Ghost World

GHOST WORLD is the story of ENID and REBECCA, teenage friends facing the unwelcome prospect of adulthood, and the uncertain future of their complicated relationship.

Daniel Clowes conjures a balanced semblance, both tender and objective, of their fragile existence, capturing the trivial thrills and hourly tragedies of a warning adolescence, as he follows a tenuous narrative thread through the fragmented lives of these two fully realized young women.

Clowes spells out the realities of teen angst.

The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy

This special book a really precious friend if mine had given me as a Xmas present some years ago when she had returned home from her first big trip abroad in the UK.

I thank her for this.

This book has been a good friend of mine - a true compagnion and consolation in lonely times.

I just want to thank from the bottom of my heart my special friend as well as Tim Burton for Being There..

Tim Burton - the creative genius behind Sweeny Todd, Sleepy Hollow, Eduard Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Xmas, The Beetlejuice and Corpse Bride - has given birth to a number of gruesomely sympathetic creatures : misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel cruel world.His lovingly horrifying pictures evoke both the swetness and tragedy of these hopeful yet misfortunate beings.

Tim Burton's films exquisitely convey the pain of an adolescent outsider.

Vicky and I

I met my cousin Vicky just some years ago in my adolescence while being on vacation in Kalamata, the hometown of our families, under weird but certainly funny circumstanes-in the house of a mad 90-year-old aunt named Katina...

The rest is just history...lol

We spent the whole weekend together on the beach, under the sun talking observing each other and trying to realize if we could really be cousins..

That's when this relationship had just started and i could never then think that this would really make an impact on me years later when I decided to go on exchange in Amsterdam and get acquainted with the Dutch culture..

So, until then we were just spending some summer weekends in Greece together as she was coming here every summer to absorb some Greek sun..

When I started thinking the possibilty of going on Erasmus in Ams a genuine contact was about to begin on line via msn thus making me familiar with the globalized collunication means of internet for the first time..lol Greeks are always late but that's not my topic today..

What happens when u start sharing your everyday life and thoughts with sb u had just been a distant relative of yours and would turn out to be sth more than an ordinary friend?!

For the period of 5 months while it was all settled about my exchange semester in Ams that would turn out to be a whole year we had developped this daily contact by writing long emails and sharing our experiences and expectations..

So the time had come and I arrived in the most beautiful and cosy city I d been in my life and for the first time living away from my home and the security that my parents had been providing me with so far..

My journey was just about to begin and of course by then I didn't know that it'd be maybe the most crucial stage of my life..

I will always remember the first day Vicky had come to pick me up from the airport..Athens was unbearably hot and I had just arrived in the country of non-stop rain and cold..lol

We were both so crazy that day..she was trying to make me feel really intimate with everything that was extremely new to me but this was not difficult as Ams is the cosiest place on earth..

U can just feel or thing anything u want..U are just free to explore who u really are and find your true self..

And this was MAGIC!

A Great indeed relationship had already begun and of course we were involved in it but hadn't realized it at that moment..

That year, also, it was Vick's escape from her small hometown and the start of her adult life in Ams as a student ready to experience life and uni-life..

So it was for both of us a fresh start!

And many things happened for both of us there and we kinda grew up there and changed a bit inside..

I want to dedicate this post to my beloved cousin Vick

Without u it wouldn't be the same

Thank U for

all the help u ve given me so far

all the unforgettable moments we shared in Amsterdam, Hoopfdorp, Haarlem, Hilversum, Kinkerstraat, Rombout, Sarphati...

all the crazy things we did in Paris, Prague and Vienna

Thank U for

introducing me into the magnificent Dutch country

teaching me how to say good morning in Dutch

showing me Adam and all its secrets

guiding me how to cycle a bike in the Netherlands

encouraging me abt being the shortest person around the tallest people on earth

making me feel like home

I felt special in Adam and U were of great importance in it..

I miss U tons and Love U so much

There is no greater cousinbond than ours in the whole world!

This Year

What can I say about This Year in Athens???

hmmmm

One thing is for sure: this year is filled

with true FRIENDS

with ESN AUEB events

with Good Cinema

with Theatre

with new athens vibes

NOT bad I'd say

Even though I keep realizing things in Athens that make me annoyed and feel nostalgic

about amsterdam life I know things here are GOOD

We have fun

We enjoy ourselves

We get involved in several different things

We are interesting personalities most of us Greeks

and most importantly

We LOVE each other!

and that's a big deal cos

ALL U NEED IS LOVE!!!!!!

I love u my friends xx

Last Year

What can I say about this amazing photo my friend Ian took in Amsterdam!

Yesterday morning I opened up my facebook account and i just saw it and my day was brightened..

The way I smile reflects all my experiences and feelings and things I shared with my friends in my exchange experience..

I'm not sure if I'll ever be as happy as that year 2007 in the Netherlands..

Maybe that's I love this country soo much..

Thank U Ian!

REAL LIFE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZYNdocIgjE

I want to dedicate this post to one of the best contemporary greek films and one of my favorites as well..

REAL LIFE - ALITHINI ZOI

I think this is one of the greatest Greek movies ever made.

Well,the story is not that original (it could be the material for yet another Greek series), and not without exaggerations(-but nice ones-->Acropolis burning!!!How ironic!).

But it is a nice story,with great actors in great acting .

Themis Bazaka is unbelievable!

And despite its exaggerations,the story looks very real.

I also have to stress out the quality of images on screen...

Great colors,photography,effects...

The images inside the pool are just perfect...

Music is great too,I d say...Fits very well.It adds up to the melancholic tone of the film and it's composed by one of the greatest musicians of electronic scene of Greece :

Mikael Delta

A tribute to the greatest of all genres: melodrama.

In the end (the great underwater scene) you are going to cry your eyes out as well as keep thinking of all the things you should have dared and you didn't.

Bottomline, I have to say that I think it is one of the greatest Greek movies ever(I know,I said that above also..).

It is very pleasant to watch and you have the feeling its not Greek,it's ...let say (with all the french heard in it!)..a French one!!! :-P

Great job Mr KOUTRAS. Bravo.

PARIS, je t'aime

Paris, my beautiful city, I love U!

Stories of Love. From the City of Love.

One City. 10 Millions Hearts. One Love Story. One Film.

Fall in Love 18 Times.

My 2 favorite quotes in the film:

Listen. Listen. There are times when life calls out for a change. A transition. Like the seasons. Our spring was wonderful, but summer is over now and we missed out on autumn. And now all of a sudden, it's cold, so cold that everything is freezing over. Our love fell asleep, and the snow took it by surprise. But if you fall asleep in the snow, you don't feel death coming. Take care.

Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and everyone I know, a feeling came over me. It was like remembering something I'd never known before or had always been waiting for, but I didn't know what. Maybe it was something I'd forgotten or something I've been missing all my life. All I can say is that I felt, at the same time, joy and sadness. But not too much sadness, because I felt alive. Yes, alive. That was the moment I fell in love with Paris. And I felt Paris fall in love with me.

Nederlands Dans Theatre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQoaQczSoEU

Πρεμιέρα του παγκόσμιας φήμης συγκροτήματος χορού Nederlands Dans Theatre στο Μέγαρο Μουσικής.

Πρώτο μέρος : Silent Screen
Ένα ζευγάρι "βγαίνει" από μια ασπρόμαυρη ταινία.Στο βάθος μια αγριεμένη θάλασσα που στη συνέχεια αντικαθίσταται από ένα δάσος.Ηρεμία και πανικός, αγάπη και μίσος εναλάσσονται με υπέροχες εικόνες, συνοδεία των αφαιρετικών ήχων του Philip Glass.

Δεύτερο μέρος : Toss of a Dice
Mια σπούδή πάνω στο χρόνο, ζεν φιλοφοφία. 12 χορευτές λειτουργούν σαν ιαπωνικά σύμβολα, ενώ πάνω στη σκηνή δεσπόζει σχεδόν απειλητικό ένα περιστρεφόμενο γλυπτό που θυμίζει δείχτες ρολογιού ή αιχμηρές λεπίδες.

Ένα από τα καλύτερα πράγματα που έχω δει.
Στη ζωή μου.

in the end

we all bear the scars
yes, we all feign a laugh
we all cry in the dark
get cut off before we start

and as your first act begins
you realise they're all waiting
for a fall, for a flaw, for the end

there's a past stained with tears
could you talk to quiet my fears
could you pull me aside
just to acknowledge that i've tried

and as your last breath begins
contently take it in
cause we all get it in
the end

and as your last breath begins
you find your demon's your best friend
and we all get it in
the end

this song comes from a favorite film of mine entitled SHORTBUS

shortbus is a journey of people exploring their sexuality and redefining their relationships so that overcoming their traumas and desperation they can at last reach their true self

far from being crude or offensive, shortbus is fresh, insightful, celebratory -and, most importantly, focused on the fully realized people, not just the bodies, who bare their flesh and feelings on screen

it approaches the authentic experience of being human, being miserable, looking to come to joy, and exploring funny, sensual, and affectionate avenues to get there

while sex is a main focal point in the film, it is not the sole one -shortbus deals with all manners of human relations

it shows how sex, friendship and love continually intermingle

in a touching conversation, an old man identifying himself as the former mayor of New York says to the young and naive Ceth (Jay Brannan), "People come to New York to get laid ... People also come to New York to be forgiven"

the latter can also be said for those who elect to see this film

whether dealing with sexual oppression, struggling with sexual desires deemed socially deviant, seeking redemption for having already been there and done that, or feeling generally unaccepted for being who you are, the redemption value in this film is tenderly perceptible

shortbus lets us know that straight, gay, bi, transgender, whatever –

we all just want to feel accepted

love may be grim at times but shortbus turns it into technicolor -just like magic

sharing is caring

my exams are officially over and this is the greatest news for me as i'm free
even though i realized at the end that exams shouldn't be taken so much seriously
i mean there are so much more important things in life we should be worried abt than a bloody exam right?!

these days the weather in athens is so nice that everyone is happy and keeps smiling all the time
it's carnaval days, there are many good parties going on in the city, people dress up, everyone's in a good mood so this gives me enough reason to feel more than satisfied at the time being

of course things can always go wrong but if u've got friends around u with whom you can share your negative energy, bad mood and anger you'll feel immediately better
there's no other person you can share these emotions better with than your true friends
they can understand and tolerate all your weird and bad sides of your character and you can be relieved eventually

the first thing i did after my last exam was meeting up with the rest members of the cultural team of the esn athens-actually this was the second thing as i first went to hnm for some shopping therapy because of my tremendous failure on the damn test arghh-
anyways i was talking abt the cultural team: it was actually konstantinos's idea to build it up along with domna and dimi and it turned out to be a brilliant idea as we are all so different personalities but manage to interact perfectly and have some excellent results concerning the diversity aspect of erasmus life in athens

in both of our meetings so far we ended up talking abt our erasmus experiences comparing and contrasting as well as our state of mind at the time being here in our city-athens
most of us being back from this extraordinary experience abroad are trying to find ourselves again back in this city and integrate ourselves to the athens way of life as much as we can-this by keeping our new more open-minded ever sense of self

am now listening to a great song by Aphex Twin "Avril 14th" (you know he's the irish guy hailed for his immence influence on contemporary electronic music) included in Marie Antoinette's score and am just filled with tons of warmth and joy
am thinking about team work and how everything is greater when doing in a group than on your own
sharing things just gives you the chance to give a small part of yours and have an impact and maybe help another person
i was thinking whats the thing i miss most from my life in amsterdam: and thats helping and sharing, giving things to people around me without expecting something in return but because i'm able to offer my help
and at the end a feel a better person as i can share and help sb
i feel useful to sb
and thats the spirit of erasmus which is hard for us to maintain in real life: sharing and exchanging without the expectation of the other giving back the favor
just giving whatever u can and basically accept the others for what they really are
and then u can receive the most for them


thank you konstantinos for this team
as we have the chance to share some views and do sth really nice

people u can't leave behind

in her blog my really precious and wise friend dimi had written a post entitled the people u leave behind where she talked abt people we have met in a past moment of our life and that after a point we should get over them

in this post i wanna talk about people we can't leave behind as the title is suggesting
i'm talking about people that have made a great impact on our life
people who have made a difference in the way we see things nowadays
people whom we've met in a specific time of our life where everything was possible and where we'd let things happen to us, where everything was new and open to us
people who are special only because we loved them truly either referring to love or even friendship or maybe both and then we rejected them and after that we realized that they deeply loved us and it was a mistake getting away from them after all but by then it was already too late
people they loved us for who we really are,for all our weaknesses and particularities
people they thought we were perfect at the moment and this feeling can never be lost whatsoever

however there's also the case of people we cant leave behind not because of all the things we've shared with them and their influence on us
sometimes the present and the unresolved past don't let us get over some situations where certain people are involved in
sometimes the present can be so boring and meaningless and unbearable to us that we tend to idealize the past, we tend to remember only the bright parts and forget all the negative things that encouraged us to be cruel or even to break up relationships
many times i stronly believe we just think of the past in a different way than what really happened so we regret about the way things have turned out
we want to go back to the past as all the remains from those days are still inside us deeply and don't let us move forward

remember we can never turn back time unfortunately to erase things with the knowledge of the present circustances
however things would be different in the present if we could change the past so easily ...
i mean u can never be sure abt how things will turn out and how they could be different if...
time is everything thats my belief so just do things the way u feel like at the moment and dont think abt them too much
a decision or a choice once made has its own consequences and u've to bear all responsibility for it...every choice we make at a time has its own sacrifice, load for each one of us and this is true though cruel and irreversible it may sound

SO then sometimes we SHOULD leave people behind us as dimi tells us to
whats done is done and we shouldn't regret about things we did in the past since there's no point to it
the past can be a misleading guide for the present
GET OVER IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE

most importantly never forget to say to people u care abt how much u love them-
everyone wants to hear that even the most cynical ones -dimi!!!!!!!!
this is a useful piece of advice from the preacher of love

KIND REQUEST
i wish to hear my viewers' comments on the way they think past can hold us back

So Nice So Smart

i woke up today quite early so that i can start studying for my next exam which will be taken in 6 days for now and i’ll be fine until then because i've got considerably enough amount of time to cover the whole material
anyways the subject is called investment and portfolio theory and for those who are not aware of it it’s about money hahah i mean finance actually which is the most boring thing u can do in economics…it’s really unbearable and it appeals mostly to students who are the so called geeks of econ…in general we tend to make fun of the finance-geeks
so as am bored to continue with this useful indeed but quite uninteresting to me material i gave it up and started listening to music to make myself more intrigued to study the damn thing
i opened my i-tunes (harry’s tunes) which contain a large variety of music selections starting with the trends and classics such as oasis-blur-the verve-arctic monkeys-the cardigans-the beatles-nina simone-depeche mode-smashing pumpkins-elliot smith-the killers-moby-miles davis-norah jones-aphex twin-animal collective-the panda bear-burial-modest mouse-the national-the cure-nirvana-pixies-porcupine tree-explosions in the sky-lsd soundsystem-metronomy-ladytron-daft punk-the white stripes-the organ-yeah yeah yeah-philip glass-kvita-mikael delta-and the list is really looong to stop here and in general chilled stuff good music of whatever genre exclusively in english though…


this brings me to what i really want to say now


when a film can cheer u up
these days i can’t stop listening to the soundtrack of the film juno
it’s so perfect i’d say
i strongly recommend it to anyone who just wants to have a break from real life and escape to a sweeter and nicer world where there is no such thing as adulthood
everyone has managed to maintain their freshness, originality, innocence and youth
spontaneity and kindness are the only motives that encourage people to act and react in daily situations
also the film is a pure delight to watch
if u haven’t watched it yet what are u waiting for??? go ahead

the script is perhaps the most winning factor in this film: packed with sharp, eclectic dialogue that fizzes with delight and provides an overdose of clever, quotable remarks (more than tarantino could even lay claim to)
it's fresh and intelligent, but the humour (this film is an absolute riot) never forgets the movie's subject matter and how deadly serious it can become
scenes of marital struggles particularly remind the viewer of the situation we're witnessing, and emotional impact is always present
the story can perhaps even be seen as a relevant one: an individual, free-thinking young woman still in high school becomes unexpectedly pregnant and after choosing to not abort the unborn infant, decides to give her baby to two adoptive parents who may not after all be ready for parenthood
individuality is the true triumph of this film

when scenes of the film pop into my head and i start listening to its songs like:
tree hugger,all i want is you,sea of love,anyone else but you and...
then my whole everything is getting illuminated
the universe seems a brighter place to live in
when am really stressed or nervous or depressed abt sth,
the perfect remedy is this film and its music
the other day i was getting horrified because of a really hard exam i was dying to pass (how stupid does this sound to you??), so i just listened to the tree hugger and immediately i was cured
juno is probably the best drug out there at the moment

pursue your individuality

u’re so nice and u’re so smart
u’re such a good friend i have to break your heart
i’ll tell u that i love u then i’ll tear your world apart
just pretend i didn’t tear your world apart

"he is the cheese to my macaroni" -juno

during exams

this is the first post of my blog
i want to dedicate it to all my friends who put up with me during this tough and really stressful period of time of mine
i just wanna say to anyone interested in reading my blog that it is about things i like
Cinema, Music, Art in general, my aspects in life and all small things that spring to mind any time
in general i d say my life has so far been stigmatized by a great amazing and so beautiful year in amsterdam where i had my erasmus experience which was full of creative and crazy and unbelievable moments
however i try to fill my life here in athens with tons of surrealism, positive energy and love
i intend to spend my time here with as much high spirit as possible
i m also referenced by some of my friends as a "preacher of love"




THINGS THAT I LOVE:
i love life, the world, cinema
i love my friends, my twin sister, my other sister-lol- and my parents of course
i love art and design
i love traveling across the universe
i love london, paris and berlin
i love amsterdam and the bikes and the parties there
i love modern food and clothes
i love japanese culture and korean people
i love taiwanese girls-the most beautiful girls in the world
i love dreaming and hoping every day for the best
i love the unknown coming to my life and changing everything
i love surprises
i love vanilla milkshake and sushi
i love french fries and broccoli as well
i love getting drunk with jagermeister and then throwing up and next day will be full of guilt abt it and embarassed for behaving insanely in front of my friends but i still love it and will do it again without any doubts
i love listening to interpol, sigur ros, the strokes, babyshambles, metronomy, radiohead and the beatles
i love the song promise by tracy chapman as the first time i listened to it i was in a place that am going to remember for the rest of my life with the best company of all
i love cynisism even though am so ridicoulously romantic and optimistic
i love improvisation, social constructivism and the infinite chaos of our world
i love tim burton and the melancholy death of oyster boy
i love graphic novels-the ones for adults
and mostly
i love to love