E194 Cătălina Tartan

Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives, and emotions about this world. In these difficult times in human history, we need to bring the people of the world together. And when we hear the voices of women, when we listen to real lives of women from other countries, we connect our cultures without differences or stereotypes, and we get inspired by their stories to live a better life. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Catalina Tartan. Catalina was born in the Republic of Moldova, but has been living in Romania for seven years. Catalina is finishing her studies at the National College in Iasi. She has several hobbies. Most of them are associated with art. She is also fascinated with the legal field and wants to be active within it in her future and to become a judge. Catalina participated in history competitions, including at the national level because it is one of her passions. Another passion is volunteering activities. Her preferred are social volunteering and festival organization. In 2019, Catalina went to the Spanish national competition because it is one of her favorite foreign languages. In total, she speaks five languages, Romanian, Russian, French, English, and Spanish. Catalina, how are you today? Hello, Aziz. I'm fine. Thank you. It's a pretty nice day today, so I have a good disposition and I want to talk a lot and to speak about my experience, my life, and my hobbies and all of that. Oh, I am ready. We will have a lot of fun. I'm happy that you're in a disposition to talk. And therefore, let's begin with this nice simple question just to explore even more about you, which is, if your friends, the people who know you best and love you most could describe your personality, what would they say about you? My friends will describe me in different words. They will say that I'm clever, I'm funny, I like to make a lot of jokes. Maybe some of them are not the best, but I try to improve myself. And I don't know, I'm a person that likes to be near them and to help them when they need it and to support them. Because I think in this time, supportive people are not so many of them. So that's why I'm trying to do my best in this part. I like that and I believe the same. I remember some years ago, I heard someone who said, if you believe there are no good people left in the world, be the final and last good person left in the world. And therefore, it's leading by being that person, which is actually very hopeful, very positive. And it makes me think in this way, are you someone who's kind and helpful because it inspires you so that if you have hard times, you think, well, I have helped people, I have been useful to them, so I'm sure some miracle will come and a person will help me in these difficult times and therefore, it motivates you, it allows you to have less negativity. Therefore, are you a person who, for example, is a people pleaser and an empath where when you are the reason other people have a good time or are happy, it fills you with happy energy and joy and excitement because their joy gives you even more happiness? I think I'm more about that. Yes, there are a lot of people that say that there is no good persons in this world. And so that's why I'm trying to demonstrate that it is not true. There are still a lot of good and amazing people in this world that wants to help. So I want to be one of that good persons. I want to help everyone, to be near them. And I think that if everyone will try just a little bit to make good things, our world will be a more beautiful and safer place for everyone. So that's why I want to do good things and I'm really trying to do it. I like that. And it makes me curious. This attitude, how is it related, for example, to your love for art and your hobbies related to art? Is it a manifestation of this mindset somehow or is it unrelated? I think art is a manifestation of good things in general because art teaches us to see beautiful things even in unpleasant things and pictures. For example, let's say the art from symbolism or modernism or one of my favorites that is Pablo Picasso in Cubism, he brings things that maybe are not in someone's mind, they are not so beautiful, but he makes them to look very interesting and make them really feel like very beautiful. So I think in general that art makes us be better and to love everything around us, our mother nature in general and everything that is around us. Thank you. And I want to focus even more on this. Maybe you answered it a little bit earlier, but I want more so that I can truly understand you. It seems to me that the emotions of other people, how you make them feel, whether making them feel beautiful or happy or helping them is important to you. You said, yes, it's part of being one of the last good people in the world. But even more than that, why are the emotions of other people important to you? Are you someone who is very sensitive? You can feel everybody's emotion and therefore you want to fight that negativity? Or are you a spiritual girl and you feel and believe you have to fight the evil of negativity and share more light and positivity? Or is it simply for you because you believe, like you spoke about your love for the legal field and wanting to be a judge, that you feel it's justice, that good things should happen to good people and therefore you're being a judge by helping others volunteering and creating art? Or what is it all about? Speaking about the emotions of others, yes, I'm a sensitive one and at the same time I'm a spiritual one, sensitive because if someone is sad or upset about something, I cannot just sit there and look at them and say and do nothing. So that's why in general I'm trying to help them with these negative emotions and spiritual because I really fight with this. I want to do a work in general to become a better place. So that's why I want to become a judge, to make this work a better place, a safer place for everyone and to demonstrate that to good people, good things will happen. I love that. That's absolutely wonderful. But I'm curious also, I'm a bit worried about you, but curious as someone entering the legal field and the legal field has a lot of power, so it attracts good people, but it also attracts narcissists and psychopaths and sociopaths who go there because they want power, maybe they want to manipulate the legal system. So as a girl who can feel a lot of emotions, how do you plan to or how do you imagine you will deal with so many people who can become successful in the legal field, maybe lawyers who try to manipulate the system or people who are corrupt or just the victims seeing them every day or the criminals and maybe they are evil and you can feel their dark energy and therefore it seems to be like an intense experience that could be overwhelming for a sensitive girl. How do you plan to deal with that? Is there a side of you that can handle that? How do you know? Please share more. Yes, I'm a sensitive person, but I'm also a fighter and I want to manage all these bad things. Yes, there are a lot of persons that want to go to this legal part to become judges or lawyers for them narcissist opinion or all that, but I think maybe they will get out of it like once or twice, but one time they will get caught on it, so they will not escape the judge part. I believe in the life is a boomerang, so if you do good things, good things will happen to you. If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you. So that's why I'm going to do this and I want to do this. Thank you. And to describe even more and to understand you, how is nowadays a typical day in your life? How do you keep yourself feeling alive, recharge your creative energy while studying at the same time, having the pressure of exams and all that? What's a typical day for you that keeps you both productive, protects your mental health and expresses your soul and your energy? In general, I wake up pretty early in the morning. I don't know why, but I'm an early person. I make my breakfast all this and after that I go to school and that's my important thing because at school we are in connection with a lot of people there and there are a lot of beautiful things in them. I think that in each person we have a good side and maybe also a bad side, but everyone has something good in his or her. So I go to school, I communicate with my colleagues, my friends. After that I come home and do my homework. For the creativity part, I like to draw or I don't know, especially I like to read. I think that helps me to stay creative and to have a richer imagination. And when it's late, I stay just with my family and spend time with them because for me, my family is the best part of this life and they're the best persons in my life that helps me a lot and keep me connected to beautiful things. Thank you. I love your sensitivity, your approach to the world and to life. And to understand even more, I heard from people in Romania that Iasi is a very beautiful place that people there are very smart. They even have their own personality, culture and attitude. You as someone who moved from Moldova to Romania, did you notice any small or big differences in culture, in people between Moldova and Romania, although many speak the same language? And specifically in Iasi, how is it, how are the people? And maybe if you remember, how are they similar or different to people in Moldova? In general, speaking about it, people in Romania and Moldova are pretty close the same. The only thing is that in Moldova, they're more like a wide-drawn and in Romania, the people are more open-minded and in general, open for others. We have like here in Romania, we have, especially in Iasi, Iasi is a university town. So here we have a lot of people from Romania, of course, and from other nations. Yes, we have here even French people that are studying medicine, I don't know, also Turkish people, a lot of people from the Republic of Moldova that are here to study. So somehow in Romanian, we're more open-minded to other nations and all this, because from we are getting used to it. But in general, they are the same, the people, we speak the same languages, the language, the traditions are the same, the food, of course. So it's not a big, big difference between them. Thank you. That sounds like people should visit Iasi and as a girl who loves languages, who speaks five languages, who can interact or see around people from many cultures in your university town place where you live, is there a place in the world that would be your dream location that represents your personality and you would love to live in it for a long time or to explore maybe Bali, to be near the beach and the ocean and to think and to help the people there or South America or France, Paris or in Spain on the beach or Latin America and with Spanish as well or is it Moldova and Romania? What are parts of the world or a place in the world that you feel your soul feels like it would belong that would represent and express who you are and why? I really like my native town Soroca in the Republic of Moldova and I love a lot to live in Romania. One of my dream places that will be, it's Spain because since I discovered this culture, the language of this, it seems so interesting to me and it attracted me so much and I'm like okay I want to go there, I want to visit Spain, to know more about the people that are there. In general I like the typical food from there so I think yes Spain will be one of my dream places that I would like to visit, maybe to live. Thank you. But it's almost known that Spanish girls, they are super open, they love drama, they're expressive of their emotions. Are you a girl who is like that, who is kind of Moldovan girl with Latina vibes or do you wish to be even more open and that's why they inspire you or maybe you love telenovelas and the TV series or is it more about the art and maybe Salvadore Dali and you spoke about Picasso before or tell me even more because I would like to understand your own unique perspective on the Spanish culture that interests you and attracts you that much beyond just the food, the weather and the melodic sound of the language. In general I like the Latina vibes, I don't know if I have it in my veins like saying about it but in general however is pretty fine there and especially how you say I like the arts so that's why I would love to be there and to watch all this masterpieces yes masterpieces I would like to watch them with my eyes and how you say the yes I like Pablo Picasso, Salvadore Dali, very wonderful, I like the dance, the music but with these Latino vibes and it seems pretty amazing to me so I would like to discover more because I'm a very curious person so yes. Thank you Catalina it was my privilege and my honor to include you in this project I wish you success I wish all your dreams to come true I wish you to spend maybe an Erasmus exchange or more in Spain and to become a very effective judge who helps justice and makes the life of everyone much much better thank you again for your support I wish you a happy year and a good day. Thank you very much for all this experience and because of the fact that you made me think of all these things and it was pretty nice so thank you very much I wish you too a beautiful day and in general to improve more in this project and to make people to look more on it so thank you very much.