It's time to travel, it's time to go

As always, trapped between the temptations and the promises awaiting for me and the ones I'm leaving behind. There is no doubt about the perfect symmetry of my state of mind - I am sure that upon leaving Cuba I will be just as trapped as I am now, before leaving Warsaw. But growing older apparently does make us wiser - I am now wise enough to refrain from questioning my moods and my mixed feelings and from trying to put everything in order. I'm taking my mixed feelings and my confusions with me and I have no intention of solving any of my dilemmas while away from home.
The only certainty I have is weather-related and I am more than happy to leave the snow behind, looking forward to overdosing on sun and light. And dancing, but that goes without saying.

The unbearable blurriness of being

The underlying theme of the story of my trip to Elblag, where I ran away for the weekend to watch a dance competition, was the continuation of my "explore Poland like a backpacking hippie without actually looking like a backpacking hippie" plan. 

Even though I spent most of the time staring at the dance floor, taking pictures and recording the dances and updating my blog, I did have an hour to walk around the Old Town which supposedly is very pretty, not that I could tell because the fog was so dense I thought I was having eye problems again, luckily I knew I didn't because I'm fresh after seeing the eye doctor who said I was fine so it must have been the fog. There. Bottom line, it was foggy. So foggy you could see the fog coming at you. 

And here comes the best part of my explorations in cities about which I only have very limited knowledge. They somehow always manage to match my mood. I don't know how that happens and I'm not saying it's something that works as a general rule (I'm definitely less  gloomy than Polish weather is) but in key moments in my life or in new places in this country, there has almost always been a perfect match. 

The rather unpredictable near future in regards to which I'm quite optimistic but then again unpredictability has never been my favorite dish on the menu, the growing enthusiasm over the results of a very wise decision I took this summer and the perspectives it opens, a slight concern over the possibility of very unexpected, out-of-nowhere butterflies for which I don't have the time nor the energy yet for some reason they insist to stay, the upcoming trip to Cuba and all the mixed feelings emerging from it, they all add up and generate the confusion and fogginess in my head. I think chronic lack of sleep also helps. 

But just like the city's morning fog, which had nothing dark and depressing about it, the one in my head does not make me insecure, nor does it lower my spirits. There is a kind of relief in not seeing clearly, in projecting (great) expectations over the things to come, even in accepting the unexpected as a natural part of life, giving the type A control freak in me a well deserved break. Because beyond all of the above lies the certainty that things will become clear and settled once again. 

What makes Torun so cool

Except for the obvious attractions to be found in any guide (gingerbread included): it is probably the only town in Poland where you can meet really beautiful girls working with stained glass in a small shop hidden on a narrow street among other red brick buildings that look medieval and very inviting, going along perfectly with gingerbread (the town's trademark) and impossibly sweet wine. The entire town has a fairy tale feeling to it so I guess it's only natural for some of its inhabitants to look like princesses. 

It has unicorns! Makes sense if you think about the "once upon a time" atmosphere of the city so no surprises  here, but the unicorn fanatic in me just couldn't help an inner shout of joy at just how pretty this particular one was.

Also, it was a relief to discover that I have no more hidden talents. I think I'm done, at least for the time being, which is indeed good news, as I doubt I'd have had the time for anything that is not already included in my routine. But at least I tried and my rather unfortunate involvement with traditional art resulted in a ceramic chicken that looks like a duck with scales instead of feathers, a painted egg that I am too embarrassed to show, as it stands proof for just how shaky and not suited for drawing my hands are, and some wood scultpure that was very close to becoming finger sculpture. 

But at least I finally got my city break. And a huge pack of books from les parents so there will be no more complaining for a while. I'm pretty sure about it.

City break

I think I'm down with the lack-of-holiday disease because I keep having dreams about suitcases, packing and cake. Two months left and I'm off to Cuba again but something tells me I might have trouble waiting that long and I'm fidgety and eager to go somewhere even for a few days just to hang out without having about 5 to do lists and a list that organizes my to do lists. I need a city break. Like last year's trip to Krakow: fresh fruit, books and nice people, I'm really not that demanding. 

And speaking of travel and Poland, I came across this text I wrote three or four years ago about Warsaw, back in the days when it was not home, but my number one tourist destination, and I thought I'd share. 

13

This is not at all how I imagined my comeback. But a while ago a very wise friend of mine told me that he knew I was happy and serene because the blog was so quiet and apparently people tend to write more when they are sad and nostalgic. I wasn't sure I agreed with him, but I guess he did have a point because the past two days have been anything but happy and serene and here I am, back to writing.

On the 13th of August, El Santino was stolen and - the horror! - he was stolen from my block, where he was safely fastened and quietly waiting to take me to dance practice. As if this wasn't enough, gone were my wonderful red dance shoes and my panther dress. 

Luckily my dance partner was around and somehow managed to prevent a nervous breakdown, which inevitably took place a few hours later, while we were at the police station, waiting for someone to pay attention to us or to pretend to be doing their job. I don't know why, maybe because it was late, maybe because nobody cares about stolen bikes worth 50 euros, there are probably countless reasons why I had to deal with the most incompetent policeman I have ever met. Not that I met so many, but this guy was beyond all jokes and folklore about policemen. Not only did he not know that Romania was part of the EU, he looked at my passport and claimed he couldn't read Cyrillic, he could not handle simple calculations and was unbelievably rude, but in the end it turned out he could not even spell right. He kept asking if I could speak Polish and if I understood what he was saying and then printed out the statement he had written which was so full of mistakes it would have made a 10 year-old blush. And then he sent me home, telling me to go look for my bike on the Internet, maybe someone will eventually sell it or check out the flea market on Sunday and call the police if I find anything. 

I'm pretty sure El Santino is gone for good and no matter how heartbreaking this is I have to accept facts. 

To the one who dared touch him and take him away, with his pretty basket and his Cuban registration plate, I hope La Regla de Ocha comes biting your ass without you ever knowing what hit you, I hope you find out his brakes were broken only when it's too late and most of all I hope you never ever in your life experience what a good compañero he was. And whoever tries dancing in my perfect Latin shoes, I hope you won't even do the basic right.

As for me, I'm lucky enough to have good friends who are willing to give up their plans in order to go shopping on a cold and rainy and moody day. And so, I am pleased to present Santiago: 

The Polish-Russian war

It is a well-known fact that in Romania the media have a soft spot for drama and exaggeration. Sometimes when reading the morning news I have to double check with family & friends back home to make sure that the country is not on the brink of extinction or civil war. 

In Poland, however, the media are far more reserved and less dramatic, that is until the Russians and their football team are factored into editorial decisions. Then all sanity goes out the window and suddenly we are dealing with a Polish-Russian war, occupation, nationalism, historical grievance and some wounds that are too recent to close. Yes, both Poland and Russia have some hardcore fans, battles in the streets are not uncommon during the domestic season and incidents have been reported since the beginning of Euro 2012 in some Polish cities. Still, that doesn't really count as a war, and chances are, talking about it and making such a fuss will only add fuel to the fire and transform football into a pretext for other issues that don't necessarily have much in common with it. 

Earlier today, having overdosed on stories and editorials on the most ardent topic of the day, I went out to get coffee and had to fight my way through massive crowds of overweight men eating kebab and drinking beer, with their bellies exposed in the mild Warsaw sun, probably getting ready to go to war. I'd say accuracy is crucial in times like these. 

Which reminds me: Tango 12. No matter how much I liked football (this month), I have some major objections to mixing tango into it. Even if it is a tribute to the World Cup in 1978, organized in Argentina. Even if it is faster, rounder and more resistant than any other official ball. Apparently the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation has the explanation: "It's a great ball. It's got a special name, Tango. It's the dance of a couple and has a great connection to football". All it takes to make the war complete is an army of semioticians, and even then I'd still have my doubts about the symbolic meaning of tango in the complex and elaborate structures of football.

Adidas Tango 12

P.S. Who didn't see this coming?

And did anybody see this coming?

Euro 2012: first weekend in Warsaw

I've never been much of a sports fan and sport events have not exactly ranked high on my "to do" / "to see" lists. Not even when faced with my obvious obsession with dancesport, which I have always labeled as art rather than sport, despite all evidence that points otherwise.

But every two years I get into this football frenzy which I can't really explain or fully understand, not that I'm making any effort in this direction. I just sit down and enjoy, occasionally wondering how is it possible that something I am not normally interested in keeps me focused for an hour and a half.  

Obviously I got really excited over Euro 2012 taking place in Poland and I was looking forward to seeing Warsaw go through a major makeover, becoming loud, colorful, wrapped up in a bubble of energy, the kind of energy that's only perceptible when mass events are spiced up with competitive tension.

What happened on the day of the opening match resembled a ritual performed by the book, following all rules and etiquette from flawless organization to massive mobilization, dress codes, slogans and face paint. This is in fact one of the things I admire most about Poland and Polish people, their ability to get together and support any cause as long as it's a matter of Polish pride. All of Europe was watching, so they had to display a sea of white and red outfits, supporting their team and making the name Lewandowski probably the most uttered word in Poland for one night. To put it in my words, it looked like a perfectly executed choreography, with great technique but no sparks or feeling, and even though from an objective point of view I have to admit they were praiseworthy, the subjective indicators of a good performance were far below my expectations. I remember the matches I saw in Croatia in the main square in Zagreb, the nights out in Bucharest when our schedules revolved around football even though Romania wasn't even playing or the surreal match between Czech Republic and Turkey in 2008, which I watched with C. in a small pub in Brno where I swear the roof was about to collapse from all the screaming and jumping and somehow I expected Warsaw to be ten times better and that's probably why I was so disappointed. Because in the end it all looked like yet another pretext to get senselessly drunk and lie on the sidewalk in the otherwise very posh and exquisite Foksal street which after the opening night smelled like a gigantic open-air toilet.

Then on Saturday the city was back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened, as if people had come out of their houses for an impeccable white-red performance and returned to their lives the next day, oblivious to any other games, results or teams, the only thing that reminded there was something going on were the helicopters and the few Portuguese fans cheering for their team in the pubs that did bother to turn on their TVs. By Sunday I could have easily said that Friday night never happened, as if I was so eager to witness a football championship in my city that I hallucinated one. And if I didn't, then I surely did project all these unreal expectations over it, but that is just another proof that I never learn anything from my previous experiences and never seem to remember that note to self that says "stop expecting things to look the way you thought they would". 

And if the music is good, you dance

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how dancing came to play such an important part in my life and how it managed to change so many things for the better. If I were to draw the line now and sum up the benefits of almost two years of dancing, I'd have to place on top of my list the fact that I became more aware of my femininity and I stopped trying to pretend it was a non-issue. It's a major issue, it looks good and it feels good and it makes me happy. I became more intuitive and figured out a thing or two about dealing with people, not having the same expectations and demands from everybody, giving back just as much as I receive. No need to get too involved with people who aren't going to get involved with me. It might sound self-contradictory, but while dancing has helped me become more tolerant and made me see the bright side of everything, it has also  made me more demanding and has given me a good dose of assertiveness and forwardness that does wonders not just on the dancefloor, but in life as well. Ballroom has taught me to trust people, focus, smile more and stay positive, something no shrink and no pills have managed earlier. 

The other day I found another confirmation of all my conclusions, surprisingly enough while watching The Simpsons (not South Park) over morning coffee: apparently, the part of the brain responsible for learning dance steps is also responsible for anger. Studies show that people who can do the foxtrot are less likely to commit a double homicide. Which is probably pretty much what I'd feel like doing right now if it weren't for my countless hours of trainings and practice, so I can only be grateful for all those hip twists, promenades and turns as the most efficient means of fighting stress, anxiety and of course deadlines. 

How Google killed the buzz

The other night over cocktails a friend of mine told me about this guy she had seen at a party just a few days ago. She spoke with that very specific mix of enthusiasm and uneasiness that most of us have when talking about someone we think we might like, yet know absolutely nothing about. That is, until we start looking for information. In less than ten minutes she sent over all the links I needed in order to have a clear image about the guy's career, experience, projects and agenda. And his girlfriend. My friend's enthusiasm was suddenly silenced. 

Then I remembered a few months ago I had gone through a similar episode on a rather dull Monday evening. I was on my way to the grocery store when I spotted the new dance and ballet school just a few hundred meters from my apartment and decided to take a detour and see what it was all about. Had this been a movie, I would have probably gotten the idea post-shopping and would have taken a short and intense trip in the world of ballet carrying a watermelon (if this doesn't ring a bell, it's probably been quite a while since you watched this). But I gave in to my curiosity. In less than five minutes, I had managed to spark with a person who was pretty close to what I had been looking for but hadn't realised it: ballet dancer, world traveler, probably at least bilingual and, as it turned out later, lead dancer for the Polish National Opera and most likely married, but I only found that out after calling Ana and blabbering about men in tights. It didn't take Google too long to kill the butterflies in my stomach and my enthusiasm over the new dance teacher in the neighbourhood - because this time it was not just about dancing, it was also about liking someone I would have probably discovered at a later point was out of reach, but that later point would have happened a lot later if not for my conditional reflex and for the easiness to find out absolutely everything there is to be found out.

Back in highschool I could spend weeks without even knowing the name of my newest crush and then get all girly and blushy and quakey when we finally spoke, there were countless questions filling my head and I'd get an adrenaline rush every time I found out something so unimportant as where he usually goes for beer, how he likes his coffee, the name of his dog, the bus he takes every morning or the books he borrowed from the library the week before. 

Back then it was a lot easier to daydream about men because fiction was the only filler for the gaps that appeared in our brains every time we had a new guy in sight, until we actually got the data that gave us a complete picture. Now it's pretty sure we're able to find out more than we actually need about most guys we meet, be it the bartender from the pub around the corner, the Starbucks guy who makes the best vanilla latte in Warsaw, a new dance partner or just someone randomly met on a Saturday night. Some might say this spares us a lot of trouble, but I'm really not sure I want to be spared the trouble of daydreaming and putting a bit more effort into finding out things that I'm practically offered prepacked with just a few clicks. And trying to control the impulse of searching all this information is more difficult than it appears, cutting Google out of my life is much riskier than letting him cut out some potential new prospects. 

My one and only resolution

Happy New Year!

I spent most of my day reading some wonderful posts, skimming through the books I carried with me after a short and lovely trip back home, drinking coffee and thinking about my resolutions for 2012. 

I'm a natural born planner and a bit of a control freak, with just a hint of neurosis - I like lists, excel tables, deadlines (I take comfort in knowing they're there, even though I hardly ever meet them), agendas, getting things done and planning ahead. I have a rather clear picture of what my priorities are this year, of my main goals and objectives and the steps I need to take in order to achieve them and I'm quite satisfied knowing it's all written down, accompanied by a well defined timeline. 

Aside from my many plans, I only have one resolution this year: learn to keep my mouth shut.

Playing cool in Bucharest

Short, intense and very educative. This is the best way to sum my trip to Bucharest just two weeks ago.

When I had almost come to terms with the idea that my job was just as much a source of stress as of financial stability, I was pleasantly surprised to see things have changed for the better. Apparently all it takes to make a good impression on people who never gave you a chance is a lot of self confidence, some experience, a hint of diplomacy and of course a few really smart outfits.

All in all it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. In fact, it was completely different form all the other trips I took to Bucharest ever since I got this job and was shipped off to Warsaw 2 years ago. This time it was tear free and almost stress free, with just enough time to meet the parents & friends and even explore the city. A week into my Shakespeare obsession, having asked the parents to bring over The Complete Works, there could be no better time to discover this:

Two Macbeths and one Hamlet later, I had the key to calm & serenity: if I can't always do only what I like, I can at least try to be more positive about the things I have to do and focus on the present, while planning a few things for the future but without living in the future entirely.

Sure, it's quite a comfortable situation, because I know now that at least the near future looks very, very bright and being patient will totally pay off.

Slight alterations

Inspired by the recent tourist invasion I seem to have finally managed to lighten up. Might be the sun, too, or maybe the first effects of the smartest decision I took this summer. Don't really know and for the first time in ages don't really care because I'm currently taking a break from questioning my every move and my every mood. The world does not come to an end if once in a while I procrastinate, don't plan everything in the tiniest detail, leave the house without make up, let things happen instead of making them happen. There's nothing wrong with a little change of rhythm, at least for a while, and with taking a few deep breaths instead of running around as if training for a marathon. I'm pretty sure my old habits will be back in no time, but until then I don't mind putting a few things on hold and taking it easy.

A comparative note

Last night, Iva and I stopped for a beer in one of the unbelievably crowded pubs on Warsaw's Krakowskie Przedmiescie. It took us ages to get near the bar, gliding past a compact crowd of guys screaming and cheering in front of the TV and another good half an hour to catch the attention of the bartenders, because they were all very busy watching some fight.

Then I remembered that ever since I started dancing one of the things I kept hearing from most of my male friends was that ballroom dancing is really, really gay. I bet that the majority of the guys gathered in front of the TV yesterday was of the same opinion and yet they were the ones staring at two half-naked and sweaty men lying on top of each other. Frankly, I don't really care what these manly, rugged, two-fisted men have to say about dancing - guys who do dance know just how manly the rumba or the tango can be, but I still find it really funny.

Let's compare and contrast.

Supposedly, this is gay:

And this is manly:

Am I the only one who sees the incongruity?

City on the edge of forever

Remember that South Park episode when the boys relive landmark moments in their lives while the school bus is teetering on the edge of a cliff?

Although in a less dramatic situation, I've been having quite a lot of flashbacks lately, for no apparent reason. And where there's no reason, there's obviously room for speculation.

The other day I was talking to a fellow expat who told me that while he did miss his country and his friends and the things they did together, he had no flashbacks because Warsaw did not remind him at all of his hometown in Portugal. In my case, it's not so much a matter of Warsaw triggering memories of Romania, I think my brain has reached a stage where it would have the exact same reactions in any other city.

A sunset on a Friday takes me back to Bucharest on one of those early evenings when the air smells like spring and endless possibilities. I walk the streets of Warsaw and suddenly remember the long walks I used to take with my Gran on Sunday mornings, the smell of lilac reminds me of my orange room back at my parents’ place, I hear Cohen while shopping for dance shoes and suddenly waltz is the last thing on my mind, as I find myself daydreaming about Vama Veche, drinking coffee in the sand with salt on my lips and sand in my hair. Walking back home from work I'm reminded, again for no apparent reason, unless the sight of a white fluffy cat counts, of the nights spent with A. pretending to be studying for our exam in linguistics while actually watching movies about the fall of communism and planning to do some serious writing about it.

So here's my theory: if it's true what they say and love does indeed last three years, then my love story with Poland is about to come to an end. Exit passion, enter a more domestic-friendly feeling of settling down. Very home-like. And that, of course, brings back memories of the other place that has functioned in a similar way a few years back. And it's exactly at this point that I feel like making a change. Much like in all other aspects of my life, when it starts feeling too comfortable I feel an impetuous need to try out something new. (In other line of thought, that’s why dancing might be something I’ll be doing for a long time from now on, because it is far from feeling comfortable, and as I'm writing this my body is still recovering after today's rumba). I'm well aware there are still a lot of things to do in Poland, so many options to be explored and discovered and enjoyed to the fullest and that's one of the reasons why I'm not packing my bags yet. But I can't help but wonder if I could start over in a completely different setting. And just for how long can this game be played before it becomes boring, or tiresome, or both.

And then spring came

And smoking was once again allowed in bars - actually, still outside of them, only in the past few days it went back to being a guilty pleasure next to morning coffee rather than a sneaky tool aimed at singling out smokers as a lower species whose sole purpose was to be despised by the passers-by. Warsaw became colorful and sunny and multilingual, street artists went back to work and fruit started tasting like fruit again. And so my mild depression or whatever it was that prevented me from being me, making me perpetually sad and discontent and disoriented has started to slowly fade away. It finally left room for other activities, more pleasant than hiding under the covers, hating people and starting all my sentences with "no".

Although it's still a long way to full recovery and my happy moods, at least I can see the levels of grumpiness and negativity diminishing and that is enough of a reassurance for the time being.

And so, I am pleased to announce my new project - a chronicle of my dancing, my struggles to figure out all those spins and turns and muscle coordination, partnerwork, dance related events and competitions and of course a step-by-step recording of this year's highlight, my trip to Cuba in search of rumba: My Everything Is Perfect.

Translations gone wrong

Mine. And other people's.

Mine have once again managed to mess up my life, as if they had a will of their own. As if every now and then, mostly when things are looking normal and calm, a new translation comes to life to remind me I am getting dangerously close to the deadline. And so I panic. Which on the one hand is good because it adds up to the quality of my work - or maybe not? I couldn't tell, since not a single translation has been done without the stress factor. Oddly enough, even though I almost never finish my translations on time, I can't imagine life without them and there's nothing I'd give them up for. It just gets a little messy when I have to mix them with my day job. And my dance school. And the new salsa school, the diploma paper, the trip and its million little details, Portuguese lessons, social life and the Uni. Maxi thinks I have a schedule busy beyond sanity. I sometimes think she's right, some other times I think she's overreacting.

Luckily in my case a translation gone wrong means a month or two of hysteria, less sleep than usual and a hint of nostalgia when the process is over. When translation goes wrong and there's a brand involved then proportions change, campaigns fail and entire markets are disillusioned. Let it never be said that a translator's job is easy and of little relevance. Examples follow, as this was actually the purpose of my whiny digression:

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux in the US: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux"

Coors beer in Spain: "Turn it loose" translated as "You will suffer from diarrhoea"

Frank Perdue's chicken in Spain: "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" translated as "It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate"

Pepsi in Taiwan: "Come alive with the Pepsi generation" translated as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead"

(source: Matt Haig, Brand Failures)

And that brings me to the last order of business on today's agenda - I was about to make an attempt at translating from Portuguese a very funny post about a phenomenon we are currently dealing with in Poland, namely cinnamon hysteria. It's only obvious why I changed my mind, but you might want to give it a try, especially if wherever you go you are offered products that smel and taste like cinnamon simply because it's winter (luckily Warsaw looks like early autumn and smells like city dirt, which is definitely not what we might call a typical Polish winter and it's just another perfect reason to postpone some more and take El Santino out for a ride). Anyway, here's the cinnamon paranoia, I'm off to find some more excuses.

Strategic planning

Last year was the first time I made New Year's resolutions and surprisingly enough I even managed to keep them. Might have been beginner's luck or it may be that keeping resolutions is not that hard but whatever it was made me think I could take things to the next level this year.

Not only do I have resolutions, I have a plan, a bibliography and a dress. It's for the first time ever that I have a vision rather than a somewhat blurry image of the whole year, the agenda is already set, there's almost no room for anything else because all the details have to be taken care of and I'm just looking forward to it. I'm excited, enthusiastic and convinced that this is one of the smartest, boldest and most creative plans I've ever had.

When dancing meets research in a faraway land, the outcome can only be fabulous.

Frivolities of the past

We exchanged earrings in B52 one Sunday morning over Cuba Libre and so began the most outdoor romantic involvement in my life. The setting couldn't have been more appropriate: Bucharest in spring, when the air smells like rain but there's not a cloud in sight, countless parks and gardens and hidden terraces. It was pure bliss while it lasted, but by the end of May it was more than obvious that it couldn't last much longer. It felt as if there were no words left to say, as if we he said them all. We broke up on my birthday and all I remember from that last time we met is my green silk scarf, the awkwardness of the moment, his hand holding mine on the way to the bus stop and the ladybird.

Perhaps the timing wasn't right or we were too young or spring simply isn't the best season for me when it comes to matters of the heart. Then summer came and even though it wasn't a summer to remember, like the incredibly long, hot and eventful summer of 2001, it is safe to assume that it was probably the fastest way to full recovery.

Every once in a while all the stuffed animals, jewelry, vinyl discs, dried flowers, souvenirs collected from flea markets and other trifles, traces of more or less disastruous relationships, end up in a box that spends a few weeks under my bed and eventually vanishes into oblivion. I only keep books, because fiction tends to take a life of its own shortly after it ends up on my shelf, no matter how it ends up there. If it's good, it stays. Luckily, most of the men in my life had very good taste in literature.

The ladybird is the only present I kept over the years. At first because I couldn't let go, later because I kept wondering what it could have been like, under different circumstances, with better timing and lately because it became a much needed reminder of those innocent and amazing years when things only seemed complicated but were in fact simple, honest and unproblematic.

Illuminations

This has definitely been on of the most intense weekends in a long time. A little old school, reminding me of the days when I could function with very little or no sleep and lots of activities. I was very happy to discover I could still do that, although I quickly understood it was all very deceiving and that the difference between early twenties and mid twenties lies in the effects of sleepless nights.

But apparently lack of sleep can be illuminating. Or at least it was in this particular case. That and the fact that I have some really smart friends :)

• I finally understood what Bilus meant when speaking about "the path with a heart". I knew I was walking on mine the minute I stopped wondering "what if", when I settled down and looked at all my projects and understood what was worth keeping and what I was ready to let go. The path with a heart is the one that gives you butterflies every morning because you wake up and you know you're going to take a few more steps on that path and it instantly brightens up your day.
• In the academic world, the more Eastern European you are, it is expected of you to research your own culture. Ana made a very good point while we were debating the paper I'm currently researching for my studies: no one will have anything against a research conducted in Latin America by a person coming from Western Europe, but they will find it strange if a Romanian does it, and it's equally true for students coming from other less known countries. The fact that I'm studying gender roles in the history of Latin dance seems to have provoked a mild dissatisfaction at the Uni, simply because Romanian culture appears to be very exotic and, truth be told, little known in Poland, so everybody expected me to be writing about it. It's this type of labeling that bothers the hell out of me because it makes people miss the big picture. In this case, my coordinator saw my nationality first and my fabulous research came second, which means I have to work twice as hard to convince him - and not because my idea was not good enough, but rather because it did not match his expectations, built simply on some information he had about me before we even met.
• Speaking of cultural exchange and peculiarities of different cultures, there's one thing that I could not get used to in Poland, even though I've been systematically exposed to the phenomenon and I was everybody's favorite bartender for a year: what's with the whole excessive drinking thing? Just when I was about to stop asking questions and take things as they are, I had an edifying talk with Karolina (she's Polish, btw) while we were out celebrating the first anniversary of Nowy Wspanialy Swiat, one of Warsaw's hot-spots: it is wrong and not normal to be happy when we meet guys who only drink every so often. This drinking issue should not be the first thing to come to our minds when meeting someone new, but unfortunately it does and it seems to be increasingly difficult to find guys who can handle their liquor.
• Went to see Herta Muller and was really, really disappointed. Mostly because I wasted two hours getting bored and trying to figure out an elegant way to leave the meeting. Monica summed it up perfectly: if the meeting organized in Bucharest was a circus, this felt like a trip to a museum where you're not allowed to touch, take pictures, ask questions but instead you get very dull explanations. It was not the first time I got extremely bored at such a meeting and I don't know if the organizers are to blame or if it's best to just let writers do their thing and not ask them to perform on stage - they're often less remarkable than their books. At some point, I fell asleep for a few seconds and the only reason why I didn't sleep until the end was that I didn't want to damage my hair because I was going dancing. Turns out my partner and I still have lead & follow issues, which is not exactly surprising but it can be very annoying because it made us waste valuable dancing time arguing. Now I'm pretty sure one of us will resort to murder sooner or later.

It's the first time since I moved to Poland that I'm not depressed in November. True, it's only been a week, but something tells me I might be safe this time.

Work in progress and a hint of neurosis

Sometimes, dancing can lead to drama in the blink of an eye. Last week's trainings almost led to murder. So today, when I met Karolina to add the final touches to my dress, I began to wonder if the black tulle should serve its initial purpose and be transformed into a flounce that will make underarm turns look even more fabulous than they normally do, or if I should just wear it as a veil and, while still in mourning, start looking for another partner.

Either way, the dress is a thing of beauty and I can't wait for our first dance. This might be the reason why I won't resort to any drastic measures, at least not in the foreseeable future.