"Always find time for the things that make you feel happy to be alive." - Unknown
For me, those were various things through the years. One of the earliest was chess, which I started playing as a 12 year old. Up until 2015 when my son was born, my favourite was cycling and cyclotourism (it's probably still my favourite but it's on pause). At the moment it's spending time with my family - making the best out of the maternity leaves with my two kids. I have practiced yoga for some 10 years now, I love to play a game of table tennis, swim, ski, sometimes hike. Travel wherever and whenever possible. Attend music concerts, festivals, eat good food. It's hard to say what influenced me the most, they are all a part of me.
Cyclotouring
It's on the top as it has been my favourite for years. I always loved cycling in my hometown, but my real love for cycling started in 2010 when I joined a group of cyclotourers for a tour "Along the rivers of Vojvodina" where we cycled some 500 km in a week. Next year I joined another group for a tour called "Székely túr" in Romania, which was more demanding and we traveled some 1000 km in 10 days. We crossed the famous Transfăgărășan pass over the Carpathian mountains. The following year I went on another tour in Romania and Hungary with the same group. In 2012 I also started taking smaller tours with my boyfriend at the time (now husband), when we decided to travel through different parts of Serbia whenever we had time free of work. In the summer of 2013 we did our biggest bicycle travel so far, the two of us and a friend, when we reached the coast of the Atlantic ocean near Nantes in France, after traveling some 3000 km in 24 days. You can check out our travel blog from this journey. At the moment I am not traveling as I have a 2 year old boy and a baby girl, but we plan to travel again as soon as she can sit in the bike trailer! :) We are also members of the Warmshowers network for hosting cyclists, and we are always happy to meet other cyclotourers, so if you wish to come to Novi Sad, this is our profile.
Chess
I started actively playing chess in 1996. In Jaunary that year I took part in my first tournament, the Junior Championship of Vojvodina. I played actively up until I entered university in 2003, and by that time I was once the Junior female champion of Vojvodina in 1999. and several times within the first three. I am a member of the Novi Sad Chess Club, which is the oldest chess club in Serbia, it was founded in 1922. I still sometimes play for the club in the Serbian League for Women. I love open, active games, gambits, positions with lots of calculations and nice combinations. My FIDE profile and some of the games can be found here.
EUROBOT
EUROBOT is an annual international amateur robotic contest organized by Planet Sciences. The objective of the competition is to build fully autonomous robots which fulfill different tasks on a structured playing area, competing against each other. The rules are different every year and are usually issued in October, while the competition is in May or June next year. The robots are usually within a 120 cm perimeter and under 35 cm high (or so), and the playing area is usually 2 x 3 m. The tasks include picking up various objects, putting them in the correct place, sorting, building, etc. The winner is the robot that gets more points than the opponent. I participated three times as a member of a team (in 2007, 2008, 2011), twice as a volunteer at the international level (in France in 2009 and in Switzerland in 2010) and several times as a volunteer/referee at the national level. Our team and the robot Lily took part in the international competition in 2011 in Astrakhan, Russia. I was involved in programming parts of the motor driver, the main robot code, and the vision system. You can see some test videos of our robot here and here, and a video of a match at the international competition in Astrakhan here (we are on the right).