Dec 31, 2012

A Matter of Bush

In case you may wonder, this is an EXPLICIT rated post.

So here we are, still at the beach, at my sister-in-law's family place. We were suposed to go to Manuel Antonio - a National Park and breathtaking beach - but since it's Monday it was closed. As result we decided to move the trip to tomorrow - when it will be open, and also slide our plans a little. Mine and my boyfriend's. We still have to pack for our trip, and laundry had to be done in order for us to pack. Yeah, don't ask me. We had to request for help - a.k.a. my Mom.

We still went to the beach, but to another part of it. The start was a bit late, as we woke up somewhat late (the bed was too orthopedic and it didn!t matter which way we turned, it was just freaking hard all over the place! Even while sleeping on my back my back hurt! What can I say, I'm a softy, I need feather soft, cloud light and lamb warm beds) and then still had to get some stuff bought and done. I kind of forgot taking this time to check on things, and this is how at the beach I realized that I hadn't shaved properly! To my horror, one of my legs was harrier that the other even though I obviously shaved them at the same time. I'll go see the doctor just for sure, but I've the feeling that given that I tend to wax every now and then, the wax has made it's effect on one of the legs and not the other. Oh well, we shall later see about that. The thing is that the bikini area wasn't even properly waxed! Yes, shame on me, but I had actually waxed it! I just didn't wax it enough for my swimsuit, which gives you and idea of how often I use my swimsuit.

I normally wax for my underwear, which is lowcut, mostly because I value comfort a lot and also because all in all I've a hippie soul and I like a full bush. Oh yes, the full bush! That's one of the most retrograde things today, but the truth is that the full bush is a nice thing and I love it. It doesn't look good when it pokes out of your underwear or swimsuit, which is why I trim it with wax - don't really like shaving it - but the bush itself is just as wonderful, cushy and feminine as the woman herself. Since we are going to the beach tomorrow - and probably also later in the week ^_^ - I decided to have it trimmed to size. So after the beach we went to a local store and got myself a pack of cold wax. Have I mentioned that we are at the beach? Well, for none of you to do the same mistake, please don't try to wax at the beach, unless you have a huge freeze at hand were you can do it.

It the begining it was working somewhat normally, but soon it was getting messy, melting all over the place and not doing it's job. I started at the bikini area, so as soon as it was more wax on hair than hairs on the wax, I stopped and went for the legs, assuming the thinner hairs would get out easier. Big mistake. It pulled the skin, and the hairs mostly slid out of the wax, quickly rendering a whole box useless. I got fed up and asked my boyfriend for his razor. He quickly gave me razor and shaving cream. On the legs it worked as usual, on the armpits it worked as usual. On the remaining bikini line I attempted to make? The freaking shaving cream burned like a fucking hell!

I remembered how some coworkers of mine said that nothing drove women crazier than giving them a blowjob with a Halls menthol hard candy and then blow on it. You know what? It doesn't drive you crazy, it drives you homicidal! It's not a terribly bad burn, but it is a burn and not the nice type!

The year is coming to an end, and I kept my purpose of posting every day for a whole year. New purposes now come to life - none of which I have decided yet. It wouldn't have meant much if I didn't keep this promise, but I managed and I feel good about it. Not all my posts have been brilliant, but I wrote all of them, each of them, and I didn't resource to re-post or copy, of post-cheat, not even once. I proved that I can write, that I have something to say everyday of my life, and that I might repeat my topics, but I'm consistent on my ideals, on my opinions, and I can always say something new, or at least say it in a new way.

2013 is around the corner now. I'd be already there, have I stayed in Hungary, but things didn't quite happen that way. I still have two letters to reply, so that one purpose wasn't fulfilled, but hey! I replied four out of six in record time! That gives me some credit, now does it? ^_^

My last recorded thought for 2012 in this blog is: don't wax at the beach, watch what you shave with and fuck it all, full bushes are awesome! Think about it and don't let society strip you of your status of women to turn you into a docile prepubescent girl.

Dec 30, 2012

At The Beach

Do you think it's late? Well, you've no idea what I had to go through to blog today! Forget the pictures, forget the colors, I just want to write fast and get out of here as soon as I can. This isn't my computer, not my trusty Hungarian keyboard, but my brother's, and his Spanish keyboard. SPANISH! Not Hungarian!! Waaaah~! It's been a millenium since I last used one of these. But what happened?

Well, my brother and his wife invited us over to Parrita, to my sister-in-law's family's home. Nice right? We were invited yesterday at 21:30. Sort of. Called a million times. We packed today in the morning and forgot a lot of things, like my netbook's cable and the charger of my phone. Among other things. The trip wasn't easy either as the road we took was closed and we were directed through another road I've never taken before... and neither my boyfriend, of course. It took us forever to get here!

Hn. I wanted to get ahead with my penpalling, and that won't be really happening, and as for blogging every day until the end of the year? Well, let's see how that goes.

The lesson of the day? None. Rest when you are tired, and make flexible plans, because no matter how well things seem to be going, something might come in the way - even something good! - and cross the whole freaking thing.

Dec 29, 2012

Daily Tidbits

Yes! I'm getting ahead with my letters! I wrote to letters yesterday and there are only two more to go. However these last two are big letters from very, very dear friends, so each would take me one day. It feels good to write to them, even though often I have to reply to very similar questions (my dear friends have all been worried about my returning to Costa Rica and showed their dear concern. Taking about it several times has been good not only to put their minds at ease, but also to reinforce my determination to get through with my plans).

One of my new penpals (Hello Lina!) wrote me a fabulous and long letter which got me writing and writing until I realized that I had written a bit too many pages. I always scan my letters, and I knew that this one is going to take me forever to scan, but what I didn't count on was that the letter wouldn't fit into my regular envelopes! Lots of stores were closed yesterday, so today my boyfriend and I walked to the city center to get envelopes in different sizes to avoid another similar case.

I've got myself a summer dress for our trip, then we've got a smoothie and walked back home. We talked a lot during our walk, shared our thoughts and opinions about a lot of things. And to thing that a week ago I was about to climb the walls and was considering murder (figuratively speaking, of course!) just to get free! Now we woke up when we want, and haven't heard the alarm clock in a while! I've time to read, to watch the TV, write to my friends and ENJOY doing so! Without being pressured that someone might find out at the office, or that I've been carrying the stationary and the letters with me for a month and haven't been able to write a single word!

When you have a break, use it! Any way you want, anyway it makes you feel awesome every minute. Your break is for you, not for others. It doesn't matter that others would use their vacations to go to Niagara or Argentina or start a new business, learn a new language... you use your vacations anyway it makes YOU feel good. It's your break, after all, so Enjoy! And be Happy ^_^

Dec 28, 2012

When Your Opinion Matters Too Much To Others

More and more things are getting settled for our trip to Cuba. My boyfriend is already making his own research about our destination, reading blogs and travelogs to know more and be better prepared to make the most out of it. Isn't that exciting? ^_^ All we have left now is packing and then the things that can only be taken care of at the Airport and then at Cuba. I can't wait to taste a real Mojito! ^_^

I've also finished replying to another letter for a friend, so it seems very much like I'll be able to pull my End-of-the-Year purpose it time. ^_^ I don't gte tired telling you how wonderful all of my friends are. Today I woke up at 7 am and was replying to this letter for about 10 hours, which anyone into penpalling can understand very well. Some letters can take you maybe 4 hours, others 10, 12 and some take you several days. It just depends on the topics and how much some topics pull out of you. (And it also depends on how word-efficient are you.) My Mom saw me sitting at the dining table writing for hours (my boyfriend was occupying my desk) and asked me why did I bother so much, why didn't I just cut it short and reply only on a few pages, rather than writing what seemed to her as a novel. I told her that I don't mind it, I love it, and my only concern is that after some hours my fingers start hurting and cramp up.

Penpalling is a rather time consuming hobby, even though you often have to wait for long periods of time to get a reply. It's not really something you can program like "penpalling every Saturday from 9 am to 11 am", and this is why selecting your penpals and often being able to say "no" or "let's not be penpals anymore" is so important. One of the biggest nightmares of most penpals is to meet people who demand too much from them or make a fuss about being dropped. Why they do it isn't something we can say for certain, but most agree that it's a case where these people expect to get their self-esteem shots from you. They need to get validation from their peers, and any rejection or ignoring is taken as a personal offense, even if you don't mean it that way.This is the people who would try to pick a fight with your or make you feel bad because you haven't replied to them immediatelly (even if you are writing to them from Norway and they live in... the Southest corner of Argentina). Some would also react badly if they request to be your penpals and you tell them that you are not taking new penpals. For those how have many penpals (20 or more) this is one of the most common issues. In a way it's good to find of these things from the begining, as some people don't really get it that their pals, or people at another part of the world may have a life that doesn't involve replying to their letters and messages.

This type of behavior happens also among people who are not penpals. Needy people is everywhere, people who expect you to give them what they won't give themselves "love". I've met people who live really disasterous lives, full of issues of all shapes and sizes, and often stuff that's rather easy to fix if you only strap a pair and do the right thing, for instance people who suffer because the neighbour of a friend they rarely visit, refuse to acknowledge them and greet them when they see them (this is a real trouble for someone I know!). My advise in this case is "give it a fuck" but for some people that's not a solution. Others load off all their troubles on you, and when you give them your point of view (you are a friend, not a psychologist, so if they tell you something, you might safely assume that it's because they want your p.o.v.), then they react badly if you do not reinforce their precoincived ideas. It made me laugh when someone posted a message that basically said "you are not an expert about my life". Well, whomever you are talking to might not be an expert, but honestly, Honey, neither are you.

Where am I getting with this? Well, for once, when you put your whole life out for others to judge, when you depend on the opinions other have of you, get ready, because you won't get only praises and positive thoughts. If you share your things, you will get things also in return. If you want to unload and receive no feedback, write a journal. Paper doesn't talk back, has no opinions, people do. Finally, the opinion that should matter to you is yours. You can get a second opinion, but that's not a sentence or something that breaks you or makes you, that's only up to you. People have as much power over you as you allow them to have it, so learn to give every comment its proper place. Bad critics are just opinions, just like good critics, so take them for what they are. And also, a rejection isn't a personal offense, it's just a rejection, so don't take it personally. You also reject and you have the right to reject too.

Be happy, find your own happiness and just be free.

Dec 27, 2012

Got A Present From Mexico!

Yay! ^_^ My Secret Santa from the Book Swapping Club was the lovely Dee Scissorhands! And my Goodness, was she grand! I've got TWO books instead of ONE! TWO AWESOME BOOKS! ^_^Well, with this I can just cross out one of my tasks from the List of 13: "Pick a Great Book to Read". Well, that will be... The Scarlet Letter + Hunger Games! ^_^ Okay, one... let's go Classic: The Scarlet Letter, but I'll read the Hunger Games too! Right after or before! It doesn't matter! Yay! Books!

I've also got a lovely letter and postcards from Mexico. One's a composite picture of different locations in Chiapas, the other is a picture of sailing at Playa del Carmen, and the last one is a super-cool, 3D postcard with a Mayan Calendar. The one that applied to the era that ended now with the "end of the world". I guess I'll have to wait for the next calendar now. It must be really interesting to study these ancient American cultures, and get to understand their symbols and messages, because I look at this picture and all I see is a stone disc with embossed designs. I couldn't tell you were it starts, where it ends or how on Earth do you know it meant for the Era to end on the dawn of 2012's Yule.

Days are peaceful now. There's no more rush about Christmas or presents, our only thoughts are about our upcoming trip to Cuba and that's it. For New Year? No plans, really. Maybe we'll stay home with a bottle of good champagne, or maybe we'll visit friends... no rush there either! Not the first New Year we spend together at home, though admitedly, since it's our Aniversary too, we tend to spend it abroad. :-D Wait, do we? Suddenly I can't remember how many years I've been with my boyfriend. A lot, I guess. Oh well, not like he's going anywhere, so why count the years, right? It's not like it's a prison sentence and I'm calculating how many years more I have to "endure" to gain freedom! ^_^ That's the attitude of "sentenced for life without parole". Yes, I know, I make relationships sound like the worse thing that could ever happen to you. In some cases it is.

I was going to pack my trusty Kindle for my trip to Cuba, but I think I'll rather go with one of my new books. Yay! I'm so excited!!! ^_^ Can you tell? Everything is just so awesome, the days ahead look so wonderful... Numerologically speaking 2013 will be a "6" type of year for me. What does that mean? I don't know, but it sure looks like AWESOME and HAPPY! ^_^

Isn't life lately just great! ^_^ Happy rest of the day for all!

Dec 26, 2012

Catching Up With Letters

Penpalling by Stormberry
I don't consider myself a long-letter penpal (girls, what do you think?), but after writing two letters today my fingers hurt like hell! I even got a small channel like dent on my right middle finger, where the pen used to be. However, as I sit now blogging, I feel really good, accomplished that I'm getting ahead with my mail as well. Who knows? Maybe I'll keep up my promise to myself and get all my mail (snail mail!) answered before 2012 is done! Can't promise the same thing about my e-mails, and there are so many of them.

Two down and four to go, yes I can do this! But then, the question is, what about 2013? Well, then will come the day when I'll have to wait for letters to reply, abd in the meanwhile I write a couple of first letters I have lined up in my calendar. ^_^

For a moment there I considered designing some letter tracking inserts for my filofax, but then I've got thinking about it. I already have ten sections (don't ask....) and my filofax is getting hard to close, so do I really need a letter tracking paper-app? My current system works quite well as it is: I leave unanswered letters closed and on my desk where I can see them, only the one I'm answering is opened, they are arranged in order of arrival, and go into my penpal box when answered. As for the time it takes my penpals to answer, I'm not a Penpal from Hell, I know they'll answer when they do. communication is fluent so we always let each other nóknow via e-mail when letters arrive, so what would a new insert add to it?

Sometimes you should consider if extra organizing and tracking is right or if it would add more hassle than use to your life. And that applies to everything.

Dec 25, 2012

Organizing Christmas

It has been a while since I haven't been able to sleep in Christmas, and this year it was one of those few times. I was tired alright, but emotion was overriding everything. I've got an organizing system with 60 small drawers for my beads and jewelry supplies, so I woke up early to get them on the shelves - for which I had to unload and rearrange three shelves for! - and start putting all my beads and supplies into it, but since I woke up earlier than all others at home, I rather sneaked out of the bedroom to get ahead with my letter writing. It's amazing how this time my head was clear and thanks to this both the pen and the paper were just perfect, even when the same paper and the same pen were less than perfect a few weeks ago.

Once my boyfriend woke up I rushed into the room to play with my bead organizer. It was so good to move things around a little and then get rid of all the old baby food jars and pouring the beads in their new containers. BTW, 60 drawers aren't enough, so I had to start cutting cardboard to separate the drawers in two. (They are originally designed to get a plastic divider, but you can't get the dividers.) I had these jars in a plastic box (which now houses fabrics for my sewing project), and then another similar box was full of bags with odd beads and loose beads here and there. This actually held my treasures, with beads I've got in Hungary and wasn't able to get here, as well as all the beads my friend Roo sends me from the U.S., however this box was my nightmare box too, as there was such a mess in it I could never find a thing in it.

Once I started untangling my beads and supplies, and opening all the jars, I started realizing all the types of beads I had stashed in my boxes. Ideas for jewelry just poured in my brain, things I haven't thought of before. Now, as they are all basically in display, I hope to work better and be able to do more jewelry.

That excitement you get at times, that were you feel like a kid on Christmas morning is something to grab and live. Yes, things can wait, but that burts of energy at any moment of your day, your month, your year, your life, gets you going, and gets you going miles. Lets remember that energy, maybe lets try and summon some. Let's get excited about the year that ends and the many posibilities of the one that will beging next week. Isn't just a fabulous moment in life? ^_^

Dec 24, 2012

Merry Christmas

When do you celebrate Christmas? That's a curious question you may not ask yourself, but actually in some countries it's celebrated on the morning of the 25th and in others it's celebrated on the evening of the 24th. At our place we celebrate it on the evening of the 24th, while the world around us celebrate it on the morning of the 25th. I woke up early to make jewelry - was actually awoken by an idea about how to make these present-jewelries for my mom and my sister-in-law - and also to get some last things - like the wrapping paper that's never enough because rolls and rolls have been used to Hyne-knows-what - and wrap. I've been wrapping presents for hours now!

Thoughts for Christmas? Ask me later, when I'm done wrapping. Having written letters yet, and I should seriously get done with all my letters - Christmas Resolution: reply to all of my letters before the year ends! - and then... and then. I read in the fabulous blog of LJ - Honey, hope you don't mind me mentioning you, but your blog is just FANTASTIC, I trully love it, people! - about this Dodo planner inserts that help you get on top of your events, and festivities so you don't forget about the cards you are supposed to send and the presents, parties, dinners, appointments and all that. And do you know who needs that? --->THIS<---- b="b"> gal here! 2013 shall be different, I must really be on top of everything, so that when the vacations finally arrive I don't have to rush or worry or anything, just extend my arm and wait for the Piña Colada magically appear in my hand.

I know I did it one year, and it was so weird - but good weird! - It must have been back when I worked with Skylar and we were all stressed out all the time, and I had my days planned to the minute in my trusty palm pilot. I remember that I hit December and everything was done and taken care of. All presents bought and wrapped, all the cards and letters sent, all tasks checked... the world swirled around me with ever increasing pace and desperation to get things by the 24th, desperately trying to come up with something new because the one thing they came up with turned out to be sold out...

So, for 2013 I'll rely on my filofax and the inserts I can come up with to make things happen - to make magic! - and once again be on the top of my game, at least organizationally speaking.

It's a night of hope and dreams, so let's hope and let's dream!

Merry Christmas!

Dec 23, 2012

Yoga and Progress

Chaturanga. Googled pic from fitsugar.com
Today we had the last yoga class of the year. I've been practicing yoga nor for about a year and a half, with six months in there practicing by myself - a.k.a. slacking a lot and doing the things I kind of do best. Truth to be told, I was better at yoga before I went to Hungary than now, as back then I was kind of able to do the chaturanga, and now I simply flap stomach down on the floor when we do it. It's amazong how many positions in yoga look so simple and yet they are so hard to accomplish, while others that look like you are going to twist your body out of its axis are actually quite simple and fun. ^_^ you learn a lot of your body, and while you perform the different asanas, you start noticing by yourself your own progress. I still can do the plow and the karnapidasana, which is quite an accomplishment, for when I started I could do neither.

Karnapidasana. Googled. solhume.se

Plow. Googled. wellandgoodnyc.com
Today, however, I found out that I could reach easier the floor with my fingers in ... I forgot the name, but that postion where you are standing, legs straight and you let your chest and head hang. So here I was thinking that my yoga had gotten stuck, I was getting frustrated because I went every week and I felt myself reverse in progress and here today my body surprises me with fingers touching the ground!

You know, life is just like that. Take this year and think for a moment about what have you accomplished. Sure there are a lot of good and awesome things: got a promotion, got a new job, or just got a job! Maybe 2012 was the year where you said: "Fuck it all, I won't stress myself anymore at a job, I'll leave as God intended men to live: freely!" And now you enjoy a much simpler life free from all the material shackles the rest of us carry around. If so, let me congratulate you, because I wish I could do that too. Maybe you lost weight, you've got fit, you finally have a special someone in your life or you just managed to fix a relationship that was going all wrong. Or maybe this year you finally broke away from the shackles of relationships and you are living every juicy second of your existence in absolute, unquestionable freedom, and everything you do and decide in your life depends only on you.

Let's concentrate there, let's take a moment to savour or successes!

But maybe when we take review of 2012 the first thing we see are the bad things. Lost our job, are stuck with a terrible job, are stuck in our studies, our lovelife is less than satisfying to our personal standards, we are not happy with ourselves, had no time for us or to enjoy life, have no friends or the "friends" we have can't be really be called so... If that's the case, it's okay. Normally you think first about whatever is more recent or holding your attention right now, and that's okay, as long as we know that our success isn't for us to live of it forever, and our fails are simply red flags about where should we be working.

However, as we reach the end of the year, let take notice of our own changes. Just like the body gets more flexible with yoga over time without you noticing, your life is also molding you. Are you now more resistant to bad critics? Have you learned how to do your job better? Have you learned new ways to get what you want? Have you learned to make a difference between what you want and what you need? Have you met new people? Have you manage to identify people who isn't good for you? Have you broke up your contact with them?

Surprise yourself, check what have you learned, and you will find a much better prepared, a much more experienced You facing this new year and ready to make it count.

Love you, People! ^_^

Dec 22, 2012

Making Gingerbread Cookies

Saturday at last and rest is coming many, many times a day. ^_^ The program of the day was simple: paying the tax we have to pay when we leave the country, then did some groceries and bought a fabulous book for children titled "Quién es Tomás?" (Who is Tomás?), which I bought from the author. The money made from the sale of the books is being used to help a foundation which helps children. It was really nice to meet the author, who was kind enough to to dedicate the book to my nephews.

From there we went home, where my boyfriend and my oldest nephew got on playing with the computer and I napped a little. Gash, I was needing that! ^_^ After that we got on the Christmas things with my boyfriend, Mom and my oldest nephew setting the Christmas tree and I preparing gingerbread cookies. :-) I can only hope that this recipe works, as I have misplaced my usual recipe and so had to fish another one from the Internet.

The Holidays are slowly coming, and we might be the last house of the block to catch on the Christmas feeling, but slowly here we are. :-) Now, I gara go and check on those cookies. See ya!

Dec 21, 2012

Blessed Yule!

Well, aren't you lucky! ^_^ Sorry, my head had been in a different place entirely (and I was seriously upset about this whole "environmental crap" I wrote about, so I had to get that of my system), and so I entirely forgot about my celebratory blogpost! So now, as time allows it, I'll post a shorter post about the subject.

picture Googled
Tonight we celebrate Yule, an ancient, Pagan festival where we conmemorate the birth of the God Sun. The powers shift now, and the Night that has been growing larger and larger each day, promting us to quiet and meditation, reaches today it's longest reign and then will start to recoil back, slowly giving space to more daylight time. After having harvested the fruits of our labour, and saved for the future, we have retired to meditate, to evaluate out progress through the year, and tonight is the night where we draw our conclusions. What have we learned from 2012 and what lessons will we carry on towards 2013, with which we will expect to make the next year even better than this one?

The message of Yule has been also taken by Christmas - though not in the current heavily commercial message - where we make reference to a night of peace and hope. The night might be long and bleak, and we might feel tempted to sink under the weight of our overinflated shortcomings. We didn't learn a new language, didn't lose weight, didn't get a (new) job, didn't find a significant other, didn't start a family, didn't get married, didn't get a promotion, didn't quit drinking/smoking/other... but this night is the last long night, and indeed a new cycle begins, a new year and a new chance. Allow yourself to remember and celebrate your success and learn from your mistakes. Don't sweep them under the rug, nor ignore any of them! Treasure those hits and study what did you do that made them come out right. Then study your shortcomings and find out what went wrong, so this way you'll not only know what to avoid (what provoked the mistakes), but also what to do (what helped the hits).

Most likely you are not Pagan, but that's okay. Consider taking a few moments today to celebrate a personal Yule, a moment of peace, meditation and hope. Pour yourself a glass of wine, or do some mulled wine or cider, put on some Christmas scented oil, or apple-cinnamon, maybe gingerbread cookie scent (or bake gingerbread cookies!), or pine scent, and curl up in a comfy chair or wherever you like and think about how wonderful 2012 has been. Don't miss out the little joys that came along the way, and always remember that the bad things may be heavy and many, but that's because all bad things go as fast as they come - that's why you need so many of them to notice them - but the good things take time, arrive slower into your life, and last forever. :-D

Blessed Be!

Those Mindless Ecological Measures

If you take a train or a car and travel across some European countries you will find some of the most odd things in the world. For miles and miles and miles large stretches of land will go endlessly before your eyes sown with very particular crops, such as corn and sunflower. It is indeed strange to think about corn in Salzburg, or exceedingly large sunflower plantations, so one goes wondering what could be going on, after all we all know that Hungarians don't live exclusively of sunflower seeds nor Austrians eat corn flour tortillas to everything. (I've written about this before, and in many, many occasions, so if you find it repetitive, it's not the same blogpost, but yes, you already heard me talk about it.) What comes to play in here are two economical approaches (one more of international trade, and another of ecological tones) that shape our national and international production in ways that are - in my personal opinion - all fucked up. (I promise this will be a rant, and not another boring economics post.)

On one hand we have a classical theory about something called "Comparative Advantage", championed by David Ricardo (you can google all that), according to which, each economy or nation or country... or whatever productive unit, should produce only what they are most efficient at producting, so that they can trade that with others and get more than if they would have produced everything by themselves. You go comparative when you decide to produce something your neighbours or trade mates aren't so efficient at doing even if you are better at doing something else, but they are even better at that same thing. Got that? Okay, quick explanation: say you make shoes and bags. You are very good at making bags, but even better at making shoes. Your neigbour sucks at bags, but surpass you at making shoes, SO even though you are better at shoes than bags, you drop shoes to make bags and leave your neightbour at makings only shoes. So, according to this, you should always choose to produce what in the end yields the most of money (because your neighbour is going to pay more for your bags than for your shoes).

Picture Googled
On the other side, after the numerous fossil fuel crisis we have had, and our evident dependence from them, bright green scientists came up with the idea of biofuels, which reduce our dependence from the highly contaminating fossil fuels and replace them for an environmentally healthier option: biofuel. We all know what biofuel is and what's the main ingredient for it right? Right. So, here we are, with countries around the world whipping off their lands their traditional produce, usually meant to feed their own population and export the excedent (way back in fairytale history, when we all lived in a Golden Age and the world was perfect), and instead go on sowing crops that are not indigenous and that are not meant necessarily for their consumption. Corn and sunflower are today's oilfields. And actually, you don't have to build drills and pits, nor look for expensive studies to see if you can find oil under the soil, because all you need it to sow the fuelseeds, water them and then harvest them.

Theoretically this will yield much more money, than keeping livestock or sowing wheat or veggies or whatever was usually grown on those lands, and from which the farmer and their family could support themselves with. In theory, now they need not to produce what they eat, because they can buy it much cheaper from other countries who are better at producing that. Risk is also supposed to be lower as if one producer fails for whatever reason, the global network will be quick in providing you with the produce of the next best producer of the same product. How would there be other countries producing the exact same thing as others instead of what they are best at? Sure they have this theory of "country blocks" where they are all equally good at the same thing and so produce it and sell it equally to all the others.

So yes, this is so far so good, so what the hell is my problem? Not much, except that it's all bullshit and it has been proven in real life to be the worse possible way to go. Why? Let me break this down from both ends that support this lunacy.

1. Competitive Advantage my Ass

Probably the big industrialized countries don't remember or don't even know much about it or don't even care, but there have been through history many countries that have specialized so much in the production of one single good that they became very sensitive of any market change for it. Pick any case from your part of the world, I'm sure you are surrounded by many similar examples. The closest example for me is coffee.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love coffee, and I happen to live in a country that produces one of the best coffeebeans in the world - or so we are told. Also, coffee is a product that's loved and needed world wide. It's used not only as the coffee beverage we know - hot and cold, black, tall, American or Frappuccined - but also in the medical industry to make some meds, and also by my beloved Coca-Cola Company, as part of the Coke. In Costa Rican history, actually what helped pull Costa Rica out of poverty (all the way to about mic XIXth century, Costa Rica was the poorest country of Central America. Currently we are second only to Panama) was coffee. The production of it helped the country get the money it needed to start developing and investing in infrastructure, culture, education and what not. Hm, but not everything was rosy, for as expected, soon some families rose over others and oligopolies were formed. There were class issues and so on, and the country would have sweeped under the rug the fact that a tiny part of the country was getting uber rich while the rest was sinking in poverty if not because  those rich people got hit when the high dependence on coffee made them vulnerable to any fluctuation of the price. If the price rose they were rich, if the price plumeted, they were in bankrupcy. and guess what happens when there's a lot of product out there in the market? Uhum, you get the general picture.

So once the big rich realized that coffee was going to sunk them among the poors they have exploited, they realized that focusing so much on one product wasn't good. Monocultives weren't good. So came back the diversifying of the crops.

So yes, even in good conditions - and given that big, industrialized economies just looove to gamble with products (they call it, "investing" and "futures" and whatnots that brokers do, which kind of fucked up the global economy a few years ago) - when you go concentrated on one thing, you may end up loosing more than what you would have if you would have produced different things. However, then, it also happens that you will find bad conditions. Your suppliers don't produce with the quality checks you'd expect, or they loose their crops, or there's a war, or even something as simple as the transportation costs becoming prohibitive, or even the breaking of a strike. Maybe your whole country gets isolated for some reason, do you expect to feel and cloth your whole nation with corn or sunflower? By pushing this agenda, you may think that you ensure yourself against the production problems your country may have - floods, wars, draughts, etc. - but what you are actually doing is exposing yourself to the potential productive problems of the whole planet.

It's funny how we are supposed to be the ones "not developed yet", and yet the industrialized, the developed countries are making now the same mistakes we made in the past. Man, you's stupid!

2. Environmentally Friendly

The second and last reason for this crap is the "environmental bullshit". Now, of course I agree that the environment must be protected from the massive destruction we deal upon it, but that's not a carte blanche to then go abusing of people. These solutions that are pushed forward seem to work one way only: "you will get profit by hurting someone, who do you choose to hurt?". It's stupid to think that biofuel is the solution to our problems, as anyone with a bit of working brain can tell you that popularizing that will only mean that you'll end up taking the food away from the poor so that the rich can fill their tank. Cars become more important than people. With the introduction of biofuels less food is produced, because now cars eat too. I wonder if there's any measure of the acres of forest being cut down to turn the land into farming land for more biofuel. So again, how's this working? Other than chopping part of the income from the fossil fuel extracting countries and redirecting that income to other countries, of course.

This environmental crap is being dished freely all over the world with lame ass reasoning. Airlines have decided to go environmental too by using a new type of fuel made out of "forest waste". Now, I'm not a biologist or anything, but do explain to me what the hell is "forest waste"? As far as I knew everything in nature has a purpose and the cycles are always perfect anc complete. What dies becomes the nurture of what lives, and nothing is wasted. However airlines found "forest waste" and decided to use it. As you can expect it, soon there will be forests ripped out to feed airplanes, because those weren't forests, but "forest waste", and that's okay and environmentally friendly.

People, lets get serious: when you'll do something for nature or for the environment, remember that people are part of the environment too. You can't expect to protect by robbing the livelihood of others. You can't ignore the poor because "they are poor anyways, so there will be no difference" because it's not you and yes, there will be a difference. There's a difference between having one cup of rice a day as sole intake of food, and no rice at all. There's a difference between being able to fish some or hunt some, or sow some and sell the product to be able to bring home some food, and having nothing to sell, nothing from which make a living and going to the streets to beg and steal. It's very easy to put on your PETA or Greenpeace or Leaping Bunny shirt and claim to protect nature and animals, and forget that you are with this endorsing the exploiting of human beings in a disadvantaged situation.

Yes, animal cruelty must be stopped, the destruction of the environment must be stopped, but not by shifting this damage onto our own siblings. I won't choose human cruelty over animal cruelty, not human destruction over environmental destruction, I prefer RATIONALITY. However this one, sadly, entails that the heat would be taken by the rich and the exhorbitant profit of their businesses.

And, you, who do you prefer to see suffering?

Dec 20, 2012

Aproaching the End of.. the Work Year!

The countdown still goes on: two more day. Actually, at this point is more like one day and four hours. But am I doing a countdown on the End of the World, according to the Mayans? No, I'm making a Vacation Countdown! It's just 13 manhours and 36 man-minutes away from my vacations. And yes, I'm a woman and I have no problems with "manhours". Meres don't have problems with horse power either. ^_^ But read it as "workhours" and "workminutes" if it offends you so much. Hell, I'm in dire need of a coke or an adrenaline. Normally I would go to the cafeteria and get myself a can, but now I won't. Not because I'm cutting back my addiction - hell! it's what keeps me going! - but because it's quite close to lunch time, so I rather get it at lunch, but also because tomorrow is the last day  of work this year and I need to get to an end of my food stash. So instead I'm hitting a box of milk. ^_^

My actual office staples... depleted.
Wherever I am there's always a food stash, and it can't be otherwise: I just snack all the time. Chocolates, cookies (though usually crackers), and some sort of emergency food for lunch such as instant oatmeal or dry soups are around. Drinks such as cokes and energy drinks, as well as breakfast stuff such as cereals and bars are things that can also be found, but their rotation cycle is so fast that most of the time it looks like I never pack any of it. Well, though I was thinking about emptying the barns, it wasn't until yesterday that I realized that I had enough snacks and candy in there to survive a zombie apocalypse! Bags and bags of candy came out and I piled them up for anyone to take them away. People came and kept coming for candy - it was like a Halloween parade in here! - but the candy was like Mana and just didn't seem to disappear!

Stuff to Make the Office Pretty ^_^
Now, I'm not the only one to keep food in here as some actually have mini fridges where they pack loads and loads of food, so by these days and up to the last day, people would be cleaning them out to avoid coming back to rotten goodies, roaches, ants and stinky cubicles. Other stuff are also put away to avoid them getting sprayed with insecticide - fumigating during vacations is quite usual to keep buildings healthy - or stolen by loose fingered people who may have found their way into the building. Putting away files, decoration, taking home plants... the usual. For some of us - like me - actually cleaning out or barns is quite usefull as that's the place where we would stash all those things that normally remain outside to make the place less sterile and more... you. Of course, if it were about making it more me, you might wonder where on Earth is the full color White Collar poster, the witchbroom holder and whatever other weird knick-knacks you may associate me with (lots of green, peacock feathers, ribbons, tons of candles, etc.)? Well, this is what I have, and the office isn't your bedroom (I would certainly NOT hang a White Collar poster on the living room!). Would love to know what your offices and cubbies look like. ^_^

Anyway, as this takes place, in "this part of town", in other parts people is being laid off. They are emptying their barns and their cubbies for an entirely different reason. Acquintances of mine are currently living a very dire situation where friends and family - in some cases themselves - are being massively laid off by their employers as part of a "strategy" to clean up their croocked finances. It's been a hard couple of years for many in the economy, and while the public sector seeks to manage the staff and the costs in ways that are highly criticized by the private sector and the neoliberals as ineficient and just pushing the bulk from one shelve to another, the private sector takes the scissors and jabs into the staff, bleeding it out with much consideration. Right now families, homes, households are being left hanging from one income... or not even that, scrapping up if they were lucky enought to save, and seeing the end of the world as a threat come true if the only thing they collected while working was debt. Yes, let's be honest: some jobs actually demand more expending than what income they initially offer. Certain positions come with expectations about the car you should be driving, the clothes you should be wearing, the sports you should be practicing, the clubs you should join, the lunches and dinners you should have... and that costs money. Then you do all this effort to fit only to get a pink slip at the end of the day because someone rather throws you out so that they don't miss on the beluga.

I couldn't help but sadly smile to myself as I remembered some of these people trashing unions and the public sector, calling them all corrupts and lazy. As those who remain are forced not to take on the job of six of their former coworkers for the same wage, and told not to expect any of the raises, which are commanded and defined semestrally by law (yes, in Costa Rica you get by law two pay raises a year, and each time it's published how much the raise must be. It can be higher, but it can't be lower).

There's people packing to go home, with no expectations of getting a job, people who had bought into the promise, drank the kool-aid and not wake up with a headache and no wallet. There's people who woke up today heartbroken, looking forward to the festive season with a heavy spirit, feeling that there's notthing to celebrate and be merry for. There's people who woke up still with a job, and with fear, because they are not forced to do more, to go beyond their human capabilities, strain their emotional fibers and keep it together for a meager wage, not knowing where will their heads be on the chopping block.

Two lessons can be learned here: 1. Be grateful for what you have, and 2. Never, EVER underestimate the importance of the social and labour warranties that have been fought for decades ago. The work isn't finished yet, there's much to be done still, much to be fought for, so don't fall for the lie, fight.

Dec 19, 2012

Again on Friends To Let Go

The other day a column was dealing with a reader who was pondering breaking a friendship because the significant other of the friend was getting on their nerves. The reader was asking for a way to "let things wilt away", and the columnist replied that strainght forward confrontation is the best way to go, because that way you give a chance to your friend to reply, though you may not like the reply. The line sent chills down my spine due to the issues I have with Friend Trouble. In my case it isn't a case that I want to break up with her because of her husband, but because of her. Fiending off the unpleasant appendage is rather easy, by simply fixing dates and get togethers "just for us". I've two friends who can't stand each other, and though once they tried to get along for me, it was awkward, so one of them came first and said: "look, I love you, but I can't stand Friend 2, so if you'd like to spend time with them, please don't include me or the next time you'll have to visit me in prison". There's no biggie in that, right? I certainly don't like people badmouthing my friends, but I don't expect all of my friends loving each other. Love can't be imposed.

When someone is so bound to another person they can't simply go anywhere or visit anyone without that person, well, I would say that we have a problem. Just because you love your partner and you think that they are the most lovable, perfect person in the planet, it doesn't mean that the whole world is supposed to see them that way. And some of the people with a disagreeing view might be your own friends. So yes, commitment should be able to be brokered so that the time spent together would be good for everyone.

The plot thickens where the problem is your friend. How do you deal with that? What do you say? "Sorry dude, but you used to be smart, fun and lovable and now you've become stupid, boring and annyoing"? It might be coward, but sometimes letting things die is the best way. Would you rather go away with a happy memory somewhat faded in the end, or will you rather go away with an unnecesary wound caused by trying to explain something that's hard already, and getting new things in result that may end up bittering the whole thing? Some wounds don't need to be picked, and sometimes a friendship that's getting broken is exactly that kind of wound. Fading away can keep intact the good memories, while the frontal "I can't be your friend anymore, let's part ways" can sour the whole thing up. I know, I've been in both cases more times than I care to count.

Besides, fading away leaves open the chance to maybe get back together in the far future if things change, while a frontal breakup burns the bridges behind you.

I guess this is just a matter of deciding what are your motives and what can you foresee in your future and if any type of reunion would be acceptable for you.

Dec 18, 2012

Lots of Loose Thoughts

Tuesday. One day down, one day ongoing and three days to go. Ah, can't wait to hit the vacations! Everybody is really hooked up on the Mayan calendar... which is constantly represented with the Aztec calendar. Not that I know that much about them, but dude, if I'm going to preach about it, shouldn't I get my facts and my images right? Anyway the business is in full fledge, and it's being heard of more than any other End of the World prior to this. Commerce is riding this one really hard with End of the World trips, End of the World sales, End of the World Lottery and even an End of the World raffle. I think not even Y2K was commercialized. Then again, not like there was any specific place where that end of the world would have started, so you could travel there and see it first hand. Back to the Mayan End of the World, isn't it curious that it falls on Yule? First it was on 2012, so everybody got the idea that it was going to happen  on Yule - the longest night of the year of the Northern Hemisphere - happened when the world didn't ended in January.

Aside from the Christian Ends of the World - which happen a couple of times a year, depending on the church promoting it -  I wonder which one will be next. The Aztec? The Egyptian? Sumerian? Inca? The one I'd really like to see, and hope it gets lots of exposure will be the Scandinavian end of the world. Could you imagine that? Recreating Ragnarok with the giant wolves? That ought to be awesome!

I wonder why people is so hung on the end of the world. We are having at least some four or five ends of the world each year, and the day after, the fooled ones who were the loudest about it, act as if nothing ever happened, waiting for the next end of the world date to come out and start their "the signs are there, you should prepare like I do". Hell, could it be that people is finally sobering up, cutting back on the senseless consumism, and companies are pushing these rumors to at least have some people believe it will happen and throw themselves into debt because they won't have to pay it anyway. Or could it be that the current consumism levels aren't enough anymore for the greedy pigs? Anyway, the world won't end. Really, it won't. It hasn't been scheduled in my filofax, and I have calendars up to 2014, so it probably got rescheduled, or you are missing your Mayan Calendar 2013-4013 inserts. ^_^

From greedy pigs and money, it's fun to think that people actually believe that economics are all about money. You say "economists" or "economics" and people whould think of money, and imagine them to be behind these artificial merchandise movements, push people from one person to the next - normally from the poor to the rich, or the rich to the richer - but that's not it. In fact, imagine different scenes where a type of professional would be unnecesary. For instance, if the world were naturally fair and people never fought against each other, nobody looked to wrong others or gain at the expense of others, we wouldn't need lawyers. Then lawyers would disappear or die because they would have no jobs and would make no money. If there were no illnesses, doctors would be redundant, and would get out of jobs. If we had no need of buildings, and would live openly in nature, walking on the natural paths of Earth, we wouldn't need engineers - I guess - and those would get unemployed. The only thing that could throw economists out of a job would be abundance - a state where everybody would have everything they need by their own means, suffering no needs, and never swapping anything because there would be no need. We would be unemployed... but in the middle of abundance, who wouldn't? ^_^ I might be mistaken about all the other jobs, but that doesn't make mine less awesome.

Some of my friends are freezing right now. A penpal from Finland told me they are at -20°C. Right now the sun is shining outside the window of the office and bouncing back from some of the metal roofs of lower buildings. I could be at the beach right now and I wouldn't complain about it, if you know what I mean. ^_^

BTW, there's a new coke can in town. It's a recloseable or resealable can, much larger than the regular - at least in here, where the regular is 355ml, and this is 450ml - and has a plastic lid that can be turned around like in those coffee mugs with lids one uses at the office. Have tried it and I don't recommend it. The seal does work so the coke won't spill if you accidentally knock the can, BUT the taste is different. It's not the usual can-taste, but it doesn't approach the plastic-bottle taste either. It taste like the coke you get at a party from a cheap, disposable plastic cup.

A year is slowly ending, but there are still days ahead to conquer a few things, achieve some goals and make of this a wonderful experience.

Dec 17, 2012

Control your Stress

All my bad luck peaked up today, and I hope it's going to fall back and down and turn around and become good luck from now on. I woke up dreading the office and feeling already upset, so I tried to concentrate on positive thoughts. However, on my way to the office I've got hit by a bus from behind. It was the bus' fault, and thanks the Good Lord there wasn't any big damage done. My tail lights' covering plastic thingies got busted and my trunk now actually fits tighter. However I've got all sad and teary eyed, so the bus drived actually tried to talk me into believing it was my fault. Yeah, because it was my fault he wouldn't slow down. Anyway, I was thinking about getting to the office in time, so since there was no major damage we decided not to pursue things further and we left. Yes, I know, I shouldn't have, but I was so upset, and the accident brought back all the stress I had successfully pushed back in the morning, that I wasn't going to stay there for an hour and bawl like a baby.

So, I've got to the office, but I could feel that I was going to burst in tears anytime, so - knowing myself well, after the cases of anxiety attacks I've suffered years ago - I rushed to the work doc's and got an appointment with him to get fixed. Yes, I mean "that" by fixed, thank you. Can't afford not working, for there are a lot of things to be done. When I've got called for my appointment (you first gara make a line to get an appointment, because for over 1000 workers we only have one doctor who works only half a day), the nurse took me through the procedure taking my blood pressure and asking me why was I there. My pressure was high - and for someone with a naturally low pressure, it was REALLY high - and it scared me. I actually asked the nurse to take my pressure again, because it had to be wrong, but she refused, saying that it was still ok. Then, when I told her that I was stressed out - and nearly choked with speaking, getting teary - she actually had the nerve to tell me: "Well, you can't continue like that, you have to take control of yourself". I was flabbergasted! So you are stressed out - because it happens - and you are anxious because the world around you is a chaos, you are in the place where you currently hate the most to be, fearing whatever may come from the crazy above, and you have to "take control of yourself"? What's next? Telling someone who broke his leg to walk it off?

If you have had anxiety attacks in the past, you know well that getting over them isn't as easy as butching up after you broke your nail or you fell on your face. And if you have had a couple - as sadly I had - then you also learn to recognize the symptoms, do not underestimate them and act quick on them. Anyway that's me making sure not to go bonkers in the less fit of places, and run to keep the kraken under control, and there comes someone who should know better and tells you to "learn to suck it up". Is this the kind of professionals we are getting today? It seems so.

The doc was much nicer and much more aware of the situation (he actually read my file before passing judgment), listened to me patiently, made the right questions and refered me to professional help, and wrote me a recipe for little helpers.

I know there are cases were people make a storm in a glass of water, but a professional in health should know better than avising self-restrain when what's in order is professional help. You know, they make happy pills, ups and downers for a reason.

Ah, the jerk!

Dec 16, 2012

Wiccan Encounter & Friends

Today I went for the first time in my life to a Wiccan Encounter, and it was rather interesting in a positive way. I had logged this activity in my calendar for quite a while now (and I actually have another one booked for February), so I was quite excited with the idea of going. This was my first chance ever to meet real Wiccans in the flesh and get to know them a little better, get more in contact with the religion and learn from it. There was a talk planned about Chamanism and Wicca, which had really picked my curiosity. However, as bonus, I was also going to meet with two very dear friends of mine, as you know, Marcy and Mary Elle. I actually met Marcy with the nickname "Misao", but then I named her Arthemys because that name seemed to resonate better with her in my eyes, so I'll call ger Arthemys from now on. Mary Elle I met as Orion, so Orion she shall be, though she honestly strikes me more like an Athenea. Nah, I'll call her Athenea.

Well, The first thing was getting to the place of the meeting, which wasn't so easy for me. The Gathering was held at an old house that now works as a juggler school. The walls were pained in funky colors and in the yard, where the gathering was held, there was this crazy graffiti in neon colors and juggler motives. There were a few trapezes and colorful yards of fabric for the kind of airy juggling people do in them.

The Gathering was all simple and natural, in a very inclusive environment. I admit that I do was a little aside from the group as I was waiting for my friends to arrive, but the group quickly made me feel at home, and I was soon talking to a really nice and sweet guy about burning coals and resines. He had this lovely tiny little handmade burning bowl in which he set a coal to burn copal, a type of aromatic resine used back in the day by the Mayans. No, it has no hallucinogen  properties. It did had an interesting scent, like burning pine leaves and a bit of sandalwood at the same time. It's hard to get, and very sticky, so I'll consider getting it. I questioned him thoroughly about the places where you can get good burning supplies, such as resines and coals, and in addition to it, he also gave me a very good tip for fighting mosquitoes. ^_~

My friend Arthemys, to my pleasant surprise, was actually one of the main expositors of the gathering, explaining quite thoroughly Wiccan. A lady I met that day, Sally, took charge of the part about Chamanism.

We had also some yoga, some belly dancing, and then some meditation with creative visualization. In this last one we were supposed to see flowers growing from different parts of our bodies. They were supposed to have all the same color, but my flowers refused and instead choose to bloom in purple, red, white and blue, and they were all some kind of fleshy-petal flowers. Lilies, tulips and jasmines.

After the gathering the girls and I went to this Chinese Restaurant close by, and ate some awesome stuff, many of which were some type of Dim Sum. I like Dim Sum! We talked at leght, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well behaved Arthemys' son was. Also, for a 6 year old boy he showed and incredible talent for art. While we talked he drew an amazing drawing on a napking, and I could barely believe what I was looking at. His lines were sure and purposeful and the drawing itself was... just amazing. Abstract but with very much sense.

I loved spending time with them, and I loved seeing how much Athenea and Arthemys love each other. They truly behave as sisters. This warmed my heart because I love Arthemys deeply, and I never understood why the rest of our group didn't love her as much as I did. Our old group looked at her as a problematic crazy person, but Athenea looks at her as to a lovable person who makes wonderful things every step of the way. That was just beautiful. I hope I can keep meeting with them.

Dec 15, 2012

Meditation as Medicine

Meditation is a fabulous, fabulous thing. Even if you are not a yogi, if you haven't been trained, if you have no experience at all, or your mind is like Time Square and never rests, meditation is still a fabulous thing.

My day yesterday can't be labled as anything other than atrocious. It was a horrible day. At one point I even felt my lungs tighten up and give up breathing, such was the level of stress, but what's worse of all, it was all stress induced by proper organization and actually knowing what's going on. So yes, it was a typical case of rush hour while still trying to figure out what's really what we are doing and what should we be doing. Once again, my life was saved by my Echo pen, however, as I went home - by foot, crossing a very, very bad part of the city, because nobody had the decency of giving me a ride at least to a civilized part of town, thank you very much, I felt like crying. Do you know the feeling? When the only thing you want to do is just sit down and cry like a baby, and hope your Mom or your Dad or a good friend is around and that person would embrace you and hold you and rock you a little and tell you not to cry because everything is going to be alright? Yeah, that type of crying.

On my way home I started thinking about escaping. I had to get out of that situation any way possible. So where can I go? I mentally listed all my possible contacts, and promised myself that I would actively follow every single path, every single lead, every single chance until this situation changes because I won't tolerate much more of this. I SO know that Arjen is nodding her head right now!

I was still very emotional as I got home, so after I put down my bag and fed the cats, went outside  and sat to meditate. I kind of did it in a ritualistic way, with a loose circle casting and corner calling and God inviting, in all His forms which came to my soul, and then as I meditated, the issues came to my mind again, but they didn't hurt me. Suddenly I saw myself as a person with one foot in a swamp or quick sands and one on dry land and I asked myself: "Why are you so concentrated on the foot in the swamp, when your other foot is fine?"

The message was wonderful: yes, just because things aren't working on one end od the scope, it doesn't mean that life is over. You can lean on the parts of your life that are safe and sound, wonderful and successful, and get energy from then to pull yourself out of trouble. My problem isn't with my foot, but where it is, so let's move it!

Dec 14, 2012

Solving The Insert Question

I feel a little bit dumb about this, but I just discovered the easiest way to make your own inserts for your filofax, and thus diminish the filofax-fails. (Yes, this will be yet another filofax post, so if this isn't your cuppa tea, we could see each other tomorrow? ^_^)

Picture found in Google
As you know, after I received my first filofax, I quickly experienced my first filofax-fail. The Page Per Day (PPD) inserts were too thick for them to fit comfortably in my planner and then fit any other section, then the dividers were coloured in a shade I didn't really like, and some of the inserts weren't really down my alley. But I love my filofax! So what to do? Well, if you love filofax, you probably have discovered the many wonderful videos on youtube about how to organize your filofax, and you'll realize that a lot of people do their own inserts. And children, some of the inserts people make are simply mindblowing! Some even offer them for free downloading for anyone wishing to use them. So if you are not all that creative, or just don't have the time, or plain have no idea how to figure out a layout for a type of insert (say a financial track insert, or a goal insert), you can go and check those out. You can even check those out to get you an initial idea and then improve and adjust to your own needs. No need to invent the sliced bread, so just take the slice and invent the sandwich.

Picture made entirely by Stormberry
So I started playing around a couple of sections and the inserts I would like for them. This way I came up with the List of 13 inserts, the Financial Track, Fuel Track, Project Follow Up, List, Adresses, Blogposts and I think something else, but I don't remember what that one was. Designing them was already a bit of a challenge as I used to track some of these in different systems - mostly Excel sheets - so how could I work that out in paper? Oh, it's not that simple, as in Excel sheets you can go eternally across rows and columns, and you can work certain elements in different sheets to then all of them converge in one. Well, on paper cells don't link so easily with each other.

Things as simple as selecting the type of design or decoration - if you want one - isn't easy either. At least it wasn't for me. In some of my inserts I'm trying out this peacock feather design, but I don't use it in all of them. Particularly in horizontally designed inserts (by this I mean, those where the page lays horizontally, with the largest side at bottom and top) applying the design is difficult due to the space it takes. I might try using a planetary symbol strip I once made for stationary, but we shall see about that some other time.

Picture pulled by Google from somewhere
Once you are over the whole designing part, it came the most difficult part: printing out the inserts. Are you struggling with this as well? It was positively Hell for me. For a while I struggled measuring carefully text boxes on word pages, fitting the design in them and then crossing my fingers when printing them out as normally the page and it's back wouldn't align. Cutting them also happened to be a challenge, until I've got myself a portable, simple, cheap paper cutter. These can be picked up at scrapbooking stores or any major paper stores, like Office Depot, Staples, Pirex, just to mention some. There are safe cutters, where you don't have to push down a machete-looking blade, and which is quite suitingly called "guillotine". I've actually bought mine at a grocery store for $18. Still, the number of pages wasted in trying to get it right is too big to even mention it. :-( So what was I supposed to do? How did others do it? Well, the solution was so simple it's amazing.

Picture made entirely by Stormberry
The other day I wanted to print out some info for the Surprise Trip, and fit it in my filofax for checking on the flight. So, I opened Word and did an experiment. First I set the paper size to the size of my filofax inserts (9,6 cm x 17,1 cm), which I did through the "Page Design" tab. Then I took some colored paper sheet and cut them in my cutter to size. A Letter Size sheet yields two pages of personal size filofax. I made sure to leave 1 cm margins on both side margins as I wanted to print the paper on both sides, and the ring part takes that much for the punching. I fed the cut pages to my printer (I use an EPSON Stylus TX-235W, which is similar to the SX-235W available in Europe). I had a little set back because I accidentally cut the pages a centimeter longer, but once I fixed that, all the pages came out perfectly. That was my Eureka! moment. I quickly pulled out some of my old insert designs, fitted them to the pages, and soon I was printing my own inserts! ^_^ 

Googled and pulled from philoFAXY
By discovering how to do it, I can now control many more of the features of my inserts: the paper quality, even size, if I want to change something about it, and also what goes printed on it and in which format. For instance, if I wish and have the patience, I would design the whole 2014 calendars in a way that gives me more room, includes moon cycles, all the holidays I observe, Mercury Retrograde marks and so on. Weekly calendars can be fitted for equal slots for all of the days. This way you could even scan your favorite planners fit them to size and then print them into your planners' size!

Pic Googled
From there on, I felt all creative and decided to fit some tabs. I had bought a pack of letter sized binder color-tabbed dividers. The pack had 12 dividers, so the tabs were small enough. Measuring carefully, I cut them all to size. Evidently not all the 12 tabs would fit in a smaller binder, but I solved that by making two rows of dividers. I also turned some up so that the tabs would be at the top of the pages. Those didn't work as well, as the tabs were taller than regular filofax tabs, and stuck out too much. For the side tabs I cut the tabs narrower, so that the tabs would stick out only 0,5 cm, but on the top tabs I didn't do the same, so I ended up trimming the tabs. That didn't work as nicely. So, now I plan to get another pack of dividers (I realized I need more than 9 sections!) and I'll redo the top tabs by cutting those dividers shorter. We shall see what comes from that.

By now I've decided to make a video in 2013 about my all set filofax, assuming my camera works well and I do well on the vid. ^_^ So don't worry, at least one of this filofax-entries is probably going to be fun for all... hopefully.