Film
Being at the orphanage (and flying overseas) always helps me to catch up on modern film. The library at my parents house helped me to get my years film hankering satisfied.
But, really, how great are animated films! The subtlety of animation and phrasing today is incredible. The value of a good translation is also amazing: it must be so hard to find a good interpreter, and how specially educated they must be. When we watched "Cars", I think one character made a joke about Neil Armstrong, but the transaltion used a famous Ukrainian cosmonaut. When we watched "Meet the Robinsons", the English had a joke about the dog wearing glasses because contacts were two expensive. Here there is very little contact use or knowledge of, and so the joke was about insurance instead, a hot topic now. But the interpreter must know the foreign language well enough to get the joke and be funny enough to make a similar joke in his native tongue.
I am also favorably impressed with the goodness of the stories, the quality of animation and characterization, and the enjoyment factor. They've got it all today, for kids and adults. And yet the last one showed Disney's first "Steamboat Willie" and that was still an engaging and entertaining clip.
Further is Danny Elfman the only composer in Hollywood, or just the only noted one. Does anyone know a good interview with him?
I like to watch the credits and I have started to notice changes:
First, what are production babies? Are they just babies born of crew members, or do couples meet and have babies in the course of time it takes to make a film today?
Second, the amount of people that it takes to make a film today in incredible. I would love to some how be involved with a feature film one day, just once. Maybe one day I can be an advising expert. Or maybe one day, I'll write that book you all keep talking about and someone will want to make a movie of it. Anyone have any other ideas, because I am not holding my breath on that one?
ukraine and a poem
First, sorry for the long delay and thank you for the encouragement. It always gets hard this time of year for me to make the 8 k trek to the next village with an internet cafe. Among other minor setbacks in the last few weeks: I have been a bit ill as have many of the boys for which I am responsible for; my sister's house burned down, though no one was hurt; and we had a blizzard with over 12 inches over night. It continued to snow for almost a week after that. The 6 new first graders also keep me very busy. But all is well: we've made forts, cars, motorcycles, and rockets of snow, even a dragon that at full length was probably 20 feet. The boys would climb on his back (he was from the blizzard before this last one and unfortunately has completely melted away, but we have a fort now that looks like a castle - broken mop buckets work great for carrying snow). We also continue to study. The rate kids can learn, if you show interest in their ability to do so, amazes me; equally amazing, is how little they learn if you don't show that interest.
Other interesting events: we were finally successful in winning the rights away from the parents for one of the boys. This may sound horrible, but in 4 years the parents have never visited their son, and yet they receive money for his care; this goes to support their bad habits (This is the normal situation, in this particular case, the parents are so far removed, I don't know where they are or what their situation is; the closest relative that at one time had contact, a godmother I believe, has asked us to not have the boy call her; he knows her number by heart though I don't think he has seen her in at least two years). The point of this rambling is that in the process the boy was amazed that his parents had his same last name (no, he didn't know his parents' names). It never occured to me how novel that might be. Here the boys live with regular contact of 30 other people amongst themselves and none of them have the same last name (except two, which is by chance, like two Smiths working together). This boys name is rare and no one in the village has it, to my knowledge. For all I know, he thought he was the only one on earth that had it (though his first name is incredibly common; in fact, another boy here has it, and so he is commonly referred to by his last name). On a tangent, villages are often composed of only a few surnames. The one where I live has a half dozen names that make up a majority of the gravestones at the church cemetary.
P.S. I want to copy a list that a returned Peace Corps volunteer sent out awhile ago; This may not be that interesting to read in hindsight, but I will include it anyway.
Days in Ukraine – 31 months
Students taught – about 500
Countries visited – 4 (saw 3 more on my way back after Peace Corps)
Host sisters – 1
Host brothers – 2
host sisters in laws and nephews - 1 of each
Ukrainian cities/towns visited – over 40; I've visited 17 of their 24 'states' called oblasts
Jars canned – about 30, but a lot were pumpkin pie mix, because I could never get the Ukrainians that were special to me to come together for a Thanksgiving dinner in my tiny apartment; so I gave them a recipe and a jar of pumpkin, sugar, and spice. I lived right down the street from the school and the director never saw my place.
Portions of holodetz (meat jello) eaten – first year 1, second year lots
Newspaper interviews – 1
Radio interviews - 1
Key note/welcoming speeches after an ambassador - 1 (from Indonesia)
Cups of coffee consumed – probably less than 100
cups of tea - more than a thousand
Trips to Kyiv – 6, I think
Girls I know named Olya – I think more than 12
Books read – maybe 10
Trips to the town disco – zero, kind of proud and ashamed of this. Only went to a disco once here, in another town. Though I recently had an invitation.
Mice killed – 1 by poison at the orphanage (another by trap last year in Czech)
Grants written – 1
Pairs of shoes I wore out – 4
Lessons made up on the spot – 3 (this is much higher for most volunteers. I did a lot of lesson "recycling")
Blog entries – 100, I think
Where is this from?
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now
And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight
And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming . . .
I don't know who sent this to me, but it is very pretty. The last line is particularly interesting. Anyone know where it is from?
