Random Thoughts

I haven’t been good at blogging lately: my mind is filled with fragments of thoughts, but they are just that – fragments. Writing about something specific isn’t really happening right now. Yesterday, for instance, I was thinking about Béla Kun (or, if we shall be precise, Kun Béla*). The man in question was one of the communist leaders in Hungary after WWI, and he was eliminated by Stalin during the terror before and during WWII. And what’s so special about him? Well, I recently read a biography written by a Swedish historian whose mother led an interesting life all around Europe before moving to Sweden right before WWII. The book, The Red Countess, tells a fascinating story about an imperfect woman and the European/German/Russian societies before the war. And apparently she had bumped into (or at least heard of) Béla Kun in the streets of Moscow.

I have also spent a great deal of time on thinking about politics. Elections are coming up again soon. First we have local elections next month and then Finland will be electing a president in April 2012. The campaigns are about to begin, and it will be interesting to follow them. My guess is that the great topics will be the economy, Greece/EU and possibly immigration (depending on whether the True Finns will participate or not). I’ve already decided whom I’m going to vote for, even though I know the person in question will not make it to the second run.

Russian class was nice yesterday: our group is growing! I think the class will be useful and the teacher is also very nice (although she needs to “think over those difficult questions at home”) BUT – what do you, fellow language learners think when a teacher, instead of explaining something tricky, says “ah, this is too hard for you, just forget it for now…”? I personally find it quite annoying – as if the teacher is questioning my skills.

 

Oh, and my nose is sore after too much sneezing. I. Want. To. Return. To. The. Gym. Now.

 

 

 

*In Hungarian the surname is always written before the given name.