Click a tree

Haven't you heard about the initiative Click a tree which was initiated at the European Commission's proposal?

Click a tree is an European level campaign which wants to raise awareness upon the climate change. This campaing offers to everyone of us the chance to make a change and to get involved.

So click this web adress http://clickatree.europa.eu/click-a-tree-initiative.html and you will take part in helping the climate.

Do you think it's complicated? Nope, you just have to sign up and in at least 1 month you will receive at home a little tree which you have to plant. Then upload your photo with the tree and people will vote for the best photo.

So get started!

By the way I've already planted my tree. If you think that my photo is nice vote for me by clicking on my photo http://clickatree.europa.eu/see-your-trees/map-of-trees.html My id is icleanuraluca and the tree is near Bucharest! You have to register first...it takes only 1 minute!

Let's plant a lot of trees!!

..for young people...

I was thinking today that there are so many opportunities for youngsters and they are really not aware of them. Why it's that? Are we so poor when we talk about disseminating information? Are Romanians so bad at PR? I really don't know what is the reason for this but I can say that we have to take measures to prevent this poor knowledge and involvement of young people in projects.
Some small steps are being taken by different blogs like http://vivacitas-youth.blogspot.com This blog tries to inform teenagers about different projects that occur and at which they can participate and gain not only financial rewards (some of them) but also personal satisfaction.
I think that teenagers should open their eyes and look after things that can really help them develop instead of playing games, looking at photos, listening to music etc. There are so many opportunities out there...you just have to know how to look for them!
If you are not good at it...try to find websites and blogs like Vivacitas youth group that do it for you...you just have to read and take the decision to be involved!

So my advice for today is to get involved in many projects as you can...you never know..

What do you think about donating blood?

I am very happy to see that in Romania there are some campaigns that are trying to raise awareness among people about the low amount of blood in hospitals. But are Romanians ready to give their blood away?

If you had asked me this yesterday, I would have said..no they are not.
But after yesterday night, after seeing the results of a previous campaign I was astonished to see that maybe we know how to help each other. The association REACT raised the amount of blood for 70000 people. Almost 15 000 people donated..

I think that this is an extraordinary project from which we can learn so much. I uploaded the commercial of the campaign down on the page at the section: the commercial of the day.

This project was awarded among many others for its commitment towards society and its citizens at the event Gala Societatii Civile- the Gala of the Civil Society. A unique event that offers visibility to NGOs’ projects and awards them symbolically for their involvement in the civil society. More information about the gala @ www.galasocietatiicivile.ro

I will like also to say congratulations to all the team from Millennium Communications that made a wonderful job by organizing this event and thanks to Laura Banica for inviting me to take part in it.

Coming back to our need for blood..(we are not vampires..even if we are Romanians) there is a new campaign called “Doneaza sange. Fii erou”- Donate blood. Be a hero. It takes place between 18-22 of May..so tomorrow is the last day so you should hurry. More information about it in Romanian@ http://ralucaicleanu.blog.com .

If you want to donate blood you should know that there are many rules concerning the donor. Whether you can give blood or not, you can see here by answering a few questions: http://www.blood.co.uk/pages/flash_questions.html

So I think that donating blood is one of the best actions because you can help a lot of people. But we should all participate..not only 15000...but all 21 million people from Romania. This way I think we can save other millions... So let’s give a part of us to somebody that really needs it!

How much sleep is enough?

I chose this topic because I enjoy sleeping...a lot. And I see that others can do well with just few hours on their back...so a question popped up: how much sleep is it needed for our body?

The following table will show us the necessary number of hours to be slept in order to function well the next day.

Age and condition	Average amount of sleep per day
Newborn	up to 18 hours
1–12 months	14–18 hours
1–3 years	12–15 hours
3–5 years	11–13 hours
5–12 years	9–11 hours
Adolescents	9–10 hours
Adults, including elderly	7–8 (+) hours
Pregnant women	8 (+) hours

It is said that less than 7 hours and more than 11 hours is not good for our health:

Researchers from the University of Warwick and University College London have found that lack of sleep can more than double the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, but that too much sleep can also double the risk of death. Professor Francesco Cappuccio said, "Short sleep has been shown to be a risk factor for weight gain, hypertension, and Type 2 diabetes, sometimes leading to mortality; but in contrast to the short sleep-mortality association, it appears that no potential mechanisms by which long sleep could be associated with increased mortality have yet been investigated. Some candidate causes for this include depression, low socioeconomic status, and cancer-related fatigue. …In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around seven hours per night is optimal for health, and a sustained reduction may predispose to ill health." From Wikipedia.

I think that we should definitely sleep around 8 or 9 hours per night in order for our body to restore its energy levels.

A good night's sleep is often the best way to help you cope with stress, solve problems, or recover from illness. Sleep is prompted by natural cycles of activity in the brain and consists of two basic states: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep, which consists of 4 stages.

To read more about the stages of sleeping click here: http://www.revolutionhealth.com/conditions/sleep/sleep-basics/what-happens/index

But not only is the quantity of hours important but also the quality of it. More information about our sleeping you can see in this video: http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/271.3/popup/index.php?cl=2108703&t=em&sid=0

After reading this stuff and seeing the importance of sleeping I’ll think twice when I want to say no to sleep and yes to studying or working. I think that life and health are more important than anything..be that work. So we should leave our problems at our bedroom‘s door and have a good and long enough sleep.

Eurovision- European contest

At the 54th edition of the Eurovision, 42 countries sent their participants to amaze the citizens of Europe with their great songs. What is the point of this contest? Is it an undercover battle between countries? Is it a way to unite us being a part of something that it’s called Europe? Is it just a song contest?

I think it is a little bit of all...but at the end the song that wins is the one who conquered all Europe. I like this battle between countries using music..lyrics..emotions. It’s a pity that the song that wins isn’t the best one...is just the one which has more friends :) But at the end, it doesn’t matter which wins, matters the struggling of all participants to do their best and the interest of all European citizens upon this contest.
More information about Eurovision you can find on the official site: www.eurovision.tv .

I was thinking “why not doing it at an International level?”. All the countries from the entire world gather to sing and enjoy. It’s bad that it is so competitive...it should be less competitive and more like a global peace statement.

Romania is represented by Elena Gheorghe with the song The Balkan girls. You can listen to it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSLBjcooWCg

You can take a look on all the songs that will participate tonight in the first semi-final:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWOqQJYmh9o

I like the Turkish one ;) hihihi

Let’s sing and dance with all the participants and vote for the one you like!

Yes or No for fast-food restaurants?

I don’t know how I stand when we talk about fast-food restaurants..I can’t condemn them nor approve of them.
Everybody is eating from fast-food even if we all know that the food is not good for our health. But some of us are hiding the fact that we are going to fast food places and say that we don’t.

Do fast food restaurant have a bad image? I think that lately in Romania, people started to be aware of their health and there is a trend here to check the ingredients and to choose a healthier product. We can not name them healthy products because nowadays nothing is natural..healthy:)

But in the way of a healthy life style, stands a piece of paper (or plastic in Romania :) ) called money. Not so many people afford buying eco products and we still don’t have an ecological thinking and behaviour. We are searching for cheaper products....and by cheap we understand also not healthy. So the balance between health and money is leaning towards money in our society, at least for now. So I think that Romanians are looking for cheap stuff, more now during the recession. Fast food restaurants like McDonald’s and KFC have a bad image because fast food means a lot of calories, weight problems, heart diseases etc. But nevertheless they are full all the time....people are aware of these things but they still want to have cheap meals and socialize in the same time.

In Romania, the most visited ones are the two restaurants mentioned earlier. It seems somehow that KFC is chosen for the chicken wings and crispy stripes- thought to be actually meat not as in McDonald’s where we have mincemeat-. I think that’s why KFC is more crowded sometimes. But in the same time McDonald’s is preferred because of its hamburgers, menus and shakes.

Their image is not so bad as in other countries. I had the chance to visit one McDonald’s from Denmark and the disappointment was big. All the fast food restaurants there are completely dirty. You can’t stay there because of the greasy stuff on tables, chairs and floor. The fast food restaurants are considered to be cheap so only poor people go there. The same image they have in Greece, USA and more others. But in Romania is not like that. It’s a place where especially youngsters gather and chat..have a snack.

I think the fast food is good, cheap and not healthy. I approve of them because the food is quickly cooked, it is cheap, tasty and..how can u say no to a Big Mac or Crispy stripes?! Sometimes we need this unhealthy food to remind us of living and not care about so many things that burden us.

But in the same time I think is not good because we can have serious health problems. The restaurants avoid saying the ingredients of their products. And I am wondering why? Everybody knows that they are full of shit..let’s be honest and tell the truth. If you think about Big Mac, how many ingredients do u think it has? Mincemeat, tomatoes, pickles, bread, mayonnaise, lettuce, onion..hm like 7..? But, in fact, it has only 67 ingredients. What do you think about this? Do we know the ingredients? No and actually I don’t think that we will understand them because of their scientific names as xanthan gum, monosodium glutamate and so on.

If you want to read more about the most used 10 ingredients in fast-food please click here: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/10-ingredients-fast-food.htm .
Not only fast food have these ingredients, also salami and other “mezeluri”- meat products have them. And we are still eating them. I think that they should be more opened about it because we will still go and eat a hamburger.

So do I say yes or no to them?
I say both: let’s go there but not all the time, just once a month or something. I think that eating so rare we will not have severe health problems. But we should pay attention to what we are eating. Not only fast food is unhealthy. Thinking about eating “mici” (like meatballs), drinking Coke, colored sweets etc..these are the enemies because they are a part of our life and we eat them all the time.

Stay healthy! Eat products with fewer chemicals in them!

P.S. Tell me are u against fast food or not? Tell me why...(I will also make a poll).

Happy Birthday Europe!

Today we are celebrating Europe and all its values. A lot of us don’t know exactly what happened in this day, so some info from the official site of EU:

On the 9th of May 1950, Robert Schuman presented his proposal on the creation of an organised Europe, indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations.
This proposal, known as the "Schuman declaration", is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
Today, the 9th of May has become a European symbol (Europe Day) which, along with the flag, the anthem, the motto and the single currency (the euro), identifies the political entity of the European Union. Europe Day is the occasion for activities and festivities that bring Europe closer to its citizens and peoples of the Union closer to one another.

More information about the Schuman Declaration from 9th of May 1950 you can find it here: http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/9-may/decl_en.htm .

I think that this day should be celebrated together as a big family. Every country should prepare an event based on a European Union value. In this way, the countries from EU will be celebrating Europe in the same way emphasizing on a European value expressed in an original point of view of each culture. In this celebration, I would also invite Turkey, Republic of Macedonia, Croatia, Switzerland, Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland.

In Bucharest, you can celebrate this day:
- By going to the festival of the European films (http://www.festivalulfilmuluieuropean.ro/ );
- By visiting the art gallery “Europa in oglinda cartografiei”- Europe facing its maps- that is taking place at the Museum of Cotroceni (from 9th till 30th of may);
- By partying at EuropaFest that will take place at Hard Rock Cafe starting from 20.30;
- By going at the Arch of Triumph at 15.30 to see the fanfare of the Romanian military service;
- The Arch of Triumph it is open today and you can visit it, there will be an exhibition of weapons;
- Other museum are opened, one of them is the Military museum where you can see military uniforms from 19th century.

So, if u are not into this kind of shit :P, you can still party in order to enjoy this wonderful sunny day!

What does it mean to be a volunteer?

Many of us don’t fully understand the idea of volunteering. Many think that to be a volunteer means to work without being paid or to waste your time helping others than yourself. This is what, nowadays, Romanians think about it. I am trying to change that perception and to make them understand that to be a volunteer means so much to themselves and to their society.

To be a volunteer has only advantages: to get involved in different activities that can keep you active and not be so connected to your daily job; doing something new and creative that can help you gather more information, enlarge your knowledge, taking on new skills; meeting new people, making friends and developing your networking; changing the scenery..not only work and home; participating at events that can improve your life style and changing your way of thinking: become open-minded, a sociable and caring person, develop empathy. You can be proud of yourself that you helped someone, you made a change in someone’s life.
Besides all these, you are helping the society to get more involved in civic matters.
European Volunteer Centre on http://www.cev.be/56-why_volunteering_matters!_56-EN.html is explaining exactly what volunteering means and why we all should do that as a European citizen.
I will show you just one paragraph from there: "Volunteering is an significant economic factor. The voluntary sector contributes an estimated 5% to the GDP of our national economies (according to a recent Johns Hopkins University Study) and many voluntary sector organisations depend heavily on the work of volunteers to carry out their activities”.

You can also work as a volunteer for a lot of international organisations like UNICEF, Youth Action for Peace, Service Civil International..all the list with the organisations you can find it here: http://www.cev.be/108-international_volunteer_opportunities-EN.html.
European Volunteer Oportunities: http://www.cev.be/105-european_volunteer_opportunities-EN.html; And for the ones who are internet addicted: online volunteering: http://www.cev.be/104-online_volunteering-EN.html .

In Romania all the organisations need your help. One in particular is IHTIS Independent life- association who helps youngsters with disabilities have a normal life. IHTIS wants your support in building a medical centre. Their new campaign is called: “350.000Euro= Solidaritatea a 350.000 de oameni”- The solidarity of 350.000 people.
You can help them raise this money if you make a donation of only 1 Euro in the following bank accounts of BCR- Dorohoi agency (fiscal code: 16690411).
RO14RNCB0044002865610001- for Romanian lei
RO84RNCB0044002865610002- for Euros
RO57RNCB0044002855610003- for Dollars.
If you don’t donate, you can become a volunteer and help them raise this money. You can start now by disseminating this information. See? It is so easy..
I think that everybody should be, once in their lifetime, a volunteer..so what are you waiting for??