My new fav dance song.
And a tip for being able to listen on repeat (as I so annoyingly do): replace youtube with youtuberepeat in the song URL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w ==> http://www.youtuberepeat.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w
More than a year ago something happened that changed me. 13th of December 2008. It was the day that my cousin died. I’ve been thinking about that day a lot lately. Somehow I avoided it until recently. You ignore it and hope it will go away.
It wasn’t only the fact that he died when he was only 33 years old, but the way he died. He committed suicide.
My cousin and I were very close when we were little, like I was with almost all my cousins. In our family these bonds are very important and my cousins were always my best friends while I was growing up.
He was 6 years older than me, the oldest of us all. We were enjoying so much hanging out with him as he always had all these interesting things to tell and teach us. And he always had plans and dreams … of what he was going to do with his life…
He was the person who first taught me how to ride a bike. I remember how scared I was that day. He held the bike at all times while I was riding. After a while I got used to it and he was only holding just the side of the chair until, without me knowing it, he let me cycle alone. I managed to ride the bike without any help for exactly 10 seconds until I realized I didn’t have any support. And went straight into a bush 
He was always joking and seemed to be the most stubborn and strong person you could imagine. I just cannot figure out how someone like that would be able to commit suicide. I thought that people who were choosing to do that must have been very weak. And he definitely wasn’t. He was also a very religious person and since the church is strongly against suicide, his act came more as a shock.
Lately I read a lot about depression and suicide and people who had to deal with this.
The reality is that depression is a very serious disease which is not taken seriously. In most cases people fit depression into the same category as a simple cold or flu. Something that is not serious and that will go away when the weather outside gets better. But without professional help, it rarely does, it almost never does. It isn’t something you can just snap out of by your own will. Without help it becomes deeper and deeper and although to the people around it might look like the person affected by it is getting better, he’s actually trying more and more to hide it. The depression that leads to suicide is characterized by deep despair and hopelessness for a very long time… So that the only way out seems to be death. The best article I found on depression is this one: http://helpguide.org/mental/depression_signs_types_diagnosis_treatment.htm
It helped me understand that this wasn’t something that he really wanted. It was just the disease. And the fact that this happened to him who was one of the strongest persons I knew, could only mean that this disease like any other disease can affect anyone and it’s not a shame to accept it and seek help.
Although I understand now what he went through, the pain doesn’t go away no matter how much I would read and understand over the subject. For the family and friends it’s even more difficult when someone dies by committing suicide. Besides the pain suffered over the loss, the feeling of guiltiness makes it worse. When something like this happens to someone close to you, you cannot not wonder “What if I..” Somehow, with his death, the despair and hopelessness has been transmitted to his friends and family … During the first months after, my heart was pounding every time I heard my phone ringing. I became more sensitive to all kinds of news. I wanted to put an end to my long distance relationship as soon as possible and spend all my time with my husband not only the few days a month we had before. I also considered many times to move back to Romania so that I could be as close as possible to my parents and sister.
It’s hard dealing with the death of someone close to you especially when it happened in a very very tragic way. This kind of event just makes you realize how powerless we are… But I think it would be a mistake to accept the powerless and surrender yourself to despair and depression... No matter how much we cannot control life and death, I think the best you can do is live your life in the best way you can … Do whatever you want whenever you like, break as many rules as possible and don’t be afraid.
After his death, we wanted to do something that would help us remember him not only through our own memories. I knew he was writing poems and we tried to look for them and publish them but unfortunately they couldn’t be recovered. Maybe this is a reason why I started my own journal blog. Because I would have loved to have a journal of V. to read right now.
Miss you V.
We are spending our honeymoon in US – East and West coast. It is my fourth visit to US but the first one with my husband. We landed in New York and spent a couple of days there and then flew to Las Vegas and West coast. We’ve been in the US for about 10 days now and I think we’ve seen quite a sample of people while visiting the main cities on the east and west coast.
For me, 80% of the Americans look about the same, no matter if they’re woman or man. There is a certain limit of weight you can put on after which you just cannot look too much like your old self. You start to resemble another kind of people and lose most of your distinct face characteristics. That’s like 80% of the Americans no matter the skin color or gender. And then there is the other 20% of people who are probably expats, New York or LA people.
Every time I see one of the “weight challenged” Americans I cannot stop making the association in my head with all those fat people from Wall-E. Here’s what I am talking about…
And here’s an image of an American.
Can you spot the difference?
The California highways are full of commercials with numbers you can call for a lose weight program and the irony is that the people they use as models in those ads aren’t very lean either. The weight problem it’s so out of control that now an overweight person becomes a model. Most of the Americans are probably morbidly obese already. And that’s in California where I thought people should eat healthier (with all the sea food options and all…)
I think that’s one of the reasons I like Europe (Denmark especially) more. I love my organic low fat milk and cereals in the morning (I think I never ate so many eggs per day in my whole life –a normal omelet is made of 3 eggs here!), no junk sauce salads and organic fresh veggies and meat. US has a LOT of good points about it but food seems to not be one of them…
Continuing my research on that…
Which one is more important?
I got to thinking about this especially while analyzing my wedding preparations and all the vendors I had to deal with. I know vendor might sound like a harsh word in Romanian, but this is the term used in English. In all the cases here I was the customer.
But I’ve also been in the other situation while designing clothes for my friends. So I think I kind of understand both ends.
I’m not gonna bore you with all the details, I’ll just write down my conclusion.
It is evident that the main judge of the end result is the client. He has to like the outcome because he commissioned it, he’s paying. And the artist/vendor, especially if he is at the beginning of his business, besides getting paid, he also gets to building a portfolio so he actually gets a great deal out of all this. So if the client really knows what he wants, then he needs to get that.
I was just discussing this with some friends the other days and we came to the conclusion that the greatest vendor of all is the one that doesn’t care that much about his vision/style or at least it doesn’t shove it into the client’s face: “Oh I can’t do this hairstyle/dress like you want it cause it’s not my style”. A great professional would be one who before beginning his work would try to figure out what the clients want and who they are. Would be one who didn’t give you any trouble during the preparations and at the end you would see that he read your mind.
I experienced this with my wedding decoration vendors. I had absolutely no push back from them, they listened to everything I wanted (I actually had a clear vision of what I wanted :) ) and at the end they surprised me.Everything was just like I imagined it or even better: like they’ve read my mind. They didn’t come with any claims about their vision, their style; their style could have very subtle been seen into my vision, but my vision was what mattered to them. And yes, because they were so great, I am going to work with them again and recommend them to others.
From the vendor’s point of view, I could say that I wouldn’t be able to accept a request from a friend who came to me and asked me to make her a very classic office suit. These kind of clothes are not really my style, at least not yet, so I am going to say “no” from the start. But after I accept a commission from anyone, then I am going to make sure I’m designing her what she wanted or if the client doesn’t know exactly what she wants, then I’m going to try to figure her out and see what would fit her best.
Glam glam!
My friend Dana is a very talented artist and she just opened her shop on etsy. For my wedding she gave me as a present one of her paintings. I love it so much.
Check out her shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/danapopa
Glam glam!
