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 Hello, you, it's been a little over a year since the last update, can you believe it? Reading the last post I realised that it was right before our most amazing trip to Japan, which is now our most favourite travel destination. It was so magical, the architecture, nature, cuisine, trains, and everything about it has been phenomenal. So phenomenal that we're already planning our return, next March to explore the north of the country, from Akita and Sendai to Aomori and Sapporo, in the time between seasons changing, between winter and spring, snow and cherry blossoms, nature's time of rebirth. Outside of the Japan travels to mark this period, a lot has been happening. Not only travel wise, but also backup and early retirement plan wise. We've started slowly but surely investing in real estate in nearby Scottish villages, buying, renovating and renting out 3 wee flats. It's definitely been a challenge with all of life carrying on as before, but as of last month, they...

It's only been 3 months since the last time I wrote anything on here, which by the gaps between my other posts is actually a really short break! I am currently on my way to Singapore, with 2 hours to go and feeling like I might puke, probably the tiredness, jetlag, 13+ hours in a plane and sleep deprivation, or I'm just having a bad day! It's been more than 9 years since I last visited Asia, although I'll only be in Singapore for 3 days with another 3 in Hong Kong before a 14+ flight to London to connect to get back to Scotland, I'm so fortunate and grateful to have this privilege. I do think 10-11 hours is my limit for no sleep flights and should also plan better my arrival times so I get there in the morning, and can sleep on the flight, oh well, maybe next time... The AWS Summit in London was fantastic, and I just wrapped up writing a blog around it actually. It's much more my vibe than re:Invent, and since London is 1 hour away, think I'll take that to L...

It's been a while, and no, not a published book author just yet, these past months since September things have been a bit relentless to say the least. Last time I was writing it was from Berlin and it seems so far away! Since then a lot more travel has happened, I've met my new team members which are more than I could've asked for, bright, driven and passionate people that make my first year as a manager far easier than I expected! I spent more time in the US with trips to Texas X 2 that were less hotter than before, one in September for my expert engineer program and our developer conference, where I spent some great quality time with my team's and one in February of this year that far more demanding work wise but I still got a tan at the deck pool of my hotel and watched the Superbowl on the Cowboys plaza huge screen!  Towards the end of the year I also was lucky enough to go to Las Vegas for the biggest cloud conference, re:Invent, and my partner came with me, which ...

This time I'm back even sooner, after only 6 months since the last digital letter to the universe (aka blog post) I'm yet again in an airport, life is slowly getting back to what it was pre-pandemic and so is travel, so surprise surprise, my blogging memory is returning too! I think a few years ago I mentioned how airports make me reflect and think a lot about life and everything that happens, that I'm sad, grateful or excited for. Here we are again, more importantly, here we are after 10 years exactly (give or take a few days) from when I moved away from my home country, Romania, and took the biggest leap of faith in myself and the universe making it all happen! It's been a heck of a ride and it brought an immense amount of things, people, places and knowledge I never even dreamt of. Last night, coming back with some of my friends I made through some miraculous match of fates, we were discussing life and youth and doubt and how everyone says your 20s are your best year...

Well, this time it took me less than 2 years to return, actually, just a bit over 1 if we're counting! This new year has found me in a new year of my life too, almost at the 30 mark, so I thought it's about time to sit down and write down what's been happening and where we are in this new year, 2022. Now the good news is that the pandemic restrictions are starting to lift across the world, the even better news is that I'm typing this from my newly setup office by our lovely Dave, in the newly acquired house I purchased in June 2021, who knew that it will all work out after writing that last post in May of last year. The list of achievements doesn't stop there though, indeed, the MSc has been completed with a distinction, unfortunately, no graduation yet, but guess what, I just got an email today that it might happen in July 2022, yes, apparently it's never too late to wear a silly gown and shake hands (although after the pandemic not sure how much handshaking wi...

 So... It's been a while old friend. I guess it's been longer even than before. These past few days I kept on thinking about this little part of me that lives in here and I realised it's been a long time since I wrote anything creative or of mine. I mean I haven't written anything in here since May 2019, 2 years as it were, and how much has changed since then and in reality how little too. I'll try to do a recap, since that's what these post are more and more, a way for me to summarize the weird, wonderful and wounds of the time that passed in between writing anything. I think also because I've been on a month long holiday from work, the first I'm a year I have made a commitment to read at least 2-3 books and finish craft projects. I am happy to report I did all of that and more and my mind is a calmer place for it 🥳 Now since May 2019 I've only been home to Romania once, which sounds strange but it will make sense soon. After May I started a new ro...

So I have a new post on Medium about my experience of GitHub Satellite 2019, which I was lucky enough to attend :) You can find the full experience and highlights HERE . It was an amazing experience, the conference was very different from all I have been to, the talks were amazing and inspirational, the speakers were all very friendly and passionate, the attendees were excited and very easy to strike a conversation with, the food and coffee / ice cream were the bomb and the location as eclectic and wonderful as Berlin's best. Some exciting things have happened in between all the 3am starts and flights and exams and all. Let's round them up. Firstly, I have finished all my coursework and exams for my first year of my part-time MSc Computer Science and hoping all the results will be good results, but will find out in July for sure. Next on the list, I have a new job, the same company but different role, I am moving from the cognitive assistant developer/engineer and conversa...

Funnily enough, seems like spring is a time for reflection. I always seem to come back to my blogging during this time, even though I think about often and miss it. I was looking at buying a typewriter and having a go at more regular diary blogs. That is for another time though. Since the last time I wrote, a lot has happened. I will start with the passing of my dad, he aged in a year enough for an entire life and unfortunately left us way too early. He was only 54, I left 3 days after my last post last year, on the 8th April, early in the morning after going to the Easter mass and saying goodbye to him, telling him I would be back in May. A week later on the 16th April, he decided it was time, even before my mom called me, I knew it happened and a sharp pain went through me, even 2000 km away, something broke when he left this physical world and he took away with him. That has been probably the most important event of this year for me. I think about him all the time and I miss ...

Last time I posted was about a year and a half ago, the panic with not finding my wallet and passport ended the following Monday, as it was given in at the police station and I managed to get it back. I spent an amazing month in Glasgow, went to the Edinburgh festival and then followed 6 tiring weeks of training in London, but I got to see one of my very best and old friends that moved to London and was living a couple of streets away. So silver linings and all that :) Then followed a new start in Bournemouth, a very small and quiet city at the edge of the Atlantic ocean, on the English south coast. I have quickly got accustomed to the life here and I even have a Romanian shop down the corner, for those moments when I miss home too much! There are lots of things to do and beautiful places around the city, including Devon that is only a couple of hours away, so I am very happy where I am, most times. I still get itchy feet and during the past year and a bit probably marked over 10-...

Last time I posted was about a month ago but a lot of things have happened since, it seems as if my life is getting more and more chaotic and unpredictable. The joys of being young and free! Starting back off from Romania, came back to Barcelona for my final month, that was simply amazing! Made some more friends, had some more office parties and outings, went to London for training and had an amazing time, then following week off to Berlin to catch up with friends from Germany and UK! I will do a small stop at Berling, because I was blown away by how much I enjoyed it!! I was really excited and I was right, everything about the city excites me, from the food and markets, to the shops and techno parties everywhere, to the photobooths and art present everywhere, to the AIR concert and general people's vibe of the place! I got to see the Berlin wall that was hosting a Syria war exhibitions and reminded me of Amsterdam and the photo exhibition I was at with Fanni! Also, Fanni came...

The last time I posted on this blog, I was back from Brussels and in Oxford, travelling to the UN summit in Geneva. Since then a very awful lot of things have happened!! All exciting and very different, sometimes scary. Longer than a year ago I last posted on this blog, now I am writing from my holiday back home in Romania as a BAM graduate and also employee in a cool tech company in their Barcelona office!! Oh, how life has its funny ways. So, to have a quick recap, in May 2015 I attend the WHA youth summit I co-chaired in Geneva, I fell in love with Devon in the summer of the same year and had a long time affair with it until December, visiting monthly or more. In the summer I came back to the motherland for a while in July and then back to the UK for the last leg of my degree, and to write my dissertation. The last year had been somewhat lacking in foreign escapes as I was mostly in the UK, going to Devon and sometimes visiting friends in other cities. Understandable, as I was ...

My journey to ASHA began in a very peculiar way, and even now I cannot pinpoint how I applied and how I was blessed to have my path guided to this healing and developing wonderful oasis. It is very hard to condense all the stories and teachings that I take back with me from this amazing experience, but I will try. The first lesson I learnt was about Ahimsa, which means infinite love, but also infinite capacity for suffering, which is one of the guiding principles in life, everything needs to be in a balance and a real leader needs to master the art of balance. The time spent at ASHA on the Social Entrepreneurship course has freed me from so many restraints that I build on myself and my relation to others. I am now more knowledgeable, and I know my other 33 new friends from 9 different countries on the course, including Romania, Italy, Poland and The Netherlands, feel the same. Even from the first day we all had a connection, we are a balanced group that has managed to make ASHA our ...

So I am back in Oxford and busier than ever!! I am doing a lot of things I love and meeting with some lovely and inspiring people! However, I was in Geneva for the first time this week for two summits at the UN on the right to health and access to medicine! I am so impressed and motivated to go on with my dream of working in international development and I will not give up! Geneva is beautiful and the UN is such an inspiring place to be in if you want to meet people that will help you change the world into a better place! I had 3 days of intense discussions, debates and at the end a speech, that was very well received and thoroughly congratulated on mobile tech and access to health. Sometimes, I cannot believe what I am doing, the places I am going and the people I am meeting! I am so blessed in so many ways and next week I will be away for a full week course on social entrepreneurship!!! So chuffed! Until then, love and light!

Since last month, January has come and gone, and so have I! I was in Romania for a couple of days to catch up with my life and family but also to think through what I want to do next! It is not very easy but I think I have taken the right decision, to leave! Beginnings and endings are always hard but I do believe that sometimes there is no other way to take your life back than to leave and start again. Therefore, I have left Brussels after 5 months and I am now enjoying my first day back in Oxford, England. I cannot explain how tired I am but at the same time how relieved I am. Now it's time to start anew and the good thing is no one is really expecting anything of me for now. SO a clean slate! I have already gone and involved myself into some projects and am loving the freedom that I have, hope it stays that way! Love and light, always!

So it's the beginning of January, a new year, and I'm finding it hard to find... Find what you might wonder, find myself, find happiness, find a purpose and find a path, find all what I have lost. I feel trapped and I feel powerless and because of these I feel angry! I went home in England for two days for Christmas, I travelled by bus because they were the only time fitting options I had and I felt happy, I met old friends and old places, I embraced their reality and my feelings and memories with them. I momentarily found myself again but then I was lost when I returned to this grey, foreign city, that slowly withers my soul. I am now looking forward to going home in Romania, to letting the snow cover my wounds and the warmth in my parent's "chemin" melt my worries. I am me again and I am free, as a lioness released from her cage and let to roam free on the plains of Africa. But this freedom won't last long, it will be only a short moment of sweet libera...

I have been really caught up in settling in Brussels over the past months and I made a to do list, including a blog post on my past 3 months, so here it goes!!! I am missing Africa like crazy and I am trying to enjoy my life in Belgium as much as I can but I have a little virus, called wanderlust, that is preventing me a bit from it. My job is going very well and I realised two thing, the first, that I want to work in operations, and the second that I want to work in International Development, so far so good. OCTOBER- I went to Paris for the weekend with a friend and it was amazing, great weather, great views, great food, great overall. I visited the Luvre and Versailles and it was truly breathtaking, but as much as I like visiting Paris, I would not like to live there, too crowded and urban for my liking. NOVEMBER-  I got the chance to go back to England for an all paid residential with the British Council on active citizenship, which was awesome and I got to meet ...

The past month has been pretty hectic but also wonderful! I am in Bruxelles for almost 2 weeks now and I don't know where the time has gone. It has been amazing to start over again but I also miss places and things, but most of all I miss people. I miss people I have met along the way in the past two years and that have taught me many lessons that life probably reserves for an older you. I have met people that have changed me , even if I didn't realize then I do now and I am grateful to them for making me a better person. I know that somewhere and somewhow I will meet most of them again, I will make sure of it, if only to thank them for making me who I will be at my best. My apartment is just off Av Louise and it has a very airy and bright living, which is what I dreamt of in England. It has a lot of windows and thankfully the weather has been great so far, again the phenomenon with nice weather when I move to a country, I am starting to think God must love me very much to...

I know I have kept quiet for a long time but it dawned on me that I only have this little left to enjoy Zambia and my friends, students, work, fun and just live my life here. Also, I had my heart break, tear itself into two, leaving a part in Lusaka. The past couple of weeks have been more than interesting and I can say that I had an amazing time, I visited the Eastern Province, and stayed there between Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Zambia, admiring the confluence of the Zambezi and Lwangwa, from our lodge on top of a mountaneous plateau. It was breathtaking and I hope I will build my retirement home there, I also plan to move back to Zambia, hopefully in two years, but we will have to wait and see. I was lucky enough to have the two men I love in Zambia drive me to the airport and that was the best leaving present I could have ever asked for. I will miss everything about my life in Zambia, both the good and the bad, the friendly and the inhumane, the poverty and the richness, the hon...

So it has been 10 days, they have been fun and long and passed too fast! The bad news is I have tonsilitis and the past 2 days I have not really been doing that much besides working on a few projects and trying to get some rest as I can barely swallow water or talk! The children in the schools are now like my own family, our greetings have moved from the Zambian handshake and the formal meetings, to jumping and hugging and starting to giggle. The container from Operation Sunshine has not arrived, therefore, I am still waiting to see the whole process in practice. I am still waiting on a meeting with Rotary PP to settle all the projects I have had as I will be leaving my beloved Zed in exactly 2 weeks. I have mixed feelings, I feel like home here and I would really love to stay more but I am also aware of all the people waiting back for me in Europe and my new job in Belgium in September. I am a bit tired and ill but this will not stop me from having the best 2 weeks so far. The we...

It has been a while, no I have not died, nor gotten sick, nor in love, or who knows?? These past 10 days have been quite crazy, they started with a weekend trip to Livingstone where I was blown away, literally and metaphorically, by the Victoria Falls, one of the most stunning and breathtaking views I have ever laid my eyes upon!! Before that, I was supposed to move my things from Kamwala to Woodlands, however, that did not happen, I only went and moved my things on Monday, after returning from Livingstone. On Sunday, we went out for drinks and ended up going back home at 5 in the morning, knowing I have work with the kidson Monday at 10 and also knowing that I need to stamp my passport otherwise, I get deported or issue restrictions. However, my day began in a frenzy because of having everything, from phone to wallet to everything in his car, eventually he picked up and everything is ok, not getting deported yet! YES! On Tuesday we went to the school, LHS, and it is still my fa...