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.

Waiting Times

One of the most common complains you get from users, customers and people in general, is about the "quality" of the service and a big part of it is related to the waiting time. Somehow no matter hoy much the seller or the clerk smiles at you or how speedily they try to help your with your request, the impression is always the same: the service sucks. And the service sucks because "in other countries" they do it much more pleasantly and much faster. The statistics curiously are never there, but the general argument to hold up this impression is "in other countries is not like this".

After unsuccessfully trying to revive my mobile line yesterday, today I went to the place where the service could be restored - so I was told. It was a nice, late winter day, kinda chilly but pretty and shiny, so I merrily went to the company's store only to find out that the service couldn't be fixed because my ID was expired. Say what?? Yes, my old, handwritten, notebook-like ID was expired. The clerk asked for my Driving License... but I only had my Costa Rican one with me, so that didn't work. A bit disheartened, I went to solve the issue, at loss about where should I go. So without a mobile phone line, I actually had to hunt down a payphone - thanks Hyne for small favors! - and called my boyfriend to tell him "the situation". After that I headed home, looked up the place I should go (that depends on which district are you inscribed, so the one my boyfriend knows isn't good for me, for I'm in a different district), and my aunt actually helped me with that. So we went to the "official documents' office" where I was received immediately - didn't even had time to take off my coat! - and a very nice, sweet guy asked me for my DL or my passport - I gave him this last one - and he quickly helped me fill the form to request my new ID. Thanks Hyne I've got a new picture, because I hated my last ID's picture. This next one isn't that good either, but it's an improvement considering the last one!

The guy then told me that my ID would be ready in 30 days. 30 days??? In Costa Rica I get my new ID or driving license in 3 minutes! I've got my brand new and first "Official Residence Card" (in the old ID's there were pages where such data was included. Now that the notebooks are gone, there's an ID card and an "official address card"). He told me that I could use meanwhile my Hungarian passport as official ID, until my actual ID is done. I didn't bother much about it, but it did made me smile how people at Costa Rica bitch about the waiting you have to do at the Civil Registry, and though I was served right away in here - probably because it was a low traffic hour - I'll have to wait far more than anyone in Costa Rica for my plastic.

Well, once this was done, we went back to fix my phone situation. Now, let me tell you in advace, that my operator is a private operator, not a State owned one. So, we went there, got called right away, by the same nice guy, and he started fixing my situation. As it happens, the fixing shouldn't have to be arranged directly though them, but through a series of e-mails and online forms and requests taking many days, but just as a favor - and because he knew someone in there - my situation was fixed there. I also wanted my own mobile Internet - which I got, and guess what? These two things took an hour of my life. Yes, one hour. The guy was really nice, and I guess that seeing how much time it was taking him to do all the TWO things I asked from him, he started telling me the story of his life in a half-flirtatious way (so salesman like!), and I took on the hint and asked him all kinds of telecommunications' questions, which amazed him and gave him the chance to ask how come I knew that, so I would talk and he could concentrate on his slow system while keeping me entertained (Rule #1 to keep a customer happy: make it all about the customer!).

I didn't mind, but it was funny again to compare Costa Rica and Hungary, and how people actually complain for the activating of a phoneline taking over 20 minutes.

People, procedures take time, and sometimes companies find that giving the best and fastest computers to their CEO's and their staff is a much better and justified move than giving it to Customer Service, who by rule always inherit the computers that have filtered down through the company and get discarded by the last link of the back office. Procedures are also way to ensure the reliability of a client, and they depend on the experience of the company with problematic clients, as well as the experience of the country in general. If in your country you've a culture that celebrates getting away with murder and consider "smart" people who manage to walk away without paying, then yes, get ready to face long insurances and procedures to get something where you could walk off without paying.

Have you ever considered that your Customer Service is also a result of the type of culture you help to creat? Have you considered that your attitude and also your attitude towards work, your responsabilities and those of others, also help to mold the type of Customer Service and the type of service you get? After all, it's people from the same culture you belong to, the one's serving you. Have you thought that instead of expecting THEM to change and suit your need, you could do the changing and adapt to the situation?

Thing is that everybody complain, but if you where to actually compare the services between countries, you would find that actually it isn't true that you have the worst service in the planet, and nor is it true that there's a place where the service is happy and swift and like a walk in Paradise. Something always annoy people because people are often predisposed to get annoyed.

Of course, when examples like this are shown up, then the usual rebuke is "well, other countries, because those are exceptions", which is fun, because they either can't come up with a country where things are the way they say they are, or the witness was a friend or family member of them, or you name it. Even if it was them, the case isn't clear and you are there with the feeling that something isn't right. And something isn't right.

It's time for us to realize that the Customer Service depends on the customer. We must realize that in order to make a transaction like this pleasant, also WE have to be pleasant. Sorry, the clerk isn't there to make you smile and serve you some coffee, and you won't lose an arm if you smile first and remain pleasant and understanding. So next time, when you have to make yet another endless queue, please make the effort and be a pleasant customer, be nice, smile, be understanding. Be all you want the clerk or Customer Service attendant to be, and you may be surprised at the kind of lovely service you can get!

Disconnected

I'm writing this post outside the Internet. I'm writing it Today (02-12-12) but you are going to read it only tomorrow (02-13-12) due to a very simple reason: I don't have an Internet connection. More precisely I don't have a single Internet connection that works. Should I known that, I would have either blogged from the mall we went some hours ago, or would have taken the chance and bought myself a working mobile internet account, which now naturally I'll do first thing tomorrow. Upsetting, right? My phone doesn't work because it has been disconnected after over 12 months of not using it, but fear not! The number hasn't been given away, so if I hurry tomorrow and I get at an official store (as opposed to those which are not official - or resellers, as I believe they are called - ) then I can ask for them to get me my number back. Then maybe I'll take on the chance and upload this post from some coffee house from the vicinity, and get myself also a WORKING, FUNCTIONAL service, as opposed to that of my boyfriend, who forgot his PIN code, as he so often does. As for my aunt's... it keeps giving me the same error message. It shouldn't, but it does. Anyway, could this be a sign for me to slow down for today, leave my cyberlife aside for a minute and just draw myself a bath, and enjoy it? There is people out there writing for many magazines and papers (that appear on the net) who talk about how healthy it is to "disconnect" yourself from the technological ubiquitous shadow we drag around. Could this be it?

And just as I typed that, what do you think it happened? The internet made its Grand Entrance. Were I inclined to believe in signs (STRONGLY believe in signs!), I would say that this means that I won't find a job fast, but just as I get ok with it and decide to take the lack of a job chance as a sign to lay back and finish that book I've never finished, a job will appear. But no, I prefer not to take it that way, otherwise it would kill the fun of it. Either way, here I am, today-today, writing to all of you in my new home. Well, home-TOWN that is, as we haven't moved to our place yet (or shall I say my boyfriend's place?). All the surveying stuff and such will start tomorrow. As it is, my agenda is so full, I don't have any more space for it to write!! First day and I've so many tasks to tackle, I feel like I need the biggest and strongest NFL players by my side to help me get a hand on all these.

In case you wonder, I'm still up to my plans, and will draw myself a nice bath and buy myself mobile internet service.

So how was my day? It started around 8 am in Paris. Boyfriend and I woke up in our lovely little hotelroom, and one of the coziest, most pretty little hotels in town. Small, simple, surprisingly two stars hotels (I've seen far worse four star hotels!), we had some time before rushing to the airport to catch out flight to Budapest. After having made rounds last night at the Opera house, down the Opera Avenue - where I had to detour to the Foucher chocolate boutique to get my hands on some of the finest, most exquisite chocolate made in the planet (and since my boyfriend paid for the treat, I told him that I would count that for his St. Valentine's present. Let's be honest, hardly anything else could top a lovely little box full of fine chocolate) - all the way to the Pyramid of the Louvre, and then try the Metro to the famous Eiffel Tower... all of which I told you about yesterday, without the pictures.  I would offer you pictures, but Blogger doesn't want to let me upload any, so until that gets solved, we will be stuck pictureless.

Regardless of all this exciting visitings, we still had a request from my mother: get a picture of the Cité de Justice, where her favorite fictional detective works: Maigret. As early and we could we've got out of bed, got ready, and minding the time we had to catch our plane, we rushed to the metro again - our new best friend in Paris - to Cité to check on the building, and then go to Notre Dame. I hope we did well with the Cité de Justice, because We weren't sure about the building, so we took pictures at a couple of them. Then we went looking for the Notre Dame. My boyfriend - true to his nature - started walking in a direction at random, and I followed him - I hadn't fully woken up, I guess. Some ten minutes into the walking, and no church in the vicinity, I decided to stop and check out the map, which was a very smart decision from me, as it happens we were walking in the opposite direction. So we turned, rushed and got to the wonderful Notre Dame. I can't decide whether it was more beautiful and imposing from the inside or from the outside. It was breathtaking!

At the moment we were there, there was a mass going on, with a choir singing so beautifully, it was filling you with a heavy yearning to drop on your knees and pray to God in infinite adoration. The carvings, the statues, the vitrals... everything was simply magnificent.

To be able to due this last minute trip, we had to skip a formal breakfast, so on our way back to the hotel for our luggage, we went into a store and got a couple of sandwiches and something to drink. We've got to the airport nearly on time - okay, 30 minutes late, but still in time! - and everything seemed to go smooth, when it happened that my ticket started giving problems. I printed out my boyfriend's but mine refused to be printed out. What to do? We went for help, naturally. It was quite easy to solve, however at the counter, the lady taking care of the matter - it seems that the flight was overbooked, that's why my ticket was giving us problems - noticed that we checked 4 pieces of luggage, not 2 (one each). Since we were at the counter, she had to log them, even if they were not with us. She called a colleage to help her, and they looked at us.

"You've checked four pieces? You were supposed to check only one each!"

I was honest.

"I know, " I said "we were expecting to pay for the extra luggage, but the personnel at TACA said we were entitled to two pieces. I found it weird, and told them our tickets said we were entitled for only two each, and we expect to pay for the other two, but... they wouldn't have it."

The lady and her colleague looked at each other, and then the gentleman said:

"Well, that's an issue that Costa Rica must solve, it's not on us."

They were fine with it, checked the luggage as it was, and the lady told me that she made a small note letting them know that it had been a disposition at Costa Rica. I was fine as long as the luggage arrived to Budapest.

We didn't have time to look around the airport and shop for some stuff, though I managed to still get myself a salt-and-pepper set (beautiful black and white) and two breakfast bowls - also black and white. ^_^

At Budapest our luggage came out quite quickly. We still had to wait because my boyfriend ran to the carrousel and I was in charge with taking care of the trolley and the hand luggage, BUT he forgot to mention that the only suitcase he was able to identify was his own. It was me pointing out to him "Dude, those are our suitcases" when they went around for the third time, and he still didn't react.  I asked him then "why did you offer to go for the suitcases if you can't identify them?" His answer? "So you don't have to carry them". Yes, I know it was sweet of him to try and save me from the physical effort, but I felt like rather slapping him. Man, how do you offer if you can't do it? What did he expect really? For the suitcases to yell at him "Yo, asshole! I'm yours! Pull me off this shit!". Really, sometimes I don't get him. Then again, Harry-Potter-speaking, maybe he's too Griffindor and I'm waaay too Slytherin.

From there we went home, filled in with my aunt, got comfy and then headed to the closest mall to see if I can do something to get my number working, and then do some grocery shopping. Not much as we are still not at our place, and there's no point in getting stocked, only to then move that whole lot to our appartment, but we stock up on the basics: bread, cereal, condoms and beer. I also rushed up to a paper store - I was compelled too! - and bought myself some stationary to reply to some of my late-late-late letters.

Tomorrow another day starts and we have lots of stuff to do, but right now, I'll go rest, draw myself a bath and be happy to be finally here.

Welcome to Europe! Your life starts Here!

This is my first post from the other end of the Atlantic Ocean, from the Old Continent. It's not still my home yet, as I'm in Paris, not in Budapest, but I am at my beloved Europe! My hair hasn't wasted a minute and it's already acting European, which means it has gotten straight, flat against my skull and shiny. Yes, you could say it's the effect of the beanie I've been wearing all day long, but that's not it.

This trip has been as emotional as expected, and maybe even more. Though I managed to keep my feelings in check the whole time prior to the trip, when I was already in my dad's car, with all my belongings packed in almost six suitcases, I saw my mom from the porch with her eyes watering. There she was, seeing us go, ready to smile and wave if she noticed we were looking ah her, and hide her tears, and yet I saw her try to hold back tears that reddened her eyes. This broke my levees and soon my face was streaming with tears I couldn't stop. At the airport my dad held me real hard and real long and we told each other that we loved each other. I once again fought to control my tears and had them on a perilous check, and masking the rest with an allergy outburst.

After all the drama and all the fear, the luggage was checked-in with no major concern. The lady at the counter said we had right to two pieces of luggage, but of 32 Kg combined, so she charged us for the surplus an amount that was half of what we expected to pay for extra luggage. Then, as she assumed we were either newlywed or to be married -  and would spend the night at Paris as a romantic evening - she arranged for our luggage to be sent straight to Budapest, not to Paris as it was originally going to happen. :-)

On the plane to Bogotá, however, as I took my last glances at the ariport of Costa Rica, and saw the buses and cars out there, I couldn't stop thinking of my mom and I've got crying again. As silently as I could, but I had to turn my head like an owl and hide behind my hair to keep people from seeing my tears. It was the saddest moment ever. :-( Then I realized my boyfriend was crying too, and that got me laughing.

"Why are you crying? Ain't like it's you leaving your momma."
"Because I know what this means, and Ive feelings too."

Sweet, yeah... so damned corny! That was such an Ingalls answer to give! However I lightened up by pulling at him and laughing at him "Cry baby, cry baby!". It did was strange, and it was even stranger that he would assume I believed he has no feelings. I know he does! He has more feelings than I do!

Things got better after we embarked the plane to Paris. As usual, it was delayed and it arrived with an hour of delay. Not that it mind anything to us. The food was awesome, as usual, and even my boyfriend was won over by Air France, telling me that whenever the price was right (and that accepts a little over the price of KLM), we would always choose Air France over any other airline. I was more than pleased. To my delight, they also had Puss on Boots for movies, so I checked on that, but soon after fall asleep. We had great seats, wih plenty of legroom to stretch, so I slept fabulously. Kari somehow managed not to sleep, for which at the hotel he laid down while I checked out the Sacre Coeur. It was supposed to be -5°C (like 19°F), but either I was clad in a LOT of clothes, or it wasn't that cold.

Later on, I went back for Kari and called a good friend of mine who lives here and whom I haven't seen in ages. He was available, and we met for a drink. It was great to see him again and catch up on each other's lives. ^_^ I hope that now that we are on the same side of the world, we can see more of each other and keep up the contact.

From there we went to Louvre, which was closing, but still, and finished the tour of the day with a visit to the famous Eiffel Tower.

This time around the daily tickets worked wonderfully, so Kari and I made plenty of use of the metro system, which allowed us to visit more placed without freezing or asses off in the cooling Parisian night.

I still haven't grasped the whole of my decision. It's still unbelievable to look around and understand that all of this is part of my daily reality now. Paris isn't a faraway concept, it's a place I can visit anytime on a relatively modest budget (compared to before). Winters are my reality, Europe is my reality and I'm not here to visit and spend vacations, I'm here to stay, to live, to make a life and plough a grave for myself here. This is my land, my home, my reality. When is it really going to sink?

Last Post From Costa Rica

This is the last post I write from Costa Rica in a long time. This is the last time I'm checking the hour in my computer - set to Central European Time - and think about rushing with a post before 16h, in order to still make it in the day (because of the time zone differences). This is the last time I'm writing from "paradise", from the tropic and surrounded by Latin concerns. I'm moving.

I'm nervous, and thinking about the cold, but happy because one of the "problems" was solved: we could check in all our luggage. ^_^ and it seems we won't have to check it out and in again in Paris. No taxi, we are taking the RER B to Gare du Nord with our hand luggage only.

This is my last post from Costa Rica. My last post with my mom and dad close, with my brother a few minutes away in car, my sister-in-law, my beautiful nephews close and my friends minutes away from me. My last post in the place close to my loved yoga classes. This is my last post from Costa Rica. I'm moving, I'm looking for my new life at home, with the cherries and the snow, the trains to Vienna and Paris close to me. You all will be dearly missed.

On The Brink of Insanity

I lost my Zen. There was a Zen, I had a Zen and now the Zen is gone. Gone, gone, gone. And it's quite funny that today, that I lost my Zen, I actually achieved something important to me: I drove to San Pedro. Yay! I did it! ^_^ So here's what happened:

By yesterday I finally had all my stuff packed in three large suitcases and a cabin luggage, which rivals in weight with the bigger ones. Yes, that's me all the time. I had found my center and was calm about the whole "I can't take all my stuff with me now" matter. It upset me, BUT there are conditions: luggage capacity conditions, human strenght capacity conditions and the reduced space and lack of storage units at my new home. So yes, be smart Bunny, we can't pack up the whole deal now and expect to have the same room, closets and shelves there! So I had come to be in peace with that. Good.

There were, though, things that I had to arrange but couldn't manage to arrange before. I had to take a letter PERSONALLY to the College of Professionals in Economical Science to request a change of status due to me leaving the country. (That thing I wrote about being in the technology era and yet having to nearly send it by pony-express? Yeah, that thing.) Then I had to return my checkbooks (another thing you must do personally at the place where you opened the account), meet with Dragonfly-cr, take a recommendation letter to Kate's workplace, pick up a suitcase from my brother's and post some snail-mail. To do the first three things I had to go to San Pedro. I've never driven in San Pedro, and have always considered it difficult, so having the chance to do it was an opportunity I wasn't going to waste! I decided to take a route through San Pablo, Santo Domingo, Tibás, Moravia and Guadalupe, which I used to take quite often... in bus... five years ago.

I went once with Kari, and we got lost in Guadalupe, but ended up getting there. This time around... I've got lost again in Guadalupe. However, after rolling around and driving in the opposite direction, I finally happened upon the road and got there. Once I saw the Flag Rotary, I was thrilled! So I went to the College, managed what needed to be managed, then went to the Bank, where I met my old coworkers and managed what had to be done as well. I learned also that one of my old coworkers had paralytic stroke and ended up brain dead. She was a smart, kind lady who was always ready to help the new coworkers in their job. She was like a mom to all of us. Mayela will always be missed dearly by all who knew her.

From there I met with Dragonfly-cr, who had prepared for me a wonderful present. :-) She got me magnetic decorated notepads and post-its. They are so beautiful!!! ^_^ It was like she was reading my mind, because I was actually thinking how can I get magnetic pads in Hungary for my grocery lists!!! I'm all about the magnetic pads, but they are not always easy to come by. We had Mexican food, talked and shared a lot. I'll miss her.

Then I had to go to Escazú, to Multiplaza to get Kate her letter. I was going to use the only safe road I know, which involves going through San José downtown. Dragonfly and her friend told me to go through the rotaries, which was a shorter way. As they explained, it was all nice and fine, si I decided to go that way. Well, first I had to extricate my car from the parking lot, where a MORON parked so close to me, I nearly broke my mirror. But I did it. Then I went through the rotaries. Yes, except that I turned off the road at the wrong sign (Escazú, not Santa Ana) and got into the worst part of San José: Alajuelita.

I rolled and went and had to U turn a couple of times and make really stupid driving decisions, nearly sat down and cried, but eventually I've got on the road. I ended up again going towards San José, not towards Multiplaza, but turned at a safe point and got there, left the letter and went to pick up the suitcase and post the letters.

There I thought I was out of the woods. No, I wasn't.

In here I nearly murdered my boyfriend over packing disagreements. It did upset me that though he has much less stuff that I do, he suddenly considered a lot of his things of "vital importance" and started pulling of my stuff. He as all his things there and I'm not, and he's claiming importance and "can't live without it" about shirts and tracking shoes. I did upset me. Then I kinda got over the matter, packed in the extra luggage, when he started bitching about "what if we can't get those up". Dude, we are paying extra, why couldn't we? And if we can't, that's why I declared two of the luggage pieces "the primal ones". The other two, if we can't take them with us, will be brought by someone else. But really, why wouldn't we be able to put those on the plane? People do it all the time - and we would be paying for them, and isn't now the airline industry all about getting more money from the clients?

I tried to get ahead of the situation, and do the web check-in and check also the extra luggage (20% discount if you do it online!), but the site of Air France wasn't helping. I could see my reservation but I couldn't modify anything, even if the site had a button that allegedly took me to where the modifying could be done. There was no clear sign telling you you can't add more luggage, or you can't upgrade your seat (which I also wanted to do), so now here I am, out-Zen-ed, worrying about luggage and about what will happen in Paris if we have to pick up the luggage and drag it to the hotel... which isn't the same as going to the hotel only with our cabin luggage.

I'm worried. I really am. I'm anxious, and guessing and trying to prepare myself to the worst scenarios... but then again what's there to worry about? If I don't get all the luggage up, what's so bad about it? It's not like it's going to be lost in the sea, AND it's easier to navigate from Gare du Nord to Rue de Maubeuge with only a big suitcase and a cabin luggage, right? And if we have to navigate Paris with two pieces of check-in luggage, hey! at least we've got them on, right?

There's a positive side to everything... Now I'll go wash my hair and try to recover my Zen. Like the trips, they've got tricky, but I've got to my destination nontheless.

Printer

Offices are little micro environments where the megalomaniac personalities of some create a macro chaos. Irrational bosses are often a source of trouble, or a problematic coworker, but it also happens that the secretary (who insists on being called "Assistant") who has a boss complex creates problems of sizes otherwise unbelievable. In here we've had an assistant such - let's call her Norma - who for a while had the support of a director, and thus applied her very personal reign of terror. She made it her work to check on everybody's entry and leaving time, buying on the office budget quite expensive equipment to keep tags on people. Money has flown quite freely regarding supplies for the secretaries, new laptops, laptop bags, snacks for the director and so on. Then, suddenly costs had to be cut (there was never a report indicating what was the budget and what was the amount spent on "trouble areas"), and said cuts got to the printers. This was bad because there was only one big printer - the one she used - and everybody else had small printers on their desks - even her. It was decided that nobody would get any more supplies for the printers - but the printers weren't even removed from our desks and our care, and sent to someone who could use them. Nobody was told in advance, so that we could use the printers as much as we could, but simply one day we weren't given any more ink or paper.

We all had to print at the big printers, except her who kept her desk printer. Oh well, we did, and a lot of problems came out of that. Paper went out way too fast, people took away other people's printed documents, some threw them away, others just gathered there forgotten... and soon there was much more printing than before, add to it, with a much more expensive printer.

Then the director recently got retired, but it's like Norma never got the memo. As if still empowered by the director, she continued her dictatorial rantings, going then to the point where she banned everybody from the printers and decided that only the secretaries will print. She, of course, didn't say a thing, she just had it done, so over night important documents couldn't be printed out because there was no printing! The reason? There's a lot of people printing personal stuff on the office printers, and the costs are high.

This time the office reacted furiously sending out e-mails about the measure, and who does she think she is to make such decisions, not talking it over with nobody and not informing anyone of her decisions. She bicthed back saying that costs need to be cut and a lot of people abuse of the printer. Now really? She's the first to print out every silly, personal thing she has, she uses the company vehicles and the driver to run her personal errands... and now you can't print out a note because it might be personal?

From the quarrel it came out that she plans to buy a software that allows her to identify who prints what and so have an idea of what is the printer being used for, and who are the ones printing the most. Dude, with the desk printers EVERYBODY HAS you have that without buying a software. You simply count how much paper and ink people is requesting. That simple.

It's just amazin how there's people who love to bitch about the others and control them, but can't control themselves.

The Air France Question

There should be no doubt in anybody's mind about the airline I love the best in the planet. Not many people likes and and many more complain up and down and all the way around about it, but I can't but praise it. That wonderful, amazing, one-of-a-kind, sublime airline is no other than Air France. So it gets late often, what's the rush? They certainly pick up the speed up in the air! So they delay your luggage, it isn't like after crossing the ocean you are thrilled about carrying your overstuffed suitcases anywhere. So a plain crashed in the middle of the ocean and everybody died, shit happens, besides, it's not like they crash a plane every year, now do they? I love their onboard attention, their food, their movie selections, the leisure you feel up there and how all flight attendants smile at you are always ready to help you in any way they can. I don't mind any of the other things, but often even see them as indirect conveniences that make my life and my trip so much easier. Then, as Air France connects through Paris, spending some time there isn't either something I would just brush off my shoulder! Charles De Gaulle is my favorite airport by far (I speak some French and everybody is nice to me, so perhaps that's the reason), and Paris is certainly my favorite city in the whole planet (not that I have visited every city in the whole planet, but Paris is my favorite). A ticket with Air France is much more expensive than a ticket connecting the same destinations with other airlines, such as KLM, Iberia, Lufthansa, just to name a few, yet when the budget isn't so much of a deal, I always pick Air France. Maybe I could get there earlier if I went with KLM, or maybe I would do less stops if I go with Iberia, and maybe, maybe, maybe, but I keep on choosing Air France time and again.

You may say I love the feng shui I get on Air France (I read that on a Feng Shui book I was consulting to get ideas on how to better decorate my future home, given that it is small and I've a freaking lot of stuff - books mostly), but the fact is that I love the way I'm treated by the company, and if I have the dime, I gladly pay what they ask for that chance. I pay more to be treated kindly. I pay more to be around people enjoying their job, and giving away a wonderful, happy vibe. I pay more for smiles. I pay more for delicious food that has been selected carefully by people who know what's a real eating experience, and don't think that tooth paste between two sheets of notebook paper can pass for a sandwich. I pay for that, and I do it happily.

For a while now, I've noticed that year after year - usually by the end of it - the employees of the airline are going on strike. Flight attendants, now pilots, there was onw about maintenance workers, if I recall correctly, and I wonder, what the hell is going on? I've heard that the jobs at the airlines are no longer the wonderful experience they used to be but have been becoming more and more into ruthless lands of carnage and sweatshops. Airlines are falling, and no longer make it into the black, but as the months roll, they sink deeper and deeper into the red. The backs of smaller companies have already cracked and got crushed into bankrupcy - the latest I know of being Malév, the Hungarian airline - which pours more and more airline workers into the market, and putting more pressure on the airlines from every angle.

The question now is one: Money, and this is going the worst way possible. And sadly this is true for just about any company in the planet, in any industry there is. It's a fact that each time a company starts getting in trouble, the first thing they think of is to pull the income over the outcome, or in other words: create profit. There are two ways to do this: increase your income, by way of increasing your prices or making sure you sell more units... or both if you can pull that out. The other one is to reduce costs. Now, in the current market situation, probably increasing the price or even trying to increase the number of trips sold isn't much likely, so make pencil sharpening analysts (accountants and business administrators, maybe even a rouge economist or two), select to cut costs. That's okay, I mean, you need to get some earnings, go back to the black, and if you can't sell more, and make more money, try making the same money and producing it with less. It never ceases to amaze me, though, how each time these decisions are aimed at reducing the parts that are important for the service, and that's like shooting yourself on the toe.

The "smart" BAs (I refuse to acknowledge the existence of idiotic economists, so I'll pretend they aren't even people, because they should know better), pull out their massive books of leadership and crisis and administration, and decide to go on cutting in the inputs. Lower quality in foods, a cheaper catering service, reduce the replacement rate of parts, eliminate a meal, eliminate newspapers, magazines and other on board amenities and so on (I'm keeping the example of airlines, though I'm not saying this is what's happening with Air France! Hyne forbid! If I get KLM food on Air France, my world will collide). When that's not enough, they take the knife to the employees. Reduce wages, take away off-days, sick-days, cut contracts, eliminate rights and benefits... and then come the layoffs. These people safely locked away in their office buildings, can't possible understand how all of these cuts take away from the quality of the service, from the customer experience cutting actually on the one thing that makes it stand unique, that has earned a differentiating status and created loyalty among customers. Unhappy workers and crappy food along with crappy service - it's what you get for reducing the expense on quality (if all you care is money, then so your workers will care only about the money and will send the quality of your product down the sewer... not like you showed you care), and it will make you yet another gray brand in a pool of gray brands where one can disappear an nobody would notice.

Though mathematically and even economically it makes sense to cut costs when you can't raise your income, I've always wondered why in the fucking hell, if they are so bent on getting the company back on its feet, they don't cut the expenses where it affects less the product. Like, the wage of the CEO and all those on the top floor. How about in times of crisis you get read of a handful of middle  managers and slash the wage of the remaining ones so that all of them get the paycheck of a... flight attendant? If the flight attendant can make a living out of it, sure the CEO can as well! Besides, it would be only while the company gets on it's foot again. But that would be the day a bunch of managers do that, and why? Because just as they have the face to demand their workers to "make it for the team" and "accept the cut so that we all can keep our company up", they are too selfish and aren't willing to bite the bullet. They want to save the company as long as others do the saving, because they want to keep the "benefits they are entitled to".

Just take a look at the banking system in the United States four years ago: their world was collapsing, they were dragging the economy down with them, they claimed for help, people spoke in the news and anywhere in the TV willing to listen about how it was a problem of "everybody", how this was going to affect Everybody, and how Everybody needed to be saved with a bailout. They didn't cut expenses by cutting the over inflated wages and eliminating the obscene bonuses they awarded to their managers and top floor - as a matter of fact, once they've got their bailout, those where to first ones to get paid! - they took the knife to their customers and they smaller workers. If the 80% of middle managers in a bank where to be eliminated, and the wage of the CEO made equall to that of a teller, you could go to a bank and wait for the exact same amount of tellers to get your errands done. If you usually have 10 tellers at your local bank, and 100 customers, each teller takes 5 minutes per customer, you could be out in 50 minutes - more or less. If anything, certainly some issues would also take longer because there would be less managers stamping their signature on the paper to get it approved. Butm if you keep all the managers and the wage of the CEO and cut the costs by firing tellers, maybe even closing some branches, the you'll end up with 5 tellers attending to 200 customers, and you'd be in line for nearly 4 hours. You lose, the economy loses as usually the fired tellers would be more in number than the potentially fired middle management, and only the CEO and the top floor would be happy, specially because thy today work at a bank, and tomorrow at a technology company and they can't care less, all the care of is the check they cash.

The modern, liberal economical philosophy many praise these days are exactly about this: have the freedom to act whichever way that makes sure the top floor can keep milking the customers and the company until this collapses and they can go leech on the next. Liberal economy swears to be the answer to the economical crisis - which was brought to be thanks to their irresponsability, top floor thinking, thank you very much - and I wonder if they can produce the numbers that show how their methods have helped create real, decent jobs from which people can live with dignity. I mean real jobs like the ones you could find at the GM plants in the United States in the 50's-60's, where a wage could feed a family of four with a house in the suburbs, with a lawn, a dog and a white picket fence. I don't mean the current Foxxcon-like jobs where workers jump off the roof is desperation or die due to the unhealthy and insecure conditions.

How many little businesses have made it... from the total of little businesses started. Because you can say "Oh, 1000 made it last year", and it doesn't say a thing. It's different if you say that 1000 from 4000 started have succeeded, than saying 1000 from 1.000.000 made it. These are numbers sometimes should be sent when you are laying off people and telling them that the change is okay and they should try to make it on their own, start a new business and show them 2 or 3 "success cases", like that actually makes a difference.

So, when I see news about strikes, before I rush to the fed conclusion that these are ungrateful, spoiled workers, I can't stop thinking about all the fucked up decisions made by those with the numbers in their hands. The big speaches about organizational culture and profits... those are nothing but empty bullshit. Want organizational culture? Don't print out posters, but call on a general meeting all of your employees and tell them that costs need to be curbed, and the first ones biting the bullet are the top floor, taking on one wages of people who have no subalterns, and removing all middle managers - those who have the capability and are willing, will become regular workers like the rest of them, those who don't are leaving the company. Then tell them that if things don't get better by this time, you'll ask them to please bite the bullet as well. If you were to do that, you would be surprised at what your workers are able to do.

Wanna Know

Why does everybody want to know what are you doing? Really, like I gara ask this Professional College thing to let me go on as an Absent Member for a while, and they want to know why. I say: "I've personal reasons" and they want papers PROVING my personal reasons. Oh, and my travel itinerary isn't enough, I gara prove I'm leaving the country, and I gara do it personally. Yes, in a world full of all sorts of technological options, I have to go all the way to the building of this college and leave there the letter. No e-mail, no fax, no nothing: it's gara be personal. I nearly had a fit about it, specially because now it seems that an itinerary isn't enough, and I'll have to scan and send them the scanning of my passport showing them that I left the country.

What the FUCK??? All that should matter is that I won't be here, that I'll be Absent. I'll pay nothing and add to it, I won't be able to enjoy any of the benefits of being a member. I'll be basically just holding up my number. That's all, so... what the fuck? Do they also want a letter from my auntie stating that I'm there and I brush my teeth every night?

A Weekend of Everything

A very stressful weekend is ending. I feel quite at loss right now, can't hold onto anything solid as things are shifting and changing around me, and here I am, having to pack up my life to move it several thousands of miles away. I don't have enough room to pack, to make any sort of system work just right, but I manage, and still, it looks like more than half of my life will still be left behind. I moved once - in 1996 - how did I do it? How on Earth did I manage that, fitting my life in one suitcase? And now, three suitcases don't seem to be able to house me.

I started my system deciding what was the most important for me: what couldn't I live without? What couldn't I replace? Books and DVDs. So I made these items the core of my suitcases - plus one suitcase with a core of a really large make up box. Clothes - though I love them! - I decided that they could be sent after me, or I could shed some of them. Same goes for the shoes and the purses. Besides, those are things you can buy... even prettier! So clothes, shoes and bags were my "stuffer". Watches and jewelry got into ziploc bags and became "primary stuffers", which meant that those went into the suitcase after the cores did. I selected then for each suitcase a pretty heavy core, filled the back of the suitcase with clothes to even it out, put the core an started "filling". Smaller books, smaller DVD's, some things we've got for the house...

We are supposed to travel with four suitcases - keep our fingers crossed that the airline lets us check in one extra piece each ^_^' - so there's one last suitcase that we must fill, but we don't have that suitcase yet. God willing my brother will lend it to us, and we'll need it. I haven't packed yet my boyfriend's stuff, and so many of my decoration stuff, and my yoga mat are still unpacked!

This is a chaos, and I hate chaos.