dtiefling

So yeah, it's been awhile, I've been busy with work blah blah blah. You know it already, have heard it all before. So i'll just skip the introduction, shan't I?

The fact of the matter is sometimes you just HAVE to write some things down - it could be in diary, it could be in Livejournal. And they may not be of great consequence or even mildly interesting but they are on the tip of your... well, typing fingers and they desperately want to come out. Better put those down then instead of explanations for when they don't come out.

Did that make sense? It made sense in my slightly unfocused brain so if it doesn't work for you just look away, unfocus and come back. :)

I've had a super weekend in the country and have the mosquito bites to show for it. My arms are still scratchy and I swear I didn't have so many red spots on my face not even during adolescence. But hey, it was worth it just to see what was probably the most aesthetically pleasing sunset I have ever witnessed in my life and also watch for hours the clouds gliding on the glassy surface of the marsh/lake/moor (don't really know the appropriate word for it). And the rare birds and the doggies and the lentils were good too (somehow it's always lentils when I'm camping with the boys. And they always do all the cooking too). And the climbing, that too. I climbed again and it felt real nice, which was a surprise.

Also, recently I finished a wonderfully bewildering book of an appropriately wonderfully bewildering title "If on a winter's night a traveller" (Italo Calvino). I meant to share some parts of it with you but I've left it at home now so too bad. Just trust me and read it anyway.

And finally, yeah, I'm excited to be going back to the UK next week. It's going to be a mad rush trying to see a great number of people is such short time but I'm glad for whatever time I will be able to have with my friends, some of whom I haven't seen in a considerably long time. And then of course, there is always the immeasurably pleasurable task of trying to convince ML to get .... mmm, silly things.MWAHAHA!

I had more to write on of airports and travelling and of the obsessive compulsive in all of us and other such silly things but they've been in my brain since the weekend and they have contracted some of the unfocuseness that goes with it. So I'll just wrapt this up and go scratch me spots some.

Ta!

My pants are insolvent. I don't know how long this condition will last, maybe for a while. Just saying...

I had a post about Namibia all lined up for today, but somehow it hardly feels topical now. The suburbs around the city are aflame again and we spent the weekend at home with a feeling like a big, heavy stone at the pit of our stomachs. Like rats in a cage we sat, read, watched films and did chores all the while with a big feeling of remorse, frustration and guilt. And yet we are not the worse. We don't make fires in the Summer when we go camping, we certainly don't throw lighted cigarettes out of the car, we love the forests and visit them often, try not to litter... G also volunteers for fire prevention by watching for fires up the mountain. And yet, when the fires break and there is a wind like this one blowing for a week non-stop, there is absolutely nothing that we can do and nothing of whatever we have done that seems to matter. Unless G is able to manufacture his weather-controling gadget or I am endowed with fire-bending superhero power, all I feel I can do while what is left of an ancient ecosystem is destroyed all around us, is feel helpless and guilty.

I am in love with the centre of Athens. This morning I played hookie and walked around the streets of the retail centre for about an hour. It's interesting to see how shops selling particular kinds of goods all cluster in the same or same couple of streets, sort of like guild conclaves. You find all the jewellery workshops in one place, the watch retailers, the haberdasheries, the packaging or lighting specialists... I love walking by all the run-down little shops with the 1960s signs and the abandonned buildings with the unhinged wooden doors. If I have an excuse I will go through the bountiful and weird merchandise of some of these shops and perhaps unearth some cool forgotten item from before the currency change (or way before the currency change).

For lunch, I turned left from work instead and was in Plaka in seconds. I was going after some cranberry juice (an extremely rare commodity in Greece) and there is no better place to purchase the weird stuff which I eat than in the Athens city centre (and the foreign supermarket at Kifissia but that kind of weakens my point so I won't be mentioning it here). The venture was doubly a success, since find my juice I did and also got to stroll through one of the most picturesque city spots in Europe. Can't beat that!

Despite my happy thoughts and fortuitous adventures, I lost my temper twice today. Hopefully, I managed not to let it show too much while I opted for politely saying goodbye and walking out of the situation instead. It's incredible how easily my temper flares up on occasion recently. Since I am actually much less likely to get angry or upset with the people I am in contact with on a daily basis (like my friends or co-workers) than I was, say, five years ago, I find it very odd that complete strangers can get to me in this way. For that reason, I like to think that it is indicative of something in particular and not an overall behavioural change (i.e. I don't like to think I'm nasty or rude as a rule - at least, I haven't been up to know I think). Also interesting is that today's charming behaviour occured only a day after a panic attack (this is where I realise I should be friendslocking this, but can't be bothered) and since I haven't had one of those for some time I find myself wondering whether there is any correlation between the two (aside from the obvious crankiness as a result of the attack) and also if they are connected in any way with something I ate. A stretch you might say, but, if my stomach ailment can be connected to my physcological well-being (a view I'm still not so convinced of), I don't see any reason why my mood can't be the result of something in my tummy.

I just had a thought, that if I ever do find that the doctors are all stupid in trying to convince me that my stomach pains are psychosomatic and I have something physical instead, I will be royally pissed.

In other news, I am hoping to be making better use of my time in the next few days as the productivity bug is catching on little by little. I have wasted the last couple of weeks doing very little considering the large amount of time i have in my hands now that work has slowed down for a bit. But I did need that headspace, a little time where I am not vacationing in a foreign land but not stressing my mental faculties too much either. The last six months have been really hard in that respect.

Hopefully the next post will be about Namibia.

Fetchy title huh? Also completely untrue, as I didn't come near enough to being in danger of either being bitten by a snake or being speared by a rhino - as far as I know at least! My Namibian holiday was in fact wonderful and entirely uneventful, I just wanted to make things sound a little more dramatic. Heh!

It's hard to be back at the office right now, when only a few days ago I was walking around in the African wilderness and seeing many interesting and fantastic sights and wild animals. My head and heart are full of sights and experiences that will linger for a long time and will change parts of me forever, hopefully to the better. Namibia has certainly lived up to our expectations in terms of natural beauty and exceeded all of them in terms of people, infrastructure and quality of services. Yes, a country with many many issues of inequality and poverty, but still full of hard-working and vibrant people who are enthusiastic of their national natural environment and protective of their resources. It felt good to talk to young people working in the parks and campings all around the country who felt happy with their jobs and content with living where they did, despite the fact that their salaries may have been a small fraction of what a European gets paid to do a desk job.

But anyway, we are back in full health and very content with our travels if it weren't for the fact that now that this is over, a new destination must be found to look forward to! Our dreams have become a reality and now we feel the need to replace them with new ones. Which we will soon do, I am sure.

Also, as a sidenote, G and I celebrated one decade of our weird mixture of nitro-ladden love affair by eating macaroni and drinking beer under a starlit sky at a campsite in Namibia. Which seemed like the bestest and most appropriate way to celebrate. So on for another 10, hopefully!

Long, boring posts with photos and day-to-day trip descriptions to follow shortly.

... no surprise there. During the time that work has been hoovering all my time I have only sparsely read LJ or otherwise kept in touch with the real world so do feel free to fill me in in anything you'd like me to know. Also, during the time that I've been absent from the internets I have:
- Gone to Lithuania with work - 'twas good
- Danced at a flamenco show
- Finished classes and had the exam for my University course
- (Mostly) prepared for our trip to Namibia

It's only a couple of days now (maybe a bit more)! I can't WAIT!

It's not likely that I'll be able to check LJ from the Namibian wilderness so see you again in August yall!

It's been work non-stop for the last few weeks and I'm exhausted. It's work on weekends, evenings and during time normally reserved for hobbies. Meanwhile, Summer is happening on the outside world and occasionally I notice. In an effort to avoid thinking and talking (=complaining) about work here too, here's a list of things I have come across and liked or disliked recently.
Things I like:
- The woman in the pastry shop - warm weather's back and so is she, eating her sweets outdoors while solving crossword puzzles!
- A young boy frantically running for the bus and catching it (with a little help from the driver).
- Lucky people who have the time to wash their cars - plastic bottle, bubbles and sun... Sounds like heaven right now.
- Mounds of cherries on carts.
- Glossy girls' legs sprouting from summer shorts.
- One musical phrase in our dance performance piece.

Things I dislike:
- Heat and congestion in the public trasport system on the way to work (and how horribly people act on the trains).

Back to work now.

What is it about me and trains? How come I find myself spending all this time in trains no matter what country I live in and what work I do? *sigh* I'm having a stupidly busy couple of weeks and it's not over yet. I'm already tired and feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work and the lack of *time*.
If I must be involved with trains why can't I be a station master or ticket issuing person at a small Greek country town? I would spend my time during soft, quiet afternoons issuing a ticket or two and watching sparrows doing their crazy little jumpy dance among pine needles. Or better yet, at the station near El Jem in Tunisia. During warm Mediterranean evenings, ladden with Arab music and the smell of the bucanvilla, I would daydream about gladiators from my little booth looking out to the lit Roman ampitheatre.

So, my first day as a "course convenor" (ah! I love the sound of that!) went pretty well. Of course, the worst is yet to come as we tackle a number of anti-intuitive items in the next couple of weeks. That means lots of work and lots of potentially unhappy students. But until then: Teaching! YAY! I get such a buzz! It feels just as wonderful as I remembered.

The class is very tiny, the whole university feels like a family business or something. That might not be such a good thing for a higher eduction institute. But who cares! I have about twenty expectant faces waiting for me next week and a lot of material to inform them about. I'm happy!

"Whose task is to..."

or

"Whose task it is to..."?

Or both?

February 2009 has been rather good to me. This comes as a surprise actually as I normally find the time in between the holidays and real springtime extremely bleak and dreary. January and February usually seem to drag on for ages and are making me miserable. This year, since around mid February I have been incredibly active and haven't even had the time to miss Spring before it's almost already here. It's rather cool actually. Naturally, there are still long-term tasks that need doing and are put off interminably, nevertheless I have hardly had a moment's worth of procrastination done in the whole time since then. Which means that some things may still not be getting done but others, important ones, are! It's so nice to be able to say that!

Somewhere in all that, I managed to land myself an extra job as a teaching fellow at a University near Athens... This sentence should merit an exclamation mark but it doesn't actually have one because I'm confused about it. It is... strange news as I didn't know I wanted the job when I applied for it. Now I have it, which is making me even more active than before (beware!), and I don't know how to feel about it. Somehow I know it will be good for me in terms of getting back into the teaching (something I thought I'd left behind forever in the UK) and in getting to know people who are already in the academia here. On the other hand, it will be tiring and difficult handling that as well as all the usual traveling and job obligations.

Even though I'm rather numb about the job, I am still in pretty good spirits. Work is going very well, our Summer holiday plans (to another hush!hush! destination) are moving along without any serious problems so far, flamenco remains both a challenge and a pleasure, the lease for our home is most probably getting extended for another year, I am making new exciting plans for research and I have even managed to go out some. Several other things should feature in there too, but there is no need for an exhaustive list. Just to say: Thank you Spring and welcome!

So... It's all over the place these days, this overarching optimism about Obama. To me it seems so over the top that I feel like the kid in black at a happy family reunion. Yes, I am a known party-pooper as well as a gloomy pessimist, and although I can cry while watching a stupid ad on mobile networks, I would find it hard to admit to crying over a politician's speech. Even if that had been true.

I''m not trying to criticise other people's views or reactions here. As far as I'm concerned, people can think and act any damn way they please. What I'm trying to say here is that I'm amazed! I'm really amazed at how ecstatic everyone is by the election of a man who has not proved he can be worthy of anyone's tears (of happiness, relief, excitement) yet. But I guess, I find it odd anyway that we congratulate politicians when they take office rather than when they eventually step down. It's when their work can be assessed that congratulations are in order (or not) and not before they've done anything. And the harsh reality is, that most politicians disappoint when that day of closure comes - which makes me think that America (and the World) has been sold a fairytale.

I am also relieved at seeing Bush go. But I find it irrational to think that the views of the people who supported this view of a Bush-less world are any more valid than (at least some) of the people who wished it otherwise - who am I to say that I am right about this and they are not! This ecstasy... I find that also irrational and a little condescending to any friends I might have who feel otherwise. Also to me, it smells a little too much of... I dunno... I watched a documentary about Chile once and was amazed to see people in the streets crying about Pinochet who had fallen ill. Pinochet you understand, the guy who was in charge of a blood-shedding junta in their own country! Now, I'm not trying to say Obama has anything similar to Pinochet. It's not Obama I'm worried about, it's the people who cry over Obama, the people who idolise him, the people with too many expectations.

I'm a cynic OK? I admit it, to me, he is just a man, he is a politician (a species I'm not fond of) and he is the President of the United States. As such, he will support the interests of the US and will also be constrained by the wishes of his electorate. So just... don't expect the world to change just yet m'kay?

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! I'm back at work today after a couple of weeks of absence and it seems that there are various changes happening at the Ministry right at this very moment. This will mean a great deal of re-adjustment for our department, a thing not always welcome *shrug*. We'll see how that goes anyway.

As far as holidays go, I managed to have a great time. Company, location and being away from parents contributed immensely to that, even though there is tension at the parent front at the moment. Oh well, THEY will have to deal with it this time as I'm trying to find ways to not let them affect me any longer (even if not being around them altogether is one of them). In the meantime, I am still basking in the lovely memories of the holiday we had up in the mountains, which was one of the best New Year eves I've had in years. Perhaps there will be photos from that at some point.

Quite uncharacteristically, I have decided to give some moments of thought to 2008 and make some resolution-type thingies for 2009. In many respects, 2008 has been a very good year despite not starting off in the best way possible. The most major challenge and, I guess, accomplishment of this year has been getting this job and realising a dream that I've had since I first went to University. That is a pretty amazing thing to have happened if you think about it - dreams are so often dreamed but so rarely made reality - and I am very thankful for it even if it ends up to be a dream I may no longer want. Moving in with G is another thing which has happened in 2008 and that has been a source of everyday joy and strength, so much so that it's hard to put it down on a list of things which have "occured", so natural does it feel and so necessary. The same with so many little joys and happinesses which happen every day and which have brightened up the year. Of course, going to Iceland features prominently in the list of great things of 2008, with more travels in the book for this year. Most importantly, my family, my friends and myself have all been healthy and well this year and hopefully this will remain so in 2009.

In 2009 I would like to:
- Do more research and publish more
- Improve one of my existing language skills - which goes hand in hand with avoid starting learning a NEW one
- Make music occasionally - the way things are today, fiddling with my flute once a month would be OK
- Eat more fruit and drink more water - towards maintaining health and well-being

I think there might have been more but I can't remember them now. As for the rest, the travelling, the job, friends and family they are always there and they require the same care and attention this year that they did the last, so there's little point making resolutions for them. Here's to a Good year all around for all!!

Every year around Christmas the Cold will arrive. So is it this year also and it's doing a pretty good job of freezing our asses off! Thank god for Islandic woolly jumpers! It's fun hearing our Lithuanian friend complain and declare that at -10 degrees in Lithuania he feels less cold than he feels here right now (at about 7). Well, it's true, people don't often realise but it's not always sunny and warm over here in the Med and when it's not, it's shockingly cold - please move on to Colombia for balmy weather all year round.

So, cold=Christmas and I'm finally getting in the spirit of it. Yeah, i know, it takes me a while but I'm slow like that. Besides, I need to be wearing my dickensian checkered coat, my mittens and a woolly hat to really feel christmasy and doing that up until Saturday would have meant broiling to death from the insides, yessssss. Today, on the other hand, is a perfectly christmasy day, cold to the very core; the overground metro/train that I take to work was far from being packed, there were children coming in to sing carols at every station (cultural parenthesis: traditionally in Greece, children - very rarely adults - sing carols on the 24th December only and again on the 31st for New Year) and our mountains were capped with snow (I hadn't even realised you can actually see the mountains from the train until I saw them all blue and white and mistty today and I've taken this route for years). Also, at work we're having a bit of munch and drink at 13.00 which means LESS WORK TODAY YEAH! If that's not all that Christmas is about I don't know what is! *grins*

So yeah, I better go today and buy some pressies and some wrapping paper. I might even - shock, horror! - get down to doing some baking this evening. But don't hold your breath on that one.

Have a nice Christmas every one!

Oh great and wonderful Paris how you charm me! I guess you could say that traveling with work is not always bad and certainly in this occasion it was much more than that. The meeting, the experience, the whole work-related stuff was great and Paris itself was nothing sort of splendid. It brings quite a wrench to be writing this at the same time when my own poor tormented city is blazing with (not entirely unjustifiable) riots and when I'm not even sure to be able to get out of my office building later because of that.

But yeah, Paris was great and I much prefer to dwell on that right now. There was students in smart jackets outside universities at the Cartier Latin, there was a lonesome figure reading a book at every single decadent little cafe (I know because I looked!), there was shops selling things of every description, there was a great salmon-coloured sunset over the Seine. There was also excellent food,  amazing wine (of which I had more than I should have and a lot less than I could have), there was boulangeries with spreads of wonderful things: the tarte tatin, the mille feuilles a la vanille and au chocolat, the brioche, the madeleine, the eclair... There were shops with rows of sparkling wine bottles lying enticingly on their bellies. There was cheese, oh my was there cheese! Passing by the open shops with their zenga mountains of cheese wheels, all the different textures and the different colours being displayed so eagerly, I slowed down to the point of stopping and stared at them for a few minutes salivating. Gosh, I'm really greedy!

Of course, upon returning from Paris and getting in touch witg little_cinnamon , I heard about the break-in and that turned things a little sour. Awful and crappy thing! Hopefully, we helped the two poor guys get their minds off it while they were still here - at least as far as was possible.

So yes, is at work now and doing work-things. Next up: Brussels!

Looks like work is sending me to Paris on the 4-5 December! POW!
That might change our, in any case hazy plans somewhat  :).

So I'm thinking of cutting down on my ramblings in the centre of Athens in between work and dance class. Finding yourself in a not so nice neighbourhood after nightfall is actually a little scary, as I found out yesterday, and these days it gets dark almost right after work. I guess I will have to contain my walks in the more trendy places, which is a pity because I love getting lost in the dodgy neighbourhoods. It's not only interesting, it's also kind of an exposure therapy thing which extends my comfort zone and I kind of like that...

Never mind, winter will pass, spring will come. So is it always. Christmas is already almost here, as some of my British friends remind me - here in Greece that's not so obvious. This year I will try to go by the resolution I made last Christmas and think of it as something *good*, something that stands between the darkness and bleakness of the winter months and our state of mind. I will try to like Christmas and all the festivities, I will! Yeah well, something is already telling me that I will fail and that's a recipe for disaster as I know too well.

What's in tiefling's programme for the next few days? Well, apparently we're attempting to resurrect our RPG campaign this Thursday (possibly at least) and littlecinnamon and co are coming towards the end of the week - YAY! Then I'm flying to Brussels (what a surprise!) on Sunday and again the week after (I've got a carbon footprint made in hell, i know :( ) followed right after by a four-day flamenco workshop which should be fun although very tiring. Sometime in between I should find the time to see my parents, return an upractical coffee-maker, fix my watch and have some of my lovely new clothes, which help me in my aim to be different personas in my everyday life (right now I like to think I look like a Call of Cthulhu investigator from the Victorian era), taken to the drycleaners'.  

I'm sipping on my cup of lady gray with honey right now, it's so GOOD! Hope your cuppa of the day fills you with much pleasure too!





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I decided to do that meme with ten things I like that start with the same letter and tattercoats kindly gave me P. I immediately thought "oh that's so easy" and had the first entry figured out in a second! It turned out to be slightly more difficult for the remaining 9 :)

1. Planar. In gaming "circles" [sic] he was known as Planar and carried an evil goatie. But he still uses this nickname for anything on the internet, whether it has to do with photography, couchsurfing or climbing and that's how I've got him written on my mobile. It's just simply his name as much as his real one is.
2. Pie or Pitta (the Greek kind). Pretty self-explanatory...
3. Puffins, because they were on my list of wild creatures I wanted to see and I did get to see them last Summer and they were great!
4. Port, the drink. It's sweet, intoxicating and sensual.
5. Poetry. Reading it because it makes me dream, writing it because it makes me feel young and innocent :)
6. Peanut Butter! My Greek friends cringe when I indulge in this foreign habit of mine but it's peanut butter and jelly forever for me.
7. Plants. I love to look at them and touch them and I have been known to talk and kiss them but unfortunately my thumb is of a very pale green. Can't grow a damn thing!
8. Photographs, because they capture moments of either true beauty or true emotion and they remind me of wonderful things (I'm pretty fond of a certain Photographer too, heheh).
9. Pine trees, because they are everywhere in Greece and they make me think of home, of summer and of the sea. Also because they are not everywhere enough and they get fewer and fewer every year.
10. Peace and peace and quiet. Can't live without them.

Phew! I am pretty sure something pretty obvious starting with p will pop in my head the minute I hit "post".

It's been a busy and... confusing couple of weeks. Work, for one, has been interesting (the bad kind) as well as hectic. Fortunately, all the fires seem to have been put out now and there is a semblance of normality with not too many wounds to lick. Life has been happening in the meantime and I find that it can occasionally be a real struggle to feel like you're on top of things. Certain things which make me feel happy and relaxed are sometimes so hard to achieve, like making sure we eat well and healthily, that the house is relatively tidy, that there are no chores pending since last month, that I get enough quality time with G and am doing things that I enjoy, that I don't feel like I'm neglecting my friends or my parents...

In the meantime, I have re-affirmed my long-forgotten affair with cinema and watched two movies last week, the first being "Hunger" (a fantastically-made but very harsh film) and the second "Quantum of Solace" (because, why), had food poisoning and recovered (I think) and went to another swing dance workshop (heaps of fun). I have also come to the conclusion that my new flamenco school is very great but unfathomly difficult and so it makes me both happy to be going there and feeling "too old for this".

In the outside world, we've been having a particularly mild Autumn (a little too mild perhaps) and Winter has only just made itself known. Time to bring my multicoloured woolen tights out from the closet methinks and to start wearing boots instead of heels to work. Note to self: get winter coat from parents in time for next trip to Brussels on Monday.

Tasks which must absolutely be accomplished this week at home:
Wash and store Summer and mid-season clothes
Make room in closet for Winter coats
Return coffee-maker (long story)
Sew velvet button on velvet coat

Now, who among you can tell me what the name of this punctuation mark is in English: "..."?

Busiest... week... ever... Work... is... killing... me...  This... is... the... sound... of ... me... dying... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

(There's only about one whole s*tload of work to be done in the next couple of days and over the weekend - the weekend! do you hear? weekends should be SACRED man! - and a trip to Brussels on Monday. That's it! I'm quitting.)