For a second there, after a week of mostly down-with-spirits mood, it almost felt good.

Now, for years, I have been critical in what Romania is concerned, only to come to Sweden for a full week of really living here, and not just act like a visitor/guest, and question myself “What the hell am I doing here?”

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Read the rest of Is it a sign? (362 words)

© Andrie, 2008. | Permalink | One comment
Filed under: Hope, Junk, Personal, Why
Tags: expectations, feat, immigrants, mood, romanian, stockholm, sweden

Sitting on an old shelf..

Just a big-sized Romanian schoolbook?

Or a big-sized memory-triggering object?

© Andrie, 2008. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Hope, Personal, Two Lines
Tags: childhood, memories, primary, romania, romanian, school, schoolbook

It’s been quite a busy spring and summer..

Thank goodness I took a one month holiday in spring to Poland and Sweden. Otherwise it would have been a no holiday year with bachelor studies finishing mid-July and leaving Romanian mid-August.

But it’s all over now, both the Bachelor studies and the entrance to Master studies.

The result.. a nice GPA of 3.59 [out of 4] (3.62 if you take into consideration my Erasmus courses as well), a 9.6 [out of 10] final examination and a 10 degree thesis project.

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Read the rest of Cliché - The light at the end of the tunnel (314 words)

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Filed under: Education, Hope, Personal
Tags: bachelor, cliché, feat, grade, romanian, university

Femeile celor mai buni prieteni. Prietenele celor mai bune femei. Femeile-cele-mai-bune-prietene.

Femeile care se gândesc la futut la fel de mult ca şi noi, dar au decenţa să nu vorbească la fel de des şi de urât despre asta. Femeile care ne trimit cadouri, care ne-aşteaptă cu luminile stinse în maşina parcată la colţul străzii, care ne plătesc consumaţia, care ne întreţin, ne savurează şi apoi ne roagă să le uităm.

Praise to real women (Dragoș Bucurenci)
June, The ONE #47

I’ll try to translate it all to English, when&if I have the time. It is really well written, and kept me reading it to the end

This also made me look for a previous entry entitled “Simple Honesty“, with the motto You make me want to be a better psychopath:

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Read the rest of Women (2,233 words)

© Andrie, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments
Filed under: Hope, How To, Personal, Two Lines
Tags: dragoș bucurenci, feat, genuine, praise, romanian, simple, women

- Mitică… şi mai cum?

- E destul atâta: Mitică - de vreme ce şi dumneata îl cunoşti tot aşa de bine ca şi mine. Fireşte că trebuie să-l cunoaştem: îl întâlnim atât de des - în prăvălii, pe stradă, pe jos, în tramvai, în tramcar, pe bicicletă, în vagon, în restaurant, la Gambrinus - în fine pretutindeni.

Mitică este bucureşteanul par excellence. Şi fiindcă Bucureştii sunt un mic Paris, şi Mitică, se-nţelege, este un mic parizian.

El nu e nici tânăr, nici bătrân, nici frumos, nici urât, nici prea-prea, nici foarte-foarte; e un băiat potrivit în toate; dar ceea ce-l distinge, ceea ce-l face să aibă un caracter marcat este spiritul lui original şi inventiv.

Mitică este omul care pentru fiecare ocaziune a vieţii găseşte un cuvânt de spirit la moment, şi pentru asta simpaticul parizian al orientului este foarte căutat şi plăcut în societate.

Mitică are o magazie, un arsenal, o comoară de vorbe, de întrebări, de răspunsuri, cari fac deliciile celor ce au fericirea să-l cunoască.

Mai cu seamă pe provinciali, micul nostru parizian îi epatează cu verva lui scânteietoare.

Mitică (Ion Luca Caragiale)

But coming back to present times, the myths that Bucharest people digest and enjoy are incredible.

After the 1st round of local elections, the best and probably the worst contender are going in the 2nd round for the Mayorship of Bucharest’s Municipality.

I say “the worst” on the simple ground that Sorin Oprescu is the old guy that pimps reality. He’s the one that when you’re down finds the resources to give you some booze, some low-level jokes, some chicks and to send you to bed as if you were a newly born child. He a true brainwasher for the underdeveloped minds of communist Romania.

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Read the rest of Mític = mitíc (358 words)

© Andrie, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments
Filed under: Junk, Two Lines
Tags: bucharest, elections, romanian

Dan Puric (Famous Why?)

Book: Cine suntem by Dan Puric, Bucharest, May 2008

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Read the rest of Dan Puric - Cine suntem (101 words)

© Andrie, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments
Filed under: Education, Hope, Why
Tags: book, cultural, dan puric, interview, opening, realitatea, religion, romanian, survival, tv, tvr

The path from point A - found a job, trying to get it - to point B - got accepted/rejected - seems quite natural and, all in all, no biggie.

Yet.. after some 2 penny communication, 1 penny testing.. obviously you can get just a.. 0 penny rejection, and the path A-to-B screwed you up big time.

Excerpt¹:

Se întâmplă deseori în viața de student să cauți cu elan jurnalistic un job. La început e bun orice. Nu tu pretenții la libertatea de exprimare, nu tu plată pentru orele suplimentare, nu tu primă de Paște. Ca orice muritor admis în cursa pentru un job la Cotidianul punct ro, mă vedeam deja mâncând sarmale cu Dinescu la petrecerea de Crăciun.

Crede și nu cerceta Casa Scânteii (Ana Sîrghi)

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Filed under: Dudes, Two Lines
Tags: ana, cotidianul, interview, job, newspaper, romanian

In Romanian we have a group of pronouns that show politeness - dumneavoastră (you), dumnealor (they), dumneaei (she), dumnealui (he), etc. There are also the informal options - tu (you), ei (they), ea (she), el (he), etc.

Generally, even nowadays it is still a courtesy to use the polite version when you speak to a stranger. Yet there are so many sides to the story.

First of all, I find it weird that youngsters.. 20 and bellow.. call me by the polite pronouns when in public. I’m not talking about my friends, but about people that you near you when using public transport, for example. If I stay between them and the door, while they will need to get off at the next buss station, they will say “Coborâți?” (eng. Sir, will you get off?) or “Îmi faceți loc?” (eng. Sir, would you make some space for me?)

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Read the rest of Politeness, respect, wording (645 words)

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Filed under: How To, Junk, Personal
Tags: language, massacre, politeness, pronouns, respect, romanian, survival

I found this interesting answer after asking myself yesterday evening how come we ended up having two letters that are phonetically and functionally identical. Full excerpt from Wikipedia:

The reason for using both of them is historical, denoting the language’s Latin origin, although statistically only few of the words written today with â actually derive from Latin words having an a in the corresponding position. In 1953, during the communist regime, the Romanian Academy eliminated the letter â, replacing it with î everywhere, including until 1964 the name of the country, which was spelled Romînia. The first stipulation coincided with the official designation of the country as a People’s Republic, which meant that its full title was Republica Populară Romînă, whereas the Socialist Republic proclaimed in 1965 is associated with the spelling Republica Socialistă România.

After the fall of the Ceauşescu regime, the Romanian Academy decided to reintroduce â from 1993 onward, in accordance to the 1904 spelling reform, thus cancelling the effects of the 1953 spelling reform. The choice between î and â is thus based on a simple rule: the letter is always spelled as â, except at the beginning and the end of words, where î is used instead. Exceptions include proper nouns where the usage of the letters is frozen, whichever it may be, and compound words, whose components are each separately subjected to the rule above, not the resulting word itself (e.g. ne+îndemânatic => neîndemânatic, not *neândemânatic). Quite a number of people and institutions (including major newspapers such as Evenimentul Zilei, Cotidianul, and, since April 2008, Jurnalul Naţional) prefer the 1964 norms. Generally, usage of either the 1964 or 1993 norms is regarded as correct in most situations.

Some time ago I had a short talk with Alex Mihăileanu (just short comments back and forth) and I was actually wrong, among many, to think it’s more natural to write using â with many exceptions than just using î with one exception only: român, România, etc.

Today I turn to that discussion and think to myself.. I think I should turn to those norms (although I’m trying to restrict to zero my entries in Romanian).

© Andrie, 2008. | Permalink | No comment
Filed under: Personal, Why
Tags: diacritics, romanian

Romanian has a handful (and I mean exactly 5) of diacritics. And because we have been put to the test in the 90s and adapted, nowadays we are very much accustomed to see text even without diacritics and we can still read it without major problems. The issue has a long story and doesn’t make the case of this article.

With time, diacritics and Romanian keyboards have made it to general consumers though and it has been imposed in public administration. We have seen the fights for that and the improvements in the way the Windows OS handles the Romanian diacritics, may it be Vista or fixes to versions prior to Vista.

Yet, there is one more issue that remains. And that is something related to globalization.

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Read the rest of Romanian Diacritics (776 words)

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Filed under: How To, Offline, Windows
Tags: diacritics, driver, feat, keyboard, layout, romanian