Alexandra Soroca 🎹 @SeventhMagpie@mastodon.art

Revised #introduction to reflect the state of my languages. 😋

I'm an amateur classical #pianist. Started learning properly at 34 and still going strong. Love Frédéric #Chopin. Admire Arthur #Rubinstein and Emil #Gilels, and am trying to model my playing on them (arrogant, I know 😅).

I love #cats and am enslaved to two of them. Love #sea, #sailing ships & books about sea adventures. #NaNoWriMo & fountain pens enthusiast.

I speak #Russian, #English, some #Romanian, and now study #Italian.

Dear neighbours. Anyone else, operating phrases like "Russian trolls", "kremlinbots" and other general dehumanising concepts, please step forward, so I could block you. Thank you in advance and sorry for the inconvenience. I'm not having this shit again here. There's Twitter for that.

My best purchase of the last three months was a bottle of iodine with applicator.

Just in case someone was interested. :)

I have a PixelFed account where I post pictures of my city mostly and sometimes from my trips. I don't post all that often, tbh, but still I always try to make it good.

https://pixelfed.social/SeventhMagpie

I honestly make an effort to always remember that these people earn my keep. That I'm only here to provide support needed for them to be able to work effectively and make money, out of which my salary is paid.

But it's always a challenge to keep this mindset, when I receive messages that literally go like: "I can do nothing! There's an error!! Fix it immediately!!!"

#Fedora 35 is to be released in less than a month, and I still have not upgraded to F34. This is the first time that I've been putting it off for so long.

I'm not sure I like the direction #gnome is heading. I like it a lot, so I'm hesitant to upgrade. :)

Besides, my favourite Dash to Dock extension has not even been updated for the G40 yet. :( Those are the risks of using FOSS.

Although, I have to say, that books can be rather expensive on Amazon. Sometimes e-books cost the same or even more (!) than a print version. I wonder why. The publisher certainly doesn't spend more making them. No need to print, no need to store in a warehouse, no need to transport to shops. If there are less expenses in production, I think e-book should always cost less, not more.

Turns out that Amazon has a Kindle app for Android that syncs with your Amazon account as if it were an actual Kindle e-reader. Which means that I can install it on a tablet and read their books more or less normally, without a computer.

I wonder if it's a new development, or if it has been there for a long time, but I just didn't know. :)

It suddenly occurred to me, that in Russian there's a direct equivalent of the word "fuckup". It's "proyob" (literally "fuck through").

Yes, I'm weird. *gg*

I have to confess that the ultimate goal is to learn the Fourth Ballade. 😁 I honestly don't think it's doable. But I'd like to try at least two first pages. :)

There's a bird in there! Seriously, I can literally see it. It's a story of a bird, that in the end gets captured in the net and dies.

The best performance, imo, is by Krystian Zimerman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe-GrRQz8pk

I've never thought much of that. But then I identified one of the waltzes played by Arthur Rubinstein as Oxford University press edition. I liked it better than Fontana's edition, because I love playing grace notes :). So I re-learned to that version (see my intro post for reasoning :)).

And then it just went from there.

Most BIS versions are from manuscripts, so we have no way of knowing if that was a final edit. But then... why not. :)

Meanwhile, I have re-learned three Chopin's waltzes from Fontana's versions to the versions marked "BIS" in Fryderyk Chopin Institute's complete edition of Chopin's works.

Versions published by Fontana after Chopin's death are deemed to be the latest. However, lots of specialists suspect that Fontana made changes to Chopin's text. Hence, they are inaccurate.

I bought a toy for kittens. It's a textile mouse with a tiny sound module inside. When it comes into contact with something (supposedly a cat touches it with a paw), it chirps like a bird.

A mouse. Chirps. 😆

French and Canadian stubbornness has led us to basically losing four Junior Grands Prix in #FigureSkating

First Russian athletes didn't get to compete at their initially assigned events due to covid restrictions (half of which are political). And then we got Krasnoyarsk, where all the Russian crowd went.

Both are dull, both are bad. France didn't get the strongest athletes, and Siberia was a lost cause for all foreign athletes from the very beginning.

Politics should be removed from sports.

Sister is down with pneumonia.

She had two tests for covid, both were negative. Besides, she's vaccinated in any case. So... yes, looks like there still can be a pneumonia that is not caused by covid, even though the media makes it look like all other diseases have disappeared.

She feels rather well, in fact. Being ill doesn't prevent her from having hour long calls with me every evening. :) She coughs, of course, but it doesn't sound that bad to me.

Wish her speedy recovery. ❤️

Don't know if it's a coincidence, but Yandex has been marking my PGP encrypted emails as spam.

Gone are the days when I could leave a pencil on the piano. 🐱

Looking at my arms and legs, people who don't know me well might think that I selfharm. While, in fact, it's just two kittens in the house. Two small furballs with razor blades attached to their paws. Ouch!

And what I do not get is why she stubbornly refuses to do things the way normal people do.

Windows often comes preinstalled on consumer laptops. Just ask the sales person and they will suggest suitable products. Also, our employer offers free O365 license for one machine for personal use as an employee benefit! No need to steal!

Not to mention that she still can afford it, she makes enough.

Some people really make me want to punch them in the face for trying to drag me into some shit.

Remember how I told you about a lady from my office, who wanted me to install a cracked game for her?

Now she wants me to install a cracked Windows & MS Office for her, as well. Even suggests to pay for it.

Not touching that with a ten foot pole, of course. Won't even respond. But the nerve of that woman!