Spring plans

I am starting to explore the city through its famous people and its biking routes.

I am usually careful with books. But somehow I am not angry when I get all those spots on a cooking book. I even like them. I open the book and it smells of vanilla, and my memories bring me back to those cozy Sundays when the book was used...

Now I have to admit that I bought the book on Friday and this messy look it got only after the first recipe I tried out. If the cake tastes so good as it looks? I can't wait to find out - it is still cooling down...

My Good-bye to an Awesome Year

These days I notice that people naturally tend to look back to their experiences in the past year. Well, I also had a look at the endless folders with pictures in an attempt to remember some special moments. And one of the first pictures I came upon was this.

So, this is not going to be a post about what happened to me but rather about the discoveries I made last year.
To go back to the picture - this was one of the best books I've read - 'Kornel Esti' by Deszö Kosztolány. A friend gave it to me on the first day of summer holidays. There couldn't have been a better time to read this humorous and elegant collection of stories (or maybe a novel?)....

Then of course come all discoveries I make all the time in Switzerland - a world so different in its structure and orderliness. As I've found out many people write about their experiences in this special country. My preferences, however, go to Swiss Watching, which I find informative and pretty amusing. But OK, I couldn't miss sharing this.

Obviously in Switzerland it is possible to buy your ticket after you get off the train...

Then I found out how inspiring online learning could be.

I discovered the fun of skiing in Bansko and Switzerland.

...and wrote an article in a real travel blog.

My latest sports passion is aqua gym.

I discovered Hungarian cooking, and re-discovered cooking in general. My cooking book library is growing, and so is the quantity of tried out recipes.

 

And I discovered new joy in my job by shifting the focus to more creative training topics, such as Drawing simple graphics for presenting...

  ...or Using colours and images in presentations...

Now I am looking forward to a year at least that exciting and encouraging as 2011.

Thoughts on Books and Marriage

Did I say that Committed arrived at my hands now? Thanks to Tania, a friend who recently got married and she certainly read it for other reasons than me. My interest in marriage is still rather theoretical, so I read the book from a distance, so to say, and can't really relate to the need of the author to know everything about marriage before committing. But anyway, the book is an enjoyable reading, just as I had expected. Full of curious facts about marriage rituals around the world.
Do you know, for example, that when people in Laos get married they invite everyone they know to the wedding party - often up to 1000 people. Everyone gives money to the young couple and then the two newly married spend the night writing carefully in a notebook the amount of money they got from each of the guests. This notebook is a useful reference when in return the couple gets invited to another wedding. Then they give as a present the same amount they got plus some extra money as interest. So, this is a kind of a loan that society lends to the bride and the groom, which they bit by bit return.
Nice, isn't it?

The Forty Rules of Love

Another book that ended in my to-read list after I read the interview with the author. In fact, it is not the story of the American housewife that really touched me, but the depth and the style of the interview with Elif Shafak. Now I have great expectations regarding this book, also influenced by my desire to know more about Rumi, in fact.

Expecting "Committed"

Elizabeth Gilbert was one of the people that I found most inspiring last year. And this interview with her about her latest book was also a delightful reading. Hope to read "Committed" soon.

Words and the City

Spent a long weekend at the sea, which I really enjoyed. Have been reading on Eat Pray Love there (I am a slow reader indeed), and came to a point that made me think. The book said each city had its own word. Like Rome's word was SEX. Then I asked myself which was the word of Plovdiv. AYLAK? The word aylak is of Turkish origin and means lazy (that's how a Turkish girl once explained it to me). We use it to define a state of idleness when you really enjoy doing nothing. To me it sounds pretty close to what the Italians call dolce far niente. Or that's what I imagine it is... Yes, I believe that's the word that describes Plovdiv. It is not so popular in the rest of the country. People here very often build a sentence with it in reply to the usual "How are you doing?" Hah, not very encouraging for someone eager to achieve...
Then I thought about the cities I'd lived in before. Which are their words? What should be the word of Sofia? For me Sofia was a lot about COMPETE. Is there someone else thinking the same or was it only my Sofia competing?
And which is the word of Leipzig? Ist schon lange her... It's been really a long time since I lived there, and I can't say now which word matched Leipzig then. But I am sure there is one.
And what are your words for your cities?

Eat? Pray? Love?

I started reading Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. No wonder I got inspired to read the book after listening to a TED talk by the author of the book about her relationship to creativity. It sounded very personal, honest and intelligent. This happened some time ago and that's how the book ended in my to-read list but I somehow never felt it was the right moment to start reading it.
Until yesterday - I had a few minutes before my appointment in the bank and instead of waiting in the bank I decided to check what's new in the nearby book store. And then while going through the new books I heard myself saying, "Do you have the book by Elizabeth Gilbert..." "Eat Pray Love, you mean? Yes, we have it."
I spent the evening reading and now I know why the book landed in my hands right in this moment :)
And I will be also translating Nurturing Creativity...

Built To Last

I came upon this video through presentationzen. I found the book by Garr Reynolds very inspiring and since I've read it I follow also his blog. Always fresh ideas on how to use visuals to make your point.
If you want to know more about the video, read this.

a long post about anything

Wow, one post in April! Have been really lazy with writing lately. I believe it is the good weather. I just prefer to spend more time outside...
We've had six days of holidays recently. I didn't go anywhere special or do anything extraordinary, but I really enjoyed them.

Finally managed to complete my first TED translation - Sylvia Earle's TED Prize Wish to Protect Our Oceans. Now I will have a reviewer assigned. That's how it goes - it needs to be reviewed by someone else before it is launched. And I hope it will be soon available in Bulgarian at TED.com. It is worth watching it - amazing images from the deep sea, and it makes you think...
Now I wonder which other talk I should start translating - maybe some of the many talks on creativity or the human brain... Anyway, if someone wishes to volunteer and translate TED talks, please do. It takes time but I believe it is worth the effort to help spread great ideas. You just need to write to subtitles@ted.com

What else? Had a new interesting book to read - one that was waiting for its turn in the library in our office. Everyone Agrees With TOM - a book on life coaching - simple, amusing, not pretending to tell you big truths. Looks promising but I am not much ahead with it yet. So, I can't tell you if I agree with TOM yet...

And I also spent most of the time walking in the parks and hills in the town - alone, with friends or with the dog, or with friends and the dog... The phone pictures are here to prove it. Yesterday I struggled a lot to transfer them to my computer. I really love it when someone else does the technical stuff for me :)


My parents are away, so now I take care of the dog for a while. To compensate for my absence during the day I play football with him each morning. I truly believe this should be a happy start of the day for him, but he is soooo sleepy and doesn't seem as excited as I expect him to be. Maybe I should give him a break, at least during the weekend.

swinging between past and future

"Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.
Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along at a certain steady rate of swing, and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in a while, as I’m merrily (or not-so-merrily) swinging along, I look out ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swing towards me. It’s empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart-of-hearts, I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on this present, well-known bar to move to the new one.
Every time it happens to me, I hope that I won’t have to grab the new bar. But in my knowing place I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar, and for some moment in time, I must hurdle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror. It doesn’t matter that in all my previous hurdles across the void of unknowing, I have always made it. Each time I am afraid that I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policies, but you do it anyway because somehow, to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of “the past is gone; the future is not yet here.” It’s called transition. I have come to believe that is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched."

This is an excerpt from Warriors of the Heart by Danaan Parry I came across today. A vivid description of the change process, any change process, I believe. And it looks so beautiful, and makes life so much worth living, especially for those moments when you hurdle to the new trapeze...
And because I was really fascinated by the description I couldn't help attaching this image to it. Marion from Wings of desire, a movie I will always remember.