I am amazed how this course challenges me at every turn. Its practical part centers on everything I don’t do or have never done before. For example, I am not really into music, and here I am, listening to the tracks, contemplating their selection, and suggesting a new track for a next expedition to the stars.

First of all, I have to say that I understand the importance of the diverse folklore part in this selection; however, from the “history of music” point of view the choice seems questionable. And I am not talking about personal preferences now.

Back in the day, I got a pretty decent music education. In musical school we listened to and played ourselves the pieces of music created by the greatest composers, so, no objections whatsoever to Johann Sebastian Bach, the representative of the Baroque period. Out of the four most prominent composers from Classic period we have three on this record. The question is why does the list contain three pieces from Bach and none from Joseph Haydn? It is a huge mistake obvious for anyone who studied classical music professionally.

As for my current personal inclinations, I suggest to include a “Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 in A major, Op. 92, II Allegretto” into next Golden Record Collection. Though sometimes the tune does sound menacing, in general it is optimistic, energetic, and encouraging.

My selection of “Music from Earth” was based on my origin, gender, education, experience and musical preferences.

Thus Track No.4 from the rainforests of the Congo surprisingly reminded me the folk songs of Ukraine in melody and manner of performance.

Next, I am from Eastern Europe, so words like Azerbaijani or Georgian mean more to me than just a map location. A polyphony of a Georgian male choir (Track No.12) is quite a thing to enjoy.

In addition, I like Beethoven and therefore, I picked up all his compositions on the list.

Also, I used to play the violin, so I said Yes! to the instrument whenever I heard it, solo or in orchestra.

Besides, Tracks 5 and 20 sounded most unusual to my ear.

Finally, I chose two pieces out of compassion – Tracks No.23 and 26.

To sum up, I don’t really pay attention to music. I listen everything that other people listen on the radio or in the movie, and that is all. But the idea to send our terrestrial music to space as a part of introduction was nice and thoughtful. I appreciate the global humanistic projects like this.

I can add that I hate taking pics of myself. Creating this vid was even worse – I had to memorize the text and then smile into the camera. Absolutely awful. I forced myself to do all these only in the name of mode-bending

These tasks are amazing! I wonder who the author of this fantastic program is.

I thought I would never be able to introduce a show that I had watched recently. It has been an utter disappointment for me so far, and that is why I cannot forget it. And no, I didn’t choose it because it is easy to visualize. It’s just that I cannot stop thinking about it, and how it could have been much better with another script, ideas, emotions, costumes, and behaviours.

The first part is the title, and I gave several variants/options of it because it is not easy to guess. Yes, I started with the name of the show as it is important to put everything in order.

The second part is a story in brief, in a chronological order. It’s very-very brief, practically a beginning. I used a combination of ideas to present the main plot. I also put a hint there, but it is totally devoid of orthography, so it is permitted.

As a person who hardly ever uses emojis, I must say they don’t have enough of them to describe activities. As a linguist, I feel the lack of pictured verbs here, to be exact.

Well, good luck with my story and tell me what you think, please!

Emojis

I misunderstood Twine and created my own story with the links:

FANFICTION: DECLARATION OF LOVE

I am a big fan of fanfiction. I discovered this guilty pleasure in 2006-2007 and have been a devoted reader ever since.
Quite often I have only a vague idea of the source, not having read or watched the original story. For example, I am not fond of Tolkien https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien, I prefer Zelazny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Zelazny, and therefore, I missed watching “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” movies, but I am familiar with tons of fan-written stories about Middle Earth instead.

Books and movies about Harry Potter did not spike my interest either, but those surprising fan stories and especially unexpected crossovers with other fanfiction communities? Definitely worth checking out. Look at “By Chance” by Femme, for example https://archiveofourown.org/works/1254.

There are many established authors in the fanfiction world famous for their mastery of words, high-quality content, and a recognizable unique style – Tamaris, Lenore, Roseetta, Meyari, Danceswithgary, C. S. Pacat, P. L. Nunn, Astolat, Telera, Rivkat, Wicked R to name a few. It doesn’t matter to which fandom or category their writing belongs, their pattern is recognizable and plot twists – unpredictable. Some of these seasoned authors have already died, others stopped writing fanfiction, and some started writing commercially. However, I will always be grateful to them for their wonderful stories.

I especially recommend Astolat https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat to all the English language lovers – if you never read her before, you are for a delicious treat. For instance, a currently popular TV series “Witcher” has a nice little prequel “By Any Other Name” created by Astolat to explain the origin of the Witcher and his colleagues https://archiveofourown.org/works/12210708

The love theme is less important for me there, but a great injustice and a masterful way to deal with it is what really attracts attention there. Plus, a rich language of course.

I am aware that a fanfiction became a focus of academic attention long time ago. Some university professors routinely include a fanfiction section into their literature courses while others serve as research advisors for the Master’s papers on fanfiction. Look here https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/9593v148 or here https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/760842/McCain_georgetown_0076M_12977.pdf for a sample.

There are numerous articles on different aspects of fanfiction all over Internet, though for me this is just a pure pleasure. So, everything about this literary genre looks quite decent, accepted, and serious; therefore, imagine my surprise last week when I found out that all fanfiction is actually illegal.

What a strange world we live in where something that big, amazing, and meaningful as fanfiction exists outside the law, as an infringement of copyright!

I have recently got fascinated by the heroic life of Albert Bandura. I am sure that I learnt this name long ago when I was an undergrad myself. However, then it was just one of the prominent names in the course of pedagogy. Now that I am reading Bandura’s articles, I understand how strong-willed and truth-oriented this person was. He is the best role model I can imagine. And he is also of Ukrainian origin.

All this inspired me to write a post about him on a Facebook. I don’t have a lot of followers there; I have my academic colleagues from the former Soviet Union first of all to share my impressions with. This is what my hand-made text in Russian is about.

I typed it on my cell phone first, and this manual draft is Option 2. I have been editing the post all the time – while it was electronic and when it was written by hand. When I write manually, I prefer pencils to have a possibility of correcting everything neatly.

Frankly, I still produce a lot of manual texts in pencil. I mostly write down the ideas of English exercises (for speaking, reading, grammar, vocabulary, translation etc.) that come to my mind any time of day. I use scrap paper for that. If I don’t have paper available, I type in my Notes on the cell phone. Quite often I forget what I wrote/typed before and later come across those texts (future exercises) again.

Regarding the difference between electronic and manual texts, well, I don’t feel it. When I am writing / typing, I am focused on the ideas and how to formulate them better, which word combinations to choose to make the text easier for my readers to percept. The form of production is secondary to that; I am quite comfortable with both.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!