Getting old

Since I came back I've often been thinking that I'm getting old.

On Monday, my friend Annalisa and I, decided to spend a full day together since we both live abroad and we had a lot of topics to catch up. So in perfect roman style, we started our ladies day with a delicious breakfast in Trastevere. Soon we found ourselves discussing about the decadence of Rome, the differences between what people do now and what we used to do when we still live in Italy, the lack of perspective, of interests....We thought it was just by coincidence that we were talking like two old ladies blaming modern habits, so we laughed about it and we went on with our plan. We still had a lot of things to do! Now, shopping has never been a problem for two girls, especially when they feel on vacation in their own town, so they know exactly where to go for nice clothes...but WHAT HAPPENED TO FASHION? to the quality of the outfits?and why prices are so high? and above all: why can't we enter anymore, the two of us together, in the dressing room? Now, the whole logic of going with a friend to shop is that SHE can advice on how the clothes fit me and vice versa...Why is it now forbidden??What happend to the normal, old, female tradition of doing everything together?

The following day I went to the hairdresser: it's so cool to relax in a very fancy shop, modern design, wonderful perfumed products to make waves on your hair, shampoo-massage...But what does it mean "to texturize" my hair, after having made a concave space, prepare a fantasy of different lenghts and attracted two points of light to revitalize the colour?Is the situation so serious?Did I come back with some kind of strange tropical disease?

And finally, the same day, my dentist, who have been knowing me since my first tooth, who with resignation asked me to please fill a form to self-declare about my health condition and discharge the medical institution from any responsability in case I was allergic to the anesthetic and I did not know....

So to recap: the decadence is soffocating our country, fashion is not accessible anymore as well as the dressing rooms, the hairdresser is a multi decorated student of a special Academy in London and I need a dictionary to understand what he is telling me, even my dentist has to protect himself from speculation of insurance companies....

The world has changed and I'm really getting old.

The other side of a coin

What Yasir said is exactly what is underlining my emotion. I am emotional to have my friends leaving the village, because it is them, not the place itself I have developed attachment. So as they leave, the place I like is disappearing. If I had strong attachement to the country itself, I would be feeling much more assured knowing that I could go back and find the place again if I really want. Like I can go back to my hometown and find friends from my youth.

But it is not the case here.
My attachement will be to a virtual place that will be only in my memory.

OK, I should not be so pessimistic here as the one known to be the most pessimistic among three of us is miraculously pointing the bright side of the situation. :)

Yes, moving on is a opportunity to see new places, to meet new people, possibly as wonderful as those who we have known. What is more, people you can always trace and
see if your wish to do so is strong enough...

That's all

Naho you are absolutely right, but my childhood experience and changing of schools made me little less emotional. My father had to move a lot within in country, being in Military he was to move every two to three years. So all my life in never developed enough association with a place coz I knew that one day I had to leave. Just like the philosophy of life, one day we have to go :-) anyway, I remember my first school change; it was in 3rd grade – was old enough to remember things. First time I cried for leaving my friends, than in 5th grade, I was sad for leaving friends. Than in 8th grade was happy to go to new school ( as it was co-ed) than when I was leaving my high school I was so busy thinking about what career to choose I did not think at all about the leaving friends and my college.

My first Job, I remember when I resigned I was again sad, thought I might never have such an excellent team to work with, I made many friends. But I was wrong, every time I went to new place I always find good friends. If we look at the positive side of leaving a place for new one, there is always opportunity of making new friends.

When I left Sudan last time, I really was sad. I had a lot of association with the place I worked, the colleagues, the national colleagues, the restaurants, the people I know.

But interestingly, as I am getting close to my departure date the only thing I can associate Liberia with are my non Liberian friends, that’s all. I do not want to be rude here, but over the period of two year I could not develop trust on single Liberian. Its very sad and sometime I feel bad. But in the end we all tried our best, I know I did my best, but some how the other, I do not have any association with Liberia. It was just a place I worked.

Strangely

As many of my friends in Liberia are leaving, one by one, the place for their new career, I again realized the old lesson: it is people who make a place special and dear to me.
It somehow hurts, as much as it did when I left our village, to learn another friends are on the way of exit. Rational part of me keeps telling me that Voinajama I know is not there anymore, and that is the life. But another part of me is missins the place, like one misses the hometown where s/he has been brought up. It is an attachment to a virtural place.

A blog from the past

If you are just curious to know wherever ended up a person, what he/she is doing, if you are just thinking about that friend whom you have not seen for a long long time, you can be sure that he/she has a blog. And that you can find that blog and read what is this person up to now, where is she, what happened in the meanwhile to her life. Worse, sometimes you are not even looking for that specific person, you are just in the web and you find out that that name looks exactly like the name of the person you use to know, and ooops, what a chance it is exactly that person. Who knows if this person has ever came across your blog. Maybe we just all met again in the words we leave in the net, even if we did not inform eachother.

Sometimes I feel protected in my mission life. Speaking a foreign language, having very different and specific habits linked only to this place, to this group, feeling the power of unique experiences shared with people matched together apparently by chance.

Saclepea-Social set up

By the way, I got quite worried to see the unsocial attitude in Saclepea. Even thought I am the least social person, but the guys here so anti social that I started to freak out. They do not go out at all. Its my sixth day here and I have neither seen Saclepea nor met anyone from other agencies and NGOs. Guesthouse office, office guesthouse that is the routine of like. Thank God i am not here for long......

Tigro and DC

When their jelous and lovely father will allow me to get them, Tigro and DC are going to be my cats! I'm looking forward to that, I just hope that leaving them behind does not brake my heart again, last time I cried like a lamb for three days.....

Risk lover and risk averse

In the past few days I've been often thinking of my classes of economics, not because I suddenly developped a love for investments, but because being a risk lover or a risk averse makes a lot of sense at this point of my experience here. Certainly the meaning I'm referring to, goes beyond the pure economical behaviour and economists may be horrified by my mystification...but still....

Risk Lover: An investor who is willing to take on additional risk for an investment that has a relatively low expected return. This contrasts with the typical investor mentality - risk aversion. Risk averse investors tend to take on increased risks only if they are warranted by the potential for higher returns.

One way to characterize differences in investor risk aversion is by the curvature of the iso-utility lines. Below are representative curves for four different types of investors: A more risk-averse, a moderately risk-averse, a less risk-averse, and a risk-loving investor. The whole set of nested curves is omitted to keep the picture simple.

Notice that the risk-lover demands lower expected return as risk increases in order to maintain the same utility level. On the other hand, for the more risk-averse investor, as volatility increase, he or she will demand sharply higher expected returns to hold the portfolio. These different curves will result in different portfolio choices for investors. The optimization procedure simply takes the efficient frontier and finds its point of tangency with the highest iso-utility curve in the investor set. In other words, it identifies the single point that provides the investor with the highest level of utility. For risk-averse individuals, this point is unique.

NOW: am I a risk lover or a risk averse? And which one are you?

Past and Future

The dilemma of humans is quite interesting when it comes to the life. We all strive for things we do not have and we tend to forget when we have it. Its not intentional, its mere our idiosyncratic behaviour. Every one of us envisages a certain way to be in this world. We all have likes and dislike, we have different opinion of similar thing, and we have different preferences in life. But all in all the want to have options we can chose from for the best make so much commotion in every day life. The standards we set for ourselves to be happy or not, are the one make us happy or not. Interestingly, we tent to forget that basic purpose of life and tent to become so selfish and keep the unrealistic view of happy life. We all envy the lives of celebrities, but if we look at the history and behaviour of the celebrities, most of them have behaviour disorder and many are trying to by happy by using drugs. Well the whole idea revolves around why we are here. Past, present and future is another interesting phenomenon. We keep on clinging to past, we keep on dreaming of better future and our present just goes by in front of us. Sometimes it confuses me, and I am lost with the meaning and the purpose of life. Every one is living in their own world and every body has different meanings of life. Some only enjoy the time they have, some keep on looking for higher purpose of life, some keeps the daily routine going, some keeps on struggling for better, and some like me are lost in the purpose of life. Whether the future is what we struggle for to make it better? What went wrong in past? How can we make present pleasant?

Sometimes irony of life and confusion of thinking power may let us envy past, be frustrated in present and future scares the bloody hell out of us…… Yes it is irony and we have to learn to laugh at it…… After all we have control over nothing…