leannecassie_27

Apparently my pictures are in my LJ Scrapbook; I don't know how to post them. They are in a photo gallery, and I'll try to be post them again in a little while.

I tried to post a picture of a 16th century tower in the Old City of Baku, but it obviously didn't work. Grrr . . . I will try again. Hopefully, it'll work this time.

I'm sorry I haven't tried to post the pictures sooner; I apologize. I've been busy lately, with making tons of pictures for a local photo contest, and that took a lot of time. Ok, here we go. I'll try to upload a picture. If my attempt is successful, there'll be more pictures in no time.

I apoligize that I haven't written anything about my trip since now. For the past week I've been looking over at the photos me and Mom took, and there were a lot of them(over 500). Also, I want to enter some of them in a local photo contest, and it's been really hard to choose which ones I want to be displayed. In a little while, I will attempt to post some of them on here.
Anyway, the trip was awesome. I only wish I could've stayed there for another two weeks, instead of eight days. I arrived in Baku, after 23 hours of traveling, 11 of them spent in an airplane from Chicago that was going to Istanbul, Turkey. It was around 12 o'clock a.m. when we landed in Baku, and it took us around an hour to get out of the airport. We paid for our visas, which were very expensive($131 for each person), and had to fill out a form. In addition, we needed to have our pictures taken too, but the photographer wasn't there, because it was too late.
Outside the airport, we were greeted by my mother's family; Aunt Masha, Uncle Aidin, and my cousin Togrul. From what I remember, my aunt and uncle haven't changed much, but Togrul had. He'd grown taller since I last saw him, becoming lankier, and his eyes went from blue to grey. Masha and Aidin look almost exactly the same as I last saw them, except that they look shorter, but that's because when I was a child, everything looked big. Seeing my aunt, I could clearly tell there was a resemblance between her and Mom. Masha is short, has naturally medium dark hair(some of it is highlighted red), and brown eyes(like mine)that is the same color as my grandfather Khanlar's eyes were. Aidin is slightly taller than Masha, and has white hair, and is in his mid 50's(Masha's a bit younger,she's around 50).
They drove us back to the apartment where Mom and I used to live when I was little, and where they live now. As Togrul drove, we stared at the city, trying to recognize it. I think I only recognized about two or three things, because it was dark and because it's been so long since I was in Baku. Everything changed since I moved to America. I stared at the city, fascinated by what I saw. Surely this wasn't the city where I was born?
In a short time, Togrul drove in to the neigborhood where me and Mom used to live in. I can honestly say, I could hardly recongnize it. Then, we went into the apartment. The result was the same: I could barely reconize anything inside of it. I remembered all the different wallpaper inside the rooms, the two cabinets, the bathroom, and the fireplace, and everything else I either forgotten or it was changed after we left for America. It was strange, coming into your former home and finding out that most of it looks different than it used to be.
I went to sleep shortly after that, and me and Mom both woke up around 5:30 a.m., because our internal clocks were still operating on American time. It's the first time I ever had a problem like that, and I wasn't too happy about it. I awoke to the sound of a raven making a huge racket. Personally, I wanted to shoot the bird for disturbing my sleep.
We got ready early, and Mom went to a hair stylist, to get her hair colored. In a little while, me and Masha went walking in the boulevard, where I used to play at when I was a little girl. We saw at least half the city and then went to a small restaraunt to eat some icecream. As I walked over Baku, I couldn't help but marvel at how much the city changed. I mean, the buildings are in better condition, and there is a lot of new ones, mostly hotels, and even the roads have improved(but the drivers haven't). Along the way, Masha and I went to a few stores, and she bought me a sweater, even though I insisted on buying it.
The only thing I didn't like is the people that drive in Baku. Almost all of them are horrible, and it is very dangerous to cross a street. It's common to see a car drive right in the middle of a line that separates the lanes, or cars passing each other when they shouldn't, and to hear people constantly honking at each other when they are angry. In Baku, cars don't stop for people, people stop to let a car pass so they won't get run over. This has been going on for a long time. It's amazing that there isn't a major collision every minute in the city. I carefully examined the street before I crossed one each time. And usually, I didn't walk across a street, I jogged. Masha laughted at me whenever I did that, but I didn't see what was so funny about that. I didn't want to be run over by some maniac who didn't know how to drive properly.
After a while we sat down and waited for Mom in a park. In about thirty minutes she found us and I was shocked to see her hair. It turned out that she high lighted the white strands in hair blond, and that, combined with her dark brown/black hair makes her look like an "osa", the russian word for, "bee". Mom gave some sort of explanation why she can't highlight her hair in any other color, and I already forgotten it, but it's something to do with her having a skin disease. Anyway, this ends part one of my trip. I will write more on Azerbaijan later.

Happy birthday to my beshter, one of the best(and smartest)friends a person can have. Thank you for all your help on history; you are one of a kind. I just came back from Azerbaijan yesterday, so the pictures aren't made yet, but I will have them made as soon as possible.

I'm heading off to the airport tomorrow. I can tell it will be a long day, filled with at least three air flights and a lot of time spent in the air. Honestly, I don't know how I'll live through 23 hours being in an airport or airplane. I'm going to be so tired when I arrive in Baku.
I'm going to the St.Louis airport and from there I'll take a plane to Chicago. Then I'll take another plane from Chicago that will go to Istanbul, Turkey. Once I'm in Turkey, I'll have to take a fourth plane to my country, Azerbaijan.
I'm so excited! I can't wait to see my country, and all of my friends and family. Azerbaijan, here I come! I'll take as many pictures as I can, and post them on lj when I come back.

A week ago I decided to write a short story to a contest called "three minute fiction", sponsored by NPR radio station. The contest is judged by James Wood,literacy critic for The New Yorker, and a part-time Harvard professor.
At first I thought writing a short story would be easy, until I looked at the rules and guidelines. The short story has to be under three minutes(I already knew that, no suprise there), and under 600 hundred words. The task is nearly impossible.
My first completed story was nearly 900 words, so when I stared at NPR's website, and saw the word limit, I was shocked. How in the world would I be able to take a short story that is almost 900 words, and turn it into a story with 600 or less words?
So I did the only thing I could do: I edited and edited and edited until I couldn't edit any more words out without ruining the story. In the end, my word count was around 750 words, but it wasn't 600, so I saved that story for later, and decided to start a new one.
My new short story turned out to be the same. I still couldn't get the word count to 600 words. I also saved that short story,(because it was one of my best, and I might use it later), and began writing a new one again.
This short story wasn't as good as the previous two, but the original word count was 750, and after a couple of days I was able to shorten it to 618 words. Now all I have to do is edit 18 words out, and then see if my short story is less than three minutes long. I have to admit though, this particular task is already difficult, and now it's going to get even more harder.

A little while ago, I learned that I am in fact going to visit in Azerbaijan. I can't describe how happy or excited I am. I haven't seen my native country in a long time, and I am going to see as much as I can, and visit all of my friends and some of my relatives. My mother is coming with me too, which will make the trip more fun, and she might serve as a translator if there are people who only speak the Azeri language(it's Turkish mixed in with some other languages, I think).
There are many things I'm planning on seeing, such as the Inner City in Baku, which dates to at least to the 12th century, and the Bashna(Maiden's Tower), and the palace in it. I am also bent on visiting a village called Madakan, and exploring it's two castles built in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. And, if one of Mom's friends can drive me over to the town of Ramana, then I'll be able to visit another castle. Not to mention, my mother is going to take me to see an ancient fire temple too. On top of all of that, I also want to visit a mountain, and the caves of Gobustan, which contain ancient drawings made by cave dwellers. Hopefully, I can fit all of this stuff in, along with everything else that Mom wants to do.
There is one thing I would've loved to see however . . . It's in the small spot of land that Azerbaijan government still owns, but it's surrounded by Armenia, and the only way to get there is by airplane. Plus, even if I went there, I might be heading into the middle of an ongoing war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Anyway, the city I would have liked to visit is Nakhichvan, the oldest city in Azerbaijan. It emerged in the 6th century B.C., and in it is a fortress called Gyaur-Kola, which the Azerbaijani tour agency says dates back to 2,000 B.C.
I have to tell you, reading about the fortress's age gave me a shock. I didn't think something as old as that could still exist in Azerbaijan, of all places. Although, the tourist agency might be exaggerating about Gyaur-Kola's age, to be honest I really don't know. Once I read how old it was, I wanted to visit Gyaur-Kola with all my heart, but going there would entail me and Mom taking another airplane just to get there, and I don't want to risk my and my mother's life by getting in a war zone. Maybe in a few years, when I come to Azerbaijan again, and there aren't having a feud with Armenia over land, I'll go visit Nakhichevan.
Overall, I think my trip to Azerbaijan will be great!
Moving on to other things. Yesterday, my dad gave me something that he bought in a local flee market. I bet no one can guess what it is. It was ROMAN COINS!!!!!!!!!
Yep, you read that right. ROMAN COINS(and a Greek coin)! Dad bought me four of them(and received an extra one). One was a coin dating back to Ancient Greece, another one had a picture of Hadrian on it, another coin showed a remarkably intact picture of Constantine the Great, and another coin showed the face of a Roman emperor called Probus, who reined from 276-282 A.D.. The last coin had a face of a man, whose name I couldnt tell because it was so old, and on the back of it it showed what appeared to be a family of farmers, or soldiers, I couldn't tell which. I think I'm going to have to get a good magnifying glass to examine it.
I also finished Chapter 2 of my novel. So far so good. My writing pace is steadily increasing. Now all I have to do is be able to retain my writing consistency, and I'll be able to finish the book by the end of the summer, or in the middle of fall.

It's been a long time since I've posted. A lot of things happened to me in the last 18 weeks.
In May, a huge tornado went through the area where I live in. It made my house lose power for several days, and I had to stay at a hotel for a few days because of it. The major storm didn't cause a lot of damage to other neighborhoods, but it created a lot of damage in my property. When I came home, the backyard looked like a total mightmare. I couldn't believe my eyes. There were branches everywhere, and it was a complete mess. Most of the massive trees in the backyard were uprooted by the tornado. At least 6 thirty foot trees fell down. One fell on top of the truck, and another fell on the van. The van came away unscratched, but the truck suffered a lot of damage. Later I learned that the storm was referred to as an "inland hurricane" by some people. It took a week to clean up the whole mess. I thought it was all over, but I was dead wrong. Three weeks later, another storm headed towards my house. And caused damage to the new(sorta, it was kept in good condition even though it was used) Dakota truck that was a replacement of the old one. Now that truck is in the repair shop.
Also, my mother's and brother's birthdays were around that same time. On my mother's birthday, Dad, Timmy(my brother), and I bought her a bunch of cake baking supplies because she likes to decorate cakes. For once, I knew what to buy for Mom. Usually it's so hard to buy something for her that she'd like. A couple of weeks later we celebrated Timmy's birthday. I got him a game, which he seems to like. I also celebrated my birthday. And of course I celebrated Father's Day. My family and I bought Dad a few gifts, such as a bowl for his Mexican and Indian food, a cup from England, a set of DVD's about World War Two, and a DVD of the first season of Thirty Rock.
June 12 of this year was a special day too. It marked the day that Mom and me came over to the U.S., and it also signified that I lived in the States for half of my life. I came a long way from being an Azeri immigrant who couldn't speak English at all.
Today, is a special day as well. It's my dog Rain's birthday. She's a black and white collie, with a little bit of light brown thrown in. Even though Rain's not very bright sometimes, being young and having a tendency of getting overly excited, I love her very much. She turned two today. I gave her a lot of snacks throughout the day, such as bones and even a piece of cherry cake; Rain seemed to appriciate it. And I gave the other two dogs, Sheba and Rosie, just as many snacks as Rain received. I can't give food to one dog, and not give to the others. Anyway, I think Rain had a good birthday.

Have you ever found yourself wondering what is the meaning behind your name?
There are many kinds of unique names in the world, each with their own interpretation. I admit, I find myself fascinated by the meaning that they contain. Sometimes I would browse Google for up to two hours, learning many new ones.
Coming from a family with a very multicultural background, you can sure bet that our names are quite different from some of the Americans. My mother's name is Leyla, which means "of the night"; a very cool name in my opinion. My grandmother's name is Lidia, the definition of it is basically an ancient kingdom conquered by the Persians in somewhere around 500 b.c. It can also be spelled Lydia, andd Lidiya. My real name is somewhat different from theirs', sounding kind of flat. It's Fatima, as in the Islamic prophet Muhammed's daughter Fatima, and the Chechnian woman's name who bombed some trains in Russia. Nowdays people in Russia highly despise that name, not a good thing for me. And it can also be spelled Fatimah, which is probably how it's spelled in Arabic.
So does anyone want to share what their name's meaning?

Hi!, this is my first time posting an entry, so if I by mess up anywhere in this entry, it is completely my fault. But since its my first time on here, please don't be expecting something spectacular.
To start off, I'd like to briefly tell some things about myself.
I came to the U.S. from Europe roughly eight years ago. The country that I was born in is called Azerbaijan, a little country near the Caspian Sea, south of Russia, bordering Armenia,Georgia, and Iran.
Growing up, I learned Russian, as well as my native language(Azeri, which is some sort of Arabic language I think). My mother and I spoke Russian much better than Azeri, the reason being that in the Cold War Azerbaijan was under Russia's control. It took us a long time to gain our independence, which we did in the year of 1991.
Undertanding my heritage, I know I have a lot of different nationalities(as well as religions) in me. My maternal Russian grandmother married my maternal Azeri grandfather. Not only was my grandmother was half-Jewish(blood), Belarussian and somewhere along the line,(I think her great grandfather, or something like that) she was Polish.
Being from two different countries who probably hated each other greatly, I can't imagine how hard it would have been for my grandparents to be together. Not to mention my grandmother was Christian, and my grandfather was Muslim. They must've been very religion tolerant, I guess.
But that's only one half of my family tree. On my father's side, I have some Ukrainian, and Chechnian(a major region in Russia that is rebelling against Russia, and the Russins treat it as if its another country, yet still insist on keeping it part of Russia). Having all of those nationalities in me, makes me very tolerant conserning religions and cultures.
Anyway, moving on. I'm an aspiring writer, and someday I hope to be able to publish a novel. I'm almost done with one, so hopefully I'll be able to find myself a publisher.
Of course being a person that writes a ton of stuff, I absolutely love to read. My favorite categories are science fiction, fantasy, history(paticularly anything Roman, Spartan, Greek, Byzantine and anything about the monarchs ruling in the civilizations above), some biographies, mystery, and an occasional horror book. My favorite authors are Anthony Everitt, Anna Politkovskaya(the famous deceased Russian reporter), C.E. Murphy, Stuart Hill, Patricia Briggs, Tamora Pierce, Patrice Sarath, James Reston, Jr., Paul Cartledge, Sherwood Smith, Trudi Canavan, Kristen Britain, and last, BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, Ilona Andrews!
Moving on. If you've read the previous paragraph, you'd know I'm interested in history. Yeah, I admit it, :nodds head: I am a history geek. I love almost anything to do with the past, especially anything to do with the civilizations mentioned previously.
Alright, I'm wrapping it up, so you don't have to listen to my ramblings on anymore. here's some last few facts about me; I love animals and own three dogs, three cats, some fish and a horse. All of my dogs are females, with one being a basset hound, another's a collie, and the last one is a labrador-mix/shepard-mix mutt that jumps like an elk. My cats are all boys; one is a white cat with a blue and a green eye, another one is fluffy, and the last one has tiger stripes and is the cat that I've brought all the way from my country.My horse is an eight year old brown mare called Baby, she is really beautiful, but can be quite stubburn sometimes.I love all of them with the bottom of my little heart.
That just about covers all of it. I'm finally done. :grins loudly and shouts "hurray"!"