book review: Vital Lies, Simple Truths by Daniel Goleman

I never read a book about psychology before but i am thrilled to have read this one, which describes and analyses the psychology of self deception that we all have. The author is the same who wrote "Emotional Intelligence" and the book is not at all written in a "clinical" style. It's definitely a good start for smn with no knowledge but interest in the area, giving a lot of examples to explain the theory behind.

A couple of excerpts:
"...People who are highly competent sometimes feel deeply inadequate; people who are inferior feel superior; people with an ordinary appearance feel beautiful; and people who are attractive feel ugly. More impressive yet, some people who have lived exemplary lives are torn with severe guilt to they point they no longer wish to live, while others who have committed horrendous crimes suffer not a twinge of conscience".

and the book's conclusion that "...somewhere between the two poles - living a life of vital lies and speaking simple truths - there lies a skillful mean, a path to sanity and survival".

extra cool explanations of how we manage to deceive ourselves, in respect to how our brain receives and is taught to receive the messages that make our lives easier or the fact that the way our attention is focused on one thing or another is not predecided but more or less we get used to a certain conduct, depending on our environment and paradigm for life itself. The surprise fact is that we actually need mechanisms of self deception in order to survive and proceed in life, but need to limit them in order to avoid extremes (like perceiving a different world than the one we actually live in - schizophrenia and paranoia).

Quoting Tracy Chapman, "Sometimes a lie, is the best thing" (from "telling stories")

Ladies and gents, i am back to my reading spree!

hang on litlle tomato

If you haven't listened to pink martini's new album, just do it. It's even better than the previous one.

Fave songs: "Hang on little tomato", "Clementine".

we are the champions (again)

just came back from a great weekend in athens. social gatherings, catching up with friends, going to bouzoukia till 6:00 am last night and to bed at 8 am, waking up at 11 to have a semi professional meeting today. Lots of good stuff for only 2 days.

But what makes the news is that after 18 years we are european basketball champions again! We won over Germany in the final 78-62 and are happily both football and basketball champion in europe in only one year. 2nd team in basketball history in Europe (after Italy) that has won the cup twice. Our coach, Panayiotis Yiannakis is the only coach that has won the cup both as a player (1987) and as a coach (2005).

i hope this makes a new beginning for sports in whateverland, a.k.a. Greece! In any case, tonite is a night of celebration!

loneliness

the past few weeks have convinced me that one of the few things i can definitely not stand in life is loneliness...

cornershop

a town of 60,000 people, my hometown

distances are short, families are close

more like a small place, not a big city

i was surprised to see a shop next to my parents' place the other day, with the above sign!

and for those of you who can't read greek, basically you call these people that work in this shop to pay your bills. a good service for a big city, at least a luxury for a place as small as Lamia is. Basically they deliver whatever you ask them for, from your shopping list to food, to cigarettes, to your bills payed.

it's a bit surreal, i thought. Are people in this town so busy, and i am the only person that hasn't noticed? or are we really so lazy to go out of our place and walk 10 minutes, that we are willing to pay smn else to settle our bills instead? Are we really becoming a big city or pretending to be one?

but well, whatever the reason, obviously these people found a need based on which they set their business.

it's just an absurd need for this place...

alkistis protopsalti

by far my favourite greek singer. try listening to her music, even for non native Greek speakers or no Greek speakers at all :) Simply Great.

book review: Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Another book by Dan Brown (the famous author of the DaVinci Code) published in Greek under the title "Illuminati" (the enlightened). This book i read in its Greek translation, which was better than i expected and actually, pretty good.

The book itself is a good read, an exciting story. The recipe is very similar to the DaVinci Code (though this book must have been written prior to the code): An ancient conspiracy taking place in modern times, the main hero being Robert Langdon, a murder of a person close to a female heroine, who works with Langdon to solve the mystery and - well - save the day. This story also takes place within 1 full day or so, and there's wuite a few twists and turns in the plot, which make it more interesting. There's a lot of common elements but that doesn't make the book a bad story, cos it's a good and exciting one. Myself i read the 650 pages in something close to 3 days.

Brown writes a lot in the style of a movie plot. There is parallel action and fast action happening, and from his descriptions you get into the way each character moves and acts easily. You can actually imagine them in a movie. Some people say that he is against christianity or religion etc (i don't know what "digital fortress" is about, but the two books i have read of him both have stories related to the controversy of christianity). I say that he just uses some elements smartly, some ambiguus historical data and his imagination to write good stories that people would read. That doesn't necessarily express and opinion. And, well, i am personally not very interested in revealing a conspiracy or finding a conpiracy in everything i read and see around me.

When i read literature i am interested in finding a story that will keep my interest going and make me think about a couple of things. That's just about it, but not so easy to find it in alot of writers. Brown makes it happen.

41 dark wake ups to go

there's 57 days left for me in the army. 16 of them are weekends, so wake up is at 7, when the sun is up at this part of the world. For the rest 41 i still have to get up at quarter to 6, when it's still dark.

november 8th is not that far.

exams and results

a couple of people have been asking how my exams went: the answer is that it doesn't matter what it think, what matters are the real results coming out in 20 days from now more or less.

all in all i can say that i might have passed both of them marginally, not very satisfied from my performance. But i'd rather judge by the result.

My stay in thessaloniki was short and uneventful, if you exclude the fact that someone tried to break in the car and ruined one of the two locks and the fact that the electrical steering system broke down and i have to replace it (=800 eur).

not bad for 3 days of travel, no?

what happens if i fail any of the exams?
i take it again in january/february. as for my job hunt abroad, in that case it will have to wait till that period, so i'll probably get a job for 6 months or so around here for starters. there's always a plan b.

Greece does it again!

On a break from studying i was watching the game of Kazakhstan vs Greece in Almaty (on TV of course). Our team has not scored in 5 games, and Kazakhstan scored on the 53rd minute.

Needless to say these are the qualifiers for the world cup 2006 in Germany and we haven't been doing too well, so we desperately needed the victory.

And, well, we got it on the 93rd minute, after our second goal by Lyberopoulos (player of AEK FC Athens).

Exciting ending, and now we are second in our group score, behind Ukraine. Still a couple of games ahead to see if we can make it to Germany!

reporting live...

...from where the action is these days: University of Macedonia, in Thessaloniki.

1 down, 1 to go. Today i took the cost accounting exam, tomorrow is the second one, at 9 am. The result of today's exam is unpredictable, i really don't know what it's gonna be.

What i do know is that i have 20 hours ahead of me for what could be my last exam ever in this university. Funny how 24 hours can change how the next 6 months (or more) will look like.

do you believe in miracles?

no?

well, you better start believing, cause i intend to perform a couple of them next week.

monday i am off to thessaloniki for my last 2 exams to get my university degree. and it doesn't look like it's going to be easy.