20-something

This is for them 20-somethings

Time really moves fast, you were just sixteen

"Schoolin' Life", Beyoncé

As soon as I've just turned 20 (TWENTY! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?), I'm ready to publish some lists I've been making for some time. I must admit it hasn't been easy to recollect 20 mistakes I've made or 20 books that have impressed me enough so I would recommend them. Of course, these lists can easily be edited, but that's what I've got by the age of 20 so far. Hope you'll have fun reading them!

20 mistakes I've made:
1. Didn't go out with that one boy at school
2. Had too many expectations for my graduating party
3. Didn't book a hostel in Tokyo beforehand
4. Didn't read enough this summer
5. Wasted a day in LA on walking with the most boring guy in 2015
6. Scored 83 points for the Russian final test at school
7. My first boyfriend
8. Half of my would-be boyfriends
9. Ate that cheesecake in Khabarovsk in 2014
10. Do everything in the last minute
11. Didn't talk enough with all the kinds from my teams in the camp
12. Didn't put on my sunscreen on the Tobizina cape
13. Didn't put on my sunscreen in Santa Monica in 2013
14. Didn't take any photos with the people I hung out with in LA in 2015
15. Ruined my biological clock
16. Didn't ask about the 3OH!3 album Omens in Amoeba
17. Don't say right answers louder during the classes when needed
18. Drank too much at my unofficial matriculation at university
19. Wasted some money a couple of times when I could've saved them, ok
20. Didn't get along with my elder sister during our childhood

20 lessons I've learned:
1. Always think about where to stay during not only trips themselves but also stepovers in advance
2. Let things go
3. Take your time, don't forget to relax, always arrange some me-time
4. You aren't to like all the people around. It's ok to have someone you don't approve
5. Have some money in the bank as some kind of a back-up
6. Upload the photos you take to Google Photo or iCloud or anything like that. You never know when your device can get broken or lost
7. Being nice is a rule, but being petty and bitchy isn't always a bad idea
8. "If you can't love yourself, how the hell you're gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen here?" RuPaul
9. Love your parents and make sure you call them often enough. They deserve it, they love you
10. Trust your friends but rely on yourself first
11. Lovers come and go, friends stay. Cherish them
12. Better be alone with someone you don't care of
13. Don't care what they think. Put on as much make-up as you want while you're young and beautiful
14. Don't care what they think. You can be young and beautiful till the end of time
15. Don't know what color you should choose? Choose black
16. Be helpful - and for yourself first
17. Take risks - they tend to pay off!
18. Take in some vitamins, take care of your health
19. Read more
20. Enjoy the moment, don't miss living

20 songs I adore:
1. Jason Mraz "I'm Yours"
2. The Neighbourhood "Ferrari"
3. Beyoncé "Diva"
4. Marina And The Diamonds "How To Be A Heartbreaker"
5. Beyoncé "Partition"
6. Ariana Grande "One Last Time"
7. Lana Del Rey "Backfire"
8. 3OH!3 "Love 2012"
9. Halsey "Colors"
10. The Common Linnets "Calm After The Storm"
11. Lady Gaga feat. Beyoncé "Telephone"
12. Gem Club "Twins"
13. The Beetles "Strawberry Fields Forever"
14. Anna Margaret "Something About Sunshine"
15. Lady Gaga "Born This Way"
16. Postdata "Tobias Grey"
17. Joss Stone "L.O.V.E."
18. Arctic Monkeys "505"
19. Ryan Adams "Firecracker"
20. Natalia Kills "Problem"

20 books I recommend:
1. George Orwell "1984"
2. Leo Tolstoy "Anna Karenina"
3. Yevgeny Zamyatin "We"
4. Jane Austin "Pride and Prejudice"
5. Dante Alighieri "Divine Comedy"
6. David Nicholls "One Day"
7. Joanne Harris "Chocolat"
8. Joanne Harris "The Lollipop Shoes"
9. Dan Brown "Angels and Demons"
10. Goethe "Faust"
11. Francesco Petrarca's sonnets
12. Alexander Blok's poems
13. Daniel Keyes "Flowers for Algernon"
14. J. K. Rowling "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"
15. Mikhail Lermontov's poems
16. Ivan Bunin's short novels
17. Robert Rozhdestvensky's poems
18. Joseph Brodsky's poems
19. Charlotte Brontë "Jane Eyre"
20. Patrick Süskind "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer"


And I certainly couldn't leave you withough the Queen B in my B'Day! Here's something relating to the title and all the jazz ♥

Be brave as usual! 

Sic Vives

Time goes on, I'm back in Vladivostok, we got French as our second language at university, I started a really important thing and learn four languages at once. Ta-daaa!
That really important thing is work. I started working! I told you a thousand times I wanted to become a tutor since the second semester, and I did it! Isn't it a great step in my life? It's definitely something I would write down in my autobiography. I became the English tutor for a boy, and I've already had a real full lesson with him, and everything went well. Since March I'm about to start working with a girl, but I still wait for their call. Even if I'm left with one boy to study, because it takes a lot of time and power to get to the city, I may spend about an hour on buses only to reach the place of my destination. But finally this is where I read and not waste my cell phone battery.
Last week my student organisation started its lectures, and so they started to teach us how to become teachers of their summer camp. I aim at working there for one term, I won't be able to work there for another term, because...
I have a huge announcement for you, world! In the end of summer, but in the beginning of August I'll go to... the USA! Yey!  I did decide to use my American visa one more time and have already bought the plane tickets. I'll go off to LA through Japan on the 2nd of August and be heading back to Russia through Japan again on the 11th of August, though I'll land to Vladivostok on the 13th only. After that I plan on visiting my hometown. I know, it won't be for long, and there are plenty of time till August from now, but I don't want to spend a lot of time in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk either. I love my hometown for people living there, but on seeing them I don't have much to do there. You know, on the last week of staying at home I started seeing my university in my dreams. I've got a new life, and I'm in love with that. The past is past.
While I keep on reading "Lolita" by V. Nabokov in the original, yesterday I started reading "The Plague" by the French author Albert Camus. Even though we study French, I hope you understand I read it translated into Russian, I like that book, it's kinda sad-philosophical thing I like. I guess I'll 'kill' it pretty fast, the story is really fascinating.
Yesterday Russia stopped celebrating Maslenitsa - a week when we eat a lot of thin pancakes, have fun and visit relatives, On Saturday our university had an event about it, and I even participated there as a musician! A host picked me out of the crowd and gave me an old Russian musical instrument that's actually a wash board. You know, Russians can play a saw even.

Yeah, I'm wearing red-blue shirt and a wash board on my neck

The same day, right before the event, Tanya, Rodion and I had a walk around our campus, it was snowing that time, very beautiful, though I don't approve of snowing in Vladivostok, I long for spring. So my friends and I decided to... walk on water! Well, I mean on ice. Our bay got frozen during the winter, so we could have a walk. 

Looks much like "Interstellar", isn't it?

When I'm on my way to my work, I have an opportunity to see the most beautiful views I so adore. The views of cities always take over my heart. And I take photos of them.

Be brave

The First Of Wonderful

Well, are you ready? Do you feel fine generally? I definitely do. But now I should retell how I've celebrated this New Year, shouldn't I?
The beginning was all the same - I met the midnight with my parents, then hooked up with the friends. Then we wanted to go around the city, but we turned out to go to our former class master. When we met with him, some boys hardly hinted him to go to his place, but our teacher resisted, my close friends, the teacher and I went to the nearest square, the others separated from us. At the square the teacher opened a bottle of a sparkling wine and a box of sweets, we talked about our education, and when we got ultimately cold, we went down. We hooked up with the company again, and headed to... the 2012-2013 New Year. Even though Ilya and our class master went home, we came to Misha's place, even though it weren't 17 people now, and Misha's parents didn't welcome us at the entering. The boys started drinking vodka and playing GTA V, Dasha and I spent time warming up with hot tea and laughing at the boys' jokes. When Dasha and I became ready to go, we said goodbye to the boys and ran through the frost to Bacardi Black at Dasha's place. We couldn't resist our tiredness too long, and at half past 7 a.m. I went home. I immediately fell asleep and at about 5 p.m. I opened my eyes.
Presents time! I didn't received much this time, but there are absolutely precious ones. Dasha gave me the most awesome notebook one can ever desire. She printed my pic on the cloth and put it on the notebook she had bought with me, actually:D

Ilya presented me the nerdiest thing ever - Howard Wolowitz 16,4 cm figure. That's so awesome! 

My parents gave me soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of purr big socks and an album with Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk cover. And sweets. Back to university at our New Year party Cherry Lady's boyfriend Andrei gifted me a mug with "Wild Pandas" logo printed on it (just reminding - "Wild Pandas" is our university's American football team in which Andrei and Rodion are members). And sweets from Anton and Tatyana. MORE SWEEEEEEETS!!

So, as you can understand I've slept the whole day today, I've been eating (sing it like "I've been drinking, I've been drinking...") and surfing the Internet. Now I plan on playing the Sims 4 and watching something nice.

The song of the day will be... the latest track by Marina and the Diamonds from the future album "FROOT". The song's called "Immortal", and it isn't funny and New-Year-mooded. But the song is really beautiful and reminds of "Electra Heart" era so much. Marina released a video to the song at once.

Be brave in New Year!!!

Living La Dolce Vita

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M BACK!
Once again I'm ready to type the whole post with the Caps Lock on, because there are so many things to write about, and I don't remember a sht. Fortunately, I've been clever enough to publish something on Facebook, so you (those, who know about my Facebook) got some info about my amazing life, and I will have some help remembering all my events now. Of course, I wouldn't survive without Instagram, thank you, dear.
First of all, why haven't I written for so long? It's such a crazy story. In the middle of September Cherry Lady and I noticed that people started moving out from our super hotel. When we finally decided to figure that stuff out, we learnt that it wasn't one's free will to change places of living, but top brass ordered everyone to leave the hotels. We also found out that we had been moved to the furthest dormitory on the other side of the campus (as my uncle said later "You go from one extreme to the other"), so it was a hard time for us. Thankfully, we got a couple of boys to help us with carrying our luggage. AND I HAD A LOT! Now I've got an unbelievable dream to own as less clothes as I can. So, in the beginning my dear friend and I were settled in different rooms, and it was something like "WHAA?", but soon enough we handled to get together, though our room now is actually two big rooms with four beds, three tables, and we have to pay more for all that jazz. But it's pretty AWESOME, because we easily have guests here, dance in the middle of the room in the middle of the night and sleep like one person on two beds. By the way, today it's been exactly a month since we moved here, in the 11th dormitory.

The photo was taken when we'd just stepped into our new place.
Now things are kinda different.

And the view out of the window

The next nice thing appearing in my head is the first American football match. Our friend Rodion took a part in it, and Cherry Lady and I, the most unsporty girls ever, came there just to cheer him up. But now it's cool enough telling someone that I visited the American football game (moreover, out team won).

It was freaking rainy in the beginning, but when the actual game started,
the weather turned pretty fine

The cheerleaders sucked, honestly

Another big event was our students' initiation, of course. Frankly speaking, we had two initiation: one was held only for our School and another was for all the freshers. At our School initiation we listened to "Gaudeamus", senior students and every group of freshers showed some funny things. Every, except us, certainly. We rocked out from our seats, the audience would be too boring without us. The common initiation was held in a big gym, the directors of each School visited it, our rector made a speech. Then there was a quite weird sudents' vow and a PARTY! Again we rocked out as only we could; our group mates turned out to be as freaky dancers as Cherry Lady and I were. Then Kirill, a new person in my surroundings, had a night walk at the sea-front, and that was how I met my birthday. But I'll give THAT INCREDIBLE EVENT an individual post.

Some guys from my group (our course leader at the left, BTW)

Generally, I seem to have got used to living in the dormitory. Of course, our place still can't be compared with the dormitories of my friends from the other cities. I visit the main land approximately once a week, usually on Sunday, where Rodion, Cherry Lady and I buy something we need and toss a glass of something in the bar. We've already found our favourite place, it's a bar called "Drujba" ("Friendship") themed as a deeply Soviet thing. Awesome!

A bit of Vladivostok.

Also I received a giant present from my parents for my birthday - they arrived to me for a week! Well, they've already left, and I'll describe what I've done with them in my birthday post, but this is it.
Once again I think I write a little and put a lot of photos, but the situation would be different if I wrote what I wanted in a proper time.
I'm not the only person who's back this week. Adorable Marina And The Diamonds released A NEW SONG not so long ago. I fell for that song from the first listening (you know, it may be strange for me), the track is absolutely what I've been waiting for. So let it be the song of the day!! Marina And The Diamonds - FROOT:

Be brave! Mommy's here ♥

Libra Like Me

Sunday, whohoo, yesterday my liiife was filled with raaain...
Yup, the lyrics is wrong, but who cares. So how have you spent your weekend? I've done it nice.

Time Rolls On

Time rolls on, and it's the 5th day without mom in da house. And when I abide one to one with my dad for a long time (for more than a day), food torture (in the finest sense of the expression) becomes. Something breaks out in the mind of my dad, and the only aim he sees is to feed me. To feed me A LOT. When I don't eat something he's cooked for me or eat just a little, he debates about it in such way I start feeling myself guilty for every sin in the world. Even right now he's just figured out I didn't eat his soup today, and I wish the earth could swallow me up. I'm not about daddy punishes me somehow for not eating enough, but his reactions make me feel myself alone to blame. But it's just food! I know, some people lives to eat and not just eat to live. But all these materials exist just to recharge us with the energy. And if I don't need more energy, why should I put something into my body against my own will? Nevertheless, there's cult of food in my family, and I have to deal with it. But after all, he says "Well, I haven't told a word yet".
Today at our P.E. lesson our teacher decided to make our line finally right and arrange everyone to stand according to the height. I would've never think so, but now I'm... the last in line. It means that without my lovely heels I'm the shortest in our class! Well, I'm not a five-foot-one, I've got pretty ordinary height, but even one my classmatty appears to be taller me for 1-2 cm, and that makes that damn sense! But mama's told me that men must be taller than women, so I give them this opportunity.
Last week I had a concert and this week I'll have one too. Moreover, this week is remarkable for our city because the Olympic flame will be brought to our place. Torchbearers will run with that memorable stick around the city, I hope it won't burnt down at every turning. At least this torch is cool with having been in the Universe. Ain't that cool, mere mortals? Sochi 2014 - much ado about nothing.
Aaaaghr... Nothing to mention, except that my cat tries to eat my left leg and keeps on biting it in one exact place. It hurts.
Lately I stuck to diamond theme. If you don't have an idea what I am talking about (and you really do not), I'm not about Marina And The Diamonds. Recently I started listening to the songs which lyrics are connected with the diamonds: absolutely famous "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" by unbelievable Marylin Monroe (OST "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes") and gorgeous "Diamods Are Forever" by fabulous Shirley Bassey (OST "Diamonds Are Forever" James Bond movie, btw). Both songs slightly make hints that love sucks - diamonds rule. Even though I'm pretty young to have real diamonds "round my little finger", there's nothing to pretend me from having simply brilliant songs in my blog as the songs of the day.

The French are glad to die for love, 

They delight in fighting duels, 

But I prefer a man who lives and gives

Expensive jewels.

A kiss on the hand may be quite continental,

But diamonds are a girl's best friend.

A kiss may be grand, 

But it won't pay the rental on your humble flat

Or help you at the automat.

Men grow cold as girls grow old,

And we all lose our charms in the end.

But square-cut or pear shaped these rocks don't lose their shape,

Diamonds are a girl's best friend!

... Tiffany's! 

... Cartier! 

Black Star, Frost, Gorham!

Talk to me, Harry Winston, tell me all about it! 

There may come a time when a lass needs a lawyer,

But diamonds are a girl's best friend.

There may come a time when a hard boiled employer thinks you're awful nice,

But get that ice or else no dice.

He's your guy when stocks are high,

But beware when they start to descend.

It's then that those louses go back to their spouses,

Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

I've heard of affairs that are strictly platonic,

But diamonds are a girl's best friend.

And I think affairs that you must keep liaisonic are better bets

If little pets get big baguettes.

Time rolls on and youth is gone and you can't straighten up when you bend

But stiff back or stiff knees you stand straight at... Tiffany's!.. 

Diamonds... diamonds... 

I don't mean rhinestones!

But diamonds are a girl's... best friend!

Diamonds are forever, 

They are all I need to please me, 

They can stimulate and tease me, 

They won't leave in the night, 

I've no fear that they might desert me. 

Diamonds are forever, 

Hold one up and then caress it, 

Touch it, stroke it and undress it, 

I can see every part, 

Nothing hides in the heart to hurt me. 

I don't need love, 

For what good will love do me? 

Diamonds never lie to me, 

For when love's gone, 

They'll luster on. 

Diamonds are forever, 

Sparkling round my little finger. 

Unlike men, the diamonds linger; 

Men are mere mortals who 

Are not worth going to your grave for. 

I don't need love, 

For what good will love do me? 

Diamonds never lie to me, 

For when love's gone, 

They'll luster on. 

Diamonds are forever, forever, forever. 

Diamonds are forever, forever, forever. 

Forever and ever.

Be brave, have good friends!

A Murdered Afternoon a.k.a. Tragedy Happens

My day's been a piece of shit right from the start...

I'm Your Biggest Fan

But I won't stop until that boy is mine

Lady Gaga, "Paparazzi"

Hey, guys! Happy Halloween! While a half of the planet is celebrating the day of the dead wearing cool suits, I do nothing extraordinary. Therefore I'll make here kinda fan-space. Nothing special, but my favourite fan-arts. And a good old song I lately became obsessed with.

Be brave!

P.S. Yeah, it may look like Lanapocalypse.
P.P.S. "THE CARRIE DIARIES" SEASON 2 HAS STARTED! I'm so excited! Have just watched the 1st episode, and it's so coooool!