It's the final countdown!

Several cool things happened at once. My uncle who lives in UK came to visit us (haven’t seen him in a year), I found out one of my closest friends in pregnant and the countdown on my departure has finally come to a smaller number :)))

I have started packing, well not really putting things into my suitcase but more like shopping for things I need and making lists of things I need to take with me and lists of things I need to do before I go.

In just 5 days I will be happiest woman on this planet!

OK, now some explanation. I am going to Singapore to see a few people and one person in particular, who I haven’t seen for ages. *wink*

I will be staying there for 1 month, traveling, fooling around, having fun and just chilling out, enjoying life.

I consider myself extremely happy for being able to go on this journey and hopefully enrich my life with this great experience. As for the future, I will go from there on and see what happens…

I remember the countdown since 189^th day and this is just proof that good things are worth waiting for.

Men are just men...

I love it when she cleans the house. I consider it a symbol of who is right.

It is self-affirmation. It is like drawing a borderline between men and women. That is why I am so happy when she cleans the house. It is good the way it is.

So, whenever I watch her clean, I think: “It is so great to be a man”.

Men are perfect creatures. In 10 minutes I can easily take a shower and get dressed. I can open all the tins with preserves and all the cans with marmalade. I can urinate my name in the snow. If I am a man, I can eat bananas and lick ice cream without attracting necessary attention. Nobody stares at my breasts during a conversation.

And… what are the advantages of being a man in a marriage? None!

I remember, a month after I our wedding, I decided to get together with old friends, party, get drunk and do other ‘man stuff’. Before going out I told my wife:

“Love, I am going out, I’ll be back soon”.

“So, where are you going?” she asked.

“To a bar, sweetheart. To get a couple of beers”, I explained.

“Oh, you want some beer?” she responded.

Then she opened the fridge and showed me 37 different cans of beer from 29 countries of the world: Japan, India, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Guatemala, China, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Russia, Azerbaijan…

Well, I was a bit lost so I said the first thing that came to my mind:

“Oh, it is all very nice, honey. But in bars they serve beer in cold glasses. I like it that way”.

I didn’t even have time to finish my sentence, because she already had an answer:

“My love, so you want a cold glass?” she asked while taking a chilled glass out of the freezer. She even shuddered while picking it up – I could see goose bumps on her skin.

I was not going to loose so I continued:

“But baby, they have nice snacks in bars. All kinds of snacks. I love the way they crunch when you eat them. I will not be long. I promise. Can I just go?” I desperately continued.

Yes, it was not the end!

“Oh, so my dearest husband wants some snacks? All kinds of crunchy snacks?” she continued while opening the kitchen cabinet.

I was almost buried underneath the avalanche of chips, peanuts, raisins, almonds and other nuts…

“Here! Now you can have everything: cold beer to smash, served in a chilled mug along with crunchy snacks on a saucer”, concluded my wife.

“But, my love, my honey, my sweetheart, in the bars, men can swear, yell and discuss different nasty things!”

My love, my sweetheart cynically responded:

“So you wanna listen to nasty conversations of jerks and be a jerk yourself! Idiot! Is this what you want?! Then drink your fucking beer from your fucking chilled glass! Eat your fucking crunchy snacks! It is about time for you to understand that you are a married man and you are not going anywhere today! What part of it are you not getting?” she yelled.

Sure enough, I didn’t go anywhere. I have everything at home. Still I am asking myself, what use of being a man?!

The only thing: I have a prostate and can urinate my name in the snow.

By: Benjamin Sarajlić

Life sequencing...

Somehow things are not happening the way I expected and the way I planned. I know quite a few people who would tell me: Well, that is what happens when you plan your life and want too much and brag about it…

They are probably right…

I failed an exam. An exam I was studying and preparing for a month, something I wanted to get over and done with and reward myself with before I go to Singapore.

Something I wanted to get off my chest before I leave and not carry my books with me and have this ‘grey cloud’ (the exam) over my head.

The next time I am taking the exam is on the 1^st of September and until then I have another thing to think about instead of relaxing and just letting go for a while…

I am mad at myself, I am mad at the world and I think I have screwed up big time. This is not the sequence of events I planned. But I guess it is not the end of the world…
Better luck (and more studying) next time.

Romance?!

A comment Anoop wrote a few days ago got me thinking about romance and it’s relevance in our lives.

I am tired of writing sad topics and want to trigger your mind with some questions about the lives strangest ingredient: romance.

I always considered myself to be anti-romantic and (according to some people) very cold and distant from the ‘mushy side of love’. I guess I have never considered anyone worthy of me preparing anything romantic for them or (on the other hand) capable of impressing me with any romantic gestures.

I do have a few romantic moments I will remember forever but have only learned to appreciate those moments now that I am older and (hopefully) wiser.

Frankly, I am romantic and Anoop was right. I have become a hopeless ‘damsel in distress’ searching for someone who will, perhaps, take off my cold veil of anti romanticism and will sweep me off my feet.

Do you think that romance is really a necessary element of quality living?

One of the rare romantic moments of my life (and the most memorable one) includes me playing guitar in the middle of a circle of a hundred candles for someone who just wanted to listen to me play. That simple… it wasn't anyone I was romantically involved with but the entire situation was very romantic.
What is your most romantic moment?

The 11th anniversary...

Today, on the 11th of July 2006 we remember the ones who died in the biggest massacre in Europe after the IIWW called Srebrenica. Over 8,000 men, killed, slaughtered and thrown into mass graves which are found all over this mourning country.

Only 1/10 of these bodies were found in mass graves so far, identified and burried in the memorial centre in Potocari every anniversary.

On 11th July 1995, women and children were sent out of the city and men were held in Srebrenica which has been declared a 'Safe Area' in 1993 and then attacked by the Serbian forces in Spring of 1995 lead by Ratko Mladic (who has still not been captured to be trialed for this crimes of genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina). The ironic thing is that the UN declared this a 'Safe Area' but it did nothing to protect the Bosniak civilians in Srebrenica. One hundred lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers were denied repeated requests for reinforcements and consequently sidelined to witness what was to follow. Faced with the reality that Srebrenica had fallen under the control of Bosnian Serb forces, thousands of Bosniak residents from Srebrenica fled to the nearby hamlet of Potočari seeking protection within the UN compound. By the evening of July 11, 1995, approximately 20,000 to 25,000 Bosniak refugees were gathered in Potočari. Several thousand had pressed inside the UN compound itself, while the rest were spread throughout the neighboring factories and fields. Though the vast majority were women, children, elderly or disabled, 63 witnesses estimated that there were at least 300 men inside the perimeter of the UN compound and between 600 and 900 men in the crowd outside. The others were gathered on the way.

The mass executions were done in the most brutal way possible. Tying the victims' hand with wire and then cutting their throats or shooting them from the back and throwing them into garbage holes which were later filled with earth to cover the tracks. These are called primary graves. A few days/weeks/months afterward a truck would come and dig the hole and transport the bodies to a second location. This is called a secondary mass grave.

The torture for these people will never stop unless Mladic and Karadzic (the people responsible for these crimes) are captured and until the TRUTH is told once and for all no matter how bloody and gruesome it may be.
Today 505 new bodies of identified people from Srebenica will be buried in the memorial centre in Potocari.

Today is a day of mourning in Bosnia and Herzegovina....

Has anyone made you feel this way?

Whether I'm right or wrong
There's no phrase that hits
Like an ocean needs the sand
Or a dirty old shoe that fits
And if all the world was perfect
I would only ever want to see your scars
You know they can have their universe
We'll be in the dirt designing stars

And darlin' you know
You make me feel so beautiful
Nowhere else in the world I wanna be
You make me feel so beautiful

Whether I'm up or down
There's no crowd to please
I'm like a faith without a clause to believe in it
And if all the world was smiling
I would only ever want to see your frown
You know they can sail away in sunsets
We'll be right here stranded on the ground
Just happy to be found

You make me feel so beautiful
Nowhere else in the world I wanna be
You make me feel so beautiful

I have lost my illusions
I have drowned in your words
I have left my confusion to a cynical world
I am throwing myself at things I don't understand
Discover enlightenment holding your hand

You are..
So Beautiful

Something random...

There is something wrong with the frequency levels in my house.

Even though I am living on the top floor of a building on a hill in the middle of the city and have balconies facing 3 sides of the globe I still cannot catch the fm signal of my favorite radio station and don’t even get me started on the GSM signals.

I have to go out onto the balcony every time and sit at an exactly specific spot if I want to talk to someone on my mobile.

The people from the telephone company might be coming in one of these days to check what is going on but I think we might have to call the ghost-busters…