Space Honors the Earth with Meteor Shower

What better way to celebrate Earth Day than witnessing the rain of falling stars? The annual Lyrid meteor shower is expected to be the most prominent on Tuesday, April 22.

Lyrid meteor shower usually creates the rate of 10-20 meteors per hour, but there were times when that number went up to hundred. There is no way of knowing what maximum rate will be produced this year, though. The unfortunate circumstance is that the moon will be half-full at the time which may make it difficult to enjoy the shower to the fullest. The director of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center, Bill Cooke expresses his worry by suggesting not to set high expectations because the moon will spoil a lot of the show. On the other hand, Deborah Byrd, editor of the astronomy and science website EarthSky.org is optimistic in her statement: "The Lyrids are bright, so they can withstand some moonlight". She adds that the best time to observe the Lyrids in the sky is before moonrise, on April 21, or before the dawn on April 22.

Mathematician Johann Gottfried Galle tracked down the source of the Lyrids to Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher in the late1860s, but the first mentioning of this particular meteor shower can be found in 687 BC, in The Chronicles of Zuo, written in China by Qiuming Zuo, recording that "at midnight, stars fell down like rain".

Particles in English Phrasal Verbs: Telicity or Perfectivity - Abstract

     

     This paper deals with the question whether particles in phrasal verbs mark perfectivity or telicity of the given situation. There are many questions unanswered or partially answered regarding the categories of aspect and aktionsart, since neither is clearly defined and differentiated. The notion of phrasal verb lacks uniformity as well. Simply put, perfectivity is the category of aspect which is a verb category which presence varies from language to language; it is not language specific. What perfectivity notes is the completion of the situation denoted by the verb.  Basicaly, aspect deals with the difference between the unlimited duration of a situation (imperfective verbs) and its momentariness, i.e. limited duration (perfective verbs). On the other hand, there is recently recognized category of aktionsart and the notion of telicity. Essentially, telicity can be defined as the property of the verb phrase (or of the sentence as a whole) which indicates that an action or an event has a clear endpoint or a goal; when the goal is reached, the situation comes to an end. A verb phrase that has an endpoint is said to be telic, whereas a verb phrase that does not is said to be atelic. There are some difficulties in establishing clear boundaries between aspect and aktionsart but the two are not to be mixed. Telicity doesn't imply perfectivity and perfectivity doesn't imply telicity. Some verbs can be perfective, with clear completion of the situation, but that doesn't mean that there will be a terminal endpoint. Also, a verb can have a terminal endpoint but still be imperfective.  A phrasal verb consists of a verb and a preposition or adverb that modifies or changes the meaning; 'give up' is a phrasal verb that means 'stop doing' something, which is very different from 'give'. The word or words that modify a verb in this manner can also go under the name particle. In English, phrasal verbs can freely occur with verbal periphrases which focus on the beginning, middle, and ending phases of a given situation. They are also compatible with the imperfective (progressive), perfective (simple past), and perfect aspects. All of this suggests that verbal particles in English do not mark perfective aspect, as was traditionally assumed. The particles actually, typically express a telic notion, which means that they can add the concept of a goal or an endpoint to durative situations which otherwise may not necessarily have a defined endpoint. In other words, the particles may alter aktionsart of the given situation, and are therefore taken to be markers of telic aktionsart rather than perfective aspect. For example, a telic particle will convert an activity into an accomplishment. Particles don't always change the telicity of the verb, though. Sometimes they make the situation telic,  sometimes reemphasize the telicity, and sometimes don't change the telic situation at all, but this depends on the verb and the particle in question.

Me, Myself and Literature

     Since I learned to read and write when I was 4 years old, people would think that starting school was not a big deal for me. I thought that, too. But when children in my class saw that I knew something that they didn't, they acted cold and reserved towards me. The fact that my teacher yelled at me every time I used my knowledge in class, didn't help either. After a while, I was convinced that I was a bad child, and I wanted to give up on learning because I thought that if I showed that I didn't know what other children didn't, they would accept me. Fortunately for me, I decided to tell my parents what I planned to do and what I had to put up with in school. And then, they helped me realize that if learning and reading made me happy, I should do it, regardless what anyone said. That was the day when my dad gave my my first book, Anthology of Epic Folk Tales.

     With that book, I discovered a completely new world, where magic existed. I learned about courage, friendship, love, unselfishness, and started to differentiate good from evil. I loved these tales so much, that not even my teacher could discourage me. Oh, and she gave her best to do so. But the day when I felt that I was worth something, that I was better than her, was the day when she gave us an assignment to write about our favorite folk story. I wrote about my favorite story, Petar bega od smrti, and she accused me of inventing the story myself and when she was about to fail me I took the book out of  my bag, and showed her that I wasn't lying. Knowing that even she who was our teacher didn't know something I did, made me feel so motivated to keep reading. And I did.

     

     Next book that meant a lot to me was Jonathan Livingston the Seagull by Richard Bach. When I finished it for the first time, I wasn't really sure that I understood it right. Was it really possible to do what you want to do if you believe you can, and keep trying? After reading it over and over again I knew that was true. Freedom was all that mattered. And believing in yourself. And I believed with all my power. Life became even better then.

     When I was a little older I went to the library for the first time, and the first book I took was 20000 leagues under the sea by Jules Verne. Even now, after all this time and after all those books I read, this is still my favorite book. It moved me so much. It made me cry. And what's most important, it made me write myself. Namely, I was so disturbed by the ending that I started writing different ends, different last chapters, the way I wanted the book to end. And I liked it. Soon after I wasn't satisfied with just changing something somebody else wrote. I started writing my own stories, and eventually, my own novel. Even though I never let anyone read what I wrote, I felt accomplished. I also set a new goal for myself - reading all the books that Jules Verne wrote. Surprisingly, when I reached it I was a bit sad. But not for long because I got new books to read, Skellig by David Almond and Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve.

     Skellig introduced me to the great number of ways I could use figures of speech, and it made me open more, show my gentle side. Until then I was... well... afraid of people. And after reading this book, I just wasn't anymore. As far as Mortal Engines is concerned... thank you Philip Reeve! I entered my puberty (I was really late) around that time and of course, I considered myself to be the ugliest living thing on Earth, which stopped me from doing a lot of amusing activities. After I had read this book I felt good in my own skin. I was so happy.

     When I went to high school, I showed interest in poetry and my parents gave me works of Branko Miljkovic and Charles Baudelaire translated by Kolja Micevic. I completely found myself in their poems. I didn't find the stories I wrote so fulfilling anymore so I concentrated on writing and translating poems. Soon, I started doing that for my school newspapers.

     There were a lot of books I found amusing, like Song of Ice and Fire by George Martin, Books of Blood by Clive Barker, Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling and many others, but the last, should I say, educational one was Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

     My whole life I've been learning from the books I read. They were my guides, my 'other' parents sometimes, and they had a considerable share in forming my personality, my likes and dislikes. It is really sad that kids nowadays don't read as much as (I think) my generation did. Books can be real best friends. I consider myself to be literate, not just because I like to read, but because I can feel what I read and live my literacy the way only I can understand. My way. And that I see as a gift.

Describing a Feeling

Too often, it seems, I think I won’t reach the end… As the years passed by, the world became more alive than I ever was. It troubles me that I can’t remember when I first noticed that. All I know is that it was too long ago for one’s life. Even so, I can’t escape Apathy. I keep letting things go. I do feel safer that way, but recently, The Pulse of the world became too loud. It makes me wish for something, and I don’t know what that something is. And the wishing feeling is becoming too difficult to endure. Such confusion in my Heart makes me believe that finally, the end is going to reach me.

What I Feel Today - A Poem

Nothing is seen for ever or now;

and when the grass is cut and rotten

and eyes are blind and drained

and when the dumbness of air

smothers the birds 

and hardness of mist breaks their necks

and when people die in wars

and hearts break in two

because of a lie or a nightmare

and when the darkness corrupts the sky

and stars are burned down by evaporable blends 

and when every human loses his own way

trapped by insignificance of  his being

and no one has anything to say

it won’t be an ordinary state of things,

just something that I feel today …

Mysterious Ways of Trkki

About Social Issues in the Film Hair

After seeing this fantastic movie called Hair, I just couldn’t stay indifferent about huge differences between the characters’ economical and social standard.  The contrast is obvious at the very beginning of the film. The scene which points to these differences the most is, in my opinion, the one when they are all at the fancy party, both hippies and the rich. Just by looking at them is possible to see the enormous gap between their levels in society, because, hippies are dressed poorly, their outfits are old, worn and dirty, and their hair is a total mess, while others, the rich people, are elegant and sophisticated, wearing their expensive clothes. Of course, such different kinds of people couldn’t be long in the same place without trouble, so, as it was expected, the hippies were soon treated as social parasites and arrested, not even with a chance to speak for themselves, and with no compassion for their hungry stomachs.  In the end of the film, which is very sad in every way, the daughter of the businessman joined the flower children, and understood their desire for freedom and love, but it actually didn’t solve anything. I guess that the message was that we can all live in happiness and peace, but it never worked out in reality. She was just one individual in millions of others… The ones who have everything continued to look down on the ones who have nothing, and considered them to be human junk, similar to animals in their way of life.

If so many people believe in commercials, why don't as many people believe in magic?

     Where ever I turn my eyes to I can see ads and commercials. Does this say what kind of nation we are, or it's the same in every country? Are people so desperate that they have to find hope in false promises of advertising?

     Being a girl, I do like to feel pretty (even though that's not so apparent sometimes), so my attention is mostly occupied with make up and skin care commercials. Ironically, my skin problems started when my puberty was over, and yes, because of that I was one of those desperate people who believed in everything advertising presented. In the last few years I tried every skin care and make up product that was advertised, and I tried almost everything else that could be found in drugstores and pharmacies. I even ordered products online...

     From all my experience I can say that first thing anyone should do when they face skin problems is talk to a doctor. I hate doctors but I do have some respect for dermatologists, so don't be stubborn like I was and don't try to solve your problems by believing in commercials... Every single product that was advertised made my skin even worse! I learned that the hard way, by trying out many, oh so many different things, and I could have saved a little fortune if I had gone to the doctor first.

     My skin is very sensitive and putting comedogenic make up on it caused real fiasco. In all my desperation, I believed that Max Factor, L'oreal, Maybelline etc. foundations will make my skin beautiful and I was wrong. I believed that Nivea, Garnier, L'oreal, Vichy, Neutrogena, Proactiv, Clean&Clear, RoC, Avene and many other 'famous' skin care products will make my problems disappear... And my skin was irritated even more. I know that many people swear by some of these brands and I am happy that these work for them. But sadly, they don't work for me.

     After all this time, I realized that only organic skin care products like Alverde Naturkosmetic work well for my skin, or cosmetics that is made in our country like Multiactiv. Luckily for me, they are cheap. And they are cheap because they do not advertise or they don't advertise as much! Now, I respect this more then I could have ever imagined I will. I even settled for non-advertising make up brands which are both extremely good for my pocket and my face.

     But I am really disturbed by the fact that women nowadays think that products that are not as popular as Nivea for example, or products that do not advertise are actually bad quality and that because they are cheap only poor people buy them! Well, I'm definitely not rich, but neither I, nor my parents and dermatologist would approve of something that's not good for me. It is really hard for me to believe, with all that I've been through, that people still overlook skin care and make up brands that they didn't see on tv. With Internet widely used, they could just google the ingredients of a product and see for themselves what is good and what is bad for their skin type.

     In our country people do not earn a lot of money, but it seems that majority of them would go and buy something just because it costs more that 1000 rsd and it's advertised (so it must be good). It seems like no one thinks with their heads and listens to their own needs, but wait for a commercial to tell them what to get. And with that kind of thinking, place we have in this world is not so surprising.

To Beer or not to Beer

     We all had our moments of relaxing with friends and family with a pint of cold beer. Beer is the world's most widely consumed and probably oldest of alcoholic beverages. It is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. Beer usually has 4% to 6% of alcohol in it, but it can have less than that or more in rare cases, or no alcohol whatsoever. Beer forms part of the culture of beer-drinking nations and is associated with social traditions such as beer festivals, as well as a rich pub culture. These days, there are a lot of different beer companies, and we choose the right one by its taste and of course commercials. I have to admit that I don't really see the difference in tastes of beer of that many companies out there, since the main ingredients are always the same: water, hops, barley and yeast. I mainly choose which beer to drink by ads and commercials I see. For example, I don't drink Jelen beer because the commercial clearly says Men know why, and I'm not a man so... bye bye Jelen beer.

     While searching the Internet, I encountered many beer ads, some of which I liked and some I didn't. Brazilian beer company, Nova Schin, introduced a non-alcoholic beer, and their management actually approved of an ad campaign featuring pregnant women, dressed in bikinis and daisy dukes. I hope that all these ads are photoshopped pregnancies because you'd have to seriously have no shame whatsoever to pose for this if you were really pregnant, not to mention going about casting for pregnant hotties for a beer ad without looking like complete... well, you know. And I just can't imagine a lady who can't restrain herself from beer for nine months and like it so much that she has to drink at least non alcoholic beer while she's pregnant. In my opinion this ad is an example of bad taste and even if I happen to have an opportunity to try this Nova Schin beer, I wouldn't want to. 

     The next ad I found, and this one I liked, is an ad for Heineken beer. With this ad they are trying to address all the gamers and suggest that with gaming Heineken goes the best. I think this is really funny and interesting ad, especially because people tend to gather and play games together. If there is beer in regular parties, why wouldn't there be beer in gaming parties? The way bottles are taped to the controller and their message Add few new features to your controller are really clever, and I think that everyone who plays games knows how annoying is to pause and put away the controller in order to get some refreshments. This is a great solution! Haha!

     This Tuborg ad is my favorite! I mean, they used The Lord of the Rings theme, what else is there to say?! I find their adjustment of the book/movie title to The Lord of the Drinks really witty, and the Two Towers and Sauron's Eye made of Tuborg bottles absolutely brilliant! I wouldn't mind to have this as a poster on my wall, with Tuborg in my hand of course. It's not hard to conclude that I'm The Lord of the Rings fan, although I hate the fact that most people who are Ring fans think that you have to hate Harry Potter if you are true fan of The Lord of the Rings. Well, I like both, so what? And I think that the two can't be compared at all in the first place. Anyway, I hope that I will see some of the Harry Potter beer ads soon, or if not, at least Gollum who is holding beer bottle saying My precios. I think someone should hire me for this idea. :)

Observing the Ordinary: CLOUDS

     Last summer I climbed the ruins of an old Fortress in my home town with few close friends. We had picnic together there. After the meal, we relaxed, talked and basked in the sun. And somehow, clouds were brought up. Someone expressed the surprise that clouds can be so white and still, air is so polluted. When I said that clouds are actually yellow, gray and blue everybody was confused.

     I started explaining that when we look at clouds we see shades of these colors overlapping which gives the impression that clouds are white plus the sun light, but my friends were clueless. They replied that they thought these were just different shades of white. I was really surprised. White is not a color. White can't have shades, and clouds obviously do.

     I started thinking, and I realized that the only reason I knew that was because I took painting classes when I was younger, and we spent a lot of time in learning about colors and creating impressions of certain colors using few others completely different from the target one. And we especially concentrated on white. Well, I didn't give it much thought afterwards. I just figured it out that everyone knows something about things that they are interested in.

Miss Fenjal - Description

Elegant, emerald green bottle with silver lid was the first to catch my eye... Wait, it is not the bottle that is green, but the content inside. The bottle is actually transparent and made of glass. This is the bottle of my favourite perfume, Miss Fenjal. It has rectangular shape with slight curving inwards near the bottom. In order to use the perfume I have to unwind the lid, but be really careful because there is no spray at the top, or any kind of protective cover. I would use a cotton pad, press it to the top and then turn the bottle over. In that way, a small amount of perfume would stay on the cotton pad and I would pat that onto my neck and wrists. Ah, I just love this scent... It reminds me of old perfumes my mother used to have in the bathroom when I was a kid. Ironically, she hates this perfume. Well, she hates all the perfumes I love. I guess that's because she's more a flowery, sweet-scented smell gal, and I adore heavy musk smells. I just can't figure out why she had 'Fenjal-like' perfumes in the bathroom in the first place.

Invention Procedures

Definition

Rock as a popular subculture is

- movement misunderstood by majority of people

- lifestyle inspired by rock music

- way of showing rebellion and independence

- way to draw attention to yourself

- Rock as a popular subculture is a way to draw attention to yourself because teenagers start to listen loud music and dress alternatively in order to show their sadness and discontent

- Rock as a popular subculture is a way of showing rebellion and independence because people who are tired of uniformity and same tastes, widen their creativity to their clothes, make up, hair and/or music

- Rock as a popular subculture is a lifestyle inspired by rock music because people who enjoy rock music and found themselves in lyrics of rock songs act like a hero in the song or a rock star

- Rock as a popular subculture is a movement misunderstood by majority of people because they believe that if one listens to rock music one must be atheist/satanist, reject and/or a junkie

Exemplification

- When they feel insecure and abandoned by their parents and the rest of the world, teenagers want to do anything to draw attention to themselves by adopting the worst from the subculture, like skipping school, getting drunk, running from home, doing drugs and/or even cutting themselves

- People who don't want to look the same as everyone else and feel that creativity is trapped inside them try to compensate that by dying their hair unnatural colors, wearing vintage, ragged, colorful or anti-fashion clothes with personal accessories, etc. and in that way want to show how unique they are, or that they have an opinion, an attitude, a mind of their own.

- People follow the dress code and/or behavior of their favorite rock stars because they want to be like their idol, and/or just live the life of rock'n'roll.

- People are often frightened by someone who is different in any way and want to keep the distance from those individuals, and/or call them names, forbid their children to be friends with them, attack them, ignore them, because they feel that everyone different is necessarily bad person/influence and weird.

Comparison

- Having an attitude: people who want to express their individuality know that what is inside is what counts and that not only clothes is what matters, they try to say something with their appearance but they would say much more to someone that listens while people who just wants to be rockers because it's cool are still uniformed in their own subculture.

- Being different: people who are afraid to accept people as they are can't accept themselves or only have respect for themselves and no one else while people who are not afraid to show their true face feel more accomplished in life.

- Prejudice: people who do not want to be judged by their looks and taste in music do not judge other people, while people who do judge others easily, have prejudice about individuals because of the prejudice towards the whole subculture, not bothering to know them.

Causality

Rock as a popular subculture is a movement misunderstood by majority of people because they believe that if one listens to rock music one must be atheist/satanist, reject and/or a junkie because they know or heard about someone who was part of this subculture and was all that.

Effects

People are becoming distant from each other because they are not willing to accept anyone who is different from themselves, which could lead to a complete alienation of an individual thus making room for more dissatisfaction in our country.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind - Short Sighted People are Heartless :)

If this were an ad for an eyewear store I would definitely fall for it!

Savatage - Concert Report

I’ll be right there, I’ll never leave, all I ask of you is believe are lines from one of the best Savatage songs called Believe and dedicated to their deceased guitarist Criss Oliva who, together with his brother Jon Oliva (vocals, guitar, keyboards), founded this progressive heavy metal band in 1978. Yesterday, on the 7th day of August, 2002, the band finally performed in Belgrade and left all of their fans delighted. Having begun the concert with one of their most popular songs called Edge of Thorns, they continued with all of their best songs from 12 albums they’ve made for these 24 years of successful career. Band’s power to elicit enthusiasm with everything they did and said on stage was amazing! It seemed to me that fans were in some kind of trance while the band was playing Watching You Fall from the album Handful of Rain, recorded in 1994. And then it was time for their songs about war that occurred in 1991. and forbidden love between Muslim girl and Orthodox boy… Almost everyone in the audience held lighters in their hands during those heartbreaking songs. After two and a half hours of perfect performance, they ended the concert with fantastically well composed song called All That I Bleed and its expressive lines: Lord bring on the night, wrap it all around me, let it hold me tight, soak up all that I bleed… 

English as an International Language

Introduction

Starting with a premise that English language of this day and age is an international language, teaching this kind of language calls for unique language teaching techniques and goals.

It is thought by some that an international language is a language that is spoken by large number of native speakers. However, one language does not become international unless it is spoken by large number of native speakers of some other languages as well, in that way serving as a language of wider communication. In that sense, English is an international language.

More on international language

 
      A language is considered global when it reaches the point that it’s recognized in every country thus making it an official language of the country or the prior language taught as foreign language at schools. 

The role English language has in different countries is best shown in Kachru’s three concentric circles, Inner Circle being the countries where English is primary language, Outer Circle being the countries where English is a second language, while the Expanding Circle are the countries where English is widely studied as a foreign language. 

Due to migration, English spread was great in the Inner Circle. In the Outer Circle, the spread of English was mainly the result of the colonization of English-speaking nation. In the Expanding Circle, English is/was spread by learning it as a foreign language.

Today, the shifting of English language in different countries of the world is highly present since many countries in Expanding Circle are using English for international communication and within their own country, like the countries of the Outer Circle. 

When it comes to the number of users of English language, varieties of sources have to be used. Also, it is somewhat problematic to decide how fluent a person must be, to be considered an English user. Taking all of this into account, Crystal claims that conservative estimation of native and native-like speakers of English language would be 670 million. 

Even though it is not clear exactly how many users of English are there, it is considered that the number of people who are familiar with English language is growing. 

Features of an international language

     Smith contends that English as an international language is used both in global and local sense, global meaning the use of English for international communication and local meaning the use of English in wider communication of multilingual societies. Such as that, English use does no longer relate to the culture of the countries of Inner Circle, and, on the other hand, in a local sense, is linked to the culture of the countries in which it is used. Globally, one of its purposes is to provide the possibility to become familiar with cultures and ideas of speakers of different languages.
   English dominance in important spheres of life as we know it, such as international relations, the mass media, international travel, international safety, education and communication, is, according to Crystal, evidence that English is an international language. Graddol says that with constant growing number of people using English as their second language, second language speakers will inevitably surpass the number of first language speakers in the future.

Children learn English at schools as their foreign language, but it is hard to become fluent with just few hours of English teaching a week, so usually, one must seek education in private schools if one wants to become proficient in English. This means that English can’t completely be discarded as lingua franca, since those more financially secure will be able to seek proficiency level of language.

Brutt-Griffler coined the term ‘macroacquisition’ explaining that it is not migration that is responsible for the spread of language but rather its acquisition by many individuals, resulting not in monolingualism but large-scale bilingualism. 

Urban migration is one of the reasons why English is spreading so fast with urban areas being the focus of linguistic change. This can result in acquisition of English, especially among those more financially secure and in creation of new English varieties as well. 

Reasons for the spread of English

     In 19th and 20th centuries, British and American colonialism, and migration of English-speaking people were of great importance for the spread of English. Moreover, Britain was the leader of the industrial revolution. English was also the language of the leading economic power – USA. This resulted in English becoming language prior to any other in industries that affected all aspects of society – the press, advertising, broadcasting, motion pictures, sound recording, transport and communication. Summed up, one of the main reasons why English is spreading so fast is because it has a variety of specific purposes.

Factors that may impede the spread of English

One of the major factors that can hinder the spread of English is the lack of interest of individuals to acquire more proficient level of the language, mostly in Extended Circle countries. English may lose its position as the prior foreign language taught at schools, be it from competition with other languages or the need for the language of minority to be taught, or even political pressure to learn the language of the neighboring country. It is also possible that technological improvement can lead to the decline of use of English as the main Internet language by perfecting translation tools. There also has to be economic support in order to learn English language. Finally, negative attitude towards English language and English speaking countries can disturb the spread of English.

Negative effects of the spread of English

It has been discussed that English language can reduce the use of native languages, even leading to their complete extinction. There is also the concern that English-speaking countries promote English in order to dominate over periphery countries – in many cases developing countries. Further more, there is an issue regarding the relationship between the language and the culture, resulting in local traditions being replaced with western ones, like Christmas in Japan, or Halloween in Chile. Most worrying is the fact that in many countries English is learned only by those who can afford it thus limiting the possibilities for good jobs and higher education for those who can’t. 

Conclusion

An international language is considered to be a language that isn’t connected to one country or nation, but is used globally and locally as a language of wider communication, developing alongside other languages. As mentioned, even though many think that the number of English users is only going to grow, there are some factors that can impede this growth, like translation technology, need to learn regional languages, lack of economic resources, negative attitude towards the language and culture and nations it is associated with. With this stated, it is apparent that the spread of English has both positive and negative implications. Whereas an international language can provide insight in different cultures, important information, and facilitate the economic development, there are also considerable risk and danger in this process, the most concerning being the promotion of social inequalities based on the level of language knowledge.

Intratextual Factors Analysis - Report on Translating a Book Passage

        

           In this report I will try to analyse the passage from the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote and present the troubles I had during the translation process.

          The given text deals with the description of the character of Herbert William Clutter, in which we are told about his physical appearance and success in agricultural career. From what the author tells us, we can see that Herbert is an average looking man, not handsome, but far from ugly. Even though he was not the richest man in Holcomb, he was the most respectable one. This passage seems like a digression from the actual story line where the information about the character are given factually, with a complete lack of emotions. We get a peek into his present self with a hint of what he looked like when he was still in the University. A lot of physical attributes, few of which are of complex structure, are used in describing him, so that we can complete a picture of him in our minds. The author uses long sentences, with lots of commas and dashes, which was tricky when it came to my composition of translated text, but I didn’t find that to be really big problem. 

          The book In Cold Blood, which the mentioned excerpt is from, is considered as original non-fiction novel. Main character and his whole family were murdered and Capote spent a lot of time investigating before he wrote the book. The action is placed in 1950/60s and it explores the psychological relationship between two murderers who were not capable of the act individually. It also explores the lives of the victims and the effect of the crime on the community where they lived.  I informed myself about this at Wikipedia, which apparently manage to prove itself useful from time to time.

          As for the problems I had while translating, I must say that this text was not as troubling as the previous one. All the words were familiar, and biggest issues were related to converting measures and finding best solutions for names of the organizations the main character was member of. The question of the phrase man’s-man figure we discussed in class, what significantly reduced the time I needed for translating. The only word that I remained uncertain of is rimless, and although I know what it means, I just couldn’t find suitable replacement for it in Serbian.

          After informing about the plot of this book, it now seems like a very interesting reading, especially because it’s regarded by the critics as a pioneering work of the true crime genre.

                

My Black Chamber - A Story

            

            I promised myself there and then that I would never set foot in that place again. Because it was dark… too dark. And I was scared of it.

          The darkness seemed to weigh upon my soul though it was not a colour, but a burden. Dull sounds were ringing in my head, making it hurt. I wanted them to stop so badly but somehow I knew that the silence would have taken me away forever. The only thing I could do was to endure it.  

          I guess that the reason why I decided to step in that cold and hostile place was the fact that once, I felt something which I recognized as a desire to free myself from the walls I alone built. So I entered.  I stumbled, but did not fall. I looked for windows but light was nowhere to be found. There were only pictures on the walls, a lot of them, full of frozen faces who were staring at me with their blank, emotionless eyes… Was it me on those pictures? My mind was entangled in one of those moments when you wait for the next one impatiently, hearing its whisper, but knowing it will be something terrifying. My feelings were all around me, wanting to punish me for my treason, for burying them deeply in that frightening place and forgetting about them completely; for my escapism from reality. I felt like crying. But I didn’t. So it just hurt more. I really tried to find the window, but I couldn’t. Not only one. There was just darkness… and those empty eyes which haunted me. Every glare from them felt like a drop of asphalt rain. I learnt to scream just for the pain of it, I learnt to break my bones as a hobby, I learnt to crawl and beg, but I couldn’t be forgiven.  At least not by my reflection in them, so hollow and accusing while looking at me as if I were the embodiment of misery, and not by that wretched place which knew all my deepest fears. 

          I left slowly. As I was walking back to numbness I was followed by trails of blood. Having that noticed I wiped my feet carefully because I didn’t want to find the way to my Heart ever again. 

          Long time ago I created my own kingdom of twilight where I was never to enter. But that day I did. That day I wanted to change myself, to become something other than a phlegmatic doll. I couldn’t bear it, so I failed. That day seems so far away now. And simply knowing that makes me feel safe… and comfortable.