American Christmas...part 0 - The Visa

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...

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

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

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

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 :)

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

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 :(

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.