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Happy Birthday Emo!

Today is Emil Shukadarov’s birthday. Yes it is my dear brother’s birthday. Well since this greeting is hereby posted almost a month after the event I gave all my wishes to him in person.

Christmas, a Time of Greeting Cards of all Types.

Here to cards I received this Christmas. To the left is the sacrilegious sense of humor of Christopher Scales and to the right is the indefatigable Ron Wilsay.

Conquering Everest, School Relicts

An interesting fact is that the Christmas before I started school Dennis gave me, as a Christmas gift, abinder for school. This binder came with a pen, pencil, ruler, rubber eraser, highlighter and I added I calculator (I’ve already written about the calculator), and with those original objects I completed my entire degree. I also carried the binder and all of my books in an Old Navy school bag that Diana gave me for the same Christmas. The pen I of course savored and I wrote primarily with pencil but I’m saving the pen to sign my diploma with.

P.S.: If you are considering going to college, do not start simply taking random classes! Work with an adviser and consult with him/her prior to each semester. This of course, given that you don’t have time and money to waste on classes which won’t count towards your degree. One thing I regret not knowing is that the best time to do your internship is after your junior year not after you are done taking all classes.

Conquering Everest, Continued

When I first came to the U.S., in 2001, I didn’t speak English but one of the main reasons for my summer-job adventure was to learn to at least speak some English. I remember marveling at my Bulgarian friends, Desislava and Sonya, who had been on Cape Cod the summer before and who spoke beautifully and understood even the TV. Diana was of course fluent since she had studied English hard since elementary school.

Consequently, I got a good score on the TOEFL exam, transferred most of my credits from Bulgaria and enrolled in Suffolk University on Cape Cod Community College campus. I chose accounting, for I was fascinated with the subject from this one class I took in Sofia. For the first couple of years I took 2 night courses per semester because I wanted to make sure that I’ll be able to manage with the language. With time, I developed my language skills (enormous thanks to Joan, she even proof read most of my papers) as well as a great love for school and I managed a 3.85 GPA. Except two B’s, I’ve received straight A’s all throughout. Realizing that with this tempo it will take me many, many years to complete my degree the last 4 semesters I’ve been going full time to school and work. I know it is CRAZY!!!! But it is OVER!!!

Conquering Everest

Today was my very last class and final exam towards my bachelor’s degree. In May I’ll have a diploma from Suffolk University, a BSBA with specialization in accounting (Bachelor of Science in Business Administration/Accounting). Big applause please – yeeiiii, clap, clap, clap! 

It has been a long journey that started back in 1996. Upon completion of my military duty to my country I enrolled in the Food Industry Institute, Plovdiv Bulgaria. A nightmare – I was going to further my culinary abilities, since I graduated from high school as a chef – the first 2 semesters I studied Calculus (which is like high math), and also the equivalents of calculus in chemistry and physics, technical drawing and other fun stuff of the sort.

Unlike the educational system of the U.S. where regardless of the subject you always start slowly and with an introduction of the basics and the instructors are there to help you though, in Bulgaria, by contrast, the instructors take some type of sadistic pleasure in emphasizing that you should have learned the intermediate level of the subject in high school, now you are in UNIVERSITY and NOT in high school, and they are always ready to fail you. I know it sounds like a hyperbole or like something out of a movie but I clearly remember waking up in the middle of the night, with a gasp, mumbling some chemistry theories that I was trying to memorize but didn’t understand. Naturally, I lasted two semesters and I dropped out, like an apple from a horse buggy.
 
After perusing the delusion of corporate-America style career with McDonald’s for about 2 years and with the help of a very smart man, Zakki Sokolov, I realized that I need to go back to school. I studied for an admission exam for about 6 months and was able to enter in the program I had chosen – Intellectual Property Rights at the University of World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria. During my 2 years of study there I took most of the fundamental courses for a bachelor’s degree in business and one of them happened to be accounting.

To be Continued…

The Spin Sect

I’ve been going to the same gym for 4 years. I still remember picking it up from the Yellow pages; it was my first encounter with the phone book, a book read and used by more Americans than the Bible itself. I found and called a few gyms in the Hyannis area, called them to ask for prices and consequently picked the cheapest – The then called “Barnstable Athletic Club.” For years I was a devoted, well known and respected member. I loved the girls at the front desk too, Jacquie still have the “anatomically correct pig” form Mark’s house. They let me ten for free, we always chatted (sometimes even between my sets), I’ve gone out with them on couple of occasions.

My love and devotion to the Barnstable athletic Club plummeted rapidly, however, when the gym got sold without notice. Within a few weeks, under the renovations, they took about 5 pieces of equipment, yanked them on the second floor, tore the rest of the building down, while replacing the missing walls with plastic and said “workout here till we finish.” I thought “eeh, 2-3 weeks, I can do it.” 2 -3 weeks my ass. That was at the end of summer and they are still working. Oh, and let me not forget to mention the dust; granted it took me a couple of times to figure it out – the white powder covering the bars and the weights, and essentially everything else – it was actually dust invading the “workout closet” coming from the construction site. Doesn’t it sound great? Make sure that you breathe deeply while working out because you need huge amounts of oxygen and dust for your muscle building! 

Anyhow, those were the pressing circumstances under which I switch fitness facilities upon expiration of my membership at the BAC. I acquired a membership at the all so famous GOLD’S gym. GODL’S is like the SEARS of gyms. I actually got a good deal $35 a month, the catch was that I had to pay for 6 months in advance but I’ve been there twice a day since I’ve signed up. The change did me wonders, I’m back to being happy to go to the gym. New faces, different atmosphere, people are into it, I got motivation.

The climax of the story is that one day I decided to try spin, and I’ve been severely addicted ever since. I’ve been joking that I now belong to a sect and that I’m getting more and more Americanized. An association that comes to my mind is the movie “Fight Club” and all the different, freaky groups there were, such as group for people with testicular cancer. I was talking to Beccam, she’s been doing kickboxing for a while now, and we were saying that the fun part is that you go there and you are instantaneously a part of a group. You don’t necessarily have anything in common with the rest of the people, anything at all but this one thing, the common denominator, the activity you all participate in, the sport.

It’s amazing; to me it’s a phenomenon. We keep our mutual interest of one another’s lives reduced to what’s encompassed by the walls of the gym. I personally never small talk, even at work I struggle to talk to customers about the weather, or other things that don’t concern me at all. The other day, though, I caught myself voluntarily small talking to a lady from spin class and it wasn’t even a spin-class day – I had just finished my regular workout and she was walking on the treadmill. To top it off a couple of days later I remembered and inquired if her arm is doing any better… we talked abut how busy life is, and how we cannot afford to be sick or injured etc. I even went to spin at 8:00am on thanksgiving day.

“The Great Gatsby,” By Scott F. Fitzgerald

Who doesn’t know the Great Gatsby and who hasn’t heard about him? A classic in American literature, I cannot deny the greatness of this novel. I loved the way it was narrated; I thing the person who read it had studied the book as a script. I really enjoyed it but felt that Gatsby’s character hung a bit incongruent at the end. I’d say a 4****. Feeling guilty I should add that the language used was amazing and I utterly adored the female characters - Daisy and jordan - but there was something unfinished about Gatsby. Dimitar Dimov’s Boris from “Tobacco” was a much better Gatsby, in my opinion.

Hilarious