Man just wants to forget the bad stuff, and believe in the made-up good stuff.

My newly gained holiday pounds and I welcome you back! Here's another batch of pre-holiday oldies.

Ja i moje nowo nabyte świąteczne kilogramy witamy ponownie! Oto kolejna porcja przedświątecznych staroci.

Agnieszka defended her Master's thesis!

Agnieszka obroniła magisterkę!

Our love for milky bars is going strong.

Nasza miłość do barów mlecznych nie słabnie.

Every year, World Press Photo winners impress me slightly less. The contest seems to be becoming heavily political. Still, there were a few we liked a lot and below are my favorites.

Z roku na rok, zwycięzcy World Press Photo robią na mnie coraz mniejsze wrażenie. Konkurs wydaje się mieć coraz bardziej zauważalny wydźwięk polityczny. Ale kilka zdjęć bardzo nam się podobało, poniżej prezentuję moje ulubione.

Portraits, 3rd prize stories/3. miejsce w kategorii Portrety - reportaż:

Kenneth O'Halloran, Fair Trade

Fairs in Ireland are more than places of trade, often forming an important social and cultural event in the county calendar. Women regard them as occasions worth dressing up for. Many fairs focus on horse-trading, carried out to a large extent by traveling people, who belong to an ancient Gaelic nomadic tradition. Some fairs have histories dating back for centuries.*

Nature, 1st prize singles/1. miejsce w kategorii Natura - zdjęcie pojedyncze:

Thomas P. Peschak

Malgas Island, South Africa A Cape gannet comes in to land during the summer nesting season. Malgas Island, off the west coast of South Africa, is an important seabird breeding ground.*

Sports, 2nd prize stories/2. miejsce w kategorii Sport - reportaż:

Tomasz Gudzowaty, Mexico's Car Frenzy

Laguna de Sayula, Mexico The even, hard surface of Laguna de Sayula, a dried-up salt lake in western Mexico, proves an ideal location for a spontaneous high-speed race between amateurs. A small community of motor enthusiasts in Mexico devote much of their spare time to restoring, fine-tuning and customizing their cars before meeting for informal races. City streets, highways, parking lots and even indoor spaces become locations for spontaneous races.*

Sports, 2nd prize singles/2. miejsce w kategorii Sport - zdjęcie pojedyncze:

Gustavo Cuevas

Matador Julio Aparicio is gored by a bull after losing his footing during a bullfight in Madrid. One of the animal’s horns pierced his throat and punched through the bottom of his mouth, puncturing his tongue and fracturing his jaw. After an emergency one-hour operation in the medical center at the bullring, Aparicio was transferred to hospital for further surgery. He recovered, and returned to the ring in August.*

People in the News, 2nd prize stories/2. miejsce w kategorii Ludzie i wydarzenia - reportaż:

Kemal Jufri, Wrath of the Fire Mountain

Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia Mount Merapi volcano spews out an ash plume. Mount Merapi, in Central Java, Indonesia, erupted in late October, blasting hot rock and volcanic ash a kilometer and a half into the air, in what was said to be its largest eruption since the 1870s. Days after the initial eruption came an even bigger blast, releasing pyroclastic flows – fast-moving currents of gas that can reach 1,000°C – which wiped out surrounding villages, even killing people outside the denoted danger zones. Merapi is one of the most active of over 100 volcanoes in the archipelago, but is known usually for non-explosive, slow eruptions. Over 350,000 people were evacuated from the area around Merapi, and 353 people were killed in a spate of volcanic activity that lasted over a month.*

Source/źródło: www.worldpressphoto.org