It is a phizzwizard! It’s a ringbeller! It’s whoppsy!

How the hell can I train my creativity? It’s not that I have a button on my head which I press and ideas start flowing!

These were my first thoughts when I started advertising school a month ago. But, I have to admit that creativity did actually start to visit me more often this last month. Maybe we all have deep down inside our minds some imagination wells, who, just like oil wells need to be pumped out in order to be productive.

I also made a strange discovery: I identified my imagination pattern! And guess what? It stems from the first book I ever read, Roald Dahl’s “The Big Friendly Giant”. Whenever I try to pen down a script the dream labels in BFG’s cave pop into my mind, complete with Quentin Blake’s fantastic illustrations. And don’t you dare think they’re not cool. To wit:

“I is inventing a car that runs on toothpaste.”

“I is able to make the elektrik lites go on and off just by wishing it.”

“I is only an eight-year-old little boy but I is growing a splendid bushy beard and all the other boys is jalous.”

“I has a pet bee that makes rock & roll musik when it flies.

“I is abel to jump out of any high window and flote down safely.”

“BFG: Of course you like it. It is a phizzwizard! It’s a ringbeller! It’s whoppsy! This will be giving some little tottler a very happy night when I is blowing it in. Look in the jar carefully, and I think you will be seeing this dream.”

I think this perfectly explains my inability to produce any serious, scholastic work, like the dissertations I so badly have to write by June. Oh, well, at least I somehow tapped into the imagination wells.

image from bbc.co.uk

quotes from http://bms.westport.k12.ct.us/mccormick/rt/rtscripts/rtsbfg.htm as I only have the Romanian translation.

cinema-Lego-phy

I don’t know about kids today (cos I’m an old, old person) but when I was 7 I really liked playing with Lego. I’d go to my friend’s Alex house and together we’d stage some awesome “productions” with our toys. I’m telling you, soaps, telenovelas, thrillers, rom-coms and horrors all together couldn’t match the sheer craziness and magnitude of the twists in our Lego shows. If only we were so full of ideas now.

Imagine how giddy I was when I ran across this video for camera pop band Camphor. The song’s called Castaway and it’s a stop motion animation with…Lego! Y-haaaa!

High school forever

Maybe it’s the day I spent with my best friend since high school, Virginia, just relaxing and chatting as if we had no care in the world. Maybe it’s all the old classmates, acquaintances, boyfriends, etc. from high school I keep bumping into so often lately. Or my recent infatuation with the Gossip Girl series. Or the fact that I’m about to finish University and take the final plunge into adulthood (gosh, that sounds so dramatic and pretentious). I also remembered a friend’s comment from a year ago: “This is high school! Even though all these people are in their 20s they’re all fighting for the titles of most popular, nice girl who is admired by guys, party queens and kings, jocks and cool nerds!”

I’ve been overcome with a sort of nostalgia for my teenage years. The excitement, the feuds, the “clans” (bisericute in Romanian), the class trips, the crazy parties, the bitchiness. And then I realized that people outgrow their teen years but don’t necessarily outgrow all their adolescent habits. Show me a so called grown up who doesn’t bitch, binge drink or eat, go all adventurous from time to time and, sadly, who doesn’t back stab or try to undermine you by stealing something you value (idea, job, clothes, boyfriend, group of friends, so on). This is life. And I guess it’s those emotional and insecure teen years when life is at it’s most earnest.

So, in celebration of those stranger than fiction high school days I give you some illustrations from the book “Dear New Girl or Whatever Your Name Is”, a teacher’s collection of the notes students exchange in class. I’m also posting a brilliant stop motion animation, proof that the book really tickled a lot of creative nerves.

http://media.npr.org/books/holiday2005/dearnewgirl/lion_lg.jpg

http://media.npr.org/books/holiday2005/dearnewgirl/tomorrow_lg.jpg

http://www.fecalface.com/content/IMG_3521.jpg

http://www.fecalface.com/content/IMG_3522.jpg

http://www.fecalface.com/content/IMG_3524.jpg

Multilingual Puzzle-Girl

I must have had such a huge smile on my face today. Even though school is killing me(9 classes for International Relations and 7 for Art History, taking into account this is my last semester in this bloody school?!) I was so happy to find out I had passed my language exams with 10 in French (it’s like A+) and 9 in German(A-). Considering the 10 I got in Spanish I must say I’m EXTATIC!!! And even though this kind of news would prompt my gangsta friend Ben to call me a “Neeeerd” everybody knows I’m not that school smart. I pass a lot of my exams relaying mostly on creativity and the info I store in the drawers of my brain to keep for “special cases”. But in this case I have to admit I owe it to my international friends. Take Spanish, for example. Even though Kike insists that I’m very fluent after a couple of beers I can’t show up tipsy for a class. I did it once, in my first year at Uni, and it would have finished badly if we hadn’t used breath mints.  So, instead I try to remember random bits of what the “Espanish” speakers used to talk about. I also try to imitate their accents (they shouldn’t feel offended, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery) so whenever I open my mouth in class I think of Alberto, Miguel or Eva. On the other hand, I have to thank the amazing Mexicans(Magda, Enrique, Emilio) and Paulina, my Chilean sister for teaching me all those expressions. They really impressed my professor who is doing a doctorate on slang:)). For my French class I try to pout and purr my words just like Noemie. And for German, where I have one year less of study than my classmates (they started it while I was in the US) I picture Adrian smiling, winking at me and saying “Rrrilly?, Verry gut! or What are you sinking?” and immediately get over my fears of this language.

I never thought people were like puzzles, constructed from all their experiences and encounters. Thankfully, I proved myself wrong .

Change can be you

Back at UVM my favorite classes were the anthro ones, about globalization, culture and change. I remember how Putri, Vanja and I used to listen in awe to Larry, our prof, and from time to time comment on what he had to say. I don’t know if I came back from the States a smarter person but I definitely came back a changed one, with stronger opinions and the notion that I can do something about what bothers me planted deep in my brain. I haven’t started a revolution back home(anyway, Revolutions are highly controversial in my home country) and I can barely keep up with my project for the OSI. However, I stopped eating at fast foods (McDonald’s, KFC etc.) and I try to buy mostly organic, local food. I try really hard to recycle or at least reuse stuff. And maybe, I hope, in 2008 I’ll convince the TV station where I work at to donate all the paper they use to a local NGO, copaculdehartie.ro that will recycle it. I also stopped buying so many clothes and footwear- I mean, I last bought a pair of shoes in September, so those who know me realize how much I’m holding back. And, most importantly, I guess: I convinced my family and some of my friends to do the same. The world won’t change if you just sit somewhere with your arms crossed and wait for things to happen! And I don’t expect people to blindly follow commandments on how to “save the Earth” or “live green”. I mean, saying travel less because it will cause less pollution and save energy is just bullshit. But there are things that any of us could easily do.

Check out http://www.storyofstuff.com/ for a simple, eye-opening lesson on change.

The stuff dreams and nightmares are made off

Fred Astaire movies+ Looney Tunes+ Red Rose of Cairo= Vielfalt by Jakop Alhbom

Addictions

I am addicted to a lot of things: coffee, the internet, tv shows, books (cos I’m an undercover nerd!) but I’ve recently discovered a new addiction: chatting with my friend Pauly. It would all be pretty normal if she didn’t live in Chile and I in Romania but I guess our life in Vermont really left some deep marks inside our heads. A typical conversation starts with how much we miss UVM (duh!) and our other friends (Magda must hiccup a lot because we mention her the most often), then we proceed to calling each other nerd and advance to other really important subjects. Ahmmm, incredibly important subjects like: have we met any cute guys recently, what American/ European guy messaged us on Facebook, why the hell did we not take advantage of Shanta (?!), why are some hotties born in 1987 or 1988, what makes a woman good in bed, how I should stop being so damn self conscious and compare myself with other chicks, how we should make a show about our life at UVM ( a cross between Sex and the City and Gossip Girl we’d like to think) and of course how much we are going to rock Mexico (hopefully). I know a lot of people who might label our behavior as silly and childish but the truth is they’re just jealous that we can still be best friends even when we’re miles away from each other. So, here’s to our great days as roomies and sisters and to our future parties, whenever and wherever they will be!

Cyndi Lauper- Girls just wanna have fun

Princesses are contageous (surrealist proverb via Serban Foarta)

I didn’t like Barbies as a kid- I only used them to play the role of Batman’s girlfriend:). And Disney princesses bore me to death. But somehow this tomboy attitude attracted some sort of princess curse. My first job ever when I was 8 was to play princess Margot in a Nostradamus movie. The dress made it difficult to climb trees but I loved the hair and makeup. Then my cousin Andrei started calling me princess Lu like the character from Mike, Lu and Og. He said I was a small savage with a bob haircut so the nickname came naturally. Whatever, he looked like a girl (a blonde, Barbie loving one)! Years passed and I thought the curse had faded away but when I was in my first year at University some Norwegian students I was working with on an architectural project told me I looked like a princess from a popular Norwegian comic strip. Cartoon characters, comic strips? Come on! However, today I finally reconciled with my hatred of princesses. I indulged my inner nerdyness at the Book Fair and I came out with “Unknown or forgotten princesses” by Phillipe Lechermeier and Rebecca Dautremer. Now these chicks kick ass, love food, talk non stop and enjoy being drama..princesses. I love em! Heck, princess Kuskah (Kage) on the cover even has squinty eyes and a yellowish, elongated face like mine.