Iva’s personal site - Squirrelism.net

This is for Sofija, she wanted me to update…and I am guessing she’s not aware that I have made another blog for Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian-speakers, it’s over there. Also, RHCP Serbia, run by Ivan, Jovana and I is finally up, for now just the forum, but we’ll get the rest up when we can.

First, one of my best friends and one of the most important people in my life sent me an angry mail yesterday afternoon. I wrote a long reply to explain who was screwing around with me, she replied back today, but I don’t dare to read it. I put the message in the read later folder. I am not mentally able to see what she will say. All I know is that, whatever I do, I need her in my life because she’s like family to me. God, this sucks. And I know that she knows I have no nerves but…still… I lost her once already. My heart and mind wouldn’t survive that.

I had a website crash which I managed to solve but it ended up with taking tranquilizers and my hands were shaking. I thought someone hacked me, I alarmed the hosting provider support and it turned out a database table just b0rked itself and needed to be repaired. I was so paranoid. I almost thought years of hard work blew up…so, I needed a walk…and more Pepsi…

…and then when I came back home with Pepsi, snacks and dad’s cigarettes, my wallet didn’t come home with me somehow, so I lost my ID, my health care ID, public transportation ID with the monthly ticket, bookstore three-year discount card, Elle shopping card and two debit cards, one youth Visa and one Maestro. There was also a tiny birthday card from a friend, a couple of paper calendars and proverbs we get with popcorn. And some money, about 20 Euros in dinars, but that’s the least important thing. Luckily, I blocked both cards and nobody knows my PINs anyway…but god…I don’t have documents.

If my life continues like this, I’ll die from a heart attack at 30. There’s been too much stress recently, everywhere. And in the end, come se tutto quello non bastasse, my camera is completely broke, I can’t even turn it on because it starts pulling its lense in and out as if it was epileptic. I wanted to take it to the service, but with my schedule these days, that turned out to be pretty impossible.

Recently, I’ve been on DeviantArt more than ever before and I’ve been neglecting the most of the online communities I’m visiting apart from the local Lush forum I’m the administrator of. Why? Work, work, work; followed by social life, social life, social life; ending with sleep, sleep, sleep.

Partly, I blame all this on the fears and traumas I’ve been through in 2005. and the most of 2006. Partly, I blame it on having been completely smitten and gaga for the past two months.

Shakira knows how to describe it properly. So, I’ll let her finish this entry for me…

Ojerosa, flaca, fea, desgreñada,
torpe, tonta, lenta, necia, desquiciada,
completamente descontrolada
tú te das cuenta y no me dices nada
ves que se me ha vuelto
la cabeza un nido
donde solamente tu tienes asilo
y no me escuchas lo que te digo
mira bien lo que vas a hacer conmigo

It’s my birthday today! I am 24 years old!
I usually hate my birthday because unexpected weird things tend to happen on 03rd March, almost like in novels…but this year I’m somehow happy. The last year started as the worst ever and it ended up being amazingly good in some spheres of life (while it remained disappointing in others… e.g. studying and university and one other thing I don’t like mentioning). In July, everything I was doing and planning went downhill, one of my biggest holiday plans failed, I lost one of my best friends and I don’t think I’ll ever get her back. After that, almost everything changed for the better but the damage has been done.

The highlights would definitely be getting two amazing jobs: the web design one for a rather famous company and the one for Lush (that one is web design too and Lush is famous, but you get the idea) and my trip to Vienna in December and seeing…OK, the true highlight was the moment when John Frusciante himself smiled to me and actually stayed there and waited to smile to me again when I took my head out of my hands and stopped giggling like a cat chick from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. And you know me, you know I don’t appreciate it because he’s a rock star, I appreciate it simply because it’s him and I adore him!

The other most beautiful moment of the year was the hug a couple of hours later when one of my best friends literally jumped on me after the same concert. I think the band members actually saw her get out of the sidestage area to the first row and hug me so tightly that she almost cracked my bones…and I thought I hugged her tightly the first time we saw each other in real life, two days before that. I want to make her a tribute entry, the same way I did to the certain collegue and a pretendent to the friend qualification a couple of weeks ago, but I will do that on 17th March, as it will have been 3 years from the day we bumped into each other on that day. 3 long years.

Oh yes, people? I met so many cool people during the time I was 23. So many cool people and a couple of INCREDIBLE IDIOTS who don’t even deserve a mention. Those idiots tore me apart, turned me upside down but the cool people of the past, present of future were always there to help me and put a smile on my face. I cannot recall a moment when I was completely alone and helpless because there wasn’t such a moment.

Special thanks to Jovana and Milica for being the people who turned into close friends whom I trust a lot and one year ago, to me they were just random passerbys in the sea of internet.

Plans for today? Do some work as birthdays are definitely not non-working holidays. Go to one of the Lush stores because a couple of veeery mysterious smiling co-workers insisted that I should come. And my mom is making a very special lunch…I asked for musaka, I will get roasted chicken and potatoes because it’s, as she says, more special, but I do not complain, I love both. And on Monday, I am inviting some people out.

Following Danube To Its Best
Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming to Serbia in June!
Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming to Serbia in June!
Red Hot Chili Peppers are coming to Serbia in June!

I just had to say it three times. It sounds so good that I have to repeat it and maybe I am also repeating it because it’s like a dream come true out of the blue. I’m getting my ticket tomorrow and I will post a pic of it. The event is called Green Fest and it will be held near the town called Inđija on 26th June, hence this entry’s title. Some friends told me there are huge billboards in some parts of Beograd already, but I haven’t seen one here in the centre yet…as soon as I do, I am aiming my Canon S2IS at it.

Screw-up
The computer is still screwed-up. I will have to reformat, before I actually lose my data. Lucky that I got a laptop although I’m not a big fan of them. I hope some people will understand what was happening to both my computer and my back (I’m due to a specialist check next week, it could be more from a sprained nerve and I am worried…

This entry will be nowhere as inspired as the previous one…which doesn’t mean I’m not inspired…just tired.

The weather is mad. Sitting by an open window in the middle of January as if it was the most normal thing in the world is not normal. Watching TV and seeing how the most of the continent had a freakin’ hurricane 2 days ago is not normal. I so hope there will be some snow. Our Slava is on 31st January and I am used to a snowy one…seems like that won’t happen this year.

So, by the end of this week (eeek, tomorrow!) , I should do the following
- make the template for the site I’m redesigning for work
- finish the site for my friend…that was the first thing I was ever offered to design and we’re doing it only now, after 2.5 years of “consulting”
- contact some other people who asked me to help ‘em as well
- clean up this messy room
- make a list of things I should do next week
- make a new template for Invisible Movement, as I am starting to loathe the current look of the site
- reply to at least some of these piled-up emails, private messages and comments. AGRH.

I need to do the first two…the rest can wait, but it will sure make me busy. O_o The good thing is that I finally got cable internet. “Only” 8 times faster than what I used to have…a true paradise, as I can actually get some serious stuff done at home

This Saturday I read one of the nicest books that I came accross recently. It’s Marley & Me by John Grogan. I saw it in one of the biggest bookshops in the city sometime in December and the excerpts on the back were telling me it was going to be a good one. So, two days ago, I bought it and read it in one evening. And it was not haha-funny at all. It was a great story of how a couple managed to build their life around what was a behaviour equivalent of my hyperactive parakeet (who will get a page of his own soon) and, spiritualy, the equivalent of the tree I grew up with; and how they were maturing together with their pet. So, well, I am recommending you all to read this book. So many books today were written without love, as horrible page-turners, for no reason but to make money and this book makes me smile, because I see so many examples of the rarity that is real love in it: love between two young people, love in a family, love for a pet who did so many good and so many bad things at the same time. Also, all the descriptions are very vivid. If you want to know more about this beautiful book, go to its official site. There are some photos of Marley the labrador himself and stories written by owners of other dogs.

I am really happy these days. I was broke during the holidays, now it changed and I got an opportunity to make myself and people around me happy. So, I decided to take my mom and dad out to the Buena Vista Social Club show on 05th February, while some of the original band members are still alive…and then, since mom didn’t feel like going to a restaurant, I brought a huge pizza from Pizza Hut home. I also decided to buy mom something more precious and I found a nice pendant for a necklace at Swarovski….and it turned out to be a zip puller…here it is. However, the store workers told me that it can be a pendant as well. I liked it more than the one with two things and mom was delighted. She even cried. I am so glad that once, after a bunch of unsuccessful tries, I got her something she really likes. And making people I love happy. I also want to get dad something related to fishing or something for our family car (Ka-r:p), but it’s easier to get gifts for dad as he says what he wants. Who knows, perhaps I will be able to take us all to the seaside this year, as we have not been on such a holiday since 1994.

From top left, clockwise: Hocki Jr, my Lush gift to myself, mom’s gift and tickets for the concert and our biiig pizza!

Other reasons I’m happy…they’re more of a spiritual kind, as I have realised material happiness was useless many times in the past when I had what I wanted and I was alone or extremely unhappy. Ever since the best day of my life, I’ve been smiling and I am not even used to it, my cheek muscles hurt me. It’s someone’s fault…and they’re probably not even aware of how happy they made me. One of my main missions in near future would be to find them and thank them…without too much hugging as I’m known for nearly breaking people’s bones when I’m hugging them…

…in other words, I will be away for a couple of days. Might get to blog next weekend so…see ya.