Rebound reback

I left this blog on its own for much too long a time. I was planning to come back after 6 months and draw a line, paint a picture, look back and see what's new. What changed? My writing feels rusty.

- I went to China (to pick up from where I left off). I have yet to upload all the pictures on Flickr, but when I do I'll post the link. That trip was sooooo... It scratched at my stomach. I don't think I've ever felt more jittery, more ready to leave, to up and go, than I did while waiting in the Beijing airport for the plane to take us home. I'll write about China, I promised myself. I just don't know how to put into words the feeling that I got when I first stepped into the hotel in Chengdu, the feeling I had when I entered the Forbidden City, the feeling I had when a guy stopped me on the Great Wall and asked me to have my picture taken with him - picture taken by his girlfriend. Those emotions, and those thoughts, and the images I still have burned across my retina, the tastes and smells and the joy that made me want to kyaa, cry and punch something at the same time. And the map in the Chinese Embassy in Bucharest, which showed China and, just across a smallish water-puddle (it seemed), the place where I have set my goal. More and more, I feel like that is where I'll die. Which would be quite a way to go.

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- Next, two days after landing back home, there I was at the airport again, this time on my way to London. This turned out to be the saddest sight-seeing session I've ever gone through, sadder even than Prague. After the glorious 6 days which had barely passed, and which I hadn't gotten a chance to properly digest, London left me unimpressed. Every time I think of China, I feel that the air I'm breathing in has a certain, different scent. It's hard to explain. And I strain my lungs trying to figure out what it is.

Good bits about London: the shops, ohmygod the shops. People who spoke English (finally! This was the first time I visit a native English-speaking country). All the chicks in mini-skirts who, at least for a bit, changed my mentality about that aspect (I am currently successfully employing the woolen dress I bought from there as a sweater. No /way/ am I going out dressed like that here!)

Bad bits: the food! The people are grumpy, and I'd like to know where all the /English/ are, because I doubt I saw more than a dozen blonde people at a time. I won't complain about the weather, though, it was decent.

Fun bits: the fun I had tracking down all the Neverwhere references - though I didn't get to Blackfriars, unfort. And and and... SEEING STONEHENGE. My heart stopped, and my ears were buzzing, and it was so beautiful that I wanted to cry, and so small that I wanted to cry, and people were so uninterested, and there were sheep grazing nearby, and the grass was wet and cold as I sat on it and listened to the rather lame audioguide, and there were crows. There were crows on the stones. Oh, and one of the ravens at the Tower of London is called Thor. Un-fitting conflict with Odin's image, I thought, but still a bit cute.


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- then I came home and settled down for a bit. Before going to London I had applied to a couple of jobs, got called in for interviews and had to choose one of them, since I'd gotten accepted to both. Bank or recruitment company? I chose the latter, thinking that the recession won't touch me there. I lasted two weeks (and one project, which was successful, because I'm /that/ kind of lucky-awesome). I liked the chicks working there, and the conditions were nice, but the job was already having trouble stuffing all that cock into its mouth by day two, that I thought I'd do it a favor and liberate its respiratory paths. So I quit before they had a chance to register me (or so I'd thought. Oh wellz.) and decided to freeload for a while.

I was planning on massively involving myself in voluntary projects with the "frumoasa asociatie", but they disappointed me big-time. Granted, an organization's goals, just like a person's, can change over time. But they changed drastically, and at the wrong moment. I wanted to act, not do what they were being so passionate about at the time. Now, a few months later, things are different from one pov only: their interest changed yet again. They are just as one-track-minded. *sigh*


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- in December, I was called in for work. I agreed. What else could I do? It turned out to be enjoyable, though overly dull, because I'm almost never given anything to do. Still, I have time to learn Japanese and read shit on the internet, and the pay kicks ass extremely severely. My colleagues are nice, the gossip is exciting, the food is bad, the hours are killing me (because I have to get up at variations-of-6-in-the-morning. However, I do get off at somehwere-between-3-and-4-in-the-afternoon, and you so can't beat that!). I wonder how that'll continue from now on.


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- for my birthday, TP and I took the now-mandatory trip to Budapest. It was gloriously fun, because we ate our asses off, met up with my old friend Milos, took a tour of a very intriguing potential-masters-university, discovered the coolest bar I've ever seen, and got to shop almost not at all (to TP's great joy and my huge dismay). More on that in a later post, because I feel the need to order those thoughts as well.


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- by a twist of very unexpected fate, one week later, I had the house all to myself for the weekend, so I had teh peoplez0r over - which turned out to be fun. We cooked - together, like I'd kept on saying I wanted to, and it came out gross-looking and vaguely-edible (pictures and some details later). We got a bit plastered (well, TP and I did - the others are too much of a prudish group to perform such lowly activities. Hah, I had a hangover. So what. Having sex when you're that tipsy is soooo bloody amazing.) and generally had fun (I think. Ok, /I/ had fun. Th others can do as they please, I had long ago given up the thought that, since I'm the host, I have to be the local impromptu entertainment, so that everyone /else/ has a good time.) Yay for selfishness!

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- I have fallen inexorably in love with the band heidi., whom I adore for the beautiful voice full of inflexions and the kick-ass way they use their instruments. Alas, if only I could understand their lyrics... Still, YAY for Angura-kei! (and it rhymes. And I'm a dweeb. And... yeah.)

Also, I have taken to reading all the /completed/ shoujo manga on onemanga, because I need an afflux on nigh-diabetes-inducing sweetness in my life, so as not to constantly leech on TP. Who must be at wits' end with me as it is. Meh. I'll be good, I promise *does the puss-in-boots-from-shrek face*


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- I'm not going to go into detail about how I went to the mountains for a weekend in December, got wasted every day, and got food poisoning (my first ever externally-caused-stomach-problem ever. It was... entertaining. Also, my puke reflex isn't what it used to be... if it ever was.) Suffice to say it was fun. And I want Andrei! (as long as someone trims his claws first. I'll show you Andrei if I ever figure out how to use my cell-phone transfer cable. No, I don't want any wise-ass comments about how you plug one end into the cell, one end into the computer, and are ready to go. What I want, if you're that willing to help, is someone to come to my house, look through all my stuff and /find/ my transfer cable, then transfer the pictures, because I can't be buggered. Still, better to blame it on idiocy than on laziness - at least the former is curable. No? SI!)

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And now here we are, in the present. With a waning winter, a hard-disk full of Jrock, and a head full of plans. Or plants.

I'm mostly writing this to show how I'm steeling myself for the tedious process of applying to all them masters. The Netherlands, Denmark and, as a back-up plan, Hungary. Then - Tokyo, Osaka, Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Denmark-continued, Seoul or Taiwan (in that order of preferences). For at least a year. For at most a lifetime. It's so strange to think that, if all goes according to plan, this time next year I'll be in another country - this time in three years I'll be at the other end of the planet. I feel like the time has come. This is the crossroad, and I've managed to steer my ambitions so that none of the choices I now have is a wrong one.

I'm going to write some (more) cliches here, so if you're bothered, just skip. For the first time in my life, I feel alive. I feel like I'm the one who's living my life. My choice, my decisions, my future with my amazing boyfriend in the country of our choice. And for the first time, it doesn't feel too good to be true. It just feels good. And now I know, I finally know it in my bones, that I'm doing things the best I can - and that means there's nothing to regret, nothing to reproach.


*hums* Welcome to my life.