This is my Story

[Desteny]

Well... Actually, having no idea how I am supposed to start a greeting post, I am going to do it in the most trite way.
Hello, everyone. My name is Andrew (Андрей in my native language). I live in Ukraine and I am 22 at the moment. I knew about this forum for a long time but somehow decided to register and join this community only now, when the impressions of the Avatar almost faded away. Nonetheless, I still remember how I felt that time and see what influence caused the Avatar movie on my life. And now I am going to write a pretty long post within the spoiler below and hope that nobody is going to get bothered reading this... just feeling like writing something long at the moment

Spoiler

The first time I watched it was about... February 2010, when I had lost my patience and downloaded a blurry camrip from the Internet. At that moment, I was 20 and somehow thought that I've grown up enough and there's no books or movies that could impress me as much as some of them impressed me before. And obviously I was totally wrong.
People were talking too much about this movie, so I couldn't wait for DVD-release, which date was too far from that moment. The reason why I didn't go to a cinema is quite simple - there's no cinemas in the town I live in. Indeed, to most of you, it would sound ridiculous but it's the bitter truth.
So, in the one of ordinary evenings, I was sitting by my computer, pushing the "Play" button and starting to watch Avatar. Then, I found myself in the middle of the movie, having a break and thinking like: unbelievable, this thing is really taking you away from reality. Next thing I remember from then is me, waking up in morning (or rather at the midday, since my day schedule had been totally broken for 2 years) and feeling that something has changed, something is wrong. It took a couple of minutes to realize that it is because of the Movie I watched yesterday and I should definitely watch it again. Since then, I started watch Avatar almost every day and in a week I knew every single sentence from there by heart (the Russian dubbing is really epic despite some inaccuracies of translation) and moreover I started to look for more additional info over the Internet, which didn't give me a satisfaction, though (excepting the full plot with additional scenes, which was fortunately translated into Russian by fans). Honestly, I had some symptoms of thing, which some of you call PAD and had some thoughts like: it is so sad that those perfect people are just fictional and the real people are so mean and materialistic. However, no dreams about being on Pandora, getting known with Neytiri and Jake Sully appeared in my head. Another thing that prompted this PAD-feeling is the music, the OST. It is absolutely amazing (I still shiver while listening the "Shutting down the Grace's lab" track) and it turned me away from sad and depressive metal music I used to listen to and made me find "Epic Trailer Music", "Globus" and a lot of other exciting bands instead.
It took a while to get through this state and continue living and thinking in more positive way, but from time to time I was still surfing on avatar-devoted web-sites and looking for news or another interesting stuff to read. One of this time, I got to know lumivalko, who is my good friend now and is guiding me through the jungle of the English language:)
Once I found the 1st chapter of the Avatar fanfic called "Between Worlds" (it must be the longest avatar fanfic ever) translated into Russian, read it, got interested. However, the author of translation was were busy with his work, so when I contacted him, he told me it would be very helpful if I tried to translate the next chapters and send him for correction. Then I decided to pass a translation-test and found out that I knew nothing about English. Each one sentence consisted of unknown words and grammar constructions, so it was extremely hard to translate, even with using e-dictionaries. After a while, I managed to translate the second chapter. It looked fine but the meaning was very different from the original, so that guy had to do a great correctional work after me. When I took a look at the 3rd chapter, I sighed heavily and gave up - it was too difficult. Although the dialogs were quite comprehensive, the text descriptions made me feel miserable. Translator told me that he had read all the fanfic in original language and it was great, so I got the first thought like: how wonderful it would be if I could read such difficult things in English as well. And that was the first event that led me to learning English. It should be also mentioned, that I tried to write my own fanfictional story whose plot I still enjoy but it was abandoned after the 2nd chapter. Maybe at some point I will finish it. But anyway...
At the beginning of the previous year, I had a purpose (rather a dream) to enter the university and finally get a higher education. However, I didn't want to learn things I dislike. To me, that seemed a waste of time, like those 4 years I spent in a technical school, learning different boring and useless stuff, so I decided to start from the beginning and get a profession I would really enjoy. Since my friend, who had just finished her education as a... um... "German-language-and-literature"-specialist, approved my decision, I decided to follow her, learning languages. In order to be accepted to any university here, you have to pass an independent test of 3 subject, one of which, of course, was a foreign language. And because English was the subject I was most interested in (Ukrainian language and history are pretty boring), I decided to start from it. As time passed, I was becoming more interested, since it was always interesting to learn new words, grammar constructions and realize that now you are able to say or read something you weren't able to say or read before. A year has passed since then and I supposedly made a great progress, which makes me feel a little proud of myself And I truly believe that the Avatar was the main thing that led me to this. For one simple reason (Not Enough Money), I am not going to pass the test this year, but I am not really disappointed about that. Life lies ahead and everything will come with time.
Quite frankly, I am not really interested in learning Na'vi at the moment because all my efforts are aimed at improving my English. However, I am interested in finding new friends and after being on your teamspeak server for a while I am more than sure that I got in the right place. With time, I hope I will learn some Na'vi or at least get some interest in learning it as well as you do.

Thanks for you attention and see you on the forum.

[Tirea Aean]

Zola'u nìprrte' ma Андрей. Welcome and I hope you enjoy your stay here. 

[Alyara Arati]

Welcome!  Indeed lumivalko is right, your English is very good.  You deserve to be proud of yourself.  I hope you will find many friends here; all of us have been touched by Avatar and it is always wonderful to find someone else who shares that with you.

[Stranger Come Knocking]

Welcome to the forum!

[Kamean]

Ma Андрей, zola'eiu nìprrte'!  

[Herwìna]

Andrei! *glomp* (As if he hadn't told me he made this post XD)

Sran! His English is epic! [insidejoke] I think he could definitely fly over towns with the power of his English-skills, if he only believed in his powers! [/insidejoke]

[Niwantaw]

'Ello

[Desteny]

Thank you guys for your hospitality. ^
Next summer, I hope my English skills will be good enough to rise in the sky using the power of my mind and fly over the ocean to Seattle to participate in the AvatarMeet 2012

[Tsmuktengan]

Kaltxì, zola'u niprrte!

You English looks absolutely fine to me. Feel free to ask all the questions you want and participate where you want. 

[bommel]

Kaltxì and welcome to the forum

[Ftiafpi]

You could have fooled me, I thought that perhaps you were a native English speaker living in Ukraine. It would be great if you could make it to the 2012 meetup (I hope I can, too).

Oh noes! Your first Avatar experience was on a crappy camrip! Very sad only. I hope you enjoy the forums and have a great time here.

Zola'u nìprrte'!

[Herwìna]

Mine was a crappy camrip too, but even through that crappy camrip AVATAR managed to touch mine and Andreis souls! Do not underestimate the power of crappy camrips! XD

[Desteny]

Ftiafpi, you wouldn't have such a thought after a voice conversation, since it's a bit easier to read your text and correct mistakes before posting it than speak without mistakes at all. And, sure, that's sad, but.. It appears that we got touched not by the quality of the picture and 3D effects (like some people surely did), but by the very sense, and that must be cool. Actually, I was going to visit Kiev to see the extended edition in IMAX, but unfortunately we didn't have it in Ukraine and had to watch the usual Avatar instead. At that moment, I have watched Avatar for dozens times, so I decided not to go there. But I am surely going to watch Avatar 2 in IMAX or whatever cinema will be cool at the end of 2014. It's just two years left

[Tsmuktengan]

And, sure, that's sad, but.. It appears that we got touched not by the quality of the picture and 3D effects (like some people surely did), but by the very sense, and that must be cool.

This is what is great indeed (I fail to see what is sad here).

A wide number of people in these forums has indeed been touched by the underlying messages from the film as well as various concepts.

[Tsìrli]

Welcome
and your English is great! Given the time you took to learn it

[Desteny]

I fail to see what is sad here.

The sad part must be that I didn't manage to see all the beauty of Pandora on the wide screen, but anyway, it's definitely not the most important part of Avatar

[Ftiafpi]

I agree, you definitely didn't miss out on the best part. It's just a shame that you couldn't experience the movie in full the first time.