria, it's so loud. So I thought to myself, plan B, I went over to a policeman and asked if he had 30p to spare... I was nearly arrested for begging... I had to leave the grounds and use plan C with my extreme stealth capabilities. I went and exchanged the Polish money I had, coming at a significant money loss which will make my going back harder if anything goes wrong... and knowing my luck, it will be bad. An irony since my patron is the Saint of Travellers.

7th of January... Christmas Day, I went over to Seven but Xander had to take the car to get me because my card was still blocked. I feel bad about that since I know what kinda trouble they have. But I at least had loads of fun while there, and they liked all the dead animals I brought them. I played some cards, talked a bit, and it was very enjoyable. They are such nice people and it pains me that I have little in the ways of repaying them for the kindness (other than praying for their pagan souls to be saved or something).

8th of January... A funny thing happened. A girl from my course asked me if I could go with her for a smoke, and although I don't smoke I did give her some company. Especially since it was raining outside. We talked and she told me about how she is looking for a new place to live because she can't stand her housemates any more. I told her I have a bit of the same problem and want to move out because of the constant parties so she told me that she found an opportunity to move in with her friend but she needed another person to do that, and since I am an extremely quiet person, she told me she would be very happy to have me as a housemate. Add the fact that I am serious enough to study with, in comparison to the other girls she normally studies with. I hope that goes well, and it does seem like it because she wanted to tell me when we could move in but had some bad stuff going on and wasn't even able to stay on the lecture today. She really needs to get out of her current accommodation, it takes too much strain on her already. I just hope I won't be a bad housemate though, I know I can be nasty at times and closed because of my mood swings

In the land of my origin...

Saturday was awful, I had missed the plane because of a cancelled train. Luckily Seven's hubby agreed to get me from the airport otherwise I would have been forced to sleep on the street as I did not have enough money for 2 train tickets to get back and forth to the airport the next day, when I rebooked my flight.

God bless those infidels.

I noticed I suffer serious linguistic geekery symptoms... I just can't stop talking about consonants and vowels... which is surprising considering the fact I was never into phonetics before.

I stayed up till late at night talking to my sister, she isn't telling but I noticed how much she missed me... she was never that talkative with me. And she actually talked, not just made stupid jokes that drove me crazy...

The next day, yesterday in other words, I went to my old high-school to say hello to my teachers. I noticed I still hate some of them with a passion, but most are okay, I'm going there today again because my English teachers weren't present. I hope to catch them this time around.

After that, I went to town to meet up with Vegael, and God, how we missed each other. We just talked and wandered for hours upon hours until it was just too late to be healthy. I'm glad he liked the stuff I brought him from England.

It's funny how everyone says how much people tell me I got it easy with my lectures since I got so few of them, but I really don't fell like I have. I spend most of my time in front of books anyway, and now I need to get to work over my studies but first I need to meet up with some people. I owe them that much for not giving a sign of life for a few months.

On a side note, the rumours of my demise were highly exaggerated...

I have returned from the depths of nothingness

I loved it in England. I played Yu-Gi-Oh more than I ever got the chance to, I stroke kitties, I've seen English films on an English TV in an English home with an English family (God exists!!!), I got RPG books!, more cards! (VTES seems fun as I read the instruction, too bad I have no one to play it with).

I think I have never drank so much tea... how I love it...

So, after the few days I spent corrupting 7th's family I went to my dad. I had a lot of work there. I had to talk with his boss and help in finding a house for his friend (the agency said they can't help him because he needs to live at least 3 years in England and he needs to know English otherwise he won't be able to sign all the needed documents). During the time I was bored I read some Werewolf: the Forsaken, that book is really good, it has a much more predatory feel to it than the Apocalypse. Of course I also bought myself some LEGO!!!

Unfortunately everything that's good has to end... and fast. I got to the airport in London at 9am, and of course they cancelled the flight at 10am because of the fog. I'm not sure, but from what I know fogs don't appear in 5 minutes... they couldn't see that the fog won't allow the plane to take off sooner?
When the guy from the LOT Airlines came to explain the situation everybody started screaming.
The English passengers: "This is London! Speak in English!"
The Polish passengers: "These are Polish Airlines!" (of course, none of them knew English )
My next flight was at 6pm... airports are so boring... but that's not the end. The flight at 6pm got delayed to 9pm... so I was in Warsaw at 11pm. The problem is, I don't live in Warsaw. I was back home at 3am.
The worst part is, my mum was waiting at the airport in Warsaw with my aunt and uncle the whole time...

Before I forget, I had a strange conversation in an English Pub.
Dad: "Krzyś, go and buy us some beer."
Me (to bar-tender): "Two Polish beers please." (It was me, dad and his friend)
Bar-Tender: "ID please." (I give him my ID card, he looks at it as if he has never seen one) "I need your passport."
Me (polish): "Dad! They want my passport but I left it in the house."
Dad (polish): "Tell them I want to buy two beers."
Me: "This man would like to buy two beers."
Bar-tender: "I need your passport first."
Me: "But I don't want to buy beer, he wants."
Bar-tender: "We are not going to serve anyone until you leave the building."
Me: "Okay, I'll leave the building, but first I need to tell you what my dad wants because he doesn't speak English."
Bar-tender: "We are not going to serve anyone until you leave the building."
Me: "I'm going to leave the building, then you will sell him (I point at dad) two Polish beer, got it?"
2nd Bar-Tender: "Excuse me, but it's not that hard to understand, no beer till you leave." (I hate it when English don't understand English... last time I was that mad, I beat up two muggers... so I left quickly before I could do some harm to someone)
Of course, the bar-tenders ignored my dad and his friend the whole time... and they even checked the building if I have really left... God help them if they ever come to me for any kind of help...

Back to my trip: I got home, and I see my primary hard drive dead... so I'm left with absolutely no programs, I lost all my sheets I worked so hard on, all my translations, all my stories, all my poems, and the whole of my oral exam... I hate life...

England is so lovely

It took me a while to get here. When I was on the airport in Poland and waiting for my flight to England, I took my time and read some Ghost Stories. Of course, after 2 hours of delays, my plane got cancelled because of ice!!! (I blah you -30C!!!). And so, I had to spend a night in the hotel, and the only thing I ate was breakfast, because the drive to the airport took hours. Right now I'm still feeling a bit anorectic

Luckily I finally arrived at this wonderful country. I've spent my time corrupting with my mere presence Seven's family members (Pickled cucumber!!! Yu-Gi-Oh!!!). I also played some cards, and a session last night (while drinking some vodka).

I love the animals that live here. The dog is so cute, and the cats are adorable. Brujah doesn't seem that bad, but that's probably because he is in his cage the whole time. We've been to the cinema, I bought Werewolf: the Forsaken, Cybernetic Revolution Booster Pack and I was given two decks of VtES (now I'll have to buy more cards because of the wench scheming) and more Yu-Gi-Oh cards (oh yeah).

They all seem to understand my English so I think it's not that bad...

I only wish I'd had the chance to meet Deoq in person

(and no, I'm not being kept in the basement)