Russian

There are 19 posts tagged Russian (this is page 1 of 4).

Australian definition of a Canadian…

I think I’ve read this before. It was forwarded in email by my Mom today.

Australian definition of a Canadian…

Once in a while someone does a nice job of describing a Canadian, this time it was an Australian dentist.

You probably missed it in the local news, but there was a report that someone in Pakistan had advertised in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed a Canadian – any Canadian. …

An Australian dentist wrote the following editorial to help define what a Canadian is, so they would know one when they found one.

So the following is an Australian Definition of a Canadian. In case anyone asks you who a Canadian is ??

A Canadian can be English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek.

A Canadian can be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Iranian, Asian, Arab, Pakistani or Afghan.

A Canadian may also be a Cree, Metis, Mohawk, Blackfoot, Sioux, or one of the many other tribes known as native Canadians.

A Canadian’s religious beliefs range from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or none. In fact, there are more Muslims in Canada than in Afghanistan.

The key difference is that in Canada they are free to worship as each of them chooses. Whether they have a religion or no religion, each Canadian ultimately answers only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.

A Canadian lives in one of the most prosperous lands in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which recognize the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness.

A Canadian is generous and Canadians have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need, never asking a thing in return.

Canadians welcome the best of everything, the best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best services and the best minds.

But they also welcome the least – the oppressed, the outcast and the rejected. These are the people who built Canada.

You can try to kill a Canadian if you must as other blood-thirsty tyrants in the world have tried but in doing so you could just be killing a relative or a neighbour. This is because Canadians are not a particular people from a particular place.

They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, can be a Canadian.

Please keep this going !!
Pass this around the World. Then pass it around again !!
It says it all, for all of us.

‘Keep your stick on the ice Canada’ !!!

Parkour for Fat Girls (Women Too)

Parkour is more than an exercise, it’s spiritual and about learning to live your life in a better way. I see parkour not as something just for the young, fit people but for the fat girls and women who need to move forward and help themselves reach their own goals.

The inspiration to write this came from myself entirely. You see, I really don’t like to exercise. Being a fat woman, I’d rather stop eating than get up and sweat and have people see me ‘working out’.

I hate being fat but it’s easier than making a real change and having people notice how fat I really am. When I go out, I just forget myself and do what I want to do. The actual physical weight isn’t so hard to forget – except when it comes to the odd time when I choose which chair to sit in or should I try running for the bus or just skip it and wait for the next one, even if it is a cold day and I’m carting groceries home.

Sure, I know nothing will change if I don’t change. So, I’m taking up parkour, for fat girls or women.

What is parkour you may want to ask but feel it might be one of those stupid questions. Actually, it isn’t a stupid quesiton at all. Parkour is mainly considered an extreme sport. In actual fact, there is more to parkour than extreme exercise.Parkour is actually about forward movement, in whatever way, shape, form or speed you choose. Parkour is about finding new ways to keep moving forward. Isn’t that kind of perfect for a fat girl?

I can move forward. I need to move forward. It’s just the actual act of moving forward that ruins my momentum. So, that is where I start my Parkour for Fat Girls. Getting started, at all.

First, I bought a floor mat sort of thing. This was so I could feel less like an elephant clumping around over the floor. The mat I picked is stuffed with memory foam. It’s intended purpose was a bath/ shower mat. I have repurposed it as my exercise mat for parkour.

The next thing I am doing (after I close the window blinds and pick my spot on the floor) is to look up exercises and foot work in general, which I can do walking in place, more or less.

For me moving forward is not going to be about moving around all over the house. I’m going to get moving, find my motivation and keep moving. The forward will come – it just won’t be physically walking one step at a time, more along the lines of mentally walking one step at a time from being the fat girl doing parkour to being the chubby girl who can run for the bus if she wants to.

My First Fancy Parkour Trick

My first idea for parkour, other than the walking in place which will get tiresome in more ways than one, is to walk back. Not to actually walk backwards, just to lift my legs behind me instead of in front. This will use muscles I seldom get around to in the ordinary run of the mill day. I think it’s a great plan.

Another idea came from watching Russian soldiers marching years ago. They march without bending the knee. It’s harder than bending your knee, give it a try and see for yourself.

I’m going to be watching for more walking, marching, pacing and other ideas I can use for my parkour. I’m starting out at an easy pace. As I get into the exercise and able to do more I will find new ways to move. I can bring in an obstacle – I’ve got a low step which I can walk over, walk around or step on and off of it. I’m not going to be jumping over it any time soon, but that will be in my future too if I stick with it.

In general, go at your own pace. If you are large sized you already know you have some limitations. So, not a big deal. Parkour, or any exercise will put extra strain on your body. That isn’t a reason not to work at parkour. You may see people flipping themselves around, jumping off things and so on. But, that isn’t how you get started. Start at your own, current level. In time you will be able to do more, last longer and have the strength and co-ordination to try fancier parkour moves.

Links for Parkour Girls

Esperanto

Communication is vital, bottomless in importance to the world and possibly beyond. Communication is also ever changing, one of the least stagnant things we have. New words are created, used and some are adopted into everyday language, even accepted into our dictionaries. The world is full of different languages, different cultures and endless groups of people with endless interests and goals.

Esperanto was started as a way to link people with different cultures and languages. If everyone could understand one universal language then we could all communicate no matter what part of the planet we are from or where our cultural background takes us.

Would you learn a new language? At least a few words? Would you like to be able to give a friendly greeting to anyone in the world, anywhere, no matter what languages each of you use to communicate day to day? 

From Wikipedia:

Esperanto (help·info) is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto (Esperanto translates as ‘one who hopes’), the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887. Zamenhof’s goal was to create an easy-to-learn and politically neutral language that would foster peace and international understanding between people with different regional and/or national languages.

Esperanto was created in the late 1870s and early 1880s by Dr. Ludwig Lazarus Zamenhof, an ophthalmologist of mixed cultural heritage from Bialystok, then part of the Russian Empire. According to Zamenhof, he created this language to foster harmony between people from different countries.

After some ten years of development, which Zamenhof spent translating literature into Esperanto as well as writing original prose and verse, the first book of Esperanto grammar was published in Warsaw in July 1887. The number of speakers grew rapidly over the next few decades, at first primarily in the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe, then in Western Europe, the Americas, China, and Japan. In the early years, speakers of Esperanto kept in contact primarily through correspondence and periodicals, but in 1905 the first world congress of Esperanto speakers was held in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Since then world congresses have been held in different countries every year, except during the two World Wars. Since the Second World War, they have been attended by an average of over 2,000 and up to 6,000 people. Zamenhof’s name for the language was simply La Internacia Lingvo “the International Language”.

Resources:

Russian Cake for Mother’s Day

I’m going to try making this Simple Cake with Sour Cream Frosting for Mother’s Day. I like it because I can still do my decorating idea on top, not using the crumbs as they do in the recipe but my own plan. Plus, it is an overnight cake, the kind that you put in the fridge overnight and it is even better for having the extra time to meld and merge ingredients.

Ingredients:

Cake:
3.5oz of butter. melted
2 eggs
14 oz of sweetened condensed milk (1 can)
0.5 cup of all purpose flour
1-1.5 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
White vinegar, about 1 tablespoon

Frosting:
20-25oz of original sour cream
0.3 cup of sugar

Add eggs to melted butter in a mixer bowl and beat together on slow speed with wire attachement, just until mixed, then slowly add melted butter cooled till room temperature.
Continue mixing until well incorporated.
Mix in sweetened condensed milk.
Turn mixer off. Put a teaspoon of baking sode into bigger tablespoon and sprinkle with white vinegar, then fast pour bubbled soda to the batter.
If there is still soda powder left in the spoon repeat sprinkling it with vinegar until it is all done.
Start mixer on slow speed and slowly mix in all flour, spoon by spoon. Continue mixing until batter is homogenous.
Preheat oven till 350F. Pour about half of batter to the springform greased with butter.
Put springform to oven and bake for 15-20 minutes (start checking it with a wooden toothpick at about 15th minute: pierce it till the bottom, if toothpick comes out clean then light cake layer is ready).
Take springform from the oven (but don’t turn heat off, you will need it again), let it cool a bit, then carefully get light cake layer put and put a side to cool down.
While springform is cooling down, mix about 1 table spoon of cocoa powder to the rest of batter in mixer bowl until well incorporated.
Clean springform with paper towel and grease it again with butter; pour there all of the batter and put springform to the oven.
Bake dark cake layer for 15-20 mins on 350F until ready (again try with wooden toothpick). Then remove springform from the oven and remove cake from the springform; set it aside and let it cool down till room temperature. Now you can turn heat in oven off.
Then cut both cakes in equal halves using a long knife.
Now it is time to prepare frosting. For this pour sour cream into deep bowl and add sugar.
Mix them together until sugar dissolves completely.
Arrange bottom part of dark cake in the middle of the cake stand or big flat plate.
Spread sour cream on the cake layer using frosting spatula.
Piece bottom part of light cake layer with a fork in several places from both sides.
Arrange it over the black layer on the cake stand.
Spread a layer of sour cream on top.
Pierce left part of black cake with a fork the same way you did before with white one.
Put it on top,
And again cover with a layer of sour cream.
Pierce last part of white cake with a fork from both sides and put it on top.
Cover with layer of sour cream again.
Using spatula spread sour cream on the sides of the cake. Remove redundant cream from the bottom of the stand with spoon, wipe stand with paper towel if needed.
Put cake to the fridge for several hours, 6-8 hours are good for layers to soak sour cream. After that is ready, slice it up and enjoy.