Another Account of my Daily Life

It's 22h here and I think that it's 14h at Mom's, probably with lots of sun and warmth and whatnots. I think of my workmates (still workmates? Former workmates?) all tucked nicely in the glass tower with stupid and inapropiate air conditioning and the newest addendum to the office life. Slivers of information filter down to me and I feel somewhat relieved at being able not to call that "my reality".

My reality has been taking more shape today, or shall I say more definitive shapes, as today an important part of the moving was done: we went to Ikea and bought our furniture. Okay, granted, not all the pieces, but the main pieces: There's a bed (more like a sofa that opens to a bed), a shelve unit, a mirrored closet, an armoir, nightstands, a dining table... but there are things that still need to be bought (and we'll do a little without using old pieces while we find the perfect ones), such as the desks, the couches and chairs for the dining table. It was my first time buying furniture at Ikea, so the whole concept does was a bit strange to me, with several rooms worth of furniture set in flat carton boxes with codes.

I'm showing you quickly some of the pictures of the furniture we've bought, but as they were showed in the store. However, since Blogger is against vertical photography, please feel free to twist your necks to see the picture as it should be.

This would be the nightstand.

This white shelve unit will be our shelve unit. 

I eliminated the glass doors on the shelves to the right and added an extra 80x200 cm of shelves.

In here you see basically our sofa-bed, the nightstand and the shelves on top of it.

We've got only two shelves, and those go over the desks... as soon as we have the desks.

In here notice the armoir or credence. (The one under the mirror)

There's a matter of storage space we need to address and this was perfect!

And this would be our table.

Didn't got to the chairs, but I want also white chairs.

Yes, all of the white, as I plan to paint the walls brown, specially since I've managed to work on the stiff resistance that my boyfriend put to my fabulous idea. It's also amusing how a half Latin, like myself - for that's what I am - gets such a Skandinavian environment. All of the furniture comes in decidedly Skandinavian names, like Sven, and Erik, and Valter and Hemnes... It's like they would murder you any time and set a tattooed girl to investigate you or a fucked up lawyer girl with a scar on the lip and a big police detective with a softspot for cats.

Personally I don't mind the lack of tropical flavor and quite enjoy the vikingish style, truth to be told, only I never really imagined this is how it would be. Then again, what can you expect when you pull your whole decoration from Ikea? (Then again I've seen homes furnished entirely from Ikea looking like a refugee campsite.)

The advance for the framing of the pictures was arranged, and then I worked some errands online, fixing the things so that the furniture could be bought without any problem, paying some bills and stuff like that.

I'm here, setting my life in motion, living where I always dreamed to live (though not exactly in the same arrondisement, but I'm getting to that), looking for a job and hoping for the best, and it seems the best is coming my way. ^_^

Kicking the Start

Another day of my life, my new life. This thing about getting your life started, all this "blank slate" and what-not... it's not really as all cool anf fun as you would think it is, particularly not in a place across the planet, and I freaking know this place! 

The moving was supposed to get started today, but it kinda didn't go that way. My boyfriend had plenty of things to do, and I also managed a few things of my own, like getting my pictures framed. No, they haven't been framed yet, but I've found myself a place where I can get them framed, and the lady was so nice and so adorable to me, that she expressed how much she loved the pictures I've brought (it seems she's also a big fan of Mucha), and was delighted with my pick for frames: white. She expressed concern about the color of the walls, and I was honest. I told her our walls are currently white, but I inted to paint them brown, and so all our furniture is white and so the frames need to be white to pop up nicely. This made her giddy. She must absolutely see a picture of this when I'm done! So many people in Hungary are to terribly conservative about decoration and fear to make bold statements! Truth to be told, I don't consider chocolate walls to be any sort of bold statement, as brown is basically a muted, neutral, earthy color.

We discussed the pictures, the frames and the accompanying "passepartout". The Mucha pictures (two of them) will get a sweet chocolate passepartout, while my dear Chat Noir will receive a black one. The frames are all equal and all white. In the case of the Chat Noir it might seem strange, but as we set the frame sample and the passepartout, the contrast was so magnificent it was amazing! On a white wall, the frame would ghost over the picture while the passepartout - as in the Mucha pictures - will give you the feeling that that is indeed the frame. On a chocolate wall, however, the white frame will nearly float in space making a visual statement without ever overpowering the picture itself - as it has been my intention.

It never ceases to amaze me how people often choose massive frames for certain pictures that are not so well done, or not so big, ignoring entirely the fact that this way the attention shifts from the painting or pifture itself to the frame. Large, golden or silvery, massive pieces end up coming out terribly tasteless and a clear statement that owner or the person ordering the piece does think that money or the appearance of money is the one thing defining taste.

The job won't be inexpensive, but it's well worth it to finally see my pictures framed and hanging on the wall of my home. The pictures will be done - Hyne willing - by Thursday, and if things go as planned, then by Thursday we'll be halfway ready in the moving - and at least all our furniture will be at home, and hopefully an important part of it will be assembled.

I also did another not-quite-inxpensive purchase. I met today with Jules for lunch and some getting up-to-date with each other - I totally love that guy! He's such a sweetheart! - and as usual, we met at a certain place we always meet, and where there's a quite important Evangelical Church. Lutheran actually, I believe. Well, ever since the happenings of yesterday, I've decided I'll "arm up" myself for "biblical" defense - though there's no need really, to defend myself from a religious or church-point of view when I'm okay with God and the rest of the world can do what they want about their own opinion of Him - and for that I happen to need a Bible. I do have one, which was given to me by my grandmother some 24 years ago or so, and that's currently in Costa Rica, so I needed one now, here, and preferably in Hungarian, so if I need to quote, I get the words right.

The funny thing is that I've got this quite particular idea about a white Bible. I wanted a white Bible and I kept seeing in my mind myself consulting a white Bible. Sure, I'm currently concentrating a lot on the white: white furniture, white frames... a lot of white walls to be dealt with later... there's a lot of white, so maybe I had the color creeping up to me from there, but still, there I was "white Bible, white Bible, white Bible..." I haven't seen many and I believe they are mostly for Catholic children making their First Communion or something like that. Well, be it as it may, when I was parting ways with Jules, I told him I still gara pick up a Bible. We went to a store but there were no Bibles there (a regular book store), and from there we remembered the place where we met (duh...) and so we went there - we had to both, as there we could also each take our train or tramway to continue our separate journeys - and quite quickly we located their bookstore - an Evangelical Bookstore. I thought: "they must have white Bibles", so was we were greeted, I said to the salesmen, that I wanted a Bible. Here questions started in an odd way. "Catholic or Protestant?" Geez, ain't like the same Bible for everybody? I told him I'm Lutheran, so that's Protestant. Ok, "New translation or old language?" O_O Whadda ...? Make it new, I need to understand. There was another question, I believe regarding the year of the translation or the type of translation, or the congregation... I'm not sure, which I couldn't answer. The salesman slowly started packing then the table with blue, wine, green and black bibles explaing that this had comments, this had not, this had a larger font type... There was a white one I saw but wasn't sure it was a Bible - it could be a prayer book or a song book - so I asked the man:

"How about that white one?"

He turned to the only other white book in the whole wall and pulled a book that had some Transylvanian or whatnot translation. The book wasn't the one I had my eye trained on.

"No, I mean that other one. Is that a Bible?"

The man turned then to the one book I meant and seemed hesitant. Yes, it is a Bible, but that's a something I didn't understand, and it's bound in real leather with goldened pages (the borders) and this and that... I was afraid it was not for sale, and it was so beautiful! The man then explained that the matter was that the book was pricey. I turned the book - neatly kept in a plastic bag - and checked the price. Honestly I didn't check the price of the other Bibles so I have no idea how expensive that one really was, all I knew was that I had the money.

"This is the one I want."

And I've got it! Perhaps it's stupid, but I found it so amazing that I had been thinking exactly of a white Bible and from a selection of many, many other bibles, I've got the only one that was white (and pleasing to me). It filled me with hope, like a sign telling me that dreams do come true, that my dreams are becoming real and that God is indeed with me when I need Him the most. Inspite what others may say, inspite what others may bleakly forecast, there's no space for doubt, only for doing, only for going ahead and trying, for God is with me in this journey, and things are going to be just beautiful.

Good Morning! How Miserable Do You Want To Be Today?

Was that question a little bit of a shock? Well, believe it or not, more people than you would imagine, wake up everyday with an answer to that question, and that answer is not "no, I would rather not be miserable today". How many of us wake up in the morning and start the day thinking about negative things that predispose us for the rest of the day to see everything in a bleak light? "Gara go to work and see the faces of these and those I dislike so much", "another day dealing with the same crap", "yesterday's problems are still unsolved and I probably won't solve them today". You may wake up sleepy, tired and annoyed at having to get up and get ready for work when you could continue sleeping - I know I do all the time! - and maybe the "Fuck... it's morning again" thought is hard to chase away from your mind, but this doesn't have to condition the rest of your day. However, you can choose to have a wonderful day everyday. It's your day, it's your life, and yes, you can choose to let others or yourself fuck it up for you, or would you rather make it a nice, happy day.

You could start your day with a "Fuck, not morning already!", and continue with a "bed is so nice", which is a happy thought, even as you try to get away from it to get your day going, but takes your from a negative though ("fucking morning had to come so early") to a really happy, positive one ("bed is so good, warm, nice and fluffy, and my sleep was so delicious!"); or you can take consciously an empowering turn to it. "Well Morning, I'll beat you today! Inspite of waking up early, I'll have a great day!". And there are so many things you can do in the very morning to start your day with the right kick. Treat yourself with something you like for breakfast, put your favorite music while you drive, or if you commute, sleep a little more if you can on your way to the office. If you can't, amuse yourself, purposefully looking for beautiful things on the way to the office. Maybe take two seconds to smell the flowers of a garden, touch a tree, look at a nice dog or cat on the street, watch the sky, find a fun looking cloud...

How about you prepare from the day before for the morning? Make yourself a special breakfast bag, Just pack in the things you like, or leave at the office, in a drawer your favorite candy or drink, or your favorite parfume, a vase with flowers... anything that pleases you and could make you smile.

Our day's first decisions are important, but so are the decisions we take through the rest of the day. It's okay if you have negative thoughts, don't repress them, but look actively also for the positive counterparts, or just a positive thought as well. Maybe there comes the annoying neighbour lady who constantly complains about your pet, or the Jehova Witnesses cornered you and will give you the annoying converting speech regardless that you swear to them that you are Christian, are late, so please let you go. Maybe there goes again your old fashioned relative bugging you about why are you not married, why don't you have children or why are you "living in sin", why do you do this and this and that and "reminding you" how God is supposed to hate and go postal on people like you and how He hates you above everybody else (yeah right!) because just by being who you are and how God saw fit to make you, you are somehow worse than Hitler and Charles Manson balled up into one. Maybe, someone at home decided to leave again all chores on your neck, or bug you about money and how you don't help, and how you are this and this and that. Maybe... maybe things happen that piss you off, and that's okay. Are you going to let these fuck up your day?

How about your car decided to take the day off and didn't tell you in advance? How about your bus just left you behind and you'll get late? Maybe you forgot your homework at home, or someone you were depending on failed you, or an unexpected bill landed on your lap... you name it. Does it upset you? It's okay, be upset! Bitch! Vent! And then let it go. Sure, it might be hard, nobody said it was easy, but it's up to you to make it easier or harder than it needs to be. Can you solve the situation? Can you solve it in a way that makes you happier? Then solve it. You can't or the proposed solution doesn't make you happier, but makes you more miserable? Then fuck it. You don't have to do anything you don't want to (except going to school or work). Whatever you do, wherever you are, you always have to options: do it or not.

Today at mass, as part of the usual praying something caught me. In the prayer it was said basically that we turn to ask God's forgiveness and salvation because we have no other choice. That's not true. We have another choice and that choice is to go on living giving a fuck about whether God forgives us and saves us. Yes, there are consequences, but that's a choice we have. In the freedom of choosing - knowing we could very well give a fuck about God's forgiveness and salvation, choosing this forgiveness and this salvation makes it all the more valuable, as by free will and independent thinking we choose, and not mindlessly like a herd trapped by the fence, accepting forgiveness and salvation but actually giving a fuck to it because "it's the only path". In this sense, how our day is spent is also a matter of two questions: do you choose to be happy or do you choose to be miserable? And with free will we choose one of these ways.

Yes, negative things do affect us, and it's okay. We are not inmune to negativity, but it's up to us to choose if we want all that negativity to stick and determinate the rest of your day and on, or whether we are willing to defeat it and go back to the positive side of life. Are you willing to let other people's negative approaches and actions weight more on you that their positive actions? Would you give more importance to one insult or negative criticism than to a compliment or a positive comment? And why would you do that? Would you rather have a miserable day or a good day?

The actions are simple, and often all they need is a little bit of will. Will to be happy, will to take over our lives and will to realize that there's no need for us to be the center of attention of others to be validated. Though people usually are more attracted to the disgrace of others than to their happiness, being happy and unnoticed is far better than being miserable and notorious about it.

Having a positive attitude won't save you from hearbreak, from sadness, from depression, anger or disappointment, but when life dishes out some of that, a positive attitude gives you all you need to bounce back faster. It gives you the tools to understand that these are a natural part of your life, that these feelings make you human, but are not there to rule your days.

Meditate, express yourself, explore yourself and allow yourself to be the first person everyday in making you happy. So the next morning you could say to yourself "Good Morning! How happy do you want to be today (after coffee)?" ^_^

The Nookie

Today I've a really awesome topic, or should I say I "HAD" a really awesome topic for the post. It's really good and I haven't even forgotten it, which is rare, and it's perfect! Yes, except that it's almost 22h, and today my boyfriend and I had a lot of things to take care of regarding our soon-to-be home, and one of those things was cleaning. We did hire a cleaning lady, an adorable, sweet Transilvanian lady (they speak Hungarian and refure to be acknowledged as "Rumanians" even though they are, but rather like to be considered as a Hungarian minority) wearing her beautiful traditional clothes - yes! People today wearing traditional clothes! I still can't get over it - but we helped in because the work was quite some for such a small place, and so we are tired to death with the scrubbing of the kitchen. Honestly, it was also quite disgusting to scrap up from the walls, the floors and the stove the remnants of other people's dinners. Bits of bread on the windowsill, baby bottles stuffed in the closets, and old pieces of noodles and onion, rice... stuck all over the stove? Come on, people, really?

Some parts of that kitchen looked like we would need to call in a HAZMAT team.

Work isn't finished, but we certainly are. God willing we would be buying our furniture on Monday and start the moving (in and out, as all the old furniture I haven't personally approved is a goner), or busing in Tuesday, but still tarting the moving on Monday, and you know Ikea furniture, you gara ensamble it yourself because "that's part of the fun"? Whadda fuck? Freaking Skandinavians, they creat a LEGO and then they think all people wanna do is DIY. So we are up to our eyeballs in tasks and chores, but right now we are TIRED. I mean, I could go on for a little bit more, but I've got an ultimatum from my boyfriend: either I'm in bed within 30 minutes or he'll be asleep, and that means, no nookie. So sorry, nookie beats blogging, so that awesome topic shall be written some other time!

To Mirror or Not to Mirror... that's the Closet Question

It's past 23 h, and after a day of running around, taking mearurements of the apartment to see if we can fit the furniture, and then going to the movies to see "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", I'm honestly tired. Tired with eyes closing and thinking "fuck, I'll log the food on the fitbit thing tomorrow. What's there to remember anyways? Fish and chips for lunch with coke and bread with butter and coke for dinner". If you ask me, the movie was great. I haven't read the book - YET! - but give me a break! I've a stack of other books on my plate - and one of them is my recently acquired "Gone With The Wind" on Kindle, AND I'm a slowpoke reader, so, it will take me a while. I do hope the other two books will get to become a movie, and that they keep Daniel Craig in the cast. Oh dear, that man is so freaking HOT!

Today I was alone a big part of my day. I sat writing letters to my friends - well, one of them, as I'm also a slowpoke writer - did some chores around the house, and then went to get my brother-in-law his birthday present. I don't like the chap much, but I'm great at picking presents for him! Far better than my boyfriend, or their mother. My boyfriend doesn't even have an idea about what could he give him, so given the success of my last present pick ("The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", actually), I took on the task of finding him a good present: more black novels by Skandinavian writers. I'm still quite surprised that Asa Larsson, my favorite Skandinavian black novel writer hasn't made it here. They have Stieg Larsson, Camilla Läckberg, Arnaldur Indridasson, but there's no Asa Larsson anywhere.

I had lunch at a pretty nice restaurant close to where we are staying - quite famous around here for it's expensive menu - but I was honestly disappointed at the blah taste of the fish in my fish and chips - even though the presentation was quite adorable, as well as for the remarkable lack of attention from the waiters. And it wasn't even a peak hour! Goodnes Gracious! Where they expecting me to starve to death before offering me the menu? So be warned, if you ever find yourself in Budapest, and you think about going to a  restaurant over the Krisztina krt, called "Déryné", please make sure you eat something beforehand!

They had WiFi, so I took the chance to toy with my Kindle, and since I was there and the Kindle was there and there was WiFi, I stared at my sample of "Gone With the Wind" and said to myself, "Self, you are going to buy this one, so what the fuck? But it at once and let's get over with it!". And so I did. I was feeling cool and fabulous, much like each time I'm here for vacations - except this time my vacations ain't gonna be over so easily! - and so I took my time with everything. I sipped slow on my coke, I eat each fry slowly, completely taken over by Margaret Mitchell's word and living without a single care in the world. Ideas flowed then to my mind about a lot of wonderful and potentially awesome post topics for the blog, but Miss Scarlet was first. Of course, little I knew I would come home barely able to stand and so sleepy I nearly doze staring at my slice of bread instead of actually eating it!

My boyfriend and I are now making numbers. It happens that the mirrored closet he wants fits in the nook of the wall we have there, so he wants it, but that shoots the numbers I made up to heaven! So we are seeing how can we make it work. Yes, the mirrored closet is awesome, and much better than any other solution wirh have contemplated, not to mention it opens the space beautifully and uses better the space we have, but what about the budget? Damned, time for me again to Excel up and think about possibilities. Am I really off the clock in here? Because this doesn't feel like it.

Another Small Little Day of My Life ^_^

After quite some time, finally I've got to see "the apartment". What can I say? It's bigger than what I expected. Usually "bigger" is better, when it comes to a place, but in this case I was concerned due to the budget. Are we going to have enough money to furnish all this space? I had already made some calculations with some sizes I had in mind, and it was a stretch already, but it seemed doable, however, standing in the middle of the apartment I realized that one single bookcase unit wasn't going to cover it. So I kinda panicked a little, because in the end, it's not like we are on a TV show where money doesn't seem to matter when it comes about making a place look Divine. It didn't help either that basically all of the existing "furniture" was to be banished from the premises. Many of the pieces my boyfriend had were not only worn and dated, but too bulky in size and shape to fit a place like that apartment, which calls for more slender lines to look less cluttered.

The guy renting the apartment came and the contract was finished, the keys and everything handed over, and the apartment itself was in quite a mess. Dirty windows, dirty kitchen, stuff left behind everywhere... That's going to call for a major cleaning task, which might be hopefully happening sometime this weekend... or the next week.

I was a bit at loss after seeing the apartment, and honestly worrying for the money side of the equation, when my boyfriend suggested we go to my godmother's to pick up some stuff. I still don't get his desire to move a large part of our stuff to my aunt's where there's no place, and then have the moving to the apartment go from two fronts: my aunt's place and my godmother's place. I said I wasn't in the mood to deal now with my godmother's new ideas about the future, and instead we decided to go looking for furniture. Just window shopping, mind you. He had a couple of places in mind, two of which had gone out of business and the others were already closed. We did checked out Kika, which not only didn't have the type of furniture I like - either too outdated or too bulky for my taste - but it was also insanely expensive. Worn and annoyed by the experience, we were about to return to my aunt's place, when I told him to let's check Ikea. He wasn't very happy about it, but most of the furniture we like we saw on their catalogue, os it was worth the effort to seem some pieces in the flesh. It was well worth the effort - particularly after Kika - for suddenly I found a lot of pieces we liked and in quite a good price range. I'm still concerned about the budget (I'm actually doing the mathematical part of it after finishing this post), but at least we finally are getting around what we want - and I'm pleased with it.

The bed, which is the most important part of the whole furnishing (which has to be a sofa-bed), happened to be pretty much half of what asked at Kika, and much better suiting our taste - well, mine.

Another step into consolidating a life together, a life here, my new life. It does feel interesting!

Collectivity and Individuality

Spinning off from a conversation with a dear friend, I'd like to give it a try to the topic of "collectivity and individuality". From many other conversations followed with my friends, time and again at least one of us stumbles into what seems a pretty contradictory position regarding what you believe an individual should do, and what a collectivity - be it a family, a household, a society, a country, a planet - should do in order to be better. Other times, the seeming uniformity in positions (same rules apply to the individual as to the collectivity) bring up a series of holes in the logic that can't be ignored. So what's going on?

Though one can argue whether the individual is the product of its collectivity, or the collectivity the product of its individuals, it is undeniable that both the cllectivity and the individuals shape one another, BUT no collectivity is the carbon copy of a particular individual, nor is there an individual that embodies perfectly a given collectivity. A collectivity is a "body" - so to speak - imprinted by many individuals, who carries also the imprints from individuals that have been part of it in the past, as well as often the transfered imrpints of individuals that are not part of it. The individual itself is an element that bears both the partial imprints of a given collectivity - each different depending on the individuals of the collectivity it has more relation with - probably other collectivities as well, and a fair share of its own molding. This still - this difference in the way they all shape each other -  wouldn't give us much footing for stating different sets of rules for each, but what does mark this difference and what does give is the landing for different sets of rules and different conceptions for each, is the fact that while an individual is ruled by one will - their own will, whether they decide to submit it to someone else or not - while the collectivity has no onw will (except in freaky cases), but many wills, all of them pulling and pushing and giving motion to the whole body.

As individuals, more than freedom, independence and responsability are important for healthy, proper, successful growth. As an individual, from the moment you are conscious, you must take your life in your hands and make the decisions that allow you to learn, grow and find your happiness. Delegating your life on others, expecting them to fix it, or blaming the sun, the moon or the stars on your failure, simply won't do it. As an individual, it is entirely up to you whether you decide to live a fake life, a life full of excuses and placing the blame everywhere but where it should really be placed (you), or whether you want to take your life in your hands and make things happen, shoulder up for your mistakes, your failures, your miscalculations and take them fro what they are: you fucked it up, but now you know how not to do it.

As an individual, it's not so much about who you depend or not on, in which way and for what - though ideally you shouldn't depend on anyone but yourself - but what suits you best, what works for you best, and own up to it. Do you want to be a kept person? Ok, find someone to pay for you and live with the consequences of that life style. Do you want to be a provider? Good. Find someone to provide for and live with all it entails. Do you want to be alone and do whatever the fuck you want to do when you want to do it? That's also cool, but then also shoulder the consequences of a lot of me-time and no humans to greet when you get home.

Can you, as individual, have it all? Yes you can, the thing is that you are probably not wanting "all", but a lot of partials of a lot of different situations. Think about that.

As a collectivity, we are not ruled by one mind, deciding for the fates of all, but as a collectivity, a lot of wills, seeking a lot of different ways to achieve personal happiness (in good theory) collide with one another. Some wills have more muscle than others, and thus work to repress those wills that stay in their way. When applying a rule to a collectivity, what happens is that you apply that rule to all the individuals, and the structures of power within the collectivity would swift and shift and distor the effect of the rule passing it from individuals with more power to those with less power leaving the benefits up for those who have more power and all the shortcomings for the ones with less power. A rule applied to individuals where each is responsible for itself, can't be applied like that to a collectivity, where then it will translate as a carte blanche for the more powerful to do as they will and feel free to pass on the negative effects on the rest. Shall it bother them, they would do something about it.

Social Sciences are full of a lot of nice theories about how a collectivity can or cannot rule itself, and ste up a lot of suppositions, which are good and nice in theory, but hold no water in real life. Struggles of power between the classes are not as common as the theory say, and societies are not on equilibrium points, but most of the time they are outside this point because the individuals or micro-groups holding up the power within the collectivity push against the boundaries to take more for themselves in detriment of the rest of the collectivity. Big companies push for tax breaks and they have the means to lobby for them. They push for flexible labor rules that allow them to cut on wages and warranties, even ban unions. The rest of the colelctivity is usually held hostage by their means of living, posing threats to their livelyhood by menacing their jobs or social securities, and often buying them off with false information.

Social Sciencies seldom consider corruption and under-the-table managing in their throries, which happen often in real life. Services purposefully let to be ruined only to push forward a privatizing agenda. Lobbying to tip the scale in a decision and set in motion conditions that strenghten the position of those in power against those who are not. Lobbying that's basically giving gifts to a few people to buy the favors away from a large portion of the collectivity that would only receive the short end of the deal.

As an individual, you normally wouldn't plot against yourself, nor would be your happiness fully pursued by such behavior. Yes, there is people out there who does that, but in their case we all agree to call them "sick". As a collectivity, however, it is posible and quite normal to have a part of it to plot against the other part, and just as some wills composing the collectivity which to bend other wills to them, and have them aid them in their own pursue of happiness and abandon their own, a different set of rules and a different philosophy is required in order to regulate the collectivity, make sure it works for everybody and it gives each and everyone of them and honest, fair shot at being happy and independent and responsible for their own lives without having to pay for the excesses of others.

The View from My Window

Changing your life isn't something that - though may happen over night - switches in you automatically. You may have been dreaming for years about how wonderful your life would be in this or that way, in this or that place, in this or that circumstance... and if you are lucky and you get your wish granted, and the change you wanted comes, it doesn't mean that over night You will change and live your new life as if you have been born into it. It might sound stupid, but it takes experience to realize that things in real life are often much different than what they are in dreams.

For more years than what I care to remember - probably all my life - I have wanted, yearned, to live in Hungary. Whatever way, whatever form, I just wanted to live here, in Hungary - in Budapest, to be more precise. In the last years my life was almost held up for this one dream of mine. I worked all year to be able to travel to Hungary for a couple of weeks, and in those weeks I felt like I was alive, like I've come from a dark, lifeless mine where I moved automatically, where I was an inanimate pupet living in fake smiles and fake feelings, just waiting to be awoken by the gentle kiss of the white, sparkling winter and the soft, playful snow.

Today I am here and my life here begins. Still no job, still in the very begining, paging with my boyfriend through furniture calatogues and picking a bed and a table, desks and shelve units... and I just can't get my head around the fact that yes, I've a new life now, with new responsabilities and new struggles. Though I've lived looking up, to this moment, working for it, studying to make it happen, holding up on buying an appartment or getting engaged in any way that would pose any difficulty for me to move here, now that I am here, I still can't believe it. Is it real? Am I here for good? Really here for good? Is this snow and this cold, and the blue busses and the public transportation tickets part of my reality? My final and eternal reality from now on? Is it real that Vienna will be forever close to me, and Paris - my beloved Paris! - is a few hours away in plane?

I've a new life, the life I always wanted and I can't believe it, and I'm suddenly scared and thinking "what if I can't make it?"... but I am here, in my dream, and it's time to buckle up and slowly let myself be part of it.