PANIC !

Yes, the panic has begun...

Oh my God, the session is coming, Oh my God, I haven't been to any lectures at this subject, how the fuck am I going to learn, Oh my God I cannot pay my rent for the dorm and may not have a contract for next year, Oh my God, I have to chose a teacher for the batchelor's degree, Oh my God, I have to choose my optionals for next year, Oh my God, where should I stay in Groningen, Oh my God, what subjects to chose to study there, Oh my God, when do the papers have to be ready, Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God...

I don't like it, I hope that tommorrow all the reasons for panic will be gone, and I will be able to breathe normally, not drink coffee anymore and have my heart pumping like crazy, and be able to think again about beautiful stuff, challenges, and memories.

Tommorrow, tommorrow, I'll love you tommorrow, if you take the panic away....

I might have a home in Griningen!!!

I wanted to edit the previuos blog, but this is too big not to make it a new post!
I just received an email from Laurens that I might be able to have a room in a flat available from my coming in Groningen!!!!!! This means no more money spent on the Housing Office, no dorm, AND living with AIESECers. Yeppee.

really nice way to end the day... :)

A day in the life of... [part 2]

This has deffinetly not been a lazy day [unfortunately, maybe]... Except the morning, when I overslept and then couldn't get out of bed for like 2 more hours.

Then I went to school, for the most painfully boring 3 hours of my life... Having to listen the Romanian Secret Service market their "opportunity windows" [some people actually are interested in applying for those positions, actually!], and then wait for the teacher to come for 1 hour, and then listen to her threats about the final exam. All in all, laaaaaaaame and useless.

Then I had to go to the doctor. She hasn't seen me since December, and since a lot has happened to my health since then, we had a loooong talk. Her being amazed and shocked, me thinking she is so predictable. The same lines "But you are too young", "26 cm??? That's the size of a child's head!", and, my favorite, "I noticed that you were a little fat, and I usually tell that to my girl patients, but I didn't tell you" - gee, thanks! I have two remarks on this: First, I am very surprised that people like to "measure" their problems, their tragedies. If I had said "I had a large tumor", it wouldn't have been so shocking than "I had a 26 cm tumor", although it is the same shit. And second, it was not really all my fault that I didn't notice I was going fatter and fatter, in fact, everybody did, but nobody really dared to tell me [not to say that everybody thought I was pregnant:P]

Then the even worse part of the day... I lost my full membership because I was late for the elections... I would have lost it anyway when I left for Erasmus, but I wish it didn't have to happen this way... It's a tough punctuality lesson that I had to learn...

The best part of the day was the karaoke... Starting from 8:30, until about 1 PM, with a very big difficulty in intercultural communication with Urs [ funny, funny, funny! ], nice songs [ even if my voice is really awkward from the boogers ], nice company, nice words and... butterflies because I finnaly realized that I'm going to leave AIESEC Bu for a while... And the hardest part is to leave the people I've grown so attached to... I will have to adapt to a whole new culture, to new, different people, which will be nice and challenging and all, but in the end, it won't really make me feel like home, at least not from the beginning. I really hope I'm gonna be wrong with that.

And the night sort of ended with a challenge I was proposed... Which I'm thinking of accepting :) I'll detail when I actually accept it and go along with it.

All in all, it's been by busiest and fullest day as a sick person. I am proud of myself :)

Good night, my beloved, sweet dreams and high hopes for a better tommorrow every day,
Yours.

A day in the life of...

Except the reflection time in the train, this has been a laaaaazy, brain freeze day. Partly, or mostly, I think, because of my cold. I think it has reached my brain and they are now flirting... Uuu, kinky!

So I spent all day long in bed, getting sick and tired of surfing the net, had some nice talks with my friends, watched some episodes of friends and scrubs, read a very nice collection of love letters (http://www.sleeptrip.com/300loveletters/2.html), and now, I'm unfreezing the freezer :)) It seems that it reached that point in this life cycle (???) when he refuses to get freezed and starts to leak, so the food gets rotten :)) And so we realized that today, and now my desk is filled with tons of food, waiting to get back in the fridge, until my room-mate does all the dirty stuff with the fridge that I don't know anything about :) [I hope I'll have some pictures posted with this event soon:P]

And now I'm trying to get some sleep, and this very productive day. Yes, very productive, about 3 litres of boogers.

Stay healthy!

Time?

I'm on my way back to Bucharest, on the train and I'm thinking... The last time I was in the same train, at the same hour, I was finishing some session outlines for ICPS and watching "Friends".

And here I am, almost 1 month later, with a whole bunch of new, wonderful, dear memories, not knowing where the time flew away, not realizing that in 3 months everything will change...

I never know hw to measure time, but I think I know how to seize the moment, and my memories are my most valuable treasures, because they define who I am.

Time is absolutely relative because "In the end we'll just remember how it feels..."

Thank you for helping me build my memories, all of you!

Summertime

Sun, flowers, beautiful scenery, family, good food... Nice way to end some busy weeks...
Not perfect because of me being sick and because I couldn't really connect to the 40 year olds, my mother's friends... Good thing I had my cousin, to fool around with, drink, and laugh our asses out.

Now comes the "I don't wanna leave to Bucharest" feeling, with the bonus "I don't want my exams to start in a week..."

See ya,
Yours.

On my way home

[This is the third time I'm writing this post, since Firefox quit unexpectedly every time I tried to post it... ARGH]

I'm on my way home, after a rough night. I was to a pretty cool party, with nice people and atmosphere. What was even cooler at this party was that it was the first non-AIESEC party where I met an AIESECer. So, of course, in between a drink, a dance and a talk with other persons, me and Oana (Toiu) finally ended up talking about AIESEC, future plans, memories, etc...
I'm going home now, heading for another party, my mom's this time... Yesterday I had a hard time in finding a nice present for her. I innitially went for the regular: a photo frame, a vase, a clock, stuff that she likes but that practically end up dusting up on a shelf. SO I decided to buy her something more personal, something nice, something that would remind her of me. SO I bought her a nice opal necklace, and I put it into a small, very classy box, in case she doesn't like it/doesn't want to wear it, to wear the box with her and thus remember me anyway :) [I'll have to explain this story to her to when I give her the present:P]

As for the honeymoon effect... I've had a lot of persons/situations/moods that tried to kick me out of this state of mind, but I realized that I can manage to overcome these nasty realities, adapt them to my own state of mind, and thus the hineymoon effect will never go away, because it actaully doesn't exist [thank you, Urs, for helping me realize that :) ]

I'm signing off now, I hope that this time my post will end up safely on the blog.
Till next time,
Take care of your hearts
Yours,
Ioana

Little Wonders

Another reason to write has appeared. I'm really in a good state of mind.

" Who you really are, the you that is happy, joyous and free has been asleep, and dreaming dreams of fear, lack and not-enough-ness. But you are enough. You are already perfect, so you don't need to change yourself. Your dreams of the you you'd like to be - you are already that person. Wake up to the reality of who you are. Focus on that you, and know that is your true nature.Love yourself"

This is exactly where I am right now. I have finally awaken to what I really am - or want to be - to what I want to do, to what I like, to whom I like...

What happened, you must be wondering...

It all started with my presence as a facilitator at InterCulturalPreparationSeminar, a conference held by AIESEC for people who are preparing to go on eXchange, the Global Internships Program that we provide.

What did this mean? It meant that I had to prepare in the beginning for about 10 sessions to deliver, on culture, cultural shock, gaoal setting, conflict solving, motivational stuff, get to know each other, team building... And I found out how much I like doing this, since I had all the sessions already pictured in my head, with the final outcome and the process as well.
The next step was meeting the conference manager, Urs, our national VicePresident on OutGoingExchange and receiving feedback on the sessions. It was surprising to see that my work was really appreciated and that I managed to design my sessions in a way that really made people feel "at home". Acutally, the whole conference was based on working in so called "home groups", groups of 15 people, which, by the hekp of the facilitator, shared experience, thoughts, feelings, thus gaining a very consistent and complex learning, being only guided to the final outcome by the facilitator.
Then came the virtual get to know of the whole team of facilitators. It was a very big team (18 members at first), with diverse backgrounds, ages (21 to 30 something :D ), but all having the same core interest: training/facilitating. At first I was a bit afraid/frustrated/nervous about the fact that all the facilitators had a lot more exprience than me, but then I finally came to sense and realized that this is an immense opportunity rather than a threat in any way. So I had as an objective to act like a sponge among the other facis and take from them as much as I can.
Then the final pre-meeting came... Where we all physically met. I realized from the first 5 minutes that I had no reasons to be nervous or anything like this, because, despite their ages or backrounds they were all...AIESECers, at their roots... So we connected at a snap.
The chair of the conference was also an amazing person, which managed to keep the delegates motivated, energetic and also entertained... (To think that she would trip on stage! :) )

Then, after a night of intense working, redesigning the sessions according to constant feedback from the facis, conference manager, and chair, and flipchart designing, a lot of coffee and very high hopes... the great day was there! The arrival of the delegates!
I remember the moment when they entered the plenary... It was like playing the opening act of a play... Here they were... The planning is over... The names in the Excel sheets, the "delegate profiles", the "assessments", were turning into actual faces...where you could read excitement, arrogance ("What the fuck are they doing there? - AIESEC roll calls - sorry Vlad, DANCES), shyness, high hopes, boredom... They were all there... Waiting for us to perform... The curtain was up, smile on the face, session outlines in the head, high hopes in the pockets, flipcharts in the backstage... Everything was prepared... time for us to perform and feel good :)

I will talk about the sessions in another post... But I learned everyday a lot... I became more adaptable, more proffessional, more open, more prepared, more energetic, more punctual, more... German :)) Urs really succeeded in making us keep the time, be short and concise, perform at our highest rate...

It's over... I have the sugarcubes on my bed, and the faci stories with pictures which I "stole" from the location... The "Gossip Papornita"... And music on the background... Little miracles, all of you, facis, Urs, Ale, my homegroup people, and all the delegates... You were my little wonders, that made me realize that I have a wonderful life, that I am taking the right steps, no matter the compromises, that I know where I'm heading, that I love myself.

I've never felt more enthusiastic, energetic, and ready to embarck on any crazy opportunity that is given to me. I have a lot of plans for my Erasmus semester, for this holiday, for next month, for tommorrow, and at the same time, I am more open than never to do crazy, unexpected things.

I talk more to people, I smile more, I explore the city, I go out a lot, I take pictures, listen to the music I like, eat sweets even if I'm not allowed, making great plans... Food for soul, that's all I'm looking for these days.

I'm looking for that person/situation who will burst my bubble to see if I'm really changed or it's just a "honeymoon effect"...

life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

it's true. for good things, but also bad ones.
there are a lot of decisions i have to take these days, and places to go, and stuff to do. and i relized i suck in this field. i'm shaking like a jelly in the face of important decisions i have to take or that others take.
i'm feeling good i guess. i needed a time to just relax, forget about everything that i have to do, must do, should do... i've relaxed, tried to go back to the things that made me feel good, enjoyed my time, shared stories, drank beer and wine, made pictures... i'm good, for now
but tomorrow... it will start again...whole school and @ and responsibilities stuff and i hope im gonna be able to keep up the spirit i have now.
and then the whole insane thing with the erasmus will start. i'm shakin', but keeping a clear, positive attitude.
and then 'rru an 'iuk will move together. and though i like the ideea from some points of view, i have a wierd negative feeling about it. hope i'm gonna figure out what it is.
and then andrei's father will have to get well from the surgery, and i'm gonna have to keep up his spirit and be there for him, give him all of me.
and finally... i'll start my new treatment and hope i'm not gonna have to take it from the start with the other ovary i have left...

so there are a lot of changes ahead, but it's gonna be oooooook... i'm a big girl, i can handle it.

so dont worry about what u were doing, are doing, or will be doing, about the changes ahead, however frightening they are... just live it as much as you can, leave the future plan aside, drink some wine, smoke some weed whatever u gotta do and just relaaaaaaaaax :x :)
(yes, this is a message for you:P)

Cuvinte

“Am vãzut oameni rãniti de cuvinte, erau gãuriti peste tot, semãnau cu sitele prin care se strecoarã lumina, nici umbrele lor nu mai erau intregi. Am vãzut si oameni inãltati de cuvinte, semãnau cu ingerii pe care ni i-a dat demult Dumnezeu”

"Words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm..."

Deci sa tacem.

warriors of the world unite:)

si uite ca a venit si motivul care sa ma impulsioneze de ajuns incat sa am curajul sa scriu. curajul, entuziasmul, dorinta sa scriu.
azi mi-am adus aminte de o perioada superba din viata mea, dar eram prea emo atunci ca sa-mi dau seama de cat de frumoasa era cu adevarat. dar acum cand ma uit inapoi, imi dau seama ca n-o sa mai fie la fel niciodata. stiti si voi ce zic, acea perioada de rebeliune si senzatia ca timpul sta in loc, ca toata viata ta depinde de sentimentele de atunci, de ce se va intampla atunci, ca totul e o mare tragedie si o imensa bucurie in acelasi timp. si stiti ceva? asa si ea, poate. poate nu sunt doar senzatii traite din inertia momentului, pentru ca acum cand ma uit in urma observ ca intr-adevar, timpul statea in loc pentru noi, guvizii lenesi cu burtile pline de bere sub soare, ca viata intr-adevar ne-a fost schimbata de sentimentele de atunci, in bine sau in rau, mai mult sau mai putin, chiar daca atunci pareau doar niste imbarligaturi si drame telenoveliste, au avut un rol f important in ceea ce suntem acum, cum iubim acum si ce stim acum.
suntem toti imprastiati acum, care-ncontro, cine cu cine, care unde, cine cum, dar sunt sigura ca ne amintim cu totii de perioada aia, in care eram ca niste ciresari moderni :)) si desi fiecare are propria varianta de poveste, in functie de povestile de iubire traite sau neimplinite, de momentele ne clare din cauza betiei, de anumite lucruri pe care au preferat sa le stearga, cred ca nu gresesc cu mult daca zic ca pentru toti a ramas o perioada frumoasa, de care sa ne amintim, mai in gluma mai in serios ca fiind poate nu cea mai frumoasa perioada, dar cel putin inceputul unui lung sir de altele.
pentru ca pana la urma, am trait multe, foarte multe de atunci. si am trait de multe ori cu impresia ca da, ma, sunt implinita, am facut atatea anul asta, am iubit, am fost iubita, etc. dar acum deja realizarile astea au trecut la nivelul superior, ala "matur" si "responsabil", in care faptul ca ai 9,70 media pe an, ca ti-ai mai luat o responsabilitate in AIESEC, esti stident la doua facultati, ai trecut cu bine de o operatie, sunt realizarile care te recomanda ca a-ti trai viata bine.
dar ce ramane sunt oamenii, cu care iti poti impartasi momentele in care te simti cu adevarat in viata.
si desi in prezentul meu sunt inca, poate mai mult ca niciodata, prieteni care ma fac sa fiu asa cum sunt, si sa ma simt cineva in fiecare zi, azi intorc privirea spre trecut, si vreaus a multumesc acelor prieteni minunati, oriunde ar fi ei, oricat de mult m-ar mai cunoaste sau recunoaste, oricat de mult m-ar iubi.
Andi, Ioana, Sorana, Razvi, Rares, Silvia, Iulia... U rock dudes, si sper ca va amintiti macar o data pe an de vremea noastra de "guvizie"... Those were the times...

over and out :)