Iuliana Cosmina

I would love to say that I’m back, that will write more often from now on. The truth is that I really don’t know. I do not have much to write about these days, I seldom left my small home office for months now. Well, except from going to work and doing groceries that is.

I’ve been working like crazy to finish my new Spring book, before going on vacation and I cannot believe it that today It was the day when I submitted the last chapter. Of course some reviews will be necessary, because well… my English grammar might not be that good. And considering that the release date is 6 months away, a lot might change until then. Java 9 might get released and Spring 5 might release the Java 9 compatible version. Truth is, only time will tell. What I can tell you for now is that I’m done for the next month or so with sleepless nights. I’m done with the stress of getting it done, I’m done with the thinking of how things could be re-arranged, how concepts could be explained better. I’m done.

And as usual, when this happens, I mean, I’ve been here two times before, there combination of bitterness of things that I will not get to do anymore, like stress on a damn implementation that does not work as advertised and I need to figure out why and the anticipation for things that I have the time to do now.

After my vacation I will start my guitar lessons. Or piano. I’m not sure yet. I will learn Kotlin. I will deep dive into Thymeleaf. I will start working on that application idea that has been bugging me for a while. I will sleep more. I will exercise more. I will go out more. I will play more.(because I really miss Heroes 3)

Who knows? Only time can tell.

While I was in Frankfurt a lot of things happened, a lot of things got done, a lot of them got postponed, but overall it was a good experience. But there is one thing that is really worth mentioning. While I was here, after a difficult day in which I had to do some serious negotiations for deadlines, after having a colleague shout at me during a public meeting because he misunderstood me and another basically telling me that I’m a bad manager, again in public, because this is where things like these are done apparently, all I wanted was to have a nice bike ride and then enjoy some blueberries from the local supermarket.

So I and a colleague of mine, take our bikes and go to the supermarket. We park the bikes and go in. The first thing that caught my eye was a guy dressed in dark with a hoodie and his face covered taking money from one of the counters. He did not belong, his outfit was definitely not the store uniform, the store that I’ve been going to for past two years while being delegated to Frankfurt. And then I noticed why nobody was trying to stop him, he had a huge butcher knife in his hand. And in that store there were about 6 employees, including security that were paralyzed with fear and some clients hidden in the store. I was so confused, he was one guy, with one knife, and a lot of people, and nobody was doing anything.

I scanned my surroundings fast to check what I could do. I’m quite small and he had a knife. I needed to throw something at him to make him drop the knife. But I’m not a good thrower either, so I needed something big and heavy if possible. Next to the shop door, where I was, there were some bags of flower compost. I just took one, threw it at him. He did not drop the knife, so I ran and in my way I was looking for anything else I could throw at him. Luckily he was scared of the unexpected interruption and he ran as well.

I did not want tot be praised for my actions, but I did not expect people to try to make me feel sorry about it either. Because a few people told me that I should not have done that, because it was not my money so I shouldn’t care. Why put myself in danger for no reason, right?

Well, it’s not right! Maybe I’ve seen to many superheroes movies, maybe my difficult upbringing left me with a superhero complex, but when I see somebody trying to scare or hurt other people I just can’t do nothing. Why? Because if actions like these are tolerated, bad people will draw the conclusion that hurting others is acceptable and normal, and they will keep doing it. And this kind of behavior might even propagate. What if that guys was not there to rob the store, but was there to hurt someone? What if that someone was your partner or your child? Wouldn’t you want for somebody to interfere?

I do not want to live in a world where evil doings are tolerated. I do not want to live in a world where if I’m in danger, nobody will interfere. Also I do not want to have kids in a world where they could get hurt and nobody would try to protect or save them, even if we all know this is the right thing to do. We keep saying that we are civilized, that we live in communities. Communities come together, help and defend themselves. Not interfering when bad things are done is the opposite of what community actually means.

Sure, it was dangerous. Sure, he could have hurt me. But he didn’t, but instead he got the message, there are people that do not tolerate this kind of behavior and are willing to do something about it. And next time, maybe something heavier than a compost bag will be thrown at him. This never happened to me before. Honestly, walking in on a robbery was stuff of movies for me until a week ago. Next time I’ll be more prepared. :D

After he left, the supermarket just continued to sell stuff as if nothing happened. And you want to know the worst thing? No bloody blueberries…