Wynajem mieszkania

Dwa dni temu dałem ogłoszenie - ofertę wynajmu mojego mieszkania w Warszawie. Przypomniało mi to o mailu jaki otrzymałem kiedy szukałem najemcy poprzednim razem, rok temu:

Chcałobym zapitac o mieszkania u

Warszawa, Ursus, Górna Droga

54 m2, 2 pokoje .po widzłem na ofercie .

jesztem wienaczykiem poszukam mieszkania oko tej oklice .cos porosze o dzwonic pod numer.504xxxxxx dzienkuje

Niestety mieszkanie było już wynajęte, więc nie udało mi się pogłębić przyjaźni polsko-wietnamskiej. Cytat oryginalny i w pełni autentyczny (z wyjątkiem cenzury numeru;)

Exotic-clubbers and sex-obsessed perverts

In the last post I said I would write about another category of people, who travel to exotic places just to have as much fun as possible. Before I start I must admit that I don't know too much about them, so it is not a deep and scientifically profound study. I was never one of them and don't know anyone from this group well. I just met them several times on my way, and made some observations.

I think that there should be another distinction made before I go further into describing my experience. It seems that there are two major groups of fun lovers - depending how they define "fun". Those who travel for drinking/music/dance/drugs and sex, and those who travel just or mainly for sex. The first group is made of more-or-less normal young people, who sadly are often of not the highest moral/cultural standards. The second group seems to be made of people who have unsatisfied sexual needs and have to go to places like Thailand and use their money to satisfy them. Either because they are too old/ugly/fat/inept/name-it to find an attractive sexual partner, or what is much worse because they are too perverted to risk making their sick fantasies come true at home, in fear of being cursed by the society and going to jail. It is not difficult - or should I rather say - it is difficult not to, spot a fat old westerner with a very young boy or girl cuddled to his chest at a beach in Phuket or Pattaya. That category deserves much more serious studies and is related to such atrocious crimes as sexual exploitation of children. My intention for this post was to write about lets call them "exotic-clubbers", not the perverts. There is a lot of good quality material regarding the others on the Internet, and that deserves to be treated with much deeper and knowledgeable insight than I could ever claim to provide.

So lets focus on "exotic-clubbers". What do I know about them? Not much to be frank, I just had a doubtful pleasure of sharing a 4-bed dorm with them recently. They can be met in any major city in Asia. In Thailand they gather in Bangkok. In China their promised land is Shanghai. And that is where I had my sad experience.

I made a very bad choice regarding the hostel I was staying in (a blind choice, to be fair). The localization was great - 10 minutes walk to the Bund, about the same to the East Nanjing Rd metro station. But that also determined the kind of people who stayed there - as that meant also 10 minutes walk to the best places for prostitutes and other noble means of entertainment. This and the fact that this appalling hostel is regarded as the best in town by the newest edition of the Lonely Planet guidebook, a Holy Bible and the Oracle for the western travellers. I should admit though that most of the people there were normal. Some of them were really great, like the group of young medicine graduates from Poland travelling around rural areas of China for 6 weeks, that I met accidentally at the Bund, before it turned out we were staying in the same place. Maybe it was just my bad luck that the ones in my room were different.

Before you move to the next post, that will follow shortly, to read about my experience, please make sure you are over 21 (you may check your ID to make sure) and mentally prepared for some drastic scenes.

Zwierzenia anonimowego alkoholika

Dopiero co zacząłem pisać tego bloga, a już mam kryzys twórczy (trochę za duże słowo w użyciu do bloga;). Właściwie jest to bardziej nawrót problemu sprzed wyjazdu. No bo fajnie jest gdzieś pojechać, oderwać się od codziennego życia, od problemów, powziąć nowe postanowienia i mieć naprawdę silne przekonanie że pewne rzeczy chce się zmienić. Ale od tego rzeczone problemy nie znikną. Może to być pierwszy i bardzo cenny krok na drodze do zmiany, ale droga ta jest długa, wyboista i kręta. I kilka pierwszych kroków to za mało żeby odtrąbić sukces.

Ale jaki mam problem i jaka jest jego geneza? Prawdopodobnie jest to właściwe pytanie, od którego trzeba zacząć każdą, nawet prowadzoną domowymi metodami, terapię ;). Zaraz po przyznaniu, że "Nazywam się Rafał B. i mam problem". Od pewnego czasu w moim życiu zapanował marazm. Nie od razu, ale stopniowo wkradał się do mojego życia sprawiając że z fazy skrajnego optymizmu i pełni energii znalazłem się w głębokim dołku. I z człowieka znanego nie tylko ze śmiałych pomysłów, ale i ze skuteczności w ich realizacji, zmieniłem się w kogoś kto pomysły wciąż ma (choć słabsze) ale w żaden sposób nie umie się zmobilizować żeby je zrealizować. Dlatego założenie tego bloga to wielki krok naprzód i jeden mały sukces. Ale jedna jaskółka nie uniesie kokosa, tzn. nie czyni wiosny.

Kontynuując te zwierzenia alkoholika postaram się opisać problem nieco mniej abstrakcyjnie. Dwa lata temu rozpocząłem pewien duży projekt, dla którego przeniosłem się z Warszawy do Cardiff. Mam jeszcze rok żeby go skończyć. Okazało się jednak że nie jest to tak fascynujące jak marzyłem i chyba z tego rozczarowania wynika moja bierność. Projekt owszem, jest niezwykle ciekawy jak na pracę badawczą, kiedy o nim opowiadam albo prezentuję wyniki na konferencjach ludziom aż świecą się oczy. Wtedy nawet we mnie pojawia się ulotna iskra entuzjazmu. Ale wiem, że ten czas mógłbym wykorzystać lepiej, robiąc coś ciekawszego poza światem akademickim i przynoszącego obiektywnie lepsze efekty i ta wiedza mnie osłabia. Projekt posuwa się nieźle, ale znalazł się w miejscu w którym albo zacznę traktować go poważnie i się zaangażuje, albo zmarnuję kolejny rok i będę musiał ogłosić klęskę. Nie chcę rezygnować po zaangażowaniu 2 lat. Ale nie chcę też stracić 3go roku. Więc naprawdę muszę wziąć się w garść.

Właściwie ten post miał być o czymś innym, tylko że nigdy nie da się przewidzieć dokąd pobiegną niesforne myśli. Miało być o miałkości mediów i o tym jak zabijają wyobraźnię i kreatywność. Bo sporą częścią istoty mojego problemu jest marnowanie czasu na rzeczy bezsensowne i ogłupiające - mianowicie na czytanie newsów w mediach elektronicznych. Niby dobrze wiedzieć co się na świecie dzieje. A jednak miałkość informacji które można przeczytać na stronach Onetu czy Gazety jest osłabiająca. Szczególnie jeśli chodzi o sytuację w kraju. No i to odnosi się bardziej do mojego obecnego kryzysu. Bo wracając z Chin miałem głowę pełną wrażeń, pomysłów, obrazów, wspomnień, niezwykłych spotkań, twarzy i zdarzeń. Miałem wielką chęć opisania części z przeżytych przygód i emocji. I postanowienie że nie będę biernym konsumentem informacji, że będę spędzał czas w sposób twórczy. Tymczasem po 2 tygodniach wpadłem w dawną rutynę. A zalew miałkich informacji z kraju przysypał emocje które tkwiły w mojej głowie. I po czytaniu przez kilka godzin co powiedział Premier o Tusku, a co Prezydent agitował na Jackowie, kto kogo nie lubi i kim gardzi nie jestem w stanie wprowadzić się w stan kreatywny i twórczy.

Dlatego postaram się zrobić eksperyment. Jutro będzie dzień bez Onetu i Gazety. Bez względu na to czy będę pracował nad moim projektem, czy pisał, spędzę go w sposób twórczy. I to będzie mój pierwszy dzień bez alkoholu. Mam problem. Jestem alkoholikiem. Nie piję, dzień zero. Na metę, start.

How to stay at home, despite having to travel

I know many people who dream about traveling, meeting new people, learning about new cultures and customs, who are curious and have an unsatisfied passion for learning the world. The passion that they can't realize for various reasons: work, family, health, money. They usually ask themselves a question: How to go somewhere without leaving home? They find an answer in grabbing a good book, reading National Geographic or watching exotic places on TV.

On the other side there are some privileged people who do travel, but the same question has an opposite and opaque meaning when applied to them: How to stay at home despite having to travel? They go somewhere, but seemingly would prefer not too. I don't know what made these people travel. Maybe it is a trend, something that improves your coolness factor, something to impress your mates. Thankfully the modern technology and globalization made it possible.

During my last trip to China several times I stayed in popular Lonely Planet-recommended youth hostels, full of young westerners. These hostels offer one great service, that wasn't provided even in the 5 star hotel I was staying at in Wulumuchi (or Urumqi). Free access to the Internet: WiFi and several free-to-use PC desktops. Most of people found that very useful and were using it to send a quick email, etc. But it was kinda shocking to see that quite many were spending long hours just browsing the web, looking at new Nike shoes or writing posts on their friends' walls in Facebook. Many of them use trendy iBooks, and never take white headphones out of their ears. I saw two girls who whenever I entered the hostel were glued to computers, and after some time I could tell without even looking that they were using Facebook.

Now, I love the technology, and appreciate the way it changes the world and the value it brings to our lives. But I remember traveling when there were no even mobile phones. And I think it was great. When someone traveled he knew why he was doing it. Great, intelligent, passionate people were trying to meet locals, see as many museums as they could, go to tiny back streets, eat local food, learn the language, etc. They still are doing so. But now there is a growing group that really should better stay at home. Because all they do is changing the decorations. With more or less the same effect as changing the wallpaper in their computers. Which they could do without spending thousands on flights and adding extra pollutions to the atmosphere.

There are of course also upsides to that. Local businesses get a lot of extra income, hostels thrive, travel services gain lots of customers, local restaurants (especially if they sell western food) are making a good profit. So maybe it is not so bad. It is just another face of globalization.

There is one more category of the people who travel. These who travel for fun. They sleep all day and go out to clubs at night. They are usually gathering in big cities. That's an interesting story too, but I will get back to it some other time.

The Echoes of China

Coming back from a trip is a difficult thing. I don't mean the physical return, but finding our own place in the everyday's life after a long absence. After my last trip to China, which was only three weeks long I couldn't really accommodate at home and get back to work. Too many memories, too many people met on the way, too many thoughts, reflections and plans made. When I was away I discovered a lot about myself, saw my life from a perspective and realized that several things needed to be changed. Perhaps the anxiety after coming back was caused by need to face the question - will these plans and resolutions fit the reality?

Now, after almost two weeks at home I feel much better. I am committed to keep the determination and change the things that were stopping me from doing what I really wanted, and the lack of which made my life seem dull, and not fully satisfactory. And to introduce the changes that I realized were necessary to allow me to progress as a person and achieve meaningful goals. I decided to spend more time among the people, to take more photos, to start writing - hence the blog, to be more serious about my work. For the first time in my life I managed to compose and record a song. It seems my creativity is slowly coming back. But it is not easy to keep it that way.

Thankfully there are certain things that can give us an unexpected hand. Today I didn't have anything to eat at home. I went to the kitchen and found a mysterious green plastic bag. I opened it and found a big blend of dried kiwi fruits, which I bought in the Muslim Quarter in Xi'an. It had a surreal feeling, as I already hardly believed that I really was there. Then I sat to the computer and found another, even nicer surprise. An email from a charming and extremely kind Chinese girl I met in Hangzhou. I will have to write about this magic day, which I spent with three accidentally met young Chinese, walking around the West Lake in the pouring rain. The day that turned out to be one of my best days in China, despite the fact that I was all wet, didn't see anything, didn't take almost any pictures, and was almost all the time shaking from cold. But that's a long story, so perhaps another time.

Now I will just say that the Chinese girl made a great gift by her email, unwittingly reminding me about all that I promised myself, and helping me stay focused on my goals. I don't know characters for her Chinese name (it would be something like Tsan Dzan Len), but her English name is Echo. So thank you Echo, for the great day in Hangzhou, for your kindness, and for your email that echoed all that to me.