Looking back for a moment

       LOOKING BACK is something I don't like to do as I consider that we should look every time forward, let the past, because it can't be changed, but corrected with our acts in the future.  Despite this, i will look now back, because today is the last day of August, and the month what follows will be a tranzit-month for me, which scares me a little bit.
      Almost nobody likes the turns which change our lives, because it's more comfortable to live as we are used to, but changes are inevitable...and changes are parts of our lives' evolution. We need changes, even though at the beginning they seem to affect us. In the last months I was terrified of how will go on my life beginning with October, as everything will change, but I realized that fear is useless, because there is everytime solution and things are happening with purpose. In that moment when we have enough courage to face the truth about what will follow, it won't seem so terrifying.

      Sometimes it's good to look back and analyze how we felt about problems which are resolved now, to can realize that all the anxiety we felt for this was useless and it just caused bad moments and tense reactions.  The problems are comming uninvited, they are part of our lives, a very active part, so we cannot hide from them, it's a mistake to do that. Solutions can be found for everything if we search them, or we create them. It needs just determination and motivation to go out and do great things. If not we will have to watch as others are doing great things and finally we will become frustrated, envious and bitter.
      If changes of life would be welcomed and treated positively we would make our life much easier and adapting ourselves quickly to the new conditions is the best we can do. Sooner or later the purpose of the change will make itself understandable, but until that it is necessary a good doze of optimism, patience, willingness to act and desire to have a better life.

A captivating novel - The Aviary Gate

      I read this novel two years ago, after I discovered it in the small town-library from Beaconsfield. It catches my eyes and as I saw in the short presentation from the cover of the book that it is based on Oriental historical events, I took it immediately. It was a very good decision, because even after two years I consider it a great book, and I recommend it. One of my friends mentioned that she is reading it and it is a wonderful lecture, so I decided to write down some ideas, because it would be a waste to lose them.
      The novel is structured in two stories, on different temporal, spacial levels and of different cultural backgrounds. It gives an insight to the exotic and mysterious world of the sultan's harem in Istanbul from the year 1599, but also in the dilemmas of the modern life in England. Both stories are built around two female characters, who lived in different epochs, different cultures, one represents the woman of the past and the other is the example of the contemporary woman,  and had totally different fates, but the narrative brings their lives very close at a certain moment.
      Reading this novel is like a constant travel in time. The temporal contrast is very well accentuated by the two women, Celia and Elisabeth. Curiously, their characters are not realized with the same intensity. We will discover a well-built and tragic character in Celia, but Elisabet's characterization is fade, indirect, the reader has to discover independent her personality. Celia's story dominates the narrative, Elisabet's is quite sketchy, spiced with romance.The differences won't stop here. Istanbul, the city has an important role in the lives of these women. For Celia it means slavery and she will find her tragic end there, but for Elisabeth it is a place for escape, for discovery and romance.
      After a shocking beginning, the book captivates the attention providing interesting details from the Oriental world and culture. We get a vivid picture of the seclusion of the harem, giving the impression of realism. The reader enters to a forbidden place, where almost nobody had access. It is a mysterious place webbed with intrigues, gossip, drama, hopelessness and betray.
      'The Aviary Gate is an impressing, captivating novel, which offers an exquisite travel in time, space and culture.

Facts of Life: Stop for a moment!

Facts of Life: Stop for a moment!: We might think very often that our daily schedule overwhelms us, there is no time, energy, or willingness to discover the beauty of life....

Stop for a moment!

We might think very often that our daily schedule overwhelms us, there is no time, energy, or willingness to discover the beauty of life. In this way life will pass near us, without that we sense how much we lose and time is irreversible; when we will understand what we lost it can be too late to retrieve all the wasted things because of not giving enough attention to small things. Small things are making our life complete; a smile, a flower, a sunset or sunrise, beautiful moments with the beloved person and family, a good word to somebody, and it can be mentioned an unlimited list consisting all the things which are free, near us, they wait just to be seen and appeciated to can bring light in our life.
If we would follow some easy rules, I would better calm them advices, our life would could be changed, without that we wait for a miracle. We should let the miracles for those people who really need it, and let's have a better life. Therefore, My  suggestion is to consider the following thoughts, stop for a moment in our run after money or in our struggle to survive and give chance for a better life:
LIFE IS A GIFT FROM GOD, SO WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR IT AND APPRECIATE IT.
EVERY DAY IS A NEW BEGINNING, A NEW CHANCE.
OUR LIFE IS AS WE WANT IT TO BE.
NOTHING IS HAPPENING WITHOUT PURPOSE.
THE WORLD IS FULL WITH BEAUTIES, THEY JUST NEED TO BE NOTICED.
TREAT THE OTHERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED.

Give yourself a day off to worry, go and discover  how better can be the world looked at and perceived positively. We have just one life, so we have to live it intensely, helping the others, laugh and appreciate every moment, thing which can bring joy and happiness.

Confused in a crazy world

         Most of the people have to fight for everything in life. To get a job, a place at the university, for the living of every day, for the family, for success, and everything which is essential or complementary in their lives. Those who doesn't understand what I mean are just simply careless about their lives or they have everything, and they can get anything without effort.
         I consider myself lucky with those people who have to fight to survive and to succeed, and they know how to do it. I think it is a goal supreme to become a really good 'fighter', because that means that every moment of the life has a purpose, and every time you reach it a new one will be generated. In this way life has sense, it is motivated. But what happens when we put the question 'What do we fight for? Why do we need this?'
        In this moment, when we put these questions something will happen. If the goals which guide our life are firm, probably nothing will happen, but if these questions will weaken the faith in the sense of our life, it can cause big changes. Realizing that the direction of our life is wrong, or it brings in the midst can be terrifying. It gives the feeling that we are in tunnel which brings you in the unknown or that we are in a labyrinth from here the exit is almost impossible to find. In this phase we will feel that our own goals are keeping us prisoner, we are controlling our lives through them.
       That is the moment when many things can change...in good or bad...it depends just on the decision we take.
       

Discovering a new favourite writer-Isabel Allende

I'm choosing carefully my favourite writer, and usually after reading several works, but it seems that I just picked up the right novel from Isabel Allende. However, I'm sure that very soon i will read more from her works as with the first one my attention was captivated and I can state that she became one of my favourites. This feminist writer originary from Chile, but living nowadays in California has an interesting and adventurous life, she is a wife, mother, grandmother, friend and last but not least a succesfull, bestselling author and according to her in every novel she is exploring a part of herself, in every story lies something more or less from her.

I have just finished her novel entitled 'The Sum of Our Days' and it had a great impact on me.Isabel Allende has the gift to tell some facts which will become personal for the reader, will make him/her to think, to see life with different eyes and to be more grateful for what he/she has. This impressive memoir presents her family, where each member have a very complex personality, sometimes even scandalous, though they are a great team, a 'tribe', as the writer defines it.
The narrative is very vivacious, giving an insight to the sorrows and joys of this unique family. It presents different moments of their lives, being very much concentrated on the pain of losing the beloved Paula, Isabel's daughter, to whom she is addressing directly in the novel very often. Sometimes it seems as a letter to Paula, telling what happened after her departure.

'The Sum of Our Days' is not a good memoir to read, it is an example of how to go on in life after a big loss, how to remember and have the memory of the beloved dead person with you every day without feeling pain, but acceptance, it is an experience of life. She writes about love, death, spiritualism, drug addiction and orher aspects of life without making judgements, but making to reflect. Reading this novel wasn't just a lecture, it was an experience, and my next aquisition will be Isabel's novel 'Paula', written in the memory of her dead daughter, because I'm sure that she has very much more to offer with every novel, and especially with the memoir of her daughter.

Is LOVE blind?

    Speaking with somebody whose romantic life was quite complicated in the last year made me think about this. Considering more this issue I had to realize that she is not just the only one from my friends who was involved in a relationship which wasn't working, and even like this the partners weren't able to broke up. Looking from outside this kind of relationships we wouldn't be able to understand why they are keeping together, if they can't be happy anymore. I asked for several times these people, why they don't broke up and most frequently the answer was: 'I still love him/her'. It sounds pathetic when this kind of words are coming from people who were involved in a relationship which made them to suffer, to lose self-confidence or even it was humiliating them.
   Is this feeling really out of our control? I can't imagine how can somebody love a person who is hurting him/her or humiliating him/her voluntarily? Nobody gave me a logic explanation. Why is it accepted this situation? Is it so difficult to realize that after a major incidence the couple's life won't be never like before? Or is it just me who is overreacting this? I'm convinced that every relationship should be built on mutual respect, good communication and honesty. Without these I can't see how could be harmony in a couple's life. Of course there are many other important factors which can influence a relationship, but if these three exist problems can be resolved.
   Anybody who has an answer for my questions, please comment because sometimes I don't know how to advice my friends in this kind of situations. I simply can't understand why do they allow to suffer in the name of love. Why can love mean pain and humiliation for some people?

Captivated by "Lost"

   I was never into American series, but "Lost" took my attention after a few episodes and I think that now I don"t have escape, I will have to follow it until the end, if all the seasons will prove to be as interesting as the first two seasons. The most captivating for me are the characters, more than the action itself. Everybody's psychological identity is built complex, revealed step by step, The insight in the past is inserted in the right time, giving a clue about what follows, and what is very interesting that every character has it's role and place in the story.
   Arriving until the first episodes of the second season I can't figure out what will happen, probably that's why I am still interested to continue to watch. It's curious that the characters appear very different after the crush, surviving at the island, than they are showed in the sequences of their past lives. Will the island really change them, or sooner or later their real personality will come on the surface? Of course, if they don't die. It seems that  with the tragedy what they lived at the time of the plane crush and arrival of the island, some of the survivors are getting a new chance in their lives. The question is: they will ba able to use it?

   The main figures of the series are haunted by their past, tormented by their subconsciousness, when their major problem should be to survive in an unknown place, surrounded from everywhere with danger. However, they are totally strangers for each other, the flight was the only common thing between them at the beginning, but at the island their fate seems to be linked, and apparently a connection start to be created between their present and also their past.This is what makes difference from the other American series: psychological exploration.

Post-Easter thoughts

Easter...it seems to me one of the most controversial events/holidays of the year. It would imply to live too many emotions if we want to interpret it in the religious point of view. It implies many oppositions like death-resurrection, pain-joy, sadness-happiness, etc. It's quite confusing, and possibly many people will never get into the religious meaning of Easter. I think I'm one of them. This year meant for me to spend more time with my family and my closest friends, not to suffer and revive after that.
Probably it's not the right attitude for celebrating Easter, but I didn't want to feel depressed at all in this few days I had on my disposition to spend with my family, so I didn't really think about the religious meaning. I know it's wrong, but I tried to ignore it. Sometimes the purpose of the holiday is over-dramatized, people thinking that if they assume the pain and sufferance of Jesus, they can purify themselves. I'm not convinced that this is true. I don't demand it to be wrong, everybody can decide alone in what to believe, but somebody's life or personality can't be changed just by overtaking the pains of the person considered the salvation of the humanity.
 

Results of unshared problems

Just after it happened we can realize how mistaken we were. Struggling with the thought that actually it shouldn't happen this, it wasn't so serious the problem that caused all this mess. But no, it should be said those things, just that some people can't understand sometimes the meaning . Therefore they are accusing that all this drama is for nothing,
I'm not a drama queen, I don't like to exaggerate, that is why I feel outraged when I am not listened or my rights are denied. But this can really hurt when a beloved person is doing this to you. I am deeply convinced that communication is the key to resolve an argument. But when it arrives to be more than an argument what shall be done?
Ignoring the other, avoiding the problem is an error. Losing the temper can be fatal in the solution of the problem. My experiences of the past confirms this. In the heat of the quarrel there can be said things which will be felt as a stab in the heart. This time I didn't say nothing what I will regret, I wanted just to be listened when I decided to share my fears. But they would find deaf ears. I didn't want to transform it at all in an argument, just a discussion which was supposed to make better our lives. Everything became a mess, feeling miserable and lonely.

 I hate to feel like this, by trying to find consolation, I have to realize that it's not the end of my life, I would always go ahead, but it's not the time to let things to end this way. We shared so much things, good and bad, but good moments were much more than difficult ones. This should be kept as a key in taking decisions. It can be fury, disappointment, rage in the heart, but remembering the unique moments all these feelings can soften. Rage and disappointment are very bad advisers, never should take decisions while they are controlling our emotions.
Waiting is the challenge now. Who will make the first step? Or it was already done, just that it was refused? Tomorrow is another day. It would be enough just a call, to feel that there is still something remained, waiting to be saved. What if tomorrow never comes? Or tomorrow will be a 'dark' day? Dilemmas which doesn't have sense, they are just poisoning the mind and soul.
TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY...

We can do it!

Probably I will seem a feminist...perhaps it is right, but i am convinced that every women have the same rights as men, deserve the respect and consideration for what they are and for what they are capable. Of course, everybody is different, but our acts, words, strengths, weaknesses  and personality should determine how men are judging us or appreciating us, and not the fact that we are WOMEN.
I would like to believe that living in the 21 century, in the EU, surrounded with many powerful women's example, the discrimination against women is not a problem in our society. Unfortunately it is, and quite a big problem. Day by day we can hear about women fallen victims of domestic violence, discrimination at the work place and many other situations in which they are humiliated, underestimated or simply ignored.
WHY CAN HAPPEN THIS EVEN WITH THOSE WOMEN WHO WERE BROUGHT UP WITH THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY BETWEEN SEXES?
My answer is BECAUSE THEY ALLOW IT. I know it sounds cynical, but it depends just on women how much they respect and appreciate themselves. Many would say that it is easy to affirm this, but the circumstances can oblige one to do or to accept things which hurt and degrade them. I think that actually they are just afraid to change, afraid of being free and owner on their lives. Many of my friends, members of my family experienced this, and I arrived to the conclusion that the best solution against this is protecting our independence and dignity. Independence is again a term which could be widely debated. I mean under this, that every woman should have a security on both sentimental and material level, a sort of plan B for the case she will remain alone.
 I believe that an independent, strong woman with dignity and high self-esteem will know to handle any kind of situation. However it is hard to become a woman like that. Most of us don't have the luck to 'inherit' these attributes, and will have to get after a training of the life, which usually is hard. We should consider our freedom and dignity as one the most precious values, and our life can be so much different from our moms or from all those whose experiences we don't want to share.
We have right to the chance to create a good living, to express our opinions and to take the decisions for our own life. Perhaps in this way men will understand and consider us as equals and as partners.

Which is the right way?

I'm wondering what should I do with my life. There are so many dreams, goals in my life, but i can't see how they can be fulfilled. It is painful to realize that indifferently of studies and personal skills there are no chances to start a career without a good material background.
I'm sure that millions of young people from all over the world are sharing my fears regarding the future. It's unfair that all depends on money, good personal contacts or luck, but without these, knowledge, studies and competence means almost nothing in finding a good job. Two years before I was much more confident and optimistic, I thought that Romanian people are taking the habit to complain and to be satisfied, and actually it depends on everybody's willingness to find a good job. Nowadays I got convinced that it doesn't depend on how much I want to have a good job, but how many people I know who has a certain influence at a company.
My problem is that I barely know anybody in this city, and in my hometown there are even less chances for a career than here.
I asked myself many many times what am I doing wrong? Why others can and I can't find the way ? ...
In spite of disappointment and fails I taught myself that every bad thing which doesn't kill me, it will strengthen me. I arrived to the conclusion that if I don't get the chance for a career, I will build one for myself, even though it will be very hard at the beginning, This should be the way.
Every young person, who is looking for a better future, should decide what is the purpose in his or her life, what can be the motivation, and than fight for it, to keep firm in this and the results will come with time.
THE MOST IMPORTANT IS TO NEVER GIVE UP!!!