Missing Sarmale

Relaxed

... and tired, but you can't have everything.

The frustration apparently went away, and I did find some time to write something here in the weekend. Quite impressive, I would say since the last days have been totally crazy, and more will come. End of the year is by far the busiest time I know. The "fever" already started, with meetings and parties of all kinds. Everything started this last week.

Because of Romania's national holiday on December 1, Thursday and Friday evenings meant receptions at the embassy and mission of Romania to the EU. All very nice, plenty of food (sarmale of course!) and drinks. It feels good to realise that I know so many people, and that there are so many Romanians over here. Since I've been quite involved lately in lots of things and activities in Romanian, I may some day even be able to make a good presentation in this language. For the record the only moment I actually had to publicly present something in Romanian was when I defended my thesis, and it was a real pain since for years I have been speaking anything else but that language.

To wrap up the crazy week, Friday evening I went to the first national party of the current Commission stagiaires. It was a total hit, Spanish & Portuguese organisers, and the theme was the '80s. It was absolutely brilliant, I really loved all the dancing (first time I sat down for a bit was at 4 am), and wasted a lot of 'negative' energy in the process. It's the kind of atmosphere that you normally don't have nowadays in clubs. And basically the whole day today I had to struggle to take out of my mind certain tunes ("Like a prayer" or "I will survive" kinda' things).

To make everything even better, I went shopping today the whole day. My feet are killing me, but oh, the statisfaction... Lots of nice things, and some stuff to wear at some of the next pre-Christmas dinners/parties/whatever. Next events: theatre, dinner with Romanians, dinner with my husband's company, dinner with my company, dinner with my department colleagues, friends' birthday party... And since most dinners are free... ;-) Of course there is no such thing as a free lunch (dinner) but impressions count. I remember even now a Christmas dinner some years ago (2 I think) with the husband's then company where we ate Chinese till we dropped. May that happen again!

But with all the living on the fast lane, and dreading the time when I will do an analysis of the past year, there is one feeling that I haven't had in a while: relaxation. And it's not just an undercover word for stress. There are times when reality literally shakes you and reminds you that life is short. And one could only wonder: why waste it with being frustrated?

"First I was afraid, I was petrified..." :-)

posted by Dana @ 10:07 pm