a blog of Taras Filatov

I have arrived to Ukraine yesterday and to my home town Kharkov today to find it was a right decision to go to Ukraine The food is fantastically tasty and cheap; a lot of beautiful girls on the streets; the political life is exciting - the video of our idiotic city mayor had reached top10 in the world yesterday on youTube. There are elections tomorrow (oops, today) by the way and I’m going to go and vote in the morning. Moreover, my mother makes home-made absinthe with marijuana. Nice.

Don’t feel much like drinking or partying, will probably start working from Monday. It’s great to be free anyway.

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I’m a real aikidoka now. Almost like Steven Seagal.

The summer school in Chester in 2007 was great, I’ve had a very pleasant time and have met a lot of good folk not to mention the everyday practice of aikido with the best senseis such as Kanetsuka and Sugawara. It’s like touching a legend. Still can’t really believe but I was there.

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~aikido/news.html

It’s a pity to leave the Southampton University dojo, I think Alex Megann is a great sensei. I hope I will be able to find some good dojo in Kharkov where I’m going to spend some time (probably about half a year) now.

Enough of studying

Ok I’m now reaching the next stage of my life as I’m finishing my PhD research here at Wessex Insitute of Technology and going to be off to Ukraine in the end of this month.

There are going to be a couple of leaving parties, one is “Russian Style Extravaganza ” organised by my housemate Laura Dennison (aka Larisa Denisova) probably on Saturday 22nd which will involve some coctails, a meal and dirty pub (namely Frog and Frigate) in the end; I’m also thinking about BBQ at the Institute on Sunday (chicken, beer & voleyball, relaxing style) but we’ll see how it goes.

I’m looking forward to my departure to Ukraine as I link with it a new, more active, stage of my life. I have tons of projects and ideas which wait to be realized.

My Corolla

I have sold my car today, my nice Toyota Corolla Kudos which has served exceptionally well, in true samurai style, during these 2 years. I’ve made almost 20.000 miles over UK with it usually having a bunch of friends inside and visiting such places as Wales and Cornwall. I have never had any major problem with it. It is likely that my next car will be Toyota as well. Thank you, my red birdie

To move is to live

There is a Russian saying that 1 move of the house is worse than 3 fires. I don’t subscribe to this point of view I like to move, I like to travel. This refreshes my mind and gives me an understanding of which things are important and which I can do without. I take the best - lots of new useful experience, new attitude to life and links with many good folk - with me, and may the unnecessary things dissolve in the fog of Albion and be taken away by the North Sea.

Good luck my precious self, good luck everybody

Dixi