i can't take my eyes off you

i thought i heard a greek version of "I can't take my eyes off you" (by damien rice) on tv the other day, sung by sakis rouvas. and i think it kinda sucks. it's a pity a lot of ppl in my country will hear this song sung in greek, in a cheesy translation, and even more than that it's a pity that they will love it.

does damien rice know?

top 5 tunes on my mind

say something - james
can't stop - red hot chili peppers
clementine - pink martini
holiday in spain - counting crows & blof
the hardest part - coldplay

moved...again

no reason for me to be in athens anymore...so as of today i have temporarily moved back to lamia, to my parents' place, till i get the job i want and move overseas, wherever this might end up to be...

still can reach me online, and in athens from time to time

schedule

yes, this is what i need. it's weird, but true. now that i have my entire day free, i can't get my self to do the things i want to, though time is more than enough :)

i guess it's the first few days that get me disoriented (is there such a word?) and by wk 2 i should have gotten used to the whole thing.

for now i just need to stuff in my days all of the following: job hunting, reading, seeing a few friends, exercising, going to some art excibition in the afternoon/evening.

different weekend - different week

this weekend was much different from most of the previous ones, when i was just hanging around with a few friends. it was a weekend from the old times, being constantly out of the house, in different kinds of places and activities.

saturday was the day when i went to the delaguarda show which is now in Athens for a few days. it was a cool experience which we enjoyed with lots of dancing and well, it's a show you don't get to see every day. unfortunately we could not stay for the after show party since i had to make it to downtown athens, to go to a live music show with gr music (στη σφεντόνα - Ρόκκος, Ευριδίκη, Ελένη Πέτα, Γιάννης Βαρδής). It was different than i expected since it looked more like a rock concert than a dancing event, and i enjoyed it more this way. only thing i didn't enjoy: the usual parking experience, since it took me 45 minutes to find parking space in the area around the club. 4:30 am was the time to go home, and next day i made it for dinner with my family - just in time.

after that we had a basketball session :) with a few friends, which was arranged after a long time of not having exercised at all. my stamina sucks but at least i can still play decently, and though my bones still ache - 2 days after - i plan to try exercising more often.

following all this activity of the weekend, a well deserved stay at home on sunday evening, just doing some reading and planning for the week, was what i needed. cos this week, without a job now, i really need to make a schedule of how many hours and when i will devote to my job hunt!

nomad in my own country

defininitely missing some destinations on the map, but well, more or less this is where i've been on travel with my work for the past 4 months. and though it feels good to have been there for the last time today - now looking for sth better to do in life - i can't say i will not miss the good times travelling and meeting new people and places. i guess i do have sth more to be grateful about other than the money after all...

today was the last day, and we went to Lichada, in the Northern part of Evia. One of the most beautiful routes to travel on, including endless shores, mountains, great views. too bad my camera was resting at home. but i'll post a few "best of" pictures from the previous months online soon.

now it's time to become a global nomad again. i'll start by issuing a passport next week.

surfing on board

it's probably a common experience but it's the first time i was able to chat, surf and be online while travelling, these last few days,i can tell you that it's a cool thing. yey for 3g/gprs cards!

welcome to the party

200,000 κόσμος ψήφισε για το τραγούδι της αννούλας χτες βράδυ. επί 1,1 € το sms ή το τηλεφώνημα (the math done for you) = 220,000 € σε ένα τέταρτο της ώρας. και το κράτος παίρνει και 40,000 ευρώπουλα φπα και όλοι είναι χαρούμενοι.

για τη eurovision που είναι "εθνική υπόθεση" ψηφίζει πολύς λαός. καμία αντίρρηση. πότε θα διοργανωθεί ψηφοφορία με sms για κάποιον ουσιαστικό σκοπό - να πάνε και τα έσοδα - δεν ξέρω.

eurovision 2006

i watched the show on tv last night, which was the selection process of the song anna vissi will sing for greece in this year's eurovision song contest. it's always fun to watch all of this thing going on, and of course the controversial song contest itself - coming up in may.

there's one main thing i don't like though: the illusion that the main issue in my country is not unemployment, bureaucracy, corruption, a million other things: our main problem i's the selection of the best song to represent us in the eurovision contest. and how proud everyone feels if we do well there, while not realising that our life over here doesn't improve at all.

test posting

my blog disappeared yesterday (!) and i am trying to find out whether creating a new post makes any difference to it coming back

or maybe just pray :)

discovery

today i found out that driving in a car while there's hail falling from the sky must be more or less how pop corn feels while being cooked. without the heat :)

mondays

as garfield says: start each day with a smile (and get it over with). that goes especially for mondays...

away from the sun - 3 doors down

It's down to this
I've got to make this life make sense
Can anyone do what I've done
I missed life
I missed the colours of the world
Can anyone go where I am

'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun again
Away from the sun again

I'm over this
I'm tired of living in the dark
Can anyone see me down here
The feeling's gone
There's nothing left to lift me up
Back into the world I've known

'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun
That shines the life away from me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I'm so far down, away from the sun again

It's down to this
I've got to make this life make sense
And now I can't do what I've done

And now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines the life away from me

'Cause now again I've found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I'm so far down, away from the sun
That shines the life away from me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I'm so far down, away from the sun again

woody allen quotes

"it's not that i'm afraid to die, i just don't want to be there when it happens"

"money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons"

"more than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. the other, to total extinction. let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly"

More of Woody Allen quotes here.

plans and travel

ok so here it is...from next friday onwards i am officially "between jobs" ak.a. unemployed :). my contract with TIM ends and i am still in the process of finding a job and moving abroad. in fact i actually don't mind being jobless for a couple of months, i think it will allow me to do a few things better:

• look for a job and get it faster
• prepare better for my interviews and have the flexibility to travel for them
• see a bit more of friends and relatives here

i can't say that i am not tempted to waste all my money in travelling, as there are a few places i would like to go within 2006: Bosnia, Egypt (scheduled for May if all goes well), Slovakia and Portugal, Turkey and if i could get myself to a few more countries i would. but i think i will just restrict myself as much as i can for now, so as to be able to travel more once i get more money flowing in...a little bit of patience is required.

and a passport as well - i don't have one since i joined the army. will be issuing my new one in a couple of weeks though :)

on choice

do you ever get the feeling that you are not entirely satisfied with your life or that - well - whatever you do taht makes you happy only keeps you happy for a while? i do.

of course there's a lot still to do and achieve in life, no doubt about that one. and there's a lot of intense moments and feelings to experience still say if all goes well i still have 4-5 decades ahead of me for all of that. but i get the impression that i want to do so much more things than the ones there's real time for. in other words, i will always have the feeling that i haven't done all i want to no matter how hard i try.

RS: But dude, why don't you just downscale your ambitions? you only have 24 hours in each day anyway.
DM: True - i have tried doing that. But every day new things that i wanna do and be in the future - more books to read, places to travel, places to go and have a drink, sports to play, shows and films to watch, people to hang out with etc etc - pop up.

it's probably a characteristic of our era. and it's the price we pay for having more choices. some people would say "Ah, things used to be much easier in our parents' time, when they only had to survive and their only ambition was to get a job and have a good family". i don't enjoy being nostalgic. i think the previous generation would have loved to have all the choices we have around us, and in a way they have helped create these choices for us. but this comes at a cost, as there's really no decision without a price in life. i would say i like the era we live in, the era of choices but we have to educate ourselves on how to manage it and live simply again.

the price we pay for choice is this feeling of being unsatisfied.

the difference lies within the details

ok so i've been on travel with my job for the past 7 weeks. same pattern every week:
wake up at 3:30 on monday, go to airport, take the morning (6am or so) flight to whatever destination - come back to athens on thursday or friday. monday is usually a bitch, as i am dead tired cos of the early wake up.

today i came back from skyros, where the pattern was different. i am always excited to be on an island - and as a matter of fact to work outside athens - but this time when i arrived, even though i was tired and the weather was bad, i was feeling extremely happy :) trying to find the reason why i realised that i was felling happy cos i took the ferry to go. it's somehow combined in my mind that plane=business and ferry=holidays as far as the greek islands are concerned. i have never been to an island on holidays by plane! that's a weird combination of info the human mind sometimes makes.

looks like we all hide a pavlov dog in us, no?

matchpoint

Theodore Roosevelt once said "the harder i work, the luckier i get". myself i am not a big fan of the idea of luck and chance, but well, you can't deny how little random events can change your life forever. one instant reaction earlier or later can get you in a car crash, losing or catching a bus could get you or not to an appointment that can change your life, be this work or anything else. this idea has been debated in many books and movies from "back to the future" to matchpoint itself.

i watched the movie on saturday and i can't tell you how much i enjoyed it. maybe cos i am a Woody Allen fan (though i still haven't watched a fe wof his classics). he doesn't act in this movie either, like his previous one. but i am amazed at how well he still writes and directs, while being 71 yo now.

the difference between matchpoint and his other movies is that in this one the comic element is not there. but it still feels good to watch it. the similarity is that he insists on telling the truth (the powerful in life will in the end use their power to survive, people are not always into the nicest of intentions, they are full of passions and disadvantages, the world is imperfect, and well, a happy end depends on perspective), he makes relatively low-budget movies with smart directing.

the movie flirts with the idea of luck and how big a role it plays in our lives, in a very credible way. and i honestly recommend watching it, it's good food for thought.

carnival of patra

since i didn't make it this year either, i think it's very difficult to visit the carnival of patra in the future. i have always wanted to go, but always had something else to do (be it aiesec, or being abroad or whatever else)...

the carnival celebration was yesterday, and so now if i wanna be working abroad soon, i guess my chances of visiting it in the future are getting slimmer...nevermind :)

nicest thing i heard in a while

"ducunt fata volentem, nolentem trahunt" - fate leads the willing and drags the unwilling

anything in latin sounds so cool and wise, but some of the quotes have meanings that match my mood every now and then...

experiment

monday is a holiday and so everyone took the chance to leave athens on an excursion. most of my closest friends, my sister etc have followed the norm and left. i decided to stay in athens and spend most of the time in these 3 days alone.

what's in store for these three days? reading, applying for more jobs, making up a plan on what happens in exactly 2 weeks from now, when my contract with TIM ends. there are a few scenarios on what i am gonna do for the next while, i just wanna make up my mind and go ahead with one of them...

i hope the experiment of staying over here works, since i really wanted an excursion myself :)

samos

view from mountaintop
Originally uploaded by Dimitris Mazarakis.

i am back in athens after a fantastic trip to samos island, in the south-east part of greece. samos is one of the most beautiful islands i have ever visited, with amazing beaches, great views, picturesque villages and great food as well. and believe me, i have visited quite a few of our islands. the funny thing is that it's not at all one of the mainstream islands for the summer, though it doesn't lack much compared to paros, mykonos etc. it only lacks the nightlife compared to them, but it's a much more beautiful place.

other than that it didn't feel very good coming back to athens this evening, knowing that i am working in this chaotic city for the rest of the week. i thank god i got the opportunity to travel with my current job, and i will be able to do so for the next couple of weeks too.

samos is a great memory now, including the people i met, the places i saw, and the wish to come back in summertime. till then, i just have to hold on to my memories, sustained by a few photos.

so close

ladies and gents, this is the mikali strait on the eastern part of samos island, greece. what's so special about it? on the left you can see samos - pythagorio, on the right the turkish coast. and well, by looking at this beautiful picture it's hard not to think that countries could as well not have border issues with one another. after all, who does the earth belong to and whoever defined that?