NO CREO EN EL JAMAS

I am taking a Spanish class in hopes of learning how to build a basic conversation on the language that became almost a necessity in this country. Every lesson, our teacher makes us sing along with some Latino pop hotness about dances under the starts, undying love or other romantic sappiness. It is entertaining to have the group of people who have a hard time pronouncing: "Me gusta Espanol" sing along with these passionate motives but I was not looking forward to it today...

To my luck, our teacher played for us today this simple although powerfully worded song by Juanes. Our teacher siad we all need to buy his album but I'll just share this one song... I think it might be helpful...

My mom told me that any of our fears can be materialized if we don't force ourselves to think in uplifting and positive way even in our darkest hours.

Elder B. Wirthlin said: "In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter how dark our Friday, Sunday will come."

And now I give you the googled translation of this song:

When life throws me blows and knocks me to the ground
It is when I feel the most that I have to pick myself up
For facing fear, is a way to conquer it
I won't give up, I won't give my life to fear
Fear is an assasine that kills feelings
Whenever I'm alone, it's because God is here inside me
And I need silence to be able to find
My own voice and my truth
And at the end of the darkness
I don't feel alone, I know you're with me
Today I'm going to rise and not get disheartened
Over what I wanted to do and wasn't able to
I'm not going to accept it today, I'm going to try to do better
Life has a solution, there's nothing impossible here
I don't believe in never... no!
If giving up is a way of dying
Then I'm never going to give in to death
I think of my family, the heart beats stronger
For one cannot live wondering when one will die
And they say that to dream is as much as dreaming of being alive
I believe in the present and that keeps me away from death

and here is the Spanish version - I dare you to try and sing it - its a fast song!

Cuando la vida me da golpes y me manda para el suelo
es cuando yo mas siento que tengo que levantarme
que dar la cara al miedo, es una forma de vencerlo
no voy a darme por vencido, no voy a darle mi vida el miedo
el miedo es un asesino que mata los sentimientos
siempre que estoy solo, es porque dios esta aqui adentro

Y ne cesito silecio para poder encontrar
mi propia vos y mi verdad....
Y al final de la oscuridad
no me siento solo, se que estas conmigo

Hoy voy a levantarme y no voy a resignar mi corazon
hacer lo que quice y no pude
No lo voy a aceptar hoy, voy a buscar estar mejor
la vida tiene solucion, aqui no hay nada imposible
no creo en el jamas.... no! (X2)

Si darse por vencido es una forma de morir,
entonces yo jamas quiero darle el gusto a la muerte
Pienso en mi familia, el corazon late mas fuerte
Que no se puede vivir pensando en cuando se va a morir
y dicen que sonar es tanto como sonar estando vivo
Yo creo en el presente y eso me aleja de la muerte

Y necesito silecio para encontrar,
mi propia vos y mi verdad
Y al final de la oscuridad
no me siento solo, se que estas conmigo

Hoy voy a levantarme y no voy a resignar mi corazon
hacer lo que quice y no pude
No lo voy a aceptar hoy, voy a buscar estar mejor
la vida tiene solucion, aqui no hay nada imposible
no creo en el jamas.... no! (X2)

Easter at home

Happy Easter!

When I was a child in Ukraine, my parents made sure to observe all the traditions set by the Orthodox Church on Easter day. One of the favorite parts of this tradition was putting together a special “Velykden” or Great Day food basket which was taken that day to a church for an Easter Sunday Blessing that looked something like this.

So what happens here is a bunch of people bring their baskets filled with all kinds of goods and line them up on the ground. Meanwhile, the priest walks around singing his food blessing, spraying baskets and occasionally some people with holy water.

Two of the main components of the Easter basket is Paska ( a very delicious Easter bread) and Pysanki (colored eggs). Pysanky are different from the eggs that Easter Bunny brings. Those eggs decorations are basically historical records of many ethnic groups that end up living on the Ukrainian territory.

Some of the designs have a significant meaning and were used for communication a few hundreds years ago. The symbols on these eggs were handed down from generation to generation. This online brain source can give you more details. In my middle school, making pysanky was part of our art project and I learned that these raw eggs decorations required some serious talent, focus and a steady hand.

Because of the differences in calendars today, Ukrainians (and a bunch of other Eastern Europeans) are celebrating Easter on April 27 this year, so if you are so inclined, you can find some Ukrainian person and surprise them with Chrystos Voskres! greeting ( Christ Has risen) on that day, which is a traditional greeting that people use instead of HI and HOW ARE YOU. They may even reply Voistynu Voskres ( Truly risen) to you. Also after that you can play who can beat whom in Krashanka war, children (and anyone they can get to do it with them) play the game of Krashenky, where they hit each other's Easter Egg to see whose cracks first. One thing to be careful about is using a hard boiled egg and not fragile Pysanky for this game.

The rest of the Easter day is dedicated to festivities which include a LOT of eating of the blessed food and drinking blessed drinks with family and friends.

Hope this day also brings some heart-warming childhood memories for you!

CTR

That means Choose The Right
You take a step and funny enough you can not enjoy the consequences from the step you could have taken...but you didn't...
It is all about our priorities. Everything is so important to do but what comes first, what is good what is better and what is the best?
It is so easy, yet so hard. What if there are 5 The Bests... which one to go for first? How good are you in following directions?
It would be funny to see our lives and all the different lives we could have lived if we have made different choices from those we are making...

I heart UT

MOAB, UT

taken during Brian's triathlon - nature and human perseverance....so beautiful

a reunion

I just joined vkontakte (http://vkontakte.ru/id9237283?27721) which is an absolute copy of our favorite Facebook. Amazing how quickly I found a bunch of my classmates from Kyiv University which I have not seen or talked to for a long time. Somehow, email does not give the feeling of an actual communication with people who don’t have a very close relationship with me. It is not enough to just get the message; I want to see their image, a group of friends they hang out with at the last party and the interest groups they joined. It felt like a reunion party, we exchanged a few messages and I learned about a few married girls who just have their babies, also about a girl who turned from an average brunette to a stunning blond, some are now teaching in the university, some are in Canada, and some are in the entertainment industry. In just four years! I transferred to BYU in the end of my junior year in Ukraine when we all had only vague ideas about what we wanted in life - who would have thought we would be where we are now...