Dance belly dance!

Every country in the world has its own customs, traditions, religion, festivals, holidays – to cut a long story short, its own culture. We usually are curious about those parts of the world that are further from our own country – they are much different and even exotic. That is why they are so interesting.
When I think about the Far East I think about India and the very first thing that comes to my mind is belly dance. A few weeks ago I started making my website about belly dance and I discovered some very interesting details about it, for example the actual origins of this kind of dance. And guess what? It is not India, as it is commonly believed… Are you curious to know it? Go to www.bellydance123.republika.pl and find out! You can also find a link to the website on the right site of the screen, just above 'My blog list'.
On the website you can also find some videos, photos and language tasks to practise your language skills and learn something new. I won’t tell you anything else – go and check it yourself! I hope you’ll enjoy it!

How it started?

In the section ‘My interest’ you can read that I’m interested in baking. Well, you’re probably wonder how it happened that I found interest in that sphere of life. Everything started when I was 15.

It was summer and was travelling by train to my aunt’s house to spend a few days there. I got off the train and instead of going through platforms, like everybody did, I went across the rails – it was shorter way, of course. I could say I was punished for that because I slipped on the rails and twisted my ankle. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone – my cousin was also there. She helped me to go, or rather jump, to my aunt’s house. In that one moment my holiday plans disappeared. I planned riding bicycle in the nearest villages, long walks and all those outdoor activities, so as you can imagine I wasn’t delighted with that kind of holidays. I stuck at home and I was getting bored. I watched TV, read books and women’s magazines and one day I came across the recipe with a photo of (I assumed) a delicious pie. I thought: ‘I’ll try to bake it! Why not?’. All the ingredients were at home, so I started to make my masterpiece. After my little ‘kitchen adventure’ the cake looked as delicious as in the photo. I was satisfied, my aunt and my cousin were surprised and each of us wanted to taste it. It was worth the effort!

I found a new way for boredom: I looked through the all the magazines at home and started to rewriting recipes to my own notebook. When my ankle recovered I baked another cake, and another… and this adventure lasts till today.

I’ve baked a lot of cakes since then and I have my favourite recipes. Some of them are time-consuming so I can use them only when I have time. But many of them are easy. Below I attach a very easy recipe for an apple pie. It’s my sister’s favourite one!

Apple pie

Ingredients:

5 eggs

½ glass of sugar powder

3 glasses of flour

20 dag of butter

1 package of baking powder

1,5 – 2 kg of apples or a big jar of apple mousse (you can buy a ready-made one)

¾ glass of sugar

cinnamon (necessarily)

Flour, sugar powder, baking powder mix together, add yolks, mix again. Add chopped cold butter and make a cake. Put it into the baking tin (on the bottom and on the sides). Peel the apples, cut them into pieces and put into a pot. Cook for 20 min, add some sugar (3 spoons should be enough), cook for 5 min. Pour the mousse on the cake. If you use ready-made mousse pour it on the cake directly from the jar. Sprinkle the apples with cinnamon. Whip the egg whites with a bit of salt. They should be really stiff. Add sugar gradually, whip for a moment. Pour the whites on the apples – there will be meringue on the surface of the cake. Bake it for 30-40 min in 180^oC.

Bon appetit!

Lovely spring, lovely flowers!

As you have already noticed I love taking pictures of flowers. I could spend many hours on doing it and I'd never be tired. During spring we can admire a lot of colourful and magnificient flowers and I really enjoy it. I promised you to attach some more pictures of flowers that my mother had planted on my balcony. As you can see, she did it. Again:)

My impressions from teaching practice

Since I fell in love with geography in fourth grade of primary school (yes, so long time ago) I have always thought my life would be connected with this discipline. Geology? Spatial economics? If geography is there, I’m into it! However, in the last class of high school I realized that apart from geography I would also need mathematics. And then “Houston, we have a problem” came to my mind. I considered pros and cons and told myself the truth: “Your love to geography is not strong enough to struggle with a deep aversion to mathematics, sorry”. What to do then? English? I liked. Learning? I liked. School atmosphere? I liked. Maybe teaching? Despite the fact that a terrifying matura exam was coming I was more and more into English and I felt: “This is it!”. And here I am, at the teacher training college.

Like every student of the college I had to practice my teaching at every stage of education: primary, junior-high and high school and I must say I enjoyed it very much. In all kinds of schools I had positive impressions. I recall teaching practice in primary school as a very nice experience. Students were a little bit noisy (I couldn’t expect from 9-year-olds to be calm all the time), but their positive attitude and admiration for me as a new teacher made me feel really good. Moreover, they were very eager to learn new things and working with them was a pleasure. I’d like to remark on the trend of giving children unusual names. I’m sure you also noticed that. My top list includes: Eljasz, Tristan and Miriam. I bet nobody will beat it!

In junior-high school I taught quite kind teenagers, so it was a nice surprise because students at the age of 13-15 are said to be the most impolite, rude and even aggressive students. I think I was just lucky.

The best experience, though, I had in high school. I suppose it was because it was the high school I used to go in my hometown, so I was given a warm welcome by my teachers and headteacher. The building evoked memories of the time I was learning there: the atmosphere of the school, my friends and moments of laugh and joy. I couldn’t wait to start teaching on my own. Lessons went according to the plan, students were nice, friendly and cooperative so I was very satisfied.

I can say my teaching practice was a good experience and I wish myself more students like those I have already taught.

Happy Easter!

Easter is coming so I'd like to wish
Happy Easter to all of you!
Enjoy the time spent with your family, enjoy the season!

To continue about spring...

I have found some photos from last year. I also could not restrain myself from taking pictures of the pansies you can see in the last two pictures. My mum has planted them on my balcony. She is very enthusiastic about plants so expect more pictures of flowers she is going to plant soon:)

Delicious Easter:)

Easter is coming and so are traditional Polish cakes baked only for Easter. Such a cake is called ‘Mazurek’ and is filled with delicious filling made of dried fruit, nuts, almonds, chocolate, caramel or home made jelly. I have baked various kinds of those cakes so far, but the most popular at my home is the one I attach below. This is my brother’s favourite one, so every year he forces me to bake it J

Cake ‘Mazurek’ with walnut filling

Ingredients:

30 dag of flour

3 hard boiled egg yolks

10 dag of butter

10 dag of powdered sugar

1 package of vanilla sugar

1 egg

2/3 glass of sugar

2/3 glass of sour cream

¼ glass of honey

pinch of salt

2 glasses of walnuts (preferably hazelnuts or almonds or the mixture of various kinds)

1 glass of chocolate flakes

How to do it?

Sieve the yolks through the sifter and add them to the flour you sieved before. Then add chopped cold butter, powdered sugar and vanilla sugar. Kneal all those ingredients. When you finish, put the cake into the fridge for 30 min. Later put away 1/3 of the cake and use the rolling pin to make the rest of the cake (2/3) flat. The size of the flat cake should fit the baking tin. Put the cake into the baking tin and bake it for 10 min only, in temperature 100^oC.

Mix an egg with sugar, sour cream, honey and salt. Add chopped walnuts and chocolate flakes. Now use the rolling pin again to make the rest of the cake (1/3) flat and cut it into the stripes. Pour the filling on the baked cake, in baking tin. Put the stripes on it – make the pattern of a chess board. Put the baking tin into the cooker and bake it for 30-40 min. in temperature of 180^oC.

Bon appetit!

Spring in the photo

Hello, everyone!
I have not added posts for a long time. Even obligatory tasks were delayed, I know. But now when spring has already come I made my 'New Spring resolution': be more conscientious! I hope the fresh energy of a new season will help me and I will manage:)
I have decided to add some photos - as you know I am interested in taking pictures. They were taken during Easter last year, so it was about the same time in spring as it is now. You can see many buds of the apricot-tree, lovely yellow pansies in a flowerpot and tiny cornflower blue spring flowers. All those 'spring miracles' grew in my grandparents' garden.

Women in politics

Dame Mary Eugenia Charles (15 May 1919 - 6 September 2005) was born in the fishing village of Pointe Michel in Dominica. She attended the Convent School, the island's only girls' secondary school, and became interested in law while working at the colonial magistrate's court. She attended university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada before moving to the United Kingdom to attend the London School of Econimics. She returned to Dominica, where she became the island's first female lawyer, establishing a practice specialising in property law.

Charles began campaigning in politics during the 1960s against restrictions on press freedom. She helped to found the Dominica Freedom Party, and was its leader from the early 1970s until 1995. She was elected to the House of Assembly in 1970 and became Opposition Leader in 1975. She continued serving after Dominica gained full independence from British rule in 1978.

Charles and her party were considered conservative by Caribbean standards. However, many of her policies appeared centrist or even leftist by American standards; for instance she did support some social welfare programmes. Other issues that were important to her were anti-corruption measures and individual freedom. For her uncompromising stance on this and other issues, she became known as the "Iron Lady of the Caribbean" (after the original "Iron Lady", Magaet Thatcher).

Childhood memory

Probably the best childhood memories are connected with holidays. Why is that? Maybe because it is leisure time full of fun that evokes nice feelings and experience we remember the best. I think about such feelings when I think of seaside - I go there almost every year and I take a lot of pictures there. Sitting on the beach, looking at the sunset - lovely. Here is one of the photos taken on the beach when I was a 9-year-old child.

Talk about 'Avatar'

Episode 3

KJO's Podcast

Hello everyone!

Hello!
My name is Agata and as you know from my profile I am a student of Enlish. I have got some interests and two of them are baking and taking photographs.
For some of you baking may seem time-consuming ar difficult, but for me it is the most relaxing activity. It is my hobby actually. I've been collecting recipes for 7 years now and I can say my collection is quite big:)
My second inteest is taking photographs, especially photos of landscape, plants and flowers (nature in general).
I am going to share my interests with you. If you want to read more, just be patient - it is worth waiting:)