Vacations at the "La Española" Island

This reservation certainly wasn't like any other I've ever done at any other place. Booking.com should, perhaps, be a bit more clear about things... or should the hotels? Well, as you might guess, a non-really-geeky person like me, needs, NEEDS! her daily fix of internet connection in any shape of form available, so it is a mandatory requierment for any, ANY reservation I make, that the hotel has wi-fi or any other form of internet available, preferably one where I don't have to wait for some sweaty ass tourist (even though I'm a tourist myself), to detach their fat asses from in front of the communal internet, which usually has a large screen and everybody waiting can see what you are doing on-line. Not like I do any unseeming stuff (except when I scout yaoi mangas, which I have been doing quite often recently), but still. There's an option for that, which Booking already clicks for me "wi-fi", so when I did the reservation for the hotel, I was under the naive impression that I could come up to the room, log in and tweet to all my friends and followers that I'm nice and fine and made it to the hotel just dandy. You know, the regular stuff you do within 140 characters on Twitter.

It wasn't so. I do got informed of this after the reservation but before the trip, however I was told that wi-fi was freely available at the common areas. Oh well, we might manage, all I need is Internet and get online to breath my daily dose of Mb. However as we actually arrived to the hotel, what would you know, but you can't actually get any Internet if you don't pay for it! US$6 for 24 hours. Ok, ok, it's not so. Once you can link up on the bar for 10 minutes without paying. Dude, really, what the fuck can you do in 10 minutes on the net? Check on the news? Google something? My Kindle wouldn't even be able to download a sample from the lastest book samples I've requested! (Which do not take 60 seconds to download, btw...) So, really, 10 minutes? If you wonder what sort of cheap ass motel are we at, no, we are not. We actually have reservations at a big chain hotel, which is why this whole picking and pulling with the tourist is so offsetting for me. But I shall not complain, I've my internet, right? Already reported to Twitter and Facebook, like any dutiful little cybernaut, and now I'm merrily blogging my head away while my sweet boyfriend sleeps.

The city so far has been... interesting. It is certainly upsetting the amount of people outside the hotel harrassing you into shoe polishing (Dude, I'm wearing linen shoes! What do you want to polish on them! my boyfriend also had some unpolishable shoes...), and guided tours on horse pulled charriots... and when the "no thank you" isn't enough -  in Spanish, so that they see this is another Latin American fellow they are harrassing - comes the "I need to eat" line. Dude, me too! We don't have a DIME on their currency... or any currency other than Costa Rican colones, which we need, thank you very much. So, what do you want? They are rather unbeatable, and I honestly sulk that my boyfriend isn't a little darker in complexion and less... European looking. That was unpleasant. It was also quite unpleasant to notice the whole seashore littered. Dude, people come here for the beaches, so even if you can't swim in these particular shore, you should make sure there aren't banks of garbage floating on the water, and all sorts of stuff lying around the shore.

Historically speaking - and my history knowledge is very unreliable! - this was the Island to which Christopher Columbus arrived in his first trip, believing he had arrived to India. How far he was from the truth! The island was first called San Salvador (Saint Savior), because it appeared on the day the crew was going to dump him in the water and turn back. Later on it was called "La Española", meaning "The Spanish (woman)". The local natives, the "tahínos", were exterminated, leaving the island with no local people. The current population is also somewhat different from the Latin Americans you can see in other places, as in other countries the mixing of Spanish and Native blood is far more common, as well as mixes of white and black, black and native or all three of them, giving fabulous mixes of caramel skin or olive skin, high cheekbones, large eyes, small noses and abundant, straight, strong, pitch black hair. In here, missing the native component, most locals are rather a black and white mix, with milky caramel skin, curly hair and very prominent black features such as the magnificent cheekbones and expressive faces, and hairier limbs.

We haven't seen much yet, and honestly we have only one full day left - tomorrow - but so far, so interesting. Naturally, and as expected, I've got something pretty. ^_^ Once, in making a research on gems, I cam across a gem known as "larimar", which can be found only in Dominican Republic. Back then the research was tied to Pagan practices, and I taped a list of gems and their magical properties (many of which are often present in folklore, such as stones used for protection and things like that). For this particular stome I don't remember any of the properties, as what caught me was it's uniqueness: a gem that can only be found in one place and one place only in the whole planet: here. Abundant back in the day, though never used before as a gem, it was discovered as so recently  - in 1974 - by a man named Miguel Méndez, who started a local project to use it stone in artisan creations.

In colorings that remind of the sky or the ocean, the larimar (called so in the honor of the founder's daughter, Larisa, and the sea, "mar" in Spanish), is usually blue with white ribbons and splashes that give it often a "sky like" look. Like a sky with clouds. Once here, I also discovered that it can also contain brown (that's like the crust part of the stone), which can give it really interesting shapes and forms. Mine was actually the smallest ring in the store - interesting for my hand isn't so small, and judging by the finger I'm wearing it, this should be at least a 7, and most women I know wear ring sizes 5 and 6, many even 4 - but also one with brown, which not only gives me a wider range to combine the piece, but also rips it from the sky-like look and lends it an ocean floor look. I totally love it. :-D

Well, I should get going, wake up my snoring boyfriend, and though the lunch time is over, maybe do our first "service room" order and fetch some lunch. It is late, for lunch (though I've met people who take lunch well past 6 pm), it was so hot earlier we could hardly think of eating. Yes, that's yet another great thing about this island: I bet in here you drop pounds off your frame like nobody's business! If that's what you are interested in :-D

Oh, one last thing: at the Airport in Costa Rica, I discovered a magazine I've never seen before. It's "Latina", a magazine aimed at the Latin and Latin descendent women living at the States. Guess living in a Latin American country you kinda lose out of sight the issues connected with our etnicity. Then, did you know that the "white-latin" mixes are called "beige". I don't think I like that. That's like being called a "blah" color, when there's nothing "blah" about us. There were quite a few very interesting articles, though when it came to fashion, the proposals were so bold, so sparkly, so flashy and so revealing, I found myself reaching out for comfort into my Hungarian heritage mumbling: "I'm European, I'm European". I'm Latin, only not THAT Latin. I like skirts at knee lenght, clothes that do not try to choke my body and quite muted colors. Still, the finding was interesting.

Blogging starts first with reading my favorite bloggers and secretly yearning for the day I can read them also on my Kindle. Kindle. The word reminds me a story I heard from the Pagan Podcaster Fire Lyte, known by his podcast Inciting a Riot, as well as the podcast he co-hosts with the lovely Velma Nightshade, Inciting a Brewhaha. Fire Lyte said that he read somewhere that in the time of the Holy Inquisition, homosexual people were burned at the pyre with the witches, however that they were used to kindle the fire, not to be burn by themselves, and they tied them in fags, thus the term "fag" to refer to them - in a peyorative manner. Perhaps I'm insensitive - after all I'm heterosexual and Christian - but I keep rolling this idea over and over, trying to figure out the actual content of this information. Can people actually be used to kindle fire? For a pyre? Maybe I need to see to believe, but it does sound a little bit too much of a stretch of reality for me to believe it.

Part of the Holidays are over and only the last one remains, along with just a few days of the year and a few days of my vacations. I yearned for this break - I really did - but as things are, I don't mind getting back to work on Monday. A few days scrapped up for mandatory rest, and now that I'm not spending every single one of them - and others I can add to them - to fly to my beloved, frozen Europe, the days are... not particularly meaningful. Mean thing to say, I know, specially when my boyfriend is here and I don't have to wake up early and every morning we can stretch and roll around between the sheets yawing and enjoying either the iddle laying or the more active kind of pleasure. I have him, here, with me, in my days, so somehow the physical closeness, the physical togetherness isn't something so desperately cherished. Do I get my meaning through?

It's cool, though, to mash together the daily routines, the driving, pulling in more routinely conversations about the color of the kitchen, or how shall we manage with the closet space and what should be the first things that need to be taken care of, and even starting to work a long term plan about saving to get eventually a bigger place in the district I want (I'm so not moving from that subject!), because truth to be told, a small income from the rental could be much appreciated for other plans, and to get an extra margin for little indulgements and luxuries I love so much.

A cycle is slowly coming to an end with the turning fo the wheel of the year. Many things have changed and many cycles have been completed in this time. I've tasted into the waters of religion and phylosophy, and discovered things that tug my mind in directions that arrest my attention easily. I've also realized, after much time, that my writing should be rekindled, that the stories played over and over in my head are not enough, but that my skills should be put to practice, the word exercised and restrenghtened. As I stumbled upon my old writings I stood there paralized, almost scared at the skills I once had - the potential of what I could have achieved - and yet I let it all wilter so easily. It goes also to drawing. Perhaps I should try my hand once again at that, just practice and try to draw the things that have crossed my mind.

Unlike planned, I skipped the celebrating of a Pagan holiday: Yule, but also of a Christian celebration I have never kept so far: Advent. Maybe I'll have more knowledge and pay more attention in th next cycle of my life to keep the markers of these celebrations. I wouldn't make it a New Year's promise, as though I've tried, those bear not much meaning for me, but I'd like to make it a proposal for the new cycle of my life: make this new phase more life-aware, and that's own of the things these celebrations give to it. Of Advent I do not know much - therefore have no idea how to interpret it either  - and of Yule I know it's the day when the Sun is born and the powers of day and night, dark and light are shifted again. The contemplative times are to be slowly set aside, and ease back into the active, working days. From the side of Christianity, with the birth of Jesus, we see the birth of Hope, Faith and Light, and with Yule, we see the preparation towards hard work.

As balance tips again, it becomes time to prepare for the work to come, so kindle the lands back from the iced embroidery of meditation, work it, masage it back to fertility and prepare it, work it, sow it with our effort to see in the months to come, in the stages and seasons of our cycle, our efforts and work to blossom and bloom and ripe to harvest. There is a routine, but not because of that there's no change in it. Not because of that there's stagnation.

Is change needed no matter what, as today's "enterpreneur gurus" want to make us believe? Or is it okay to say "if it ain't broken, don't fix it". Nature certainly doesn't go around reengineering itself time and again, deciding that mammals will not hatch from eggs, and plant will give birth to their sprouts. Apple trees are not requested to produce now both tomatoes and jam, nor cows are expected to produce flavored milk and orange juice.

When is change needed? When does the monkey turns man? When it naturally happens so, but meanwhile, there is change. Nature works constantly in cycles, from birth to death, from the dropping of the leaves and the winter slumber to the lustful blossoming and the pregnant harvest. Follow nature, follow Mother Earth, your very humanity and you shall find out that there's no space for iddle stagnation nor discomfort, unless you are trying to escape from the natural flow and yearn for what's not out there to be taken and transformed. Change that comes with destruction or change that comes with construction? In this new cycle, I wish to open my soul, my skills, my spirit to this meditation, and so, as the Sun has been born, and the Lord has been born, the fruits of meditation, the blueprints of future, shall be worked upon to make them happen, rekindling the warmth to make that generous, giving Mother Earth receptive to our seed.

Happy Holidays!

The end of the year is already a week and a month away. Those who celebrate Advent light today the first light in their Advent Wreath, but also there are other customs and celebrations being displayed. The stores that have been displaying Christmas decoration since August or at least October, push it harder as customers fill their aisles and many temporal helpers and salespeople are hired to face the flood of people spending their hard earned money on things they don't need, and plenty of presents, often for people they don't even like but feel pressed to buy something for.

However, thing is that this time of the year isn't only about Christmas and the Christian celebrations, as it happens that Hanukka is also around these days for the Jewish Faith, and Pagans celebrate Yule. There might be other holidays too - Islam celebrates around these days the Ashura, which isn't a particularly happy holiday - and so for those who are not Christian the overpowering Christmas mood, and the overstated "Merry Christmas" wishing can - after a while - become somewhat offending. Also, there are people with a very aggressive religious stance who get offended if someone wish them anything different than Merry Christmas, or even if they hear other people wishing anything different.

Logically speaking, it's irrational to act like that, but I believe all of us will agree that extremist or fundamentalist people can't be labeled as "rational". I wouldn't mind if a small group of close minded jackasses mumble and frown for themselves if they hear people wishing each other Happy Hanukkah, except that the whole thing is becoming a sort of passive-aggresive bullying, with little space or respect for other religions. Depending on the official religion of a country, or what the accepted majority professes are religion, basically that's the only holiday decoration and motives we can find, unless of course, we go to specialized stores where you can - I don't know - find Yule decoration.

Perhaps we are still far away from the day when all stores will give equal chances to all religions and all holidays, but we shouldn't be so far away from being tolerant and accepting the faith of those around us. Wishing each of us according to our holiday and our faith, or simply "Happy Holidays" can be the first step towards a better understanding.

Thing is that it doesn't make you less in your faith to recognize and accept people of other faiths, nor is your faith so weak - if it is a true faith - to be broken if you partake in the celebration of those whose faith is different than yours. So what do you say? Shall we receive these Holidays in our faith with the determination to open up to others and accept them in their own faith?

A Question of Bra

If you watch those shows about taking some woman who has a poor dressing style and "teaching" her how to dress fashionably and in style, often the most important remark is "choose the underwear that's right for you". This "underwear question" is often directed to the bra, and not as much to the knickers, probably because there's more form fitting in bras than in culottes (or maybe because boobs tend to sag more than buttocks... or Hyne knows...), and either way, with today's tiny thongs what support and molding would it do?

Now the bra question in itself isn't as simple as you would think. It's not like a pair of knickers where you can wear anything size ... M, just to give you an example, but first of all you have to know your size. In theory to do this you must take two measurements:

1. First you measure yourself right under the line of the breast and around your back. (Around where the bra would go.) I'll assume we all use the inch measurement for bras here. (So conversion need to be done in Europe and anywhere where bras don't start at 31, but at 70.) So, you take that measurement and if the number is even you add 4 to it, and if it's odd you add 5. For instance, you are 28 inches around and under the breast. 28+4=32. Also, if you are 31 inches around, you are 31+5=36.

2. Then you measure again around, but this time there where your breast if the fullest. This is usually at the height of the nipples.  Here you take the difference between the first number (with the 4 or the 5 already added!) - known as bra band number - and this number, and so you get your cup size. One inch difference makes you an A, two a B, three a C, four a D and so on.

(More on measurements here.)

However if you've been bra hunting, you know that all that's nice and good, but the world doesn't work like that. Oh no, it doesn't. You can know by measurements that you ARE a 32C, and when you get to the store there's not one freaking 32 C willing to fit you, and instead you end up walking home with a 36B or a 31D or any other oddity. The style, the stitching, the fitting and even the advise from some salesgirls who actually urge you to just "fit them into the cup" isn't much of the help you need either. Not much people tell you either that the cup should hold the WHOLE breast, and that means that the cup should reach quite close to the armpit, otherwise it's uncomfortable, it can look bad (like you have more than two breasts, or like you are fatty, which you are not), not to mention the pain and other unpleasant things that it can  do for you. (I've heard it can provoke all sorts of lumps in your breasts, but I've not hard evidence on this.) So that "grab them and fit them into it" isn't really a smart thing to do.

Bras should go when they are stretched out, have lost their shape or are no longer the right size for you. If you are a flat chested chick like me, you can manage to use sport bras or little fitting tops or even go around comando, but if you are a bit more "generous" neither of these is really an option. (Many flat chested women are already used to this fact and don't mind it, so a sport's bra that usually flattens you even more isn't much of a problem.) Either case, the time might come when you need a more "dressing bra", something a bit more structured, that not only keeps your breasts in place and safe from unpleasant jiggling, but also something that gives you a better shape and allows you to fill your blouses and dresses in a more flattering way. This day is when The Hunt starts.

Unlike with the easy tops and sports bras you can get at your local drugstore or supermarket - often using a simple measure system as S-M-L - the shopping for a real bra undertakes a whole quest that starts at specialized stores, lingerie stores and similars. Here, from the wide arrange of options that go from half cup, full cup, sexy, support oriented and Hyne knows what other options (mainly you go there and see those that go from whore-like sexy to nun-like orthopedic), you must or should have an idea of what you want to get. It's important for all girls and women to remember that the bra is for you, so either you pick the whore or the nun bra, that shouldn't be influenced by your marital status, but only by what you want to wear and what are you comfortable with. Recently I was bra hunting and one of the bras I tried on was a "push-up and show" kind that basically grabbed my small boobies and smashed them together in front of my chest and pulled them up. I bet it's sexy for many and I looked like I had HUGE boobs, but I wasn't comfortable with it. They were unnaturally pulled to the center pointing forward like Aphrodite from Mazinger Z. Probably a dozen women would kill for a bra like that, but I'm not one of them. Some like their breasts to touch and form a line between them, others don't. Some want something pretty to show off with blouses and dresses with clivage, and others want something that fits well a shirt and gives structure to a costume. And so you must put on your comfortable shoes, wear pants or skirt and a comfy blouse or shirt easy to take off and put on, and get lots and lots of patience.

Unless you have a favorite, secret little store that always get you what you desire, The Hunt implies visiting an endless number of stores, trying an even bigger amount of bras in order to find the one or the few ones that are going to fit your needs. Trying on several bras and walk out of the store with none of them is not unheard of, but also it may happen that you visit store after store and you simply don't see a thing that would appeal to you. Or there's also the case when you find something that looks pretty, you would really love it and when you try it out it stands weird on you. This can be one of the worse cases, particularly if you've been already hunting for a good bra for weeks. (This is also why guys have to be so tremendously careful when buying us underwear. It might look like something you would looooove to see on us - only to take it off later, of course - but then it happens that we would like to wear it and the pretty little sexy thing fits us oddly. So, you can buy us underwear, just make sure you can return it and change it in case of need.)

As noted earlier, recently I was on a bra hunt, and to add to all the difficulties proper of this task, I found yet another one: many stores don't work all sizes. And I'm not talking here of the bigger sizes (over D) or smaller sizes (under B), I'm talking about many regular sizes. In this recent hunt I found out that many stores have huge stocks of B cup sized bras with lots of band sizes. Now, you can be a 32C, that the salesgirls will try to talk you into a 34B or 36B. Sure, a B will make you look bigger because your breast won't fit into a smaller cup, so it will swell up all over the place, from the top, from the sides and you'll look like you've overgrown your bra, but in my eyes that doesn't make you look bigger, it makes you look deformed. Smaller cups actually flatten even more your bra and give you that unsightly multi-breasted look you really don't want to have. Or, you'll look fat and flat chested. (Bras supported with wires have the tendency to mark your breast making it look like your breast is only what fits the cup, and the rest is fat.) So, in addition to everything you've already gone through you've also have to start by FINDING your size at the store, and then hopefully find it in the type of bra you want to wear.

Yes, a good bra can make the difference. It can actually make you look slimmer, more proportionated, mark better your waist or even make it look smaller, it can make your clothes look like they were tailored specifically for you, it can make you look groomed and perfect... or it can make you look fat, deformed and tacky. It can make you look like one of the boys or like a goddess, so yes, when the time is right and you feel like it's time to get that bra, and commit to the hunt, you will eventually get That Bra (and you know what I'm talking about. It's the Perfect Bra, the Sexy Bra, the Woman Bra, the Hmmmm Bra), but aside from that, aside from making you look the way you want, it gets more meaning for you, because of - yes - the hunt and the dedication you've put into finding it.

When Life is Rich

There seems to be an idea rolling around among people, that childhood is an extremely happy and sensitive period in one's life, when we still believe in everything, we still believe that everything in the world is possible and fairy tales are an active part of our reality. Then, as we grow up there's nothing but a collection of deceptions and disappointments, facing a dull outlook of life, which has no magic, no wonder, no happiness, no amazement, only duties, bills and troublesome work environments. We are being constantly bombed with this message, about how happy children are, and how wonderful would it be if we could once again walk on the face of the world in wonder. It was particularly disappointing to find such a notation in a book I was recently reading (as a matter of fact, a sample of a book I've downloaded on my Kindle, which I doubt I'll even buy now) as part of this loose little project I have about the series on Religion. Coming from a book about Wicca, I honestly expected a bit more of seriousness, and not what seems to me is an invitation to yearn for the days when we were all ignorant and gullible. The author particularly used the word "rich" to describe the life of children in comparison of that of adults. Honestly, what sort of projection is that? Pushing forward the idea that life goes from good to bad, and that the older we become the duller and darker our life turns? And magic should be about trying to run back to that state of "believe" where believe is to let behind logic and reason and trust like a child in the words of the amazement?

These words are particularly dangerous if they come into the hands of adults who are still gullible, particularly because I believe that adulthood isn't equal to dullness or a life lacking of luster and shine. Perhaps my childhood wasn't a usual one, but for instance I feel I keep the same wonderment, and still believe in pretty much the same things, only now, as a grown woman, I can reach where as I child I couldn't. My scope goes beyond the books my folks keep in their library (which as it is typical of any Hungarian family, isn't a small library), and I've the freedom now to explore far beyond. As a grown woman I've access to other wonderments back then I couldn't even phantom, and add to it, the knowledge I've gathered and continue to gather has allowed me to find bridges among the daily and the exceptional, where "mundane" is the word that would designate the wonders of everyday life, in contrast with other wonders that appear much less periodically.

The main difference between life as a child and life as an adult, is the amount of consequences from your previous actions and decisions you shall live with. Is life richer when you are more dependant on others and can pin your misfortune on your parents, family or guardians? Does it become more dull when you must realize that you are where you are because of the choices you made? As a child, if you live in a poor hut, that's because your folks are poor and can't afford anything else. If as an adult you live in a poor hut, it's because you haven't done what it takes to make it different. As kids we have a potential, as adults we live out of what we've done with that potential.

Magic, ki, prana, energy, life force, God's will... it's a wonderful, powerful, fabulous thing, but it's not something to be attained by denying any part of our lives, or a matter to erase it. Childhood is a phase, and adulthood is another, and whichever is more wonderful depends entirely of what you do with them.

Driving in Costa Rica

Some months ago the Ministry of Public Developments and Transport (MOPT by its initials in Spanish - I used the word "development" to translate the word "obras" which would encompass public road infrastructure development) put in work a few cameras to watch the traffic and fine drivers who drove too fast. The cameras were installed quite ahead of time, and were extensively tested, and then they explained on several media that these cameras would take measure the speed at which the cars drove and issue tickets for those who exceeded the speed limit. People complained some, but then, when the cameras came to work and the first tickets were issued people went in a frenzy claiming all sort of unfair procedures and treatments, from which a "model" claimed that she shouldn't be fined because she works only at nights, doesn't watch TV, wasn't aware of the news, at that hour there were no cars on the road, so she was entitled to drive at +100 kmph on a 60kmph road, and 12 tickets in a week was unseen and she had no money to pay the tickets. Others complained that the amount of the fines wasn't proportional to the average income, and with such amount only the rich could afford a speeding ticket! A lawyer actually had the nerve to claim that the tickets were illegal because they were based on the plate of the car, so you wouldn't know who was driving.

Initially the MOPT held its position, though this was quickly eroding as it was made evident that the only tickets issued were for those who surpassed the speed limit by 20 kmph. (In other words, if you were driving at 80 kmph on a road allowing 60 kmph you are okay, BUT if you drive at 90 kmph on a 60 kmph road you've got yourself a ticket.) The complains continued showering, and people made huge lines to complain in an effort to get their tickets revoked, all of them with arguments that held no water. I mean, if you lend your car to someone - be it friend or family, coworker or someone who lends it from you for money - you are still responsible for your vehicle, and you shall face the damage done with your car. It should be up to you to arrange the matters with whomever was driving your car, not a matter for the Ministry to sort and solve. Then, regulations and laws are made to be kept. So, if there's a sign that says "MAXIMUM SPEED LIMIT 60 KMPH" it means that you are not allowed to go at any speed over that speed. However the Government wa lenient in that and sensing their weakness a population used to breaking traffic laws and invent their own pushed until recently the Ministry danced back and promised to check on the project of the cameras again.

Currently there's a regulation that seeks to reduce traffic at the Capital City, which bans certain plates from entering the Capital City on certain week days. The complaints shower tremendously on this measure, and only a small group of drivers keep it (me among them), with the vast majority still driving their cars on their restriction day, looking for escape routes and alternative alleys when they see a traffic officer. What would have happened if the camera system would have also checked on the plates and issued tickets for the cars that were caught driving on restriction days?

Some smarty-pants talked on the media about the whole system indicating that the new fines in Costa Rica were so disproportionate the same fine was cheaper in Europe (a 5 minute research proved them wrong, yet they still hold their stand), but also complained that it was irrational to demand you to drive at 60 kmph on roads that allowed higher speeds with modern cars that can go faster, claiming that driving at 80 kmph already created a traffic jam, so slow that speed was. This last arguments holds no water either, as I've personally proved that driving at speeds consistently between 40 kmph and 60 kmph allows a nice, fluent traffic and no, people don't honk at you and insult you for going at that speed. However these sort of shameless public declarations sadly put in evidence an undeniable fact about Costa Ricans: they don't know who to drive.

From the habit of paying off the instructors to get the License, to the idea that stunts and hazardous driving are part of good driving, to the idea that fines shall be affordable, it doesn show the need for tough measures, shows that high fines that can't be afforded are in need to keep people from considering breaking the law as their unallienable right, and constant camera surveilance on the roads to keep the Captain Americas fo the road from thinking they have any piece of asphalt at their mercy. Changing lines regardless of the cars behind on the same line, speeding up to cut through two or more lines, rushing into incoming traffic, disrespecting red lights, rushing through yellow lights, getting into the other line with vehicles coming just to pass another car, passing at full speed on the right side... next to a cliff, passing traffic using the shoulder of the route... these are more are among the bravados considered "skills of good driving" and here I haven't even mentioned the crass mistakes like phoning or texting while driving, eating AND texting while driving (that's right! Driving with no hands on the wheel, no eyes on the road), or driving ahead while looking back to attend a child on the backseat.

Yes, 60 kmph on metropolitan roads must be enough. There's no reason to claim the right to rush +100 kmph in a 10 km route that goes in front of a hospital and it's marked over 3 times with signs indicating you that the speed limit is set at 60 kmph, and yet drivers do and are upset when fined for driving at speeds over 80 kmph.

The picture I added to this posts was taken from this site ESTIMATED ROAD TRAFFIC FATAL INJURY DEATH RATE, which you can check to discover a few interesting fact, among them how the countries that some of the "experts" quoted as having "cheaper fines" have half or even a third on fatal traffic accidents per 100K people than Costa Rica, or for instance how Costa Rica has the highest rate of fatal traffic accidents per 100K people in the Continental Central America. (Mexico isn't part of Central America, is part of North America.)

Tough measures are needed, but also a Government with brass balls and iron fist to draft them, pass them, execute them and tell the complainers to fuck it.

Step Up or Suffer It Silently

In the recent days a coworker of mine made a comment abouth another coworker, on the very same line she has done it basically since I know her, that got me thinking again why can't she grow some balls and do something about that. If you recall, I've mentioned before that we have a coworker with a peculiar predilection for leeching upon others, in several ways, from what I've gathered from quite a wide arrange of acquintances. On the personal level, he leeches the most on this coworker of us. For over eight years now he relies on her to get to the office and then back home. Giving rides to coworkers you live nearby and have no car or their vehicle is at the workshop isn't something strange, as many do it. Then, when the carpooling or riding becomes extensive, it is customary for the one getting the ride to offer pinching into the gas for the car, which can be either rejected or accepted by the driver. Normally one would think that there's a sort of friendship between the driver and the rider, when the rides are frequent, so one would assume that she and her freeloader are friends, and thus they act, but through her comments when he's not around or out of the hearshot, say otherwise.

At the begining of the week, the freerider was out of the office and soon she noted how early she arrived at the office, and how that showed that she was getting late on regular basis due to him. Soon she was also complaining that he hasn't given her a dime for gas in the past three weeks, and then today, after she mentioned it, he gave her a US$10. At this point I'm honestly taken aback, as it is unpolite from her to expect a compensation for doing a favor, specially after she has previously stated that she never mentioned anything openly about asking him for money for the rides. I mean, is it a service she shall collect for or is it a favor? Scandalized she noted how she uses to go to her Mother's place from the office to pick up her son (and he rides with her, nontheless), and if her mom invites her for a coffee, he actually complains that he had to wait for her in the car. Add to it, he whines half her lunch every day and got to demand half her breakfast as well, when she went to pick one at the canteen. I know the guy, and ever since he realized I've been driving to the office, he has tried to get me to give him a ride to the office and back on the days our coworkers doesn't come. Aside from two perfunctory courtesy rides (one on each way) - both of which I offered him - I've dodged every other request from his side. (It did upset me once when he carelessly slammed the door without noticing the safety belt got caught and then forced it closed, while it was impossible due to the caught belt buckle. when realizing the mistake, didn't even apologize.)

I know the sort of social leech he is,a s I've encountered many of his kind. People like him care not for the discomfort they provoke, purposefully ignore the indirect requests to stop, but use the same indirect manipulating techniques to continue milking their prey. I've stopped him in his tracks, giving back only for the seldom favors in rides he has given me in the past, but stoopping there, cutting it before it starts, as he actually waits nothing to impose on you, considering one favor as an invitation to regularly get it from the giver. I'm certainly not the only one, as another coworker replaced his car for a motorbike to keep him from asking rides on daily basis to the office.

On top of all that he makes a laughing stock for the office as he brags about his alleged businesses, his three cars, his big house, his alleged skills for commerce and his undying desire to give up his work and dedicate to his own company.

Either way, laughing stock or not, thing is that he's a lazy leech that would not shame away from begging and whining whatever he needs from others instead of manning up and doing it himself or relying only on his own resources. But that's his problem. The coworker's problem is her utter inability to stop him from taking advantage of her. Childish antics, bitching and bickering to others about what an inssuferable s.o.b. he is won't make him go away. Yes, she should woman-up, stand up to him if his attitude and his leeching upsets her as much as she says it does, and tell him clearly: "I've got enough". But, as cunning and witty as she likes to present herself, she's actually yellow backed, unable to stand up for herself. Sure, she let him get this far, and this far getting him off her hair will be a real struggle, but it's not impossible, and certainly more pleasing than her telling us mockingly how he dared to tell her he was making him a service by taking a ride on her car, for that way he protected her by simply being in her car.

As I look over to my coworkers I wonder about the other things in our lives we don't like but which we don't dodge and look for alternative ways to shake off us, out of a sense of politeness present only in us, and not in the other party. Some are really difficult to shake off and we must endure them (like out thesis tutor - we didn't confront him, but we worked around and we prevailed), but others are simply a matter of social muscle and social courage. Sometimes you shouldn't be affraid of appearing unpolite or rude in order to defend yourself or avoiding being taken advantage of. Think of this: if the other party is so blatantly ignoring social convention, why should you observe it?

As a final advise for cases when you want dump a leech or an uncomfortable freerider, remember it is polite to either tell the person you are no longer able to perform that service. That simple. "I must tell you I can't no longer give you a ride/help you with your job/babysit for you/do your errands/lend you money/give you my food". No explanations, just say in an even, calm voice that you can't do that any more. Yes, you'll probably be requested to offer explanations as to why, but REMEMBER you don't need to give them. It's actually unpolite to request or demand for explanations for refusing a favor. Insistence can always be batted away with "I've personal reasons (and I would appreciate you would respect them)". Further poking can be dodged with "I would really appreciate if you would not pursue with these questions. I believe this concerns only me". (In other words, turn the tables, and indirectly point out at how unpolite, rude they are for not respecting you and how such a thing makes you unhappy, for you never expected them to disrespect you in such a fashion while asking for a favor.)

So, remember, a favor is always voluntary and you can stop any time you feel like it.

Deep Consideration

Though I need the income my job provides me, and I love my boss very much (he ranks 2nd, nose-to-nose with the best boss of all times I have ever had), certain things make me consider quitting as soon as possible. One of those is poor, poor, POOR! redaction skills. I'm tired of the looping message in my head that says "This person should die and come back as what it's thinking skills belong: a mushroom", however when struggling my way through extensive poorly written crap, I'm growing worried that so much disconnected, irrational, no-sense-making shit might affect my own thinking and logical skills. What if this typing-with-no-idea-whatsoever-you-are-writing, maybe even the dreaded copy-and-paste-to-make-volume-no-one-reads-anyway style is contagious? What if after so much exposure my own rationalizing and logical-thinking capabilities get handycapped? What's better "employed but brain dead" or "unemployed but thought capable"? I'm strongly leaning towards the option #2.

Good Friend, Bad Friend

The Raja-Yoga chat of Saturday has stayed longer with me, coming back time and again about happiness, inner peace and the influences we let to get to us. In this chat one of the attendants made a question basically going on the line of 'what should one do when someone close to us is in a well of unhappiness, sinking lower and you can't do anything about it?'. The answer from the yogini was 'why is it your business?'. Thinking of my own situation, the answer came switfly to my mind 'because I care and I love them', but the answer of the yogini was much more simple, and could be summarized the following way 'you can't realize the inner self of them, nor can you pull them out if they don't pull themselves out'. This was a realization that hit me flat on the face, since though I'm quite individualistic and mind my own business, there are situations where I follow a care-code where I take to my heart the matters of other people.

Thinking about this matter, I was wondering about my role as friend. It's clear that the commonplaces and two-cent psichology lines of forwarded e-mails and text messages don't apply. That gooey, dripping sweet concept of "friends forever" and "BFF", "friends always support each other no matter what" and so on don't really apply. Or should it? Shall friends always be together and always support each other no matter what, and be in touch constantly, and depend on each other? If so, I guess I'd be better off without friends.

What make friends friends I don't really know, it seems to just spark up, happen, but how it is kept, that's the real deal! However, does this mean that you must nearly get into the other person's life or let yourself be sucked into the other person's life and become more than a confident, an agent of life? Does this mean you must not contradict your friends or you shall take to your heart if your friend thinks differently from you? If one applies the teachings of the Raja Yoga, within a friendship you must seek to be happy yourself, perhaps point out to your friend your perceptions of what can't help them to be happy, but you don't need to involve yourself and shoulder up the worries of your friend as if those were yours as well. This comes in clear contradiction with the friendship code some enforce where you are expected to care even when you don't, or you rather not put yourself in an uncomfortable position.

Friendship, like any relationship, requires first and foremost of a healthy dose of honesty, or shall we rather say sincerity. There's no real need to tell constantly the truth, as people are naturally unable to do so, as it happens that some truths are hard to tell or very intimate, need time or whatever, but aside from these, there is a need of truth in order to build it on a solid, real base. But aside from this sincerity, from which naturally comes to give what you feel like giving and accepting honestly what your friends feel like giving, what else could be needed?

So, if you are responsible of your own happiness, and you must allow your friends to find themselves and be responsible of their own happiness, what makes a good friend of a bad friend? Or there's not such a thing as "good friend" or "bad friend", just either friend or no friend?

The chat made me realize that really, though I can care for my friends, and maybe I can't avoid worriyng for those I love, it's not my place to interfere in their lives, not let them place me in a situation where I interfere in their lives. It is not my role as friend to be a yes-woman to them, nor to nag them to take this or that decision. It's a very delicate balance between how much you tell them, how much you help them and how much you must hold back yourself and give them the space they need to find themselves, exercise themselves and evolve towards their inner self and their natural hability to be perfectly happy.

To Aileen

Hi Aileen!

Sorry I have not replied to you, but I've this stupid page blocking thing at the office, and lately I get home to do something other than getting on the net. Got your messages, but so far haven't gotten your letter. :-( But worry not, this is Costa Rica, and the Postal Service is really poor. I'll go this week to check up on them and threaten them some, to let go of your letter. Question, if you sent me a letter, does it mean you've got mine? Hope you did. ^_^

Thanks for the messages and thanks ahead for the letter! :-)

Love You!

Blessed Samhain!

And finally this is my favorite holiday of the year: Halloween is here! ^_^ I've carved my pumpkin, baked my pumpkin pie, picked up some Halloween decoration (cauldrons and jack-o-lanterns), put out my plastic glow-in-the-dark ghost, wore my Halloween sweater (orange with coal stripes) and put candy on a round CD holder's top for the kids of the office. Completed the whole thing with listening to Witches BrewHaHa Halloween Special (WBHHfm), sent out greetings on the social networks and sms. The usual drill.

Truth to be told, I haven't prepared anything particularly for Samhain, even though it is the major Pagan Celebration - from what I gather. Alix was supposed to come up with something, but I haven't received as much as a peep about whether something will be done, shall I bring something, where, when and how will be done and so. If nothing, I was thinking anyways to make a small meditation ritual, the same way I did it for Mabon. (And right now Alix sent me an e-mail telling me she's out buying the stuff for Samhain.)

This celebration marks the Third Harvest of the year, your last bounty and starts the period of meditation, introspection, peace and poundering. Here you gather up and prepare to live from what you have earned. The darkest part of the year starts, which for me means the most stable, as night is usually quite similar through it's all its extent, showing none of the regular changes daytime naturally display. This is a great moment to gather your harvest, the last fruits of your labor and think about what you have accomplished, the meaning of it, and look forward to live from it. If your work's harvest has been good, and you can truly appreciate it, your time of peace and meditation - your winter - will be pleasant, but if your work hasn't been as good as it could have been, or you have neglected to properly appreciate your harvest, what you have accomplished, you will spend a bitter winter.

Many are prone to undervalue their job and their effort, and nothing they do seems good enough. Other on the other hand, seek to escape work and rather live out of what they can snitch from others. What last harvest do they have, when the harvest comes only from your own fields? How a winter will be spent when you sneer at your labor's result or if there's no harvest to live on, for you have left your fields plain and instead lived out of what you could steal from the fields of others, scavenging like carrion creatures.

This celebration is a good moment to take a moment and give ourselves a few slaps on the back, smile and make determinations about what would we want to achieve for the next year and the next Harvest.

Lessons to Learn from the Indiannapolis Colts

A friend of mine said I'm a "black cat", because whenever I pick a football team to cheer, it is most certain to lose. Well, if you follow the NFL, you probably think that's true, as my favorite team - the Indiannapolis Colts - haven't won a single game since the start of the season. That's freaking unlucky, right? I'm already getting to the point when I rather not watch any game of my team, but watch other games and other teams play.

From the start, over and over the problem seemed to be the same: the teams Quarterback, Peyton Manning got injured and had to be operated several times, leaving him out of the game. This seemed to mark the team from the start of the season, connecting lost game after lost game. I remember I got to like the Colts because they were an aggressive team, that played always to win to to lose by the minimal difference. However this season, without Manning and lead by Curtis Painter, they have been playing like they would rather be doing something else. They step on the field as if thinking "Manning isn't with us, so we are going to lose anyway". They don't run what's need to be ran when chasing a player with the ball, they don't muscle up enough to stop the offensive, won't try enough to intercept... Last time the QB wasn't even paying attentiong at the begining of the game and didn't catch the ball when it was passed to him. What the fuck?

Then slowly I realized: these guys actually laid all the job and all their hopes on Manning. The current QB isn't prepared, wasn't prepared but isn't even trying to assume his role - because that's Peyton's job, and the rest of the team instead of actively trying to group up and make the game work, just hang around like a band of sorry assed livestock. Now sure, we could stone the Colts for being such bitches, but shall we?

Actually what we see happening with the Colts isn't something unknown to others. As it happens, in many groups and even in the individuals themselves there is a bad tendency to lay all the job and all the hopes on one skill or only on the one team member that can do the job. Often bosses and coworkers automatically give the projects to that one person who knows how to do the job. Of course, you want a job well done, and it's better if the one who knows how to do it does it, but in a team of many people, why the others don't try and work to get the skill needed to do it themselves too? In the family also people tend to leave certain tasks or certain chores or certain duties to one of them, and all the others just don't do it, nor try to learn how to do it.

As individuals, how many of us, for instance, put all our effort to develop one skill or bet everything on one skill. Women who put their entire future on their looks, guys who put their entire life on money, people who put all their hopes on their acquintances, on getting what they want through connections or anything as fleeting. Maybe something more broad, like focusing your entire life on your career, or your family or one hobby, or a political party... you name it. The thing is that when you put all your eggs in one basket - so to say - either because you depend on your partner to cook for you or fix the plumbing, or you relay on your coworker to take care of the maths of the project, or do the paperwork to get it going - despite that being their strong point, you are exposing yourself, or your team to a Colts-case. What if that coworker leaves the team? What if your partner and you break up or they die or get very ill? What if you lose your looks, lose your money, your connections and friends won't help you anymore or can't do so? What if something happens and you can't continue with your career, if your family decides that they want to do their own life or your hobby stops being interesting?

Well, of you centered all your life on that one skill, that one thing, that one interest, that one Peyton Manning in your life, when you lose it, you become a Colts team lead by a mediocre Curtis Painter. It becomes evident that your team can't even tie their own shoelaces, so their reputation at work will fall dramatically, the family that depends on one person to do something suddenly will be at loss and chaos will break, and the person... well, the person will feel like there's no way on Earth they can go on. It happens. Like a car from which you've ripped off the motor: just a pile of scraps.

Now, unlike in the stupid motivational tale of the Cow, where the lesson was "kill your Peyton Manning and raise new ones", I would say, you shouldn't have to separate yourself from your Peyton Manning, but while you have it, train all your other skills, prepare yourself to the eventual moment when your Manning gets pulled away of your game, be ir for a time or forever.

My team is now a load of crap, but at least they can teach us all a lesson: prepare yourself and prepare your team for the time when your best feature, your best element falls out of the game. Prepare yourself, your team , your skills, as a well working, cohesive group, where the sudden lack of one skill, one member doesn't bring down the whole.

Early Morning Grandiose Ideas

I actually had two topics for e-mail posting, but as usual, by the time I've got in front of the computer, I forgot one of those and the other one doesn't seem so great anymore. Has that happened to you? So I sat here, staring at the blank e-mail thinking "so where was I going with this?". It's actually funny how these "bouts of inspiration" come to us at a moment when we are mentally "out of it", as if in a dry drunk state (dry because there's no alcohol to blame on our Genius Stupidity) and there we are, half way between the world of the sleeping and the awake, drifting in the semi-darkness of ungodly early morning, working fully on auto-pilot, dragging ourselves out of the devilishly tempting warm covers and soft pillows into the uninviting chill and activity, our mind willing to work only to make up excuses to stay "five more minutes" with excuses like "five more minutes won't make us late" and "I've everything prepared, I can really get ready in ten minutes", "I can take the highway and really step into it" to "I'm already late, so what difference does it make?" and "I can always blame it on the traffic". By the time we manage to pry ourselves from bed - assuming isn't late and we are running on alarm velocity - the brain again goes off to slumber while the body drags itself to the shower, and like a recording loop the only thing to be heard up there is "we want coffee". However, from time to time, a neurone or two stir up and the brilliant ideas spark up. In a "brain isn't in session now" state, these ideas usually go on the line of "let's blog about how nice it is to shower with purple shower gel!" or "you know what would be a great birthday present? A matchbox covered with beads!". Rationally you would laugh at the idea or dismiss it even before it surfaced, but at that early time of day, when no self-respecting sense of rationality and reason would be up (only chaotic dreams and emergency instincts are allowed to function), these unfiltered ideas break through and pin the note on your bulletin board "I've a great topic idea about purple shower gel!".

Little by little your functional brain wakes up - hopefully before you ignite your car and put it in gear - and there's this fancy little note stuck there "I've a great topic idea about purple shower gel!".You sigh relieved because there is a topic for the day and you don't have to worry about it, so you go about your day, get in motion to the office, tune in your favorite radio station or move to your selection of music, focus your effort on the work at hand, check on e-mails, read your news and then prepare to blog, call in the note... and it's nonesense! Frustrated you crumple the mental note into a tiny, tight paper ball and throw it into the waste basket. Time to think of something actually useful or let another day go by with no posts.

Lost in Here

Once again this post started with bitching. And it's not like any of you would honestly care how pissed off I am at the latest I.T. sponsored brainfart  - because you are not (except maybe Dragonfly) - but really, keeping me from properly posting Trish' comment, or read her post when I have the time and the energy to do so is a motherfucking abusive thing to do. And what for? I'll tell you what for. It's not stupid controllitis, no. You would think so, but no. This is a plain case of "I won't do my job as I should, because I'll get paid the same whether I do it or not". Yes, it's a self-indulging, incompetence favoring attitude. But not only it's the steal-where-you-can mentality going on, because these same people - and Dragonfly doesn't let me lie in here - actually PRIDE themselves on being "hardworking" and "breaking their backs on the job" and "giving their best", not to mention "being honest, commited and responsible". Dude, you've no shame.

Yesterday I was at the most terrible seminar-workshop invented by men. It was - ALLEGEDLY! - about Strategic Planning and Risk Management. The invitation said that, the facts said different. Two "professionals" -  and this is where I'm so fucking proud of being able to call myself a Scientist, so I won't be put in the same category as them - in Business Administration, one of them from some sorry-ass-big-name private university, presented the weakest, most biased ... program, I guess... where the main topics were cut in half in order to accomodate two more topics, unannounced, probably under the philosophy of "more is better", regardless of the utter lack of quality of the end result. Not like it would have held any water, mind you, as the adding of two more topics could have been the result of the fact that both "professionals" (who also prided themselves of being university professors), probably couldn't say a thing (more) about the main topics. It didn't matter either, mind you, as they came with their neatly pressed black suits and close cropped hairstyles, pretending to be top excecutives and ultimate connoisseurs of the matter at hand, and yet turning the seminar into an entropic clashing of disjoined false-based or biased stories aimed to undermine the image of public institutions and uphold the idea of privatization on wild, grand scale.

Did they know the matter they were talking about? No, and not only because they claimed that "Steven Jobs was the greatest CEO in the planet, even if as person he was terrible" (OK, I'll stay still with Jack Welsh), or because us economists are biased about BAs and think they are our "unhinged, braindamaged sibling", but because for anyone could tell that the throwing around of terms in English that went unexplained, and the grandilocuent way they called on the name of indexes clearly, CLEARLY showed it was all to cover the fact that they have no idea about what they are saying, less even about what they are SUPPOSED to be saying.

Professional papers are filled to the brim with self-help-cut articles that praise mediocrity - openly or not - as the way to do business. The same worn off formulas are passed around like the biggest secrets of Freemasonry, when they don't say much, and skip the matter, the core of everything: You must work hard to get where you want.

Truth is that working hard, being honest, being able to settle, knowing oneself and thus knowing when have you reached your Point of Satisfaction, allowing yourself to be content, are no longer values to hold up to. It's not a virtue to work hard and earn respect for what you do and are capable to do, but instead the promoted new virtues tell you that you must always seek how to pull more profit, either by working less for the same money, or get more money for the same work OR get more money for less work. Back in the day that would have been a SHAMEFULL thing to do. That would have been called "stealing". Today it means being cunning.

You are not supposed to work, you are not supposed to know, you are not supposed to get prepared, and by no circumstance you are supposed to work hard only to be better and be proud of what you do - oh no, that's being stupid - but you are supposed to pretend, and see how can you pull it out with the less amount of effort possible... if any.

So yes, I am blogging from my e-mail account, while the I.T. people act as if every update of the firewall resets the entire system and take their sweet time setting it back. (Sweet time which has been reported to last over 2 months...) And morons charge large paychecks for seminars they are not qualified for, as they can't even be qualified as professionals, and the people attending nod at them like the Taco Bell Chihuahua (I was reading a novel the entire time). And so, are we surprised that the multimillion street recarpeting washed away with the rain? The fixed bridge didn't got fixed? The school connectivity programs don't work? The Enterprise Social Responsability programs drown in a pile of unfulfilled promises while eating up large pools of taxpayer money? Big banks fail and get bailed out only to use the money to pay their overpaid executives? Greece goes down the sewer, Italy can't be held up, Spain is sinking bellow the level of its former colonies and on and on?

Geez, why do you wonder? This is the less effort world we have all chosen, isn't it? And sure, you can say "no, not me", but just look into yourself and judge. Have you stayed true to yourself? Have you willingly chosen the easy over the honest? Do you openly or secretly admire the people who pulls it effortlessly? Do you want to be the woman who marries a millionaire and doesn't have to work anymore? Do you want to be the guy who has a friend who gets him a CEO position or any position with a big paycheck attached? Do you dream with winning the lottery and have all your worries vanished? Dream with being rescued? Dream with having the magical powers to make everything better? Then you are one of them.

Sudden Baseless Unattached Inspiration

The learning is in each one of us for each one of us decides the path we take towards better and further understanding. There are no mysteries hidden from the wise on this earth, none that can't be apprehended and turned around for admiring as long as the mind is set on the task and the heart open with humble attitude towards the immensity the universe and God as it. For the universe is God and God is the universe and so is anything under it, above it, next to it, inside it and in between. For there is nothing that isn't God nor there's anything that's not made of God and part of Him. And floating in the immensity of God, as the mind leaves behind the mindless struggling to possess and acknowledges that possession is nothing but a futile substanceless, matterless illusion, for we are all possessed by God and the universe as one, all belonging to Him as we are all him, the understanding becomes clear, as one part can't hold inside the whole, nor it needs to and so the knowledge yielded for the wise is precious and the persecution for more isn't fueled by an insane and greedy ambition of claiming for what falls outside the rights of the part, but as an exercise to know the boundaries of what the part can contain of the whole, as an effort to make the best of what has been given to the part, all to the honor and the glory of no other but the one and universal God.

Preparing for My Favorite Holiday

There's still over two week for Halloween - my favorite holiday of the year, even if we don't get it off at the office - and I'm slowly preparing to it. I've already made a few small purchases - two small plastic jack-o-lanterns and two lovely plastic cauldrons filled with candy and plastic spider rings that look so delightfully creepy, you can rest assured I would make people scream at the office by wearing them and letting them know that a huge, fat spider is walking on my hand. ^_^ I also plan to find a way to decorate Sookie, bring the Halloween to her too, though I bet plenty of people think that the dreamcatcher I've pending from the rear view mirror is creepy enough.

I've also spotted a place where I can get my lovely pawns on a medium size pumpkin for carking purposes. This actually happened yesterday, when - for the first time ever - I took the insane idea of taking Sookie out to run a few errands in the city. Yes, a Saturday, right around 11 o'clock, when the city is the bussiest - because there's nothing like Heredia on a Saturday morning-noon - and the traffic is so dense, the whole city transforms into a big, smoggy parking lot. Yet I did it becace it happens to be one of the rainiest, most freakiest days of the year. Rainy season's poster-day, plus some tornado and what-not has brought my beloved rainy mornings and rainy days and all cool and chilly... with the downside of lots of rain, getting wet every step of the way, and your laundry not getting dry all week. It's a bitch. I mean, I ACTUALLY had to iron all of my clothes - including jeans and t-shirts, which I never-EVER iron - to get them to dry.

However I've got an e-mail from my shipping company, that my Colts stuff was finally on the counter (and I had to pay for their services around 50% of what I paid for the stuff itself, which wasn't pleasing me at all), so I drove there. The place is in a particular location at a commercial center that looks onto a really bussy street. Coming out of there was going to be a real test. It seems however, that God was really on my side as I actually got out of there quite fast and easily. I didn't need to wait much for my stuff, and then though the road was packed to capacity and the cars weren't moving at all, and I actually needed to cross the line in front of me to get into the other line (not just melt into the flow), all I had to do was to roll down my window, smile pretty and quite soon a guy stopped and signaled me to go. The priviledge of being a woman. ^_^

From there I had to go to the supermarket to pick up a few things I've written up on a list. Some beverages, bread, paper handkerchiefs (it's flu season) and some cold medicine. Yeah, like that was going to be the only thing I would buy. Not so lucky. I was quickly pulled towards the veggies, because "hey, I shall cook something for next week to take to the office" (and lets not talk about the fact that Monday is a holiday), so I went to the veggies and got myself some mushrooms, zuccini (because it really seems that the only thing I think about when it comes to veggies is zuccini. Really, could someone please, PLEASE give me a veggie cookbook for Christmas so MAYBE I get a hint about how to actually use and incorporate other veggies in my diet?), some potatoes, some apples, chives... and there they were: The Pumpkins. Halloween pumpkins are not all that common here, and actually the first Halloween pumpkin I saw was the one Alix, her husband, her daughter and I carved last year, so finding them there, just waiting was a wonderful revelation. Now I can actually get my own pumpkin and carve it at home! And of course gut it and scrap it and make pumpkin pie from the scrapping!

There were smaller pumpkins too, but I'm not sure I'll be skilled enough to carve those too, though it would be fun to carve a small one and take it to the office. If it could safely house a tiny votive candle inside it would be a success! Not like anyone at the office cares for Halloween, but I'm a total sucker for the holiday! (Like you can't tell that already).

Also, as you can imagine, I also plan to somewhat do a Samhain celebration in the evening. In good theory we'll celebrate it again at Alix' place and this time it will be her time to preside the ceremony. However not much has been said, and it seems to me that there are big chances that she won't even be available for that day. (The first time we gathered for a celebration was for Lughasadh, where I was asked to preside and it came out really whacky.) However I'd like to plan and have my own - shall we call it Solitary - ceremony too, to meditate a little about the meaning of the Third Harvest and what it brings to my life, what it has summoned, what it has given and what's to come. It's important as these days feel indeed final, and I can't stop thinking with a certain, ethereal feel of peace, that this is my last October here.

For this purpose I have yet to read and yet to prepare, though I've already prepared a script for the calling of the corners that sits well with me, as I have paired it with my Christianity, seeing in each element an element related to God. This I wish to try out for the new start.

I must say that I'm feeling quite happy and accomplished. I'm proud at the resilence I proved with the thesis, at the strenght both Mile and I had, the determination, the supporting to get this through and conquer our goal. I feel it as a lesson that teaches us that though things ahead might seem hard and impossible, by persevering and keeping our eyes on our goal, by pushing, by not letting go and finding the right way, we can and will always succeed. It tought us also that God is there, that miracles do happen and the impossible becomes possible when the time is right and the star align for the purpose. I feel at peace and much calmer, more focused, centered in myself. Obstacles do not frighten me as I know there's always a way to reach to them.

This Harvest has brought me lessons, has brought me yoga, peace, determination, the closing of many cycles and forethoughts for the cycles to come.

Perceptions

Probably a lot of people do the same - I know for a fact that many of my friends do - namely, to have a coin purse. You know, those lovely, little purses that fit well in the front or back pockets of your jeans, which hold all those coins you wouldn't or can't put in your wallet. The coin purse has an interesing life, with a "basic state", which is usually half-full to rather-empty, but goes towards full and towards "moths and a button" from time to time. It also feeds usually on change - well, that's what you keep in it - with the seldom crumpled low denomination bill and maybe a few recipes from the grocery store.

The coin purse can also be your best ally, when you are in a "less than good" place and you must go to some place to make an important payment, or someone decided to pay you an important amount of money in cash rather than doing a transfer. If the amount can be fitted, you roll up the bills and squeeze them into your trusty, humble coin purse. But these are usually extraordinary cases, as the coin purse usually houses change. You normally don't take out your coin purse to pay for the groceries at the store, nor your pay the fee of the movie rental from your coin purse, nor the movie ticket, nor your clothes or new smartphone, unless, of course, you've prepares ahead the money and put it there. So, what do you think of when looking at your coin purse? What do you usse it for? Here comes the funny thing. 

Up until  now, I used to associate my coin purse with the public transportation. My coin purse was the source to pay the bus fare (in Costa Rica, as well as in many Latin American countries, you still pay the bus fee to the driver in cash). It was also the source to complete the taxi fare above the amount I should pay in bills. In Europe, where you don't pay your bus fare in cash, the change in my coin purse mean a hot coffee or a hot cocoa at some local bistro, or change for a newspaper, a magazine or some candy at some traffic booth or at the nearest gas station. It meant also to eventually do the effort an empty it, count the change and see if I can do something to get rid of it, OR - like my dad and brother do, who have no coin purses - dump it into a jar and leave it there, for taking when needed.

The other day, however, as my coin purse got in my hand, my thought about was "change for the toll fare". The thought came automatically an suddenly I stopped in my track. When had the "bus fare" morphed into "toll fare"? Not that I pass through toll booths all that often, but this change in the way I regarded my coin purse made me think.

As your life changes and your conditions and circumstances change so change the way you see things. That's notthing new, but often we tend to forget about it or dismiss it as something small. If you have worked hard all your life for the things you have, the experiences you've earned, your perception of them is different from that of someone who had the same things given. For instance, if you have competed and worked hard for a good position in your job, you get there with a certain degree of appreciation, and knowing all you had to do and endure to be there, you'll make sure to keep it, continue working hard to prevail in that position. BUT if you've got to that position because you have a friend, and that friend has power and offers you protection, and part of that protection is that awesome job, then you can't care less about that position, but you will do your best to stay in the grace of your friend so they keep you protected, and if you fail at your job and you must go, your friend will get you a better position. It's the same job, just as it is the same coin purse and the same change in it, BUT the way you relate to it change.

As it happens, people for instance relate differently to life after a near-death experience, or after the death of someone close to them. It also can explain how people who started a path together, but have different circumstances and different experiences end up seeing the same thing in very different lights. Among other things, this coin purse made me think of my friends, and how some of them don't see the things the way I do and how I often struggle to understand what the heck are they seeing when I see something completely different. In the end, it's the same coin purse, but one of us see the future contents of a coin jar that eventually will make it to a bank, another sees teh chance to buy a couple of cigarets, or a cup of coffee ot a shot of vodka on the way home, to pay the bus fare, buy some candy, get the morning paper, make it for the next issue of their favorite magazine, or may the toll fare.

Let's not forget that we all start on the same place.