11/30/2010

My Italian trip vol2

2

So. It's time for the next part now.
The following morning, which was the first official day of our workshops, arrived Slovaks in the morning at breakfast time. We had already started to get to know the Czech people. There was a very lovely girl named Heli, then Ivana, Johanna and Antonio. Antonio is an EVS volunteer who is doing his EVS in Czech Republic and Ivana is doing her EVS in Spain, in the place where Antonio is from. So from the first moment we met Czech group we realised that they were really cool people. When the Slovak group arrived, then they were also introducing themselves to us: Svenja, Jana, Kaja, Ivan, Natalja. After breakfast we went to the garage where we were supposed to have our workshops. So, in the beginning we had energizers by Antonio and namegames by Svenja. To get to know each other, we had to draw pictures of each other, so that we were sitting in circles and changing seats every one minutes. We also had to talk to the person we were drawing pictures of. It was a great way to get to know the names of the people and to find out things about them. in the beginning the people told very often to Daniele (the organizer) the name Antonio and also to Alessandro. The pictures looked really funny- e.g. Antonio looked like a Viking, Bruno looked very feminine and I looked like I had 4 shoulders..... Anyway we also made a name-game that we made in Turkey, too. It was about telling your name and making some kind of move and others had to repeat it. After that we made an agreement with rules that we applied to the whole project. Then after that we had lunch. After lunch we went to Sonia's home (Sonja is Bruno's sister) because we needed to get to the internet to download our presentation of Estonian handicraft's. Bruno and Sonia live in a very beautiful place with an awesome view to the whole town. And their house is very beautiful, too. Their mother, father and sister were at home and offered us grappa and some cookies made by their granny. Italians are so friendly and hospitable. From that afternoon I completely fell in love with Italians. So, after we downloaded our presentation, we went back to our workingplace. We had to make a small presentation about our handicraft's but we didn't have any computers. So we drew a picture and I presented it. Went well. After that workshop we had to discover Benestare. It meant that we were divided into teams and had to find certain people or institutions in Benestare. I was in a group with Antonio, Sonia and Kaja. We had to find an organization named "Pro Loco". This organization organized local big events and they were also cooking food for our youth exchange. So with the help of Sonia, we went to municipality house, where Pro Loco was supposed to be located. Unfortunately the head of Pro Loco wasn't there any more and her home was pretty far from Benestare, so we called the head of Pro Loco from the phone in the municipality house. We had to make an interview about handicrafts with her. So, after making the phone-interview we had to make a dance with local people and an act where we had to show our adventures. We made a pantomime about making cheese - Antonio was the goat and we had to milk him etc. Then we also danced. One other group had to make a musical and they made a rap musical. It was really funny. After the worksop there was time for reflection groups where we had to discuss about the problems we are having during the exchange. I was in group with Antonio, Kaja, Sonia. I had to also replace Meelika during the team-leaders meetings because she was ill. So after the meetings we had dinner. During the dinner the Hungarian group also arrived. There were 3 people in the group- Gabriella, David and Matyi. After the dinner we were supposed to organize a theme party which was also supposed to be our welcome party. We chose the topic Latin and in the evening the party started. We made some dances and then just danced. Some local people also came to watch us. It seemed like we were the screen and the local people were the audience. Weird. Anyway, I started talking to Heli a lot and in the evening we were probably the last ones to go to sleep. I discovered she was interested in the disabilities field and told her about Maarja küla. She is now interested in becoming an EVS volunteer here. I'm very glad for that. Heli is probably one of the coolest people I met in Benestare, but I can say that about most of the people. Oh, all the people were so great.
The following day was the day when Estonia had to make energizers and name-games. I didn't know that many name-games, so Francesca (the other organizer) helped me out. After the energizer's part Antonio organized team building exercise. In the exercise we firstly had to climb through a spiderweb without breaking it. And each whole could only be used 3 times. Obviously we broke it. :) When everybody had climbed through we were divided into teams. Our exercise was to build an instrument to get an egg down from the second floor's balcony without breaking it. The things to build the instrument from, were given to us. I was in the team with Lii, Heli and Gabriella. We made a plane for the egg, where we put it in a secured way. Our plane had written on it "I believe I can fly" and "Super-egg". We also created an egg catcher which was lying on the ground and was supposed to reduce the shock when the plane fell down from the second floor. After creating the machines we had to throw down the egg from the balcony. I had to throw the egg of my group. It landed securely on the catcher but unfortunately had small cracks in it. So - we "broke" the egg. But when we threw down the egg, we sang "I believe I can fly....". It was a really funny workshop and I could do this again anytime. It was fun to throw the eggs down. Only one egg was not broken. All other team's broke their's. So, then we had lunch. Pasta. And french fries. The meal was really good. And Estonian guys, hungry as they were, took the second round of pasta, too. We ate alltogether very much during the exchange. After the lunch we had another energizer. I made the playing cards game, where people were divided into 4 groups based on the suits of the cards. We were sitting in the circle and I showed the people cards one by one. The person whose suite was shown, had to sit to the laps of other person etc. The game ended when one of the plastic chairs was broken because there were too many people sitting on it. After that we went to municipality house to meet the local mayor meer. He told us that we're gonna have Italian night tomorrow and how glad he was that Benestare hosted our exchange. We also made a group picture and after that went back to our working place. Over there we started creating things out of clay. In the beginning we were told a bit about the techniques of making claywork by our "teacher" Bella. So, the first thing I made, was a mug. After that we had to make the first human on Earth. I made Homer Simpson with a nice six-pack (the beer wasn't invented yet). My Homie was starting to get on his feet and was a bit monkey'sh. He had a very surprised expression on his face and it came from the fact that when he saw further, he saw Marge. I was sitting in one table with Antonio and Sonia and there was also one Italian guy Giovanni. Sonia made a mermaid, Giovanni made Mickey mouse and Antonio made a very old man. After we finished making the things we had to present them to others. Matyi made Chuck Norris and his son (who had no mother- Chuck Norris doesn't need a female person to have babies). Anyway, after that we had again the reflection groups, the team-leaders meeting and dinner. At night we had Czech culture night. We danced one Czech dance and sang songs and tried their traditional food, learn new words. As everybody were pretty tired, the party faded out fast. Oh, yeah, in the beginning of the party we also celebrated Kaja's nameday. So we had wine. Our group also bought some wine from the shop so it was a great evening.
The next day we had a trip out. We went to Siderno again in the morning. I was in Bruno's car again and it was really cool, because he drove quite fast on the curvy roads. Hehe. There were 5 people stuck in one car but it was okay for us. In Siderno we had free time until 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We had our lunches packed with us and so we went to the beach. Me and Mart went swimming and a lot of people looked at us as if we were crazy. We were the only ones swimming... :) The water was warm enough for us and it was so blue and clear water. We spent about two hours in the beach and sunbathed. Then the sun went behind clouds and we went to explore Siderno. As our team already knew the town, we just wet shopping. I bought earrings for myself. Karel and Mart bought themselves Mickey-mouse shirts.... At two all the people gathered in the square we were supposed to meet each others. Kaja, Svenja and Ivana had bubblemakers so they made bubbles into the sunny-again sky. It was hot and beautiful day. So, then we waited for all the car-drivers to come and went to a small city in the mountains- Gerace. The road there was even more curvy. In Gerace was a lot colder than in Siderno- we were high up in the mountains. We went to one platform where we could see the mountains and the sea at the same time. Unfortunately we didn't have much time there, but had to start treasure-hunt around in the town. We saw two churches. We had to play Zombies in front of a church for animals. We also went to one platform from where we had a marvellous look to the sea and the towns next to the sea. We had to make a fashion show over there. So after that we went to the main square of the city where we had to make a 10-minutes show about "Building our Europe". We made towers of people, hummed, danced. After the show we had some Italian cookies and tea in local cafe. We then had free time to see the city. We went back to the platform where we had made the fashion show earlier and enjoyed the view and explored the city on our way back to the square. In the square I taught Svenja to play the jew's harp (which she had bought for herself). As it was already 6 o'clock we drove back to Benestare, where we had our dinner. After dinner, at 10 was supposed to start the Italian night.... The Italian night was really great.

But I'll tell about that in the following post.....

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Nothing is extremely difficult when you divide it into smaller parts. - 30th Nov


We just divided our parts for doing homework in the psychology of individual differences. :)

Fitzgerald!?!?!?!

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I decided to have a nap today and woke up about 15mins ago. I have never hated my alarm clock this much! The reason: I just had a dream where Simon Neil had given me autographs and James and Ben Johnston were about to give.
I have no idea how the dream began, but I know that I came from some kind of concert (it wasn't Biffy's) and wanted to go to Sven's (one of my friends from NRG) place with him. And then I walked with crowd downstairs from somewhere and was in some corridor that I thought was NRG's canteen. All of a sudden I saw Simon Neil with white hair and beard sitting behind the door and resting his legs. All the other people suddenly disappeared. There was only Simon. He smiled at me and already came to me with a black pen and wanted to give me his autograph. So he gave it to me to my hand. To my left hand. I showed him one of my tattoos (which was on the left hand and was something unrecognizable and had life written into it) and I also showe him my tattoo of a puzzle piece. So he wrote his name and made something artificial on my hand were the weird tattoo was located. He made some kind of picture and connected it to my tattoo. It made complete sense in the dream. Anyway, then I asked whether I could take a picture with him and have his autograph on the usual paper, too. He agreed with it. Unfortunately Sven didn't have his mobile with camera with him, so he went to bring it. And I got a paper from some room that was behind one random door. In the room was the Biffy's staff putting together their instuments. Anyway I got back to Simon. And he had made with a split second an autograph to my paper. Then I saw James and Ben sitting at the other end of the corridor and asked Simon ifI could get autograph's from them, too. Simon told me that I should go and ask myself. So I went (and Simon continued resting his legs). As I went to the other end of the corridor, I saw that the people I considered to be Ben and James, were just some staff girls. So I asked them about the guys. They told me that they'll be here in a second. The girls wanted to see my autographs. I showed the sheet to them and had a closer look at it myself too. Simon had written name Fitzgerald many times to one side of the paper and each letter of the name was from different colour. And then there were some drawings too. I didn't look at them closer. Then I turned the page and on the other side there were some colourful signatures of Fitzgerald again and some printed words in Russian: nadežda, hšuštšeštvo (I have no idea if the last on is actually a word) and some more. Simon had printed them like people print with stamps, only difference is that the liquid was ink. And he had printed the words one by one with letter separatedly. And the explanation to it was that Simon learnt some new Russian words while being in this country. And I wondered also why he had written Fitzgerald and I realised in the dream that it was Simon's family name. Anyway, then arrived Ben and James and some other random guys. There was a door opening to the outside and a tractor with fertilizer bags behind it's back arrived. And Ben and James stepped off the tractor with blue boiler suits on and walked past me. I wanted to ask them about the autographs but then people told me to wait 'til they changed their clothes. And I also saw a glimpse of Simon smoking and watching what was happening....
And then the alarm went off.....

I was just about to get James's and Ben's autographs, too. S**t!

11/28/2010

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The truth is inside you: find yourself in you, conquer yourself, have a victory over yourself- and you'll see the truth. - 25th Nov.

11/27/2010

11/26/2010

My Italian trip vol1

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Long time, no see. It's because I got back from another youth exchange couple of days ago. So it's time for an update about my amazing life.
On the day I started travelling to Italy, there was also our village concert in Vanemuine theater. It was a charity project that is held every year and it collects money for our village. The actors and actresses sing for free. This year the topic of the concert was 70-80's. The actors were dressed according to the style of these times and sang also very old songs. It was a really lovely concert.
Then, after the concert I went home where I packed my last things for the trip and changed clothes. Then Kaie took me to the bus station from where I went to Tallinn airport. When I got to the airport I had a lot of time so I tried to sleep on the benches. It was a little cold and very uncomfortable. Then arrived Lii and Meelika and half an hour later also Karel and Mart. Our team was together. We did a check-in and waited to get on the plane. We flew through Riga to Rome. So after two flights we arrived our first destination. We went by a local train from Fiumicino airport to Rome Termini (train station). We put our luggage there and took off to see the city. We decided to go on foot and discover the city that way. Our map-reader was Karel. Firstly we tried to get used to the traffic, which was so Italian. We headed towards Colosseum. On our way we saw one big building (unfortunately I have forgotten the name of it) and took pictures there. When we finally arrived at the Colosseum it seemed like it was going to rain soon. Luckily we had enough time to take pictures and rest a bit over there and we also walked the whole way around the Colosseum. It is a really big building. I wished we had had an opportunity to go inside, too, but that wasn't possible. Then, after seeing Colosseum we climbed some hills and saw The Forum from behind some gates. But we couldn't get in. So we wandered around some streets and finally got to see the Forum from one platform. It is really old. I felt the ancient times when even looking at it. Amazing! Then we saw some sculptures of Caesar and headed towards Vatican. On our way we saw Kapitholium,which was a very beautiful building. Then we also ate pizza in a place called VIP Pizza. Oh, how delicious the pizza was. I can still feel it on my tongue. Would love to have that again..... Anyway, finally we arrived in Vatican's main square. It wasn't as big as I had expected it to be but all the time I tried to find the markings that were mentioned in the "Angels and Demons" book by Dan Brown. I even recognized some - the fountain and the sculpture. We had a look around in the square but couldn't get in anywhere because it was late already and all Cathedrals had been closed. There was an exhibition about old books we tried to get in to, but it was only for invited quests. Pity. After exploring the square we headed back towards Termini to catch our train. We rested a bit in front of the Colosseum but then it started raining and we had to go to Termini. On our way we met Turkish guys trying to sell us umbrellas. Before they had tried to sell us scarfs. Guess they had something for every type of weather. Anyway, when we got back to Termini we had a lot of time until our train came, so we just sat there and hung around. When it was finally time to get on the train and we saw it, we were just speechless. It was a very old-looking train and we even couldn't imagine that trains like these move nowadays. We got into the train and into our coupe which was for 6 people. There were five of us and one old man also. This old man didn't definetely like us there. So, we were now stuck in the train for 10 hrs alltogether. There wasn't much space and as we tried to sleep we had our legs everywhere. I wish I had a good picture of it, because it looked extremely weird. Anyway we tried to sleep but didn't manage much. So in the morning when we got to Ardore (the city that we had to get off the train), we were pretty tired. But this doesn't matter. We got off the train and met Daniele and Massimilliano (first one was the organizer of the project, I had met him in Estonia two years ago). They took us by cars to Benestare, our final destination. We had a breakfast in local cafe and then went to our sleeping place. The place was colder than we expected but whatever... I had problems with opening my luggage because the lock had been broken. So the guys beated the lock with a rock and it broke and I had a chance to have a shower and change clothes. After everybody had refreshed themselves we went to explore the town. It was a small town in the mountains. You could see the sea also from this town. Orange trees were growing everywhere, there were lots of Fiat's and the streets were really small. Cute little town. We discovered a shop named Maria... The view from almost everywhere in the city was marvellous- mountains everywhere and some sea, too. Unfortunately the weather was cold... Then we had lunch which had two rounds. Oh, pasta :) We met Alessandro (I had met him before in Estonia) and Bruno and some more people. Bruno promised to take us to another city nearby (Siderno) where he was working. So at 4 p.m we drove by his car to this city. We went to the seaside and had a look around in the city. As it was cold we decided to have a cup of tea in a restaurant named Helios. And then started a complete pourdown. So we couldn't go anywhere anymore. We texted Bruno that we're stuck in this place. So when his job finished, he came to the place where we were, drank also a fast Espresso and then we went back to Benestare. The roads in the mountains were curvy so Meelika didn't feel very good and was ill some days afterwards. Unfortunately. In the evening we had dinner (more pasta) and after that we drank some wine and just chatted. At night the Czech group arrived. And then we went to sleep...

11/14/2010

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The smaller the joy is, the smaller is it's power. - 14-15th Nov

True humanity equals love. A person is love. -17th Nov

Do what's right without asking other people's opinions. - 20th Nov


I'm off now for a while. Will be in Italy between 15-24th Nov.

11/12/2010

Ambigrams

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I've got now an ambigram from my own name. It looks really beautiful.

You can see the stars only if it's dark enough. - 12th Nov.

11/11/2010

And so it starts again.....

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Wuhuuu! Got the first call from Northwestern people today.
And so it starts again....
At least I've got a damn good excuse for them to say- I will be probably going to Britain soon, I can't come and sell books in USA.

11/09/2010

Oh the weather outside is frightful....

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I can finally say that I am happy to see the snow outside. I wasn't happy a while ago, but now it's time for that. I woke up in the morning, moved the curtains off the window and saw snow. Now I'm gonna eat some mandarines, light a candle. Then, after this lovely breakfast, I will skip one of my lectures, will go to donate blood, and will go to city to find myself jeans. And if the promised snow storm comes, I'm gonna enjoy it. I guess I love storms... (I loved the thunderstorm we had in the summer, too)
Anyway, maybe some christmas songs?
I've got the feeling for that, too.


The most wasted day is the one, during which you don't smile at all. -9th Nov

(The first thing in the morning I did, was smiling)

11/07/2010

Dave Grohl vs Simon Neil

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Okay, I just have to write this dream that I had today night into here. This is freaking weird.
Anyway, I was in the university and in a lecture named "The psychology of creativity". By the end of the lecture I was supposed to go to Foo Fighter's concert that took place in Tallinn. My lecturer, Tiia Laak, wished me a nice concert.
Okay, so then I stood in the line to get into the concert. When I got into the concert hall, I saw seats. Like the ones that are in the culture house of Rõuge. The house looked also like a culture house in Rõuge. Okay, anyway there wasn't a lot of pushing and there wasn't a warming band either. So as the audience gathered I was seated to the second row (again). But not into the middle. Still, there was no pushing..... The concert began. I enjoyed it, and loved it, although it seemed the band had only two members, no drummer and Dave Grohl looked a lot like Simon Neil from "Folding stars" video and the bass guitarist looked like James Johnston. Ooookay.... All of a sudden I noticed that most of the audience had gone, no clapping, no cheering. Nothing. I started to become embarrased of Estonians. Again. So when there were only about 20 people left the band finished playing, telling us, that there is no point. Obviously. So they were standing on the stage with a bit sad looks. They told that the clock was obviously too early for a concert like this (the concert started at 8 pm) but that they couldn't do it later, because they wanted to sleep too, as they had to leave the country at 4am the next morning. So during that talking most of the 20 people who had stayed until the "end" of the concert, left. I still stayed. So the band came off the stage and all of a sudden there was just a table in front of me. There was one more person from the audiencel left. So I started cheering up the band. I asked for their autographs- I had a sheet for that and it had a list of bands written on it. So "Dave" and "the bassist" gave me their autographs. So we chatted a while. I told them I would go to their some other concert and asked if I could get the tickets for their show at Milton Keynes as it is sold out (yeah, my dream concert is actually in reality also sold out) and that it would be my dream to see Simon and Dave perform together. I also asked whether they could do a duet or something like that during the concert. I got the a smily answer that actually said nothing to me but about the ticket I was supposed to ask my lecturer Tiia Laak, because she was the aunt of the bassist (in my dream) .... What the hell???? Anyway, then the guys discovered that they had only their pijamas on so they went to put on normal clothes. I asked whether I should leave but they told that it's not necessary. So they put on normal clothes in front of me. I still tried to cheer them up about the concert and find some excuses for the stupid Estonians but the band told it was okay. Then it was about the time when I had to catch my bus back home (yeah, I had chatted with the guys for quite long already). So I took my hair of from French braid and took a picture with the guys and hugged them really long and then went. When I was on my way to the bus station I heard a quoting of a newspaper by someone and he read about the fiasco that had happened during the concert and I was really sad but looking forward to see my lecturer to get the tickets to Milton Keynes.....

It seems that I am regaining my ability to see extremely weird dreams. That are actually somehow connected to reality....

11/06/2010

"Awakenings"

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I have a new movie recommendation again.
I recently downloaded a lot of movies from psychology and psychatry field. So I watched now one of them that I'd planned to watch for a very long time. The name of the movie is "Awakenings". At first the name Robin Williams didn't attract me very much to watch the movie as Williams doesn't seem to be the kind of actor for psychiatry movie. Or a movie from so serious field. So with a little doubt in my soul I started to watch the movie.
My first impression, when the movie hadn't even started, only the introductive subtitles were shown, was a big surprise. I read from the introduction that the movie was based on the book with the same name by Oliver Sacks. How on earth didn't I make the connection between the name of the movie and the book before seeing the movie? So obvious. Anyway, with the knowledge that the movie is based on a book from this author and that the movie is actually based on a true life story I continued watching the movie. My impression when the movie had ended was as good as it was in the beginning. Maybe even better. I was not disappointed in the movie at all... And the actors played their role quite well.
Anyway, the movie is about people who have had some kind of meningitis in their childhood and it has had the effect on their life some time later. In the beginning of the movie these people are diagnosed with unknown schizophrenia or unknown dementia etc. in the movie the patients were frozen in one pose and didn't seem to react to almost anything. They were living in a hospital. A new doctor (Robin Williams) comes to work in the institution and finds out that the patients react to certain stimuli. So he makes a research and finds out that their actual diagnosis is some kind of meningitis (I can't remember right now, what was the proper name of the diagnosis so I will not type it here). And he starts to find a cure to this disease....
Anyway, my plan now is to read the book, too. I've had this book at home, but it was 3in1 book, where were other publications from Sacks also included (I read "The man who mistook his wife for a hat"). I planned to read all the books but as I was lacking of time to do that, I took the book back to the library. Mistake. Total.
So as previously, I still recommend everybody to read books from Oliver Sacks and to watch this movie, too. Thoughtful and realistic stories from what you can learn a lot.
And I can say that Oliver Sacks is probably one of my favourite writers (and neuropsychologist too, as this is his real occupation).

11/05/2010

Sometimes I wished....

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...that I'd have my black hair back. That I'd still be 17. That I'd still go to Nõo high school and lived in the hostal with all my friends so close. Sometimes I wished back even my basic school, but not as much as my high school. Sometimes I wished it was the summer of 2008, a damn but a very lovely summer. All the time I wish that I could see Vero again, could see my old roommates more often, my friends more often.
Friends are the people who will never disappear. Even if the distance is long between them.
Sometimes it seems that I'm not trying hard enough to keep in touch with my friends. And it will be harder in the future.
But so far I'm handling it. Still.
We'll see what the future will bring but all that I can say is that the past and the present is something damn good to be remembered. The puzzle is so far perfect. Nothing to regret, only to remember.

And these are my friends that make everything perfect.

So... This post is devoted to all the people who have affected me in all the ways and have turned me into what I am now.
To the past, present and future!

I love you, my friends!

11/04/2010

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Time doesn't exist. Time is numbers, the relation between existance and non-existance. - 4th Nov

11/02/2010

iresghtöpguhäoeirhgühb

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The fact that I'll go to Italy soon, seems like a curse. The closer the date comes the more I will find out what tests will be during my trip. Fuck! Really.
I've got a test in German during my trip, I found out today that I'll probably have a test in Psychometry, too. Then I've got loads of essays to do, I've got two seminars that I should attend, too. Holy crap. I shouldn't swear but this is worth it.

kjegtveatölwerhypaeönti bögahgtaetphwyökjbnqwgälkhbög

11/01/2010

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The only way to discover the limits of possibilities is to succeed in doing impossible. - November

The soul is fed by joy. -1st November