Ups and downs of being adult.

Finally I have reached that age that I feel adult. I don´t know if it is about the age (I am only 27) or it is because I have changed my life style. I have seen that my needs and aspiration changed, as well as my habits. Like some time ago inviting people for a dinner Friday night would be really strange, it is what my parents does from time to time, but right now I am doing it very often and enjoying a lot. I can notice that my way of thinking, values are different then of 18 years old kids. I can notice some significant change between me and them (I wanted to say the change of generation that would fit into this situation but it happens usually every 15 years).

I feel smart, I feel satisfied, I feel I am on a right way with my career, I feel liked, I feel I am doing something meaningful, I feel happy. It is totally not like I have imagined it, that the adult file is boring, consist only of work, home, house work and raising children. That adults cannot do many things anymore. I realized it is totally not true. I have time to be a kid again, and to do stuff I have never had time to do because there was always school, exams, some house work, or activities that my parents told me to do. I can do all the things that I enjoyed when I was younger, and in terms of parties some of them are even crazier. And the life got more comfortable. I have my flat where I can invite whomever I want and do there whatever I want. Many of my friends have cars, what makes life more easier. As well I have time and money to enjoy my life, because work is one things, and after work is for whatever I want.

And downs… I don´t see a lot. I think that thanks to being adult I realized that life is flowing so fast that I should enjoy it as much as possible, and I am doing it.

Is it worth to be good?

At first, with this post I don't want to recommand anyone to be a bad person. Not at all. It's just recently I have this thoughts if it is good to be always nice, careing, helpful simply althruistic person. Does it pay off?

I really don't like this approach to think about life in the bussines terms. I really didn't want to be nice for people because it will pay off. I wanted to be like this because I believed it is a right bahaviour.

Unfortunately life shows me that I have to be carefull with the althruism. That if I will not fight for something it will not really happen, and if I show people that I am a good person, they will simply use me.

Till not it is kind of right. I was working a lot as a volunteer developing projects. Yes I can say that I gained a bit of experience and fun time bla bla bla. But as a normal person I compare myself to others. They got much more, because of this bussiness rules, because of negotations and deals.

After so many years of my work in differen fields I feel used. I feel that I was giving a lot to the others - my experience, ideas, recommendations, partners, consultations, my time, my energy, my resources, my knowledge. The alternative cost was very high because it was my whole life as a student and all that time. And I see it now it didn't pay off.

It makes me sad when I see people, whom I teach, whom I helped a lot doin right now their own great stuff. I am praud and happy that I was able to help, but it makes me sad that thhey moved forward and I didn't, and I don't have a perspective.

Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe my life would be much worse if I would have been differnet. Maybe I shouldn't complain and see the positive sides (yes there are still many of them).

But is it really possible to be a good person, and not be used because of that, acheive someone, or even the good person must strat playing this trading game...

I want to be brave

Maybe this will be a big generalization, but I have the feeling that people are not saying what they want, they are afraid to be honest with themselves and other people, they are just hiding a lot of things, if they don’t fit to the general “rules”. Besides there are a lot of “forbidden” topics that they are never talk about. And I have the feeling I am as well like this to some extend.

Few days ago I was talking on skype with a good friend of mine. Something has happened and I felt weird about it, I didn’t plan to share it with anyone, but it happened that we started talking as well about this situation. It helped. We both realized that it is good to talk with other people openly, honestly and without judging.

There are a lot of situation like this, that speaking up really helps. For example:

a) In your friends circle – it is never so perfect that people always feels comfortable with each other. Even your best friend might be hurting you (or u hurting your best friend) without realizing it. How much easier would be solve this in the very beginning then wait and wait and let your problems grow

b) In flirting – how easy it would be to tell someone you like about it instead of playing games of getting each other lasting sometimes few years, or what’s worse doing nothing. It seems so simple to go to someone and say – I like you, maybe we can go out sometimes, but in the reality it isn’t;

c) In the relationship – well I am not a specialist from that but there are very often questions unasked, and usually those questions are not even asked directly, like where is it going, or what do we like, what do we want etc. But I guess one of the most difficult thing is to talk about feelings. You can be with someone and still feel very insecure, you want to say what you feel to this second person and you can’t, you want to hear that the second person feels about you, but you can only guess…

d) In the professional life – in this case there might be a lot of situation that speaking up is useful like getting with the initiative to make a project, applying for the higher position, talking to your boss about salary raise, of even while looking for a job, instead of sending CV just to go to your favorite place and sell yourself. Say what you want, knowing as well what are u capable of.

These is one more category, that I have no idea how to call, maybe just life – there are a lot of topics that people are not talking at all, those you think embarrassing things can become normal. I have this friend of mine, with whom we talked about a lot of different things like typical stuff – guys, relationships, drinking, feelings and a lot of our experiences concerning that stuff. Finally I realized that all those things I thought are not normal aren’t. I started feeling more secure, more comfortable. The problem is that usually people are lying, are pretending and describing themselves as someone totally different. They are creating the untruth image, and thanks to that unrealistic standards of behavior that people wants to follow but are unreachable.

I want to become this honest and brave person, who can independently decide about her life, and not follow the others, not being scared to get what I want, to talk about my feeling, to break the rule of following usually fake social rules. I want to be brave, but I am even hiding this blog. I guess no one is reading it… so this is my honesty for today!

Globalization – hate it, but cannot live without!

Normal people has problems with school, work, friends or I don’t know – that the pet is hungry and they have to go back home and feed it. I am not normal – I have a lot of strange thought going on in my head, which I guess are not typical for the “standard” young person. In my head is globalization, but I don’t like this word so much (it’s kind of scary), so I will replace it in this text with something else – maybe “green”!

I am wondering how much green influenced my own, very private life, and how my life would look like without it. Right now I can easly say that I am a global citizen (of course thanks to green). And I don’t think so because of some higher ideas, no! There is a lot of proofs from my daily life, being global citizen it is not a choice or something what I wanted. It just happened! I am waking up in the morning and opening my computer and checking e-mail. There is always a lot of them, because I am “living in a few different time zones”. Then I go to school or to the office, listen to some Arabic music (recently mainly Amr Diab, but as well a bit of Spanish), when I am bored in a bus I text some of my friends (and believe me not those from Poland). My job (what is not really a job, but what I am doing right now) is to contact filmmakers from all around the world and get their movies to my film festival. The second job is to write youth project, of course international one, or help my friends and partners white them, and many other stuff… My school – well I have right now only online classes with “classmates” from Czech Republic, Germany and UK, but originally from Pakistan, Russia, Belarus, Slovakia, South Africa, Croatia and maybe something more.

I realized that there is something wrong with me during new years eve. At first I was trying to follow each hour in which time zone people are celebrating now, secondly I was texting with my friends from four different continents and I guess I was enjoying it more then the party (well I had already a drinking party via skype!)

I have to admit – green conquered my life. There are basically no limitations. The communication via phone became very cheap, especially within Europe, but there is as well skype for free. The transportation is rather cheap as well, you have friends everywhere that they can host u, if not u can find some via different portals. Besides there are still different projects that let you (or sometimes u just have to) go around the world. Culture differences are not a problem anymore, at least not for me, I feel already the same everywhere (and for sure I don’t feel that Poland is my home). I guess there is only one limitation for green – visas (but it’s totally other topic).

Yes, it was nice to travel, make new friends, experience new cultures etc. But it was nice few years ago. Right now my life is design by green and it doesn’t feel comfortable anymore. I don’t know what I really dislike in this. Maybe that I don’t have my place I can call home, maybe saying goodbye permanently or maybe that I simply cannot fit into the environment I suppose to live, into the environment of xenophobic Polish people and really interesting polish boyfriends :)

It bothers me that in this greened world I don’t really have my privacy and everyone knows everything. I have already limited access to my facebook for around 90% of my “friends”. I went through my online profile and deleted most of the stuff I have found about me (if it was possible to delete). But in this greened world somehow it happens that everyone knows everyone, people talk, gossip exchange information about the others. It might happen that you will do something and the next month some friends from the other part of the glob will know about it, through the strange chain of connections. On Monday I have to go to the airport, who knows what will happen… whom I will meet…

Last minute - only one possibility

You might think that I will write about "last minute" as the only one option to go finally for my holidays - thats of course true, but that's not what I mean.

"Last minute" thats the way of leaving. Why? I am asking myself simple questions and there is only one answer - last minute.

1. When do I send applications for new projects - always last minute (fortunately the post-office on market place in Wroclaw is open 24h
2. When do I go to my exmas - of course last minute (if it's not to late)
3. When do I send personal documents (like insurence...) - last minute
4. When do I pack myself when I am traveliing - last minute
5. When do I charge my mobile, computer and other stuff - last minute
6. When do I realize that I have to do something - last minute
7. When do I catch plane - last minute
8. even when do I think - always last minute :)

and so one... there are a lot of examples. I cannot do anything earlier. It makes my life very fast, stressfull and active. I don't like last minute, I want to stop that, but - well I guess it is impossible

I need holidays

I need holidays sooo much. It doesn't matter that one month ago I came back from Jordan. This month was so intensive that I have to chill out and have a rest. So whats the plan?

1. Things to do before holidays

- pass all the exams
- get US visa and buy ticket to US
- write to final reports after youth exchanges
- prepare publication after project Time for Dialogue
- write final report after POKL project (from my work)
- be sure that I finished my work, clear my desk and made a final party
- write two new projects of youth exchanges - one in Spain (Malaga) and second in Latvia

well... looks not so easy, but after completing everything connetced with studies everything else seems like fun to me

2. Ideas for holidays

Since one week with my friend we are thinking what to do. One of the most often coming back idea is trip to Egypt, but we wanted also to go somewhere to the lake in Poland for camping, to go to Mano Chao concert in Wroclaw, hitch-hike to Paris, hitch-hike to Malaga, fly to Malaga, somehow move to Lisbon to find nice concert over there, and I have also promissed one of my firends from Latvia to visit her over there...

3. Trip to Egypt - is it realistic?

Yes it is... once with Ania we said, why not? and since then we keep looking for some nice offers. The plan is to find last minute - go there for 2 weeks and try to move all around Egypt. All of my friends know that our final destination will be Alex of course (Alexandria - city on Mediterranean sea). So how the preparations are going on? we were looking for last minutes, charters and normal flights. People last minutes is something amazing! it took me a lot of time, but I have found 2* hotel for two weeks with breakfasts and dinners and flight of course for 860 PLN what is 250 EURO! I am not sure if in this date we are interested this prize will be avaiable but we will see.

4. What is my dream holidays?

Spontaneous... I don't want to plan. I just have some golas, things I have to do being in Egypt, but when, how, it doesn't matter. So what are those things?

a) I want to ride a camel - I know maybe it's funny and typical, but I always wanted to do this
b) shopping in Cairo - well there is one scarf I really want to have:) I just want to have time and spend one day for shopping (the whole day)
c) Swim in meda and red sea.
d) Spend one night in JIJI in ALEX, from sunset to sunrise! I want to see them both one night
e) Make sightseeing trip one day - which main rule will be: don't take any map, don't look for monuments, go wherever you want to, and look for interesitng places by yourself
f) make one reunion party, with as many people as possible
g) tougch Abdallah's hair
h) don't be in hurry, don't rush, take time for youself, if you want to spend more time in the bathroom - spend it, if you want to wear makeup - wear it, if you don't want to - don't do it. Feel free
i) and the last think - I am looking foreward for many interesting conversation with people about politics, life, habbits, differencies, culture, everyday life

Well - there is one more thing, I want to do it spontaneous, I want to have some small globetrepping trip, because I want to check how it is to travel with Ania, we are planning one year trip to Asia soon, and before that I just want to check her:)

ending

I am really courious what will happened? if I would have my dream holidays?

My theory of being homeless

Since long time already I am jocking that I am homeless. And I really believe it. How do I understand this term "homeless"? Thats the person who doesn't have home and is sleeping in different shelters or in the fresh air. For me being homeless is the situation when you have hause, or some place in any building but you don't have home.

Am I homeless? you can judge it yourself.

Starting from my sleeping place - well I have place to sleep, I have my bed, I have even my "own room". This place where I am sleeping quite often has one bed, one window, one desk, few closets. You can find there a lot of papers on the floor (my study materials), cloths mostly laying somewhere on the floor too. Wardrobe is always open, and cloths are hanging in it. I would say that I am using only things which are on the floor, rest... well I have no idea where is what. In all the closets you can find some wired toys from my childhood, cloths from times when I was 120 cm and much smaller, and some things which are only taking place. I dont remember when I lastly done my bed. I even don't have any sheet, and I am sleeping under the blanket.

How much time do I spend there in my "house"

I am working, studying, doing some voluntary work, organizing different stuff, answering a lot of phone calls, travelling - let's say I don't have time for anything. My typical day looks like that I am going out at 7am, at 8 I am already in the office, I am starting my day in the office from make-up and then breakfest. I am finishing my work at 4 pm. "Finishing" ! because usually I am staying there much longer. Mostly in the evening I have some meetings (either working in the bar on new project, either organizing film festival or simply I just want to dring a beer). Because my "place for sleeping" is quite far from everywhere. Because of that it is not worth to come back to this place during the day... and sometimes during nights too.

Places for sleeping

My motto is "you can sleep everywhere". This is very practical, especially if you normally don't have a lot of time for sleeping. In past few years I follow my motto. Quite often I used my friends flats, then of course offices (different kind of), university (I can recommand staircase), train stations (including Wrocław PKP), airports (in Amsterdam they have even beds), parks, bars, cinema and many others.

There are two my favourite places: first one it was really nice park in the city center of Lubljana. We hitch-hike with few friends over there, very spontaniusly and we didn't have any place. We bought some alkohol to warm up, we went to see nice concert and then we went around the city to find a nice place to spleep. And we found it. It was very nice park, and we were sleeping under the tree which was almost like a tent. Just in the morning there was a lot of people with dogs going around us:)

Second place it was cinema. It was kind of exciting because we broke in to the cinema. It was during film festival, and we were renting cinema - so it was not so illegal, we had keys, but I am not sure if we could be there. Well got into the place, it was not easy to force the door (even when we had keys), but finally we manage, just w couldn't close doors. Just in the morning people in the cinema were quite shocked.

Travelling

In my room in the corner there is a backpack. Still there are some cloths inside. I have also beautician already packed. It looks like this because I am travelling a lot. Sometimes I can go in 3 different places during one month. I already wrote how exhausting it might be, but also there are once more a lot of places to live, new roomates. Right now I am preparing myself for leaving in one place for 4 months! (of course abroad) and I think it is long enough to prepare a cosy place... what can I take to my new room?

Ending

I don't know if you also think that I am homeless, I feel like that. Sometimes I am dreaming to have place and time to make some cosy place, to invite friends over, organize party or just chill out. Maybe someday I will find this place...

Best practicies

If you are planing the life like that, always on the way, always in hurry remember about some important things.

1. Always have tooth-brush in every bag (you never know when you will need it, and bags you are changing quite often);
2. Buy a small and light laptop - you never know which data you will need, having laptop always with you is very useful;
3. You have to feel good, if you feel like stinking find place where you can take a shower - don't be shy, you can always call your friends, it wont be a problem if you will use a bit of theis shampoon
4. If you need clean cloths borrow or buy them:)

wish you all the best...

I need to decide where to live

traveling... isn't it interesting, tempting, exciting... Of course it is, I am addicted to traveling, since I remember, and for sure since last 6-7 years I am traveling a lot. One day Warsaw, second Amsterdam, them maybe Philippines, but I cannot stay there longer after the training because I am starting another one somewhere in Poland and of course in the mean time I have few "important" meetings. I love this life. I do. Small problem is that Europe is a bit to usual for me right now and I need something more. I cannot get excited when I see something, even beautiful, even interesting, even when I have never seen it before. I am just going to another country, another place and feeling like at home, isn't it wired? The most important thing in travelling are people. Mostly I am attending or leading different seminars, youth exchanges or other type of meetings, which aims are: intercultural learning, dialogue between cultures and so one. So mostly I am going to different country to meet people. And fuck!, I have to say that those who wanted integrate me with "others" (here I understand just other people, not from my city, those to whom I don't have easy access to) has really succeeded! Because of that when I want to complain of my university I am opening msn and chatting with friend from Egypt, when I want to talk about guys I am writing to friend from France or Latvia and in one moment it's better. I didn't know what to do during new years eve - I took the train, went to Prague and realized that there was much bigger group of friends who done the some. It was amazing. But sometimes I am asking myself how is my life here, in the city where I live? Do I have life here? I would say yes, it's not that bad. I have work and amazing people over there, I have some groups of friends from the "old times", I have university, but I will not call them friends. The problem is that I don't care; I don't care about those people as much as about my "others", foreigners. I am afraid about myself. Lastly is even worser. I have two intensive months of travelling and most of the time I was with the some people (just different places). It was so intensive, we were living together, having stupid problems together, falling in love with each other, sharing our secrets (btw. this is easier with people whom you will not see again, therefore it is so integrating). And now I came back home and I cannot come back to my normal life. That life move to facebook. So in the office I am checking what's new. After school I am coming back home and looking on people's profiles. I can still see the conflicts which we had somewhere away. I am following how people are still flirting with each other (maybe even without knowing about that). There is our second life! I cannot believe. And what is the worse - it takes too much time!!! When I am looking forward, I know that next year will be the some. I will get to know new people, spend with them few amazing month, doing everything with them and then I would move out to some other place. Shall I just avoid getting closer with people or shall I go like this and then miss "the moments". How to deal with it? NEXT TIME: most probably I will write my theory about being homeless:)