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!

Sometimes...

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

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

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

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 :)))

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

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