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Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Speaking of Art...

Sami got me this little present today:



Well, that was new :)

Art for Kids

The Art Gallery has amazing toddler classes where kids can play with different materials of all colors, textures and shapes. It's am amazing place where Sami can play, surrounded by beauty and inspiration. At the same time we can experience some of the amazing exhibitions and enrich our days...

So, it all starts with him being an outsider, of course. It's hard to get him in the group. Not surprised, considering his parents.



One thing that truly gets him, though: Airplanes





They really can help with anybody's mood, can't they!

Then we're ready for the good old children's song saying that 'Everything is orange' (Оранжево небето..)



Aah, who doesn't love a little art :)

Sunday, November 27, 2011

New and Improved

If desire is the door to success then devotion is the key.

I have known this truth for a while as it is the natural continuation of something I read on alkA's wall (not facebook wall, but real brick wall) over thirteen years ago: 'You have to know what you want and that you want it!'

As you may have experienced yourself, or at least noticed about my own humble self is that finding out what the 'it' is, is one of the most difficult tasks we are faced with.

Seems like the haze of life never quite settles so you can confidently look inside yourself and state: 'This is it!'

I did find out one thing, however, and I am rushing to share it with you: I know that I am the biggest of all hedonist and egoist! And I found what brings me the most pleasure - GIVING! Ever notice a little butterfly inside of you going crazy, tickling your breath, playing with your imagination and making your mind race as you imagine how the others will react when you give them your gift, your creation,your advice, your self? Well, that's the best food for my ego. Imagining the response; tasting the joy; even predicting the impact.

So, lead by the highly egoistic drive to give, I am now awarded with the chance to do it. (well, the UK system kind of forced me into it, but wow, what a discovery!) I am now a voluntary worker at the Manchester Drug Services! An inspirational environment, showing substance users that there is a chance, guiding them and nurturing them along the way by providing the best support I have seen until now. The UK healthcare organization has actually come to the realization that body and soul are one. And that you can't cure one without healing the other. So, apart from the incredibly inspiring psychological support groups, a disturbed, scared and abandoned drug-addict can now experience the ultimate sensations of meditation, acupuncture,  hot stone massages, aroma-therapies and reiki. So spirituality has now officially become part of the cure. Particularly the wealth of the experiences of the self, here and now.

And I am right in the middle of it all. It is so exciting, I can't wait for my next shift! What kind of a feeling is that? I don't get paid but I gladly devote my time to it. I guess it reminds me of this blog. I spent the entire day today (shamefully even neglecting my family a bit) renovating, writing and enriching this blog even though I get paid nothing for it.

Unsurprisingly, the bottom line is the well-known cliche. The IT  is the thing that you'd gladly do even if you weren't getting paid to do it.

And I finally get it!

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Лафове

алкА: Сами, Меми какво да прави като му е мъчно за теб?
Сами: Да принтира.
алкА: Ами ако няма принтер?
Сами: Той тати ще му даде за sharing.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Putting Yourself in Another's B-Day Shoes

happy b-day, alkA!

I so know the feeling of un-excitement when your birthday approaches. It is so easy to prefer giving up and spending special moments on the mundane train. It's just too much to even summon the energy to move a finger. We let problems amass over out heads like the Manchester clouds and allow them to shrink us down to mere existence.

But there's no way I'd let this feeling ruin MY fun! As I've found out that the joy of a birthday may well be the joy of those around you, who remember to do something for you.

So, please forgive my egoism, but I just had to make the most out of the special day(s).

I learned to make a cake - my favorite type - no sponge layers of syroped bread-like crap. Just the real deal - coco, sugar, eggs, and secrets.



Then, rather irritated by pre-printed, pre-addressed and un-personalized ready-to-give cards, wrote all over a photograph, where you can see her happiness in every detail, stuck it on a piece of paper and wrote all of the generic b-day wishes I could think of. Now that's personal :).

Then, just as I nearly ran out of ideas, she came up with the best one: why don't we go, risk our lives and reputation and learn to do some ice-skating. Even take the little shit along! Turns out, he's the only one who had something to complain about, as his little butt got seriously wet and we had to dry it by butt-slapping.



And then, the few Mancunian friends that we've made in a year chipped in in the celebration and excitement by organizing a surprise party themselves! One would think that surprises two years in a row don't work, but alkA still seems to be pretty gullible!



Cheers to you, my dear!
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF A BIRTHDAY!



Thursday, November 17, 2011

A House of Mould

AThe fisherman caught the deaf goldfish.
She granted him one wish - 
he wanted a house of gold. 
He got a house of mould

On a soggy, sunless day the caretaker stretched his arms in the tiny little closet he called his office. Something was bothering him today. He saw a television show last night and it was all about the terrible effects of dust on your health. All his life he had been taking such good care of himself and all of a sudden he found out about this secret silent killer. His heart was in turmoil. He had only been working for about a year in the moldy but tidy basement of this building. It was an easy job. Mindless stress-free and despite the dampness of his toilette-sized office, he liked it. If only he had made himself a sandwich, he may have missed the program but now it was too late. The seed of doubt had been planted in his head and he was worried.

But what is it, you may ask, that so disturbed him and why was it particularly dust that he was so worried about?  Well it's all related to the enhancement of technology and the invention of a great machine called 'dryer' (as in washer and dryer), which some of us so casually consider as natural as the fridge. But the technological advances had this little disadvantage: every load of dry clothes generated a massive amount of lint. A terribly dusty furball containing romantic stuff such as dead body cells, bed bugs and cotton bits. So, all normal users adjusted to this glitch in the system and created ducts, leading the dust out of their homes. Well, all but the brilliant architect of Melrose Apartments, we'll call him Mr.Stoopeed. So Mr. Stoopeed decided that all of this dust could get collected in a separate room of our basement and it never had to leave the building. So the days became months, the months - years and the years - a room FULL of DUST! Well, that was namely the dust which bothered our caretaker this morning. So he called the health hazard company and they came down for a check. Yes, they were Stoopeeefied! And what they did? Well, they sealed all the dryer machines off until the problem gets fixed.

Now, my friends, you may like to read more carefully as it's time I stepped into the picture. Yep, here I come. See me struggling down the stairs (6 floors from my flat to the basement and the elevator is broken - lucky?) with a pile of clothes, from which socks hang and my shirts are dragging on the floor. What makes it even better is that I am not alone! I help a little helpless 3-year-old child down the stairs, as I do need company every time I do my laundry. I step in front of the machine, read the notice and scratch my head. "Well, I think. I'll just wash them and hang them in our room - the old Bulgarian way". So I stick the pile of tiny muddy jeans and buggery hankies in the washer and trot up the stairs with my already 'tired' toddler.

Look, it's 45 minutes later and here we come down again. Whoow, the pile of clothes is much heavier when they are wet and when I have to bring them up the stairs. But I'll make it. Here we are. Less 3-4 socks all is here. Hanging -  done! Aah, childhood memories of domestic flee-markedness infest my mind. There is nowhere left to sit, to lay down or to lean now. Clothes - everywhere. A pretty picture. So sophisticated! But it's ok. They should dry quickly.

24 hours later - wet.
48 hours later - wet.
72 hours later - What is that stench? Oh my! I can't even enter the apartment! Everything stinks! May be a skunk made its way in, curled up and hid somewhere and died. Yes. The clothes were dry! Manchester, we owe this to you! But wait, I had another brilliant idea - stuck them stinkers in the closet thinking - aah, they won't smell in a few days... Oh, you should have seen the horror in people's eyes when I was walking down the street the other day. Sami and I had an open corridor of people running away from what could only be described as the Stinkertons coming.

Ha! You wish! I did try to wear my jeans but threw them back in the laundry basket before I threw up on them. And so time passed. My our wardrobes were slowly getting emptier and emptier until finally they were all transferred into the bathroom.

Until today I had a brilliant idea - I'll break the rules! I'll be the rogue! I'll USE the dryers! And I did. But I got news for you. Without ventilation, all you get is an enormous amount of just-as-wet clothes, nicely warmed up for you.

And this brings us to the current situation - again there are clothes all over the apartment. I am sitting here, surrounded by this formidable picture, wearing my favorite (still wet) clothes (as I've noticed that they DO dry up on me), writing. And I'm scared.

Honey, I think we should move!

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

alkArt: photography

My alkA. is getting so proficient in photography that most of her recent pics are pieces of art to me. I could not resist my urge to brag a bit on her behalf with this awesome sunrise...simply inspiring! I hope you too can sense the feeling of hope and serenity that this photo holds. "We may still be in the dark, but the light is finally coming our way!"

Monday, November 7, 2011

A Day in the Skatepark

If you were an Arab, or an Indian in Manchester, chances are you will find yourself in the Curry Mile in the morning. Despite my lack of desire to generalize, I would tell you that most likely you would give a very judgmental look to the father, who pushes the stroller of his 2-year-old son on a skateboard, flying towards the skatepark. But I'm used to these angry looks, staring at me as if I am breaking the law and fly by all the hookah-smoking critics of the Curry Mile for five minutes. For right after that is our little skate heaven. Every time the weather cheers up a notch, we try to go there.

Sami becomes more and more stable on the skateboard, as you may have noticed. So, now the next step is to introduce him to the half and quarter-pipes. And as a 10-year-old boy at the park told me, after asking me how old Sami was: 'Gotta start them while they're young!' (I laughed my ass off).

So, here are the first steps...rolls:


Already generating some interest in the ladies....not :)

Sunday, November 6, 2011

It all boils down to this...

The hardest thing in my life is this:
Growing up.

As a kid and a teenager I've always been fascinated with a million things. Be it music, camping, fixing things, making things, writing poetry or hiking with the scouts.

So what happened? To this day I am constantly struggling to find what I would really like to do!

Happened to you?

If not, then may be you should give yourself a pat on the back and brag to your friends that you have found your way. But if you are like me, then keep on reading.

I know that if you've read previous posts, you may have read that our ethics professor at Sofia Uni once said: 'The tragedy of the human life is that from many possibilities, we are only forced to chose ONE path!'

And so we are doomed!? Why can't we be more than a somebody? Why can't we be MANYbodies? That's what I've been stuck with all this time. And until I know which one I will be, am I doomed to grope in the dark like a blind man?

I choose the opposite!

I will be whatever I LOVE, and let it come in whatever shapes and sizes it wants to. I know that what makes me happiest is to GIVE, to CREATE, to EXPLORE, to LAUGH, to SEE and most importantly - to LOVE!

So, my friend, if you have your list of things to love, may be it's time you put them all together and see what 'job' description they fit!

Be inspired! Believe! Love!

PS: and if you know of a job that fits my favourites, let me know :)