LIFE ARCHIVES
STELIOS DEMAKI Age: 24 years old , 29 / October / 1994 Sex: Male Nationality: Cypriot Place of Residence: Cyprus
ABOUT ME S AT U R DAY 2 01 9 / 1 7 : 01 P M / M AY
So Stelios, tell me a bit about yourself.
I am a graphic design student at Frederick University in Limassol, Cyprus on my last semester. I’m currently working on my thesis and I’m constantly getting distracted on guitars and Metallica videos. I’m a huge Metallica and music fan. I can’t remember of a time that music wasn’t a part of my life. It really got me through my good and bad times. I’m also working on my vinyl collection which is not that big at the moment because I don’t have a turntable. So yeah, I got the vinyls and I cannot play them basically. Anyway I also like exploring abandoned places and photographing them. I also like all kinds of outdoor activities and adventures! I also believe that I’m a really good cook, well that’s what my girlfriend tells me anyway!
What do you like to do on your free time?
On my free time, I’m playing video games or playing the guitar. Sometimes I do both at the same time! I also love to hang out with my girlfriend. I am doing some research as well for my next project after I graduate which is going to be a handmade custom guitar build. So as you can see I’m really into guitars and music.
THE L AZY RIVER F R I DAY 2 0 0 0 / 1 4 : 4 8 P M / A UG U ST
Tell me about a pleasant childhood memory of yours.
The first memory that comes to mind and probably the oldest one is when we had a family trip to Paris. That was when I was 5 years old. It was probably the time that experiences were actually embedded to my brain to eventually become memories. I don’t remember anything before that. Anyway we went to Paris and I remember that we had a guide to show us and inform us about all the sights that we were about to see. I remember seeing the “Arc de Triomphe” at night. It was huge and glorious with all the lights fixating on it and all these beautiful carvings. Then there was the “Eiffel Tower”. It is the biggest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. We also got a tour on the Eiffel Tower and I remember taking the elevator with my family and going up all these floors while watching outside the glass elevator walls. You could see the whole city of Paris from there! It was a breathtaking view. I could have stayed there and watch for an etenity! Anyway we visited all of the sights but the one that I remember the most was the Asterix themed amusement park. As soon as you got inside there was this huge mountain-like column with Asterix sitting on top of it. Then we got a tour around the park and went on most of the rides, but there was one that made the difference. It was called “Le Grand Splatch” and we all thought that it was gonna be a nice relaxing ride. No one spoke French from my family at the time so no one understood the the title of the ride. Little did we know about what was going to happen... At first you would get on a boat and fasten your seatbelt for safety reasons of course. Then the boat would take you on a relaxing ride around a wonderful jungle-like terrain while floating through the river. My family at that point had already given the ride their own name, “The silent river”. As we would progress through the river, around each corner we would experience different and unique surprises. At first there was an unxpected water explosion next to us coming from the stone walls on the right side of us. Then there was a beautiful water fountain spraying a single line of water from the left and right sides of us and passing just above our heads without spilling out. At the next corner there were those amazing waterfalls with water fountains and water explosions and everything! The ride was approximately 5
to 6 minutes long so we didn’t notice that, while we were riding throught the river we were actually climbing up the ride! So at a point there was this really thick fog, you couldn’t even see the person next to you! it lasted for half a minute maybe and as it cleared out you could see that there was no more river in front of us. It was a 90° vertical 11 meter fall and as soon as we realised everyone started screaming! It turned out that its title justifies it because it meant “The grand splash”! It was the first time that I got really scared in my life but that fear turned out to laughter and joy in an instant!
THE G ATHERING F R I DAY 2 0 0 3 / 1 1 : 2 3 A M / S E P T E MB E R
Tell me about a bad memory of yours.
Sounds like it’s going to take a bad turn.
When I was younger, approximately in primary school the “trending” place to hang out with your friends was McDonals. We used to go there often with my class. We used to hang out all together, we were about 12 - 15 people, since we were all good “friends”. Yes, it will. So it was a monday I think and the others came and told me that we were going to McDonalds on Friday night. I got really excited about it and couldn’t wait to go and have fun with my friends! We were chatting about it the whole week in class and on breaks. It was going to be amazing! Friday came and everyone was hyped. I got home from school and time wasn’t passing, that’s how excited I was! So I got ready and my mum was the one that was going to take me there and pick me up afterwards. I remember I was in her room when her phone rang. It was a classmate of mine and wanted to speak to my mum. I was there waiting to see what was going on and then my mum sent me to another room. I didn’t quite understand what was happening at the time so I just did it. No questions asked. There I was in my mothers room, waiting agonazingly for her to come and tell me what happened. She opened the door and looked at me with a sad look on her face. She started to explain to me that the whole thing was a prank. Their plan was to “arrange” this gathering and not come at all so that I would go there by myself. I remember crying so hard for so long... My mum was there crying with me because she felt really bad about me. The girl that called my mum felt bad about the whole thing and called to inform us like that would justify what she’s done. I remember all of their faces and I still hate them all to this day.
TO MB STO NE T U E S DAY 2 01 4 / 1 5 : 4 3 P M / D E C E MB E R
Do you have any scars or tattoos on you that mean something to you?
I got 2 tattoos on the inside of both my ankles. When I was 1 year old I lost my father to a car accident and so me and my sister where raised up by my mother and my grandparents. At first I was thinking about getting a tattoo of the date of death of my father. A kind of a tombstone or memorial on my skin to remember. But when I told my best friend which happens to be a tattoo artist, she immediately talked me out of it. She said “You’re not doing this because you’re not going to tattoo something sad on you. Instead you should tattoo his birthday”. And of course that was a much better idea and I’m glad that she convinced me! We arranged a date and I got a tattoo of both my parents birthday, one on each ankle. At first I didn’t want it to be visible to others so we used a method called “White Scarring”. Basically instead of using black ink, you use white ink and when the tattoo heals it looks like a scar! But the thing is that you can’t know about it unless they show it to you! So it was a very personal tattoo for me because it was masqueraded as a memory or a feeling. You couldn’t know about it unless I told you about it. But the white tattoo’s eventually dissapear from the skin so I decided to make it permanent and made it again with black ink.
MY REDEMPTION S AT U R DAY 2 0 0 7 / 2 2 : 4 6 P M / F E B R UA RY Do you have any experiences that changed you? Sounds like you were born in the wrong country!
Well I was never the basic kind of Cypriot kid. I wasn’t into the same things as the kids at my age. For example, in high school the others were into playing video games with their friends and hanging out at their homes, watching “Rebelde Way” or some other kind of shit soap operas, listening to Greek folk music, some had motorcycles and lived a more of a scumbag life, like stealing, cursing all the time and smoking. I was into skateboarding, watching anime and listening to Punk Rock music. And let me tell you, I was definitely the weird one. Others would come to me and be like “How could you listen to this shit music?”. My clothing style was different as well, while the others would follow the trends with slim jeans and adidas sneakers, I was wearing my dirty, torn up and painted by me converse which I used for skating as well with my shredded pair of jeans which I used to tear up with a cheese grater, spiked bracelets on both wrists and my band t-shirts! I was definitely born in the wrong country! Imagine that I would go to school and sometimes I was so bored of the others that I would just wear my headphones and max the volume so that I wouldn’t listen to them. Sometimes I would adjust myself so that I could hang out with them. What happened at school was that, on breaks I would go and hang out with the bad crowds and pretend to be one of “them” cause the rest of the school was boring. Sometimes they made fun of me of my style or my musical preferences. That was until a cousin of mine introduced me to her childhood friends which turned out that our families were friends and we used to play together when we were kids. They were twins and we were into the same things! So that’s when I started being more of myself. After a while we became best friends and we used to hang out every single day. And since I found where I belonged I couldn’t care less about the rest of the world. Since we went to different schools I just couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so that I could go and hang out with my buddies. They were my redemption since I was able to be 100% of myself and not pretend to be someone else so that I could fit with the crowds.
SCALDED F R I DAY 2 01 3 / 0 6 : 21 A M / A P R I L
Do you have any scars on you that mean something to you?
Yeah, it happened when I was in the army. Every day there were certain chores assigned to us. It was a normal thing and there was a rotation as well. So what happened was, one morning I was assigned at the restaurant. That meant that I had to walk to another camp and move the breakfast from the kitchens to the restaurants so that the food would be ready to be served to my colleagues. There I was with another guy walking to the kitchens. As soon as we went in, the cook told us to pick up that huge kettle full of milk and transfer it to the restaurant. So we picked the kettle up, he was holding one handle and walking on the front and I was on the back holding another handle. We were on the front of the restaurant and had to climb the stairs to get inside, so we started climbing the stairs. At one stair there was fat which was spilled by previous transfers that became a really oily and slippery surface. Of course I didn’t notice and I slipped and fell on the stairs while holding the huge kettle. The other guy didn’t notice that I fell and kept holding the handle which caused the lid to fall, spilling the boiling milk on my left side and mainly on my left hand. I stood up immediately and felt like I just fell off the sun. I remember saying “I’ve been burnt” repeatedly. I remember being very calm about it because I immediately understood what happened. What I didn’t understand at the time was what was going to happen. I told my colleague to help me take off my jacket and I started walking to the overseers office. I knocked and went inside and calmly told him that I got burnt with the boiling milk. He was shocked of how calm I was. He immediately picked up the phone and asked for a vehicle to transfer me to the nearest hospital. I remember I was in the car in terrible pain. It was probably the longest ride of my life. We arrived to the hospital and my parents were already there waiting. My mother as soon as she saw me she started crying. My left hand was in terrible condition. They took me to the emergency unit of the hospital where they treated my hand with some kind of a cream and bandages and I remember my hand being full of blisters from the burn. They told me to go home and come again the next day but my mum never trusted the hospital staff and always prefered private clinics over public hospitals. And she was definetely right on that. She called and found out the best clinic for burns and took me there. It was in Nicosia so we made a quick stop at home and packed a few things. You can’t imagine the pain and struggle I went through while driving to Nicosia. As soon as we pulled over at the hospital we went to the emergency room where the doctor was waiting. He removed the bandages and treated my hand again. He told us that it was a 2nd degree burn and that if I had stayed at home, blood clots would have formed and they would have to amputate my hand! I was hospitalized in the burn care facilities for
8 days under the frequent supervision of doctors and physiotherapy. It was a real struggle I had to go through since I didn’t accept any kind of painkillers. I still don’t, even at the dentist! Eventually my hand healed over time but a small part of the burn is still visible. I had to keep it moistured with some special creams and I always had to wear a protective cloth from the palm to the elbow to protect it from the sun. I also couldn’t go to the beach for a year because of possible sunburns due to my super sensitive skin. To this day I still use the sunscreen with the highest protection possible on my hand because it is very sensitive. Even the smallest scratch can irritate and inflate the skin on the scar that is left.
A SMALL BREAK S U N D AY 2 0 1 4 / 1 7 : 41 P M / M AY
Have you ever made a bad decision that you never regreted?
Probably everyone does! It was 4 years ago. On my first year in university, on the second semester. It was exam period and I had to study really hard in order to pass the exams because I had 6 different courses in the semester. So as usual we used to gather at a friends house and studied all together. This time it was just me and a friend of mine from class. It was Sunday and on Monday morning we had the exam. So the plan was to study from the morning to next morning. It was evening at the time when I decided that I needed a break, and what better break than go to a beach bar that had a party?! So I took off and went there. As soon as I stepped foot, I immediately went to the bar and ordered the strongest drink possible and drank it all at once! I started partying and said to myself that I would leave as soon as the party stopped at 21:00. So there I was drinking and partying non-stop until I realised that it was midnight! The party had already stopped and I was at the after-party half drunk! I immediately went to the car and got home to have a shower and continue studying. I got home at 00:30 to have a quick shower and then I sat on my bed to get dressed. I blinked and suddenly it was 03:00 in the morning! While I was trying to dress up I fell asleep for two and a half hours! So then I called my friend to check on him and he was still there studying. I got in my car and rushed to his house since it was where all my stuff was to continue studying. It was 07:00 in the morning and the exam started at 08:30 so we had to quickly finish what was left and go there. We tried our best and went to the presentation to show our work. Due to my partying I failed a main course which cost me an extra year at the university! I don’t regret this decision I made becauce the next years I aced all my classes. It made me more responsible and mature!
I BELIEVE THAT IT’S A MISTAKE TO REGRET A DECISION YOU MADE, BECAUSE WHEN YOU MADE IT, IT WAS WHAT YOU WANTED AT THE TIME. IN LIFE YOU SHOULD TAKE RISKS AND BE PREPARED FOR WHATEVER OUTCOME YOU GET.