Hello everyone and serene holiday month to all people who follow me or simply stumbled across this journal. This journal will be a bit different from the rest I tend to write because it's a very personal journal about my adventure in this site after an entire year. Yes, that's it! Today is the first anniversary I decided to create an account here after DA screwed everything up with AI.

Hahahahaha, I still remember the first blog I posted here:

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/4

I had yet to discover the site and its full potential as user-generated content website, in that journal I felt like a toddler who took their first steps in a world that would soon unfold before them. Many thoughts changed from the first time I wrote that journal because I originally planned to post stuff from FA (I went to that site as DA alternative due to their stance against AI but the site never truly appealed me despite the cool people I met there) and stuff only for NG in order to have a varied art gallery across the profiles. And this is well shown in the first artwork I posted since it's still in my FA page (I have yet to migrate photos and save some descriptions before I delete that account):

It's still one of my favourite piece I made there since it was inspired by a video I watched on YT and you can see it from the link posted in the description. 2023 wasn't a particularly fruitful year in artistic terms because I had joined the site practically at the end of the year, end of the year characterized by a hacker attack which I was unaware of (I will discover it months later) plus I was inactive for a good chunk of December month. Demonic Wolf was the last drawing of December, made ten days after the creation of my account.

The first drawing of 2024 is this:

Another drawing I posted on FA featuring one of major bird species I photographed in 2023 when my passion for photography arose thanks to a dear University friend, named Drugo from друг which means "friend" in Russian (it's not his real name ofc, it's how my friends and I nickname him^^), thank you and stay awesome, dear Friend!

Besides this my very first milestone on Newgrounds was this small and simple pixel art I drew from the Pixel Day:

this work was inspired by this amazing pixel artwork:

Why milestone? Because it was the work that had me scouted and gave me the very first Frontpage. I will never forget the joy of seeing it frontpaged even thought I had yet to fully grasp this concept, hence I spent lots of time reading guides like these ones to better understand it:

https://ornery.newgrounds.com/news/post/388624

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1418778

https://lost-psyren.newgrounds.com/news/post/1461364

Ofc scouting is not everything, and I don't live for it. I live to improve my art and enjoy my stay here. I acknowledge that scouting is a good positive reinforcement tool to stimulate artists in general though, the important thing is to not become obsessive about it as I saw some people thinking only about it with the risk of sacrificing fun and confrontation with others.

With the Valentine's Day Art Collab:

my journey in this site started to take a different turn in terms of things I wanted to post because I focused more on this site and less on FA even though I still posted consistently there too but February was also the month second semester started and so my activity here dropped drastically because I had to focus on 5-6 exams in a row. I couldn't even participate in Pico Day, I hope to be able to enjoy it the next year.

Only now I realize that this piece marks the beginning of my new activity on the site:

That was first time I drew a celebrative piece for a personal accomplishment I achieved but I felt necessity to fully and finally channel what I experienced in those last summer months. Those months were an emotional roller coaster in terms of stress both with exams and real life problems of my parents. On July 11th I took the exam in German literature 3 completely in German, which went very well but my fears, anxieties and panic, generated by frustrations from past years, complicated things. I had to deal with strong anxiety attacks and even a panic attack which I controlled by focusing on breathing and mental visualization (a raven/crow feather and that's the feather you see in the composition which symbolizes my control over those fears). My mother greatly helped me a lot to find a strategy to better optimize the study and my University friends emotionally supported me, so I deeply thank you all for guiding me through this journey that felt like a Bildungsroman. You are the best!

I still want to thank the teacher who showed to be very understanding of my situation and didn't put me pressure when I spoke a language I still have to master but I love to death. Seriously I find German a beautiful language, highly poetic and intriguing that demands a lot but at the same time gives you a lot. I strongly suggest it as first fusional language since its case system is a lot easier compared to other fusional languages like Icelandic, Norwegian or Slavic languages.

The black canid-like figure represents my anxieties and fears that tried to jeopardize my exam but failed because I managed to recognize I have them but at the same time I didn't listen to them and their imaginary failure scenarios. Breathing exercises helped me to subside and eventually calm down the panic attack. The past tried to attack me but this time I didn't let it define who I am. I just accepted that I have these guys inside me and I know they will return in future in different contexts but at least now I know how to defend myself. Maybe in future I will develop further weapons to fend off them.

On NG this work was posted eight days after my exam while on FA it was posted the same day I took the exam as personal trophy^^

This work was a more personal emotional accomplishment:

because it was the first time in years I genuinely felt happy with my art, I was starting to love Newgrounds as source of inspiration and artistic growth. July-August were the months in which I joined several collabs and although I participated in collabs during my DeviantART years, NG was the first site where I actively participated in many of them, even at the same time. In August I discovered the Clock Day that gave me the second FP but what I really loved about August was The Great Homer Collab, the best collab of all collabs I took part for this year, here all the Homers I drew:

I don't want to repeat myself about how much I loved this collab, I suggest you to visit my last Homer to know more about my feelings about this event. Just know that if DioShiba wants to make future art collabs and I have spare time, I will participate again because the level of inspiration and creativity it gave me this experience will always make me cherish this collab. I just want to add that I think collabs, regardless of their nature (art, game, movie, etc.) should be like the Homer Collab: a place to have fun, get inspired, create and meet new people^^

September was the month in which I participated to some art contest like Madness Day and Brazilian Art Contest. I had fun at creating something different from what others tended to do, don't get me wrong everyone did an amazing job and showed clear superior technique to mine but I wanted to focus on more cultural aspects of Brazil, you can read about' em here:

Other cool collabs happened like the Black and Orange Collab, the Mexican Independence Day Art Collab, the Newgrounds Original Characters Cards Collab, the Ugly Cat Collab, the Halloween Collab, the OC's By Night Collab, the Alien Collab and the lovely and adorable STG 2024 NG Halloween Collab (I liked the idea of making something calm and family-friendly that would act as counterpart of the more eerie and creepy entry for the OC's By Night Collab).

Right now I am also participating in Pico-Cross Collab and Tankmas ADVENTure (my drawing will appear on December 25th), in the meantime I am enjoying playing the game:

and I took some screenshots, notably when I could see a wild Tom Fulp appearing during the first day the game was launched:

The last one is pretty funny to me because it looks like Tom offered me a burnt marshmallow XD, this might even gave me the idea of drawing something related to this funny pic.

Today I could also meet another user I see across people's blogs and I like reading his supportive words to help new users explore and use the site better, I am referring to @Gekkotsuki:

He, @Tyhond, @Aalasteir (again thank you for the support you gave me!) and @Yatsufusa are probably the best persons I ever met here on NG in terms of emotional support, help in general and depth of comments across NG, notably Yatsufusa in forum threads (I spend lots of time reading their comments and I love how deep, well thought they are; a true gem for this website) and people' blogs. The ending part of this comment they left under a user's journal deeply touched me as artist:

I will always cherish this comment, I find it the most positive thing I ever read on Internet in these last months. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

I also met other cool and fantastic people like PLJerry, Simoes1000, ElRandomGMD, Charlie57913 (thank you so much for the BBS Awards 2024 nomination^^ I think other people deserve that nomination like Yatsufusa, Gekkotsuki and Tyhond but it made me surprised and happy nonetheless, so again thank you!), SkilledFella, SchockAbe, DioShiba and many, many others that made my experience here joyful and full of happiness! Thank you too! May your dreams come true and stay always awesome!

And once I'm done with collabs (I have another to start for December 13th and December 31st) I will start the first part of the Six Fanart Challenge since I haven't forgotten some people suggested me some cool and unknown characters to me.

I also noticed that initially my journals were a lot more random but starting from the first photography journal, which is part of the Shutter-bug Chronicles journal series where I share my photos, things started to shape in a way I want for my journals: sharing my passions, limited knowledge and funny stuff.

Here the first photography journals:

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1475580

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1482125

(tw: spiders) https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1482447

https://shangxian.newgrounds.com/news/post/1488876

And I also started other two series, the Promoting and Supporting series where I try with my small influence to promote things or people deserving to be discovered:

Promoting and Supporting: Astro Collab

Promoting and Supporting: Naruto 25th Anniversary Collab

and the Russian Diaries where in a funny and non-sensical way I talk to the Russian language as if it were a person in order to analyze my relationship with the language in a similar way I did for University when I started with English. The teacher suggested us to write down a diary where we recorded our improvement and interaction with English language. I liked the idea so much that I wanted to apply to Russian, so here the first diaries:

Russian language, here I come!

Russian diaries 1

Russian diaries 2

After I'm done with collabs for a while I want to focus on the Six Fanart Challenge, as I mentioned before, and on two sketches I plan to gradually start, the Sardinian and Kyrgyz sketches. Art is also a tool to share what I know with others, I always did and I will always do because I want to enrich my creations and not limit myself to just draw stuff. I want to give them life and meaning. In future I would like to draw even more symbolic pieces, I still have in my mind an alchemist-like piece I had in mind while reading some grimoires during October back in 2017.

I don't know what the future holds but I hope next year will be as amazing as this one in terms of interactions, art and inspiration. This website was the best thing ever happened to me in ages when it comes to Internet and I must thank Tom Fulp for making all of this possible since 1995 along with staff who helped this site to become one of the pillars of Internet culture, thank you for existing, Tom! Never change and stay awesome, guys!

Well, if you have reached the end of this loooooooooooooooooooooooooong and boring journal, thank you from the bottom of my heart! I hope you enjoyed reading the personal experience of this crazy user who decided to be part of this big family called Newgrounds, because in less than a year I already feel part of this community^^

I will leave you with this beautiful musical piece made by syphonmax

See you next time with another Russian diary, bye!

Hello everybody! Another promotion journal here and it's about one of the best-selling manga series of all time, having 250 million copies in circulation worldwide in 47 countries and regions, with 153 million copies in Japan alone and remaining 97 million copies elsewhere: I am referring to Naruto.

Cover art of the first volume of the manga series Naruto, released in Japan by Shueisha on March 3, 2000 [1]. 

Source: Shueisha

This is the 25th anniversary of this series that makes use of cultural references from Japanese mythology, Buddhism and Confucianism, and to celebrate this @MBY98 started a nice collab in which you have to choose among the 72 volumes that make the manga series in order to create this collage of artworks. The collab is inspired by 40th Anniversary “Dragon Ball Super Gallery” in which various artists from the Japanese comic industry redrew volume covers of the Dragon Ball book series.

Only ONE cover per USER, meaning that you can only draw one cover, choose from the following list:

As you can see there are still plenty of vacant covers to draw, so if you love this series and want to participate to this collab check this link below to the forum thread:

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1536106/1

You will find more info about it and the rules to follow, now go, participate (if you want) and have fun! Believe it!

Copyright note [1]

This image is from a comic strip, webcomic or from the cover or interior of a comic book. The copyright for this image is most likely owned by either the publisher of the comic or the writer(s) and/or artist(s) which produced the comic in question. It is believed that:

the use of low-resolution images of the cover of a comic book to illustrate:

-the issue of the comic book in question

-the periodical comic book series of which this issue is a part; or

-the copyrighted comic book character(s) or group(s) on the cover of the issue in question

or the use of low-resolution images of a single panel from a comic strip or an interior page of a comic book to illustrate:

-the scene or storyline depicted, or

-the copyrighted character(s) or group(s) depicted on the excerpted panel in question;

where no free alternative exists or can be created,

qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. 

Thank you for understanding why I used the cover art of the first volume here in this blog.

Hello everybody! I'm finally back after these days without Internet. I missed this place a lot because it has become a second home to me and an extension of my creativity. In the end the problem was mine because my modem couldn't connect so Friday I had to contact my ISP and after a clumsy conversation with a bot I could contact the technician who told me a sms about problem fixing would have been sent in case of successful solving. Just a few minutes ago I got the sms and I could connect Internet. If there are other problems I can always re-call the technician, but it should be fine now.

What frustrated me the most was the potential missing of the next Takeover Tuesday because I LOVE supporting other creators and this will be the main reason I will be a supporter in future. And btw, go check the playlist I made with the artists who made wonderful creations, give them some love:

Besides this I am extremely happy I can participate collabs with calm and fun. See you next time!

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well. As for me I write this journal to say that I won't be active until I have internet again. I haven't had it for days and it's getting frustrating since I'm participating in various collabs and I want to keep the people who kindly allowed me to be part of them updated. Unfortunately the problem is not mine, the router is fine and there is wi-fi, the problem seems to come from my internet service provider due to weather problems. My irl friend told me that she saw some work in progress in the street where the repeater is located.

Right now I'm writing from the University. I hate having to use the faculty's public wi-fi but I have no other way since I also had to deliver my piece on time for the Pico-Cross collab. I would have posted it much earlier on the server but the internet decided to flip the bird at me and not the type of bird I would like to see <.<'

I am also taking advantage of this opportunity to check some stuff for University since the change of Study Plan is getting pretty annoying since student secretary is not well organized and they have to approve my plan before 6th December or I have to wait for second semester to enroll Russian writing exam and I plan to enroll this January. So this is another element that adds anxiety to frustration.

So if you don't see me active, you know the reason. I hate writing journals like these because I want to share fun and culture not annoying problems that ruin the fun for me in this website. Oh well, see you next time I have internet connection. Bye!

Dear Russian language,

today I write this diary to keep track of what I am learning and what I still need to work on. Don't pay too much attention to the stupid meme I made, it's just a funny way to forever remember this word I memorized these weeks. As a tip I want to give to everyone who is studying a new language: make it funny and silly. Link to a word a specific feeling, colour, situation, image, drawing. Whatever helps you the most. Remember: languages are acquired the very moment you forget you are learning them.

In this weeks we studied accusative, genitive, prepositional and dative cases. When it comes to verbs we saw past tense (I love Russian past tense because it's easy to remember and you can even guess the gender of the subject using said verb, screw those hellish abominations you find in Romance languages XD) and future. We also started to see first imperfective and perfective verb couples. I plan to write down 100 times the first five couples I found; simple couples without prepositions.

ИДТИ-ХОДИТЬ= walk (on feet)

ЕХАТЬ-ЕЗДИТЬ= go, travel (by horse or vehicle)

БЕЖАТЬ-БЕГАТЬ= run

ЛЕТЕТЬ-ЛЕТАТЬ= fly

ПЛЫТЬ-ПЛАВАТЬ= swim

I also want to write conjugation of these verbs to see potential irregularities (keep in mind I am very new to the language and I started the course one month later than my classmates since I had to switch the third language), but I also need to strengthen my knowledge of how adjective works because I saw it's my weak point and I've noticed that when practicing with prepositional case.

To do so I will do extra exercises and give them to the teacher to see if I understood how they works. I can recognize if they are weak or strong but I still get confused when using endings during declension. Despite that I'm having so much fun and I am gradually absorbing what I did in these last two weeks. Currently doing some exercises for the next week so I can spare extra time for review and strengthening. My last advice: don't wait for the teacher to give you homework, do it yourself!

Well, that's all for now. See you next time!

Hello everybody, here Shang ready to share some photos of the supermoon I took yesterday. As you know yesterday was the last day where you could see the supermoon, but what is supermoon? Well it is a full moon or a new moon that nearly coincides with perigee (the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its orbit) resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth. The technical name is perigee syzygy, hence the name of this blog title. The opposite phenomenon is micromoon which is the phenomenon when a full moon or a new moon coincides with apogee, the point in the Moon's orbit farthest away from Earth.

Here an image from NASA that compares the two phenomena:

from: https://moon.nasa.gov/news/29/teachable-moment-whats-a-supermoon-and-just-how-super-is-it/

Author: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Origin of the name

The name supermoon was coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979, in Dell Horoscope magazine arbitrarily defined as:

... a new or full moon which occurs with the Moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, Earth, Moon and Sun are all in a line, with Moon in its nearest approach to Earth.

— Richard Nolle

Nolle came up with the name while reading Strategic Role Of Perigean Spring Tides in Nautical History and Coastal Flooding published in 1976 by Fergus Wood, a hydrologist with NOAA (1).

He also explained in 2011 that he based calculations on 90% of the difference in lunar apsis extremes for the solar year. In other words, a full or new moon is considered a supermoon if ld s ≤ ld p + 0.1 ∗ ( ld a − ld p ) where ld s is the lunar distance at syzygy, ld a is the lunar distance at the greatest apogee of the year, and ld p is the lunar distance at the smallest perigee of the year (2). In practice, there is no official or even consistent definition of how near perigee the full Moon must occur to receive the supermoon label, and new moons rarely receive a supermoon label. Different sources give different definitions. But the term perigee-syzygy or perigee full/new moon is preferred in the scientific community and I prefer it over "supermoon". People might not know the scientific term hence I used it in this article.

Ah by the way, what is syzygy? Syzygy is when the Earth, the Moon and the Sun are aligned, which happens at every full or new moon. The term derives from Ancient Greek συζυγία (suzugía) 'union, yoking', expressing the sense of σύν (syn- "together") and ζυγ- (zug- "a yoke").

Here some of the pics I took:

Ok, here I loved how the moon looked like a mini sun piercing through the night, when I was initially zooming.

Here I used a different mode which gave me a different colour:

Occurrence

Of the possible 12 or 13 full (or new) moons each year, usually three or four may be classified as supermoons, as commonly defined. The most recent full supermoon occurred yesterday and the next one will be on October 7, 2025 (3). The oscillating nature of the distance to the full or new moon is due to the difference between the synodic and anomalistic months. The period of this oscillation is about 14 synodic months, which is close to 15 anomalistic months. Thus every 14 lunations there is a full moon nearest to perigee. Occasionally, a supermoon coincides with a total lunar eclipse. The most recent occurrence of this by any definition was in May 2022, and the next occurrence will be in October 2032 (4).

In the Islamic calendar, the occurrence of full supermoons follows a seven-year cycle. In the first year, the full moon is near perigee in month 1 or 2, the next year in month 3 or 4, and so on. In the seventh year of the cycle the full moons are never very near to perigee. Approximately every 20 years the occurrences move to one month earlier. At present such a transition is occurring, so full supermoons occur twice in succession. For example in Hijri year 1446, they occur both in month 3 (Rabīʿ al-ʾAwwal, on September 18, 2024) and in month 4 (Rabīʿ ath-Thānī, on October 17, 2024). 

As you have noticed a full moon at perigee appears roughly 14% larger in diameter than at apogee. Many observers insist that the Moon looks bigger to them (my mother is among them XD). This is likely due to observations shortly after sunset when the Moon appears near the horizon and the Moon illusion is at its most apparent. While the Moon's surface luminance remains the same, because it is closer to the Earth the illuminance is about 30% brighter than at its farthest point, or apogee. What causes this? It is due to the inverse square law of light which changes the amount of light received on Earth in inverse proportion to the distance from the Moon. A perigee syzygy directly overhead could provide up to 0.36 lux.

https://web.archive.org/web/20120507035348/https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16mar_supermoon/

Here a further comparison between a normal moon and a perigee syzygy:

From: Moon Compare 2011 - Suffolk, England, UK (5542637678).jpg by Karen Roe from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK, United Kingdom, 18 January 2011, 21:03 is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Generic license.

Effects on Earth

This phenomenon is said to cause natural disasters, and the claim of Nolle that supermoons cause "geophysical stress", have been refuted by scientists. Despite lack of scientific evidence, there has been media speculation that natural disasters, such as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, are causally linked with the 1–2-week period surrounding a supermoon. A large, 7.5 magnitude earthquake centred 15 km north-east of Culverden, New Zealand at 00:03 NZDT on November 14, 2016, also coincided with a supermoon. Tehran earthquake on May 8, 2020, also coincided with a supermoon. Scientists have confirmed that the combined effect of the Sun and Moon on the Earth's oceans, the tide, is greatest when the Moon is either new or full. and that during lunar perigee, the tidal force is somewhat stronger, resulting in perigean spring tides. However, even at its most powerful, this force is still relatively weak, causing tidal differences of inches at most.

https://web.archive.org/web/20191022195301/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/11/no-the-supermoon-didnt-cause-the-japanese-earthquake/#.Xa9eIJ3P32c

As an average of 1,000 earthquakes of magnitude 5 or greater (18 >= magn. 7), and multiple "supermoons", occur yearly, the law of truly large numbers guarantees that over a sufficiently-long interval, numerous "large" earthquakes will occur around the time of supermoons. Refuting the null hypothesis ("there is no relation between the variables") would entail demonstrating evidence for an alternative hypothesis, such as a statistically significant increase in earthquake frequency around the time of certain events. The inverse—formulating a hypothesis, then looking back through already-gathered data to find support (and disregarding unsupportive data)—is known as data dredging.

This is a fine example of two fallacies:

1) Texas sharpshooter fallacy ----> the informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred

2) Apophenia ----> the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things

So be careful when observing the world around us.

I want to finish this blog with a last photo of the moon I took yesterday as way to say goodbye and see you next time:

References and footnotes

(1) https://archive.org/details/strategicroleofp00wood

(2) https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/why-experts-disagree-on-what-makes-a-supermoon/#nolle

(3) https://astropixels.com/ephemeris/moon/fullperigee2001.html

(4) Ibidem

https://web.archive.org/web/20120507035348/https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/16mar_supermoon/

https://web.archive.org/web/20191022195301/http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/03/11/no-the-supermoon-didnt-cause-the-japanese-earthquake/#.Xa9eIJ3P32c

Hello everybody, do you like robots? Do you like games? Do you like games with robots? Do you like collabs? Well, in this case this collab is made for you! Go check @DrSaturn2 collab in this forum thread:

https://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1539594

This is a fun collab where you have to draw an Astro Bot dressed as one of your OCs, but keep in mind everything must be kept E. Let's make everything by everyone literal under the E rating. In the forum thread you will find all necessary info about the collab, the size of the artwork and other neat stuff. This is the third time I draw a robot subject and that's something I never imagined to do before fully experiencing this site.

This collab is open to programmers and composers too. You don't have to apply through Google forms, just PM DrSaturn2 and you will discuss all important stuff. What are you waiting for? Go check this collab and if you are interested apply to participate and have fun!

Dear Russian language,

I write these journals as way to see my interaction with you as language and introspection of my language acquisition skills. You still don't know me and I have yet to fully know you but after my first week of learning I can say I feel mentally rejuvenated. After the disastrous experience with Spanish I feel like a phoenix. Sorry Spanish language, it's not your fault, it's just that you and I are too different to get fully along with and this applies to other Romance languages I had to study in the past too (only exception Sardinian and Romanian). Languages are like worlds, and each world has a specific environment and resources. I don't adapt well in the warm temperatures of stem allomorphy typical of western Romance verb conjugation, not to mention the dangerous beast that lurks in the verbal tenses shores: the subjunctive.

Enough about the Romance languages, this diary is not dedicated to them but to you, Russian language. We actually met 10 years ago when I first approached your alphabet because I was obsessed with Romanov dynasty and Peter The Great. My past knowledge of Ancient Greek alphabet made me easy to learn your alphabet but then many events took us apart and I thought I never meet you again until now. After 10 years I could still remember your alphabet but my reading speed became rusty. Thanks to a dear Chinese friend I got a 1976 book about AK-74 (yes, I have a passion for military stuff) which I use as tool to speed up my reading skills and increase vocabulary:

A little gem I treasure dearly. In this first week I finally can say I managed to write in cursive Russian too. When I do my homework for the course I force myself to rewrite in cursive Russian so I can achieve two things:

1) further strengthening of Russian letters

2) memorizing new words

Here an exercise where I described differences in a room depicted in a draw of my grammar book:

Here the cursive is still very rough with some mistakes in the position of the letters, now I am learning how to distinguish "A" from "O" and "P" from "П". This exercise allowed me to better see the graphic differences between each letter and if at the beginning I was slow in writing in cursive because I had to see the correspondence between the letter in block letters and the one in cursive, after the fourth exercise I became fast because I memorized the letters in cursive too.

Now I enjoy so much writing you in cursive, but I cannot limit myself to mere "beautiful writing" as calligraphy suggests because I need to start first bits of grammar and in these days I started with nominative case (Именительный падеж) both singular and plural. Yesterday, during Russian class, we started prepositional case (Предложный падеж) and verbs that accompany this cool case. I started learning and repeating them in order to memorize but today I plan to do it again with the addition of writing them down. Here the list from my grammar book:

pro-tip to all people who are studying verbs: when you see the couple imperfective-perfective verbs STUDY it, no matter the cost! Study the couple, do not favour one verb to avoid the other or you will regret it a lot.

Perfective Verbs describe actions that have been completed or will be completed. They can’t express actions in the Present Tense, i.e. actions that are happening now. Perfective verbs describe actions with respect to a particular time; the events are not general. Perfective verbs have a “DONE” taste: I’ve done it! I’ll get it done! I’ll have it done by 18:00 tomorrow. Perfective verbs focus on results, they describe actions of limited duration and results of perfective verbs are still in effect.

Imperfective Verbs are used to describe uncompleted actions. Imperfective verbs describe something that you are doing now, or something that you used to do/do/will be doing regularly (repeated/habitual actions). Imperfective verbs focus more on the action itself rather than a particular outcome, and focus more on the duration of the action.

from: https://explorerussian.com/verb-aspects-perfective-imperfective-verbs/

So to conclude this first diary I plan to finish nominative case (and add some adjectives), learn and memorize all verbs that go with prepositional case and possibly see present tense. What I learned from this first week of Russian language?

You are very similar to German language; a beautiful woman who require time and attention, effort and professionalism and gives back lots of satisfaction, but unlike her you are even more immersive in terms of mental energies. Even on early stages of language acquisition, Russian takes time and patience. I still make lots of mistakes, especially on phonetic parts because stresses are mobile, unlike German, but I don't care, I like challenges and I have good auditory memorization skills.

That's all for now, I salute you, Pусский язык

Yвидимся в следующий раз!

Hello everybody, I hope life is treating you well or at least not too harshly. I write this to say that starting from 4th November my activity here will diminish because I start Russian language course at University. After trying to see if I could get along with Spanish, I understood it's not the language for me, never was but prejudices against Russia (just because Putler is a shitty person along with the politicians around him, it doesn't mean you have to shit on a culture I genuinely love, and don't equate a government with its people) and positive biases towards Spanish in my family made me make the wrong decision. Not to mention that only a few percentage of students pass her stupid exam with low grades, while in Russian most of people are able to pass it with great results.

So now I had enough of a teacher who clearly doesn't want to do her job the proper way (correct the entire test, don't let a stupid compute correct the grammar and if it's correct then you correct the rest; one can have a weak grammar but still be able to communicate, remember guys language is communication, not rules). I've already studied Cyrillic alphabet 10 years ago because it was a period in which I was studying Romanov dynasty and Peter the Great in particular (I have two biographies about him), and I was interested in Russian history in general. I also have a 1970s book a dear friend of mine gifted me about AK-74 in Russian. Perfect to practice my reading skills and learn some words. Another amazing friend of mine gave me all necessary material to start studying it before the course starts. I also want to mention how many times she complained that English Literature 2 teacher got the biggest classroom and she had to choose a smaller one; excuse me, buuuut English is a language chosen by majority of students of my University so it's more than natural that course require a bigger room...plus don't talk shit about that teacher, she is an angel, awesome as person and fantastic as teacher. She gave me and made me love English literature even more than I already did.

I can't wait for it to start! I already discovered I love Slavic languages since in first year I enrolled Serbo-Croatian course and this language gave me such satisfaction. Now it's a bit rusted due to other exams that kept me away from practicing but I still love it. Speaking of Russian language in future I will share some photos of photos of Leningrad during Soviet period my father's Russian ex-girlfriend took, I also have some rubles from 1920s circa. In the meantime I want to share a gift this talented woman gave to my father and I keep in my room:

See you next time, wonderful people!

Hello everybody! In the first part of this blog I wanted to show some photos of insects I took but because I can't upload more than 10 photos I had to split it up. I don't rule out I might even add a third part because I want to share other pics of the rose chafer I saw last weeks and this will give me continuity with the last photos of the previous blog.

In this photo I wanted to position the insect upside down to photograph segments and sections of the ventral view, then I immediately re-positioned her and put in my vegetable garden like in this pic:

I put her under the sunlight because she was little responsive of stimuli and because it's an ectotherm animal, a nice warm source from the sun is a nice solution.

Harmonia axyridis

This is the photo of a multicoloured Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis) I took two years ago in my vegetable garden. H. axyridis occurs in many color forms. Adults are strongly oval and convex, about 6 mm long, and 5 mm wide. The common color form, f. "succinea", is orange or red in colouration with 0–22 black spots of variable size. The other usual forms, f. "conspicua" and f. "spectabilis", are uniformly black with, respectively, two or four red markings. The pronotum is white with variable black patterning, ranging from a few black spots in an M formation to almost entirely black. The underside is dark with a wide reddish-brown border. This specimen belongs to the form "succinea". Extreme forms may be entirely black, or feature complex patterns of black, orange and red.

This species is native to eastern Asia from central Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan in the west, through Russia south to the Himalayas and east to the Pacific coast and Japan, including Korea, Mongolia, China, and Taiwan. Because of its ravenous appetite it has been used as biological pest control from farmers, I use them too when I have to deal with aphids on my eggplants and sweet pepper plants but I discovered that home-made garlic spray is even more effective against them.

The human-mediated process of introducing them for biocontrol purposes led this species to spread across Americas, Europe, Israel, New Zealand, and South Africa. This species is widely considered to be one of the world's most invasive insects, partly due to their tendency to overwinter indoors and the unpleasant odor and stain left by their bodily fluids when frightened or crushed, as well as their tendency to bite people. In Europe it is currently increasing to the detriment of indigenous species, its voracious appetite enabling it to outcompete and even consume other ladybirds. The harlequin ladybird is also highly resistant to diseases that affect other ladybird species, and carries a microsporidian parasite to which it is immune, but that can infect and kill other species.

Despite its effectiveness at controlling aphid populations the harlequin has been reported to be a minor agricultural pest that is inadvertently harvested with crops in Iowa, Ohio, New York State, and Ontario. This can cause visible and sensory contamination. Contamination of grapes by this beetle has been found to alter the taste of wine. 

I leave you here an interesting study about antibacterial activity of compounds secreted by this insect:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3297383/pdf/rsbl20110760.pdf

Iphiclides podalirius

This is a beautiful scarce swallowtail (Iphiclides podalirius) I photographed some spring ago. The distinctive feature of this butterfly is the presence of several long and black tiger stripes in knife-like patterns on a creamy white base. The borders of the hind wings are lined with several inverted crescent moon-like blue markings including the long tail-like protrusion at the end of the two wings. There are also two orange-yellow spots almost in the middle of the secondary wings. Average wingspan for the male is about 60–80 mm while the female has a wingspan of circa 62–90 mm. This species is widely spread across Europe except the northern part, Turkey, Near East, extending to the Middle East across Kazakhstan to the Altai, Southwest Siberia and western part of China.

You can find this little flying gem in scrublands, hedgerows, open orchards, isolated bushes, as well as in human-made gardens, towns and the countryside. Lifespan of adults is 2-3 weeks. First time I had occasion to see this beauty, before her I saw a common yellow swallowtail (Papilio machaon) soaring in the fields during my walks.

Fun fact: the scarce swallowtail butterfly can soar in high altitudes even at alpine levels as high as 2000 m.

TW: SPIDERS (now there will be some pics of spiders, if you have arachnophobia do not continue scrolling this gallery)

Steatoda grossa

Also known as the cupboard spider or the false widow is a common species of spider found in North America, Australasia, and Europe. This female is about 6-10.5 mm in length and has a black coloration with a round, bulbous abdomen. Typical coloration ranges from purplish brown to black, with light-colored markings but this specimen was all solid black with brown to reddish legs. It is often confused with other venomous spiders in the genus Latrodectus but unlike Latrodectus genus this species does not have a bright red hourglass pattern or any other bright, distinctive markings.

Males are smaller but can many times be nearly as long as the females, and can measures 4.1-10.0 mm in length. It is thinner than the female. I never saw a male, only females. it reportedly preys on black widows. They can go several months without feeding, provided they have access to water. A well-fed female can lay three or more egg sacs each year. Each egg sac typically contains between 40-100 eggs. A really lovely fact about this spider is that the female watches her eggs for hours, even days, at a time once the eggs start changing color and grow close to hatching. An egg will usually hatch within a month of being laid. While the male can live 1-1.5 years, the female can live up to six years.

The bite of this spider is known to be medically significant in humans, but minor, without any long-lasting effects compared to Latrodectus genus. Symptoms of bites include: blistering at the site of the bite, muscle spasms, pain, fever, sweating, and/or a general malaise lasting for several days.

Steatoda triangulosa

A photo of triangulate cobweb spider (Steatoda triangulosa) I took three years ago, I hope to post better pictures of this fella in future. As you can notice the spider has a brown or black body with yellowish legs, white and yellow triangle-shaped spots (hence the specific name triangulosa) on its abdomen, and purplish-brown zigzag lines from front to back. Besides the triangular shapes on abdomen, another peculiar characteristics is the round-shaped bulbous abdomen which can be admired better in females than males who are more leggy and slender than their female counterparts. The adult female is 3 to 6 mm long while the male is smaller. The species is cosmopolitan found in many parts of the world, including across North America, in southern Russia, New Zealand, and Europe.

You can find them on windows and several dark, dingy, and dirty corners of buildings as well as other human-made structures, they usually don't bite unless threatened or feel so and the bite is mild and not harmful to humans. I handle them sometimes and I got never bit by them or other spider because I tend to be slow and gentle. They prey on pillbugs, ticks, arthropods, ants (like fire ants), as well as other spiders like the Brown recluse and Hobo.

Fun fact: because of their prominent abdomen in Germany they are called Fettspinnen (literally 'fat spiders')

Scytodes thoracica

A female spitting spider (Scytodes thoracica) that lives in my house. The name derives from the fact that she spits a venomous sticky silken substance over her prey. The size ranges between 3–6 mm. The carapace is unusual in sloping upwards towards its rear end, whereas the abdomen slopes downwards. Unlike other spiders has only 6 eyes instead the usual eight. You can find this species in Europe, North Africa, Turkey, temperate Asia to China, Korea, Japan. It was introduced in North America, Argentina, India, Australia, and New Zealand.

Hunting starts during the night and the spider sneaks very carefully towards its prey and, from about 10 mm, stops and carefully measures the distance to its prey with one front leg without disturbing it. Then it squeezes the back of its body together and spits two silk threads in a zigzag manner over the victim. The prey is immediately immobilized. This is how an immobilized prey looks:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/FliegeSpeispinne.jpg

Fun fact: some species exhibit presocial behaviour, in which mature spiders live together and assist the young with food.

Zoropsis spinimana

A beautiful female false wolf spider (Zoropsis spinimana) I found in my house while cleaning the yard last year. I gently hold her and put in a safe place as I had to wash that area. Awwww, my heart melts looking at her (I love spiders so much). I took other pics of this beauty. Like in all spiders females are larger than males and this species reaches a length around 15–18 mm while males are 10-12 mm. You can see how the brownish prosoma has broad darker markings, ophistosoma has median black markings. The legs are mainly a speckled brown color.

They primarily hunt freely at night, meaning they do not build a web. Spider are sexually mature in autumn. The females lay eggs in spring, resting in a brood chamber on the cocoon. The species is distributed widely in the Mediterranean, but reaches into Russia, and was introduced to the United States (San Francisco area) in 1990s and to the United Kingdom (London area). It can reproduce north of the Alps because of climate change and now a 2023 find describes the species even in Copenhagen.

The female lays eggs in a silken sac, which she guards diligently until they hatch. The sac is often hidden in crevices or under rocks to protect it from predators. Young spiders, or spiderlings, emerge from the eggs looking like miniature adults. They are independent from birth and start hunting small insects soon after their first molt.

In terms of hunting behaviour, Zoropsis spinimana does not construct webs to catch prey. Instead, it relies on its agility and hunting skills, wandering at night to hunt down its prey.

Like most spiders they are venomous however, their venom is not harmful to humans under normal circumstances. It is primarily used to immobilize their prey. Their diet mainly consists of insects and other small arthropods. Their presence in an area can indicate a healthy insect population, which is vital for ecological balance.

Fun fact 1: in Germany they are called Nosferatu-Spinne because the abdominal black marking evokes the vampire of the 1922 German silent film Nosferatu

Fun fact 2: Zoropsis spinimana spiders have been observed to “play dead” when threatened, a behavior not commonly seen in spiders.

Fun fact 3: despite their roaming nature, these spiders are known to return to the same hiding spot regularly, showing a sense of territoriality or preference for their chosen home base.

Trochosa ruricola and Euborellia moesta

An interesting case of predation from a male rustic wolf spider (Trochosa ruricola) towards a male Southern European earwigs (Euborellia moesta) I could observe before washing my yard (after taking pics I took them and put in my vegetable garden to avoid killing them with water). If you take a closer look under the spider's right third leg you will notice the earwig counterattacked and hit with his forcep-like pincers right in the area between book lung and digestive tubules, causing the wolf spider great damage. The earwig escaped then after the spider gave up hunting him. I know the earwig had to defend himself but at the same time I felt bad for the spider. I hope he recovered after this unpleasant experience.

The females are 15 mm but can reach 25 mm, and the males are 10 mm. Both sexes are dark brown and have a pale band that runs down to the carapace and continues to the abdomen. The spider hunts on the ground and often gets caught in pitfall traps(1). Females carry an egg sac around on their abdomen for around 3 weeks until spiderlings emerge and gather on the mother's back. Grassland, woodland, scrub, and lawns of temperate Asia, Europe, North America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Bermuda (in the last five countries it is introduced(2)).

E. moesta is a common earwig (Dermaptera, family Anisolabididae) in the Southern parts of Europe. The female lays several batches of eggs between May and August. The larval development is often completed in September. Although omnivorous, E. moesta is an occasional predator. It lives alone, showing territorial aggression. However, the fights end without any wound to opponents. Mating occurs with aggressive preliminaries, without any courtship behavior. The intra-specific aggressivity appears by the end of the first larval instar(3).

The earwig in this photo is at third larval stage considering the number of antennae segments.

References and footnotes:

(1) Hopkin, Steve. "Trochosa ruricola in Cornwall". Stevehopkin.co.uk.

(2) "Trochosa ruricola". World Spider Catalog.

(3) Blancheteau, Marc & Jean-Pierre, Lumaret. (1979). Observations préliminaires sur la vie et le comportement d’Euborellia moesta (Géné) (Dermaptère) en conditions d’élevage. Vie et Milieu. 28-29. 211-236.