I live in a bit too cold of an area for growing figs, but actually having a fig tree sounds amazing. I love figs, but I only very rarely get any to use. Did you grow it yourself or was it already there?
I use it for some of my other more mundane interests still (music and cooking stuff predominantly), but not politics. Trying to be a leftist on twitter is a special kind of futile. I don't actually post much of anything on it, but there are some good recipe and music resources I keep an eye on from time to time, it remains decent for that.
We invested in a roomba-style robot that has actually been fantastic. Less for the "I am lazy and don't want to hoover my flat" and more for its ability to reach places I can't easily. Keeps under the sofa/bed/etc pretty tidy.
Also change the A/C filter regularly never hurts.
Personally: I work. I am in hospitality so Christmas/New Years is the busiest time of the year, especially christmas. Basically all hands on deck, even if I am back office.
Generally in my country, it's the one day that everyone is off (basically minus city services and hotels) so tends to go back home. Everything is closed, so the western style party new years isn't a big thing outside of Tokyo. Fireworks aren't common either, those are a summer thing here. People sit at home with their familyand watch the [absolutely awful] new years specials.
I don't mind working, I would rather do that than have to watch another multi-hour long new years TV comedy special.
Those seem like incredibly generous terms. Obviously Ukraine won't see anything like that anymore.
It's a shame for all those who lost their lives that Ukraine couldn't buck their overlords.
In a long parade of terrible leaders, Yoon is perhaps the worst president the ROK has had, so I am not overly surprised by him making statements like this. He has based his presidency on being very anti-DPRK (and anti-women and anti-labour, tangentially).
I still have even odds on Yoon arranging the attempted assassination of his rival yesterday. He just failed to arrest him over some trumped up political charges.
Well obviously if you are principled social democrat you are above such things and must live in squalor for your dedication to your morally superior philosophy. Unlike those sellout communists.
I live in a more rural area so I go more virtual these days, but I prefer in-person still if it is an option. In my country there are actually free magazines published that have a language exchange section in the back people can post classifieds, I used this for when I was studying Korean, but you could do the same with somethings like craigslist if it is available in your area.
I generally have always paid money, I find both parties are more invested that way, but that isn't the only option. Language exchanges exist, where you offer your own time as a tutor in your native language for them. It can be rewarding and teaching your own language can actually help you learn others more effectively (people do not always understand their own native language in the same way that a language learner would). Just be aware that your learning time is also going to be split with teaching.
I really enjoy learning languages. I have learned a little russian, but not enough to consider myself even close to fluent.
Not everybody necessarily works through things the same way, but I like to start with learning the fundamentals of a language before I go heavily in on vocabulary or grammar. In the case of Russian, you would want to learn to read/write Cyrllic and have an idea of the basic sentence structures. Then, like azanra4 said, get a grasp of the sounds that are used regularly in the language. If you have no background in eastern slavic languages, it might take longer than if you already spoke Ukranian or Belarusian.
I would definitely reach out and see if you can find any actual tutors. You might be surprised by the availability of a russian tutor if you were just looking for one. Even if one isn't available locally, I guarantee you can find someone online. Engaging with a native speaker early on can help cull any bad habits before they form (especially with pronunciation), and prevent you from falling into sounding like you learned all your language from a textbook. At the same time, I wouldn't start day 1 with a tutor. Get some of those basic fundamentals out of the way so you can bring questions to your tutors.
I alos like LingQ, just because I think finding something within the language you really enjoy is pretty important to sticking with it. Nobody learns a language by reading a dictionary or memorizing vocabulary. The good news is Russian is a major language with a lot of speakers and media available.
It's extremely saturated though. Those guys have the luxury of being able to do it without taking bribes from publishers, because they have been around for so long. They built up an audience before the industry has shifted to what it is now. If I tried to make something like Nextlander or Giant Bomb right now, it wouldn't work.
There's a reason so many of the "new reviewers" are just glorified PR, it's the easiest way to do it for the people who care more about getting free games to play than the actual writing.
I actually did do some freelance game journalsim work before/during grad school. You need a pretty thick skin for being turned down, you probably make 50 pitches for every article you end up actually getting to write.
Or like w/ real-time-strategy games: even if you leave the AI opponent just one unit left, it never gives up, and will spend days building back what it once had to kill you.
Even RTS bots are better than this now, most games since like SC2 the bots will surrender when it becomes unwinnable.
I have a very select few people in the game space I follow (basically all the Ex-Giantbomb folks, mostly Nextlander + Tamoor these days). They're more from the old school system where you weren't just PR for the games you were covering. I don't always agree with their gaming tastes, but I enjoy listening to them. Been following them for nearly 20 years at this point.
The best thing you can do is honestly find someone whose tastes are about the same as yours rather than find some impartial critic. The latter is frankly impossible, there are critically acclaimed games that I hate just because they don't match my tastes.
I don't want to say that there was a respect of US military power, I think a lot of states knew better than that, but maybe a healthy caution remained even after the US's repeated military blunders. I think those two conflicts in particular have evaporated what caution remained. At this point ,what is the US really going to do to DPRK? They can't sanction them anymore than they already are.
The US can't really hide behind the threat of being the world's most effective military force anymore, because they simply aren't. They're just the most expensive one.
I live in a bit too cold of an area for growing figs, but actually having a fig tree sounds amazing. I love figs, but I only very rarely get any to use. Did you grow it yourself or was it already there?