Jan '05 - Jan '07
I've been thinking lately (although I promised myself to stop doing it), it sucks to be born in such a country as Ro.Til few years ago I had no problem with it. Of course, everytime I met foreign people they asked a lot of questions, but in the end we got along, it didn't matter where we were from. Only now I get stuck in all kind of situations. I don't say I would have been a greater person if I was born in Usa or EU, but I would have learned things I have no acces to from here.
Can I blame a person who thinks Ro is in the 3rd world?
Can I blame amazon for refusing paychecks from Ro?
Can I be upset over the scepticism people have when they hear about Ro?
Can I judge people for asking me about dracula and kids with aids?
No.
The only thing disturbing from the above is the fact that I can't buy books from the internet. And the ‘architecture sucks' t-shirt.
For example I bought ‘project on the city', in a store, with cca 80$. On amazon it was 20$.
Now”¦ the ‘good' things.
One audio cd (that looks just the original, less the booklet) costs around 5$ (this is a ‘special' shop, which mostly good music, music I could never find anywhere else”¦ like beck, cake, eels etc). in stores u can usually find britney& co. no thanks. one dvd (latest movies) 7$. For example I just watched million dolar baby (which I wish I hadn't, it's very ‘rocky'”¦), in a very good dvd qaulity, though it isn't even out yet. I'm not sure how it is in usa or Eu, but here we have all programs for private use (name any kind of CAD, 3dmax etc) ripped. No person is bothered by that.
Are things cheaper here? No, often they are more expensive then in Eu. Sallary? Well, a 500Euro/month is a very well paid job for an employed architect. Teaching doesn't pay off. A teacher with 20h/week, at our university, earns around 300$. And that is barely enough for the bills. So everyone, at our school for example, lives from the money they made on projects, which leaves little time to invest in school and students.
Another thing a lot of people are fighting for are collaborations with people from other countries. Black market.
I had an autocad exam the other day and because I work in archicad I had to refresh my autocad skills. So I downloaded the ‘autocad bible' 2005. Now I'm waiting for the ‘my architect' dvd to download. Is there any other possibility for me to actually see that movie? No.
School library? U got to be kidding me. Few romanian magazines, detail and some pretty old books. Thanks to a working partner my bf has in London, I was able to order Kahn's and Corbusier's discussions with students.
Hope it's worth it.
8 Comments
Oana, next time I complain about living in a 3rd World country I will open your post and read it. Could you touch on what travel is like to/from Romania - despite your descriptions I'd still love to see the place - because the photos were quite dynamic.
I understand the bit about people asking you archaic questions about 'your country' and you instantly becoming all and everything of that particular country. I have to start all over again and answer the same dumb questions whenever I go somewhere new. But sometimes, people just don't know what to say and don't mean to be offensive.
jam-arch - i'll write in the next post a bit more about what travel is like in ro, risks and advantages. great to see u interested.
chills - i really don't mind answering any kind of questions about this country, i surely don't get offended. that's what i was trying to say.actually i can understand it, as i'm putting same questions to people from countries i don't know much about. sometimes the writing tone is just different from the read one. especially when the writing is in a bad english.
at the beging of this blog i tried to explain what ro is about, later i realised that it was rather a prbl of mine. so i kind of avoided the subject, so that i don't get all 'oh, i'm living in ro, poor me'-bullshit. by writing things down, things look a little bit clearer.
Your not alone. I still have to explain why I'm not wearing a cowboy hat and boots everytime I leave Texas.
this might be bush's fault ... :)
isn't everything?!?
brian i hope you have the belt buckle that says Texas otherwise i'd be real disappointed - worse since i owned one
i'll mess with texas
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