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#atatsaputut: As busy as one gets, occasionally there is the old "something wrong on the internets" feeling, and that was triggered by this Deutsche Welle free documentary about Romanian Roma kids begging on the streets of Paris as well as in the Parisian Metro (subway / tube) and how the French and Romanian authorities are dealing with it. Ca de obicei, versiunea in romana a acestui articol pe FataCarte.

It's not a lot, but “atat s-a putut”.

Now that the European results are known and Euroscepticism discussed, after a short detour through Canadian visas for Romanians, we will finally take a look at the Romanian politics.

Today I met another European woman. Originally from Spain, she told me she worked in the Czech Republic for a while as a translator. Upon learning I'm Romanian, she also felt the need to share with me that there were "a lot of Romanians" in the Czech Republic who wanted to come to Canada but couldn't, because there is no visa treaty. When I told her that there were some problems here with Czech Roma getting visa through fraud and the visa had been suspended, her reaction was to remove her Czech work experience from her resume, out of fear that “Czechs now had a bad name.”

The ink on the Romanistan series (I, II, III) had yet to dry when news that the Russians are blaming Roma migration on Romania has, verisimilarly, sprung up from Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Ioan Pop, the priest with the All Saints Romanian Orthodox Church was just charged with sexual assault at church. Apparently, a woman barely escaped only after a couple walked in on what was going on.

Recently, a friend asked me to provide Romanian lessons. I directed her to Duolingo (invite) and, as I occasionally listen to Romanian eTeatru (or “teatru radiofonic”), it occurred to me that this is something worth sharing with the rest of the world.

Recently, on tumblr, FuckYeahEasternEurope asked me to explain my remark that the name "Romania" is relatively recent. I don't have much time for documentation, so this post will mostly be a braindump. Which, of course, does not mean that corrections and constructive criticism are not welcome.

Though it may be unfair to extend the failure of the Romanian National Press Agency (Agerpres) and the Romanian External Affairs Ministry to an entire nation, let us not forget that part of their job is to represent the country. The recent faux-pas, confusing the French contours with the German one in a one-print commemorative brochure is, unfortunately, indicative of the dilettantism that has taken over the Romanian government.

I’m not a nationalist and though I wish my Romanian friends “La Multi Ani” for our national holiday, a small part of me is uneasy, because nationalism means association with people who share your ethnic background, some good, some bad, but in our case (and, of course, excepting those I know personally), mostly bad.

I am repeatedly getting inquiries from people who are upset that this blog isn't solely about Zamolxis, as its name might suggest to them. This shouldn't be difficult.

Only recently have I discovered the "Superscrieri Prizes" and I thought I share it with you – it’s quite interesting.

Finland, the country who is light years ahead of Romania in education, is moving away from structured learning and a Romanian Senator opines that it's BS, which, in our view, makes him a 'zambaccian' or a person who is incapable to understand his mistakes, nevermind assume them, a person whose mindset prevents them from accepting new, revolutionary ideas.

We finally get to present and hopefully elucidate our argument.

While writing about Jihadi Jay Abdo, I had started writing about foreigners who study in Romania and half-way through I realized that this deserves a separate article. I had previously assumed (nature) that the Romanian prime-minister’s (Ponta) many scandals, some centered around his plagiarizing of his doctoral thesis will taint Romanian education and significantly decrease its appeal. Further investigation revealed that many are still interested, although it is hard to determine to what extent the scandals have caused the Romanian tuition fees to be the lowest in Europe, or that is due to other market forces. As usual, the links are listed at the end.

A recent “viral” video clip shows the Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, moving the Union Jack (the UK flag), out of the way as he talks to reporters. This act of “elimination” is probably the least interesting of the ones discussed herein.

Not brown as a result of my trip to Cuba, but rather as a state of mind.

I have two votes coming up - one for Toronto, Canada (Oct 27), two for Romania (Nov 2, 16). And as usual, I will make a serious effort to vote - I won't wait in line 10 hours, for instance, but I will give it a couple of hours of my time. I thought I go through the possible candidates for election and why I (mostly) won't vote for them.

I happened to be in the area so I decided to pay the consulate a visit, not expecting to be able to vote, but hoping to learn more info about my programmed visit for my passport renewal. I didn't waste a lot of time, but in typical Romanian fashion, someone managed to use my time with info that is likely useless.

Although I have written briefly about progressive rock, I shied away thus far from Romanian progressive rock. That's rather odd, considering that the apogee of that genre in Romania is universally considered to be the eponymous Zalmoxe by Sfinx, released (more like “censored”) in 1978.

@Simona_Halep’s win is an amazing victory and an event we’ll be remembering and talking about at least until her next Grand Slam.  Sadly, it was only hours before all those hungry to for publicity started to throw shade, claim ownership and speculate it for their own nefarious ends.