Film Fan and Turtle Lover

Aronofsky and the Swan

2011-01-01T19:13:00.006+02:00

Art. Does reaching artistic peaks necessarily imply a huge amount of sacrifice? Does art, at some point, become more important to the artist, than the artist himself? Does conventional madness sometimes dance with great artistic achievement?

Is highly appraised art inextricably linked to the emulation of artist and art? And, does the artist lose a bit of himself in every masterpiece? Furthermore, does losing bits of yourself allow you to reach perfection? Then, are we "too complex" to reach perfection?

Finally, does perfection imply a simplicity that we are not able to understand without sacrifice?

If you like, you may find bits of answers to all the above, or even more questions, in Darren Aronofsky's 2010 film, Black Swan:

What are we willing to sacrifice and for Whom?

2010-09-14T21:30:00.005+03:00

As I was getting a bit buzzed during the late hours of one long day, I started contemplating the value of "wasting time" with friends. The contemplation continued the following day, as the dark circles under my eyes began to show and a general feeling of "Oh my! Where did my energy go?" started to soar over me.

I kept thinking that I can compartmentalize work and fun, so that one would not affect the other. But when you're using the same body for doing both, problems might occur. I used to totally eliminate from my mind the possibility that I can ever benefit from a life of 9 to 5, going to bed at 11pm and waking up at 7am, working during the day, having light fun during the evening and resting well at night. But as it seems, I was too quick to judge as being "so not me" an existence that seemed quite dull to me a few years back, and that now I wish I could have...for a while.

Although there is more to life, or there should be more to life than working from 9 to 5 and partying during the weekends (as a reverend at TED once said, but I forgot his name, thus I put another related and inspiring TED video below), should we choose not to have healthy habits and money just because it's not original? Then again, what is original in lifestyle anymore? I think we heard of/seen a fantastic variety of lifestyles, ranging from beggers, monks, and workaholics, to notorious party girls, alcoholics and junkies to people who have animatronic tails attached to their spinal cord and live as felines. Yes, we have all sorts, but are they really ALL? What humans have proven so far is clearly the great ability to majorly change things about them, while oddly being basically the same.

So returning to staying up late and partying with friends (for whatever reason you can think of) vs. being deemed responsible in socially accepted terminology and going to bed early, what is the cognitive dissonance in choosing one or the other? Should it necessarily be a choice? And if it does come down to these two choices, aren't we smart enough to think of a third choice? - e.g. writing on my blog instead of partying with friends or going to bed at a "decent" time.

I think it is not whether you make a choice or not, but rather who is the one for whom you make the choice in the first place. On the one had, if drinking with friends has the purpose of cheering up a person you care about, then the cognitive dissonance slowly goes away. If, on the other hand, you have the interview of your life the next day, the cognitive dissonance will either be there to stay (in case the interview goes really bad, or even marginally bad, but you don't get the job), or it would be probably inexistent (in case you don't go partying at all and get a nice night's sleep before the big day, and do your best there, and still don't get the job).

If we really think about, it always depends on whom we think about when we make the choice...

August Rush

2010-09-12T12:35:00.004+03:00

...no, not the movie, which is quite lovely by the way, but my summer vacation. Although it was rather short, my vacation again, not the movie, it was intense, filled with gatherings, story telling, memories, adventure, travel, visits and no rest. The thing about being away from home for a while is that, when you come back, you need to rent a conference room, invite all your family, friends and relatives and give a presentation about your time abroad...At least, that's what I should have done :). Instead I ended up retelling the same story, with some tone or adjective modifications, still basically the same, to everybody.

Still I loved my summer back home, ever minute of it. I realized how lucky I am to know and be friends with such great individuals: people who open their own business, people for which failure in not an option, people who always make time for trips, people who fight for what or who they love, people who joggle jobs and studying, people who continuously want more from themselves, people who move on, people who love life, people who are perfectly content and happy with their lives, people who love me, people whom I adore. Each and every one of them is unique, and I have so much to learn from all of them, and seeing them in one short summer vacation filled me up with hope and energy. So, thank you!

The summer ended with a blast, a lovely wedding from which my feet are recovering still. I was rather scarred by bad wedding settings or customs in the past, but this wedding was just lovely, every bit of it. The pictures are on their way...I think :).

Now, being back in the Netherlands, I realized I'm very lucky here too, because I know wonderful people who supply my new room with good mood, plates and IKEA assembling services. Plus I have a cute, finger biting cat, that cannot take "No, Draco, no!" for an answer.

Finally, looking at the gray sky of Groningen, which seems slightly friendlier this year, I'm eager to see what this fall shall bring and what new things I can share with my friends when I'll see them again.

Take care of yourselves,
Lumi

Rainy thoughts

2010-07-12T21:00:00.008+03:00

Sometimes it rains everywhere, outside the house, inside the house (water dripping from the ceiling), inside the head...It's as if thoughts hit your mind like heavy drops that ricochet and hit your mind again. Then it all goes quiet, still as if nothing existed before and nothing will exist after. For a moment you feel out of place and yet, in the exact place you should be. After the rain, the sky clears, all the gray fleets to another dimension, and a pure blue welcomes shapeless, white clouds.

A pleasant emptiness fills my shell, and I see that crises come and go, and that the multitude of universes that we belong to conspire to make existence complex and marvelous and too many times so unappreciated by us. The sad part is that all our existence always sums up to what we remember from it, and the moment we remember it all. It's just that.

If we leave something behind, if people remember us, if we have visions about the future...should all these matter that much? Isn't it more important for us to remember our mistakes and what we stand for in order to continuously become a better version of ourselves? Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn't. Or it's both. There are perpetual moments when our lives influence the lives of others. If what we stand for includes caring, at least a bit, about what's around us, then our existence should be what we remember and what others remember at the moment of remembrance, which is the most important time reference point that will ever exist, something we call the present.

My yesterday's present was slightly altered by a sequence of fast moving frames...

A bit of death, a lot of love

2010-05-30T12:17:00.005+03:00

The question "are you afraid of death?" inevitably arises in conversation. I guess people ask about death in the pursue of comforting emotions. We all are familiar with the concept, but we never get to ask one that actually experienced it. I am not aiming for a sad post, I just read the most beautiful and sad poem I have ever laid my eyes on, and I wanted to share it with you. It's by Wystan Hugh Auden and it made me happy, after it made me incredibly sad:

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good."

Why would something like this make me happy?
Because it's more about love than death, and I think most poems and thoughts of death I triggered by thoughts of love. We might talk about death because we love life, or we lost a loved one, or we are afraid of not feeling love anymore etc..

I always seem to come back to love. I am so fascinated by the topic, that many times I forget to move from in front of a book shelf dedicated to poetry or philosophy. The last time it happened, I stumbled across Sartre's "The Being and the Nothingness". I don't think I agree with somebody on the topic of love as I agree with what J.P. says:

"(...)the triple destructibility of love: in the first place it is, in essence, a deception and a reference to infinity, since to love is to wish to be loved, hence to wish that the Other wish that I love him. A preontological comprehension of this deception is given in the very impulse of love - hence the lover's perpetual dissatisfaction. It does not come, as is so often said, from the unworthiness of being loved but from an implicit comprehension of the fact that amorous intuition is, as a fundamental-intuition, an ideal out of reach. The more I am loved, the more I lose my being, the more I am thrown back on my own responsibilities, on my own power to be. In the second place the Other's awakening is always possible; at any moment he can make me appear as an object - hence the lover's perpetual insecurity. In the third place love is an absolute which is perpetually made relative by others. One would have to be alone in the world with the beloved in order for love to preserve its character as an absolute axis of reference - hence the lover's perpetual shame (or pride - which here amounts to the same thing)."

O this windy Sunday noon, while birds sing seemingly unaware of currents, I ponder my own relation to love in general. It is as controversial in my head as the subject of religion, but not quite as adored. Recently I come to terms with the fact that I am more in love with love, that I could ever possibly be with another individual. And while that might seem sad, it stems from the fact that we, as Satre so elegantly puts it forth, love ourselves above it all. Thus loving love is loving my idea of love, which is inextricably linked to who and what I am.

Therefore, death is not so sad when it comes to any other death than our own. We tend to project each death on ourselves, thus the grieving. Although I might think I understand and possibly be in-control, it will certainly not prevent me from experiencing the deep tragedy of a loss. And if we talk about our own death, well, we are always with the being we love the most, ourselves, thus even in death, we can never be alone. The question is: "Do we really need the Other to feel more comfortable with the inevitable death, or are we equally impacted by it, regardless of who would be left behind?"

Happiness

2010-04-03T20:00:00.005+03:00

I think that most of us are more concerned with "How do I get to be happy?" than with "What is actually happiness?" and more importantly we get caught in this game of definitions and forget to enjoy every moment of our lives.

Dr. Rao tells us a bit about mental maps and the way we have constructed the concept of happiness.
http://www.ted.com/talks/srikumar_rao_plug_into_your_hard_wired_happiness.html

Then Dr. Kahneman tries to show us how we manage to mess up our happiness moments and explains some things about experience and memory.

These very smart gentlemen present valid issues in human lives, since the beginning of our species' quest for the best. We strive daily to get more of everything and in the end we are left with the hole of wanting even more or wanting something different.

How many times did/do we say "I need a change", or "I need to do that in order to...", or "Starting tomorrow, or Monday, or day X I will..."?

I think I say stuff like that to myself everyday, but the moments that are truly meaningful to me are most of the time not buried in my head, but outside my mind. Moments like the clouds under the plane while coming from a great trip, or admiring Lake Como with nice friends, or the laughter of a child near Lake Lugano, or playing War with two packs of cards and a funny friend in a McD's in Milan.

All these were things that I enjoyed and I cannot enjoy anymore because they passed.

We need to enjoy life more before all our existence becomes but a memory.

A week of contusion...confusion...or was it both?

2010-02-21T00:25:00.004+02:00

My dear sweet parietal lobes and I have had a rough week, sort of. As it seems, if you're not very good at skating and you're going at a considerable speed on the ice, and for a brief period you sort of drift and just enjoy the gliding and forget to concentrate on leaning forward, chances are that your head will have a very nasty confrontation with the ice. This might result in a few moments of pure synesthesia (it was nice to see the sounds around me in bright red and yellow spirals of color that were intertwined with a very black background, all this with my eyes closed), then 15 minutes of blackout, followed by a huge bump on the head and 85 euro for a 3 minute doctor consultation and a week of only being able to sleep, take pills and eat.

I was lucky enough that the three friends I was with, really took care of me. Two of them, with whom I also live, took turns to wake me from 2 to 2 hours the night after the contusion, so I wouldn't slip into a coma. Therefore I really owe them one, or two, or a couple of big favors :).

Now, for those of you who are better at the skating part than I am, remember: a helmet cannot hurt, but not having one can hurt a lot.

This week made me realize, again, how fascinating the human brain is and how cool it is to study it's inner-workings right at the point of damage, for lack of a better word. Reassured that my word processing abilities are not damaged, I am waiting to test my math skills as well, and I will test them starting tomorrow. With or without contusions, assignments still have deadlines, and these may be postponed, but not indefinitely.

While "enjoying" my recovery time, I stumbled across a very interesting parallel between creating music and managing a business or a country (thanks to a musical friend of mine), a different sort of synesthesia, as I like to abuse the term.

There is constant talk about interdisciplinary contexts and sharing information and data bases between and across fields, departments etc. and it's all, as it always is, linked to the mechanism that we are.

Deconstructing Fear

2010-01-31T15:37:00.003+02:00

When I was little I could do anything I wanted, the confidence was enormous, there were no boundaries. Then something changed (I blame it on the horror movies I started watching at the age of 5) and I was scared of a lot of things, the scariest of them all was the dark, which later I interpreted as being the unknown.

There is a scene in Oldboy (2003) in which one character wants to avenge his teeth with another teeth pulling session done with a hammer. And he looks at the man who caused him several front teeth to be made from gold now and simulates a "hammer job" on one of his teeth. The future victim screams scared. But the golden teeth man does nothing, laughs and says that people tend to shrivel because of their imagination and if you imagine nothing you'll be fearless.

If we put the two paragraphs together and couple them with the TED speech below, we have a basic recipe for tackling fear, fear of anything: of public speaking, of people on the street, of relationships, of huge exams, of 2012 :)) etc. etc. etc..

The Amazing Human Brain and Humans' Common Network

2010-01-13T15:59:00.001+02:00

Maybe less is more

2010-01-02T00:15:00.005+02:00

Are we communicating too much? Because these these days, and by that I mean the holiday season, a lot of communication media (pl. from medium = way) become overused resulting in inefficient communication (e.g. messages are delayed, calls don't get through, bad connectivity etc. - this refers to cell phone networks and social networks, but if we think about it, it can certainly be extended to other "aspects" of life).

Anyway, you get the picture: conversations may become cumbersome this year.

The 9th floor, Oasis, cooking, Sweden and Sinterklaas

2009-12-05T15:46:00.003+02:00

Hmmm, D. H. Lawrence was right about the marmalade and shredding oranges part ("I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It's amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor"). After I vacuumed the hall-way and I cleaned the kitchen and I made myself some poached eggs with tuna, rice and tomatoes, I felt better.

Why did I want to feel better?

Well, because I got a bit of "the blues" myself. A lot has happened these past few months (I meat a lot of musicians, I went to Denmark and Sweden and Germany in a flash trip, I acquainted myself to Sinterklaas - the Dutch version of the Romanian Sf. Nicolae - at his huge parade, I finally figured out what I want to research this year, I've been through a week of hell (class-wise), and I started getting used to the constant rain here...I repeat I started, I'm not fully used to it yet).

Although Malmo in Sweden really relaxed me, although the concerts at Prins Claus Conservatorium were a delight, although the Sinterklaas parade was awesome, although I'm very excited about what I want to research, although I made a looooot of friends here, although I am not that home sick, because Groningen is "crawling" with Romanian students :)) and I see Jeremiah on Skype all the time, although I have an amazing housemate from Romania who takes care of me from time to time :), although I have the distinct feeling that time actually past slower since I came to the Netherlands, well, I still "got the blues thinking about the future".

I think it all started when I my advisor asked me if I wanted to apply for a PhD program and after I spent a whole afternoon on the peaceful 9th floor of my university building. The windows there are round, like a submarine's windows, if a the submarine were at the Nemo ride in Disneyland, CA. Although there were 8 floors beneath my feet and the scenery from above had a certain charm to it, the distinct feeling of sinking surrounded me, and that's when "the blues" started and it's been lingering since.

I hope Oasis will get me into a state of "the blues" that will shock me out of "the blues", an over-dosage of "the blues" so to speak :) (like Seinfeld said talking about cough medicine: Figure out what will kill me, and then back it up a bit.)

For all of us I hope the winter cheer will be near this year :).

Harvie, Ryan and the Badger

2009-11-06T22:04:00.002+02:00

In the south of the Netherlands

2009-10-04T16:01:00.006+03:00

After traveling through the whole country - in about 4 hours - we managed to reach Maastricht. Maastricht is in a battle with Nijmegen for the title of the oldest city in the Netherlands. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Maastricht :).

Its cathedrals, tall buildings and clean, narrow streets, it's wall drawings, huge groups of tourists and small water streams under trees and streetlamps are just lovely.

The cities in the Netherlands are very well organized and even an easily-get-lost person like myself can get around. Plus they have delicious food and crunchy ice cream which help with the whole orientation process.

Here's a few pics from Maastricht, the city devided in two by the river Maas:

Between the rain and the plain

2009-09-01T17:21:00.014+03:00

Groningen is just lovely, but, you have to allow it its few eccentricities in order to really enjoy all the culture, clean air and welcoming people it has to offer.
One of its main "I do what I want" features is of course, the weather. It rains for three minutes, then it stops.A hopeful creature like myself, was very excited about the sun the first few times the rain stopped, but after ten minutes or so, it starts again and again and again. Still I was able to get a few snap shops of the beautiful architectural mixture that Groningen has to offer. I know it sounds like I'm advertising for tourist vacations, but I actually like the city a lot. All the green and friendly faces do
help fight the moody weather stigma.

Its second "I do what I want" feature has to be the abundance of bikes. They come from everywhere and everybody rides them, from children to old but athletic people. Accidents do happen of course. I have never seen so many people with crutches in just one day, but clearly a price has to be paid for all he clean air :).

A third "I do what I want" feature includes the eclectic nature of everything, from faces you see on the bus, to the food you find, streets you step on and the discussions you have in a pub, with a bunch of eager students from around the globe (from Nicaragua to Italy to Ethiopia and China).

Diana and I wanted a view of the city yesterday so we went to the 90 m tall Martinitoren.
Where the importance of time is clearly stated, where the wind blew in our hair and Diana had a little Marilyn Monroe moment.

So far it's been all visiting and coping with the rain and the bikes, which are of course the very enjoyable parts of my stay here. The academic year has begun and survival is my main goal :).

Enjoy mainly predictable weather and mostly accident free streets, while I'll enjoy everything else that HERE has to offer and anywhere else has LESS of :)!

Tot ziens,
Lumi

Let's be SKEPTICAL!

2009-08-15T17:38:00.002+03:00

I fell into the allure of the unexplainable a lot of times in my life, but, then again, that tickles my curiosity filling my body with dopamine, so you can't really blame me for seeking the stuff. Still, we can all benefit from the positive part of being skeptical.

Clean drinking water for EVERYBODY!

2009-08-06T15:40:00.001+03:00

Look at what a chap from Englad has developed:

Q: "So, what's new on TED?" A: "Something you should ponder for sure."

2009-08-06T01:31:00.002+03:00

If you're not familiar with TED, you should know they have ideas worth spreading. Therefore don't limit yourselves to the talk I posted and dig deeper into TED Talk history and other parts of the site: www.ted.com.

Meanwhile, here's an almost 90 year old lady, very coherently telling us something about ourselves that we probably rarely hear:

Laugh and the world may laugh with you, weep of laughter and they may laugh harder :)

2009-07-28T12:59:00.003+03:00

I've reached the 6th season of the wonderful sitcom Frasier and I thought I should share a bit of Frasier humor with all of you. Watch until the end, it's only a tad under 7 minutes.

Hope you're having a cheerful summer :),
Lumi

Fun and Laughter...

2009-06-23T21:12:00.003+03:00

...yes, these are the two ingredients for a sane life :). Here's a bit of the two:

Some of the comments on this one (on youtube of course) say it's not that funny, but I certainly laughed my pants off. Ironically, I too had a bit of trouble with my luggage at the airport a couple of times :) and I still laughed.

Vacation time :)

2009-06-21T14:11:00.003+03:00

Well,well, if it isn't the eager summer knocking on our perspiration glands, making us slippery and hot, turning busses into Hellmobiles and leaving love marks in the shape of sunburns all over our unprotected skin. Indeed summer has taken over. But with this reign of sizzle and sweat also comes a time for fun in the sun, leisure and relaxation, parading our skin all over town and maybe, just maybe, forgetting we ever had any money or future-money bringing activities...oh yes, it's vacation time.

I for one have already started a two month long shade loving, water splashing, movie devouring, sleep indulging period and I feel like being in secondary school all over again. I'm gonna visit my grandma' and take a dip in a nearby river, I'm gonna stop re-watching House M.D., five seasons in two weeks is a bit isolating from the real world, but the show has a certain je ne sais quoi, or maybe Jesse Spencer and Hugh Laurie have it :), the girls know what I'm talking about...I told you I felt like I was in secondary school :).

Everybody has a secret plan for this summer. The advice I'm going to give and you're not going to take is: INDULGE YOURSELVES!

This is a leisure post, so, I'm done here. I'm just going to leave you a little sketch and a secret:

Less, Lesser and...oh...even Less

2009-05-15T11:59:00.004+03:00

I woke up with my heart beating like a lab mouse's before a live autopsy. My head was throbbing and my skin felt on fire. While my stomach was singing its Hunger Symphony, I got out of bed and looked out the window. The images came right back into my mind...so vivid and so disturbing. I had done terrible things and I only realized I was dreaming when I had done the ultimate terrible thing.

How sick or morbid or just plane gruesome can our imagination possibly get? Sometimes I think we're split between the nice, socially acceptable people we try to be and the really disturbed creatures we really are. Or is it just me?

Decision time does that to me, whenever it shows it's eager little face. Torn between two continents, two possible outcomes, two possible lives...Am I too small for big decisions? Or I am just as undecided as ever because both the outcomes are not what I had in mind for this time in my life. Or am I afraid I have less time?

I was joking with my best friend these days, when we had no money for food because we spent it all on stupid things like more food :), that it's both so weird and so funny still being a poor student after four years of college. A lot of my friends have to worry about pay cuts and getting fired, while I still worry about when my mom can put some money in my account, so I can eat at the student cafeteria.
Am I that attached to this student life - a life I wasn't so much looking forward to about four years ago? I had so many other thoughts about how my student life should be or should have been like and instead I am constantly surprised. I guess this is the beauty of not having things come out exactly as you picture them to be. Would predictability enhance anything except safety?
Do I want a safe snuggled life or do I want excitement? :)) I wonder if there will be a time in my life when I would pass up an exciting thing for the safe, predictable easy to deal with move.

Again I am tormented. I guess you can tell by the length of this post. I don't know what to wish for anymore. I feel as if as my wishes and desires constantly change, my focus becomes blurrier and blurrier until...No, I don't become totally unfocused, but I do tend to treat the things I experience as things experienced by someone else than myself.

I feel I'm not living in this reality anymore, except maybe when I go out. And even then I escape to my solitude and my detachment. Don't worry, I'm not going crazy, I’m just contemplating myself and what's around me more that usual. I feel as if I'm taking a leave of absence from this existence. I'm not saying I'm having a parallel one, I'm just looking for something. When I'll find that something, I'll probably write more on my blog and you'll have the privilege of being annoyed more often by my posts.

Hypocrisy. Our whole society is based on it. I would just like it if for a while, all the people on this planet would say exactly what they were thinking of, when they were thinking it. What would become then of our puny society? Such a fragile artificial organism, isn't it?
I always seem to stumble on the paradox of choice. The amount of time it takes us to just select our daily clothing items or our food or our deodorant in a supermarket. By parallel, how long should it take us to make a far more complicated decision, let's say which career to choose or which job to take or which person to marry or, ultimately, who we want to choose to be? How long does it take us before we stick to an idea of who we want to be in our minds, in front the mirror, in bed, in the eyes of perfect strangers?

One of my friends once said that only people who don't have a clear and focused agenda ask themselves who they are. That people who know exactly what to do and are constantly active don't ever wonder silly stuff like: Why are we here? and What is our purpose in life? Maybe I'm just not that busy or focused or full of plans and that's why I wonder about my place and purpose on this small planet, in this small solar system around this medium-sized star on the brink of this most probable universe out of all the possible ones. Or maybe the busy people want to be busy so they don't feel lost. Maybe they're afraid of being lost. Or maybe I'm just a bit hallucinating at this very moment. In any case, thanks for coming this far with me! And here's a Teardrop on the fire of your trouble:

Fallen Angels

2009-04-18T02:03:00.002+03:00

Young, lost, trapped, poor, sad, needy...we all felt at least one of them at one time or another in our youth. But when somebody artistically portrays them all in 90 minute and exemplifies being like you are part of this world yet not quite, something begins to turn inside you...it did in me.

My eyes are darkened by the circles of puzzlement. Puzzlement you ask (maybe)? Yes, you read correctly. I am traced into pieces, some are there on the board, some are missing. I am beginning to look like a puzzle, I have been metamorphosised into a puzzle, therefore I have been puzzled and surely enough I remain puzzled.

I don't know if I'll recover all my pieces. It's a process. But I do know that I am at place being out of place, more accurately, I am in place without a few places, pieces to be more exact, at least this is what I got from Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels:

The First: When is it too late to...?

2009-04-04T02:14:00.005+03:00

Dear Witty Sloth,

When is it too late to start over? Or to fall in love? Or to be good? Or to find your purpose? Or to write poetry? Or to learn how to fly a plane? Or to make friends? Or to make sense?

I was skimming through a book about writing scripts today and while I was reading what I should be writing about I realized another thing. I realized that in order to have some writing done, I should do some living and in order to do some living I have to be willing to get out of my safe, do-absolutely-nothing-except-eat-and-sleep zone. But I am buried so deep in this zone, the trap zone of nothing and nothingness and nobody meaningful and nothing significant that it's becoming a way of life. I've lived all my life fearing routine and not doing anything ordinary and I ended up doing nothing and making a routine out of that. Therefore truly anything can be made a routine. Even doing different things all the time in a chaotic manner can become the routine of doing different things all the time in a chaotic manner.

Some people like routine, they like feeling safe while expecting something expected, others state they hate routine and anything that has to do with it, but the truth is, we all like some things being done routinely, some exceptions to those routines, some things done differently every time and the same things being done the same sometimes. What I'm probably trying to say is that there is never a recipe and if there is, it works only if you want it to work.

It's funny when people come on TV or to your face, either strangers or acquaintances and they say that they used this and that and they solved a problem or several, more than that, this or that worked perfectly for them. And then, maybe, with some skepticism you try it and this or that doesn’t do anything for you. Do you blame the method? Do you blame the people who recommended this or that or do you blame the fact that randomness is not random and that skepticism is sheer predictability of failure? Do you blame the fact that you were born when Venus was aligned with Jupiter or do you blame your choosing to be skeptical despite the success of others? Whatever you blame, be sure not to make a routine out of it. Because once you make a routine out of failure it becomes a way of life...

Sincerely,
Concerned Routine

Salsa, Books, Sitcoms, Friends...my life

2009-03-14T20:10:00.007+02:00

Well, this is a post to let you know that I am alive and well and I wish you all to be alive and well :).

These days I'm taking Salsa lessons, reading loads of books, watching a few sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory, Heroes and Battlestar Galactica - I assure you the SciFis are treated with the utmost respect in my dorm room :) - and going out with friends that seem to be glad for my accomplishments and also seem to enjoy a good debate once in a while. About my accomplishments, well, that's reserved for another post :).

Two more things: 1) I have 24 small ZUZU containers full of delicious milk on my window sill and 2) tonight I'm going to a smashing Salsa party.

Stay positive and enjoy life!

My RED BOXING GLOVES

2009-02-22T20:14:00.005+02:00

The big 23 knocked on my door 12 days ago and I feel as if I were 6 or something. Maybe because, no matter how much I grow, I still let my imagination go wild, live of my parents' money and ask for weird gifts, that my nice friends actually buy for me :).

When I was 17 I wanted a chocolate cake in the shape of dog shit and I actually got one that fairly looked disgusting, but was in fact delicious. For many years I've been bugging my friends about frogs and turtles and the fact that I love them, so for my 21st birthday they gave me a turtle (you all know my sweet Jeremiah, who has a last name starting this week: Baldabacescu).

Since high school I have been craving for a nice red pair of boxing gloves, and this year I actually got them too. They're wonderful and they're exactly like I always wanted. And last night I was lucky enough to get an autograph from Ioan Gyuri Pascu on my right boxing glove. He happened to be at the club where we celebrated my big 23 BD - The Peasant's Club (Clubul Taranului) right inside the Museum of the Romanian Peasant (Muzeul Taranului Roman).

After this row of wishes and presents to match, I figured out the way you have to do things in order to get what you want. The solution is to nag just the right people (your friends for presents, your parents for abroad trips, you boss for more money, your teachers for bigger grades, yourself for less pounds of fat etc.) and, eventually, you will get what you want. It all depends on the time you invest in the nagging process and your dedication to that.

Thank you to all my friends for their wonderful wish-granting presents and for being my friends!

Sometimes...

2009-02-12T14:39:00.004+02:00

A lot of free time on your hands means a lot of randomness in the head, at least for me it does. This randomness parleys into thoughts, which trigger emotions, which trigger more thoughts than actions than I would like to admit...but am admitting.

For those of you who were able to follow that, here's another: The carpets would be foot-worn with the treading of my thoughts, if I had such carpets, instead I choose to tread the 2.0 part of my life.

William Butler Yeats once wrote:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Sometimes I think that the only things that are truly our own, are our thoughts. But then I become socially-labeled-sad, because our thoughts can be twisted and tweaked by circumstances and energies that we, many times, are so unaware of.

I might be so proud and so confident as to state that these are MY thoughts. But what is truly ours? Then again, what is "truly"?

It's raining outside. I'm actually looking outside as I’m writing this. There's a leaf hanging for dear life on a branch in the tree right next to my window...but the leaf is dead...

The Children of Huang Shi

2009-02-10T23:38:00.002+02:00

I don't know if you do this, but I sometimes think about what it would be like to mean something to a lot of people for generations to come. I think about influencing people to be good and do good, about helping people.
This is in fact a truly selfish desire of mine, wanting to remain in people's minds for a while, even, dare I say, put my print on history for something. But sometimes, I try to fool myself into thinking that I can actually do things for people out of pure altruism...maybe it's more of a desire than a true thing. I'll get back to you on this one when and if I figure it out.

Yesterday I saw a film about a person who saved a lot of people without an identifiable selfish interest. I confess I cried at the end of it, but not for the fact that he saved them during a very tumultuous period in China, not for the fact that everybody suffers a lot in this film and not because the people in the film remind me of somebody I lost...No...I cried because I thought about what I have accomplished so far and if I would ever be able to do something significant with my life. It's hard when these thoughts hit me, but it happens a lot when you're a leech on your parents' wallet.

Yet again, enough about me. I guess it's my 23rd year crisis kicking in :). Here's a peep at The Children of Huang Shi:

Romanian, a sweet language...if you use it correctly

2009-02-09T14:29:00.004+02:00

CORRECT

I know a lot of us think that we know a lot or enough and we have been dragged through the grammar of our language once, we don’t need it again. I beg to disagree. While reading the information from the link above, I realized I still have a lot to learn about the Romanian language, it is a process that lasts a lifetime, like any learning process.

If we already use it, that does not mean we know its tips and tricks or that we master it at a truly academic level. Actually, I know professors that will make the link above shrivel with discontent and hide from the world.

So don't be so quick to judge and move on to another page!
Check it out, scroll down through the list and see what I'm talking about! It takes 3 minutes.

If you find absolutely nothing new, I tip my hat to you.

Cheers!

Charity Gift

2009-01-28T22:44:00.003+02:00

Aida's good nature follows us around, even in the 2.0 world, so here are my picks from CharityGift, a site that sells really nice stuff and gives the money to noble causes:

1) The Fish Locket
because it reminds me of my favorite two fish A&A, they know who they are;
2) Nocturnal Floating
because it makes me feel weightless while looking at it;
3) The Pumpkin Broach
because I love Halloween;
4) The Idiot - F.M. Dostoievski
because I was so different when I first read it, than I am now and it makes me assess who and what I have become since then;
5) Musical Carrousel
because I used to have something like it when I was a baby and I think I was pretty happy back then.

Out of the five, here's my favorite:

Remember to laugh :)))

2009-01-14T23:40:00.003+02:00

Paint by numbers toilet paper - courtesy of scaryideas.com
Click on the picture to see it bigger and funnier.

Friends, Torture and Weddings

2009-01-10T23:12:00.005+02:00

To what extent would you go to help a friend?
What is your level of patience and the amount of attention you would give a person you would consider a friend?

I think if the degree of friendship had to be measured by some unit of measurement, patience and attention should definitely be basic measurement units.

The people I care about get most of my patience and attention. They are the people I actually feel I need to talk to from time to time and they are the ones I want to share my good and my bad moments with. I don't know if they care about me, but there has to be something reciprocal in the relationship, otherwise I would probably not benefit from their patience and attention.

Another issue that arises is the fact that we sometimes get patience and attention from total strangers (and I don't mean the kind that want to rob you blind).
This may happen because these people feel some kind of connection, attraction between them and you and they feel the need to approach you even more than just a verbal greeting or a smile.

The last time I said: "Do you need any help?" to a total stranger on the street, I ended up with a friend and a two day discussion about life and films and the world. I don't know exactly why I asked him if he needed help on the street, but he looked kind of lost...and cute :). The odd part of it was that, picking him up was not the reason I made contact, far from it.

But enough about this, well, not enough, but I wanted to tell you something else.
I saw: "Dupa-amiaza unui tortionar" today, a very interesting and well-made Romanian film, that made me think about human relationships a little bit.

I also saw "Nunta muta" a few days back, which is a stroke of great inspiration for Horatiu Malaele and a very insightful journey into the human collective conscience.

Here's a peek of the two films:

Dupa-amiaza unui tortionar

Nunta muta

Santa

2008-12-22T00:11:00.003+02:00

A part to my friend from WWU and parts for all my friends:

May Santa bring you a perfect gift and...

Santa better bring you a job as well,
And a new beautiful home to dwell.
May your winter be snowy and cosy,
Without any neighbours being nosy!

As the days of holiday progress,
May your mind be free of stress!
Be as light in heart as snowflakes falling,
In a room filled with light each morning.

I wish you journeys to the far and exciting,
Maybe even another European sighting!
May all your worries be blown away,
By the cool breeze of a winter's day!

All my best to all of you,
Lumi

PS: Yes, the poem is mine :D.

Let me sing you a waltz...

2008-12-21T00:44:00.002+02:00

...no, or...I just don't know, I really don't know. It's like even the most intense reality I experience doesn't feel real anymore. Is it a trap that I've carefully and unconsciously created for myself in the past few months, or all my life? Is it...a trap, a cage? Because this is exactly what it feels like.

We are, all of us, the prisoners of our own mind. And I'm not talking any Matrix BS here. I genuinely experience mental entrapment each day that I face. I try to escape through films. So far, I have been unsuccessful, but there are a lot more films that ca provide a surrogate escape from the unreal reality that I'm passing through, or maybe that passes through me.

A brief surrogate escape was recently provided by two films, about a beginning and an end: Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004).

Maybe they'll help you more that they helped me, or maybe you'll just take a trip through Vienna and Paris, from the perspective of two people that have an opinion about everything. You might just find a few things you thought about at one point in your life.

Before Sunrise

Before Sunset - The Waltz

The Snowflake Man

2008-12-15T17:14:00.012+02:00

Since I was a kind I have been fascinated by the beautiful shapes of the snowflakes. Even now, if I happen to catch one in the palm of my winter gloves, I stare at it until it melts. This is an amazing piece of nature's perfect handcraft.

When I was in kindergarten and I first saw a snowflake, and it looked just like in the cartoons on TV, I tried to tell my friends about it, but they didn't believe me. And I never got the chance to show them, because a certain kind of snow makes those shapes visible to the naked eye.

I'm so glad that now, I get to show everybody that didn't believe me...well, at least, the few of them who read my blog, what these snowflakes look like.

The pictures below were taken by a man who dedicated his whole life to snowflakes, Wilson Bentley, also called The Snowflake Man. He took his first snowflake pictures in 1885. You can read the short versin of what he did: here.

Snowflakes, Snowflakes, Snowflaaaaaaaaakessss!!!!!

How about this for making students buy things?!

2008-12-11T11:49:00.002+02:00

See if you can guess what they did to make their products more appealing to students, then click on the picture to see if you guessed correctly.

Trees and Twilight

2008-12-01T02:11:00.008+02:00

About a week or so ago I went with Aida to a tree-planting session near Bucharest. We planted all day and the satisfaction and exhaustion felt afterwards were memorable. An organization called MaiMultVerde (the Marea Plantare campaign) has enabled Aida and I to tick off the list one of the three MUSTS in a life time: plant a tree, dig a well and baptize a child. I don't think the second one will ever be ticked, except maybe if we're away in Africa...maybe, but the first one has been done. I actually wouldn't mind doing it again.

Speaking about trees, I have to say that the ones in the movie Twilight (the script based on Stephenie Meyer's book with the same title) look fantastic. I love the cinematography in this movie and the soundtrack has something for everybody.

I had a huge-vampire-movie phase as a teenager, and this particular film brought a little of that period back to me. But it's not your classical “fangy”-tale of blood, it's a beautiful beginning of a love story between a vampire and a teenage girl. The actors are super sexy and the landscapes are amazing and mysterious.

I might be under the influence of Robert Pattison's golden-vampire eyes (he, by the way, sings a couple of the songs from the soundtrack), but I kind of developed a soft spot for this movie and am waiting for the sequel, New Moon.

Enjoy Twilight! Enjoy every twilight!

Help the Turtles

2008-11-12T22:30:00.003+02:00

You all know I am a huge supporter of animal rights, so this link won't come as a surprise to you. The information in it should be surprising in both directions though.

http://www.scaryideas.com/print/9253/

STOP EATING THEM!!!

Wassup 08

2008-11-08T22:17:00.002+02:00

U've gotta watch this:

12 Angry Men

2008-11-06T14:21:00.004+02:00

If you ever wondered why the US justice system states that there must be 12 members in a jury and if you ever wondered why, for a man to be convicted of a crime, there has to be an unanimous decision of the jury, and if you ever wondered how the way we were brought up to the family status that we have when we're 75 can influence our decisions, YOU should WATCH 12 Angry Men, a Sydney Lumet masterpiece from 1957.

Long phraze, isn't it! :D

Here's a glimpse of the film:

Isn't prejudice so so so sad?

The truth is, we will always be different, us humans, and there will always be people who will dislike other people for different reasons. But these are never good enough reasons (even if they're only in our heads) to convict innocent people.

What we think about what happens should certainly be linked to what really happens if we want our decisions to be fair to everybody, especially to us.

...and another thing: I am very glad that BARACK OBAMA is the next US president :).

I have a Dream

2008-11-05T01:21:00.003+02:00

I was talking to a very good friend of mine a few days ago about what's worth doing in Romania, if anything.
It all started from he fact that a reporting crew from PROtv won an EMI for their scene broadcasts. That's great for them. I tip my hat to the talented journalists that managed to beat broadcasting crews from Brazil and Great Britain. But I also have to be a little disappointed about what they show in their broadcasts and also about everything shown about or from Romania that wins awards...that's right...bad things.

How is it that a film about an abortion during communist times won more appraises from international critiques than one about conquering basic human condition and rising above all unpleasant events and misfortunes? (4 months, 3 weeks and 2 day vs. California Dreamin’) How is it that only news about gypsies that allegedly kill ladies in Italy, high school hackers, deplorable asylums and orphanages get into the international public eye? There are a lot of good things that come from our country, just not good enough to overcome the bad ones.

Don't get me wrong now, I am as displeased about what happens in our country: the poverty, the fact that we don't have a decent educational system, the social programs that don't get enough funding although international funds are returned unused at he end of the year, or worse, budgets are used in a blink on fictive operations so that free money can be accounted for, the fact that children are burnt in maternity incubators in the care of inhuman nurses and a lot of other very unpleasant and disturbing things.
All these are sadly very true, but do we really have to accentuate only them when we present something to the international communities? What kind of country are we that we don’t even give them the chance to question the fact that we’re deplorable?

Like Chaplin and Martin Luther King Jr once let to be understood or just plain said it in their speeches, I too have a dream; a dream about people getting along, a dream about a country that can solve its problems by internal means and consideration from all its citizens, a dream of cooperation, a dream in which people actually consider de consequences of their actions, a dream of peace and prosperity, a dream of free education for the masses, a dream in which orphans in orphanages and old persons in asylums are treated like humans and not like rags, a dream in which the public international eye finds our emancipation efforts and the solutions to our internal problems truly commendable, I have a Dream...

Part of something, Part of everything, Part of...(Not Nothing :D) my latest poem: Astray

2008-10-28T01:47:00.002+03:00

....It may be God or Allah or Buddha or Zeus
Sunny mornings or flowers or a moose,

It may be software or books of money
Or movies or jokes that aren't funny,

However far our beings go astray,
We believe in something anyway.

If you suggest that you don’t need to pray,
Even if it’s to yourself in your mirror’s way,

I know you’re doing something of the sort,
But are too proud to admit the spiritual effort.

You need to believe so you can feel empowered,
Because you’re alone and, deep down, a coward.

Immersion

2008-10-24T14:58:00.005+03:00

About four years ago, when I was studying, well, sort of studying, to pass my high-school exams and get into a good university, my body experienced something very strange to me at that moment. Mentally, focus-wise, I was quite alright, but my organism was channeling all the stress to the bone system, therefore I was in a lot of pain for a couple of months, all because of my joints.

Now, after a lot of exams and a lot of changes in my life, I find myself experiencing a huge amount of stress again. My bone system is not the source of pain this time, my subconscious is. All my dreams are totally messed up and make absolutely no sense (they usually have a plot, or some kind of action). I feel as if immersed in another Chien Andalus film, but this time, no ants, but a lot of teeth. I am not only dreaming them, but also clutching them in my sleep. Not a healthy thing for my maxillaries, but I just cannot control the unconscious clutching.

Stress is a very odd thing that our body experiences. It often has surprising effects. I'm glad that I don't feel it as accurately while I am awake and I can carry on with my business, but I would like to have it eliminated all together, not just in the conscious part of the day.

But enough about stress-related changes in humans. School has started, for a while now, but I haven't quite started it myself. I went to one course and it was only about organizing the course itself and not about relevant information about that particular subject, so I got fairly bored, like you probably are right now :), and I haven’t been to a course since.

Have a very un-stressful rest of the autumn and don't forget that Heroes is on its third season. A lot of related to stress and anxiety changes are going on there :).

Good Luck to You,
Lumi

Between

2008-10-13T14:51:00.004+03:00

The will to succeed is in all of us, but few have the courage to go all the way to get what they really want and not what they claim they want.

As I see it, many times you're torn between what you should do (in order to be safe and in order to make your parents feel OK where you are concerned) and what you love and has a huge potential of making you truly happy (but you have to work a great deal to obtain and you have to make a lot of sacrifices, from little sleep to refusing to go out with your friends).

Today I went to a class. I don't know exactly why, maybe I was too pissed because the wireless network wasn't working and my mac couldn't make its updates properly.

In other news, I had my TOEFL exam on Saturday. The results will be available in 15 working days.

As you can see, I am truly bored and displeased with the world these days. Maybe the days to come will be more agreeable.

I'll leave you now with George Costanza, a man who always knew he wanted to pretend to be an architect.

Vienna and Coldplay then cold Bucharest and being Homeless

2008-09-30T15:06:00.007+03:00

After two wonderful days in beautiful Vienna and after admiring both the old and the new there, pictures are provided below, I have returned to Bucharest to find myself literally homeless. I guess there's a balance in everything, at least my life, so far, really wants to show me that.

With two weeks before my TOEFL and three weeks before my GMAT exams, with a lot of stuff scattered in different friends' places, no bed I can truly call my own and a lot of other things I have to solve this month, the homelessness situation is just what I need right now to complete the circle :).

But enough about my problems, nobody (except one or two truly kind persons) seems to care about them, so why should I, right?!

So, back to Vienna. Well, as my life has a balance, this city has one also. It combines the old part with palaces, museums, churches and gardens with the new part, a very futuristic an extremely organized business center with a 252 meter tower just watching over the city. I ate in that tower (Donauturm) with a bunch of friends. We went round and round in the restaurant situated at 165 m over sea level and we admired the beautiful pieces of Vienna, connected by the night lights. The view is spectacular and it is only barely equaled by the mango mousse they serve there.

The concert was amazing. Coldplay, especially the incredibly talented Chris Martin, truly rocks.

Thank you Radu for stalking us with the camera all over Vienna, we wouldn't have these pictures if it weren't fot you :)!

Science Issues can be Rapped

2008-09-08T11:19:00.001+03:00

New people

2008-09-07T14:20:00.004+03:00

There comes a time in everybody's life when the need to meet new people arises. It's not that you get bored of what your usual entourage is saying of doing (although sometimes you do), it's just that, meeting new individuals provides you with a new and decent conversation for the day. It's like a job interview with no interviewer present. You can end up talking about oil drills and be fascinated by that. You never even thought that to be something you would do...ever.

I've noticed something rather interesting (for me at least) in the past years. Whenever I meat a new person (usually it's a guy), and that person is really smart and very good at what he/she does, we always end up talking about movies. And it's not your usual "Have you seen that movie? It's really good." crap, no, it's deeper than that. They know films, directors, actors, they know who Tarkovsky and Aronofsky or Foreman and Fellini are, they insightfully comment on Al Pacino's acting. Even if they’re usually very busy people, they have time for a lot of cinematographic experiences.

At first I thought WOW, these people are great. They have (or take) time to be very successful, they travel a lot and they also know their stuff about films. But then I realized, they don't actually have a lot of free time on their hands, and when they do, a quiet date with a non-judgmental, not-to-be-impressed, non-stressful, great-to-learn-something-out-of, emotion-triggering film is what they choose.

Films are a very comfortable refuge if you're not in the mood for human conversation. For some it is an excuse to make-out, but for the busy ones, the preoccupied and the always-thinking-about-their-job or their family or tomorrow's worries people, a film is an escape.

As I was in a film-watching kind of mood, I saw HEAT with AL PACINO and ROBERT de NIRO last night. It's two and a half hours of mounting tension, egos and careful planning put on reel. Plus it’s packet with action, an apparel for the psychology behind it all. So it’s a definite must for both the busy and the lazy :) .

We're messed up :)

2008-08-27T16:20:00.007+03:00

Sometimes we just don't know or refuse to see that we do have loads of things to be thankful for. If complaining were an Olympic event, I would probably break more records than Phelbs did this 29th edition of the Olympic Games. I always complain and I'm sure I almost always annoy the people around me.

It got in my head that I was this complicated creature with a huge amount of insurmountable problems, but this is just balderdash and I know it. I have a lot to be thankful for and I know this too. It's just that, we people, at least some of us (myself included) tend to see the particularly empty, sad, moneyless, future-homeless and lonely part of the glass, instead of the part filled with great friends, health, Internet, Battlestar Galactica, fluffy clouds, frogs, endless conversations about nothing, smiles, trips, sunny days, rainy days, books, chocolate, music, wind, love that was, maybe is and perhaps will be.

Because I've mentioned Battlestar Galactica, you should check it out if you're in the mood for a phylosophical-mythology-based-end-of-human-race-thrilling-story-
packed-with-action-and-gorgeous-actors-and-actresses-SciFi.
As for the music part, I have finally found a song I've been looking for since last summer: The Fray - Look after you.

Really look after what you have! :)

Lights! Camera! HMM?? :D

2008-08-05T01:43:00.004+03:00

How do we save the world? Do we each do our little, simple share of planet heroics or do we leave the battle to someone who cares?

Well, everybody should care, after all it's our bloody home. We all know that you should clean your home from time to time, pay your bills, and give it a nice paint job once in a while, in order to make it livable.

If only we could paint the desert green and make it produce oxygen, or train oil stains to give ocean fish nice shade instead of killing them, or make penguins crap ice, so that Antarctica wouldn't run without it in a few decades...if only...

Something we could do though, is the smallest decent amount possible. Here's an example:

Sunshine - video powered by Metacafe

P.S.: The PoetrySoup link is now ready to be accessed :).

At least my favourite font is a HERO :D

2008-07-30T11:54:00.004+03:00

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

...hmmm, maybe things do get complicated :)

2008-07-30T02:07:00.001+03:00

To annoy or not to annoy...that is the...u know :)

2008-07-25T00:10:00.002+03:00

Well, well, it seems that I have taken a small leave from my writing. I guess the whole degree thesis shenanigans wore me out more than I want to admit to myself, or maybe I'm just king of uninspired. Nothing very thrilling seems to happen. But I won't say more on the subject, Murphy's law apply when you lest expect or want, from my experience.

I am fresh out of a very uninteresting weekend. It was so uninteresting that I'm still recovering from the dullness. It’s so sad when you go home and the most exciting thing that happens to you is a conversation with your granny, which actually turns into an interrogatory about what you're going to do with you life now that you’ve graduated.

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE?

That's actually a pretty good question. People around me kind of look like they know the answer or part of it. Many get jobs, others look for a future home, others stress themselves in the search for a good graduate school and I...I just annoy myself.

I started a nice book by Edward de Bono, called Lateral Thinking, you know it for sure. The book encourages us to think out of the box and find more than one satisfying solution to any given problem. Maybe I'm reading it because I want to find a way to annoy other people, other than myself...that's thinking out of the box for you. It's already starting to work.

Speaking of new solutions and ideas, if you want to know why a 9 year old thinks pockets should be detachable or how he turns a twisted and sad family tragedy into an exquisite string of weird happenings, you should definitely open Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close book. A friend of my mine, who left Romania about a week ago, gave it to me. I couldn't put it down until I reached the final page.

Returning to the being annoying bit, here's the most annoyingly pleasant tap dancer I have ever seen, in Top Hat:

We always want to be liked...don't we?

2008-07-13T01:45:00.001+03:00

http://www.scaryideas.com/video/8056/

My work :)

2008-06-25T19:15:00.010+03:00

I was looking through my poems today (the link on the blog works, but the site is in remodeling, so the poems are not available for non-users yet) and I found a poem I had forgotten I wrote. It seemed fitting for today, because it completes my being-lost feeling.

Start again

I begged them all to stop and cheer,
I cried so loud the depths could hear,
I shouted and I spat in rage,
I couldn't turn another page.
The story was so true and blunt,
It ignited my selfish heart.
It was a story about me
And what I finally come to be...
A big mass of information,
Decaying to termination.

Hope is just a feeble concept,
Money's only but a thing,
Life has palpability,
To which we all so dearly cling.
We give it up so hard and tough,
Even when we have enough.

Some give it with relief,
Others take it in a brief.
We all think with disbelief,
That it doesn't end so fast,
That we have a future and a past,
But we never know for sure.
That's why this life, I adore.

I don't want to see the story end,
Whatever rules I have to bend
Without hurting those apart from me,
I couldn't bear to do the wrong I see.
The wrong the world makes my eyes endure,
The world where nothing can assure,
That what you love will stay unharmed
And what you want shall be done.

I don't have the power to abolish,
Those who stubbornly want to demolish,
Peace and love and friendship too,
But I could fight with you.
For the sake of my existence,
I cold hurt you in an instance,
It's still survival of the fittest.

Whatever more we do invent,
I'm tired of hearing that
It's all built with good intent,
When all things have double usage,
They can destroy or do some good,
It depends on the dosage
Of the user's mood.

I close the book of no return,
I don't want to see the end.
The lines I read make my brain burn.
Before finish I want to turn
And start again.

Nonsense

2008-06-23T03:26:00.006+03:00

The equality calculation predispositions an inaccurate contribution to socially interacting endeavor, that overthrew the malicious suppositions of the participating party...

If you are from Earth, you speak English and you are in full control of your mental capabilities, there's a fairly good chance that you didn't understand much from the previous paragraph.

Imagine that you are in a room full of people, all extremely specialized and trained in only one field each. Imagine you enter this room, without knowing one thing about any of the fields the individuals specialize in. The people are talking, nobody can understand one single thing. How do you ask somebody where the bathroom is? How do you ask for a glass of water or for directions?

It's not enough that we know a lot of stuff about a lot of stuff, we have to be able to share that through means of communication that are easily understood by others, otherwise, we couldn't help anybody find a bathroom, but we could tell them the Theory of Relativity...I doubt they would care in that precise moment.

Today I listened to a lot of oldies from Marilyn Manson, they kind of kept me awake during the hot hours of the day when I had to work on my final thesis...but, besides the point. I was listening to The Nobodies. I have listened to this song too many time than I can count, and only today I thought about reeeeally listening to the lyrics, but I couldn't make out a lot of what he said, so, of course, I searched the last verses online and I found this:

We are the nobodies
wannabe somebodies
when we're dead,
they'll know just who we are

Some children died the other day
we fed machines and then we prayed
puked up and down in morbid faith
you should have seen the ratings that day

It struck me, we live in such a morbid society. Of course you're going to say it's not always like this, that there are nice things that take place in this particular human civilization corner (like...balloon rides stuck to the ground or smoking hookahs until 2 AM talking about toilet paper and economics), but the sad reality is that, there are really f***ed-up things in this world and all the nonsense doesn't help.

Here are the Nobodies:

Let's be "somebodies" who give a damn if people need our help!

Good or Bad?

2008-06-20T21:57:00.003+03:00

Stop being way nicer than you really are! Stop doing favors that you hate doing! Stop helping others when you need help more than them! Stop thinking that you are indestructible, incorruptible and hard to manipulate?

We are feeble and bad and stupid and lazy and we stress ourselves about problems that we, many times, don't have. We are week and we can hurt those around us. The only thing that saves us from what we are is the will to do good.

It's always a matter of choice. Nobody says that doing good is the easy choice, it's easier to ignore the people who ask you for help, it's easier to avoid/be mean to your enemies than be kind to them (who does that anyway? who is kind to their enemies? that's the proverbial turn the other cheek business sent to the battle field of current society). Whatever you think of doing, ignore that and do some good, just don't be false about it. This is the trickiest thing ever: do something good genuinely, even if you don't want to do it or if it's too hard.

Sometimes it's a challenge for us all, to test the power of our will, sometimes we just make the easiest choice and do nothing and many times, we do something that, if we have a conscience, we regret after a while.

I'll always be sorry for being mean to my grandfather just before he died, or being disrespectful so many times to my grandmother. I'll always be sorry for killing a big, green and sparkly caterpillar when I was a kid. I'll always be sorry for hurting my mom by ignoring her or for hurting my dad by lying to him, I'll always be sorry for not being there for my friends when they needed to talk about what was bothering them, but I was in no mood. I am sorry for not making the right choice or thinking the right thing too many times. I'm sorry for flirting with guys that were hitched (not with me). I am sorry for all of this, but I don't regret one thing.

Being alive it's all about making mistakes and learning from them. If you learn from the mistakes that others have made, great, but, usually, we learn better if we actually experience the consequences of our mistakes.

Stay safe! Be good! Stay Alive!

Savour the moment!

2008-06-18T15:28:00.002+03:00

Everlasting moments...as oxymoronic as it may sound, there are such things. These moments stay itched in your brain a life time. They're like small videos that you remember whenever you do something related to that particular moment. For instance last night was high school moments night.

In a room full of people my age, very nice and smart people indeed, with two hookahs and two bottles of red wine, we strolled down memory lane. People remembered they used to wear black instead of pink, their obsessions for 2Pac, the fact that we all knew the lyrics for Linkin Park's "In the end" may have struck a cord, we remembered cartoons and shows that we used to watch on Italian or other TV channels (this was a little before high school) - Sailor Moon, Captain Planet, Power Rangers etc. etc. etc..

In the wee hours of the night, smoke was everywhere, the bottles were empty and the room was full of Marilyn Manson, Limp Bizkit, P.O.D., Stained, System of a Down...ahhh, sweet moments from high school that allow you to have sweet moments in college. It's like a chain of memories that trigger more fun memories. After all, what we have in our heads makes us create the next and next and next everlasting memories...circumstances might help too ;).

Hello Boys and Girls!

2008-06-16T00:04:00.003+03:00

My new found infatuation with a certain TV series has reached its apex today. I am delighted to say that I finally had a very pleasant day.

I have to admit that my current fascination with this particular TV show is not a usual one, nor that I am particularly fond of such stories, but this one is aimed to please my scandal-and -relationship-twists mental need (and I didn't even know I had one). I am talking, of course, about Gossip Girl. Judge all you like, if you haven't seen it, you should, no matter how cynic you think you can be.

Moreover I found a new song that I love, when I was watching another scandal-full episode on the show. Have a look and tell me what you think!

In other news, I'm still waiting for the perfect mood to seriously start working on my final thesis. So far, a lot of moods have auditioned, none have gotten the part.

Happy final thesis writing for those who already ended the casting ;)!

Have a pleasant week my dear readers!

Focus Group Mayhem

2008-06-14T11:14:00.004+03:00

In the quest of writing my final thesis, I have finally managed to complete part of the qualitative research, by doing three focus groups. I have never thought that it would be so hard to gather 24 people, by offering free chocolate and cookies. Luckily, students actually showed up for this research and I had people to moderate in front of.
It was fun and it had a lot of "surprises": people telling me half an hour before the focus group that they couldn't come, people laughing at each other for no reason, people fighting about unrelated to the research topics, without even knowing each other prior to the interview session etc..

I found out I really liked doing this, although I have a lot more to learn about moderating focus groups. A lot of insights came out and a lot more will reveal themselves after I analyze the FG videos.

After moderating, participating and observing focus groups, I have to admit I like moderating best. Maybe because my personality is dominant and stubborn in many aspects of my life or maybe I secretly like to be a professor and never admit it, but moderating is exciting, it can test your patience and your interviewer skills, it can even be a great crisis management training.

Overall it was the most existing part of this final thesis, which I have to be done with in a week. The countdown begins!

...but before that, yesterday was the anniversary of 1 year since we left for the States. There are a lot of sweeeeeeeeet memories, a lot of fun facts, a lot of songs that remind me every day that last summer was the best summer in my life.

Here's Gym Class Heroes. Close your eyes and imagine you're driving to San Francisco :)

...we are fragile...

Back in action :)

2008-06-05T01:55:00.003+03:00

Being too hot and all, it's been a while since I thought...on the blog, of course. With one more exam around the corner and a whole final thesis to prepare, time and the weather are not my best friends these days. I'm sure I'm not the only one in a time pickle, but I am sure that I'm amongst the very few who managed to be ostracized by their final thesis coordonator. Ah yes, the sweet sound of panic rings in my ears.

I came home a nervous-wreck-to-be. The warm, safe and smothering air in the room filled me with the joy of not having any more problems than I already had, but...surprize!!! In the late hours of this beautifully-wretched evening, I found out that the professor that didn't get my homework emails, also didn't pass along my new grade. Therefore, I can now consider myself flunked, until further notice.
Ahhhh, the satisfying grief of getting the maximum score in the seminar, passing the exam and somehow, still, flunkig the subject. Isn't it swell?!?

Maybe tomorrow the tables will turn and I will have a beautiful day.

Maybe your day won't be too bad as well. Maybe we'll be closer to happiness tomorrow or maybe stupidity and bureaucracy will overthrow it all, yet again. We'll found out in a few hours won't we? Until then: good night and pleasant subconscious trails!

Too Hot to Think

2008-05-19T19:52:00.003+03:00

I thought that Romania was in a temperate climate zone...I guess I was wrong.
When it's May, you have more than 80% of your final thesis to write before June 30th, the last undergraduate examination period is in one week and all you can think about is shade, sweat and "Please not the bus again!!!", then people, we have got a problem!

For the past five years I have been saying over and over, every summer, that we should just have showers on streets corners and changing booths next to them. People should be able to slip in their bathing suit and jump under the shower....or...skip the clothes altogether and get on the streets in swimsuits: business swimsuits, casual swimsuits, skateboarding swimsuits etc. etc. etc..

We should also have windowless buses :).

Another thing, in case you're familiar with the street vendors that sell overpriced, cheep umbrellas during the rain in the main squares of Bucharest, well, they should sell sun umbrellas and ice on skewers during the awful heat that will follow.

Enjoy the months of smell hell!

Stray

2008-04-29T01:12:00.005+03:00

Sometimes you just sit and think (or stand and think). Your mind isn't linked in the present-surrounding reality, it just jumps from image to image while your body is prey for the aging seconds. Even with your eyes closed, you start the mind wandering through brain files with different extensions (.doc, .jpeg, .mpeg, .avi, .dmg or .exe etc.): the first poem you wrote, your baby pictures that your mom kept so dearly, your first view of clouds from the plane, the first time you made love, the first book that really changed you... a lot of stuff...

Suddenly, your thoughts aren't that coherent, extensions start to mix and you suddenly find yourself getting out of a pink trunk, in a room full of mirrors, where ducks indeed have an echoing quack and pink pigs in Armani suites follow the yellow brick road that leads to the cat's hole...
you're the hole, you're the duck, you're the trunk, you're just a dot, you can't be seen from the moon, you're not immortal, you have no idea where you're headed, you really don't know what's next, you're lost, if only there were a map for existing, you would get it out right now, instead of wasting precious time on rethinking things that periodically come into your mind and never get solved...Stop wasting your life on stray thoughts...just stop, have a look around, maybe you'll come into your senses, stop looking at people in the subway, just look at their shoes, no, not their shoes, look at the prints, that's it, stay with the prints, hmm, Kylie is really hot, although she's too small, so is Christina and Jennifer and Selma so is my patience with you, stop wandering just start planning your final thesis, you can start now, right here, you have a pen and a note book, take them, out...slowly, that's funny, if someone were in my head right now...wait a minute, are you reading what I'm thinking???

Wait, they don't love you like I love you
Wait, they don't love you like I love you
Ma-a-a-a-ps, wait!
They don't love you like I love you...

Olboy, new Guy

2008-04-19T15:43:00.004+03:00

Laugh and the world laughs with you.
Weep and you weep alone.

Imagine being taken from the street, on a rainy day and being imprisoned for 15 years for no apparent reason. Would you try to kill yourself? Would you remember all the wrong you've done and all the people you have wronged? Would you go crazy if you didn't get to touch a human being in 15 years?...and, most importantly: Would you turn your life after the imprisonment into a quest for vengeance?

We never know what we're capable of until we're pushed to the edge, until we are desperate beyond comprehension. Do you have something you would kill for? How about something you would cut your tongue for? Do you like ants? :)

If any of these questions press a key on your brain's piano, you have got to see Chan-wook Park's Oldboy.

Contrast

2008-04-08T16:41:00.002+03:00

I was curious where Bora Bora was, because it's something that I hear people talk about these days. It's a luxury travel destination that the rich can easily reach. I found out that it's in the South Pacific, in the French Polynesia, in the middle of no-land, in the Earth's biggest ocean.

Then I thought about Earth and I remembered a friend told me once that if the world were a community of 100 people, it would look something like this:

I started off dreaming of Bora Bora and ended up feeling privileged.

The Lesson

2008-04-02T15:37:00.002+03:00

Go here!
Watch it all!

Oh Happy Summit, Oh joy for us :D

2008-04-02T14:32:00.003+03:00

Summit week people, from the 2nd to the 4th of April.

The city is paralyzed, people are stocked on the streets by the law and order sentinels (quite a few: from regular police officers to water tanks).
Be careful! If you're in Bucharest and you just happen to have a photo camera in your possession, chances are you'll be stopped, questioned and searched by the police, they do mean Business.

If you happen to have any weapon-like object on yourselves, no matter how non-threatening it may seem to you (a Swiss army knife, a glass bottle of beer, your hands in your pockets :D), you can be considered suspicious and stopped on the street for no apparent good reason.

Apart from the locals' indisposition regarding the summit which includes police stocking and not being able to take the bus to work (for those unfortunate enough to work near the center of the summit-city), the foreigners have encountered a few problems themselves. Starting with the fantastic journalist-welcoming-committee at the airport, the wonderful lack of means of transportation (no taxis) and, of course, the always-present technical difficulties (no sound for the foreign journalists who were in another press-room during Bush Jr's speech).

How much money does the Romanian Government have to spend for all to be perfect if the 26 million EUR that were spent for this summit weren't enough?

100

2008-03-27T15:59:00.008+02:00

For my 100th post on this blog I thought I'd give me and you a bit of insight about what life is all about. Life is all about the shape, age, glow, size, hairiness, color and sex of skin.

Our ultimate presentation suit is our skin. A lot of people give a lot of money to make their natural suit look as perfect as possible.

It's not about being shallow, although, let's admit it at least to ourselves, the way that people look really influences the way that they are treated by others.

I'm not just talking about the lair of our body that has a direct contact with our clothes, but about the whole shape that it gives the body, the presence....

Did I scare you a little bit with the personal image rambling :D? This is what got me thinking about skin image:

1. A skin-care products firm in Australia has made a very interesting outdoor for their campaign (Skin good enough to eat) - a lady made entirely of peaches. They say we are what we eat...this is eating what we are :D:

2. Kisses that come with a side effect:

3. The ultimate intimate-hair-due :D:

Have fun with hair dues and skin pampering and remember:

Take care of yourselves, because nobody will do it for you and because the person you love the most is you ;).

Wishing you the best my dear reader,
Lumi

Sunscreen

2008-03-17T02:26:00.001+02:00

We are amazing and we should never forget it...ah yeah, and we should always wear sunscreen.

Change through images

2008-03-10T23:55:00.003+02:00

Some people want to make a change through images, maybe they just want to seem smart on a web site or maybe they just really care, anyway, you should have a gander at this, it really caught my attention.

If you're still in that area, you should definitely check this one out too.

Make life Your Stage regardless of Who watches

2008-03-09T01:53:00.003+02:00

On stage

The mistake of being chosen,
When you aim for playing by spite,
In a game that’s both black and light,
Surely links to the parts of life
When one acts like a heated knife,
But the butter is not frozen.

Another untrained viewer’s eye,
Randomly passing near the scene,
A strange inkling to intervene
Might gently cross his stream of thought;
Possibly messing up a lot.
The watcher doesn’t get to try.

The spiteful actor battles much,
All faces turn to judge his moves.
His features fidget, they amuse.
He sends his words out into meaning,
Their loud silence sees no clinging
To ears that eat his kind for lunch.

He is alone on stage and nothing helps his mind.
The role he has is hard, some lines are forgotten;
Changes made from frame to frame seem all too sudden.
He is lost and feeble and under the spotlight
Wishing that, at casting, his acting wasn’t bright.
Strangely he feels himself as being mute and blind.

Bit under construction, this feature of existence
Can get you into places without any escapes
And it makes you face your nightmares’ gruesome theater drapes,
Which normally you threat so, because they always hide
An audience unfriendly and just so full of pride,
That boos off life’s stage the ones without experience.

Copyright © 2007 Luminita Stoica

10 things I hate about clubs

2008-03-01T15:14:00.004+02:00

1. Dirty, small, unequipped bathrooms;
2. The nonexistence of non-smoking zones (real non-smoking zones, not the ones that say "non-smoking" and are exactly next to the smoking zone, and you cannot possibly avoid the smoke);
3. Small or inexistent dancing rings;
4. Rude/"deaf" bartenders/waitresses/waiters;
5. Huge prices but bad-service;
6. Same music playing with very little variation over and over and over and over...
7. Totally "fiddle-de-dee" advertising: you show the best and give the medium or worst => lack of credibility or unsubstantiated credibility (but that's what I hate about the majority of products that are being advertised; very few organizations have the decency to even try and be at least 60% honest with their customers);
8. Sleazy entertainers (girls/boys that dance on small podiums in the club) that can't dance;
9. Bad light shows;
10. Dangerous floor designs with no warnings.

There are a lot of other things, but these are the main 10. If you have your own, share with the class.

Meanwhile, take a look at this (no, it's not about clubs if that's what you're expecting):

New beat :D

2008-02-23T15:42:00.004+02:00

It's a beautiful, semi-humid Saturday afternoon and I'm strolling through YouTube. After a few minutes of Jim Carrey I found myself listening to the Arctic Monkeys, awesome band if I do say so myself.

Somehow they remind me of Quentin Tarantino's films :), but if I listen a little bit longer they actually remind me of the White Stripes...these Brits, gotta love them, mainly because of the accent, but that's just my case.

Here's another Arctic Monkeys business :):

Control Freaks

2008-02-22T11:36:00.002+02:00

We humans are all a bunch of control freaks, we want to know it all so we cannot be taken by surprise in a bad way and even if there's a good surprise involved, we still want to know what it is about, we want to be in charge, we want to have the power. Proofs of this eagerness to be superior than others or other things have been here for millennia, we wanted to be like the gods we invented, then we invented super-heroes, a modern version of the gods, and we wanted to be like them. There actually are people that really think they are superheroes or some that try, like people that want to do everything and be the best at all that they do.

To sustain even more the "need" to be almighty, Emotive Systems has developed a device called EPOC that enables users to control a computer game with brainwaves, basically you don't touch the keyboard or joy-stick , you just play with you mind.

I can see a lot of use for this in the medical aria, helping people with disabilities get around faster and living an easier life, but, as all invented things can be used for both good and evil, I can also see this device used to control tanks and planes from long distance and taking over rich oil regions without any casualties from the aggressor....yep, very useful indeed.

Bad, new haircut :(

2008-02-19T14:40:00.008+02:00

I never imagined my hair meant that much to me, but it does. It's somehow connected to my state of mind, to my mood. Maybe I do act like a girl sometimes :).

After two very unsatisfying trips to the hair stylists, I have decided never to go to a woman hairstylist again, men are way better at this. Two women have managed to ruin what several males have beautifully preserved over 4 years now...

I guess in life you win some, you lose some...hair :D....and it doesn't matter how short my hair is, what matters is how and how much I think...or something like that:D.

Bloody Sad

2008-02-18T19:08:00.003+02:00

I saw Lars and the Real Girl today and it made me bloody sad.

Sometimes people just replace things that they need with something. Usually the need for affection is replaced by other stuff. Some people replace it with alcohol of drugs, some bury themselves in work, others in films, others in blogs, others in books...we all have a surrogate positive energy stream, that doesn't involve human affection...or at least something to make the time between affection sessions pass faster :D.

When you're down, keep your mind occupied!

2008-02-15T18:07:00.005+02:00

I don't understand people that, when faced with a problem that can very easily be solved through communication, choose to disconnect themselves from the other party and "Try not to think about it."

If you "try not to think about" all your problems, you will never solve anything, apart from the issues sorted out by sheer luck or coincidences. All my life I have tried to make people talk about what's on their mind, about their brain burdens. Many of them have opened up and found that verbalizing their problems and thoughts about them was way more helpful than wallowing in their self petty.

Still, I do agree that a period on your own, alone is necessary sometimes. When you feel bloody awful and you don't want to be seen or see anyone, people that want to talk about your problems make you run even farther away. But, if the problem directly involves two people and one wats to save something and talk about it and the other prefers to "try not to think about it", then that truly sucks for the party that wants to solve something.

Actually, that's how big problems start in this world, kids don't want to talk to their parents about who's bullying them at school, then they bring a gun to class and kill innocent people; husbands don't want to talk about their problems with their wives, instead they choose to beat them senseless to externalize their rage; students hate their teachers and they struggle to become teachers themselves so they can torture students just to get back at life; young people dream of becoming film directors, ambassadors, top managers and they end up being some firm's bitch in a small office in the financial department, taking files from one place to another for a living, coming home depressed, committing suicide at the age of 40 or dying from exhaustion at the age of 32, just because they didn't communicate what they truly wanted with their employers.

I admire those that dream even on their death beds, I admire people that take chances and choose to fail their way and not to succeed in other people's eyes, I admire people that believe in themselves and people that stay positive no matter what, I admire human beings that find time for themselves and don't waste their youth and health on jobs that they hate, just to get some CV experience, I admire people that stop doing what they come to dislike doing, I admire people that don't bullshit other people, I admire people that don't forget their promises or that are smart enough not to make promises if they know they don't have the power to keep them.

I would love for us to have an enchanted world, where good dreams do come true, where everything has a happy ending.

Happy Birthday to me :)

2008-02-10T22:11:00.001+02:00

There are moments of clarity in your life, when you see, like a spectator, what you did wrong, what good you did, who cared for you, who you cared for. It's sad if you see that you gave more than you received, it's sadder if you received a lot and gave nothing instead.

I was talking about life and death with my mom a few days ago, about what happens to the brain after the body dies, actually what happens to our conscience when our body dies. I seldom think that the stress of the whole biological system collapsing is like a short circuit in the brain, maybe for a few seconds the memory randomly produces images from the brain files, images that seem to make people with near death experiences think that they've crossed to the so-called other side; after the short circuit, the brain dies too, it's like when you're erasing everything you have on your hard drive, actually it's worse, it's destroying the hard drive completely, making it unusable in the same form.

What happens to the information?...because, after all, we're just a biological bundle of information at work...well, the information is either recycled, it's passes like an entity to the universe, in the form of energy or it is transformed, thinking the body is like a black hole and the information contained in it will eventually end up in another universe through a white hole or just be terminated, without a trace except the decaying remains of the once living body.

Like I have issues, you have issues, the world has issues, problems that we ignore most of the time because we are too busy with ourselves and that's totally understandable, after all the person that we love the most in this world is ourselves.

Here's a film that deals with the oh-so-many problems that Afghanistan is facing, from child molestation to killings for not having a beard...despite the terrible issues depicted here, the film manages to exude a cinematographic beauty that fills the mind with color and emotion. The Kite Runner....

Today was my birthday, I don't feel older or wiser, I don't understand why people are so compelled to hurt other people and to destroy what they have, but I know that there are some people I can always count on and that makes the information in my brain construct a sometimes beautiful documentary of my life.

Thank you my friends.

What are they doing in Iraq?

2008-02-09T19:52:00.000+02:00

The things about Iraq that have been hidden from the public are quite disturbing. There are pieces of the puzzle that gruesomely come together, and they don't construct a pretty or heroic, for that matter, picture. After USA soldiers have come back from Iraq, many have experienced serious behavior changes and psychological damage. In 2008 only, 121 US soldiers committed suicide after coming back from Iraq (9 AM Newsletter).

Here's a film by Paul Haggis that eloquently shows the dramatic personality and social changes that Iraq inflicts in In the Valley of Elah.

Another intriguing display of psychological oddity from the Coen Brothers, you might remember the main negative character from Alejandro Amenabar's Mar adentro (Javier Bardem). Here's No country for old men.

LIFE IS CURIOSITY IN MOTION

2008-02-05T21:44:00.000+02:00

I would like to state that this is the saying that has actually guided my life so far and I realized it recently. I think every person is actually in this situation and not only humans, but animals too. Evolution was based on this, if those fish weren't curious about the land, we wouldn't have amphibians, then snakes, then birds, then platypuses, then apes then Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Homo sapiens and Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo distructus (yes us, because we are so eager to make our life as easier as possible, most of the times, regardless of the consequences that our actions have on others and on the surroundings).

If curiosity combined with need were inexistent (yes we use the plural here :D, just in case you were thinking I did a blunder :P), we wouldn't have needles, vaccines, computers and so much questions, that eventually, get us into a lot of trouble. Curiosity makes us want to understand, which makes us search for answers, which makes us find out more and more which makes us ask ourselves more questions.

Since I couldn't find any other site on the net with the exact "Life is curiosity in motion." statement, I'm gonna claim copyright on it :D, because that's what we humans do, we mark our territory and then we defend it, other mammals do this with claws, we do it with wit...and now, a stand up comedy artist (Jim David)would say..."with[wit] what?".

Have fun with comedy Central!

Film Frenzy

2008-02-04T13:49:00.000+02:00

How does it go?...Let me see...

You start off with a very interesting and disturbing documentary about the flaws in the medical system in the biggest economical power in the world. Micheal Moor's SICKO shows that even Cuba provides better medical treatment for its citizens than the United States of America.

Then you leave documentaries aside and jump into JUNO, a 2007 serious story disguised as a fun one; a film about the issues of an unwanted teenage pregnancy.

After that we hear the lovely soundtrack of ONCE, one of the best platonic love stories I've seen for the year 2007, a love of music and of ex-s in an Irish scenery.

To top it all we add a little box-office type of story, like 27 DRESSES, just to relax the brain with yet another Katherine Heigl film for this year. For those of you who don't know who she is, I'll give you two hints: a star of Grey's Anatomy and the leading lady from Knocked Up.

And we finish with Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, he might be a politician and have a southern accent, but he knows what he's talking about when it comes to the danger of Carbon Dioxide Emissions.

Enjoy films and documentaries that you can really learn something from :).

Funny Fat Film

2008-02-01T11:46:00.000+02:00

As mankind progresses, the human body gets more and more unhealthy. That's not a laughing matter, but the following spot is funny as it is ironic.

The TV "dumbelization"

2008-01-31T18:41:00.000+02:00

I've been home since this Tuesday afternoon. So far I've spent most of my awake hours doing stuff on my computer (reinstalling, reorganizing and fixing things), but in the background, the TV was on, all the time.

During my computer-fixing hours I've kind of surfed the channels with the remote, leaving it on random programs. After a few hours of just hearing the TV as an ignorable background sound, I started listening...What has happened to TV in general? Do TV program creators consider viewers that dumb or are they on a solemn quest to lower the Romanian population's IQ?

I have unwillingly heard hours and hours of crime news, soap-operas, bad TV shows about who slept with whom, who has had her boobs done in the past week, which girl band looks more slutty, which Chinese guy stole who's baby, who got killed by whom, what politician set what on fire etc. etc. etc..

After I realized the dreadful (at least for me) downfall of the quality of Romanian TV programming, I took the remote and tried the last oasis of smart TV, I could find...the Discovery Channel...great for me that How it's made was on :).

Speaking of smart things to watch, you should definitely have a look at Imax Deep Sea. It's narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet and it's absolutely fascinating.

OK, OK...so it's a little about crimes, but these ones keep the ocean ecosystem balanced...at least when we're not spilling oil in it or do any other mess.

The examination period is oveeeeeerrrrrrr

2008-01-28T20:54:00.000+02:00

My dear reader,

My last exam is over, the whole examination period is over...for me, for those of you who still have exams: Good Luck! and remember, studying all your courses the night before the exam doesn't always pay off, I do not recommend it, although it kind of worked for me...so far.

Boy, the word "exam" has been said a lot in the last phrase :). Anyway, did you ever feel like you're floating, not the proverbial floating on clouds when you're happy, I mean floating as in "I have no clue what I'm going to do with my life or even where to begin in getting the clue"?

Some people have it all planned out, I don't, so, just to spite me, faith, karma, the most probable universe of all the possible ones or whatever entity exits out there put me in the following situation a few weeks ago: I was accused that I didn't have a plan or even "a fine outline" about my trip to the States - would I have struggled 2 months to get there hadn't I had a "fine outline"? - and for that information I flew over 7000 miles. Now I know that I might not be the most organized or, for that matter, sane person in the world, but I do know that pointing fingers has never helped or even smoothen a situation.

When your friends or relatives or your loved ones (yes, relatives aren't necessarily loved ones, I bet you have an aunt or an uncle that you hate or at least don't like to be around) say that they're lost, you should be kind and if you have nothing constructive to say, don't say anything at all and give them a pat on the back or a hug, if you can, because that helps more than any smug remark could ever do.

Don't forget to be kind.

Because I'm lost and don't know what to start/finish or revise with/in my life I leave this post unfini...

Hell Week and the Beatles

2008-01-18T22:23:00.000+02:00

I always seem to underestimate the value of a sweet, fulfilling night's sleep, when you get tucked or self-tuck yourself in bed before 12 o'clock (that's what scientists recommend after studying our specie's usual sleep pattern), you go on and enter dreamland and you wake up in the morning all fresh and ready to start another day :).

Well, this week, I thought, just for laughs, that I would skip night sleep all together...kiddin', not just for laughs, but because, as usual, I left the making of all my school projects for the night before the deadline, ergo, I haven't slept one single night this week.

The great thing about all this is that the week is over, I can finally enjoy the simple, biological pleasure or resting a part of my brain, through the slowing down of body processes.

But enough biology, here's a film that brings the beauty of a lot of the Beatles songs with a twist of XXI century in them.

See for yourselves! Go Across the Universe!

Ah, almost forgot....Have an easy and fun examination period!

Best wishes my dear readers,
Lumi

Poor, poor FBI :))) and a little debate

2008-01-11T20:04:00.000+02:00

As it seems, not only average citizens don't have money to pay their phone bills and get cut off from the network, the FBI has the same problem.

Feast your eyes on this FBI blunder.

While we're on a USA related topic, have a gander at this little article, I found the comments of the people who read it especially interesting. Apparently everybody is good at politics and social studies :D; don't get me wrong, as a free person of a democratic country it is sort of a duty to say what you think...and resume to that :).

American Christmas...part 4 (final) - 36 hours on the road

2008-01-11T03:44:00.000+02:00

I finally made it our of the Sates. The day I left the sky was clear, the flights weren't canceled and after being super searched at LA International Airport, LAX, I finally boarded on a Boeing 747-400 over the Atlantic.

A funny thing happened to me on the plane. I sat next to a German teenager (9th grade) and her father. After we started talking for a while, she asked me where I was from, so I told her I was from Romania. At that moment she said a most disturbing thing and I quote..."When I think about Romania, Poland and Russia, I think about criminals."...and I replied..."What a coincidence, when I think about Germany, I immediately think about Hitler and the Nazi ", she smiled and said "No, no, no."

After this lovely trip under the influence of the Second World War, I waited for 8 whole hours in Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, which I officially hate. I don't have anything particularly against the staff of the airport, or even against the airport itself, I just got so bored of those yellow signs and the announcements in Dutch, made from 5 to 5 minutes, non-stop, for 8 hours.

And after a short delay due to the fact that the plane had ice on its wings, I finally landed on Henri Coanda in Bucharest. Now think about this for a moment: Reno, snow everywhere, airport runway super clear and dry, Amsterdam, foggy and cold, airport runway super clean and dry, Bucharest, snow, airport runway super full of snow and ice...no comment.

To top it all, after they managed to ruin both my big suit cases up to the point where they are unusable and after I've waited about 20 minutes in the cold for my taxi (the taxi drivers at the airport were so nice that they offered to give me a ride to my dorm building for twice the actual current cab fare), I went home in a taxi driven by the only antisemitic person I now know in Romania.

Welcome to your home country Lumi, the place where you land in snow, cab drivers want to rob you and people publicly announce that they want all the USA destroyed and the Jews along with them (same taxi driver)!

Now I'm struggling to overcome the 10 hour time difference and to finish all my school projects before the deadlines. Overall, the trip to the USA was very eventful and pleasant, when I wasn't sick.

Have a great examination period and a fantastic holiday after!

Best of luck to you all,
Lumi

American Christmas...part 3 - Burried in Snow

2008-01-06T03:15:00.000+02:00

I'm looking outside and it's snowing like in the fairy tales we use to hear when we were kids. Outside all is covered in snow and if you go out, in about 10 minutes, you become a walking snowman.

As you might have already heard or read, California and Nevada are being hit by a huge snow storm these days. A lot of main streets are closed, you see people with shuffles everywhere, like in a horror film, most of the cars skate even with their chains on, airports are being closed, flights are being canceled, people are freezing and I'm sitting comfortably in my warm and nice room, watching the NFL playoffs (not my choice, it's not only my room :D) and surfing the net.

I should be very worried that I might not be able to arrive in Romania on time, I have a lot of projects to finish and they're not even started yet...but no, worrying is the farthest thing from my mind at the moment, I guess I'm kind of mesmerized by what's happening around me...I'm stuck in the USA in the middle of a snow storm :).

If you want to have an idea of what's going on here, just look outside your window, because I know that Romania doesn't have an easier fate.

American Christmas...part 2 - A Sick Christmas

2007-12-30T04:41:00.000+02:00

Well, don't you kind of think that life's kicking you in the ass for apparently no good reason, when you fly 7000 miles to spend Christmas with your friends and you get sick for like a week and you don't get to enjoy anything?

I must have done some horrible things in my life to deserve such a lousy Christmas. I was literally in bed with the phone in my hand, ready to call 911 at any moment, because the pain was too much for me. That's how all of the 2007 Christmas pretty much sums up.

I was supposed to do a lot of things, meet with a lot of people, travel, enjoy the scenery, instead I was in bed, crying from the pain, alone in the house, because the healthy people I'm staying with were doing whatever normal, healthy people do for Christmas in this part of the world.

Anyway, I am now up and kicking, no more back or pancreas or kidney pain, no more coughing, no more huge amounts of tea or fist-fulls of pills. I am alive.

You never get to appreciate your well-being until after you have felt the worst. I am so glad that the pain is gone and I can enjoy the simple things I took for granted, like walking through the snow and taking photos and sitting at Pizza Hut, having some nice pieces of apple pie and checking up on my e-mails.

I wish all of you a Healthy and Extremely Pleasant New Year!

Best wishes,
Lumi

American Christmas...part 1 - The Departure

2007-12-12T19:27:00.000+02:00

Well, little I knew that the visa part was going to be the easiest and less expensive of them all, I would have worried less prior to the interview, by doing that I would have saved myself loads of precious neurons and my skin would have had less wrinkles, but noooo, I had to worry.

Here's a free piece of advice, which I promised myself I would take every time I have something hard to do, but I somehow almost always forget about it...DO NOT WORRY! WORRYING DOES NOT DO ONE GOOD THING FOR YOU. On the contrary, it makes your body anxious, it decreases the power of concentration, it clouds your judgment and it makes you annoying as hell to those around you, trust me, I've been there.

Back to the main topic, namely, my departure, I got my plane ticket (I kind of made a huge hole in the family budget because of that, but I love my parents and some day, I will pay them back, with interest), I got myself a medical and luggage insurance. NEVER LEAVE THE COUNTRY WITHOUT ONE!.

It doesn't cost a lot and it covers a lot of expenses in case of baggage loss, broken arms - I am going to ski after all :D -, flight delays and much more. You can get the travel insurance at any travel agency or insurance firm or in other places that I don't know about yet.

I'm going to leave this Saturday and apparently I'm going to be stuck in two airports about 9 hours in total...that should be fun, all alone in Amsterdam and LA, with no time and no money to visit anything in the cities, 'cause the airports are too far from the airports :)...but I don't want to complain, after all, after about 24 hours straight on the road, I will have to drive about an hour and a half to the place I'll be staying at. I can't wait for the actual travel time to be over and have some fun in a ten-hour-time-difference-from-Romania-zone.

Imagine, although my trip is about 24 hours long, I'll be leaving Romania on the 15th and arrive in the States on the 15th, same day, different continents.

And on a trip related subject, but another kind of trip, namely the carrier trip in our life, for those of you who live and breathe for PR and for those who have the courage to start their own business, in case you haven't heard about it yet, there's a book called "Guerrilla PR", written by Michael Levine. Read it and you won't regret one page; it's easy and fun to read and it has great advice on how to make your own PR campaigns without a lot of money.

I recommend that you read it in English though, because as I have noticed, translations seem to loose some of the charm of the writing and it would be ashame not to benefit from all that this book has to offer.

My next post is probably going to be from the States or from one of the airports on the way, since I'll have so much waiting time on my hands.

Take care of your budgets and don't fall in the holiday-retail-trap!

Best wishes,
Lumi

American Christmas...part 0 - The Visa

2007-11-30T18:36:00.000+02:00

I've got it, I've got it, by Joe I've got it :D!

I got my tourist visa today, 10 years of traveling back and forth to/from the USA; as long as I have money for the plane ticket and my friends there can provide a house for me, I'm all set to go.

It kind of took me by surprise, after a month of searching for documents, fighting with everyone around me...it all paid out, with interest :).

In two weeks, my feet will no longer be on Romanian soil, but in sweet California, my home from last summer.

A Big Thank You goes to all of you who didn't bet against me and all that supported me through my crazy days!

I hope your Christmas will be a spectacular one, I don't know how mine will be, but, I'm gonna be in the States with a bunch of awesome people, so something at least pleasant has to come out of it.

I've always wanted an American Christmas :)...

Yeah I know it's the OC, but I only wanted the song :D.

The Spanish translation is mandatory, everything is translated in Spanish in the USA, from the milk carton labels to the ride announcement in Disneyland. It's the second unofficial (yet) language.

Something to write about...

2007-11-21T14:25:00.001+02:00

Writers usually need to have something to write about in order to create a new masterpiece, mathematicians have to wake up in the middle of the night with a new idea of solving an equation in order to solve that equation, professors need to read in order to write their lecture for next day's classes, tattoo artists need to flick through art books in order to write new tattoos on a skin canvas, we all need inspiration and funny enough, when you're about to write something, most of the times, something that we read somewhere inspires us.

Today I was reading Mircea Eliade's "Oceanography" where he talks about a lot of everything, but mostly about the frustrations of writing an being a writer...so that's what made me write today...well, that and the fact that Joe, might read this :).

I have really gotten addicted to his music, I'm actually listening to KT Tunstall while my fingertips beat the keyboard.

Back to writing, well, from my very slim experience in the writing business you can write about almost anything and there is a pretty big probability that someone will actually like it. Writing is easy if you have a lot on your mind and it can be frustrating when it's conditioned by a deadline. Copywriters know this more than anybody.

But enough about writers writing stuff, enjoy KT with one of my favorite songs (the ending doesn't quite apply though):

Take care, Joe!

Hugs and kisses,
Lumi

Resting my chemistry

2007-11-20T21:16:00.000+02:00

Everybody has their little escape plan (even if it is unconscious ) to get away from the things that make them mad. I calm my nerves by cleaning my room, so, if you happen to see a lot of mess in my room, that means that I'm happy or close to it, if you see it spotless, that means that I was very mad that particular day.

If the room is already clean and I'm still mad, I listen to Interpol...

If Interpol isn't around I make up definitions...like today, I made up a new definition for Marketing, I made a lot of these in the past :D...

Therefore, Marketing is (in my very own making-up-definitions-mood opinion) the field of science that deals with the creation and development of the life of a social-economical entity (product or service), so that, that entity will produce something (money, socio-cultural revolutions) and the individuals (people or organizations), that benefit from this entity, will be so well psycho-economically manipulated, that the illusion of satisfaction will get installed and will persist.

If you dare, tell me a made-up-by-you-when-you-were-mad definition!

Take care, my dear reader!

Best wishes,
Lumi

StrawberryFrog

2007-11-14T14:23:00.001+02:00

I found out about a witty advertising agency several months ago, at an
AdRevolution 2 conference. After that I got on the net and found their site...since then, it has been one of my favorite web sites.

The agency is StrawberryFrog.

I like their site because it has very interesting navigation possibilities, the frog is your site guide, the menu is extremely easy to access and it has an unique simplicity that I haven't encountered in other similar web pages. You do need to have installed a Flash version on your computer in order to properly navigate it.

I like the agency because they have a different way of approach towards business creativity.

The stuff that they do, well, it's a lot and too interesting to even begin talking about it. I suggest taking a peak to see for yourselves and for that just look at the stuff they've done for MTV in Europe.

Here's a hint about what this amazing frog is all about :) :

Kilipirm and a rainy Saturday

2007-11-10T12:24:00.000+02:00

About two times a year, at the Dalles Hall in Bucharest, book publishers from all over the country gather and transform the bleak street scenery into a book festival joined with a discount heaven and it's all called Kilipirim. This autumn it's held from November 6th until November 11th.

I had a gander at this autumn's Kilipirim and although I didn't have a lot of money to spend on books, I left Dalles Hall with two bags full of them. The selection is fantastic, you can find anything from architecture to cooking books, the ambiance is really pleasant and the discounts are a real pocket trap, but it's all worth it. After all, books are different worlds in pages and lines. They are an escape door to another dimension, a dimension where it doesn't rain so much, where there's not a lot of mud all over, where you do not see pickled, stray dogs on the streets.

Don't get me wrong, walking in the rain, just you, your sweety and a big umbrella is just oh so romantic, but sitting alone in front of your Mac, on a rainy Saturday afternoon, still in your pajamas is not exactly my idea of a great time. So, I think I'll go to Casablanca for an hour or so, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.

Here's looking at you...white MacBook because we'll always have South Lake Tahoe :).

Another day in paradise :)

2007-11-08T16:16:00.000+02:00

Loneliness.....

Another loneliness....

Meeting...Contact..

Love.

It's funny what things roll through the chocolate of your thoughts on a yellow-sky afternoon.

Sometimes I just like to waste time, do absolutely nothing that would be considered useful for our oh-so-busy-I-forgot-I-had-to-sleep-eat-pick-up-my-kids-from-
kinder-garden-call-my-mom-for-her-birthday society...

The sky is yellow, papers are going to be due soon, my final thesis exam is knocking on my academic door, I think of the beautiful Christmas that lays ahead, I think of the billions of worried souls that forget to take time for themselves, I think of how fast time is going and how we can't do a thing to make it go slow, I think of Coldplay, of funny shaped clouds, of mirrors, clowns, candy bars, the big Coca-Cola outdoor in Roman Square, the setting sun, love, an eventual job that I keep postponing, traveling all over the world before I'm 40, flying birds, plane crashes, Lake Tahoe, spring, summer, poetry, me, him, friends, tomorrow's theater play, the big night out with the gang, today's test paper, parents, jokes, skin, green eyes, black...
that you don't want to read further or
...that you're actually letting your mind wonder around :)...

Here's Coldplay for this yellow autumn day with a golden sunset and a head full of dreams and apparent balderdash.

Home sweet home

2007-11-03T22:18:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I think I underestimate the comfort and tranquility that the home I grew up in brings me.

This weekend I discovered that I actually really enjoy Sting's voice and Sting's songs. I've been listening to Sting with or without the Police since I was in secondary school, but today I realized that I really, really like his music, it was one of those things that kind of dawned on me, maybe because I was in a peaceful place for a few moments in such a long time...

The saddest day of Autumn :(

2007-11-01T17:22:00.000+02:00

Today has truly been the saddest day of autumn.
Today I read in the press that the Romanians are almost the saddest people in Europe. (only 1% difference, for those who read the article)
Today I didn't manage to achieve anything worth writing in this post.
Today I found out that it's year 47 D.D., that means that for the Maradonians (yes, the sect that worships the famous soccer player, Diego Armando Maradona) 47 years have passed since the birth of their idol. (D.D.="Dopo Diego", that means After Diego)...find out more about this here.
Today it was too rainy for me to go outside.
Today I got mad at a site that had Botswana in their country list, but not Romania.
Today I have to write a paper on FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) in the country that's 1% closer to being the saddest in Europe.
Today is almost over.

Look up Ring Tales on Halloween

2007-10-31T19:38:00.001+02:00

I found a very interesting section of animations on our beloved YouTube. You might want to check them out. This particular one, although painful, is sadly so true :D.

Tastes just like chicken and goes to your a*s:

And here's another (Relativity and Customer Care):

And another (Casual tie day and Erecting a Brand):

Peace of mind on Halloween

2007-10-31T18:20:00.000+02:00

It's funny how much we value the simplest of things: a ray of sunlight, a walk on leaves in the park, the noise of falling water, hearing small birds sing...all for the precious peace of mind...

So here comes my question:
If our conscience were clear, would we really need peace of mind?

Let's say the problem is that we are so chore-absorbed every day, that we sometimes need to be reminded it still doesn't take much for us to find a corner of tranquility. I dread to think what we will do without the little nature that human kind has got left. But it's more than that, it's like every day we are confronted with situations that make, at some level, question our integrity.
For instance, I recently tried to get a signature from my dorm building landlord, in order to prove that on October 1st, I was in the country, fighting with the bureaucracy of my beloved Romania and my esteemed college representatives. He had to sign a written declaration (written by myself, because he didn't know what to write in order to prove that I truly, personally picked up my dorm room from him on the previous mentioned day, despite the several official papers I had signed then).

The declaration was inspired from a declaration of income I had found on the net, so it had the following final print: "I hereby recognize that this is a public document and I take full responsibility in the court of law, according to the penal law, for the inexactness or falseness of what has been declared."
The landlord dreaded this final phrase so much, that he refused to sign a document with no falseness and no inexactness in it. An the thing that surprised me the most is that, he agreed with everything else written there, that means agreeing to the the part where "I state on my own responsibility that...", which was the first part of the declaration. So the first part and the final print seemed so different to him, that he refused to sign the declaration.

The funny thing is, even without the final print, if he signed the rest, he would have still been responsible in the court of law, because that declaration was a public document.

Therefore, returning to the main idea of this post, people have a lot on their conscience, a lot that gets triggered by expressions like: take responsibility for one's acts, court of law, law etc..

The feared equation for a guilty conscience is:

TODAY+RESPONSIBILITY FOR DONE ACTS=DREADED TOMORROW

I guess we all have our conscience spooks haunting us every, not just on Halloween :). This actually reminds me of a very interesting commercial.
Try guessing what it's for!(don't cheat by first looking up information about it :D!)

Happy Halloween for those who care!

What we are, were and will be...

2007-10-26T22:43:00.000+02:00

The expression of indignation on our faces is one that characterizes us our whole life. The same expression of indignation sits on our faces when we are kids, when we grow up and when we are old.

Come to think of it, we have a lot of expressions, reactions, conceptions that stay with us our entire existence, imprinted in our behavior. For instance, have you ever noticed the way you put soap on your hands right before you wash them, your sleeping position, the way you hold your fork at the table, the way you tie your shoe laces etc. ?

We are distinct and easily identifiable because we truly have some aspects of our personality that are ours and only ours. Even if there are similarities between the behavioristic-cognitive processes of one person and another, nobody is going to be exactly like you and do exactly the things you do...that's the beauty of it. Our inexactness and the lack of capacity of any human being of making the exact replicas of another's behavior, is what makes us unique, it's what separates us from robots.

Although I am inclined to say that humanity is losing more of its humanity with every day that passes, because of the daily routine and the boredom and tiredness that it inflicts (metrou, boulot, dodo as the French say - that means subway, work, sleep), I still think that there is hope for us yet. As long as we make mistakes and correct them, as long as we care, as long as we remember to take some time for ourselves, as long as we remember to see something else than school, job, worries, then I truly think we will be OK as a race and we'll keep developing as a species.

I happened to come across a small helping hand to our routine caused problems when I saw this particular short film, that got turned into a regular film:

Cashback

In another order of ideas, my pet Jeremiah (the turtle) is growing every day as others grow in seven years...kiddin', but he is developing at a normal rate for a turtle and fancies only dried fish in his diet :).

ANVIDA

2007-10-25T17:55:00.000+03:00

All our staff is always set,
No customer shall be ignored;
Victory will be here we bet,
In business we've all majored.
Dependent on us you can be,
ANVIDA does the job, just see!

Copyright © 2007 Luminita Stoica

I recently have been made an ANVIDA international staff member. It is an honor. The people there are really trying and succeeding to do something great.

Thank you Manny! Thank you Jeff!

Happy Birthday ANVIDA!...your 25th anniversary is approaching.

Best wishes,
Lumi