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SUMMARY OF THE
FALL 2006 ISSUE
Volume
14, No. 3, Fall 2006
Slovak
Heritage Live
A quarterly newsletter
published by Vladimir Linder
Fall issue was published in
January 2007 and it was mailed to 1200 recipients world wide.
FROM THE EDITOR
I wrote to you about my
studying at University of British Columbia for my challenge of property
management exam and that I even took the books with me over to Slovakia
to study there. Well it was all wishful thinking as my studies ended on
about the page three there. There was no time and I didn’t feel like to
study either. There is so much to do in Slovakia always. After my return
I buried myself in the books and early September I wrote my exam. Few
weeks later I got my results. There were three of us from my office
writing the exam. My boss Marlene, Klaus that does property management
as well and me. The passing grade we 65%. Klaus got 67%, Marlene 63% and
will have to rewrite in November and I got 84%, to my surprise I did
really good. So I am considered now to bee the smart one.
However not smart enough to get my message to many of you to pay your
subscriptions on time. There are so many with expired subscriptions and
many non payers period. I am constantly deleting people from our mailing
list and it is shrinking. So if you know anybody that is interested in
Slovak heritage, culture, history, crafts and genealogy, forward the
subscription application to them. You can also use it to give a gift
subscription. It would definitely offset the cost of printing and mail.
For example I used to buy the white envelopes box of 500 for CAD$ 13.99
plus taxes, totaling CAD$15.89 or then 1000 envelopes for CAD$ 31.62.
Meaning one envelope used to cost me 31.62 cents. Super Store where I
used to buy them, doesn’t sell them anymore and my cost buying directly
from the envelope company now is CAD$ 87.00 per 1000 and that is over
175% more. Those are increases that I know. I have no clue how much the
postage will be in 2007 and there may be higher prices for paper and
printing as well. SO it is very essential that you pay for your
subscriptions and renew on time.
Many thanks to all of you in advance
Vladimir
MY SUMMER 2006 TRIP TO
SLOVAKIA
This time I flew again with
BRITISH AIRWAYS as they were the only airline with reasonable
price for stay of over two months. The flight was smooth as was the
service. My friend MILAN
ŠTEFÁNIK
came to pick me up at Vienna’s airport and
soon we were in Bratislava. First I went to pick some of my stuff stored
at his place and then I went to my place. I met our daughter Julia
around 10 PM in front of just closing Detvan pub where my friends go now
on Tuesday’s, since the previous pub increased their price of beer
recently by 50%.
I got a big hug and lots of smiles and I was
overwhelmed how good Julia speaks Slovak after only 10 months studying
at COMENIUS UNIVERSITY in BRATISLAVA, CENTRE FOR CONTINUING
EDUCATION, INSTITUTE FOR LANGUAGE AND ACADEMIC PREPARATION-UJOP.
I almost couldn’t believe it. Her pronunciation and even the accent are
excellent and we had a lengthy conversation in Slovak over a beer in
another pub. She spoke with ease, not looking for words in her mind and
I think that the 10 months she spent studying Slovak language in
Bratislava were well wroth the price. I am very pleased to hear her
speak Slovak, so well. This is of course due to her hard work studying
and also hard work of her teachers. There were all together seven
classes of Slovak language this year. At the end of the year each
teacher nominated one student for an outstanding student award. The
nominations were later narrowed to three best students of the school and
our Julia, who when she came to Slovakia in September 2005 knew only one
Slovak word-ZMRZLINA-Ice cream- was one of the three best
students receiving the award for 2005-2006. CONGRATULATIONS JULIA.
Earlier today, Julia had an entrance examination at Pedagogical Faculty
of Comenius University. Tomorrow she is off to Prague for a few days
visiting her Canadian friends and sight seeing. She is taking a bus to
Prague. Next Monday she has an entry examination at Philosophical
Faculty of Comenius University. In both universities she will be
studying English and Spanish and translating.
Later on during the night, since I wasn’t sleepy I stuffed envelopes
with two issues of Slovak Heritage Live newsletter to be mailed to my
Slovak friends next morning. Then I took two sleeping pills and I was
off into a deep sleep. Wednesday early morning I went to the post
office. Funny the mail in Slovakia is more expensive than in USA but
less expensive than in CANADA, at least for the two newsletters in one
envelope. Everything else was still closed this early in down town, so I
went so see my friend IZABELA PAŽÍTKOVÁ at the SLOVAK NATIONAL
THEATER, but she wasn’t in either. I had a nice walk through the
medieval part of the town and by the time I walked through, my next
store, the Slovak Telecom was open. Here I wanted to get a new SIM card
and new number for my phone that I got unlocked in Canada and I can use
it all around the world in the local systems, all I need is their sim
card. I have Motorola flip Razr phone. I don’t like it that much, as
I don’t find it user friendly at all, and I am used to Nokia for years
and I also have Sonny Erickson in Slovakia. So now I have two phones and
two phone numbers. They have currently two mobile phone operators and
third one has just been granted license. It cost more if you call number
from the other operator. So I use different phones for different people
and it is less expensive. However in Slovakia the receiving phone
doesn’t pay anything, which is not the case in Canada or USA. My Slovak
numbers are: 011-421-918-075-291 and 011-421-914-109-444, you can call
me anytime if you need anything. While walking to the Slovak Syndicate
of Journalist, I met my long time friend, journalist MILAN RUSKO.
He had informed me that the press conference regarding VÝCHODNÁ
FESTIVAL has just been cancelled and this year’s festival won’t be
happening. I kind of had that feeling last November when I was
videotaping the former festival grounds for village of Východná. Nothing
was done to the site since July. Then they had a terrible winter and it
wasn’t possible. He also mentioned that the former minister of culture
Mr. TÓTH has just been killed in a car accident at controlled
rail crossing by a moving train.
At the syndicate I met with my friend the membership director JÁN
KOVAČOVSKÝ. I renewed my membership and donated 1000.00Sk, to the
social fund....
For FREE sample issue of
The Slovak Heritage Live Newsletter
please send in or email your postal address to:
Vladimir
Linder
3804 Yale Street
Burnaby, BC,
Canada, V5C 1P6
Phone/Fax:
1-604-291-8065
This limited time offer is good
only in North America
GO
TO SLOVAK HERITAGE LIVE MAIN PAGE
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vlinder49@shaw.ca
Copyright © Vladimir Linder 2006
3804 Yale
Street, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5C 1P6
The above article and photographs may not be copied, reproduced,
republished, or redistributed by any means including electronic, without
the express written permission of Vladimir
Linder. All rights
reserved.
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