I completely fail in finding any examples on how proper stylistic text analysis is supposed to be done. All I can find are HEAPS of theory. But oh well, it's too late today already. According to schedule I`m doing some grammar exercises for the next 2 days. Guess I will attend to analysis some other day again.

Also would like to highlight this google chrome extension . A must-have.

It's goddamn minus 7 degrees outside, everything is covered with approximately 40 centimetres of snow and yet - it's raining !
Oh, nature, you so silly.

Picture semi-related.

Ok, finally got a response from the skrivanek competition for young translators. Obviously I didn't manage to get to the next stage, that's no surprise, but unfortunately they didn't publish any model translation and neither did they send personal response as to how I performed, so I have no idea how many and what kind of mistakes I made. I only know that my English grammar professor, who was actually the one verifying my work, told me that I made several substantial mistakes, no further comments.
Anyway, since the results have been published, I guess I`m free to publish my own work as well.
The task was to translate The Economist article and I attached my translation of it under the cut.

Lagging behind my own schedule by almost a day. It's killing me and I should do something about it, the gaps in my knowledge are also enormous, but I`m fighting with complete lack of motivation to do anything. The fact that it's holidays and I`m probably the only one torturing myself to such degree doesn't help either, even if I fully understand the necessity for it. It's always easier if there is someone running in front of you, not the other way around...

Sidenote: I`m running out of almost everything at home (including myself, lol), except food.

FML

Wasted my time and made a short list of what I will be busy with during my winter break and examination period. More detailed list available under the cut.
Who needs vocation or holidays, if you can be hungry and try to work back a fraction of what you lost in previous 5 years.

As I was gliding along Riga streets, desperately trying to keep my balance and posture, I was struck with fascination of a young girl running past me while wearing high heels, manoeuvring her briefcase past other struggling people like me and simultaneously conversing on a mobile phone.

Suddenly: women wearing short skirts in the middle of winter EVERYWHERE !

Ok, obviously I have been taking this past week easy and not doing a crap. It's just that I felt that I need a sort of vocation for myself. And I plan to keep the pace going up to the next week.
Now, to the reason why I logged in. A reminder for myself what should I attend to after I return to studies:
-) Wouldn't hurt to practice my grammar, especially tenses. Some tests found on internet throughout the whole period till the exam should be enough.
-) Obviously I don't remember a crap of what we were learning in Latvian language lessons. I definitely have to re-read all the materials, check the program and depending on found there - maybe look for some additional materials. Also I have issues with using 'deklanācijas', so probably I should learn them too. Won't hurt.
-) Transcriptions, transcriptions, transcriptions. Phonetics is my weak point, especially transcriptions, so I need to find some materials, maybe examples to train by. Nothing much I can do there except practising to write them. Also I should remember to revise other materials for phonetics before the exam, since transcriptions is obviously not all we are going to have there.
-) And finally I shouldn't forget to do some text analysing for stylistic text analysis exam. The chance of failing there is quite big, but I`m not as worried about it...for an unknown reason.

If I will have enough free time after all this, I will start polishing up my German and Russian languages. Maybe read some books, read some grammar theory and such, nothing too serious, just getting ready for my plans to learn Swedish.

I lol'd .
Just put together everything I had relating to tomorrow's quiz, mashed it together, cut a bit down, resized the fonts, added some magic and managed to size everything down to 1 page...to add this extra portability to it.
Unfortunately google docs can't even handle it it, so it's downloadable by clicking here.
Haven't tried it printing though, I don't really use these "portable" references when I`m taking quizzes.

Anyhow, finally finished another 2 pages of vocabulary stuff for Stylistic Text Analysis lectures. Nothing too scientific or useful for others, just wrote down stuff for myself so that I would be able to explain what each term means.
See under the cut.

Quiz tomorrow. GL to me. Fuck !

Last Friday our Stylistic Text Analysis lecturer announced to us that we will be having a quiz on next lecture. Apparently we have to memorise the whole goddamn vocabulary for it. Well, it's not like wasn't preparing to do it at one point already, but this adds massive pressure to it and I simply know that I won't be able to remember it all in such short period. Anyway, don't have much choice, so will have to do the best I can. Finished all the homework for the whole next week in advance so that I can spend my evening by rewriting the words and their meaning.
Additionally winter depression is hitting me hard since I currently can't afford to spend too much money on anything. I am living on thin air, water and potatoes. The next two will be fun weeks.

My wallpaper speaks the truth.

Did I mention that I found a new jumper at last? 15ls
To hell with it, I will start living only on potatoes, rice and pasta and oatmeal. Spending so much money is driving me mad...

Ok, printed out another page, this time about articles (under the cut - the formatting just doesn't want to stick once I upload it to google docs). I feel like I should leave the looking for new materials and properly learn what I have gathered up so far first. After that it's away to more advanced levels. It would be also nice to wrap it up till the start of next semester, as I`m planning on sharpening up my other languages - Russian and German. No idea how I`m going to do it yet, but oh well...
Also I`m trying to train my own pronounciation and transcriptions. For my basic levels this page seems to really help.

Still can't find a new jumper, most of what I`m ready to wear is way too expensive for me.

Oh, yeah, bought a new dictionary of foreign words in Latvian. Had to, since it was sold only for 2 lats.

Goddamnit

Filled my sleeping hours with reading stuff like this and preparing another 2 documents (under the cut) for printing.
Considering that I`m studying for a translator and will never actually use it, I have no idea why am I actually trying to learn all that bullcra... but oh well, guess it won't hurt. As I have no job or social life besides communicating with my gf, I have lots of time to spare currently anyway.

I would only like to publish two documents I summarised for my personal use:

Disregard the spam for the site that transcribes whole phrases in my previous post. That site sucks, since almost all the transcriptions were completely wrong.

To hell with everything, I`m going to sleep.

Anyway, officially (at last) signed the rent contract for the apartment. Should also remember to edit the template in my e-bank [?]
Finished one of the two essays for Wednesday and I actually feel proud of it.

Transcriptions are killing me. Thank god for sites that offer to automatically transcribe stuff for me, otherwise I probably wouldn't have been able to finish my homework. Anyway, guess I will have to use that and my Latvian-English dictionary to train it for now. Actually I probably should visit Robert's Books, see if they might have some pronouncing dictionary.

Oh, right, should note that I also sent in the work for the young translator competition organised by skrivanek. I have zero hopes on getting any place there however, not even talking about the main prize I could actually use...

It's 7:12 AM and I`m hungry.

The new walking dead episode is out. Good, now I don't have to worry about running out of stuff to watch while having dinner.
Can't decide if I should embrace my laziness and do nothing till tomorrow or write the damn essay now. Anyway, thinking about the stuff to write there is making me remember that I`m lately behaving like a moron at college...well, ok, not like a moron - like a common, typical college student. ...God I have fallen low...

I remember wanting to write a note to myself when I started composing this, but I forgot what it was about. Guess it was something important I was right about wanting to put on a reminder for.

First ! ... did I win?

Created a new blog (had some before, not using them anymore) for all my random, spontaneous needs to write something down.
My choice to register it under blogger pretty much shows how meaningless it actually is to me. And you should feel really bad about yourself and probably rethink if you are really ready to use the world wide web, if you just felt offended by that.

Ok, thanks, bye for now.