The glass is stupid!

Okay, short one today! I wanted to talk about complaining, as our most natural way of expression (at least to some). Ever had the term "Is the glass half full or half empty?" thrown at your face? To all the cave people out there, the expression is a way to define a persons attitude towards something. Seeing the glass as half full means you are a positive human being, appreciating what is there, and seeing it as half empty means you focus on life's faults and see the negative side of the situation.

Now, most people that know me, know that I'm Mr.Positivity almost all the time (I know, it can be annoying). But even I, very often, despite my quirky take on life, complain about things. Sometimes with no logic backing up my theories. In order to clarify what I mean, I would say that I don't care if the glass is half full or half empty, I just sometimes think the glass itself is ugly!

Considering all the horrifying stories you hear about people and animals all over the world, isn't it just a tad wrong for me, a person with nothing missing in life, to complain about little things, unimportant, meaningless little things, that we could easily oversee without it having an impact on our daily life? Yes, it is, and I should be ashamed! But then the other mini-me, on my left shoulder, the one with the horns, said WHY NOT? Why shouldn't we complain? Complaining doesn't mean we don't care about those less privileged than us. It doesn't mean we are bad people, it just means we've reached a standard to the point where we aim for an even higher one.

Now, i completely agree with the mini-me on my right shoulder, the one with the halo. But I gave that one the rest of the day off, cause the mini-me with the horns had an interesting debate here.

Sure pessimism is bad for your health, but complaining and whining and venting has clinically been proven to lower stress level. Think about it! Complaining is like lifting a giant brick off your chest. You have to get it out. It's a cathartic experience and we all unquestionably do it, wether we vocalize it or not. A quick example, we see someone wearing an awful sweater, we think it.. in our heads we say 'My God, woman! The person that sold that thing to you should be imprisoned and that sweater should be burned and never revealed on the face of this world again!', but we don't actually make a squeak to the person. Complaining is a part of us, dude, it's a vital tool in our emotional survival kit, and I sure have it ready in a whip!

Bottom line here, complaining bad! But complaining good!! So complain away, my good people. Cause if there were no complaints, there would be no improvement.

However, this doesn't mean you should start complaining to me, I don't have time for it. Get a cat, or buy a plant or something!

Go and complain, and tomorrow is a new ba-log day!

Thou shall not sleep

Okay, so I wanted to sit down and write my next ba-log! It is the perfect time! It's really late. It's so late, I'm wondering wether it has passed onto too early. Where does the line cross from night to morning? We say 4.30 in the morning, but if someone calls us at 4.30 in the morning, we say 'Why the hell are you calling me in the middle of the night?'. Nonetheless, it's very late, or very early, even the chickens and hens are asleep. The roosters of the world will soon get up and sing their morning solo operas, which has got to be a curse from God, cause the ability (rather disability) to actually produce that soul-cringing noise from the poor roosters' own vocal chords has to be natures way of punishing them somehow (don't even get me started on crows, or sea-gulls). But anyway, I think what I'm trying to say to you, is that it's late, which is always the best time for me to be creative, especially when it comes to writing.

I have always written when it's been late, in the middle of the night and I feel as if everyone on Earth is sleeping, and I have the whole world quietly to myself, to emancipate my mind and just let the words flow. It's how I've written all my essays, all my poems and songs, all my personal letters to people, and so on. There is something about this time of the day that is completely fascinating. Sleep is overrated! Sure, it's satisfying, there's nothing like that comforting feeling of when you realize that you're a half of a second away from falling asleep and you're in a full state of calm. So don't get me wrong, sleep is awesome. But for me, it goes both ways. I can manage with just a couple of hours of sleep. And I really also want to use this time-period to create. I've designed one of my most positively critiqued buildings at this time. And I once wrote a story at this time, which made half of the audience I read it to, cry, and my literature teacher make a copy of it and read it in all of his other classes. I heard that it is still used as an example in some schools for story-writing assignments. In other words, this particular time of the day has helped me achieve some of my highlight moments of my academic and personal work.

I doubt that I will ever cease working at night. It is my source of inspiration and my loophole to another world.

Did you know that a person spends a third of her life sleeping?! If you live to be 90, that is 27 years of your life. TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS! Imagine you're 90 years old and could've in total had at least an extra 12 years in your youth to live and do things, if you just slept less. That would be a devastating thing to realize at that point.

We get more tired as we grow older, so naturally I'll sleep more when I'm older, which means I should really use this time efficiently.

Sorry if you're reading this just before you were about to go to bed. This is an individual thing. This is what works for me. Others maybe work at their best only if they had a goodnight sleep and need a solid 8 hours to reach their peak of efficiency during the day. I am so curious to learn about other people. I want to know how other people live. How they experience things, how they look at things. Learning about how other people work, is a pure way of learning about yourself. By comparing how other people function, you become more aware of how you work, and that's important. I think I'm gonna make that a quote. "To get to know others, is the perfect way to get to know yourself." - Bekim Aliji. "Comparison is the key to self-awareness." - Bekim Aliji.

It's a shame blogging isn't as reciprocating as YouTube, where thousands of people comment every minute, everyday, with their thoughts on theories, issues or questions of the subject. Blogging means giving up the chance for a myriad of response from people out the in the world, but, so be it. Video-blogging is really not for me. I like the entertaining aspect of it, but blogging is to me a more satisfying outlet of getting your opinion out there. I show myself through my words. It's the same reason I love photography. Sure, I love doing photoshoots of me, but get more satisfaction being behind the camera. Showing myself through photographing other things.

I am really eager to discover good blogs. By good I mean genuine, serious, vigorous blogs, that show depth without necessarily having to be deep. Geoff Manaugh's blog is one that astounds me. A genius mind that never ceases to amaze me. Having luckily met Geoff Manaugh in person, and listening to him talk, just made his credibility more powerful. No wonder his blog turned into a published book.

Although, I also enjoy more minuscule personal blogs. I like reading about someone else's life events and their daily activities, even if it doesn't entail a fascinating story, as long as it's sensible. I cannot handle blogs that include postings of the outfit of the day, the comparing of this celebrities hotness to that celebrities, the top 5 dos and don'ts on a date, or how today that friend totally betrayed the person, by going out with his or her ex. If I read another juvenile blog from an incompetent moron like that, I may have to shave my head!

An example of a delightful personal blog, is my friend Li's blog. It's a light, quick, peppy, and funny blog that reflects her personality in a realistic manner.

If you read this and have a dignified blog, where the 'b' doesn't stand for 'bimbo' or 'bogus', please let me know, I would love to expand my blog affiliation.

Now go, sleep, or don't sleep, whatever works for you, and tomorrow is another ba-log day!

2009 reminiscence

This morning, as I was eating breakfast and looking around, I stopped to think… and forgot to start again! But moments later I got back on track, and I started to think about last year and everything I did, saw, met, achieved, ate, bought, and so on and so on. At first it seemed as though not much had really happened, but when I went through the year month by month, I realized the plethora of events that occurred in 2009.

Just to name a few - spent the first weeks of the year in Macedonia with my family, where I also got a terrible cold and a sore throat that lasted for days; I had an unforgettably wonderful birthday celebration with my two best friends; experienced my fourth earthquake; went on a study tour to Croatia; planned an entire hotel from the structure to the doorknobs; had my first performance with The Hip Drop DC at Stapelbäddsparken; finished my sophomore year in college; attended for the first time the Copenhagen Streetdance Camp; interned for architect David Garcia: saw Britney Spears; went to Macedonia for summer holidays; went to Alanya, Turkey on a second vacation, made new friends; had a stomach-ache that lasted for 12 days; started my bachelor year in college; had a workshop with Drura Parrish; attended my third annual ASAE Symposium; became an assistant at The Hip Drop Dance Complex; attended a workshop with Michael Jackson's dancers; got robbed; joined a dance crew; performed at the 5 year anniversary event for T.H.D.D.C; attended a workshop with the S**t Kingz - now some of my favorite people in the world; got the swine-flu shot; met Cody; performed with my dance crew on national television; planned a 1500m2 museum; made wonderful new friends; was part of a flashmob dance raid in Copenhagen; moved to Lund.

And that's only what I remembered at the moment! So many memories, so many experiences, all the people I've met, talked to, dated, worked with. It's amazing how blessed I am to live the life I'm living, for nothing in return. I don't have to sacrifice a goat to the oracles, or anything!

Can you believe that it has now been 10 years since 2000?! I'm curious to know if my fellow peers feel as I do. I was born in the late 80's, and grew up in the 90's, so those are the years that I consider "the past". When 2000 hit, it was sort of like a new chapter, it was the new event, it became the partition that divided time into 'the past', and 'the recent'. And ever since, when I've talked about 2001 or 2004 it always seemed to me as if it was oh just a couple of years ago, you know, recently. Well I turn my head for one second, it seems, and it is now 2010, a decade since the Y2K freakout! I will repeat myself, a DECADE! Imagine future kids, perhaps my grandkids, that are gonna be born in, i don't know, 2047? When I tell them I was born 1988 they're gonna think I'm prehistoric! My nickname will be grandpa Pitecantropus Erectus!

Okay, so I am now in my third decade of this lifetime, the most important one yet. The first decade I was in the inevitable process of growing up. The second decade I chose a path. Now comes the third one, the result of the experiment, the review after a play, the part where everything I've done shows results. I am on the verge of finishing my education, only two more years until my hopes and dreams are shattered the minute I graduate as I face what we call the real world. And then what? That's the exciting part! What will I do then? Will I immediately hunt for my dream job, will I accept one of the many offers I've received so far, will I travel to see where I'm best suited? Will I be the kind of person who sits in the back of the bus and does little in life, or will I be the kind of person who takes charge, throws himself out there and actually does something? What are the odds that I might change someones life? Save someones life? Or will I contribute with absolutely nothing to this world, more than wasting the Earth's oxygen? Who will I meet? Who will turn out to be a long-life friend? Who will fade away and become a mere memory? So. Many. Freaking. Questions! And I can't wait to get out there and answer them!

Okay okay, philosophy class dismissed! You may now wake up from the trance I put you in and go about your business!

Take a second and think back on last year and everything you've done, and tomorrow is another ba-log day!

And then there was blogging!

And then there was blogging...

Reading my late grandfather's diaries, on January 1st of 2000 he opened with this sentence: "January 1st, 2000 - The first day of the week, the first week of the month, the first month of the year, the first year of the decade, the first decade of the century!"

A very clever and inviting way to start a diary. I aimed for an equally impressive intro, but January 1st 2010 failed to support my goal, as it isn't quite as an exciting year as the turn of the century. But hold on to your porcelain tea-cup there, my friend, cause 2010 is indeed an exciting new year. With all that is going on in the world, endless questions arise to the table, and many anticipating faces await the many wonders, surprises, adventures, happenings, etc; that this new decade unquestionably will bring.

And as a timid yet solid addition to that, 2010 will also add to the world BA-LOG! "So what!" you say? I agree. It's an unnoticeable move that will make no difference to or in the world. I will resort to defending BA-LOG with the oh-so-overused cliché "It's the small things that count in life!". You hear people say 'Take it easy! Stop to smell rose, listen to the birds, look at the sky..' and so on. Sure, theoretically those things sound just swell. Well, in my world, taking it easy means getting no work done, there are no roses anywhere remotely close to where I live, the only birds I heard this week were some annoying seagulls by the shore and my neighbors frantic parakeet, and the sky is mostly grey and depressing during most of the year. So I think those sayings should be categorized into specific geographical specifications. Instead, from now on the universal cliché saying will be 'Hey, relax! Have a cappuccino, watch some FRIENDS, read a ba-log!'. Much more intriguing, in my opinion. It'll catch on… (I have something to say about clichés, but I'll spare you the neurons and bring that debate up some other time)

So, what is BA-LOG? It's the Bekim Aliji Log. My blog. My ba..log! I would love to reach 365 new blogs by the end of this year! My first thought was a new blog each day, then I snapped back into reality and realized my schedule often is more crowded than Tokyo, so the only definite criterion is the number of 365 blogs, not divided into the ratio of one per day.

And what will the ba-logs entail? Everything from brief stories, to long letters, to weird observations, to my daily activities, to interesting things I find in the world, to inspirations, to commentary on social issues, to news, to fun events, sad events, exciting subjects, books, movies - good and bad, architecture, dance, music, creativity in the world, photography, food, more food, coffee, and all in between.

And how was my first day of the first week of the.. *fast forwards*…of the millennium? Well, it started out with me being invited by a friend to a party at his place, for New Year's Eve. I went, and it was a nice gathering. I knew three people there, but the rest of them seemed nice, and it ended up being a pleasant evening. It all went smoothly, until we decided to call it a night. Took my jacket and left, five minutes later I realized I didn't have my phone on me. So I thought I'd forgotten it in my friend's apartment, and went back to get it. But it was nowhere to be found. Which means, some lowlife imbecile from the party took it. I hate people! They are just a burden to this world. I don't even care about the phone, it's just a piece of metal and plastic. Forget even all the hundreds of pictures and videos and text messages etc. All I really want back are all the important notes I've saved over time. For years now, whenever I've had an idea, for work, or whatever, I wrote it down. Not to even mention the endless of lists I saved. It may seem stupid, but they were really valuable and too many to remember to write them down again.

But I'm a very stubborn person. I will find it. Trust me. Well, don't trust me, but root for me.

Anyway, onto the next day. A sad start, but other than that particular event, it's been good. I went back to Kenny's house, ate chicken skewers with teriyaki sauce (delicious) and had an intense YouTube-session until sometime after 6 a.m.

So, the next day, January 1st, the beginning of the year, I start off with sleeping until late afternoon. It was already dark again when i woke up. Spent the day at Kenny's, watched movies with friends, ate chicken skewers again, and missed my last train home.

It is now exactly 6:15 a.m., hours after what is normally considered bedtime, and I am eagerly writing my first blog, or ba-log as I will call it, and hoping for a successful outcome! 1 down, 364 to go! Hey, did you guys (I already assume I have endless of trusty followers of my blog) know that the total time span for 2010 is 8,760 hours?? That's it?! Are they serious?!? That sounds like the equal amount of time I spend in a year waiting in line for coffee! Or the amount of time i spend complaining about things (WHY MUST EVERYTHING BE SO COMPLICATED?! Another topic for another ba-log though). Anywho, that's the skimpy amount of hours the year offers us, so make the best out of them. Go, learn, create, read, observe, do what you do, cause soon the hours we have will be gone, and a new year begins. But that means you're a year older, muscles get weaker, bones lose calcium, attention span shrinks (as does the body), and you'll be less likely to do all those things.

So go! Wish me luck on this, then go, do stuff, and tomorrow is a new ba-log day!