Music has always been an important part of my life. I grew up in a household where music was always playing on the stereo. I was encouraged to pursue a musical instrument at an early age (I play drums, and how I started is a topic for a whole other blog post). If there was ever a CD or cassette that I wanted, I would inevitably get it. Music, like books, was one of the few things in my childhood that was completely uncensored. ...

My love for action movies has steadily been decreasing since the age of 10, but every once in a while a new action film will come out that will rekindle my love for the genre. Action movies seldom captivate the audience with amazing plots or themes, but what they lack in this regard they try to make up for by having amazing action sequences. Below are my Top 6 Action Films (in no particular order). ...

This is a post about Becky. Becky thinks she’s figured out what “growing up” means. It makes sense to her now, why most “adults” describe it as an increase in the amount of responsibility and shit. It’s not just about that, though, there’s more. She thinks the big idea behind growing up is accumulating stress and anxiety. She never quite feels tired exactly when she needs a break. Instead, she usually starts to feel tired when she’s completely out of energy. It’s like when she’s got enough fuel in the tank to last her through the commute home, but only enough money to fill her tank up enough for her commute there-and-back tomorrow. What a beautiful metaphor. She thinks that’s what growing up really is about. It’s why “adults” have shrinks, and why every 20-something feels like they need one. Whatever “rest” she gets after work doesn’t even begin to help resolve the issue of how “burnt out” she feels. Working 9-to-5 with just 24 days of paid vacation doesn’t really put her in the state where she knows she has enough time to have “me” time and regroup. She’s just riding on a nearly-empty tank day in and day out. She runs out of half her daily reserve of will power by just getting out of bed, another 40% to get herself out of the house and on her way to work, 5% to keep calm and not lash out at the annoying stranger who gropes her butt on the metro, and the remaining 5% is somehow supposed to get her through the day. Of COURSE she’s not going to be able to kick her smoking habit. Smoking is her only excuse to get away from her desk more often than she should and shut her brain down for a couple of minutes, because if it’s not off, it’s going full throttle. She’s thinking about work, about how messy her apartment has gotten, about how she’s going to spend her next paycheck, how big her ex’s new girl’s butt is, and about how the government has really fucked the people over with this whole capitalism shindig. Thanks, Obama. She drinks on Fridays because that’s what people do, and she doesn’t want to be a social outcast. She spends most of Saturday nursing a hangover with some fast food and comfort movies. She spends Sunday doing at least the most basic chores while being angry at herself for being a total slob on Saturday. She’s forgotten what “lazy Sundays” are because she hasn’t had one in months. She manages to somehow get herself in bed before midnight and finally gets a solid 8 hours of sleep. That’ll give her some much needed rest; restore her willpower. ...

It’s been a year since the first 100 deaths occurred during the revolution at Maidan. Feels wrong calling it an “anniversary”, but I guess that’s what it is. I knew there was an event at Maidan to commemorate this day and the events that happened a year ago, but I wasn’t inclined to go. A little less than a year ago, when the revolution itself was all but over, Hellen and I went to Maidan to walk up the street where most of the deaths occurred, where people were shot down by snipers whose origins are still (it’s been a year) unknown. While the revolution itself was happening, it felt surreal and distant. I saw the smoke grenades explode, smelt the teargas and the smoke from burnt tires, heard the yelling and banging, drove and walked passed the bodies of those first 100 on my way to and from work, and yet it all felt extremely distant; like I was seeing it all on a TV screen. But that day, during that walk, I felt the emotional and psychological weight of what has happened. All the emotions and thoughts I was too numb to have for the past months stormed in — overwhelmingly sad. Yesterday after work I spontaneously desided to go to Maidan. As I approached I could hear the voice of our President speaking. The speaker distorted, barely audible (at first) words took me back. All that was missing was the smoke and the sound of distant explosions. I got to Maidan closer to the end of the President’s speech, catching only his promise to give his all to ending the conflict in the East of Ukraine and bringing our soldiers back home. Then there was a minute of silence. In that minute I felt the same tide of thoughts and emotions I had nearly a year ago at Institutska. The memories of what happened came flooding in, compounded with the stress and uneasiness that the war in the East was causing. When you’ve got more than two years worth of anger, sadness, stress, and worry to feel in a minute, one minute seems like a very long time. ...

It’s been a long year. Somewhere between the start of the revolution in Ukraine and now, 2014 started and passed. It feels like I was just a passenger travelling through time. Save for my trip to Paris and Amsterdam, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what I did this year, how I felt, and what’s changed in my life in these 365 days. My iPod, however, keeps track of what I listened to throughout the year. Here are my top songs of 2014: ...

My experience with writing outside of school is very limited. Come to think of it, my experience of writing in school ends with a 10-page research paper I wrote in Paris about the catastrophic consequences of decreasing bee populations around the world, and that was 3 years ago. In those days I would need to write numerous essays and research papers, and would also, occasionally, start a blog here-and-there, out of boredom, looking for any source of procrastination activities. Eventually the idea of becoming a famous Internet Blogger Persona With Millions of Blog Visits cemented itself in my head and that became somewhat of a goal. The result was crippling writer’s block (or whatever) and over 12 blogs I started and abandoned one after the other. One of the prominent causes for the aforementioned writer’s block (or whatever) was that somewhere along the way people told me I’m good at writing. I don’t know what sort educational debacle resulted in their failure to see my sub-par writing for what it really was, but at the time I was quite chuffed. I’d dabble in pretentious self-exploration and the use of irrelevant metaphors to explain the unbearable lightness of being. Then I started thinking “I must write better!” and set myself some pretty unreachable quality standards.ё Also I’m lazy. Then I came back to Ukraine and I may or may not have been depressed. No way to find out now, but looking back, there were definitely many symptoms. And then I decided that I need to get back to my goal of becoming a famous Internet Blogger Persona With Millions of Blog Visits. Naturally, my way of going about it wasn’t to start writing, writing well, and writing often. That would make far too much sense. What I did instead was spend a month choosing the most ridiculous usernames for my blog and the accompanying twitter account. Then I wrote a couple of posts now and again. Then I realized that my writing is shit, my blog is shit, and most importantly the username is shit. It’s all because of the username. All I needed was a different username, and then everything would work out and I’d be rich and famous. So I repeated the same process about 6 times and ended up not writing or filming vlogs for years. ...