Anastasia

My Favourite Songs

Music is an integral part of myself. I can't live without it. Classical music makes me relax after a hard day at work but I also enjoy listening to Rachmaninov and Mozart on the beach. My ipod is filled with their music. I like American oldies and Greek music, of course. . Here are a few of my favourite songs.

 

Love on the Rocks by Neil Diamond because to love is to receive a glimpse of heaven. And because Neil Diamond is divine!!!

 

Jonathan Livingston - the Seagull by Neil Diamond because I fell in love with the movie and the music.

 

...because I'm romantic and I love Haroula....

 

because Yiannis Parios is our very own Neil Diamond - Matia Mple (Blue Eyes)

Of course the list is endless. I could go on and on telling you about my favourite songs. I also love Tom Jones, Andy Williams, Michel Sardou, Joe Dassin, Al Bano, Beyonce, The Beatles and Rachmaninov!

What's your most favourite song?

Computer Stories

I've been intending to get a new PC for the office since the end of term in May. It's one of those good, old PCs which has never caused me the slightest problem for 15 years now. The truth is, it was getting old, but I gave it some more RAM and here it was, as good as new. However, I did promise myself that I would replace it some day. Ah well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I sent it on holiday instead for 9 weeks and even switched off the power so that it could have a good rest. When I got back to the office last Monday, I switched it on and it worked very well. I was so very proud of it! I even thought it could eventually be declared an antique like cars, you know. Today, however, it breathed its last. When I switched it on, it wouldn't start windows, and it eventually came up with a black screen - as if it were a funeral -  with instructions which I followed. But nothing happened. It was like telling me it had passed away.. I tried to re-animate it but in vain!

My father had taught me never to be sad about the loss of material possessions which can be replaced.. He'd often tell me that worldly riches are like nuts- many a tooth broke in cracking them, but never is the stomach filled with eating them. Yet, that was my first computer ever! It started out in 1997 with Windows 95 and ended in XP. It contained all my work at the school. Fortunately, I backed up everything and none of my files will be lost. I've already ordered a new PC but I'll never forget the old one!

Back home and .....out of the frying pan into the fire!  I switch on my home PC and soon after it went off! It's been playing up like this for some time now, so I retried and Windows XP started normally.. If I'm lucky the CD driver opens but it usually doesn't and I have to pray hard...or insert a toothpick to release the door!

Finally, I'm going to the computer shop tomorrow to get 2 new PCs and thus put an end to all these problems. I did some search online and I think I love Dell ! Hopefully, I'll be soon posting from a brand new PC!

Peeking into the Future Or Que Sera Sera...

When I was a little girl, I wanted to know what my life would be like in 20, 30 or 40 years from then. My mother sang this song to me:

Que Sera Sera

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours to see

Que Sera Sera

 

Seeing that I didn't understand, my mother went on to explain the lyrics in Greek. And then I asked her again: "Whose is the future then?" And she said: "God's" I think she is right, because only God knows what will be. I don't believe in horoscopes or any kind of fortune telling, but I do believe that God also gave us free will, therefore we are basically the architects of our own future.

Since Doris Day and my childhood, the advances of modern technologies allow us to peek into the future, just for the fun of it all. I am, by nature, a very curious person in the positive sense of the word. So, when I came across See You in 20 Years on Danaioq's blog, I gave it a try and was...amazed at the results. Here's what I'll look like in 20 years from now. Not bad, huh? :-)

Oh my! My fingers won't change but I'll look angry and ...wild at 73 and ...wow! Not many wrinkles!

Would you dare to peek into your future, just for fun? Do you believe in fate or do you think that we are the architects of our own future?

 

Monday's Greek Recipe: Sheftalies - Grilled Minced Meat Rolls

Sheftalies is a traditional Greek Cypriot dish which is, however, widely known in mainland Greece as well. Just like there's a fish and chips outlet in almost every neighbourhood in the UK, in Greece and Cyprus there's at least one  "souvlatzidiko". This is a kind of fast food outlet where you can eat souvlaki and shieftalies. You can eat there or take your meal away or you can have your meal delivered at home. Since I took up cooking as a hobby about 4 years ago, I've been  interested in making homemade sheftalies. Here's my mum's recipe.

My first homemade sheftalies

Ingredients

• pork or lamb net fat, drained (panna)
• 1 kg minced pork
• 1 large onion coarsely grated
• 1 cup parsley finely chopped
• 1 level teaspoon salt
• pepper to taste
• 7 tablespoons milk
• 1 tomato cut in small pieces
• 1 cucumber cut in small pieces
• some more chopped onion and parsley to garnish
• cabbage and / or lettuce
• fresh lemon juice
• pita bread

Directions

1. Wash the net fat very well and then rinse with a mixture of vinegar and water.
2. Mix the minced meat, onion, parsley, salt and pepper and add the milk to make a soft mixture.
3. Cut the net fat into square pieces and put one tablespoon of the mixture on each piece.
4. Close the two edges and roll.
5. Place the sheftalies on a flat plate one next to the other, cover with food wrapping film and refrigerate for about an hour.
6. Put the sheftalies through small, metal skewers and cook over glowing coal or under grill turning to brown on both sides
7. Serve in hot pita bread filled with a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, finely chopped onion and parsely, cabbage and lettuce. Only add fresh lemon juice.
8. You can also garnish with pickles, onions, parsely leaves and chips

How To Treat Sunburn

Maybe you skipped the sunscreen because you didn’t think you’d be outside for very long, or perhaps you forgot to reapply after a dip in the pool. Whatever the reason, your skin is red-hot to the touch and seriously painful. Now what? You can pop an aspirin and apply a standard drugstore treatment that contains a numbing agent like Lidocaine, or you can try one of the following natural remedies.

Photo Credit - © Shutterstock

To Stop the Pain:

1. Slather on aloe. If you’re going to buy it in a bottle, the best choice is one that contains no added colors or fragrances. (A good option is Aubrey Organics Pure Aloe Vera.) But aloe straight from the plant may be even better and possibly more effective, says Lynne C. David, ND, a naturopathic doctor at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Purchase a plant at a garden store or florist, and then just split open a spear and rub the gel on your skin.

2. Milk it. Soak a clean cloth in cool milk and apply it to the burned area for 20 minutes, says Hadley C. King, MD, a clinical instructor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Make sure you use whole milk; the fat content is what’s soothing. Reapply every two to four hours.

3. Soothe with baking soda. You use it to deodorize your fridge, clean your house and bake bread…but did you know that you can use baking soda to treat sunburns, too? Just dissolve a spoonful in water to make a cooling compress, or add 1/2-cup to a tepid bath that you can soak in, says Dr. King.

4. Try vinegar. According to Dr. King, a popular folk remedy is to use white distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar to relieve sunburn pain. She admits there’s no science proving it works, but says that it can’t hurt to try it. Just soak a cloth or towel in a solution of half vinegar, half water and apply it to the affected area.

5. Heal with herbs. The herbs comfrey and calendula promote tissue healing and have anti-inflammatory properties, says Dr. David. Ask at your local health foods store for a cream that contains this combo, or try Country Comfort Herbal Savvy, which contains both of these herbs as well as aloe vera. Or you can buy calendula tea bags, wet them and apply them to sensitive areas of your skin, leaving them on until you feel better. Mint tea bags are also a good pick, as mint has cooling, pain-relieving properties. If you don’t want to apply tea bags directly to the skin, you can brew the tea, let it cool and then dip cotton balls into it to dab onto the affected area.

For more on healing with herbs, click here.

To Help Repair the Damage:

 

6. Drink up. “Dehydration is a serious side effect of sunburn,” says Andrea Donsky, co-founder of NaturallySavvy.com, a website for natural, organic and green living. She recommends drinking plenty of water (your healthiest option) and other fluids to help re-hydrate the skin and fight dryness.
7. Let honey help. A thin layer of raw honey (the unprocessed kind; it should say “raw” on the label) spread on the affected area can reduce inflammation and help fight free radical damage incurred by the burn, says Donsky.

8. Lock in moisture. Dr. David recommends:

Burt’s Bees Aloe & Linden After Sun Soother, a creamy lotion containing bee pollen, coconut oil, aloe and linden extract to calm and moisturize inflamed skin. Dr. King is a fan of Bach Rescue Cream, a homeopathic moisturizer with flower essences that hydrates and soothes the skin while fighting inflammation. She recommends applying the lotion right after a cool to lukewarm shower, when your skin is still a little damp.

9. Get more vitamins. It won’t dull the sting of a sunburn, but an extra helping of antioxidants can help your body repair itself faster, says Dr. King. For a few days after getting sunburned, she recommends taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C, 400 IU vitamin E, 15 mg beta carotene and one to two tablespoons (or three to six capsules) of liquid flaxseed oil. Donsky also recommends loading up on vitamins, but she prefers to get extra A, C and E from food. “Carrots, spinach and red bell peppers are rich in vitamin A; citrus fruits and dark leafy greens offer plenty of vitamin C; and avocado, almonds and wheat germ are packed with vitamin E,” she says.

10. Go fish. Donsky says omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in salmon, sardines, herring and anchovies, can help reduce inflammation and promote tissue healing from the inside out. Not a fish fan? You can also get these healthy fatty acids from walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, chia seeds and hemp seeds.

 

via shine.yahoo.com

These last few days, I've been suffering from minor sunburn as a result of  my desperate effort to get a decent tan this summer! I did some online reading seeking advice which would help me soothe my pain and I came across these great tips which do wonders-especially aloe vera and omega-3 fatty acids! I 've been eating sardines and fresh salmon for the last 6 days and  I'm feeling much better now. I'm still as red as a lobster but the itching is gone. I'll be away for the next 8 days, spending time with friends and family, travelling again and hoping that I'll go ...brown by the end of this holiday! 

 Have you ever suffered from sunburn? How did you treat it? Do you easily get a gorgeous tan without getting sunburnt? If you do, please tell me your secret!

T.S. Eliot - The Eternal

When I first read Eliot, I was still at university. I fell in love with his work as soon as I read The Waste Land. T.S.Eliot haunted my college years to such an extent that I wanted to read more. Having read all his poems - my favourite being  Four Quartets -  I went on to read his plays and essays such as Murder in the Cathedral, The Cocktail Party and Tradition and the Individual Talent.

Almost 8 years after I had graduated from university, T.S. Eliot came to haunt me again. This time, I decided to write a book about this brilliant man concentrating on the elements of Time and the Eternal in his major poems. The book, published in February 1991, didn't sell well but it gave me the satisfaction of  making a dream come true. I have incurred many debts in writing this book. My understanding of the element of Time, of the Flux and the Eternal has been largely shaped by Staffan Bergsten's Time and Eternity and by Henri Bergson's Durée et Simultanéité. I owe more personal debts to my revered instructor John G. Blair who, despite the difficulty of some issues, greatly encouraged me with his help and advice to humbly add to the already considerable bulk of commentary on Eliot's poems.

Here's an excerpt from Chapter IV - Four Quartets

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets were written during the period of the poet's mature life, between 1934 and 1942, and reflect with his personal experience his wide and varied reading and thinking.. A complex poetic structure is the means by which the emotional and intellectual elements are incorporated into a whole. Through the complexity of the poetic structure and the symbolism, one imposing theme, which becomes almost an obsession, is emphasized by the poet from the very outset: the theme of time.

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past

(Burnt Norton I)

The theme of time, which gradually developed in Burnt Norton and the other Quartets, is also brought into contrast with another theme: that of the timeless or eternity. The antithesis of time and eternity is significant for the structure of the Quartets because, as a symbol, it reflects two basic elements important to Eliot's experience as man and poet: the individual life and history in general versus the eternal and unchanging.

In Four Quartets, there are elements from Heraclitus' philosophy but these do not relate to Eliot's own positive theory of time. They represent rather the notion of the Logos in the flux, the creative and at the smae time destructive character of the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. Eliot's aim is not to imitate Heraclitus but to transform these ideas into his own christian philosophy. So, when he writes "The way up is the way down, the way forward is the way back", he does not mean that time is relative or that the temporal is the ultimate reality. What he really means is that within the flux, there is only one choice: either death or God. If we reject God, who is the timeless, the Eternal, all experiences are worth nothing. It is in this way that Eliot changes the Heraclitian theory of time into a christian theory of value: within the flux, if nothing else is recognised as more real, no experience is any different from any other in so far as its value is concerned. Eliot's theory of time tends to be rather neo-platonic than Heraclitian. It is essentially an immanence doctrine to which the Eternal or the Timeless is regarded as the creative force of the flux or the temporal.

This is not to say that Eliot denies the reality of the flux. For Eliot, the flux is real but its reality is sustained by the more ultimate reality of the Eternal. The flux is not an illusion, but it is an illusion to regard it as the only reality.

Excerpt from T.S. Eliot The Eternal by Anastasia Marou

Do you read or write poetry? Who's your favourite poet? 

August is Special

Time for me has passed by in a flash since June 17 when school broke up for the summer. I had so many things to do in these last five weeks, like shop for the holidays, see good old friends I don't see very often when I work, go to the cinema, go to concerts, go to beach parties, read books, create a new blog, spend a long weekend  in Protaras and a week in Kos.

Photo Credit

When I had a quick look at August 2011 Calendar, I realised that I've only got 19 days left off work. I'm back to work on the 22nd to start preparing for the 15th school year at my language school. and the 4th online year at English Today. which is a free online course of English as a second language. But. right now, I'd rather feel the salt in my hair and my feet in the sand!. Alkis went back to work soon after we came back from Kos, but I hope that we'll have the chance to get away for a weekend before lessons start in September.

August in Cyprus is not only the hottest month of the year but also the month when everyone goes on holiday - both in public and private sectors. A few years ago, I used to enjoy spending time in my hometown Nicosia which is a ...ghost town in August since almost everyone is away.  Larnaca has nothing to envy, now. On the contrary, this small seaside town has a lot to offer such as great beaches, summer concerts, beach parties, the best greek tavernas and many cultural events.

August is a very special month for me because on 21 August 1976, Alkis asked me to be his girlfriend and I accepted. I could never imagine then that we'd spend a lifetime together filled with so much love and happiness.