About General Knowledge

When I was working with students, I often tended to hear their questions or incorrect answer to various questions. That was no surprise – the kids were learning, gaining their knowledge and had a lot to process.

These days , meeting with various people (who are mature, often with college degrees, who have traveled to many places in the world, and, in many cases, held important position at their work places), I am repeatedly stunned with “thunders” our interlocutors throw from time to time. 

Here are some examples: 

- The word "Colombian" relates to a coffee brand (no clue that Colombia is a country?).
- There is no such city in Mississippi as Greenville – from a person who originates in that state and lived in Mississippi for many decades (well, I checked, Greenville is the county seat of Washington County, MS) .
- Yuma? – from a person who has lived in Arizona for some years and still lives there – they did not know what we were talking about – they had never heard of Yuma, AZ.
- A song in English which lyrics mention “Zulu” and “Africa” is a Polish song and relates to Polish traditions – according to a native American-English speaker.
- Chianti? Is it a dance? (no, it is a type of wine)
- “I did not know you have corn in Poland.” (???)

I am aware that no human is all-knowing and I am no different in that matter. No judgment here – I do not write about it to criticize anybody, simply do not know what to think about such peculiarities considering those persons experiences and education.

Talking about general knowledge - I am aware I have forgotten a lot of information we were expected to memorize when I was going to school. In the school system I have experienced, all the school subjects were mandatory – there were no optional ones. Most of them were purely theoretical. Even at Chemistry classes it was all about learning by heart, no practical experiments at all. Although I did not complain about that then, the level of knowledge expected to be digested by us, students, was often beyond general. Since I was not going to become a chemist, I did not have the heart to fill my mind with all the atomic numbers of each end every chemical element  (which was required by our Chemistry teacher). I remembered only a few, the most useful ones regarding solving chemical equations. 

I must admit that my approach brought me some difficulties during written tests - when we were to solve given chemical problems and were not allowed to use any reference resources beside our brains. Anyhow, nowadays, of all the atomic numbers, I can only recall 1 - the atomic number of Hydrogen.

Another example - in Physics, we needed to memorize not only the SI units terminology. The older system of units was preferred by our teacher. Why? Nobody knew. The lady just liked it better.

Within the years, a lot of what I was taught/learned has faded away. Not everything, though. Occasionally, I exercise my gray cells trying to remind myself this and that. An example here are the names of the countries and their capital cities which we also had to memorize when we studied a particular continent. Then, we were expected to recite the names and show those countries and cities on the map. I did not like that part - any hesitation was disapproved by the teacher. Besides that, during tests, we were given a diagram of the continent we currently studied and was told to complete it with the names – countries and capital cities again. 

As I said before, the knowledge that has not been used fades away. However, it does not disappear completely. When I look up the names of capitals cities I cannot recall, they seem obvious and come back again.

Every day, no matter how old we are, learning opportunities come to us. Whether we are or we are not open to them is a totally different matter.

About Clouds & More

 The skies looked different on that day. The clouds were lower than usual, and seemed to be placed in void above our heads, just hanging there. 

They appeared 3-dimensional and quite plump. Looking straight at them, you could see all other sides of those cloud formations, as well. In addition to that, unusually bright colors lightened up the clouds of many various, strong shapes.

We were on the road again. It was so nice to stare at those clouds and admire the beauty of the sight.

At some moment, we noticed a pretty rainbow in front of us, in the mist of the clouds. We were driving towards it. Both of us were amazed by the view and the sudden appearance of the rainbow. At the same time, we heard the words coming from our music player,

“(…) Rhymes that keep their secrets
Will unfold behind the clouds
And there upon the rainbow
Is the answer to a never ending story(…)”

The rainbow is hardly visible in the picture - it was much clearer to see in real,  with our own eyes

It all was quite heart-touching. What a breath-taking coincidence it was. We were astonished  – the rainbow just in front of us and then, the lines of the song* played again,

“(...) Rhymes that keep their secrets
Will unfold behind the clouds
And there upon the rainbow
Is the answer to a never ending story (...)”. 

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*The lyrics come from the song: “Never Ending Story”, made popular by Limahl in 1984.

My Polish Alphabet: "S" for Seagulls

 Today, a more down to earth-type topic.

When we came back to Poland  and were staying at my “old” place,  one thing surprised me then – I heard some weird noise outside the window -  again and again. I could hear it even when the windows were closed. To my astonishment,  I realized it was the sound of the seagulls flying around the house. What was strange about that?

The thing is, when I had used to live there, for all those decades,  I hardly noticed the sound those birds made. Obviously, I was aware of the constant presence of those birds in our area, however, I did not hear them that often.  My mind simply learned to not pay attention to that noise.  All in all, at that time, I  tended to notice the seagulls’ calls more often, when I happened to be closer to the sea. 

It reminded me the summer, when my aunt once visited.  I was little then. The lady complained then that she could not sleep in the night. The sound of the trolleybuses going along the street near our house kept her awake. Well, it did not bother us at all. Being used to the trolleybuses, we did not pay attention to the sound they made. Anyhow, strange how the human mind works.

Well, no seagulls where I live now (and no trolleybuses either). 

Another “S” is for seagulls in “My Polish Alphabet”.

Seagulls at the Sopot pier, in Poland

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"My Polish Alphabet" is about things, places, and people that come to my mind when I think about Poland.

Movies & More

Two days ago, we were watching a movie while our evening meal was getting cooked in the oven. When the sound of the timer buzzed in the kitchen, telling us that the food is ready, a character in the movie we watched said, "Sit down, we'll have dinner."

So I took out the meal out of the oven and we did - sat down and had dinner.

That was some of the synchronicities that have often happened to us.

A few more TV related examples? Here they are:

✮ Once we watched a horror. Well, rarely we do. After that, we switched off the TV set, and I turned the radio on. The first words that we heard were "You just can't kill the beast." It was the "Hotel California" song going on quite coincidently. 

✮ It was an old movie telling the story about Fatima and the Holy Mary appearances there. At some point the crowd in the show was shouting, "Give us a sign, give us a sign!" They gathered at the place where Holy Mary had made herself visible to the 3 children. At the moment when they finished shouting their "give us a sign", a thunder struck behind our window. We were stunned as the skies were perfectly clear on that day.

✮ One day, I looked up the meaning of an old English word which is very rarely used in the spoken language these days. Later, we watched a randomly chosen movie. One of the very first words said in that movie was the one I had looked up on that day.

I could go on and on with that - on my husband's birthday - a randomly chosen movie again - in the very beginning of it, the characters sang "Happy Birthday" to one of the persons in the plot.

Well, does it ever happen to you?

Travel Well

Ozzy has left this world recently. Sad that more and more old cultural "icons" go away.
Travel well Ozzy. 
Thank you for the music.

From my visit in Birmingham, years ago.

More about the photo and Black Sabbath - in "My Music ABC".

🎕

Today I have found out - totally by chance - about another passing. The lady was not a famous one, but of importance as well - to the ones who knew and loved her. 

Ola lived with her nuclear family in Germany. I met her virtually in a Polish Ladies Abroad Club. We exchanged letters for quite a good time. No, we never met personally, but I thought about her as a friend. I always enjoyed Ola's letters and learning about her world and her family. She had mentioned a few times she was struggling dealing with health problems, but never mentioned how serious the matter was. Despite it all, the lady enjoyed doing walks to a German Camino-type place and travelling to exotic countries. 

When I read in her last letter how active she had been in that past year, and about more trips and travels she planned, I was hoping she was improving and her health condition got better.

Today, her funeral service took place in Poland.

Travel well friend.

I am glad to have met you.

Singing and Frequencies

 A few weeks ago, we watched a podcast-type show hosted by two of our favorite personalities. The third participant of the talk was a Mr. C., professional singer and theater actor, whose singing (as it was mentioned in that interview) had cured many listeners. I was curious about it. At some point, after a short presentation of Mr. C. and his career, the man was asked to sing and present his healing voice abilities. 

Yes, it was powerful indeed. The vibration of the sound created by the Mr. C's vocal cords was quite strong. However, my body found it very unpleasant, the least to say. With all the appreciation of Mr. C's talent, the sound frequency he produced felt to me like a very disturbing disharmony attacking my body/frequency zone. It all made me feel like running away from the source of that distressing vibration. I did stay in my place, though because I wanted to watch the show. According to what the hosts of the program said - they found the singing very pleasant. I did not. Perhaps, I was the only person watching the show who had such a bad impression about it? I do not know/do not know why. Later, when I went to sleep, nightmares about singing vampires who were trying to get me/I was fighting them, bothered me all night long.

After waking up, while recovering after the disturbing dreams, I reminded myself what Mr. C. said. He mentioned that he does not do his healing-type singing uninvited, and that he seeks sad persons. Well, I am not one of them. Maybe that was a reason why the sounds the singer created felt to me so very disharmonious?

Coming back to those nightmares - the vampires did not get me. I found a yellow, metal tape that helped me fight them. A curious thing was - the tape activated itself only when the vampires started singing. 

It is said those creatures cannot harm you if you do not invite them in - I did not. They just happened to be at the bed-and-breakfast place where I stayed for a night.

On the whole, I would not want to experience that type of vibration/frequency (as the one mentioned above) again. However, it is good that some people find it therapeutic. What resonates with others does not have to resonate with me.

About Our Motto

Do you ever happen to feel small and/or unimportant? 

Think of this: There are no ordinary people in this world. 

Even if your name is not a famous one and it is only known to your neighbors (or not even known to them), and you are far from being wealthy - you are special and your being here is important. Everybody has their given purpose in life, even when we do not exactly picture what it is. Where you are at this point of your life is not accidental. We all are where we are needed, even though we may not realize why exactly. 

Some years ago, at a social occasion, a man asked me, "What do you do?". 

I did not mention my professional experience, hobbies, or various projects I was engaged in at that time. I just said, "I am a housewife". That I was, beside other things. It turned into a social observation - the man said nothing else to me. He quickly moved to another, more interesting/more meaningful object to talk to.

 

From my experience: I have noticed many people tend to associate/surround themselves with the "great and famous" only. Even if that fame is very much local, or a "great poet" has never published anything and is great in their mind at most (another example from real life). Such people are not attracted to so-called "nobodies". It is alright, though. Whatever resonates with others, does not have to resonate with you.

Once, while sitting in a waiting room, I noticed an elderly lady (possibly in her 80s or 90s). She was sitting opposite me, a bit to the left. The lady's daughter was accompanying her. I did not know who those women were. 

The elderly mother did not speak. Suddenly, to my amazement, I could feel her soul glowing around her. It was like an aura (11 or 12 inches wide) all around her body. The aura was outside of her, but at the same time, it was coming from her insight. No, I did not see it, I just sensed it. The lady's soul felt extremely beautiful as it radiated with pure love. It did quite move me. I tried not to stare, but I could only precept her soul while I was looking at the very person. When the time came I was to leave the waiting room, I could not help telling the women they were beautiful. 

Every person is a story and every life is full of stories.

We all may feel meaningless and helpless at times, but we are not. No one is a separate being. Our influence on the outside world, the way we affect others, the range of the ripple caused by our actions and words is bigger and more complex than we can comprehend.

All in all, every one is special - whether we realize it or not.

PS
Our thoughts and words are important. They carry energy most of us do not pay attention to. Our thoughts and words usually just come and go as we are more focused on the everyday life matters, situations we encounter. 

Have you ever thought that it might be the opposite - that our thoughts and words create those circumstances?

Since all we do, say, and share, both good and bad, comes back to us in one way or another, I am selfish enough not to wish anybody anything bad.

Let us live our lives the best we can, be kind to others, and spread good. For our own sake.