On a Зимний Вечер

The days are so short and the nights are so cold and dark.  What is a girl to do to keep warm on a зимний вечер (winter evening)?  Bring out 'the hat'.

The Hat

❤So warm and toasty even my girls like to hide inside it❤

Not just any old hat, this baby is as functional as it is stylish.  When I wear it, I feel like Лара (Lara) searching for my Юрий (Dr Zhivago). 

❤

December always makes me reminisce of my time in Russia and recently I've been thinking of Moscow State Linguistic University (МГЛУ) and the lessons I attended there in which I was made to recite poetry.  There is something quite archaic, almost Victorian, about making students learn things by rote.  But I found it quite gratifying learning texts off by heart, perfecting the intonation (and other linguistic stuff), and then standing at the front of class and reciting it perfectly.  Well, as close to perfection as my English tongue could get...basically not very close! 

Then there was the dictation...^_^.  I jest...

Below is a sound-clip of one of favourite poems by Pushkin - it remains nameless.  It advises you to not get angry or sad at what happens today, do not live in the future, but life for now and be content.  All that is bad today will be fine tomorrow.  Sound advice that I often turn to during week 5 when academic madness has eroded my sanity.

Russian:

Если жизнь тебя обманет,
Не печалься, не сердись!
В день уныния смирись:
День веселья, верь, настанет.
Сердце в будущем живет;
Настоящее уныло:
Все мгновенно, все пройдет;
Что пройдет, то будет мило.

English Translation:

Should this life sometime deceive you,
Don't be sad or angry at it!
On a gloomy day, submit:
  Believe - a fair day will come, why grieve you?
The heart lives in the future, so
What if gloom fills the present?
All is fleeting, all will go;
What is gone will then be pleasant.