Just in case you've been wondering what I've been up to the past few days. Cheshire-cat-grin
Turns out
walking like a penguin (remember?)
doesn't always work... oops (I trembled and shuddered and then giggled at those penguins.)
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| Oh my. The first time, ever, to have any kind of cheesecake in Europe with an actual honest-to-goodness graham cracker type crust. And hands down the best cheesecake I've had outside the US...at least in recent memory. Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious. Sugar. Free. (Not). Life. |
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| My new secret don't-tell-anyone friend. Yikes. |
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| Took a walk along the seashore this morning. Saw a ferry coming in but it was sort of not moving at all... I thought. So I left. |
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| Looked back about 3 min later and it had really snuck up on me! I wish I'd stayed put. |
We also listened to the final of the Estonian English Speakers' Union public speaking contest for high schoolers in grades 11 and 12. The winner and runner-up will go to London later this spring. All 6 were excellent and had much better English-both comprehension and speaking- than my university English translation students back in Ukr. Oh Dear. The audience got to choose a 'peoples choice' winner and runner-up. The boy I voted for wasn't the most polished and his delivery actually lacked quite a bit, in comparison with at least 3 of the other 5. But, he spoke from personal experience about the power of forgiveness and how it will improve your life. Many of the others covered grandiose topics (like activism and getting involved in making the world a better place by helping the Syrian refugees). There was a time in my life when I was quite passionate about things and could have written and given (if not as well) one of those speeches. I feel now, though, that those things really are beyond our reach, are too often misused and will never make a dent, really. We can effect small (and sometimes big) changes in our own sphere, though and I was quite impressed with a teenager actually understanding that. And apparently the judges liked him, too, as he was the runner-up!
And furthermore, I don't really trust public speakers or speeches much anymore. The power of speech is artfully used to produce desired effects from a specific target audience. And always has been, I suppose. I really don't trust that kind of powerful speaking...
The cheesecake looks delicious!!
ReplyDeleteI don't either. You can't believe everything you hear.
ReplyDeleteAw, the ferry brought back memories! The cheesecake looks/sounded delicious and yay for the runner-up! Your last post--the candy. Ummm, I fell in love with chocolate all over again when Laura sent us swedish/finish chocolate. There was also some little fruit hard candies I fell in love with when i was over there. Can't find them here. I bought some chocolate in Russia when I was there, but gave it away, as it was dark, and I hadn't learned to like it yet. Now it's good-bye hershey's, I'm a chocolate snob. Which is ok because I won't buy near as much of the expensive stuff, which means I'm not eating near as much!
ReplyDeleteyum cheesecake! And what is it about chocolate? It really doesn't fix anything but it is there and so very comforting. Yes, I've had my share lately, too. :) Have you had snow all winter?
ReplyDeletePS... I'm bummed about Google's death sentence, too. Still haven't found a suitable alternative.
ReplyDelete