What are we willing to sacrifice and for Whom?

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

...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

Happiness

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?

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.

Between the rain and the plain

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

My RED BOXING GLOVES

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!

Charity Gift

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:

Friends, Torture and Weddings

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

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.

Vienna and Coldplay then cold Bucharest and being Homeless

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 :)!

Savour the moment!

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 ;).

Focus Group Mayhem

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...

Something to write about...

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

ANVIDA

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

Let's talk about war baby, let's talk about you and me

WAR

Atrocity all over,
Belligerent in parts,
Catastrophe in houses,
Denial in all the minds.
Effectiveness of weapons,
Ferocity in souls,
Geographical locations
Itineraries hold.
Justifiable crimes and
Knives cutting hearts away.
Lonely are the ones that leave;
Mothers often weep and pray.
Nobody cares at all,
Only power they must seek.
Poor are the ones
Quite eager to stay safely meek.
Random killings all the time,
Some for money
Too many for none.
Under the sword of Aries the fight
Varies the price it carries.
We all suffer, war’s no gift
Xenophobia can excuse,
You can’t think the whole abuse
Zen-like-wisdom does inflict.

Copyright © 2007 Luminita Stoica


It seems to me that humanity is starting wars on a daily basis (apart from the gun-usage-nuclear-explosion-Jew-killing-children-tank-crushing ones we have in past and present history).
It's sad really when parents fight in front of their children in the war of marriage, when friends link to the most absurd reasons just to prove their friends wrong, when you find out (to me it was a shocker), that nobody else cares, not really, and by "else" I mean other than your family (and that's if you're lucky), and if you're really really lucky you find somebody that cares because they're crazy or deluded or, most often used, in love...but then you enter a tough battle. If it's a distance thing, you have to fight with everybody that tells you that "the ocean has plenty of other fish". If it's a local relationship, you get hit by the wall of "you don't care about us anymore, you've changed"...so love is a war too, a war against those who don't get that, for once, you want something that's yours an only yours and you would very much appreciate it if people would just leave you be, leave both of you be. To ask for support from your late loyal friends is a bit too much...sad no?!...to find out that sometimes you did a lot for them (overall) and they repay you with blame (in the end) :(.

Returning to war, I guess that it has to take a lot of human evolution levels passed this one in order to get rid of this nasty gene.


To be in accordance with the above stated, here's the well known Zombie.

Back to Romania

After three flights with a little, a bit and a lot of turbulence, I finally made it home. From the first moments of my time back in Romania I've sadly noticed the striking difference between the American client service and the Romanian one.

I left a "Hello! How are you this morning? How may I help you?" for a "Miscati-va si voi mai repede cu bagajele ale!"("Move faster with that luggage!"), said by a very polite Otopeni employee at the same airport.

What can I say?!... when it comes to the behavior of tellers and any other kind of public functionaries , the American system kicks the Romanian system's ass (*it's a private blog and I can use any kind of language I see fit to use :D).

The things I haven't missed in Romania:...everything except my family, my friends and my pets, so I figured out that I can live anywhere in the world that's habitable, as long as I have the people I like and love with me and I can even live without them...but not for very long.

I went to the USA with 7 friends, I came back from the USA with loads more.
On our big trip on the West Coast we traveled over 2300 miles (2300*1.609344Km=3701.4912Km) and we visited: San Francisco (If I ever had a sh** load of money, I would surely move to SF...it's the most beautiful city I have ever set foot in.), Alcatraz (the famous prison of Al Capone), San Jose, Monterey(there is a beautiful aquarium there), Santa Barbara (where they have a Zoo that recreates the natural habitat of the animals so they feel like home; the facility is made only with the help of donations), Los Angeles (where we visited Hollywood with the Walk of Fame, Disneyland - "Where all your dreams come true..." and Long Beach), Las Vegas (the city that never sleeps, the city of kitsch opulence, the city of fake Venice and casinos), Hoover Dam, Yosemite Park and the breathtaking West Coast shore, where the Pacific Ocean mesmerizes you.

The West Coast has been a fantastic place to spend our summer and I can honestly say that this has been the best vacation ever.

Have a great beginning of the new school year!Hopefully you will not face the cruel bureaucracy I had to fight with in order to get my dorm room.

For those I left in the USA: I'll miss you guys a lot. Hope you'll come and visit sooner than I expect that to happen.
Joe: Take care, stay safe, don't smoke, dream sweet..the dream-catcher is guarding you for me :)!
Chris: stay away from that bong, keep your head smooth as a baby's bottom :)!
Paypay: keep writing on those walls Logic one, Paypay the dawn, but don't get caught :).


Here's a glimpse of what we visited:

An unforgetable holiday :D

Sometimes it's just soothing to get away from the things that you have been used to for many, many years (your parents' financial and moral support, the places that you know like the back of your hand, the same conversations with the same people, the same quest for never-ever-gonna-be-found-happiness, etc. etc. etc....you know these...and those of you who left home, to go to another country are already familiar with the things I'm going to state further on).

To get away from the comfortable, rather boring existence that I have been contemplating for a few years now, I have decided to come to the USA for a summer on the pretence that I wanted to see what the fuss was all about this particular part of our planet, when in fact I just wanted a few months of mental rest and something different to recharge my tired rechargeable batteries...what I got instead...well...a lot more.

The thing about Americans (and I mean those that have ancestors that date back to the beginning of this whole phenomenon that hangs on by every thread of the 52 starred spangled banner, not all the other aliens, yours truly included, that have come here basically for the American dream :))))))) ) is that they are a nation of subliminal-trained-to-be-nice-individuals. They don't give a rat's ass how your day is, how you've been doing so on and so forth...nooooo...they are doing this because of an over proportioned sense of pride that has bees implemented like a chip in their brain from the start of the USA...they are a proud nation, and they were, are and will be as masked-condescending as they can be just to show you the superiority of the American way.

Let me tell you (I'm gonna tell you anyway because I actually do not need any one's permission to write on my very own blog :D...) a few things about these individuals, they make you feel that you can be far more cynic than you've ever imagined, they kill you with kindness, they give you their friendly help because they are obliged to do that by the red, white and blue...the weired part of this whole thing is that the fake-ness of it all doesn't bother me at all, I would rather have a fake-polite clerk that does his job properly, than a Romanian teller that scorns at you and keeps you standing for hours and hours in a in line in front of her/his counter, I would rather have people smiling at me on the street while they walk their dog, instead of being ogled at by mean eyes, I would rather get a book in less than five working days on my doorstep with no extra charge from all the way across the USA, than having to go to the postal office, wait in a f***ing-long queue and get the counter window slammed in my face in the exact moment I get in front.


So, boys and girls, as you might have noticed, I kinda like it here; I've made some friends (black, white, red :D), went to the movies (American style), visited Carson
City (state capital of Nevada) and Reno, made some greens to buy some things :D, learned how to cook and a lot of other things that really matter to me, but are of no concern to you :).

On the whole, I do not regret one bit spending $2500 on this work and travel program.

About films, I have seen a couple so far, some good, some not so good, but from everyone (as from every experience) I have learned something...hopefully you will too...here are two of the best I've viewed so far:

Ratatouille



The Illusionist




Stay away from: Evan Almighty...it's just not worth the pirated CD burn, the disk space or the money spent on the cinema ticket.


Marina: Hey sweety! Hope you're enjoying your summer at least as much as I am. Stay blue and butterfly-y all through the summer. I've got loads to tell when I see you. Thank you for still reading my blog. Aida and I give you a huge group hug and lots of kisses.

Cezar: Hallo mein Freund! Congratulations on the scholarship...you rock dude (as usual)...hope I get to see you before you leave...if not...best of luck and pack a lot of wool panties :D...Hugs and kisses. PS: I'm going to check out that blog of yours ;).

Sorinel: Howdy-Doody! Thanks for reading my usual nonsense on the blog :D...that means a lot...to me (if there were any doubts). I never forget my friends from back home...never ever.


Therefore my dear readers...have a nice summer (all of you)...


Lumi

Happy 21st Birthday Luci!

Today is a very special day for a friend of mine...today Luci has turned 21, today Luci has received the wright to drink and gamble on all continents (careful with the Muslim countries...but then again, you're not Muslim...so...carry on).

I remember my 21st birthday like it was a few months ago...ahhh...actually it was a few months ago :D...the best birthday I have ever had, my best friends were there, the presents were amazing...fantastic.

Birthdays are great if you have cool, smart and friendly friends and if you give a party.

Enjoy your birthday Luci! May your year be like a ride in Alton Towers.



See you in autumn 'cause from Wednesday, I'll be in The States all summer. The posts will probably be fewer though, but full of events from the upcoming adventure.

The Dalilian ant

Yesterday was a surprisingly pleasant day...I did a lot, I wasted a lot, I thought a lot, walked a lot, felt a lot...everything unplanned.



I was looking forward to a few hours of doing what I wanted, with someone whom I really like, but 16:00 never existed, it was erased from my watch, along with it...all the plans.

I read memorably-intricate-and-exquisitely-wicked-from-dot-to-dot sentences in Dali's Journal. Every word poured in my brain like a drug, but one that kept me more awake than ever. Words, silvery-decaying fish, Hitler's buttocks, football on the peers, discussions about the power of keeping your mind safely sane and tea, delicious tea, filled with friendship, dare and the usual aberrations.

The last cup I received was like the late plot of the day. My M47 cup was invaded by a M27 cup of ant tea. Yes, there was an ant in my tea-cup and I was absolutely enchanted by the sudden change of scenery. Dead, perfectly sketched, at the bottom of a Moonlight tea-cup, there was an ant, Dali's ant, the ant that changed my day, the ant that I drank, I drank it willingly, I drank it almost ecstatic, as if Salvador's surrealistic essence was captured in that lifeless body, I drank it because I was dared to do it, but most of all, because I wanted to.

The park was dark and smelt like freshly cut grass (it reminded me of a different evening in a different park), the air was warm but pleasant, we sat and talked...about what we wanted, why we wanted it, how we wanted it. I realized some things, we elegantly banished an unwelcome-little-meddler and we dreamt with open eyes.

The night was filled with delicious confessions, chocolate, pillows, stars and the city panorama. I always wanted to spend a night on a secluded roof and just look at the sky...I didn't do that, but someday, maybe...

The bed was just right :D, the time was too late, my mind was far away, the sleep came crawling on my lashes, I let myself be powerless and swept into a dreamless sleep.

Such a strange day, such a pleasant day, such a close-to-perfection-day...still, I have to wonder...why? (again why, a particular why this time, only my why :)).

Bribe, Pancakes, AdBreak and HRM

A known-to-be-busy day should start with the awaking from a good-8-hour-night-sleep, a shower, a nutritious breakfast and the eagerness of solving all your to-do-list.

Well...I didn't exactly did all that...I woke up after a 4-hour-night-sleep, took a fast shower and ate two schnitzels with bread at Aida's in the morning. Yesterday (I see it's 2 in the morning now) was a day of confronting the system. I think it is absurd for a 21st century institution not to provide the necessary paper-work for a tax-paying-citizen's-kid. Aida and I bribed the secretary with a five-tulip-bouquet today...our first bribe, the country is truly proud of us :P.
It seems that the saying "if you can't beat them, join them" nowadays applies to any-official-paper-related-situation...sad, sad, sad. It's sad because we were totally against bribing anyone, until we needed something urgent (What is to become of this world when even those who disapprove the methods use them while feeling guilty?)

This makes me think about the Romanian Health System. What happens if a person has no money and is in desperate need of medical attending? Do doctors today follow the Hippocrates Oath without looking in the patient's pocket first? It kind of makes me a little scared now, at 2 in the morning, because I'm shaking with a start of a fever and I don't feel very yes-I-can-hardly-wait-to-do-the-project.

I always seem to do my homework a few hours or minutes before deadlines, I hate it when I have to sacrifice yet another night's sleep, just because I was too lazy to do the simple-damn-project the weekend before...I could really use some time management courses.

After today's paper race I actually had fun the rest of the day. I made pancakes with a couple of buddies of mine (by the way...super duper persons, but don't tell anyone ;) ), they were smeared with honey and Finetti...yummy (not the buddies...the pancakes were :D).

After the cooking session we all went to another AdBreak event in Music Club. It was quite interesting because I found out a few insights about TVC casting and it was also funny - Bobo entertained the audience with a little stand-up comedy bit about Florin Piersic, Magda Catone and a few annoying Romanian spots (TV spots that is).

Now...I think I wrote all the above just to prolong the period of idea searching for the HRM (Human Resources Management) presentation (today at 09:05 AM), actually the idea searching is an excuse...I sometimes linger on my blog just because I'm just full of tiredness and laziness.

Piece of advice (I know, I know, who am I to give advice?...Well, I'm a person who often learns from her own mistakes and doesn't want others to beat their head on the wall with the same problems that her life trips on)...so, the advice: Do a simple thing...Do your assignments (either work/school/or personal life related) on time...you have no idea how I crave, just once, to have everything done in due time, without sleepless nights.

Pleasant dreams my dear reader :),
Lumi