It's been a while ...

Couple of days ago I have heard, for the first time in a long time ( must be a year or two even) with a friend of mine, whom i first met in the "early period of my Internet existence", back in 97. In those days I was joining mailing list ( do you remember those, they were like today's forums or blogs) with all sorts of topic, ranging from WW2 and WW1 battleships, computers, java programming, graphic design etc...Many of those topics are no longer interesting for me, but one of those mailing list was, i can't remember the mailing list site, but the name of the list was Evolve-Create.it was for discussions about evolution or "divine" genesis of life.

Anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. I mentioned a friend - well i got to know her when i was a member of aforementioned list. Her name is Elisabeth Allen, and she's American from Zimbabwe. Or maybe i should say Zimbabwean (I'm not sure if i got the right name for the citizens of Zimbabwe), who currently lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA.
Elisabeth's not exactly my age - she's little younger than my Mom, but she's an exceptionally kind person who wanted to remain in touch (e-mails and letters) even during '99 bombardment of Serbia, and never was limited to the "CNN view" of my country and our situation at that time. During all that time we found out that we have lot of in common - my childhood was in a way marked with constant wars and she's, in a way, a refugee from Zimbabwe, cause she and her family left that country, not only because they were looking for better future in States but also because they wanted to escape the regime of Robert Mugabe.

Somehow, i guess when my system went down couple of years ago (thank you Mr Gates) I have lost her contact email and we haven't heard from each other ever since. But last week i got her email and it made me very happy. It's like finding something or someone even after you've given up all hope. Not much changed in her life, thankfully every one's is OK, as they can be. Main difference is that her son Brendan, who is 22 now have joined US Army and is now on tour of duty in Afghanistan. I guess it's stupid to compare them, but thank god, it wasn't Iraq. He's in US Air force, but not in flight units but as the Army engineer. Though it doesn't change much since afghan fighters don't really care which insignia a soldier wears.

That wouldn't be so special, especially to you, a blog reader who doesn't know my friend, but to me that last fact changes so much. Before that I wasn't much interested in US Army operations and in a way had little sympathy for their fights in Iraq,Afghanistan and other parts of Islamic world. From the start of post 9/11 operations I thought that they were just wasting time and money because the core of terrorism isn't a building or weapon, which US army can destroy or take away. Core of terrorism is an idea, I'm not sure which one, but if you don't fight it with another idea of same strength, you will never defeat it.

It has been 5 years since 9/11 and those two operations have achieved very little, so little that it's not hard to believe that their goals weren't simply democracies in Afghanistan or Iraq. Before i go too far, i just wanted to say that now I'm involved in those wars on personal level, at least partially. I only want my friend to have her son back in good health and one piece. I don't care who wins...

On the other subject, my life is ,these days, limited to the architecture studies (Master degree), graphic design freelancing and drawing in the free time. I don't really have much energy left, so i go out only twice a week. And it has been like that for almost a month. Somehow workload is always biggest in November. At least I'm doing the things I like but it's not a relief when it's 2 am and you still have two hours or work left and you should be back on your feets in 5 hours. Well at least I'm saving for a trip abroad. I'm hoping for 9 days visit to Amsterdam, but i'm not sure about that. But i certainly won't be staying home. Every change would be good.

Btw here are two more drawings, i've done in last couple of days.