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.
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.
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.
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 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...
This is a dedication to my mind-serenity-bringers: Films, Frogs, Turtles and Tortoises, Volkswagen Beetle, Cumulus, Giuva, Mashu, Chiutu, Aida and Jeremiah.
Not knowing for a few months what you want to reach by doing this or that is kind of frustrating and time consuming. Once you know, you feel the wait was worth it, in fact, the wait was the chase.
If you want to accomplish something in this short and many times meaningless life, you have to have the courage to expose your ideas and protect them from incapable and critical individuals...worth fighting with.
