Use Google Search to Search Wikipedia

There are some very helpful tricks and shortcuts anywhere on the Internet how to search with a Google search effectively. It´s quite common, I won´t mention it. But how can we search Wikipedia? Let´s explore.

You could use the Wikipedia's official search engine on the navigation menu. I never do it in this way. The interested fact is that we can do it without opening the Wiki´s page. You type the recommended term "site:wikipedia.org" anywhere into your Google search. But it is so long, very long! There is a range of other options like searching with wiki.com or Google Desktop Search and many others, too.

I like the following simple wonderful trick which I have learned from the frequent searching. It´s enough to type the term “wiki en” anywhere into your Google search. For example, I´m searching some information about Vienna´s metro or Ceasar´s Cipher in English:

vienna metro wiki en

ceasar cipher wiki en

Screen printing results

It works sufficiently. So play with it :)

Yawa´s Art

I was trying to learn how to paint 6 years ago. It took about one year with some breaks. Mostly manga was an object of my interest. Then I definitely got stuck, other things got close to my heart. Now I think that I just missed something and decided to imitate other´s passion. I don´t regret anything, it was a great time. I spent all my days painting rather than doing something else. One of my paintings even won the small prize in the dormitory´s art competition. Thanks to Yawa´s passion and to nobody else.

I know her for 8 years. As class-mates we meet each other on a daily basis. She´s my friend and has taught me few important things, showed me other view on the world. I just remembered our favourite websites (here and here). They weren´t only chats, they were complete virtual worlds. But that´s another story.

Beginnings are never easy. There is her beginning of painting: "I was sick and bored so I´ve started painting." Until now she has drawn about 200 paintings. It must be mentioned, she doesn´t study any kind of the art techniques at the school.

Yawa´s drawing for children which I´ve just stolen

If I am in a position to support her in any way then I´ll do it. This poor blog is my only one opportunity. Check her websites:

http://www.facebook.com/yawagallery (facebook gallery)

http://www.wix.com/yawannka/mygallery (flash website)

http://www.yawannka.deviantart.com (the online social network for artists)

http://www.artflakes.com/en/shop/yawa (website which enables artists to sell their work)

If you find some illustrator of the children´s books, try to hire Yawa! Sometimes I care what other people think. When you look at Yawa, you would never think that she has made the pictures for colouring (painting book) maybe just for your children last summer. It´s no big deal, it´s a pure enjoyment.

Of course, you don´t go into painting to get rich, famous. Painting is fun and exciting. I don´t know it by myself. But it is obvious, when Yawa sits next to me watching paintings of other authors on the Internet. She is talking: "I´ll never paint something amazing like that. That´s no computer´s work, that´s painting with colour-box! And the author is younger than me..."

Never give up, Yawa. There are always some people better than we and worse than we, too. It doesn´t matter. You´ll have your own tearoom and there will be your paintings on the walls :)

Creating a Geocache

Lazy times are coming. My head is full of thoughts but I don´t know a right way to get them out. A voice in my head whispers "Write, write!" while I´m giving priority to another stuff. It must be over. English is a top priority.

I´m a newbie in geocaching. The definitive place to start with this kind of entertainment is the website http://www.geocaching.com. I won´t write about the history, terminology, etc. There are many references everywhere. In short, a participant uses a GPS receiver to hide and seek containers which are called geocaches or caches. These caches vary in size, location, and difficulty.  

Yawa´s hand and a nano cache

I like creative caches and hate such thinking: "I was walking around this place and thinking that would be a good cache. So I hid one." And something similar uses to be a cache´s description, too. In my opinion, completely bad! But when the container isn´t a classic box, the treasure isn´t a classic small toy, this is a perfect cache. There is an example here and here. I don´t want to seek, I want to hide something like that. It would be creative. It would be something you want to show your friends. It would be a cache you don´t forget. If you walk around it, you´ll smile. It would be pretty cool. In spite of better opportunities of creating caches in the forest I´ve chosen place near my Alma Mater without any special reason. An exact idea for cache didn´t cross my mind, yet. I´m waiting for it, looking for other caches (inspiration) and enjoying this time :)

See you on the trails!

Less Talking, More Reading: Matilda

The whole time I was reading this book I couldn´t stop smiling and get the name “Matilda” out of my mind. We´ve used this name like a nickname for marking the group of people. Only thing we´ve done before this decision was checking the date of Matilda´s name day because of the celebration. It´s on 14th March. We didn´t know that Matilda isn´t ordinary Matilda :)

Anyway, Matilda by Roald Dahl is a children´s novel where the heroine is a little girl who has qualities of genius. She is special. At the early age she can speak very well, read and is gifted in maths. But her parents don´t care about her talent and sensitive soul. Mr. Wormwood is Matilda´s father and a typical couch-potato who doesn´t want to buy any book for his daughter. Mrs. Wormwood, Matilda´s mother, has an interest only in playing bingo. There are another characters in the story, too. Miss Trunchbull like the Headmistress of the school which Matilda attends is a holy terror. Miss Honey is Matilda´s teacher and she´s carrying about her.

The book contains a little of fantasy. Matilda has a special ability to move with things without touching them. At the end of the story she uses this power to help Miss Honey. Matilda´s parents and brother move without her because of father´s cheating with speedometers in his work and she is adopted by Miss Honey. The whole book is filled with illustrations by Quentin Blake. It was published in 1988.

We can go further and discover the audio book. I must mention an amazing voice of the narrator. The whole time you´ll listen this book you must smile. Miss Honey´s voice sounds so fragile, Miss Trunchbull´s like a nightmare. Literally. Miriam Margolyes is a person with this voice and my future favourite voice artist. I think it´s my first whole audio book which I´ve ever heard. I really recommend it!

It´s a way of the world that they´re producing the movies based on the books. Matilda isn´t an exception. But I haven´t seen this film.

If you´re looking for something light, something funny and specially with an easy use of English, Matilda is the right choice. After all, it´s the bedtime story.

My First Trip to the Ukraine

I won´t lie and talk about the Ukraine like about my dream country. The main reason to drive there is a very advantageous price of petrol. It´s true for many people from my neighbourhood. The neighbourhood in this case means an area until 100 kilometers from the Slovak-Ukrainian borderline. 10.15 UAH/1 litre. Thanks God for this petrol!

If we speak about the cheap purchases, we must mention alcohol. And chocolate sweets, too. And no journey is complete without the obligatory purchase of cigarettes in a duty free shop. Now I have to look like dealer :) In fact only thing which I´ve bought is chewing gum. See at the picture and the interesting flavours, namely tropical fruit, mango and lime or something like that. There is Orbit for Ukrainian´s market. Don´t buy it! It tastes good only first two minutes.

Chewing gum

All time I have to think about Ukrainians. They need a visa to visit all countries in the European Union. Actually, Russia is the only country in the world where they can travel without any close checking. I think so. And few kilometers from their homes they can see a different world. I´ll come back to explore the local culture.

I blame myself till today that I didn´t take a camera. I´ve seen something interesting. There weren´t gas pipes under the ground but around 3 metres in the air. It looks very ugly among houses in the village. The digging of the canals must be very costly there :)

Finally, this country has given me much only during one day. I´ve learnt something useful into the rough life. Now I´m a little ironic. I stood in a convoy of cars two hours till at last the Ukrainian custom control´s or passport control´s employee came to the car. I was ready and didn´t want any problems like the next boring waiting. So, I showed quickly our passports and a registration book of the car.

She opened passports, looked into the car and told: "For coffee?"

For coffee? What? There are just some sweets on the back-seat. Why coffee? I don´t drink coffee.

"No coffee, only sweets." I told loudly.

"For coffee in the passport.." She told again.

And then my front-seat passenger poked into me and whispered that she wants 0.50 euros. See here! She didn´t want to do a chit-chat with me. Like my naive person.

The Story About the T-shirt

I love so much the moments when I get any idea. It is beautiful. I usually start walking quickly from one room to another room. I can´t sit calmly. And you can hear my shouting “Yees, yees!”. Sometimes I have to pee after this kicking of the idea. I don´t know what´s the reason. Maybe human´s brain which produces a perfect thought is connecting with some kind of the secretion. I should ask the doctor House :)

It was the similar situation with the idea of the starting writing this blog. I was browsing and answering my emails in the ordinary Monday´s afternoon. Then an idea came from nothing. Blog in English! It was clear like wearing pyjamas before sleeping. I´ve bought a blogger T-shirt! See, this is it.

T-shirt

A Google store´s web site was in my bookmarks about two years. I was doing my usual daily browsing when I came across this awesome blogger T-shirt. It was love at first sight. This time I didn´t have a blog via Google only via some Slovak newspaper. So I killed this idea to buy it, I flip-floped between a blogger and another T-shirt. It didn´t seem to be okay to wear a Google blogger T-shirt with none Google blog. The only clue which stood was the adding of the store´s page to my browser´s bookmarks.

After two years, I´ve changed my mind and have bought it. Next, I´ve started blogging. The time period between the purchase and the starting of blogging is 28 days and there is no connection between these two things. One of my first articles and it´s mentioned Google here. I´m always happy to support a good store and even happier when that store offers good services.

I think this one is my favourite T-shirt which helps me with the blogging in addition. I´m wearing it now, too. But my strengths decrease. There is a little crisis at the beginning. The challenge is to now keep the number of the articles growing.

Hello World!

The name of this blog “My Fight with English” can sound a little angry for strangers. English is the reason why I´m writing these letters. In the concrete – learning English, improving my language skills. I love this “fight”, it gives me a joy. The thought to know English at the perfect level is brilliant. And you, my dear reader, can see this way to my goal. It isn´t an unique dream, English is the mother tongue for millions of people. We others must learn. You can laugh if you want. The next unnecessary article. Or you can study with me. I´d be glad.

Now I´m listening my old CDs because of lyrics in English. When I catch few words, I smile. TV-series, films, books, a menu on my mobile phone, an operating system on my PC, notes of ideas and thoughts. That all in English. Two trimesters of the studying in the language school.

TOEFL is the minor reason. I want to have it, it´s a challenge. So I started reading the official book for this test. The section “Reading” and “Listening” were done. “Speaking” isn´t large. There are about 50 themes to write essays in the section “Writing”. The recommendation is to practice writing them. 30 minutes, 300 words. Now it´s 208 :) I don´t feel any big progress. My vocabulary and structure of sentences is poor. Maybe it requires more time, studying. I don´t know. The Best is living in English speaking country for any time period. Now it´s impossible, school is starting. The next holiday is in June. Then I´ll travel a lot. 

Difficult words, phrases, sentences don´t make me problem to understand. When I have to use it in the speech or writing, I´m out. Sometimes I watch on the perfect sentence and say myself: “You understand whole sentence and every word. Why couldn´t you write something like that?”  

What can you (approximately 5 readers :) ) expect on this page? There will be my practiced essays, experiences with preparatory books for TOEFL, other books for the improving a vocabulary, grammar. I like English idioms so maybe anything from this area. Recommended books for leisure time, too.

I must write, I must write, I must write. Reading and listening aren´t enough. There will be a lot of my articles in English. This place is perfect for the posting articles, I like computers.

Enjoy it!