I have a Dream

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

....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

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

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

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

New people

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 :) .