semele

2. That is so cute! I'm sure it'll make teaching English more fun. :g

For your meme:

"If you have a plan to combat the impending vampire doom, please do tell."

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This quote sounds weirdly like Stefan, but I cannot place it anywhere in the show... Shoot!

My student is awesome :D. Seriously, it's my sixth year of teaching English, and for the first time I got a student with imagination who is actually willing to learn. Now I just need to figure out how do I prepare a lesson on Doctor Who that would be suitable for a ten-year-old, and it won't be easy, since I'm more of a Torchwood fan XD.

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Haha, it's Katherine. It's from 2x17, when she's in the house with Stefan, Damon and Elena, eavesdropping on their plans.

Okay, so I get to ask you a question now, right? Do you have any theories on the original Petrova and her relationship with the Originals?

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Actually I think that the original Petrova was the Original Witch mentioned by Rebekah and Klaus (though I doubt that she was called "Petrova" - it was just Katerina's family name, and when Rose called Elena "the Petrova doppelganger", she ment "Katerina's doppelganger"). It was hinted that both Klaus and Elijah were in love with her, but she must've done something to really piss Klaus off, because he even refused to look at Katerina as a person. So my guess would be that she created the curse (and the doppelgangers of her own bloodline, which is creepy as hell), but she had to wield so much power she died in the process.

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Ooh, I do like that theory. I'd definitely like to think she had some involvement in the curse beyond being a victim.

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Also, I like to think that she was older than Elena and Katherine, in her thirties perhaps? I really don't like an image of a teenage mother sacrificed like a lamb on the altar of fire.

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Also a nice image, but unlikely to happen because Nina Dobrev will be playing her. I don't think they'd age her up that much, but I guess you never know.

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Heh, I guess you're right :(. I started speculating about it quite a while ago, before I knew there would be an Originals flashback, so I let my imagination go wild. I'd like the original "Petrova" to be portrayed a bit dirty, you know, broken nails and messy hair and simple clothes, but judging from a big romantic fantasy about 15th century we got in Katerina - not bloody likely...

Sorry, I like my flashbacks dark XD. And I'm a great fan of flashbacks in vampire shows, so I have EXPECTATIONS.

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Haha, yeah. Probably not on this show. TVD loves dark, but it likes that darkness to be pretty.

Have you seen any of the stills from 3x08 yet?

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When it comes to flashbacks, I miss Buffy SO much :(.

No I haven't, but I know it's supposed to be a flashback episode. Is there anything interesting there? I don't mind that sort of spoilers :).

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There are some flashback stills. They're almost all of Rebekah and she certainly doesn't look remotely dirty, ragged or messy. XD Klaus is one of them, having a bad hair day. They're not really that spoilery... No Elijah, no other Originals.

http://vdiaries-cw.livejournal.com/845810.html

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Thanks for the link!

Rags or not, I can't wait to see this episode. I'm such a sucker for flashback episodes, even though TVD often leaves me screaming: "Do your research, damn it, or just let me do it for you, please, I'll do it for free" ;).

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Yeah, TVD doesn't even try to be historically accurate. XD Mostly in flashbacks the actors all look like they're dressing up.

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Lol, so true. My favorite is the dress Katherine is wearing when she is chases by Elijah in the forest XDDDDD. Someone's wet dream about the 15th century, isn't it?

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It was really blurry too, with all the soft light and fuzzy edges. They do look straight out of a theatre play.

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ever-neutral.livejournal.com

1. ""You got me all nervous. I thought you had done something stupid."

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No idea... Well, this is clearly a sign that I need a rewatch. Go on with the question!

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ever-neutral.livejournal.com

It's Klaus! Talking to Stefan and Elena. ;)

Speaking of which. Klaus/Elena. Yay/nay?

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*headdesk* Now I remember... Will apply rewatch ASAP.

Klaus/Elena, hmmm... I don't really care? I never thought about it before you asked XD. I'm a horrible person who mostly ships canon only, so in order to even imagine Klaus/Elena I'd have to see them on screen together, and having an actual interaction (not just Hi, you're my doppelganger, I'm totally eating you tonight). BUT! If I were to speculate about Klaus/Elena that would be good for me, I wouldn't like it to be about the doppelganger thing (seriously, both Elena and Katherine have enough of that), more about Klaus being fascinated by the fact that she's such a survivor. Or that she still keeps forgiving the Salvatores. I imagine from the outsider's perspective these are Elena's most remarkable features, and they could attract Klaus' attention.

I'm trying to think of a reason why Elena would be drawn to Klaus, but it seems that my imagination failed me...

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ever-neutral.livejournal.com

so in order to even imagine Klaus/Elena I'd have to see them on screen together, and having an actual interaction (not just Hi, you're my doppelganger, I'm totally eating you tonight).

Hee! Weirdly enough, I was kind of 0_o at the idea of Klaus/Elena before, but then 3.05 made me go... No, no, the Joseph/Nina chemistry is ON. IDK, the eyeball sees what it sees. xD I don't particularly ship it in a serious way; just a "IT'S PRETTY" way. *g* Anyhow, ITA with your thoughts on why Klaus might be attracted to Elena. I don't think it's too inconceivable, actually. As for Elena... well, Katherine was originally into Klaus, no? And Elena is becoming more and more like Katherine, so... XDDDD

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But Katherine was into Klaus when she was all cute and innocent, wasn't she? And she didn't even know he was gonna eat her!

Ok, I'm just teasing, "IT'S PRETTY" totally is reason enough XD.

Besides, yesterday I started rewatching TVD, I watched 1x01 and I LOVED it (O_O), so I don't have ANY high moral ground. Not even an inch.

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:) you're a teacher? That's cool:)

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I'm not a "real" teacher ;). I'm a university student, and I give private lessons to earn some extra money. In my country there is a popular opinion that you're not really "educated" if you don't know at least one forgein language (~~Probably because we think that no sane person would ever want to learn ours~~), and that makes English the most popular subject for private lessons.

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I think that is so neat to learn another language! Do you know others as well besides the two? I don't know, it is a challenging thought to me. How early did you start in life learning, pretty early? I heard English is the hardest language to.learn but they are all difficult to me...except for Latin. I rocked at Latin though I'm rusty now.

The whole dead language thing :)

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I know some basic French (unfortunately not well enough to have a conversation :( ), and I used to learn German, Latin and ancient Greek, but I don't remember a thing. I had my first English lesson when I was 5, but I didn't really learn anything; "serious" learning started when I was 11, and when I was about 15 I spoke English well enough to have some sort of conversation. I don't think English is difficult to learn, though... First of all, English is, like, everywhere. I never had to make an sort of an effort to get a movie in English, or a song, or a book (there is an English section in every bigger bookshop in Poland). And then there is fandom. You guys are my 24/7 teachers, because without you I'd be speaking some freaky, bookish, Victorian English. School won't teach you to swear, or 100 expressions for "I'm angry", or 200 expressions for "to have sex" XD. Besides, English itself is not that difficult, at least for me. True, it's not very similar to my mother tongue (Polish has an insane number of inflectional endings, many sounds are completely different... Just don't listen to Paul Wesley speaking Polish, it's not how this language is supposed to sound ;) ), but it's easy to start speaking, because there aren't that many rules to memorize at the beginning (no inflection!). The hard stuff comes later (English spelling is a nightmare!!!), but since there is so much English everywhere, the difficulties are easier to overcome.

Ok, I could go like this for hours. I study English at university right now (which in Poland by default means literature + linguistics), so, basically, 3/4 of my life is happening in English. And I'm loving it. The language, the culture, the literature, everything. It still has this air of novelty for me.

Oh God, my Latin sucks... I guess it would be better if there were vampire TV shows in Latin to watch.

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Hmmm what is your favorite book? And what are the major cultural differences?

I love your passion and I like learning about other cultures too. :)

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Oh God, now I'm supposed to have a favorite book? LOL, no way. Recently I've been reading The Sun Also Rises (I loved it so much and I need to read more Hemingway!), The Great Gatsby (I liked it, but it won't be one of my favorites), The Sound and the Fury (hard like hell, but I see the point and I loved all the language experiments, sheer brilliance) and Shakespeare's King Lear (WHOA!!!) and The Tempest (I liked it, but not as much as King Lear). They were all school readings. When I read for pleasure, I do like to read classics (i.e. Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Gone with the Wind), fantasy (i.e. J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett, George R.R. Martin, G.G. Kay), YA (i. e. L.M. Montgomery, J.K. Rowling) and random contemporary stuff (i.e. Margaret Atwood, Arturo Perez-Reverte); I don't really have a type. I feel that I should be reading much more, but, well... Right now school consumes most of my reading time ;). How about you? Do you have your favorites? Is there a book I absolutely must read? :)

Ok, what I'm gonna say about cultural differences is going to be very general and pretty simplified, because I've never been to the USA, and I only spent two weeks in the UK (btw, you're American, aren't you?), so I just have impressions, not actual knowledge. Polish literature tends to be a bit grim. Romantic aesthetics is still very vivid, and in Romanticism Poland didn't exist as a state, so tons of pessimistic poetry about suffering and enslavement were produced, and WWI and WWII didn't help to get rid of this trend. So there is A LOT of talking about the country, and patriotism, and self-sacrifice, and suffering, and "the mission" etc; most of the young people don't really give a damn, but high school curriculum is still full of the gloomy stuff. So last Spring when I started my American Lit classes, and started reading all those texts full of self-reliance, and self-made men, and relationships with nature, I was all: "OMG WE'RE NOT DYING FOR THE MOTHER COUNTRY, THIS IS SO AWESOME!!!", even though some of the texts were unreadable ;). So this is the main difference I feel when I'm comparing my high school curriculum with my university curriculum.

As for the culture in general, the differences aren't that striking, mainly because my generation is pretty familiar with English-speaking culture (also: MANY young people are fluent English speakers). But Poland is a post-comunist country, and sometimes it shows (i.e. there are more cases of destroying public property than I saw in Britain, simply because people feel that "state property = not mine = I don't give a fuck"; am I right to assume that it's not so common in English-speaking countries?), and it's pretty conservative, especially when it comes to sexual minorities. We don't really have all the issues multi-cultural and multi-racial societies have, because 95% of citizens are white and Roman Catholic (or at least they were baptized in Roman Catholic Church; there are lots of atheists nowadays). So for example I am 24 now, and I know one person who is Greek Orthodox, one person who is Jewish and less then ten people who are Protestant (not counting my English-speaking flist, because I never asked them about their beliefs XD). Oh, and Polish only has one accent; there are some regional variations, but they're nearly extinct. So when I meet someone, I usually cannot guess which region do they come from.

I hope I managed to answer your questions at least a bit :). I really enjoyed doing it!

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That is pretty awesome, I have not read The Sun Also Rises. I might check it out. And King Lear! Out vile jelly. I was pretty freaked out lol still. I heard it was such a memorable line in English lit. :) for pleasure you might want to read Mists of Avalon (hope the spelling is right and I'll look up the author) it was recc'd go me and awesome. Definitely have fun with it. Have you read any Oscar Wilde? Fun and a favorite author.

That's so interesting, culturally. Sometimes I read stuff that goes the other spectrum because of being so heavily influenced by self-reliance. (I am from America btw) what you don't know does fascinate! Im glad you are enjoying the themes and culture! That made me smile. I think people do tend to disrespect what isnt theirs sometimes but I think it sounds like a very different thing from what you described about the youth. I don't think it's as prevalent.

Do you have any favorite stores from your country too? I always try other literates too, alot lately.

I don't know Greek or French either lol. I had some Spanish but I never mastered speaking it that well. I think you do have to see it more often. I can identify some Japanese through watching so many movies. Speaking Latin istougg since we did have to do it in class. Maybe poetry would be read in Latin or maybe some universities make thief students learn and speaking? I heard about that more in Europe. My Latin teacher said she went to a village abroad that did speak it still though I always wondered about that.

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