Acte traduse in limba engleza si legalizate

M-am saturat de minunata noastra tara si sunt hotarat sa imi iau jucariile si sa plec pe alte taramuri. Ca sa fiu sigur ca nu voi fi tentat sa ma intorc prea curand m-am hotarat sa plec cat mai departe. prima mea obtiune a fost Canada, insa in ultimul an s-au inasprit conditiile de emigrare si cred ca am sanse destul de mici sa ajung in tara frunzei de artar. Limba franceza nu prea e punctul meu forte iar pe partea federala unde se vorbeste limba engleza nu am nici o sansa. Asa ca m-am reorientat spre Australia, tara cangurilor, crocodililor si ursilor Koala. Am citit toate site-urile, blogurile si forumurile posibile despre emigrarea in Australia. Se pare ca acolo oamenii stau cu capul in jos, cred ca va fi destul de greu sa ma adaptez. Primul pas e sa imi adun hartiile: diplome si alte acte de genul asta. Nu a fost prea greu pentru ca nu am prea multe. Pasul doi e sa caut un birou de traduceri legalizate cu niste preturi decente. Traducerile actelor trebuie realizate de catre un traducator autorizat si apoi legalizate la notar. Evident e nevoie de traduceri legalizate in limba engleza. Momentan m-am oprit aici. trebuie sa mai strang niste bani pentru taxele de inscriere a dosarului. Vreau sa zic ca m-am oprit aici cu dosarul dar intre timp m-am apucat sa invat fotbal australian. Rugby stiam, am mai vazut la televizor, sunt oamenii aia care se imping cu capu in fundul celui din fata. E un sport ciudat in care trag doar peste poarta si se bucura cand sar in aut de porta cu mingea in brate. Va salut si va tin la curent cu aventura mea australiana.

At the Bar

So we're vacationing in Bangalore, and we're in the bar, and sitting at another table is Feroze Khan, who was a filmstar once, and who is a producer, and whose son is acting in films. He was drinking with someone who seemed to be a pal of his. A little blonde girl, the child of one of the foreigners who are staying at the hotel, and who looked to me to be about nine years old, all dressed up in churidar-kameez, with a dupatta and everything, and probably feeling very grown up, went over to his table. My first thought was, Where are her parents? Then I looked again, nosy/curious, and saw that she had draped a loop of string around the pal’s hands, and was showing him how to play cat's cradle. She was very intent on the loops and twists, and when she was done both men applauded. I looked again a few minutes later, and she was sitting in the chair next to FK's, and he was showing her what looked like sleight of hand, a magic trick. He looks dramatic, a shaved head covered with a long scarf. He was doing magician-like hand movements with flourishes, and she was trying to copy him, and the light was shining down on both of them, and it looked charming. Then it was over, and she ran back to a stool at the bar, where her father or someone was waiting for her.

Good News and Bad News

Regarding my recent disappearance from the airwaves, Blogger has sent me this note:

I have some good news and bad news for you. The good news is that your blog is now back online and publishing correctly with all your posts and archives intact. The bad news is that everything you have uploaded to your page such as pictures and images have been lost. We deeply and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.


Once I get over being stunned, I will begin to try to replace those images. Anyway, here I am. Blogger has pulled me out of the hat. Tada.

For Once, Then, Something

I suddenly wanted to read poems by Robert Frost. I had read him in high school, then did not for many years. I found this poem, which I had not known before, but which I found beautiful:

For Once, Then Something

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven, godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths-and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

An Elephant Crackup

There's a fascinating / scary / terribly sad article in today's New York Times magazine: An Elephant Crackup? It is primarily about African elephants, but it mentions Indian elephants as well; and the problems are apparently evident among all elephant populations:

... today’s elephant populations are suffering from a form of chronic stress, a kind of species-wide trauma. Decades of poaching and culling and habitat loss, they claim, have so disrupted the intricate web of familial and societal relations by which young elephants have traditionally been raised in the wild, and by which established elephant herds are governed, that what we are now witnessing is nothing less than a precipitous collapse of elephant culture.

It has long been apparent that every large, land-based animal on this planet is ultimately fighting a losing battle with humankind. And yet entirely befitting of an animal with such a highly developed sensibility, a deep-rooted sense of family and, yes, such a good long-term memory, the elephant is not going out quietly. It is not leaving without making some kind of statement, one to which scientists from a variety of disciplines, including human psychology, are now beginning to pay close attention. ...

The Sun

April is National Poetry Month, and every year Knopf sends me a poem a day during April. (Though it's a bit late, they'll send you one too, if you send a blank email to: sub_knopfpoetry@info.randomhouse.com. They'll keep you on the list for next year, too.)

I received the most wonderful poem yesterday, by Dan Chiasson, from his book Natural History:

The Sun

There is one mind in all of us, one soul,
who parches the soil in some nations

but in others hides perpetually behind a veil;
he spills light everywhere, here he spilled

some on my tie, but it dried before dinner ended.
He is in charge of darkness also, also

in charge of crime, in charge of the imagination.
People fucking flick him off and on,

off and on, with their eyelids as they ascertain
with their eyes their love's sincerity.

He makes the stars disappear, but he makes
small stars everywhere, on the hoods of cars,

in the compound eyes of skyscrapers or in the eyes
of sighing lovers bored with one another.

Onto the surface of the world he stamps
all plants and animals. They are not gods

but he made us worshippers of every
bramble toad, black chive, we find.

In Idaho there is a desert cricket that makes
a clocklike tick-tick when he flies, but he

is not a god. The only god is the sun,
our mind—master of all crickets and clocks.