A walk in the rain

A very capricious summer, this year, it seems. Days in which you can almost feel how you melt to the ground, days in which you need to wear a sweater so you won't get goose bumps, days with rain and wind storms, days with black clouds and days with blue skies, blend in the same weird but fascinating mix. Oh, and the nights with the moon and the stars illuminating the neighborhood, sometimes playing hide and seek behind clouds or just leaving us to the chilly rain drops.

It was such a night then... Trees from the sides of the road were shaking hands above us. The moonlight was barely making her way through the trembling leaves. Maybe you remember the place - I mentioned it in December. In the meantime it got green, so green that you could just stay there and listen to untold wind whispers. In the background, a buzzing symphony from the forest bugs orchestra was surrounding this almost unreal realm. It was all so natural that nothing could have been wrong.

We were walking on the way. Big words, small words, little secrets and hidden fears were flowing naturally, filling the distance between our steps.

It was later that I finally realized the forest buzz was all about calling the rain. And it came to bring us a breath of fresh air, it came to wash the way of our steps, it came to give the forest strength for the next unbearably hot day, it came to send the orchestra home to rest for a future representation of the same breath-taking show of nature.

We stopped for a few moments to enjoy this magnificent nature display. We looked up to the clouds and closed our eyes... Raindrops were flowing on our faces to clear out fears and concerns and leave hopes and dreams. We became one with the forest for few instances, enough to feel the nature's blessing and hear the orchestra once more...

All of a sudden, I saw a flash of light behind me, so I turned around to see what happened... I was staring at the thunder rain through the open window. A few moments of confusion; I climbed down the bed, closed the window, put a sweater on and got outside to take a walk in the rain.

The year's end. A new beginning

Today is the last day of 2009. A day when, usually, we draw the line and decide where we are, what were our accomplishments and if they match our expectations or not. We feel relieved about the year's end and a great deal of excitement for tomorrow's new beginning. A new year, a new time for our long desired achievements, new expectations and new plans will be on our minds. We're looking with hope into the future with great expectations and desire; a desire to right the wrong and to go beyond all barriers for reaching our goals.

It's going to be a wonderful year, isn't it?

Got snow?

After many years of cold but relatively dry winters, we finally have a snowy one in Bucharest. Of course, as usual, we are finding it very difficult to cope with extreme weather despite all officials' assurances and plans. Granted, it seems that, lately, we (as drivers) completely lose our skills when we do not have the sun over our heads - I remember rainy days in the middle of the summer when all junctions were blocked by cars, rendering the traffic to a full stop; and, in this case, it is not the officials who should take the blame but our incapacity to self-discipline during unfriendly weather conditions.

Yes, it is difficult to take a step back and breathe during these days, especially with our hot blood pumping through our veins. But, if we can ignore, for a couple of minutes, our daily routine and jams, we might learn that there still are lots of beautiful things around us and that nature has its ways of rewarding us.

I managed to take some pictures for your viewing pleasure. My cell does not have the best photo resolution in the world but I, at least, captured the feeling. Get a comfortable seat and enjoy...

I am doing it again

It seems that I am getting with blogging in the same area where I've already been with my previous one. I believed that having a fresh start will increase my desire to post much more frequently. Little was I aware that not desire is of the essence here, but time. I consider this an interesting surprise as it seems I am quite willing to write (although never thought of me as that).

But how do we deal with time? What is there to be done in order to be able to actually have time? And further on, for what, exactly?

Some of our contemporary professionals state that own time/free time is a must and that we should be able to make a clear distinction between spending time at work and spending time at home or for your own self. On the other side of the coin we have the new wave of time management professionals mentioning that in order to be able to understand our need for free time, we need to treat both sides together. While the idea of a distinct split is quite clear and resonant with most of us, this new wave time management approach seems more of a shock.

But what is it all about? Basically, this paradigm gravitates around one central idea: time is a resource that you need to allocate to several actions that you need to perform during a time frame. One example of this approach is to use your calendar tool and fill it in with your tasks according to the moment of the day when you need to take them: waking up at 06.30; preparation to leave home from 06.30 to 07.15; at 07.15 leave home and head out to take the kids to school until 07.50; left the kids at school and then go to the office: 07.50 - 08.30; morning coffee at the office and the first cigarette of the day: 08.30 - 09.00; from 09.00 to 09.30 read the off-hours incoming emails, update with the latest news and decide upon priorities you need to approach for the current day; 09.30 - 13.00 meetings or other job-related stuff; 13.00 - 14.00 lunch break; 14.00 - 18.00 other meetings and job tasks; 18.00 - 19.00 on the road to the cafeteria where you will meet your spouse; 19.00 - 20.30 cafeteria. I will probably stop here as only you know if there will be something else after the cafeteria... or not.

In the end, the truth is that there is no universal solution for this challenge; some might find that the first approach is always the best, while others might find that the second one is the Holy Grail; I'm assuming that this type of scheduling could work better in one of the Western European countries where the lunch break has 2-4 hours and it would make all the sense in the world to correctly plan that break as there would not be any time left after hours. Or better yet, a third category could easily find a compromise solution by combining the two to a certain extent.

There is only one thing I strongly believe in: fight against fragmentation with all means possible. We need to accept that our jobs have their routine part or some recurrent actions. Try to schedule your routine/recurrent tasks as much as possible in order to leave room for all your other tasks that might require imagination or creativity. And maybe this way you will be able to completely cut off work on your way home.

Scope

I have never looked at the blogging community open minded. I have to admit that I strongly believe this can be another toy or tool for a bigger interest. One that the blissfully ignorant eye cannot and will not see. Even so, this is another aspect of our contemporary life we're living. One that gets poorer by the day.

I learned to accept life as is, as de-facto, as a given something. Implicitly, I finally accept this concept and I accept that sometimes we just need to interact to discuss about life-wise situations and solutions.

I intend to discuss only about obvious yet ignored life happenings. We read about many things in books but how much do we really apply? How much remains after we read a book?