Tijana Prodanović, 5th year graduate student of astrophysics at UIUC:

        Born on December 14th, 1978 in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia.

        High school education:  Gymnasium "Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj", Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Graduated in 1997.

        Undergraduate studies: Department of Astrophysics at the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade,

                                                   Yugoslavia.

                                                    Graduated in 2001 with major in astrophysics.

        Graduate studies: In 2001 enrolled in PhD program at the Department of Astronomy at the University of Illinois

                                        at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

                                        In 2003 obtained a Master of Science Degree in Astrophysics.

                                        Expected to complete graduate studies in 2006.

There is also another side to me besides the scientific one...(eerie music in the background) : the music side!

I completed a 6-year elementary music education with major in violin...but that was long time ago. Besides that I play tenor saxophone and the guitar but since I'm self-taught don't expect much. Although...none of the neighbors   ever complained so I can't be that bad  (I don't count my room mates cause they always complained) :).  So if you know a band that needs a part-time sax/guitar/violin-player/singer to play just for fun, let me know (PS: I don't do gigs in front of the audience....I suffer from a  Big Crunch- syndrome  on the stage)  :) .

Miroslav (Mika) Antic is one of my most favorite poets of our time.  Since we also shared the same hometown I feel it as my duty to share a piece of his work with you. What follows is one of his poems that is most dear to me. Be ware that it was originally written in Serbian and this is just my own English version of it so a bit of original magic might have been lost in the translation.

Magical Song  by Miroslav Antic

1.

I often see you  like that.

Though, like through some

distant silver haze,

I still see you beautifully.

Boots made of seven light miles

on your legs.

Holding the lamp,

after Aladdin,

you infold inside it the contours of eternal time

instead of a ghost.

And I hear you whisper: Sesame.

And the world unclasps in front of you.

2.

With the touch of your thoughts

spaces reveal themselves.

The length of your sight

smolders and moves the circulation

of untapped worlds.

You fly on the magical rug

and rise following the birds,

there where everything is transparent,

everything in one dimension,

like on a child's drawing,

but with something human,

deeper than the mankind.

There I await for your unsleeping

in my cosmic dream.

3.

I never told you

how much I love to tears

your shaggy head

that smells like soap and autumn wind

in the dusk.

Head, which inhabits

only tall colors,

colossal, unattainable,

capable to understand

the spirals of celestial fires,

geometry of dream

and the boldness of a new Icarus

who will march tomorrow

towards the unknown Suns

with such speed, compared to which,

the light is just clambering.

4.

My son, I fly too.

I move,

just like the bird without leaving

the imprint of the wings in the air,

believing in that

what I would want to see,

and not in what I truly see.

Maybe that is what it means to enter

the insides of silenceness.

Maybe that is what it means to attain

what not everyone can:

life that doesn't choose us,

but we choose it.

5.

I have traveled my own most wondrous,

most beautiful journeys

through the desert

of this windy head.

There hold the infinities

of which, you don't even abode.

To be a traveler through wisdom,

means to: struggle with

perils of dementia.

Not to rush, but - tremble,

with dignified gentleness

of one beautiful fool.

6.

So I run from home.

You find me sitting

in the restaurant by the river,

struggling to peal

the gravity of boredom,

monotony of life

and dullness of rapture

off my forehead and  my thoughts.

In weightless state

of wine and quiet music,

I unglue myself and fly.

I fly above myself.

That's how I imagine the sky.

7.

Then you come up to me and say:

dad, let us go home.

I leave the smile on the table

and ashtray chockfull

of small burned wings.

I open the door and enter.

Not in the world, but into myself.

And I stop drifting further,

but in myself I stay.

8.

They say: you still understand nothing

with your thirteen years of age.

Leaned on the wall of rain,

I suckle the acinus of air

and inside myself I smile.

I know a lot of parents,

completely barren from that

exceptional seriousness

with which one can become a son

to his own son.

Fear not. I revere you.

Here is my hand, lead me,

but carefully, so  we don't frighten

the freckled eyes of leaves

in the puddles of October.

9.

And as we walk like that,

I would want to ask of you:

fly over the infinities,

surpass the time and imagination,

but never forget

how to walk on ground.

Touch the crests of distant

binary stars with your hands,

let you throb synchronize

with explosion of pulsars,

but never forget

how to walk on ground.

The beginning of the beginning is everywhere.

The end of the end is inside of us.

10.

After the starry flights

it is good to have a place

where you can set down.

For human hearts are low,

planted like strawberries.

All right, let us go home,

where fire-bugs are comets

of our own little universe,

where we had made for ourselves

millimeter infinities,

yet cumbersome enough

for us to, with carelessness,

render from each other, forever,

and slide off

in our own directions.

Me, far away from you

like Alpha Centauri.

You, far away from me

like the Pleiades constellation.

11.

Find the new worlds

and weave their skies.

Bestow upon them the air

to live and  breathe.

But never forget

how to walk on ground.

Only that way can we

come closer to each other.

Four streets there,

and three streets here,

and a barely noticeable smile,

and pure, heartfelt eyes,

that is the wideness of the abyss

that I would want to bridge

from my star to yours.

(translated by myself)