What’s with the Wanderlust? – Now I know, I am half a twixter January 31, 2009
Posted by armina in thoughts.Tags: career, dream job, grow up, twixter, wanderlust
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Today I couldn’t work from objective reasons and I wondered how would life be if i didn’t have this small business of my own. If i would choose to go back to being an employee, what would i want to be?
I thought about the purchasing job offer i received a few days ago, and then i thought about being a project manager somewhere, and until i tried to figure out a country i would like to live in, i starting thinking about going for a Ph.D. to gain myself some time to figure what and where. Then i thought it would be too much learning and most of the companies back in Romania would consider me overqualified – because i would like to live in Romania.
No more studying, so i went for a thought in the opposite extreme…”The best job in the world” campaign…remember? The Island caretaker job for the 600 islands in the Australian reef. It seems there are about 2000 applicants and 2,3 million visitors. A really good promo campaign. If you want to apply, there is still time. Go here.
So I ended up where i never thought i would be – asking myself the wonderful question of childhood: what do i want to be when i will grow up. It is amazing – when i was 20, i knew it, when i was 23 i knew it, now i don’t know anymore. It seems there are so many things to explore and in the end, whatever career i would choose it doesn’t matter, as long as it deals with people, challenges me and there’s a team around.
I couldn’t sleep so i grabbed a beer (which i seldom do) and started searching for the answer on the internet. I bumped into a funny quizz, but as funny as it is, it made me wonder. At least in my case it’s true: i would be a good social worker or an artist (i couldn’t make my mind which picture to choose so i chose two). You should try it, it’s cool: here. You just have to choose your favorite picture and it tells you your inclinations. I kind of knew them but it was fun – and i am not a big fan of quizzes, so…
Then i searched deeper and bumped into an article in TIME. Such a wonderful article. It made me draw the conclusion that i am half a twixter. Twixters are the people between 20 and 30 who don’t seem to want to grow up…or who can’t. I am kind of one of them, too. I don’t know what my dream job would be (i know what i would be good at and what i would like it to include, though), i don’t want to get married yet, i don’t want to make loans. I dream about traveling the world, having a family. I traveled a little, i do have a finace and we are living together…so this makes me half a twixter. Anyways…if it sounds familiar, take some time to read this article: “Grow Up? Not So Fast” – you will find some answers to your questions. (I know the article is 4 years old, but we are behind US so it’s fine, just read it!)
My 4 days factory adventure January 29, 2009
Posted by armina in dareberry.Tags: amazing people, factory, outside the confort zone, simplicity
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A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me if I could help her. She owns a translation agency and she needed a German-Romanian interpreter for a technical training. She didn’t know too many details, and I didn’t ask too many questions. I just said YES.
I liked the idea of a new experience and it was not a 100% unknown field, since i have done training interpretation many times before. So i just went for it:)
The short story is this: for 4 days i was interpreting a training about a precision welding machine. The high-tech of that machine fascinated me and the cold, the smell, the noise and the oily atmosphere from the production platform drove me crazy. I can say that now I know a lot about the latest technology in precision welding. I even know how to use that machine. I stood up and walked around the machine for 9 hours per day, dressed-up as if I was going on a mountain trip (and I still caught a cold).
The long story is this: I got to meet really nice people that were not very educated but had so much good-sense that not even a Ph. D. could overpass them. These guys were amazing – all they wanted to know was what they should do to do their job best. They were the most proactive participants i have ever seen in a training i have been in. They asked all the possible questions, trying to get as much know-how as possible in the flat price the training was delivered for. They were also very stubborn. They knew some English and insisted in making themselves understood instead of waiting for me to translate. The trainer was a really cool guy who happened to be from Frankfurt am Main – a town with tons of memories for me – so we went for a drink afterwords and exchanged some opinions about cars, cheese and the Romanian culture. I also learned a lot of technical terms (industry related) in German. The last day was the most amazing though: I woke up as usually and felt sick. I almost felt like not going but I thought I would push my limits. Again, the cold, the noise, the machine and its functions, and in the end i came back to town by bus not by train. I set by a very interesting lady. She was so simple and so amazingly interesting. She was working for that company since she finished high school and she had 3 kids one more wonderful than the other, and she kept talking about school, about the old times, about all sorts of things, and i kept listening. The trip is about 30 minutes. We got to town and we said good-bye, no names exchanged or anything…as if i was working in the factory since forever and we were going to see each other in the same bus again. This reminded me of my mother’s youth – she also used to work in a factory for about 20 years until she got sick and she retired. I almost felt like i lived a day of her life from about 10 years ago.
All in all it was amazing to connect with these simple people for whom family is so important, doing a good job is all that counts when at work, no matter the salary or the working conditions, and that huge “amount” of good-sense…
So, yes, i got a cold and a strange dizziness but it was a great experience.
My dareberry for today is: no matter how many years of school you have, or how many countries you have seen, or how much money you make or spend per month, try to meet simple people and let yourself charmed by them. They are not hard to find and listening to them is always a win-win.
Vegetation is good January 19, 2009
Posted by armina in dareberry.Tags: positiveenergy, vegetation
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Remember when in high school we were learning about beans’ growing? At biology, they would ask us to put a bean on a water soaked cotton piece and place it somewhere warm. After some days of waiting we would see an embryo. Those days of waiting were called vegetation.
In Romanian “vegetation” has a bad connotation – the same as “to be a parasite”, “to loose time” etc. Therefore…not useful.
But I am going to contradict the public opinion in this post. Actually this is my dareberry for today – “Vegetate and grow an embryo!”
The thing with vegetation is that the environment has to be suitable for that bean to grow an embryo at the end of that number of days. There are also beans that never grow an embryo, even with a suitable environment.
What I did, was to take 3 days away, put myself in a “boring” environment, where friends were only in the address book of my mobile, and they were staying there, get myself on a “no-news diet”, have the meals of my dreams (in my case low-fat, no pork kind of thing), find a familiar and comfy room and just lay there. I watched some movies, played some computer games, read something…in one word: “vegetation”.
Now vegetation is over and when I woke up today I felt different. It is also the subconscious “Monday, a good day for big things”, but sometimes this wasn’t enough. I grew a small plant:). I am full of energy and working enthusiastically on several projects thanks to the vegetation period. It helps clean your mind. Not, clear your mind, but literally clean your mind.
…or you might hate it so much that as Bomberman says “You can go outside and play now”, you will run away from anything like vegetation and do the extreme opposite, which is also great:).
Let’s get lost together January 16, 2009
Posted by armina in dareberry, thoughts.Tags: a kid's life, imagination gardener, life mission, thoughts
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A while ago i finished reading Brida by Coelho. I am not going to praise him – his writing style has good parts and bad parts…whatever. I liked the book a lot. Since then i am sort of under anesthesia. I regained a world i thought i lost – being able to write fantasy stories.
When i was in high school, i used to dream stories and the very next morning i would write them…it felt great and i felt special. not proud or arrogant, just glad i could write nice stories. In university my world crashed for a while (because of a guy) and i couldn’t write anymore (i couldn’t even smile for quite some time)…
It all started in secondary school…I had a literature teacher that made us learn by heart all commentaries for the books we should have read. I tried once to write my own opinion and she hated it so afterwords i just learned whatever she dictated. but no matter how much i would have learned she wouldn’t give more than 7 (out of 10). i disliked her but i tried to do my best in finding explanations for her behavior, finding excuses. In the end i just decided she was almost bald because of how mean she was.
When i got to high school, the first lesson with my literature teacher gave me the impression that this one was awful, too. And the hilarious part in this whole thing, is the fact that i probably have been reading more than all my colleagues together.
So my first moment of rebellion came. I used to be the kind of kid that is too serious for her age, that did all the homework and frightened guys who might have cared for her (i guess i still somehow intimidate guys). I decided that i will not make my homework and piss of the literature teacher. Nobody knew me, so why the hell not…so she asked me, and i stood up and told her i didn’t do my homework. She was pissed off but somehow she liked me. And this is how i started writing and discovered i was talented (at least back then…i have probably lost half of the skills i had…). She insisted that we don’t copy, learn by heart or sometimes even read other people’s commentaries until we have written down our own opinion about a book. So i did it…i started writing my own opinion about the books i read and…it seemed i got talent…
Then came university…i was craving to go for theater acting but did the rational thing…computer science because i didn’t have the guts to believe they could choose me in for a 18 students-class. It was not only the rational thing to go for computer science but also a responsible thing…i would have definitely been able to support myself after graduating. and it also had to do with a softer side…when i was a child i wanted to work for Disney to create those beautiful stories and the pretty animations. i thought computer science should have been the first step. how wrong…
Now is over…graduated 3 years ago. in the meantime i started and almost finished a masters, too. i don’t regret these choices. but i wonder what would have happened if i would have chosen, not computer science, not acting, but literature.
A few days ago i had a dream. It was amazing! i was in this unknown world, it seemed like i was in Zurich, but soo different. there were pretty women on the streets. i was with a guy who’s face i don’t remember, it was a guy i don’t know in the real life. we were walking on the street and more and more women, dressed like in the Indian traditional sari were coming from different directions hurrying in the same direction. We decided to follow them and find out what was happening, where were they going? so we go after them, and we end up at the lake. there were a bunch of colored guys there, dressed in African colorful costumes and dancing in a line near the lake. Most of the women were on the lake-side and one of them was throwing roses in the water. there were 3 ladies in the water…it seemed summer but it looked like they were freezing. one of them went down into the water to bring the drowning roses to the surface. the other two were helping her to catch her breath from time to time. we figured it out that the one that was saving the red roses from drowning, was the bride. there was no groom though…she had to save 3 roses and the damn roses couldn’t flout, and it was getting harder and harder to catch her breath between saving the roses. they were all happy and colorful and it was a majestic happening.
I should have been a literature teacher…though teacher is not the word i am looking for…i should have been the kind of dareberry that shows kids how to be creative, open-minded and unlimited…and still, i would love to be an “imagination gardener”…
are you lost with me yet?…i said “imagination gardener”:)
I used to rule the world November 24, 2008
Posted by armina in dareberry.Tags: coldplay, living life, masmerizing song, viva la vida
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The dareberry of the day is a song – you might have recognized one of the lines of this song in the title of this post.
Today i will do something i have never done before, i am going to dedicate this dareberry to someone. Mihail, this dareberry is for you:)
It’s a song i love and have been listening to it over and over again for weeks. I am masmarized!
There are so many meanings behind the lines of this song and though it speaks about falls and deceptions the orchestration feels so positive. I am talking about “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay.
Some say it is the story of the a painter who went through many tough things and once she painted a wall in her house and the painting was called “Viva la vida”, other say is about Louis XVI and the French revolution, which is also on the cover of Coldplay’s album, others say is about the fall of Napoleon, others say it’s about Bush, some others say it speaks about the fall of Christianity and how catholicism is not so appreciated as it used to be. Whatever the case, the lines are so full of meanings and for each person, each line might mean something else.
Even though i know quite some stuff about the French revolution and the history of Europe, and read a lot about religions, not so much about politics, for me this song has a special meaning, a particular one, that is valid only for me, and this is why i love this song so much.
Today’s dareberry is – listen to Viva la vida by Coldplay and figure out its meaning for yourself:)
The song:here
The lyrics:here
Opinions on the meanings: here
Viva la vida!
The “Burn out” or small batteries need to be recharged often November 13, 2008
Posted by armina in dareberry, thoughts.Tags: burn out, low batteries, low energy, mini-retirement
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that’s the dareberry of the day:)
it took me almost 3 weeks from the moment i thought “i need a break” until i actually decided and took action to take this break – i booked 5 days in Prague.
during these last 3 weeks my energy went so low that i got back pains, stomach problems, extremely low productivity (about 35% of the usual) and i started to loose patience with people and i needed much more time to process information and take decisions…all are symptoms of the “burn out disease”
during the last few years i realized that to function well, to have a healthy creativity and to be productive, i need 3-4 days off (maximum 5 days, otherwise it gets boring), away from everything (including Internet access), each 2.5-3 months. A client of mine calls these “mini-retirements”.
my advice for you and the dareberry of the day is this: find out your limit. how long do your batteries last and how long do they need to get recharged again? and …when you know the answer to this question, write it down someplace visible, so you will be able to SEE IT when your batteries are so low that you don’t even realize they are that low… when you get “burn out” you won’t be aware of it!
(it took me almost 3 weeks to realize what’s going on with me)
More on “Burn out” here.
hugs,
A.
Drive safe, stay alive! November 7, 2008
Posted by armina in dareberry, thoughts.Tags: car crash, drive safe, sadness, youth driving
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The dareberry of today is a bit connected to my fear of getting a driver’s license. I am almost 26 now and i love other means of transportation so much that i don’t feel like learning to drive a car. I am sure i can do it because every time i wanted something, i fought for it and i had it!
The issue is that i don’t feel like i want it. I know it’s useful, and since i will have a car in a few months it will be useful to have a driver’s license, but i don’t feel like it, so today i decided to stop torturing myself in putting me through the drivers’ school and enjoy the trains that i always loved.
In the same time, what triggered this post is a small video on safe driving and safe “car cruising” and so on. It’s horrible but very “impactfull” – smart guys…
So, here it is: Koenntest du damit leben?
I support the Romanian Free Hugs campaign October 28, 2008
Posted by armina in thoughts.Tags: affection, free hugs, lumebuna.ro, the soul of the world
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Starting from the fact that people nowadays have less and less time for affection and dedicate the most of their time to the “rat race”, these guys decided to help them “snap out of it” and mak ethem remember what energy and optimism can come from a simple hug, a free hug from people that care about the soul of this world. Go have one on 30th of October in most of the main cities in Romania.
If you want to find out more about Free Hugs around the world, check this.
Bravo!
Opened to changing everyday in every possible way… October 21, 2008
Posted by armina in dareberry, thoughts.Tags: change, freedom, life, living the present
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…is the key to living happily the present!
Today, between 14.36 and 15.00 i lived some moments of great happiness and i just felt like writing about them, so here it is:
Today i decided to take the train from Bucharest to Pitesti and not the bus like i usually do. One of the reasons i decided this, is that for me, the train, is the second best place to be in, on this planet (other reasons are the plus of comfort and the price). The first best place is on the mountains, just breathing and wondering how can it be that the snow is so white and the sun so pure, and the third best place is in a green field of grass with crickets around you, admiring the stars with some red wine beside, or…during the day, watching the clouds moving on the sky .
About the present: what can be more beautiful than being in a fast train, sitting on the sunny side, listening to a great song and brainstorming names for your new business idea? What can express more freedom than this? Space and time just vanish, every blood vessel feels the speed and Sennheiser gives you a special sound quality for Cranberries’ songs. Endorphins are in the air 
Who says that life sucks?
Such a bad quote…
A dareberry for unhappy girls October 15, 2008
Posted by armina in dareberry.Tags: boyfriends, freedom of self, personality, unhappy girls
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Accessory for your boyf’s schedule?
In the last few days i had the chance to go out more and this is where my “dareberry of the day” comes from – my latest bars experience 
I noticed, sadly, that in many cases girls come with the guys in the bars as accessories. They come as a “package”, then you see them around out for a soccer game – the guys cheer madly when the ball gets in the net and the girls smile and seem happy, too – even though they actually don’t give a damn about the game. Then i noticed sad, bored girls in “guys night out” type of thing…where the guys are there for the other guys actually, and the girls are there for what i call “show-off”, and then i wondered if the poor girls actually do something else with their time besides being beside him. Well, i doubt that, after all a day has only 24 hours!
So my dareberries for today are the following:
1. if you want to be happy, you have to learn to be happy on your own, to be the main character of your own schedule. If you are an accessory of his schedule when will you have time for yourself?
2. if you spend 24/7 of your time with him, he might take you for granted and actually get bored and find another – you should be a desert not the menu of the day…everyday!
3. listen to this and take it all from the begining enjoying the real YOU 
Tight hugs!
A.
