I do have regrets. Everybody does. One is that I was born before the Internet and possibility to be worldwide and online when I was young. To be able to expand my own neighborhood outside the front yard fence. Well, on second thought, that is not entirely true - sometimes I feel the opposite and there is no real regret. Childhood without networking and computers was not that bad at all. As it seems, the word 'outdoor' for me and my son today has almost completely different meaning. Without the almighty Internet, and it is not too hard to imagine - boredom in my time was easily experienced indoors and to break it fully you would have to go outside. It was as simple as that.
But without this habit of mine, blogging to be exact, I think I lost many things from my childhood as well. Tangible things. Like all of my еssay exams from the school. I lost all of them. It's not that they were that good or something. Just, if I had Internet back then I would most likely wrote some of them down in the online form and kept them for the record. I didn't score the highest grades too often in those exams, simply because I always wanted to do it differently and that often meant I didn't have all the elements teacher demanded for one short written story. They needed to have proper beginning, the middle elaboration and the conclusion and all of that with using lots of positive words and adjectives with proper usage of the commas and all the grammar.
Anyhow, Viktor is now in his fourth grade and they started to have this kind of exams as well. Last week they received one of those stupid titles I hated the most - in this case "Autumn in my neighborhood' which is pretty much as boring as it is and to write something interesting behind this title is a mission impossible. Actually, I do understand the importance of titles like this - children are taught to write poetically and precisely in the beginning and with this one you have to use lots of imagination to fill entire page just by describing the weather.
Well, to cut the story short, I offered my help to my son and he agreed with me writing something down and following is the result. He liked it, but my wife with being a teacher and all, didn't think it has all the elements (surprise!) so he used something more appropriate and graded pretty fine. Nevertheless, here is what I wrote.
Actually, to save this little essay from the oblivion is not why I actually decided to publish it in the first place. It's not that worthy of course, although is not that bad either. To be honest I started with the blog not only to share my wisdom ;-) with the world but also for more practical reasons - in the beginning it was more about for me to practice my fluency in written English and posts like this one serve great for that matter as well. Following is the original Serbian text which is, I guess, little better than my 'poetic' translation above.
Whether I succeeded or not it's not that important but even my wife said it was good, even though not applicable for the occasion and, for the record, I really need to say that I don't really hate the fall at all. I wrote it in this way just for theatrical purpose and wanted to be different somehow and also to prove that boring titles from the elementary school can be inspirational too...
And of course, this story is work of fiction and all the names, characters, places are products of the author’s imagination and any similarity with actual events or characters was purely coincidental.
;-)
Sorry I always wanted to say that... Someday I will write the book just for the possibility to write this kind of disclaimer at the front page.
Image ref:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/danbo
But without this habit of mine, blogging to be exact, I think I lost many things from my childhood as well. Tangible things. Like all of my еssay exams from the school. I lost all of them. It's not that they were that good or something. Just, if I had Internet back then I would most likely wrote some of them down in the online form and kept them for the record. I didn't score the highest grades too often in those exams, simply because I always wanted to do it differently and that often meant I didn't have all the elements teacher demanded for one short written story. They needed to have proper beginning, the middle elaboration and the conclusion and all of that with using lots of positive words and adjectives with proper usage of the commas and all the grammar.
Anyhow, Viktor is now in his fourth grade and they started to have this kind of exams as well. Last week they received one of those stupid titles I hated the most - in this case "Autumn in my neighborhood' which is pretty much as boring as it is and to write something interesting behind this title is a mission impossible. Actually, I do understand the importance of titles like this - children are taught to write poetically and precisely in the beginning and with this one you have to use lots of imagination to fill entire page just by describing the weather.
Well, to cut the story short, I offered my help to my son and he agreed with me writing something down and following is the result. He liked it, but my wife with being a teacher and all, didn't think it has all the elements (surprise!) so he used something more appropriate and graded pretty fine. Nevertheless, here is what I wrote.
Autumn in my neighborhood
October started while ago, it's Monday, now is exactly seven forty five and again I walked into the same puddle in front of our house. It happens to me all the time and the only difference today is that I stepped in the puddle with both of my feet.
Autumn came long ago and outside is humid as if it had rained all night. It's cold and once more I had to go back to change socks and shoes, and then I'll be late for the first class again.
When I finally headed back to the school and this time successfully jumped over the puddle, I realized that the weather was even worse than I thought. Trees have lost almost all the leaves, facades of nearby houses and buildings looked sad and unattractive, the clouds could not be darker and two city doves on the wire were wet to their skins.
Autumn is the worst season of the year and this walk to the school proved to me that once again. I can barely wait for it to pass and be replaced by winter, which could bring little snow to the streets this time and look little less to the fall...
In fact, I can not wait for the spring and the summer to come. Only then, my neighborhood looks much appealing.
October started while ago, it's Monday, now is exactly seven forty five and again I walked into the same puddle in front of our house. It happens to me all the time and the only difference today is that I stepped in the puddle with both of my feet.
Autumn came long ago and outside is humid as if it had rained all night. It's cold and once more I had to go back to change socks and shoes, and then I'll be late for the first class again.
When I finally headed back to the school and this time successfully jumped over the puddle, I realized that the weather was even worse than I thought. Trees have lost almost all the leaves, facades of nearby houses and buildings looked sad and unattractive, the clouds could not be darker and two city doves on the wire were wet to their skins.
Autumn is the worst season of the year and this walk to the school proved to me that once again. I can barely wait for it to pass and be replaced by winter, which could bring little snow to the streets this time and look little less to the fall...
In fact, I can not wait for the spring and the summer to come. Only then, my neighborhood looks much appealing.
Actually, to save this little essay from the oblivion is not why I actually decided to publish it in the first place. It's not that worthy of course, although is not that bad either. To be honest I started with the blog not only to share my wisdom ;-) with the world but also for more practical reasons - in the beginning it was more about for me to practice my fluency in written English and posts like this one serve great for that matter as well. Following is the original Serbian text which is, I guess, little better than my 'poetic' translation above.
Jesen u mom kraju
Oktobar je odavno počeo, ponedeljak je i sada je tačno sedam sati i četrdeset pet minuta a ja sam ponovo upao u istu baru ispred ulaznih vrata naše kuće. To mi se stalno dešava i jedina razlika danas je da sam ovog puta ugazio u baru sa obe noge.
Jesen je odavno došla a napolju je vlažno kao da je kiša padala celu noć. Hladno je i sada ponovo moram nazad da presvučem čarape i cipele i ponovo ću zakasniti na prvi čas.
Kada sam napokon ponovo krenuo u školu i ovog puta uspešno preskočio baru, shvatio sam da je vreme napolju još gore nego što sam mislio. Drveće je izgubilo skoro svo lišće, fasade na kućama i zgradama izgledale su tužno i neprivlačno, oblaci nisu mogli biti crnji a dve gugutke na žici bile su mokre do gole kože.
Jesen je najgore godišnje doba i ovaj put do škole mi je još jednom to potvrdio. Jedva čekam da prođe i da ga zameni zima, koja bi ovog puta mogla da donese malo snega na ulice i da malo manje liči na jesen...
U stvari, jedva čekam da dođu proleće i leto. Tada je moj kraj mnogo privlačniji.
Oktobar je odavno počeo, ponedeljak je i sada je tačno sedam sati i četrdeset pet minuta a ja sam ponovo upao u istu baru ispred ulaznih vrata naše kuće. To mi se stalno dešava i jedina razlika danas je da sam ovog puta ugazio u baru sa obe noge.
Jesen je odavno došla a napolju je vlažno kao da je kiša padala celu noć. Hladno je i sada ponovo moram nazad da presvučem čarape i cipele i ponovo ću zakasniti na prvi čas.
Kada sam napokon ponovo krenuo u školu i ovog puta uspešno preskočio baru, shvatio sam da je vreme napolju još gore nego što sam mislio. Drveće je izgubilo skoro svo lišće, fasade na kućama i zgradama izgledale su tužno i neprivlačno, oblaci nisu mogli biti crnji a dve gugutke na žici bile su mokre do gole kože.
Jesen je najgore godišnje doba i ovaj put do škole mi je još jednom to potvrdio. Jedva čekam da prođe i da ga zameni zima, koja bi ovog puta mogla da donese malo snega na ulice i da malo manje liči na jesen...
U stvari, jedva čekam da dođu proleće i leto. Tada je moj kraj mnogo privlačniji.
Whether I succeeded or not it's not that important but even my wife said it was good, even though not applicable for the occasion and, for the record, I really need to say that I don't really hate the fall at all. I wrote it in this way just for theatrical purpose and wanted to be different somehow and also to prove that boring titles from the elementary school can be inspirational too...
And of course, this story is work of fiction and all the names, characters, places are products of the author’s imagination and any similarity with actual events or characters was purely coincidental.
;-)
Sorry I always wanted to say that... Someday I will write the book just for the possibility to write this kind of disclaimer at the front page.
Image ref:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/danbo