Perceptions of conceptions

"Good", "bad"...what is one without the other? We couldn't know the meaning of "good" without the "bad" and vice versa. These two coexist and that can never change. But, all in all, these words, these concepts have a different meaning for each of us. My "good" isn't necessary to be your "good" and my "bad" isn't automatic yours too. There are as many shades of these as leaves in a tree. We do what we subjectively think it's "good" while that "good" may be "bad" for the others. Let's take a simple situation for example:
A poor man needs money because he's starving and he has a wife and 5 children to feed at home. He sneaks out at the back of a tree to pursue a women taking out money from an ATM. He follows her to a less populated area and steals her purse. He gets home and buys food for his family. Now let's think: Yes, he has a problem and that problem is worse if it's not only his but his family's too. Yes, he did a "good" to his family but that "good" is "bad" for the lady he took the purse from. My question is why take the easy way and make others suffer? Those money could have been the ones that the lady needed to pay her rent. So, our man took her money for the rent to buy food for him and his family. Let's look at this from other point of view. Yes, he is poor and his story is worse than the lady's, but if he was poor from the beginning...why did he have 5 children and not only one? What was he thinking to have all those babies when he wasn't able to feed himself, not to mention the whole family? Other point of view may show the lady being very rich and not care too much for her loss. What our man did is still called stealing and when the money is gone he'll need another so he'll steal again. If we're thinking strictly to our poor man, not only that he's doing a "bad" thing to the lady, but he's doing one to himself and his family too because he might get caught and brought in front of the law. So, isn't that "bad" for everyone at the end?
I'm not judging anybody...just thinking logically. I know it is hard to get a job when you have a whole family to feed, a broken roof on the top of your head and not too much "school" in that head. But still I think you can find a job if you really want to. You just have to look carefully for it. I'm not talking about a lawyer, a doctor or an engineer job, but a janitor or window cleaner or something that brings money in a home. There are courses that the state give to the unemployed to learn how to do a job and that is completely free. I'm just saying that there are better solutions than doing "bad" stuff to get where you want/need.
So...we do have also "good" and "bad" inside of us...but we are the ones who choose which one to let out. Usually it is a matter of morals and ethics but also conscience, I think.

Mirror of love

A few weeks ago I've discovered a flower...a pretty rare flower...I gave her enough water to drink as she's been really thirsty after a recent storm that made her bleed to fragile. And I put her in a good place to be lit by the sun as much as she wants. I talked smoothly to her and she spread around me a perfume that made me also feel special. I'd love us to be friends eternally and our friendship not to fade any of us...to drink water anytime we want from each other's glasses and watch together every sunrise and sunset...
Oh...I forgot...I've been looking at myself in a mirror of dreams...and I've been looking to her...in the mirror of my heart...

Anger management

Anger...what do you solve if you throw it on others? Nothing! Yes, you do feel good at the beginning because you "fire off" but even if the other is really guilty you still harm yourself, you charge yourself with negative energy and you suffer. The best thing you can do is to unload like a lightening bolt: it "sparkles", it "bursts out" but it doesn't strike the others and it only discharges into the ground, where it belongs. You can control anger. You can empty yourself of fury by channeling it in a positive way into a hobby, a sport, crying or even yelling (it is preferable to do that with a pillow that covers your mouth in order not to wake up your neighbors) but you can manage to control it. I, for example, when I'm angry I draw, write, listen to music, do sport or cry and even yell sometimes, depending on its intensity. How do you manage your anger?

The story within the story of a nickname

Today I will tell you how I got my nickname, Serena    Bluemoon. There are actually 2 stories of it.

1. My mother had always had this thing with names. And when I was born she wanted to give me a beautiful and unusual name. She wanted to call me Serena,  because in Latin means "calm", " bright", "happy" and she thought this was a perfect  description of me.  But at those times, people would look weird at you if you had a  less normal name so she had to give me a name that was used more often. Irina. But  this doesn't mean it isn't also very beautiful, because she knew this name meant  "peace" in Greek and Eirene was the Goddess of peace, celebrated in Greece but also  in Romania (Saint Irina - May 5th). Later, she found out that the same name she  already gave me meant "serenity" in Hebrew :)

2. My grandmother had told me some really awesome stories since I was a kid. But  one of them I loved the most. It was about two teens, a princess and a future king  named Moon and Sun. But, exactly like the Shakespearean story, Romeo and Juliet,  the families of our lovers hated each other. One day, the princess and the prince ran away together and hid in a cave when their parents started to look for them. They knew that that cave was the home of an old and poor but very good and powerful witch. They asked her to help them and she offered to lodge them in her house. But what they didn't know was that the old witch was payed by the father of the princess to make a spell to break up the lovers. Because she was very poor and the princess's father gave her a lot of money, she accepted. Therefore, when the lovers came to her for help, she put a potion in their drinks. The potion worked and the lovers broke up, but they were so depressed and felt like a part of them was missing that they killed themselves. The witch knew then that what they had was true love, something that she was trying to find her whole life, but never could and she lost her faith. She felt so guilty that she made a deal with the Goddess of the sky. She would give up her powers for the lovers to be reunited. Then, because she couldn't bring the lovers back to life, the Goddess transformed them into two sky luminaries so that they could see each other a couple of  months a year. They thanked the Goddess by bringing her their son Paragon (Luceafarul) to light her sky most of the night. The story also says that one night, when Paragon grew up, he heard the princesses mother arguing with her father on the balcony of their palace. She was mad because she found out that he went to the witch for help and she cursed him to never see Moon on the sky again. When he met his parents, Paragon told them what he heard. Moon was so angry that she turned red the next night and punished her father by showing him that she has royal blood and she can do whatever she wants. So she influenced the sea to flood the palace. She spared her mother but the water took her father and put him in sand with his head out so that all day he would look at Sun, the one whom he hated and never see Moon at night because he was blinded by the light of Sun by day. The story is a dramatic one, but the idea is that true love must never broke because there might be some ugly consequences, like the tragic end of Moon's father.

A few years ago I decided to use online the nickname Serena  :) And this was even before I heard the story from my mom. Can this mean that the name chooses the baby and not viceversa? Also, I chose the nickname's surname Bluemoon because I believe in true love and I like the idea of protecting the right to be with whom we want by showing our "royal blood". This doesn't mean we have to get angry and do bad things, but we have to get the respect from people to make them let us live our life the way we want.

That was the story of my nickname Serena Bluemoon. Hope you enjoyed it!

Origami - The art of paper folding

The word "origami" comes from the Japanese words "ori" = "to fold  up" and "kami" = "paper". Origami is the art of  paper  folding into different creatures, objects or any other shapes. It uses  many techniques and the paper is folded to stay in the shape that is  folded into. When the Japanese first folded origami, they used only  one piece of paper. A different kind of origami called modular  origami uses many small pieces that are the same, which are  combined to form one large model. Also, many mathematical  shapes can be made with origami.

The traditional Japanese shapes usually picture animals and flowers. The best known shape is the crane. There is also a legend about this shape that says that after the disaster of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs there were so many losses that the hope was almost lost too. But a little girl started to paper fold almost 2000 cranes and never, not even for a second that she lost her hope for her life to be saved. The legend also says that a man should at least fold 1000 cranes in his life for all his wishes to be fulfilled.

Nowadays though, this art has developed a lot and people fold paper into any other shapes due to every person's imagination and the "rules" are more strict. If the traditional shapes were made of nonsquare paper and the Japanese used even to cut paper, these days the paper is usually a square or rectangular shape and is folded without being cut or glued.

This is an art that requires few resources: coloured paper that is easy to fold up, patience and of course imagination. If you're a beginner like me, there are plenty of  sources that can help you learn how to fold paper into unimaginable shapes like special books and videos just like the next one. Also, if you'd like to know more about this art the web is full of information. Here is a little video with how an origami simple box is made:

I also tried this box and other more complex boxes and shapes. What do you think, are they good? (roll down to see them all)

Don't kill the green horses!

Today I will tell you a story which was first said by one of my great university teachers. So, this is it:

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little princess who would tell her nanny that every time she looked her window she would see a herd of green horses. The nanny couldn't see the herd and neither no one else. Being worried, nanny told the princess's parents about the girl and firstly they thought she was just a child and hoped that by the time the girl would grow up she would stop seeing the herd. But the girl turned up into a gorgeous, intelligent and talented young lady continuing to see the green horses herd. So, the king and the queen decided that she should be seen by a doctor. Since that day, the princess started to rarely see the herd, until she stopped seeing it at all, but also she turned sadder and sadder. One day, her parents begun to ask themselves what is wrong with the girl, so they asked their daughter. Her answer was that she was sad because she couldn't see the green horses anymore. Therefore, the king and the queen decided that they preferred a daughter who could see green horses but who was happy, to a sad girl who yearned for her lost green horses herd. So, the princess begun to call for her herd and when it came out of the trees she became the happiest person in the world."

I'll let you figure out what it really is about. :)

A new day, a new beginning

Everything has a start point. It doesn't matter what it is, it only matters that IT begun. Even if this is about a new lifestyle, a new relationship, a new job, school or a trip, it's a start and it brings new experience in your life. I know that experience can also be bad, but even that can teach you new stuff like "how NOT to do something". It doesn't matter what happened in the past, don't remain stuck on that and start seeing the present and think what you can do with this time you have. And maybe you'll see that you can climb that big wall in front of you after all. Keep your family and friends close to you and you'll see this journey can be awsome. My point is that you should always see the bright side of the situation even if it's all dark and grey, because, let's face it, it can never be completely black. It always has a tiny light at the end of the tunnel. So start something, DO something that changes your life in a good way! Stop complaining, stop waiting for anything to begin by itself and DO something about your life!

“You can't change the past, but you can ruin the present by worrying about the future”

“Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.”Harvey Mackay

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”Steve Jobs

May all the luck, health and joy be with you on this journey you choose!  :-)