Experiment 2- Job well done or Adventurous Road-Trip?

I presume most of you know that I work in a training and management consulting company in Bucharest. We often have trainings or assignments outside Bucharest, all over the country.
Such was the case of my assignments earlier this week. Scheduled meeting in Timisoara on Monday and in Cluj on Tuesday. Due to get back to Sinaia for yet another training on Wednesday. And since the whole “tour” was over 1000 km long I decided for my personal comfort that I will rather take the train than drive. Departure: Monday morning 5:30AM.
My brother moved in to Bucharest on Sunday evening and, knowing that I can get plenty of sleep in the train, we chatted the whole night before I left for the railway station.
At 5:15AM, sitting at the ticket counter I got an answer that ignited my challenge for the day: “Sorry, the train is cancelled!”. (an: just to make sure, the evening before I had called the info desk at the railways to double-check if the train is still on and had received warm confirmations). I ask: “My next train?” “Leaves before noon and gets there in the evening.” Darn! Not good enough!
So there I was, facing yet again my best friend, the Unexpected. How could this still be made a good job? By going back home, taking my car and driving to Timisoara, Cluj and then Sinaia. I could have stopped here but something in me, stirred by the sight of the Unexpected, caught a glimpse of the multiple possibilities this happening triggered and made me ask myself: “Can I turn this into more than it already is? More than just a problem solved and a job well done?” guess what! The answer was and shall forever be, YES. There’s always more to it if you are willing to look beyond!
So I got home, took not only my car but my brother along as well and turned a seemingly tiring assignment into The Adventurous Road-Trip! Long chats while driving through the autumn-colored trees, exploring the cities, eating “local specialties” in the lively student campuses, telling stories of and about the places we’ve seen to my brother who was there for the first time, meeting Pode’s parents in Timisoara, seeing one dear friend, Lavi, in Cluj and sharing on fundamentals under the inspiring shade of an old, empire-style, monument. Moments. Beautiful seconds. Landscapes. Breath-taking colors. Adventures. Heart-beats. Connection. And a job well done included!
This is so much of my definition of freedom! The power to go beyond the obvious and live more, feel more, be more! The freedom I have in my job not only to do my tasks right but enhance the experience the way I want it. Yep, this is the kick-ass place to be in! And the life to live! For me. Reinvented. Daily. Adventurous forever.

Experiment 1- Tragedy vs. Comedy

Last week was one of the weirdest weeks in a long time. It all started on a Sunday afternoon. Both the week and the rain.

- So Sunday it starts raining; I think, “cool!”, autumn starts, this is beautifully romantic;
- Monday, keeps raining, terribly romantic still. Back home at 11PM I find my balcony flooded so I start “redecorating” both balcony and room. Finish at 1AM. Well, at least I’m satisfied with the redecoration work.
- Tuesday, still raining; Bucharest being flooded, I “swim” with Bumbee (my brave car) towards work; due departure for a series of trainings outside Bucharest at 7PM. 6PM, departure gets cancelled, client’s decision from HQ in Bucharest. Great! I quickly reinvest the time into too-long-postponed mails to my friends and educative net surfing.
- Wednesday, rain keeps pouring; at 9:15AM I get a phone call from the location we were supposed to have the training at; the key question is “where are we?”; everyone is in the training room waiting for us. Hm, painful reality check for the guy, we’re in Bucharest! Just another sample of beautifully designed communication within huge companies... Ups, did multinationals came to your mind as well? :P
- Thursday, yep, raining; important must-be-there meeting in the office at 9:30; I fail to wake-up before 9:00. Hectic useless rush. Traffic. I enter the office at 9:50. Lucky I, all is well. I join in. Upon finishing, brand new surprise: my laptop is dead. As in my LAPTOP is DEAD!!! No detectable causes, no diagnostic, no possible remedies for now. Painfully agonizing moment (when have I become so addicted to it?). In the midst of the agony I remember about having a business meeting that day. Now stop reading, get back to the first 3 phrases of the day. And picture this: hectic rush! Result? I was wearing jeans and a beautiful flower-filled sleeveless top. Great choice, wrong timing!
- Friday, never-ending rain; the seaside is flooded as well as many other regions in the south of Romania Everything around is, wet, wet, wet. I, with the laptop still dead (“monitor problems”, is being detected), adopt a Romanian-like creative idea of connecting it to another monitor. It works. And I feel like a poor version of Tom Cruise in Minority Report... at 4PM, I suddenly get sick. Very sick. Worse than anything from my sick-in-India log even. 10 mins later, Gabitza is holding me, one of my colleagues is massaging me and another is trying (through popular methods called “descantat”) to cast away the spell (or “deochi”) that she detects as having been placed on me “by an envious woman, for sure!”. Powerless, I surrender to all forms of treatments but ask Pode to get my car and take me home. But, breaking news, my car won’t start, battery dead. So much empathy Bumbee, but such a bad timing! Moments later, after going through a series of rituals, hard to understand but apparently deeply rooted into Romanian spell-extinction (“descantat”) tradition, I am declared cured of the “deochi”. I somehow feel better indeed. My car battery is being revived and Pode takes a trip round the area to charge it. He calls. He’s at the police station, light car accident, Bumbee has no marks but the other guy had insisted to declare the accident. At the police station they detect that the guy was driving drunk. Driving license suspended. And when you think he was the one who had insisted to go to the police... meanwhile, my laptop has a spectacular come back. Just like that. What a day! What a week!
- Saturday...raining; I enjoy my laptop resurrected from the terrible coma. Bumbee is safe, I feel well again. The week’s almost over. Weather forecasts say rain’s almost over too. All good. Again. I look back and laugh at myself. It might look like a tragic week but deep down I feel it like a comedy week. And realize again that it’s my positive outlook on things that drove me further. And that is part of the essence. As there are many times when we are not given a choice regarding the facts, the happenings that affect us. But we are always given the chance of choosing our attitude towards them. Of taking (or not) lessons out of it. My choice? Comedy rather than tragedy! Long live the laughter and the memory of funny, crazy weeks!
PS: btw, the million-point question stays: “who cast the spell (“deochi”) on me anyways?” :P :P :P or actually, never mind, it stopped raining anyway...

Intro or On the written word...

“The words [...] are very similar with the living beings, they are living beings. [...] The words are abstract plants and animals.[...] The tree lives in the open air. Its green lungs are in the open air but its roots are in the ground. The words have their roots in the human brain and then they are like the trees, they are plants. But then they head for the abstract sphere of the hearing where they live for a while. They fall asleep as written words only to wake up running in the spoken tongues. They are like the game, always chased by the shot of sight, by the explosion of the hearing. Decapitated by the guillotine of teeth, crushed by the closed mouth of the thinkers that refuse them the illusion of sound, always leaving them in pure abstraction.
And then they give up their state as an abstract animal and become again an abstract plant. [...]
The words and their world are powerful, they give birth to ideas. Only words give birth to ideas as they sum up the life experience of the world.” (Nichita Stanescu)
I have a deep respect for the written word. To such extent, that I have postponed restarting a blog since I came back from India, believing that my written words shall refuse to live up to my expectation. But here I am now, decided to step forth, beyond fear and into the world of the abstract beings. There’s no fear anymore. Just words that gradually sum up my life experiences and hopefully give birth to ideas, stirring bits of beauty within us.