Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Romanian movies

One Romanian film and movie maker actually won this year's Palme d'Or! His name is Cristian Mungiu and he's only 39 years old! They will be showing this movie on the opening night of the Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj-Napoca, beginning of June, and then during the festival, again in Sibiu, later on. I wish I was there! To watch movie projections in the Little Square in Sibiu, the Culture Capital of Europe 2007. I feel like I'm missing a lot of good things by not being in Romania right now. I feel left out, even though I chose not to be there.
So, I am trying to feel a little Romanian here, being abroad, by going to see Romanian movies, tonight and on Saturday night, within the Eastern European Film Festival here in Montreal. Tonight we're going to see "The Bastards" with Stefan Iordache (apparently the actor himself will be there), and on Saturday we will watch "Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii", a movie about December 1989 from the point of view of a 10-year old boy trying to rescue his sister. I can't hardly wait!
All this to say that I kind of miss that part of Romania, that part of Cluj-Napoca and of Sibiu, and I wish I were there for a couple of days this summer!

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Yesterday, and today, and tomorrow

I love it when my weekends are filled with activities and people. It all started off very well on Friday night with that little girl party at Laurie's, a pre-birthday drinking and eating party at her house, with a lot of girls, and just one guy for a couple of minutes. Fun, but too much baby talk. And when you don't have a baby, or not even think about having one too soon, it gets kind of boring. Anyhow, it was fun. Trying out Victoria's Secret bras that looks amazing on anybody, drinking Cosmopolitans and Martinis, mixed with some beer, it was fun.
Saturday morning I woke up all by myself at 6:55 (what can I tell you, the force of habit), and went to the Community center to help them with registrations for the summer camp. Fun too. Lots of English speaking parents at this French Community center in Montreal, and the last one even spoke Romanian, so we had a nice talk about Canada, possibilities for a new immigrant here, we even exchanged phone numbers, cause she seemed like a nice person. I got back home at around 1pm, and started some house chores (like I usually do on Saturday, and I was a week late already...) Not much of a housekeeper, me. Whatever. Then I went out again, this time to watch Dragon Boats competitions on the Olympic track on Ste Helene's island, south of Montreal. I met my friends, Talar and Marc there, she took a lot of pictures, and maybe I will have some to post here too. I didn't bring my own camera because I am lazy, primarily, and secondly because I don't feel a good connection between that camera and myself... Nice weather, sunny and a little bit windy, I am already a bit tanned, and I like it, I got new shoes on, very happy looking shoes! Then came back home, by subway and bus while reading "The Innocent Man" by John Grisham (not so good, really, as I have expected ...), and watched a movie, well, half of it anyway, cause I fell asleep after such a busy day.
Today? It's "Journée des musées" in Montreal, which means that today, from 9am to 6pm you can go visit any museum for free. Summer is starting to look really good in Montreal, with lots of things to do each weekend. And I will gladly keep you posted.
Tomorrow I'm going to see an apartment, maybe my next one, it's in a very nice area, but I'm sure it won't be perfect, not for the price the owner is asking. Well, we'll see.
OK, so that's my weekend for now, hope you enjoy yours too!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

November 2006

The human mind is a very powerful thing. What people WANT to believe, eventually becomes THE TRUTH. Everything else is a lie. It's like religion. And immigration. And science-fiction, for that matter.
The human mind creates a reality of its own, and any evidence, no matter how obvious, is rejected solely on the basis of "I don't WANT to believe it." We want to believe things are going well. We commit suicide because we want to believe there's no way out. We go to the shrink because we want to believe it'll help. We want so many things in our minds ...
Anny was one of the few rays of sunshine in my Canadian years: bright, happy, crazy, educated, polite, traveled around the world, with a big heart and a big smile, a shoulder to cry on, a friend. She understands me so well. It's going to be her 34th birthday, and my gift for her will be all these nice words that I can say about her.
It's all vanity, like Anny said. And Ben Bova in "Jupiter". "It's the age-old war, the never-ending struggle between good and evil. A new battlefield in that eternal war. As long as we're human, the war goes on. Power requires responsibility. Extreme power requires extreme care."

Saturday, May 05, 2007

21st century coming to life

I was just thinking about SF literature, how interesting what we used to read 20 years ago as SF, is now reality. Take, for example, a SF book of a Russian writer, his name is Kiril Buliciov, and the book is called "The Little Girl of Planet Earth", and she travels all around our galaxy, and they have, well, a video-phone. I used to dream about seeing the other person when I talk on the phone, I used to wish this would actually happen, and that I could see whom I'm talking to. Well, as you can easily see nowadays, the "video-phone" is a reality! I have it on my own computer, as instant messenger, and I really really love it! Absolutely love it! This is my own future! This is the future coming to life, the future I was reading about 20 years ago! It's awesome!
More than that, I actually talked over the phone yesterday with the head of the Mars Society, Mr. Robert Zubrin, who is actually preparing a manned expedition to Mars!!! Imagine that! For real, in my lifetime! And I talked to this man! The society has a website, it's www.marssociety.org and they're on an expedition now in Arctic Canada to prepare for a Mars landing. He even wrote a book, a SF book for now, about it. But who knows, whatever is SF now, could be reality in 20 years time, right? Look at my video-phone I just used talking to my mom some 6,000 miles away from me.
What would I want to see as a reality from all the SF books I ever read? First of all, teleportation, no doubt about it. Second, cryogenic sleep. Third, warp speed, or whatever type of speed faster than the speed of light, I am not picky. And so many other miraculous things! Like Jules Verne. Remember his novels written in the 19th century, about going to the Moon and under the sea? Well, humankind has done it all, for real! Who is to say that we cannot do whatever we want with our future?
Good luck and godspeed!