We are really close to the end of the year, a moment I do not give as much importance as I used to, yet I felt like looking back on this time span in an attempt not to judge if it was a good or a bad one, but rather to remember all the good moments I was lucky enough to live.
I do not remember anything worth mentioning about the first weeks of 2013, but I do remember not very far from the beginning of the year I was given the opportunity to discover a new country and culture. I was sent two times for training in the UK by the company I work for. It was a trip I was extremely excited about and I was not let down. I had the chance to see if the UK is what I had imagined it and I found out it was not really like that, but I was pleasantly impressed nevertheless. Great Britain is a country that mingled sobriety and vivacity, it is a country where you still see the imprint of the old ages everywhere, while being surrounded by modernity at the same time. And yet, I am sure this trip would not have been such a success without all the great people I have met there. I will be forever grateful for having met you, Steve.
While the first trip to England saw us spending a weekend in London and rushing from one important location to another, the second trip took us to Bath, an absolutely wonderful city, and to Longleat where I felt incredibly good for a whole day among all sorts of animals.
I did not travel a lot in summer, but I went to my first festival, Rockstadt Extreme Metalfest, which brings back great memories, not only for the great bands I had the chance to see performing live, but also because I saw beautiful places and learnt important lessons about people.
Going back to uni started with a whole month of doing nothing but reading as I was the president of a jury of students for Prix Goncourt: choix roumain. Beside the fact that Goncourt is among the most prestigious French literary prizes and thus working for it is something extraordinary for a student, I felt once again that this is exactly what I want to do in the future. While taking part in the press conferences at Bucharest and debating the novels we had to choose from, I could not help thinking “This is where I feel at ease, these are the kind of people I want to surround myself with!”.
Towards the end of the year the monotony of my personal life was shaken by a most interesting person whom I will have the pleasure of spending this nice evening with. For a moment I thought I was about to experience the old scenario once again by realizing meeting great men is just an illusion or just some story you read about in books or told by other women. And yet, I was not only lucky enough to be given someone around whom I can be myself, but I was also taught a lesson for which I am grateful: bad boys cannot offer you the adventurous life you are dreaming of, neither can they be the shoulder you need to lean on when you are down. You cannot build a future with bad boys because they are not even truly interested about their own. And most important, do not expect a bad boy to ever respect you or appreciate you for all you are worth, they are too concerned with themselves. The boy who chose to walk next to me in life for the time being is far from being a bad boy, because he is a true man. When you realize you can make plans about the future instead of worrying if he will cheat on you or if he will call back, you know you have met someone worth appreciating.
I wish everyone 2014 will be the year when they get the power to make all the changes they want in their lives.
Life with a capital L 