…paint the sky…

Why do I love Romania?

For it is the country I was born in and I know that deep inside there is a reason why I was born here and nowhere else.

Now I live in Krakow and I feel at home here but it hurts inside when I think of the family and friends back home… Home!… home… this is a strange notion as home is where your heart is and if your heart is shattered in a miliion pieces in a million places than your home is everywhere … and nowhere… Anyway, funny part is that everywhere I go I feel allright but in some places I really feel home like

That is how I ended up here… in Poland… In Krakow… Home away from home!

Today is the 1st of December… Romanian National Day… I was thinking of this and looking on all of the romanians updates on facebook saying happy bday or posting picture profiles with the national flag… but… do we really believe in that? would you actually fight and die for your country?… I dunno… just food for thought!

La multi ani Romania!… La multi ani!

So here we are…

After 3 months of living in krakow, coming back home… How does it feel like? I can’t really tell but I can tell you my first feeling after stepping out of the airplane: FRUSTRATION . My polish friends would ask: “Dlacego?” (Why?)…

Well… let us consider this: Bucharest is the capital of Romania and Otopeni is a International Airport. Let us consider the fact that I am a foreign person, coming to Romania for the first time. What do I find at 1:30 a.m. open at this airport?! Only the exchange offices!!! What happens if I wanna buy a…. let us say… Orange phone card with a Romanian number? Hahaha… funny!!! No freacking way you can do that :/ everything is closed.

Anyway… taking a cab is more funny… if you dare to say something in english while speaking to someone on the phone they will obviously think you are foreign and they will try to screw you up… “Lady, can I take you somewhere? (honking horn from the cab, like that will impress me…) Lady need a lift?” The funny thing is when you say back in romanian that you need no help )) anyway, even more funny is when you try to “gamble” how much you are willing to give to them to get you to the place you wanna go… Normaly I would pay to get to my friend maximum 30 RON. Of course, they think me foreign, or stupid, so they aare like “lady, I shall make you a discount and we can go for 50 RON” )) niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice try

Getting from Bucharest is even more fun of course the best option is by train, although it takes a shitload of time, and if – God forbid! – you are landing after 12 in the midnight and you wanna get to Iasi, you have no option until 6 a.m. NONE!!! :/ now that is nice, is it not?!

Thank God if you have friends in Bucharest, I tell you!!! I do! and I love them! Love you Helenz and Dima :* I am waiting for you guys in the spring :*

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

by John Keats

Bright Star Soundtrack

Chopin is at the piano, quite oblivious of the fact that anyone is listening. He embarks on a sort of casual improvisation, then stops. ‘Go on, go on,’ exclaims Delacroix, ‘That’s not the end!’ ‘It’s not even a beginning. Nothing will come … nothing but reflections, shadows, shapes that won’t stay fixed. I’m trying to find the right colour, but I can’t even get the form …’ ‘You won’t find the one without the other,’ says Delacroix, ‘and both will come together.’ ‘What if I find nothing but moonlight?’ ‘Then you will have found the reflection of a reflection.’ The idea seems to please the divine artist. He begins again, without seeming to, so uncertain is the shape. Gradually quiet colours begin to show, corresponding to the suave modulations sounding in our ears. Suddenly the note of blue sings out, and the night is all around us, azure and transparent. Light clouds take on fantastic shapes and fill the sky. They gather about the moon which casts upon them great opalescent discs, and wakes the sleeping colours. We dream of a summer night, and sit there waiting for the song of the nightingale …

I just feel weird, and yet I feel the need to write about something… I just can’t put a finger upon what exactly…

I feel cold and I can’t find what exactly I need – how do you actually know what you need?

The weather outside is just plain… against me! I want to have a walk in the park and relax… and breathe the fresh air… but the wind!!! gah!!!

Anyway, today’s pick is:

The Corrs – The Hardest Day

Storyline

A new Disc Jockey is shipped from Crete to Vietnam to bring humor to Armed Forces Radio. He turns the studio on it’s ear and becomes wildly popular with the troops but runs afoul of the middle management who think he isn’t G.I. enough. While he is off the air, he tries to meet Vietnamese especially girls, and begins to have brushes with the real war that never appears on the radio. Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

Good Morning, Vietnam is a 1987 American comedy-drama film set in Saigon during the Vietnam War, based on the career of Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams), a disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS), who proves hugely popular with the troops serving in South Vietnam, but infuriates his superiors with what they call his “irreverent tendency.” The film was written by Mitch Markowitz and directed by Barry Levinson.

Most of Williams’ humorous radio broadcasts were improvised.^[1] Williams was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The film is number 100 on “AFI’s 100 Years…100 Laughs”

Plot

In 1965, Airman Second Class Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams), of the United States Air Force, arrives in Saigon from Crete to work as a DJ for the Armed Forces Radio Service. Cronauer’s irreverence contrasts sharply with many staff members and soon rouses the ire of two of his superiors, Second Lieutenant Steven Hauk (Bruno Kirby) and Sergeant Major Dickerson (J. T. Walsh). Hauk adheres to strict Army guidelines in terms of humor and music programming, while Dickerson is annoyed by Cronauer’s behavior in general. However, Brigadier General Taylor (Noble Willingham) and the other DJs quickly grow to like the new man and his brand of comedy. Cronauer is also befriended by Private Edward Garlick (Forest Whitaker). Cronauer’s show consists of unpredictable humor segments mixed with news updates (vetted by the station censors) and rock and roll records that are frowned upon by his superiors. Hauk finds nothing funny about any of it and tries, without success, to get him to change his approach.

Cronauer meets Trinh (Chintara Sukapatana), a Vietnamese girl, and follows her to an English class. Bribing the teacher to let him take over the job, Cronauer starts instructing the students in the use of American slang. Once class is dismissed, he tries to talk to Trinh but is stopped by her brother Tuan, who tells him to leave her alone. Instead, Cronauer befriends Tuan and takes him to Jimmy Wah’s, the local G.I. bar, to have drinks with Garlick and the station staff. Two other soldiers, angered at Tuan’s presence, start a fight with the group that rapidly escalates into a full-scale brawl.

Dickerson reprimands Cronauer for this incident, but the broadcasts and unorthodox English classes go on as usual. Impressed with the DJ’s behavior, Tuan sets him up on a date with Trinh, with the rest of the family chaperoning them. While relaxing in Jimmy Wah’s one afternoon, he is pulled outside by Tuan moments before the building explodes, killing two soldiers and leaving Cronauer badly shaken. The cause of the explosion is determined to be a bomb planted inside; the news is censored, but he locks himself in the studio and reports it anyway. Dickerson cuts off the broadcast signal in mid-report and Cronauer is suspended. Hauk takes over his time slots, but his poor attempts at comedy and insistence on playing polka music, instead of rock and roll, lead to a flood of letters and phone calls from servicemen who demand that Hauk be removed and that Cronauer be put back on the air.

In the meantime, Cronauer spends most of his time drinking and trying to pursue a relationship with Trinh, only to be rebuffed at every attempt. Taylor intervenes on his behalf, ordering Hauk to reinstate him, but Cronauer refuses to go back to work when Garlick brings him the news. He now fears that Dickerson will send him to the front lines if he does anything else wrong. During a traffic jam, Garlick and Cronauer’s vehicle is stopped by a convoy of soldiers; the GIs persuade him to do an impromptu “broadcast” for them, giving them a good laugh before they go off to fight. The performance for the troops – many of whom Cronauer realizes won’t come back alive – renews his sense of purpose and reminds him why his job is important during the war, and he is soon back on the air.

Dickerson devises a ploy to get rid of Cronauer by sending him and Garlick to interview soldiers in the field – knowing that the only road into this particular area is controlled by the Viet Cong. Their jeep is blown off the road, and they are forced to hide from the V-C patrols. Back in Saigon, Tuan learns of their trip after Cronauer fails to show up for English class, then steals a van and drives off after them. He finds them, but the van breaks down and they must flag down an Army helicopter to take them back to the city.

At the station, a gleeful Dickerson confronts Cronauer, declaring he is now off the air for good. His friend “Tuan” is actually Phan Duc To, a VC operative responsible for the bombing of Jimmy Wah’s. He will be killed if the Army catches up to him. Dickerson has arranged for an honorable discharge, provided Cronauer leaves quietly. Brigadier General Taylor arrives, and informs Cronauer that he cannot help this time; a US Armed Forces member being friends with a Vietcong could be a serious PR problem for the Army. Once Cronauer has left, however, Taylor informs Dickerson that he is being transferred to Guam as punishment for his vindictive attitude.

Cronauer finds Trinh and persuades her to take him to her brother. Calling out his real name, he chases him into a back lot, where the boy angrily accuses Cronauer and the American forces of being the real enemy in this war and killing most of his family. He then slips away.

The next day, on his way to the airport, Cronauer sets up a quick softball game with the students from his English class. Trinh thanks him for warning her about the danger her brother was in. As he boards the plane, he gives Garlick a taped farewell message; Garlick – taking Cronauer’s place as DJ – plays the tape on the air the next morning. It begins with a yell of “Go-o-o-o-o-o-o-dbye, Vietnam!” and runs through a few of Cronauer’s impressions before ending with his wish that everyone will get home safely.

The movie is truly a hit and Robin Williams deserves the Golden Globe for his performance. He showed once more that he is a great actor and knows exactly when to improvise and how to do it… What can I say?! He has style!

Here is the wonderful soundtrack – each song is like a candy / a welll deserved treat that makes the movie even more entertaining

Soundtrack

Overall the movie is simply wonderful and must be watched – IT IS A MUST!!! Robin Williams does his magic well on the screen and knows how to make you laugh but at the same time make you feel the horrors of the war and the suffering involved. MY favorite part is when the soundtrack kicks in with “A wonderful world” by Louis Armstrong and shows a paralel between the beautiful culture in Vietnam and the war that is going on…

The world is wonderful yet we so want to kill everything that is pure in it…

Post-encephalitic Parkinsonism is a disease believed to be caused by a viral illness, that triggers degeneration of the nerve cells in the substantia nigra. Overall, this degeneration leads to clinical Parkinsonism and the disease is followed by encephalitis lethargica, a condition also referred as Von Economo’s encephalitis. Historically, in 1918, an epidemic of the “sleepy-disease” occurred, related to an influenza pandemic; however, even with the use of modern molecular diagnostic tests on appropriate corpses, no firm link between encephalitis lethargica with influenza has been made.

The brain regions affected contain neurofibrillary tangles, similar to those seen in Alzheimer’s disease. Nevertheless, the senile plaques common in Alzheimer’s disease are not found.

Cultural references

The film Awakenings (starring Robin Williams and Robert de Niro) and its respective book based on genuine cases reported by Oliver Sacks deal with sensitive and largely accurate topics relating to this disease. The state of the art in treatment remains roughly the same as it was at the time of the events depicted, the 1960s, although patients with post-encephalitic Parkinsonism lose benefit from their medication far faster than do patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Storyline

A new doctor finds himself with a ward full of comatose patients. He is disturbed by them and the fact that they have been comatose for decades with no hope of any cure. When he finds a possible chemical cure he gets permission to try it on one of them. When the first patient awakes, he is now an adult having gone into a coma in his early teens. The film then delights in the new awareness of the patients and then on the reactions of their relatives to the changes in the newly awakened. Written by John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>

Rated 7.6 out of 10 on IMDB

“Human spirit is more powerful than any drug…”

This is a movie based on a true story. The biggest awakening happened  in ’69 in a clinic in Bronx.

The movie is absolutely breathtaking and moving and the effort is considerably placed on the shoulders of both Robert de Niro and Robin Wiliams – and somehow I would tend to say that more on Robert. You can really see he studied how the persons with Parkinson act – how they move and try to express themselves and also their tics and mecanism.

I see this movie as a movie about trust and about life and how one should live it and not remain a rock. The human spirit is the only one that can be free. Your body might be crippled and you might not be able to move but still you do have the feelings and the sound and your mind that is there… waiting for the awakening…

I cannot imagine and I dare not imagine their life… not being able to speak their mind and not being able to do anything themselves, but in the same time having their minds perfectly ok… being able to hear but not to speak… being unable to share their emotions in any way…

How long can you take this and still remain a sane person? How long can you keep your spirit locked up in a cage? or is it trapped really in a cage or do they have the possibility to go elsewhere and find their peace at last?…

And then…if it is true and the human spirit is the most powerful… more powerful than a drug, than how come we cannot cure ourselfs? Do we not belive in us? Does not believing in oneself takes us further away from the cure? If we place our trust in other persons hands – the doctor, for example – does that mean that we refuse being cured? does that mean we deny ourselfs? Where does my trust go then?…

Placebo effect does show us that trust can cure. Why can we not trust ourself?…

My first song studied and learned on the tin whistle is “Amazing Grace”
Right now I can sing it pretty much ok but still under study
Yes… yesterday noon… at almost 2 p.m. I managed to sing it all without looking at the notes
Me proud!!!

That is really hard to say in a few words, as this “fever” started so very long ago, when I was just a little girl

A few days ago I wanted to write a post about St. Patrick’s Day (the 17th of March)- the international day of Ireland and the most green-ish celebration of the whole year 

I do think it is very hard not to love the Irish people, when you come to think of all the great things they have given us

Let us try to point just a few:

1) the best views – the greenest – in the entire world

2) the best black beer in the world: Guinness

3) the best red beer in the world: Kilkenny

4) their wonderful spirit and gorgeous stories with leprechauns, fairies and other magical little creatures

5) their astonishing tap dancing

6) their “out of this world” music and magical instruments (like the tin whistle and the bodhrán)

7) mysterious and un-earthly places (like the Giant’s Causeway)

the Book of Kells ( about which I told you previously, when I presented you the movie “The Secret of the Kells” )

9) Dublin – just read “The Dubliners” by James Joyce

not to mention that:

The Irish traditional music  and dance  has seen a recent surge in popularity, not least through the phenomenon of Riverdance, a theatrical performance of Irish traditional dancing. In the middle years of the 20th century, as Irish society was modernising, traditional music fell out of favour, especially in urban areas. During the 1960s, inspired by the American folk music movement, there was a revival of interest in Irish traditional music led by groups such as The Dubliners, The Chieftains, Emmet Spiceland, The Wolfe Tones, the Clancy Brothers, Sweeney’s Men and individuals like Seán Ó Riada and Christy Moore.

Groups and musicians including Horslips, Van Morrison and Thin Lizzy incorporated elements of traditional music into contemporary rock music and, during the 1970s and 1980s, the distinction between traditional and rock musicians became blurred, with many individuals regularly crossing over between these styles of playing. This trend can be seen more recently in the work of artists like Enya, The Saw Doctors, The Corrs, Sinéad O’Connor, Clannad, The Cranberries, Black 47 and The Pogues among others.

And now… tell me…

Who would not love the Irish?

… made me take a wild step – as I am not that great on musical skills…

A good friend was going to Great Britain and as I tried for years to find a place to buy tin whistles in Romania and had no chance, I asked her to buy one… from the source so to say

And thus… my new friend, “Tess” was born

This is how my new tin whistle looks like and Lia just brought me it. Currently trying to learn “Amazing Grace” – it seems that is the easiest song Wish me luck!!!

Also… Happy b-day for the 1st of March!