Spring magic

Spring came...
And everything seems so easy and pleasant to do...
Even everyday challenges are not so unpleasant.
Amazing how the sun and the blue sky change things...It is a matter of perspective I guess.
Sometimes I find myself staring at the sky and wondering at the pure blue of it...When you are stuck in some office and glued to the daily problems you often forget how amazingly blue the sky is.
Since I am living in dirty Sofia, I just adopted the habit to not look at the ground but just above the level of my eyes. You can discover hidden beauty in strangest places:)
And...the sky is so starry these days at night...
I believe re-birth is coming for everything around me...
And in me...the soul that has been bruised is now slowly getting better...Belief in love is coming back...Love of life and people is coming back. Confidence and dreams as well:)

my life's vision

I have been thinking what my life's vision is...trying to define what do I want to do.
And it seems it is just like Ira said - some kind of life vision has been imposed on me by AIESEC. Some false picture of success.
I do not want to work at a huge company (don't get me wrong, PwC:) ) and I am not over- ambitious.
I just want to be happy with what I am doing. And I realised that I will be happy if I have my own house where I can host people, make connections, create beauty around me and teach people how to create and appreciate beauty.
And I am so happy, as I accidentially came across an advertisement for a job opportunity in one of my favourite places in Sofia - "slanchogled" - a shop for art materials. I would definitely be so happy to work there.
It is a very nice "career development" path, bet a lot of people will be laughing...
But what does it matter?
I'm loving it ( sorry MC Donalds:P)

the sky above Alexander Nevski today

what next...?

Today I got totally confused again:)
About my future...
I went to a careers fair and was doing some nice networking then I just realised...
"Wow! I have already quite a good network of contacts."
A great variety of interests. And now comes the hard part.
How am I going to decide what to do next?
I have been trying to do it for months now and every time I seem to make up my mind...Ops...there comes another opportunity and I start thinking - it might be great to use this one!
I know it is not very good for the "professional image" to be like that. Yet I want to be sure that whatever I am choosing to do is going to be what I really rationally and also emotionally desire.
And there is another thing - the "AIESEC Syndrom" - I got this under my skin. Cannot get rid of it. I am so charmed by the great bunch of really extraordinary people (I believe AIESEC people are truly great - it is not a branding cliche) that I am just thinking - "this is the place to be!These are the people!This is my air and my food! I don't want to go anyware else as I dobt I will find so many STARS there. I wanna have this people around me for my whole life and to get to know more and more of them...
Utopia...
I know that one day or another I will have to go into the "real world". Yet it is so hard to face it.

Heading for the future? but which way??? 

home sweet home...

Today I was travelling to my hometown - Veliko Turnovo. I always love going back there...although I sometimes feel that soon nothing will be linking me with the place...Somehow all my friends are around the world, somehow, I myself feel more like a "citizen of the world" than connected to some concrete place.
On the bus I kept thinking about myself, my qualities and things I have to improve, my strange emotional world and my so unclear future... I am so abstract and untidy in my thoughts...and this might be a huge problem.My thoughts are like a tornado sweeping everything around, yet, unstable in its existence. The moment I believe I have found peace of mind...something is shaking me again. I reached a conclusion that I need spiritual guidance - a religion or philosophy to "tame" the tornado...
Today I said "Goodbye" to one of my best friends - Mury, who is going to work for 6 months on an ocean liner. I will miss her...We were walking around the old part of the town...and I felt so much at peace...like I always do when I am with "soulmates".
Hope we will meet soon...somewhere around the worls. It is always exciting to find out that you are "at home" anywhere since you have people so close to you.

me at apart:mental after a summer rain 

my ...love?

How long has it been...
Since June 2005...when u sent me this message that you are afraid "you might be falling in love".
How many sleepless nights and how many tears...I didn't know then that I am capable of feeling so much pain. No I do. And I am thankful.
I learned a few lessons. I will remember them during my life.
I learned there are soulmates. Truly...people that you just feel a spiritual connection with. A connection that is over the physical bounderies of time and space. You may barely know them. But you never ask questions, as - it seems they are a part of you- there is a silent understanding between you, a sort of a "contract" that others cannot understand.
I learned that true love is sometimes impossible in real life. Maybe somewhere and someday, when we are stripped naked - left with our spiritual self only - we can be one. Not now, though. For this life - I know that I should let you choose your path. Not try to make you "love me" at any price. If you really love someone - set them free, there was a song i think...
Now I see that you are excited that we will meet again. But how close will you let me? Will you let me hold your hand?Or kiss you?Or ask you personal questions?Will you run away when I seem to be too close?
And why do I persist with this? Why don't I give up and search for another one...
Wish I knew...

Bulgaria and Western Europe

I was talking to my Mum yesterday about my trip to the Netherlands.
Discussing what a great difference there is between Bulgaria and the western European countries.
It is so stunning, when you cross the Serbian border ( when comming back with the train Netherlands- Germany-Austria-Hungary-Serbia-Bulgaria)...even the Hungarian one.
In western Europe everything seems so clean and tidy, as if a picture painted by some art-master, whereas as we reach the Balkans, it becomes more and more dirty and messed-up.
We were discussing when there will be a change happening in Bulgaria, when do we become real eurpeans...As already 15 years passed in "democracy" and no change has happened...I guess it is a mental transformation, yet this takes a lot of time and effort - to change the collective conciousness of a nation.
I even sometimes doubt that Bulgarians have a "collective consciousness" - we are a nation of individualists, I do not know if we have a common value even. The most awful stories I have heard of - Bulgarians being abroad and instead of helping each other, doing the best they can to stay apart and even try to make life harder for the others. This has been a mentality - people are raised for generations in fear during the Otoman yoke, then, at the communist years everyone was a spy. I guess this is not a very friendly environment to build common values on. If there were some values, obviously they were "propaganda" values, not deeply felt by everyone. Now with the crash of the system they are gone.
I guess it will be hard, if not impossible to build common values in people that have this historical burden. And without common ground - nothing like a big change is possible.
I am wondering if we as a nation have this destiny - to be really bright as individuals but never to be able to be successful as a nation. "Teamwork" is obviously not in our vocabulary. Sad but true.

post-IPM reflections

Two days after coming back from IPM in the Netherlands I am completely and totally back to reality.
I am looking at the pictures and thinking - is it possible that it seems so long ago that I have been at this great place with these great people.
Was it me, or was it someone else?
I always find it challenging to "come back to reality". I am so inspired now, with so many ideas and so much positive energy...and yet I am afraid that this might fade away...
It is time for self-reflections anyway, and I am still confused about my future. Naturally I want to go for AIESEc, as I believe I can hardly find the same amount of passion and great energy and creativity in any company. Yet I am more eager to start something new, to go for extensions, rather than go to an established place and do the "usual". I want to have something challenging me ...not that my current position is not challenging...yet, I would like to be building new things, rather than trying to make repairments in current things.
Yet, challenge has a limit and I dunno what is my limit ...am I able ( or I just think I am) to really go so far? I believe I am a strong person...But "strong" ...does it have a definition?
Maybe the only way to find out is just to go for it...