Music makes the people come together

Having been quite busy lately, I haven't got much time to get back on the blog. To fill up the gap, I'm publishing this quickly-made video just to show you what's been on my mind - I agree, I need a break! In my spare time I've been practising on my new guitar, it feels so good to "be back". So my thoughts went back to highschool times - hence the need to present you this Spanish classical guitar song, sung by me and my ex guitar professor.  Enjoy! PS: the audio is pretty bad cause it's registered with an old mp3 player, and I have to admit that the video is not that good either...

Only

If eyes were only lens,

Rubbish would be only rubbish

Death would mean only absence

Birthdays would be only regular days in the calendar

History would mean only the past.


If eyes were only lens,

Admiring would mean only observing

Joy would be replaced by efficiency

Friends would be only constant presences

In our lives.

Layers of history

Don't put too much weight on my previous thoughts about work (although I do mean to say what I've just said)..."Roma è Roma", and living here can be as if you lived in a small bottle which contains the essence of the entire South-European history...My heart feels overwhelmed everytime I walk on the streets which are (almost literally) full of history. There is Viale del Muro Torto, where they say they used to bury the prostitutes who didn't deserve to be buried under the sacred land of the Catholic Church. There are buildings who have undergone so many alterations, that you can actually see a layer coming after another one, belonging to a different age...And there you are, a new person in the middle of an old city; a transitory presence in an everlasting world.

Why work can make us ugly - Part II

During the past 2 working days I have thought about why do I feel like this about work and how can I better explain this and, to my surprise, no great answer has come up to me yet. However, this feeling has sticked to me and for the moment I can only get rid of it during lunch breaks, over a cup of coffee with some colleague.
This should not get me worried, since all the other work colleagues who are more or less in the same position as I am keep complaining about something. I could resume that it is either an organisational problem of the company, or an issue which pertains to the current occupational difficulties of young graduates.
Hmm...as I said, no great answer has come up to me yet. I still think that this is my problem (or at least in my selfish point of view, I want to see it this way because I can only focus on my issues), since all the others seem so enthusiastic about their status and they try to feel more important by adjusting their tone of voice or their "busy look". Maybe I'm just not cut out for this and I can feel happy only when I am nurturing myself with great dreams about future horizons, etc. Whenever I reach the most-wanted horizon, I feel unsatisfied and I feel the need to go further.
Today, on my way back home a driving nun gave me way to pass and smiled very warmly from the back of the car window. Her smile seemed so hearty and open, I wonder if that smile was her true nature, or simply a smile generated by her nunlikeness.

Why work can make us ugly

So, I've started my new job almost 6 weeks ago. I was so eager about it and happy to stop wasting my time and my youth on doing nothing, and now finally the change has come. I can be the protagonist of my own career, I interact with people daily and I can even go to work by foot, which is a gift from heaven in a large city like Rome. I am even lucky to have found a good job with good perspectives, and all this after only one week of job hunting.
This is not meant to be a complain, nor is it a pessimistic thought. You might think (and you are probably right) that this is a personal battle between Raluca-child and Raluca-grown-up. And in this moment, Raluca-child is definitely winning.
In my attempt to explain how I feel, I could only be satisfied by this statement: work makes us ugly. I'm not able to perfectly defend this "thesis", but I simply have the impression every day that regular schedules are fastening our growing old and that, in almost every type of work, there is a boring part which tends to form our brain according to certain patterns which are totally wrong and  harmful on the long term. So when I say ugly, I think I mean with no brightness and deprived of our youthful ideals. Luckily, I haven't got that far yet and I will hold on to my ideals, I think that even Raluca the grown-up will. But I still don't get why people get suddenly jealous in the work environment, why some act as rivals even when there is no competition at all and why we have to always write down the "bla bla", even if it's become a given fact by now. I will think of this tomorrow at work and hopefully come up with some soothing answers.

New life, new me?

We keep talking about intercultural competences acquired through workshops and seminars, but in the end it's either yo have it, or you don't. Who taught the poor immigrant women who are looking after an old person in a foreign country what a cultural shock is and how can you manage it? Which are the levels of intercultural sensitivity and how can you become more tolerant toward others?
I remember having met on an Italian train two Romanian women who had come to Italy a few years before. Once they discovered I was Romanian, they started to reveal me their secrets. "I love preparing pesto for the woman I'm working for, but when she turns her back I always add more basil and olive oil. She has no idea about this, but she goes crazy about it!" I could see in her eyes that she simply loved it.
Of course, many things lay behind this happy image. Living abroad means having to deal with the lack of your family and friends; beside openness, it even involves the possibility that your openness might change you into a somehow different person. At the beginning, it all looks so fascinating and you feel that you've always wanted your life to be like that. Finally, you have reached your goal: new friends, new job, new food... Then, something belonging to your inner culture, that you most probably hated before, starts to yell for new attention. And you find yourself missing the things that you couldn't even bear when you were at home. Surpassing this moment cannot be taught. That's why when someone asks me how come I don't miss home, I don't know what to answer. I do miss home, a lot, but I'm just too curious to give up at all the lovely possibilities that await me.

Redescovering the old with new eyes

Music speaks all the languages

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Please, don't ruin my Europe!

Some may think of Europe as the recently-created European Union: a dangerous instrument led by political and economical interests, which keeps getting more and more control over our lives. Europe might be connected by some people to the bureaucratic "old continent" where progress happens, but not as fast as across the ocean. It might have the oldest universities in the world, but research work is not sufficiently granted and mobility is still a privilege for most of its students. Europe is slow, Europe is old-fashioned, Europe is falsely democratic...
While all these might be partially true, I love my continent and I love being a European. I have explored many European countries and I think there is no place in the world (perhaps only the Amazonian forest) where diversity  is as tangible as it is on the "old continent". In the range of some hundred of kilometres, everything can change, starting with language and religion and ending with toilet bowls or customs of giving toasts. If you go to the South, you will find large families eating and chatting around the table for hours and hours. Heading to the North, you will face people having quick dinners and lazing in front of a beer afterwards, somewhere in a pub. While Western Europe has always been the engine of the continent, the Eastern part has had to cope with the consequences of the devilish plans secretly developed by Europe's biggest powers. Now, we, young people of Europe, have left the past behind and are heading towards a Europe were diversity is lived. Diversity is desired and worshiped and Eastern Europeans are eager to head to the Western Europe, while the latter are exploring the remaining relics of the East with the eyes of an enthusiastic tourist. The traditions of another country can now be discovered in only one weekend-holiday, while the most recent tendencies in travelling include full immersion holidays, where people can directly experience national customs. Music and food are part of this experience, and their local origins are important ingredients for a successful recipe.
Our lovely Europe is based on the tomatoes coming from the gardens of the countrymen and on the overwhelming diversity of the ways we drink coffee or beer. I am happy to live in Europe because I know I will never get bored with her. She is like a perfect companion who knows how to party but who gets serious when necessary. She knows how to cook but she can adapt to so many types of food. She prays in a variety of languages to different gods and yet is independent and highly competitive. She has sunny hair of sand and blue eyes, like the sea, in the summertime but she can hide her white skin and warm smile under an umbrella during the rainy winter days. Most of all, she doesn't want to be a typical girl just like her other competitors. She is special because she doesn't want to change her way of being because she has her own ideals. These ideals include a high-quality life where traditions, health or culture are still big points on the agenda. For all these reasons, I'm asking : Please, don't steal away my Europe!

Photography - an easy art?

I had just arrived at a folkloristic Portuguese "festa", in a lovely piazza with a lot of cafés and a nice caractheristic church. On that special occasion, a very representative music group started to sing on the sweet rhythm of the Portuguese guitar and it seemed exactly the same music with the same voices I used to listen to on my CDs. Only that this time it was live, right there in front of me, with women wearing colourful traditional costumes and men dressed in black, with big hats and long moustaches. Of course it was a memorable view; so I was truly enjoying it, trying to grasp some words and to understand what was it all about.
However, I was continously disturbed by the flashes coming from all directions. Paying a closer attention, I saw that almost everyone was taking so many photos of the event, without even listening the music. I actually saw a group of three people who arrived in that place, surprisingly faced the music group and then this man gave his bag to the woman in the group and started taking photos desperately.
It just seems all so weird. Photography has become more than a tangible proof or a sweet memory, it is something we all like to do. Everyone is trying his best shots and thinks that his angle is the best, only because it captures something that the others will never understand. Well, it is most certainly true, since everyone has a unique view over the world, but do we actually have to name this art? There is a huge difference between artistic photography and a quick shot of an event, but the line is not so definite since there are so many people with a common artistic passion: photography. When have we all become artists only by pushing a button?
I have to admit that I have also taken some photos of that folkloristic event, mostly to have a memory of that night, but also with artistic claims. After having taken a photography course at the university, quite a lot of people have appreciated my shots so I now keep it like a hidden passion. I realise though that I generally keep to myself a passion which is commonly popular among others, falsely thinking that my way of living this passion is unique only because it is not shared or spread like others' hobbies. I remember going crazy for Guns'n'Roses' song Don't cry in the tenth grade, but I've secretely kept this fact only because there was this girl who was desperately yelling for it everytime we heard it at a party. My selfish thought pushed me to believe that I liked the song in a much more profound way than she did. 
Nonetheless, I still hope that it won't happen the same way with photography. While it is one of the most accesible forms of art - quick results, easy and available for almost everyone - we have to make a difference between a simple shot, an incomprehensible picture (that oh, we fools, do not understand) and a photography which acutally has a meaning.

About the language issue

After I came from a great intercultural exchange in the Basque Country (Spain) where I heard people speaking both in Spain and it Basque (no idea where does this language come from), I went back home - in Portugal - by train. This train crosses the entire Spain and reaches Portugal in about 9 hours. As soon as you get out of Spain, all the staff on the train switches from Spanish to Portugal, as if they  had a 6th sense which tells them when to do so. The thing is that, when I was just about to arrive at my final destination and I was preparing to get off the train, I fainted. Just out of the blue, I felt unbearably sick. I remember a lot of people gazing at me desperately and asking me - in Portuguese, of course - how did I feel. Since I was too sick to articulate any word in Portuguese, I spontaneously babbled some words in Italian. Luckily, there was a girl on that train who spoke Italian.
The doctors knocked some sense into me so I started to communicate again in Portuguese, but when the doctors from the emergency room started to quickly ask me a lot of details, I switched to English. And that made the entire process easy and smooth. Afterwards, I surprisingly found out that the assistant who was doing my blood analysis had immigrated to Portugal 3 years ago: she came from Romania. So I talked in Romanian with her and it felt nice.
I payed the bus driver in Portuguese. I talked to my parents in Romanian. I contacted my boyfriend and I told him what had happened in Italian. I started writing my graduation paper in French, after having read some articles in Spanish. And now I'm writing in English.
Today, no one is being stopped to think globally. People ask me in which language do I think. I answer them that I rarely think in Romanian, because it always depends on the situation. No one forces you to stay fixed in your inherited values, customs or ways of thinking for all your life. Of course, that doesn't mean that you have to renegate your original culture just because you want to change. What I do think is great nowadays is that we are given enough knowledge in order to better adapt to new environments, to prepare ourselves for this intercultural world.

2 ancient empires in confrontation

One can tell that Portugal used to be a big colonializing empire once he has taken a look at a common Portuguese bathroom. An important mark of this ex-expansionistic power is the word they use to describe the generally-known toilet: "casa da banho". Yes, it's not just a room where you flush the water, it's a "house" with all the necessary equipment for the personal hygiene.
Let's just face it: if we were to compare Portugal to France, you would say the latter is far more "civilised". We can simply think about what French people eat or drink and the demonstration would end here. But the result wouldn't be the same if we compared their bathrooms.
I remember a very controversial group talk about the once great French invention, the bidet, and its failure in its own birth country. The etymology of the word comes from what it used to mean "pony" in French, and this explains why the "bidet" is ridden just like a pony. Gradually, our conversation turned intercultural and even partially conflictual, since the Italians couldn't understand why French people gave up their precious and clever invention, while the French side was amazed that the "bidet" was still used in Italy, and even by young people! The worse part is that France not only eliminated the "bidet", but it also switched to what could be considered an enemy of human hygiene: W.C. in one room, washbasin in another one. Their explanation, as serious as it might be, cannot stand in front of the basic hygiene rule that tells you to always wash your hands after having gone to the toilet. If this is your situation and the bathroom is occupied, French people will tell you that you're supposed to wash your  hands in the kitchen sink. Please tell me that all French houses have dish washers!
Here comes the end of my demonstration. Portugal's glorius historical past is reflected by the composition of their bathrooms, fully equipped with water closed, washbasin, bathtub and bidet, all in the same room. Of course, the amazingly-cheap and delicious coffee helps too.

On the road again...

Not that I haven't been on the road lately, but this time I'm taking my companion with me, again. Hopefully he'll be more talkative than I am and tell you more about what I'm going to see, feel, taste, capture in this promising adventure. The inspiring muse: Portugal.