MY 70-TH BIRTHDAY

Two weeks ago I had the biggest surprise ever.
By registered mail, I received from my  friend, The Honorable Stephen Harper, The PM of Canada, this congratulatory certificate.

The gesture is beautiful and civilized, more so as there are hundreds of thousands of old men like me who become septuagenarian probably next month. Moreover, it seems that the tradition continues at 75 and 80 years old. It is a kind of "reward" you lived so much.

Another tradition  I recently learned is that you can apply to receive a congratulatory message from the Queen Elizabeth II at your diamond wedding anniversary (60 years) and at platinum weeding (70 years), and then every year after.

Honestly, I wouldn't be interested any longer in these much to late congratulations...

RAZVAN 38-TH BIRTHDAY

Almost 2 months ago our son Razvan turned 38. This was not a very special age, like 20, 30 or ..40. But for us, his birthday was always, and will be our special day. And this time we gave him this gift - an "Executive Summary" of his life and ours along with him.
We want to share our pride and love for him with everybody close to us. Hope you will like it,..

Note1: Click on the red arrow to start the video. To stop, left click anywhere on the slide you want to read; to restart, left click again

Note2: For best image quality click settings icon on the bottom task bar and select "Original" from the submenu

TIME DILATION: TWO MONTHS OF MY LIFE

I will not start with a definition of time: this is a very difficult task in the first place, and secondly, this is not a scientific paper.
It’s just a trial to share, mainly with Tania (my wife), a recent experience of mine regarding the changing of my perception of time during 2 months interval when I remained alone (Tania went to Romania)

When and for how long I didn’t care

At the beginning of my solitude I didn’t notice any difference between my perception of time before and after Tania’s departure. Even if I was aware of my loneness, subconsciously, Tania was still present in the next room and the time, from my perspective, flows with the same “speed”. Except that now nobody was there to really regulate my daily activities according to a mutual agreed schedule. The schedule was entirely mine. The bad thing with this schedule was that it doesn’t provide any “sharing moments”. Like always, I could and I wanted to share a lot, but with whom?
 The sharing moments were like ticks of a clock, they assured a normal time “speed”.

Time starts dilating …

The lack of “sharing moments “, I guess, added up and after no more than 2 weeks, made me feel like the time is flowing slowly, dilating.
Meanwhile a few events occurred:

• I quit smoking
• The tasty Tania food (in the fridge) terminated

These made me uncomfortable and contributed to augment the dilation of time in my mind.

It’s well known that people perceive the time differently depending on many factors. One, that I experienced myself, is the ageing which apparently speeds up the time flow; you feel that the distance in time between 2 successive events is very short. *)

So, in normal/regular circumstances – i.e. my wife being near me – the time is contracting for me, because I’m 70, while in uncommon circumstances – my wife is away – my time is dilating.

How is better?
 Now, based on this reasoning, I’m wondering what is better for me – time contracting or time dilating, i.e., wife near me or wife away.

Time contracting means stress and rush, because you will not have enough time to do what you have in mind…In this scenario, the expression “take your time” is meaningless.
 On the contrary, when time is dilating you have all the time in the world to do things, but finally you can get bored to …live.

The verdict:  keeping wife near me is the best scenario, even if, sooner or later, my time is going asymptotically or abruptly to zero.  

Note1:

A young lady, friend of mine, reading this story asked me:  this "best scenario" is the best for Tania too??
Note2:
As a bonus for whom have read this post  I offer them this video clip:

POSITIVE NOSTALGIA

I must admit that in the 12 years since I left Romania, I was away from the danger of nostalgia-it is said that this is the main reason why many people  are returning to the their country after decades

I do not consider myself neither better or worse than the others of my condition who chose to remain in foreign countries, without by that to deny in any way our origins.

Perhaps I did not have time to get nostalgic, perhaps the richness of new information which went all over me and which I was supposed to process in real time, overshadowed the past information, forcing me to think about the future.

I think that more details about my world, in the last 12 years, would help in understanding the absence of nostalgia..

So I left Romania in 1999. Initially, I thought it as a temporary leaving, not as the final. At 57 years old you cannot decide easily to restart (or to keep) your career and your life in a part of the world, known, not only for its centuries of democracy and freedom, but also for its high standards required to professionals,  in any field.

And yet .. our son, Razvan was already  in Canada with a graduate scholarship at York University, and the chances of seeing him again in Romania were practically zero. Also my brother and his family had had the luck to win the American immigration lottery and they where living already in California.

So, confident to my knowledge and experience accumulated in Computer Software Engineering in Romania, as well as my PhD.  in this area, I dared to apply for a so-called H1B visa to work (not to immigrate) in California. Interestingly, my doctorate degree  engineer which I had it since 1982 and which I availed nothing in Romania, had a significant weight  in the acceptance of my application.

I worked 7 years in California  starting with a small company of "structural design", belonging to a good Romanian friend, and continuing  with very large semiconductors companies,  with thousands of employees worldwide and billions of dollars in annual revenue
Besides the opportunity to develop my knowledge and professional experience in new areas, Americans sank me in their market economy, real and functional since two centuries (and which  have nothing to do with "baby" market economy left in Romania).
For this and for the true recognition of my professional skills I will always be grateful to them. As well as for  the "Green Card" that they gave me after 5 years,  when I decided to apply for permanent immigration. Since then, I have not regretted a moment this decision, especially being aware of what is going on  in Romania.

Then came the call from Canada - my son, for whom after all we had done "the jump", is awaiting us to come together, as a whole family, in Canada. So in the fall of 2005 we "moved" to Ottawa.
Here we have learned, among other things, what is the tolerance and not only the linguistic one, how natural is the multiculturalism and the volunteering, and how unimportant is if you come from the Romanians, Greeks, Russians, Albanians, Americans, Ugandans, French and other dozens of other countries and peoples.
Here we received the investiture of Canadian citizen and during the ceremony I wept for joy and we felt that somehow we count in this big world.

That's why I did not have Romanian nostalgia

Until recently, when my good colleague and friend in times of adolescence, as well as for now,  suggested me  that it would be interesting if I could write a few lines for 1960 promotional brochure. I was reluctant to this idea "what to write? Memory does not really help me, etc. "

Good psychologist, Valérica  send me on the spot (via Skype) 5 pictures from the years 1959-60,  with  my colleagues from 11 grade and with our good teachers - Biloi,Grigore, Mrs. -Molecula and Gutuie, outstanding personalities then and forever, real sources of knowledge and education

Black and white pictures, clearly from those years, but so warm, so alive.

I confess that I had a strange revelation: I was there and then with all of them (in the schoolyard) and I felt good, I was one of them, they were mine, we were only us,  with our teachers and it was all of Romania which we needed at that time.

And I said to myself, "OH Lord how I miss them, the ones from then, we from then!"

It was the only time in 12 years when I had nostalgia - and I say that such nostalgia is beautiful and beneficial and not dangerous because I know that I cannot take back that moment and that feeling, no matter how many returns I would have in Romania from now on.

FINALLY CANADIAN CITIZENS..

Finally Canadian citizens..





Honestly, we got some tears, during the ceremony ...
In 2 weeks from now we are going to bear a Canadian passport ..It's still not to late to start traveling everywhere in the world

Just an attempt..

This is my first attempt to "expose" myself on the internet.

Actually, I didn't want to start a personal blog, my goal being much more modest: to share just the photo albums and/or small video clips with my friends. The big Google competitor (Yahoo) offers a very simple way to share a slide show; on the other hand Google Picassa allows to share its albums not only through gmail but (apparently, more appealing) thrugh blog.

So, I'm going to experiment with the blog, hope this will be satisfactory....