My Photo
Name:
Location: Athens, Greece

A thing of beauty is a joy forever
Its loveliness increases
It will never pass into nothingness
But still will keep a bower quiet for us
And a sleep full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing
Endymion,J.Keats
End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back and all change to silver glass and then you see it.White shores and beyond. A far green country under a swift sunrise
Gandalf
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition
I.Asimov
Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos ancient and vast from which we spring
C. Sagan
'O me!O life! of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities filled with the foolish;what good amid these,O me,O life?
Answer.That you are here that life exists,and identity;that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.'
W.Whitman

Monday, November 28, 2005

So...very rarely do I get to realize the power that lies in the hands of the computer geeks (yeah I'm talking about me).

And pay attention now, not the computer people! Because, com'on every last secretary can call herself an Office Certified Expert (can I throw up now please??)

So, the geeks. More specifically though, the geeks with bastard inclinations. For us the computer world from the tiny cat-5 wire (ok not so tiny) to a cluster farm is the borders to our universe.

These days, where communication is everything, where the ability to communicate is built-in and a prerequisite for any imaginable device, now that whole new protocols are invented in order for communication between systems to be seemingly transparent, these days the computer people are like the old-time shamans.

I must confess, ever since I touched my first keyboard (I was 11) till now the same sense of excitement and joy is with me still. Computers, the Internet, the Net and the whole wired world are for me not just an add-on to my world, but a whole big part of it.

I guess maybe these sense of familiarity with any information-technology system, this excitement caused by proximity to any information-sensitive system is applicable only to us......geeks with bastard inclinations.

I had the chance today to come face to face again with the power of such knowledge and how information can be manipulated by people in such positions. A dangerous yet exhilarating feeling.

No matter how secure a system, how carefully planned a policy, there are always ways to enter the digital fortress......

God, I feel so wicked........:-)

Labels: ,

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Sometimes it's better to let others speak for you......I'm too tired to speak for myself now.....but I want to ....

"We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -Oscar Wilde

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."
-Sarah Williams (1837-1868)

"Yes, I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight,
and see the dawn before the rest of the world."
-Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

"The scientist does not study nature because it is useful; he studies it because he delights in it, and he delights in it because it is beautiful.
If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living."
-Jules Henri Poincare

"To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd
as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow."
-Metrodorus of Chios (4th century B.C.)

"Ye stars! Which are the poetry of heaven!"
-Lord Byron (1788-1824)

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here,
it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
- Douglas Adams

Labels: ,

Tuesday, November 22, 2005



Jack O'Neill (also known as RDA) ;)

"Old Minnesota wisdom: if you don't wanna be touched, look downright untouchable."

Labels: , ,

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Henry David Thoreau once said : " Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them"

Now why do so many people live lives of quiet desperation? I bet you can think of many reasons but not one in particular that would urge one to make such a statement.

And that's the tragic of it , cause if it was one big tremendous cause, the the desperation would not be quiet. It would be loud and apparent and we would all do something about it. (yes call me innocent but I still do have faith in humanity.....)

We live lives of quiet desperation, because of the heavy burden of expectations laid on our shoulders from the moment we are born, because for most of us in the western world our lives our supposed to follow a path. Go to school, be good students, go to university , get a good job as a lawyer or a doctor or something, have a couple of wild years and then settle down with a nice guy or girl, have kids, get that mortgage for a house, buy a nice family car etc etc. And then die.

I'm sure everyone knows what I mean.

Well.......that's where quiet desperation comes in. In all this apparently wonderful picture (yikes) there is no room for creativity, for exploration, for mistakes, for self realization, for finding out who are we, what are we doing here? For fuc...ng meaning!

A life without searching for meaning is a desperate life. A life without daring is a meaningless life. But the alternative is followed by criticism from anyone who inhabits our little everyday life. A life of daring, a life of denying cynicism, a life of love for the universe and humanity....well that is a daring life. And most of us do not dare to follow our dreams or our most crazy desires out of fear.

As Yoda said "Fear is the path to the Dark Side" (Please no Jedi jokes I'm serious):)

Fear leads to pain and suffering and despair.

Sure enough if you follow every crazy thought you have you're bound to make mistakes, be disappointed, be hurt and so much more. Is the alternative better? To settle in a life you hate, find someone people say is right for you, a good job 9 to 5.........My whole life I've been resisting this compromise, however as time passes it takes so much more energy and will to do so.

I reject living my life in quiet desperation! If I am to live in this world then I want to hurt as much as possible, experience the fullness of every feeling because, as a Samurai said when dying by the hand of an enemy : "I do not want an easy death. Kill me slowly and painfully so I remember what it felt like to be alive"

I'm not a mazochist, I don't like pain. I like happiness and laughter. However our lives are irreversably bound with pain.

So, do we risk our feelings, our mentality and our heart or do we follow the safe path? Sometimes the choice is difficult...and sometimes, trust me, the choice is so apparent , that even though you know you're going to hurt and maybe have your heart crushed, you know, you just know, you have to follow this road, because the alternative is unthinkable.

Sure, com'on and tell me that it is the advantage of prudent people to be able to overcome their passions and make the right choices.

Right choices? You really want to live your life only making right choices? And who on earth can tell me that my choices are not right? I'm true to myself , I do and say what I feel, and I'm proud of it. So if that is not a right choice, why should a life of lying to yourself and others be the right choice?

Society, prestige, social status, lies behind closed doors, years spent with someone you secretly despise.......well damn me if I live like that.

Maybe I can speak this way because, ultimately, I still feel so very young. I know so many others who at the same age are settled down, with a couple of kids, with all their wildest dreams locked in a closet, with that nice house and car.....and absolutelly no passion. No meaning. Living in quiet desperation. Never having allowed themselves to search for a better song to sing.

So.......in the time that is ahead of me now.....I know that the choices I have made and am going still to make are probably going to be considered by some as...well....crazy:)

But....I feel I have been given a gift, something I did not expect for some time now. Well.....I know that I will be called to the cashier, but hopefully the prize will not be devastating. However even if it is.....I'm ready to pay it. Cause what I get out of it....is well....my soul.

I know I do not believe in God, but....if there is a meaning out there......please give me the strength to follow my path because if you've been lonely all your life its easier to follow it , than experience the exhilarating feeling of not being lonely at last , and than loosing it, and being more lonely after that.

I can't wait for tomorrow.....and all the rest of tomorrows that come after it, because I'm looking forward to them, each one brings me closer to what I'm determined to do:-)

P.S. Wish list : Invent a teleporter........:)

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.


William Ernest Henley




Labels: ,

Wednesday, November 16, 2005


I am looking at a universe of endless possibilities, and the one I think of knows my thoughts.

Labels: ,

Tuesday, November 15, 2005


So, I love to travel, I've already stated that in a previous post, my dream is to see the world, learn some new things:)

However, I think that today I will write about my own country, Greece. There are many things I don't really appreciate about my country, but they all have to do with politics and economics and ...you know that sort of thing.

But today, this post is about what I love about Greece.

Where do I start?

Athens, the city I live in is the capital city of Greece.And the thousands of years of civilization have definitely left their marks. We actually live in the footprints of Aristotle and Plato and Socrates and Pericles and Hippocrates and Fidias and..so many others. We have the privilege of calling our land the birthplace of democracy.

We wake up in the morning and we're a glimpse away from the Acropolis, the sacred stone of Athens. Every summer we have the Athens Festival in the Ancient Theater of Herod Atticus and also in Epidauros. The place where the Greek tragedies by Aishilos, Sophoclis and Euripidis were performed.

Greece has been my home for 28 years, and even though things have definitely changed in the past there is still the famous Greek spirit, the spirit that makes us love to laugh and cry until our hearts burst, the spirit that makes us start singing all together just because.......the spirit that makes us fight (even at the last minute) for a cause that unites us, the spirit that makes us a bit lazy when it comes to the boring details but still first in line when it comes to innovation or creativity.

I love sunsets in Santorini, and summers well...all over our endless sandy beaches. I love Lakonia, a place in Peloponnisos, the place where my grandfather was from. I lost my grandfather when I was 17, old enough to remember him very clearly but not old enough to have said everything I now wish I had the chance to say.



My grandparents had a really adventurous and somewhat difficult life. They met and fell in love in Syros, an island where my grandmother lived with her family. She was an aristocrat and my grandfather was not, he was there serving the military. They fell in love but lost each other, my grandfather left. Later they met again in Athens where my grandmother, after a family tragedy had come to work. And upon starting their relationship the war took them apart again.

To make the long story short, they managed to survive 2 wars, be together for all their lives , have a wonderful child , my mother whom I love so very much, create a considerably admirable life and always be a role model in every aspect for me.

There are so many things I would like to tell them now. Grandpa I never got the chance to tell you how much I loved you, how much I appreciatted everything you did for me, how you were always the solid rock that my life was based on, how your quality and your mentality and your morality are for me the essence of who I am. So ......thanx.

Greece is for me my family. Everytime I go back to Lakonia I think I'm ......home. With my family.

Everyplace I go, a part of that sunny place , so tiny in the big world is in my heart and maybe a bit of that sun is in my eyes.

The whole planet is my home, our home, our heritage, that tiny blue dot, and Greece is ...well.......my heart:)

Labels: , ,

Monday, November 14, 2005


Gooooodmornin' campers!! ;)

(dedicated to SG1)

Labels: ,


A, those Sunday nights......always with a sense of melancholy, never quite a holiday;) Have you ever noticed that even though Sunday is not a working day you're never in such a good mood as on a Saturday? Well its always like that for me.

Anyway, I was thinking about love...yeah a strange topic to be thinking about right? Well what I was thinking about was the ideal love, the one we read about in Romeo and Juliet, the one we see in paintings and listen to in countless songs and works of art.

For who can listen to Puccini's Nessun Dorma and not feel the composer genius in every single note? Who can hear Violeta sing 'Amami Alfredo' in La Traviata and not have chills going through his spine? I was fortunate enough to see a modern version of the opera Romeo and Juliet in the Opera House in Vienna, Juliet was in tight leather pants and a corset and Romeo was every woman's fantasy, however what was amazing, what swept me off my feet was not the apparent sexuality but still the power of the music.

And as Barbra Streizant so eloquently put it in a movie I love 'The mirror has two faces', why do we still want, desire and ultimately fall in love when it is beyond any doubt that it is painful, possibly tragic, and most of the time will make our heart break in half?

Because it feel so fu*ng great! :)

Because every time you are in love the world becomes so much more colorful, everyday is like Xmas eve and because even the pain of missing the other person is so bitter-sweet that its like a drug, you keep asking for more. And because, lets face it, our lives are characterized by our loneliness. Human beings are lonely creatures, they try to go through life sharing some things along the way, but we come screaming into this world and leave it, screaming again because we don't want to let go.

I remember distintively the final scene in a movie , 'Meet Joe Black', where Death, played by Brad Pitt, has to say goodbye to life, a life he chose to experience in order to see what is that wonderful thing that all these people who die do not want to let go. So Joe Black (Death) is looking at the fireworks, for the birthday party of the man he has come to take with him (Anthony Hopkins), whose daughter he fell in love with.

"
: It's hard to let go isn't it?
:: Yes it is, Bill.
: Well that's life, what can I tell you. "

We never want to let go, thats the truth. But we are so lonely while we are here that love, the feeling of being in love, is so intoxicating because we feel that even if it is fo a little while, our loneliness is no more, we share our thoughts and feelings with another human being that we feel is so close to our souls, like the half we always expected to find.

Of course love is experienced according to one's spiritual and mental growth. The more evolved the individual the more intense the love experience will be. And of course add to that the bonus of sex and what you have is the good ol'recipe for harmless intoxication by endorfines.

I sound cynic right?

Well I' m not:) Besides chemistry and psychology, besides any scientific or other explanation we try to find, love is one of life's mysteries. We may try to understand it , or reason about it but its impossilbe.

Its grandure lies in the mystery of its nature, and as long as it lasts it does feel wonderfully , uniquely, tremendeously fuck*ng great!

Lucky are the ones who experience it, and when face with it one must not linger or fear. One must go for it cause even the pain is better than the alternative. You have to try. Because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived.


As Ted Arroway to Ellie (I always thought of Ellie as my alter ego) says in Contact :

"You’re an interesting species, an interesting mix.
You’re capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares.
You fell so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not.
See, in all our searching, the only thing we found that
makes the emptiness bearable is each other "


Ever since I saw and read Contact it was these words that always summarised
in the most
precice way my desire to Know :

Palmer Joss:
By doing this, you're willing to give your life, you're willing to die for it. Why?

Ellie Arroway:
For as long as I can remember, I've been searching for something, some
reason why we're here. What are we doing here? Who are we? If this is a
chance to find out even just a little part of that answer... I don't
know, I think it's worth a human life. Don't you?


Labels: , , ,

Thursday, November 10, 2005







So , today was a difficult day. I've been awake for 48 hours, due to a problem at work. As I've said before I'm a telecommunications analyst. At my company we have a VideoCall platform which last night decided that it was a good time to...well.....stop making video calls :) So of course my team was there until the problem was solved.

I came home a few hours ago, its 8:30 pm now here in Athens, and tried to sleep but no luck. I was of course tired but also tense so I decided to get back here:)

Lately I've been thinking of how the Internet ultimately defined my life up to now. I've been on line for 13 years. In that time I've made friends on line, have laughed and cried, have kept in touch with friends who were away, friends I had met on line, people I came to consider as friends even though we never met in person.

Once I even fell in love on line. But I was way to young then so it doesn't count;) (whenever I hear Mobby's Everloving however I remember that time, I've never encountered a more....well intimate way of anyone declaring their love but that email that I received with that song attached .......memories define who we are and I love mine)

And the truth is that now, after time has passed and I look back with a cool look on my face and a melancholy in my heart I realize that my life is so entirely tangled up with the Internet that it is almost as if a huge part of my world is in here.

Don't get me wrong I love to go out, and have fun with friends, and travel (most of all that - travel travel travel...and then some more). But when I'm on line...well I'm home.

Its like if the Internet brings all the people of this world in one big community, where no discrimination is acceptable , where of course there are bad things but so so many good things.

For example I've come to consider Simon Travaglia and his Bastard Operator from Hell a soul mate:) And how can my day begin without a walk around the usual neighborhood of friendly sites?

Every morning I say hello to so many of my friends through Icq and MSN, people that maybe I haven't seen for years, who are in different countries, continents even.

But it is through this marvelous network, this mean of free or almost free at least communication, the Internet that all this is possible. God, I love working in communications, of putting a small brick, but still a brick in this huge network that makes our world a small community.

It is I believe through the Internet that freedom is still possible. Because media can be governed by interests, governments can be bought, movies can be propaganda but TCP/IP will always be there, finding endless alternate routes to bring mine and your words to every mind and heart open to receive them.

Labels: , ,

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Ok....time to be honest:)




I have this.......thing......for MacGyver. You know, the tv series...well not just MacGyver, actually also the actor Richard Dean Anderson.

God, I love this guy I really do. The reasons are many, some of them being that for me MacGyver has been a constant lighthouse in life. Maybe this sounds a bit extreme or even too much but the truth is that in this day and age the qualities and the beliefs that Mac stands for are highly underestimated. Frowned upon even.

For who can take for serious a hero who hates guns, who believes that the core of humanity is goodness, that people are born explorers, that in this journey through life one is lucky to have a few friends to share the road, that there are things worth sacrificing for above the materialistic goals that our society has inflicted upon us, but also there are still things living for.

MacGyver was a guy who approached everything, every situation or person with such a positive approach, such a will to help (with no concern most of the time for himself). A guy so loyal to his friends who would literally jump in flames for them (many times he actually did). He even helped his enemies for crying out loud;)

As a scientist his eagerness to learn, his resourcefulness and his awe and admiration for the world, our universe was a constant inspiration for me. MacGyver really and truly loved this planet, our home and everything about it. And he made his love a constant way of life.

So one could say that how could such a seemingly perfect but still not real TV hero have had any impact on your life?

Ever since I remember myself, as a little girl, later a teenager, then a student etc all my actions, my decisions, the way I lived my life were always affected by Mac. I remember distinctively the first time I went on a journey (I love to travel) I kept thinking of what Mac said :

"Mostly I like to see how the world works. Meet people. Learn how they're different - and the same."

"Some people say that there are no more frontiers left for us to conquer. But then again, some people still go out into the wilderness in search of their dream."

The same sense of adventure and exploration, the need to see the world, learn some new things is with me still.

When I decided to change my course in college, chose Computer Science instead of Medicine I did it thinking :

"I took physics because it was interesting, and it excited me - not to buy myself a job."

Another important thing was his never ending hope. Hope for life. This kind of hope, not false one but the one that comes from a truly strong character who has retained the youthfulness of the child without the immaturity is unique.

"Another day, a whole 'nother set of fresh possibilities . . . I'm a sucker for mornings."

And about his open-minded approach to everything:

"Only a fool is sure of anything, a wise man keeps on guessing."

And about friendship:

"When I was a kid, my grandfather used to say to me that . . . a fellow's life wasn't worth mentioning if he hadn't shared it with some folks along the way."

And about personal freedom:

"Some people are scared of anybody who runs free."

And about honor and valour:

"Walk in love, walk in service, and you will walk in honor, my beloved son, Angus."

Here I go again, can't even write a decent piece about MacGyver without using his words. Goes to show about his influence on my way of thinking.

But also the actor, Richard Dean Anderson, who until recently was star and co-producer of Stargate SG1. Well, I think RDA was playing himself all along, in every episode or movie you could see the reality of the person he really is.

So, for RDA a big, HUGE thanks for always following his path and comforting me in my loneliness in following mine.

Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

There is a scene in The Lord of the Rings : The Two Towers.

Arwen, daughter of Elrond sees her future through the eyes and words of her father, should her choice be not to follow her elven-part in the Undying Lands, but to stay in Middle Earth with Aragorn, love of her long life.


Elrond:He is not coming back. Why do you linger here when there is no hope?
Arwen: There is still hope.

Elrond: If Aragorn survives this war, you will still be parted. If Sauron is defeated and Aragorn made king and all that you hope for comes true you will still have to taste the bitterness of mortality. Whether by the sword or the slow decay of time, Aragorn will die. And there will be no comfort for you, no comfort to ease the pain of his passing. He will come to death an image of the splendor of the kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world. But you, my daughter, you will linger on in darkness and in doubt as nightfall in winter that comes without a star. Here you will dwell bound to your grief under the fading trees until all the world is changed and the long years of your life are utterly spent.


Now this is a scene that has left its imprint on my soul forever. I remember sitting in the
Le Grand Rex theater in Paris (I was fortunate enough to be among those invited in the Movie Premiere and the reception but thats a story for another time). And since New Line was wise enough to provide us with handkerchiefs (weeping was anticipated) I managed to get through the 3-hour film without completely ruining my makeup.

However during that scene, hearing Elrond and seeing Arwen in all her sorrow and grief....I thought yes, this is truly Tolkien, pure and simple.

So thank you Peter Jackson and the rest of the cast and crew of the Lord of the Rings for a trully lifechanging creation......

In conclusion come the words of Aragorn :

Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! For all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!

Labels: , , ,

Friday, November 04, 2005

Why do all system upgrades have to be performed on a Friday afternoon? I mean really.......guys........can't it ever be scheduled for a freaking Tuesday?? Don't you have a life?

Anyway as you understand I have a systems upgrade on a Sun cluster due to start this afternoon at 6pm. What a great way to spend Friday evening....oh well..........

But still on the bright side (Scratching head)......I can't think of a bright side;-)

I have a picture in front of me from Zakinthos. I've never been there but the pic is just great and since no summer vacations were in the picture for me this year...I'm in a runnaway mood.


Everyday I wake up and I expect this day to be the one that changes my life.....and I don't mean to win the lottery not that I would mind but....I think of people like Watson and Crick , like Asimov or Einstein or ever Flemming or Armstrong.....and so many others...did they know that someday they would get to be the pioneers? That they would play such a great part in history, that they would contribute...did they feel it?

Never has a footprint been so famous!

God , I long for meaning in my life. Some say meaning comes from family or friends or going out or...blah blah........not meaning for me.....sure all that is important.......but not the actual core of life.

I want to get through the journey having understood a bit more.....but this is not so easy in our way of life. I lust for knowledge and understanding.

Being an agnostic religion is not a meaning in my life. If the universe had anything to do with a higher power that in my opinion was not what is shown through any human religion.

My religion if you can call it that lies in science, for it is only through science that I have ever had any religious experiences. Awe, admiration, meaning.......in the face of the 2nd law of thermodynamics or relativity or .....so many others.

To look upon the stars is to me as essential as breathing.......I remember the epigraph on a tombstone of two astronomers....'We have loved the stars too fondly to be afraid of the night"

Now that is a life......with meaning.

Labels: , ,

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Did I mention I'm a huge Sci-fi and movies fan? I also love the movies, they are to me magic come true, fantasy and the occult, physics and especially astrophysics, my favourite people are Carl Sagan and MacGyver and I also love poetry and literature, italian operas (I always cry with Nessun Dorma) and....more:-)

Here are some quotes I always always use as signatures ;-)

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to turn you into everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

"So, correct me if I am wrong" said the student to the professor who had just explained the origins of the Universe, and the Big Bang theory, "First there was nothing, and then, it exploded... "

"Reality.sys corrupted, reboot universe?"

"Well, they didn't call them the Dark Ages because it was dark."
Daniel Jackson of Stargate SG1

Labels:

So now that I'm over the first post:-)


This is picture of one of my favourite people:-) My dog dusty, a german shepherd, 3 years old and an absolute darling!


And following 2 of my favorite places in the world...yes I love to travel......Florence and Prague :-)





Labels: , , ,

What to write on a first post?

Ok, so this is my first post.......maybe I should introduce myself to the world?

My name is Tatiana and I'm a software and systems analyst, specific field is Telecomms (yeah I know sounds boring but its not...at least for me) ;)

I'm ....oh well you better look at the picture for more details (look at the top of the page...duh!)

Anyway, I often thought of starting a blog, but failed to do so until today...the reason was that I could not get myself to accept that private matters are there for everyone to view. Sure enough you don't have to write everything to your blog, but then why have it in the first place?

It was only when I remembered a somewhat cheesy :-) line from a movie that I decided to go ahead. I cannot remember exactly what it said but the point was that our lives are perceived by those who witness them. Our family, our friends, the people we hold close.....they are witnesses to our life, to our existence. Well..........I want to leave just a small footprint of my life in this digital community, so that others can witness my existence as I do theirs.

So.......in conclusion......hello.................:-)

Labels: