Well, this will be my last post for a while. I am off to a Ukrainian dance workshop in ustate New York! The workshop is home to mostly all Syzokryli full-time members during the summer, and is under the direction of the Roma Pryma Bohachevsky Ukrainian Dance Foundation.

I’ll be gone at dance workshop for 2 weeks, then right from that resort to Soyuzivka, where I will be counseloring their “Discovery Camp” for kids ages 8-12. Here’s their description of the camp from the site:

This camp offers exposure to Ukrainian heritage, outdoor instruction and expeditions on a lowered intensity level for our future explorers. Students will sit-in on many of the same classes as Adventure Campers, like wildlife awareness, basic first-aid, survival, eco-history and introductory rock-climbing. Daily life is filled with fun and learning: Outdoor crafts, hiking, swimming, organized sports & games, bonfires, stories, song and much more.

Then I will be home for a week, and then it’s off to counselor the Ukrainian dance camp back at Soyuzivka! That will be for two weeks, lots of fun there.

To conclude the summer I will be spending a week as a guest at Soyuzivka leading up to labor day weekend, the best party weekend for Ukrainians of THE ENTIRE YEAR! Christian will be up there with me too, along with all of our friends, with many good times to be had.

You’ll possibly see a post here and there in between the dancing, the chasing after little kids, and the working… so until then…see ya in September! (wow this feels like the last day of school.)

Oh, and I have to show these pictures. They make me smile so much haha. :)

The photo below is of myself at the beginning of the Syzokryli Hopak, that national “dance” and “costume” of Ukraine. The costume is from the Poltava region of Ukraine. Click on the photo for the full version.

Ans here is Natalia and myself I think right before… or maybe it was after… Hopak.

Want to drop me a line or some friendly words while I’m away for the summer?! I’d love it! If so, click here for that information. But just so I know you’re not some crazy whacko, I’ve encoded the password as my screen name. So if you know my AIM sn, feel free to drop me a line!

Lots of Love!
Lara

From Ananova:

An Austrian zoo says it has been flooded with requests for paintings created by its orangutan.

Schoenbrunn Zoo in Vienna said staff thought it a joke when people started calling up offering large amounts of money for Nonja’s paintings.

Demand for Nonja’s artworks come after the sale of three pictures by a chimp at a London auction for £14,400.

Schoenbrunn Zoo had its first painting ape in the early 1950s when Johnny the chimpanzee, who died in 1992, was given a set of paints.

After his death Nonja inherited his paints and carried on the good work, in spite of a boyfriend called Vladimir who eats her artwork if not locked away in his cage.

Keepers believe Vladimir, who tried painting himself but kept making holes on the canvas, is jealous of his girlfriend’s success.

Hey…. I can do that! Will you give me $26 thousand dollars?!

Google Earth… coolest… thing… ever! You have to download this, and then look up your house, and your friend’s house, and then some shack in China, and then over to Niagra falls, and then over to Hawaii. However, it’s not a live satellite view… I’m not too sure how many governments or people would be happy with that, besides the fact that it would cost absolutely too much money. But this is STILL so cool!

Click the images below for a larger version.

SO! If you’ve been DYING to know where I live… well here’s a satellite view!

And Christian’s house :-p

First I present to you TomKat’s potential child:

And for all of you dying to know: What the lyrics to Gwen Stefani’s song “Holla Back Girl!”

HOLLABACK GIRL dissected

Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” is one of the most baffling pieces of music of the modern age. It’s got something to do with cheerleaders—that much is clear, judging from the chanting and the marching band that’s honking and tooting in the background. Beyond that, good luck deciphering the song’s ambiguities. We were so vexed by the mystery that is “Hollaback Girl” that we have devoted countless hours to its study. Our conclusions are below. The first thing you should know, though, is that Gwen is not singing “I ain’t no Harlem fat girl”—at least, we don’t think she is.

Uh huh, this my shit
Gwen is introducing us to her shit.

Keep reading this »

Well Volkswagen has sponsored the release of the new trailer for Peter Jackson’s King Kong. This stuff looks scary! It stars that guy from The Pianist (Adrien Brody) and the woman from The Ring (Naomi Watts.) We’ll see how the 2005 version of King Kong stands up to the 1933 version.

Check out the 2005 Trailer

Check out the 1933 Trailer

Which one do you think will end up as the winner once the 2005 version emerges?

You have got to check this out… and try it out. I’m absolutely going to wreck a few microwaves with this hahaha.

» http://c3po.barnesos.net/homepage/lpl/grapeplasma/

Source:

Two Russian soldiers are in trouble after driving an armoured personel carrier 25 miles to buy vodka.

They were caught after crashing through a fence into a used car showroom, demolishing several vehicles, on the way back.

The soldiers took the armoured vehicle from their military base, near Yekaterinburg in Siberia, and drove it to the nearest town.

After stocking up on vodka they started heading back to the base but their driving declined as they sampled their shopping.

They were arrested by police who caught up with them after the APC broke down on the way back to the base, Russian media reported.

Local prosecutors have said the pair face “severe punishment“.

Ahaaa! Typical Russian… of course the Ukrainian cossacks would never do such a thing….

There’s been nothing blog-worthy lately…. sorry about that haha. Lately I have been doing a lot of design work. I’ve launched and am working on 4 new websites. Parrot Check, Scrappin’ Cabinet, and I am finishing up another blog (Palm Trees in the Ghetto) right now.

Also, I created a very AWESOME blog, not with E.Webscapes (The company I work for,) …. Cyber Cossack! If you’re Ukrainian you’ll get the joke ;)

Oh, and found a very cute website which will make you smile, :) The Daily Kitten. Look at this cutie:

Take a look at the thumbnail here (click on it for the full size so you can see.)

Netscape…. no one likes you anyways. You’re a dead web browser. The only people using you are elementary schools stuck in some kind of contract with you. And supporting CNN only makes you look worse.

Thank-you to our lovely friend Maddox, at http://maddox.xmission.com/.

Well, the people over at PETA have a lot of explaining to do. Two employees of the extremist group have been charged with animal cruelty after dumping dead dogs and cats in a shopping center garbage bin! Here’s more of the article form FOX

Investigators staked out the bin after discovering that dead animals had been dumped there every Wednesday for the past four weeks, [...] PETA has scheduled a news conference for Friday in Norfolk, Va., where the group is based.

Police found 18 dead animals in the bin and 13 more in a van registered to PETA. The animals were from animal shelters in Northampton and Bertie counties, police said.

The two were picking up animals to be brought back to PETA headquarters for euthanization, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk (search) said Thursday. Neither police nor PETA offered any theory on why the animals might have been dumped.

This explains how exactly they make those outrageous videos on displayed on their website. They pick up dying animals, take their sick videos, and then dump ‘em. Simply pathetic. We’ll see what kind of explaining they do.