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Supernatural or not
I had quite a weird experience a few days ago which on the one hand one could explain easily and on the other hand one couldn’t explain that easily and I would like to share it with you. On Sunday, my hubby Milan and I went on a trip to castle festivities in Velhartice. When we were almost there, we saw an old church which Milan found familiar having said that he had read something about it but was not sure and was not much specific. We made a quick detour to have a look at it and found out that the church was situated inside a cemetery. We were…
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Following and imitating, or rather not
A few days ago I arrived at the parking lot in the premises of the company where I work. I chose a place to park at and directed my car to the place. There was snow in the parking lot and the borders of the parking places were not quite clear but I did my best to fit in there. Yet when I stopped the car, I noticed that I was not aligned to the car in front of me so I shifted into reversed gear, reversed and then aligned my car with the one opposite me. When I got off, I found out that my car stood quite amiss,…
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My word for the year
It’s been my practice lately to pick a word at the end of the year that will accompany me throughout the following year and will help me to focus on some aspect of my life that needs to be improved, changed or thought over. I can tell you that it’s quite interesting to watch how this practice evolves and how these words come to me. For this year the scheme hasn’t changed. A few days before Christmas I was driving on my way to work and paying attention to the traffic when suddenly a photo appeared in front of my mind’s eye. It was a photo I took last year…
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Sexy
Put your hand up if you think you’re sexy. Well, I can’t see enough hands in the air… Why? Somebody might have told you that you’re not sexy and you believed them… But you’re sexy. Each and every one of you is sexy. Just believe in yourself. As you might have read in one of my earlier posts, last summer hubby and I visited the music festival Colours of Ostrava. The very first concert we chose to listen to was performed by Heymoonshaker, a pair of musicians combining excellent beatbox and raw, blues guitar. We chose their concert because we saw some of their videos on YouTube and they felt…
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Some things are simply meant to be
The other day my husband and I were shopping in a Tesco hypermarket in Pilsen. Inside the building, there were presented several large boards promoting books to be published, each side of the boards was devoted to a single book. There was always a paragraph or two presenting the book and its author but what especially attracted my attention were images of the book’s covers along with their drafts and other versions, it’s something one rarely has the opportunity to see. Who could resist having a look behind the scene? Several of the promoted books were written by Franz Kafka, a writer coming from a Jewish family who was writing…
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Guidance and inspiration in one word a year
Several years ago I read for the first time about the idea of choosing a word for the following year, a word that is supposed to be an inspiration and guide rather than any kind of resolution. The word can represent something personal to be focused on throughout the particular year, something one wants to learn, develop or improve in, or it can represent a desired change in one’s life, a direction to be followed, a dream to be fulfilled… So many possibilities… But how do I choose such a mighty word, I asked myself, and couldn’t find the answer easily. Those following this practice recommended pondering, meditating, praying and…
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Gratitude
Amid these Christmas preparations I wanted to tell you that the other day, when I was coming home from work and was driving through a wood near our village, it struck me how much my life has changed recently. Partly from the outside and more importantly from the inside, but it’s all intertwined and interlinked, isn’t it? I wanted to add that there were times in my life a few years ago when crashing my car head-on into a tree seemed like a good solution to all the bad feelings and thoughts I had. I never tried, just let the idea in and out, but the depressive thought was there.…
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Thoughts on learning strategies
When you are learning something new, what’s your strategy? Do you mainly gather pieces of information, go through them quickly and then keep them in your laptop or (note)books for future reference or do you try and use them until you master them? Long time ago I realised that I belong to that first group of learners, I’m definitely a gatherer. Not of things but pieces of information. I have always been, since childhood. In this digital era I have plenty of files in my laptop containing articles on things like English grammar and vocabulary, photography techniques, Lightroom tips and manuals, Photoshop Elements tutorials… I enlarge my collection day by…
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Reflections
Once I was standing on a bank of a pond, watching a duck resting just opposite and admiring its reflection in the water. It was such a tranquil scene… I zoomed in my camera in an effort to capture the impression but when I opened the photo on my laptop, I felt taken aback. Is this what I saw at the place? There is something wrong with the picture… And then it dawned on me. The reflection did not look as I supposed it should. The duck was there but there were also trees mirroring themselves in the water which could not be seen in the upper part of the…
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Costume
Last summer we visited a Milotice castle, a baroque castle situated in South Moravia. When we entered the castle’s court yard, we noticed a poster inviting everybody to “Change into a period costume!”. After a while we noticed a group of three women dressed in enchanting period gowns. Obviously they were having fun while promenading in the castle’s park, posing for photographs and chatting, and it felt as if we found ourselves in that period as well. The way we dress ourselves definitely influences or even decides on how we feel. To put on clothes of a different style than we are used to wearing may evoke a surprising experience…
