Today is My Birthday!

What a fabulous day! and a fabulous day deserves a fabulous colors, wouldn't you agree? So fabulous comes today in this minty, pastel green color. :-) It is my birthday, I'm one year more experienced, one year wiser, one year more beautiful and one year more accomplished. Yes, after all what are birthdays but a moment to remember all the great we have accomplished and all the wonderful that's still to come.

After many days of not jogging (perhaps even weeks!) I woke up and went jogging. Last day jogging in black, for tomorrow I plan on going with my University t-shirt (Go UNA!) and shorts. Ah, the wonders of living in Hungary! I have to take advantage of it while it last, so I'll go exposing more leg than I'd normally would, even if my legs aren't perfect for the rest of the world. :-) They are my legs and they carry me in this fabulous activity. :-)

I opened also my gifts, the fabulous gifts my friends and family has sent me or given to me, and which are AMAZING! ^_^ Got also all of my mandatory greetings - many of them 24 hours ahead, since my friends in Costa Rica don't want to be the lasts in wishing me happy birthday, so they rather do it early, than later!

Present from Vienna. Chocolate!!!

Present from two of my best friends, Lau and Roo. From the States.

My crazy, Hello Kitty maniac friends!

(I'm a Hello Kitty maniac as well ^_^)

Part of the present from my boyfriend.  

A STARBUCKS' THERMAL THUMBLER!!!!!

^_____^

GO COFFEE!!

Guys, really, thank you!!! :-)

The program for the day was to go with my aunt and uncle, mom and dad, and my boyfriend to one of my favorite places in the planet: the Gödöllő Royal Palace. The trip started early and it was simply wonderful. The day was sunny and hot, but inside the castle was cool and just as great as always. We didn't get the audio guides, so I had the chance to explain some things about the castle to my family. I was the little guide! ^_^ Mom was impressed, though if she knew that I've been there around eight times or more, then she would understand how do I know as much as I know, and wonder why on Earth I don't know more. :-)

As you all know by now - from my many mentions of the place and the subject - the Royal Palace of Gödöllő is mainly about Empress Sisi and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. My aunt and I are quite big fans of Empress Sisi, so naturally we love this place, as much as we love Schönbrunn Palace and all expositions related to them. I personally collect a lot books and souvenirs about them. I even have ten-point star earrings and a necklace pendant, copied after the stars the Empress wore once in her hair.

The visit was part of the gift from my aunt and my uncle, as well as something from the souvenir shop. I had my eyes set on a DVD with the Austrian movie about the Empress, but it was no longer available, so I've choose instead a book that tries to reconstruct the lost journals of the Empress, and a chocolate with candied violet petals. After a lunch in a  restaurant close by, we discovered yet another mini-museum, arranged at the local train station, where the Royal Waiting Halls were recreated. It was an awesome bonus non of us ever saw coming!

Where I to read into this as a sign, I would say that this following year will be full with the most amazing surprises. ^_^

Thank you to all for being in my life and making it so wonderful.

A System in Everything

Common interests and common features are the things that bring people together, and these often become the glue of a relationship - be this as friends or as partners. It happens then that, as the relationship evolves you either find out that the common things cease existing, or that they multiply. Then there are certain things that might look weird, so we are adamant about sharing them, but once we do, when we realize that our friends or our other half also shares these weird treats, we feel not only relieved by not being the only weirdoes in town, but also feel even more connected to them. Well, I'm about to tell you about one of my weird features: I'm quite obsessed about order.

It might not look like it if you look around my desk - be it at the office or at work - or my dresser, the counter at the bathroom or even the way I keep my closet, but I am. When I'm not with my boyfriend at the supermarket - or any store, for that matter - I place every single item in order. It might take a lot more of space than if I would simply dump the whole contents of the shopping basket on the counter or the moving strip, but I take the time to sort every product by type (frozen products, fresh products, canned, sweets and salty, beverages, hygene products, cleaning products... and so on) and arrange them orderly, by size and how they display better on the counter. (Then I tend to collect all the baskets other customers haven't put away, and put them all away ORDERLY!) I would do the same with clothes and books if I could, and I know I have tried, except that the sales people always extend their hands for whatever I have in my arms and grab it before I can give it any sense.

It happens also that - when buying and trying out clothes - I also use a "three hanger system". I would think that the system is quite normal and everybody use it, but who knows, right? Well, as you know by now, the changing rooms are the last stop I make at a given store. I start the experience by searching all over the store for all those clothes that look like pretty to me. In an average good day, this can mean up to 7 pieces, though I have carried over 20. Sometimes the stores don't allow you to carry so many clothes into the changing rooms, so I make a salesgirl wait outside with all of those pieces I've selected but are over their limit. Often the success of the shopping depends also on the changing rooms. Dirty cabins, or cabins evidently used to store things are very, very discouraging, and often get me in a bad mood, which reflects then on my opinion on the clothes and I end up buying nothing. However, the biggest matters about a cabin are the pegs or hooks where I can hang my bag, my own clothes and the clothes I brought in for trying. A bench is nice, it really is, but pegs or hangers are better so my bag keeps from falling over and my stuff from spilling on the floor.

Aside from the pegs, hooks or space for my stuff, I need three pegs or hooks, or at least two pegs and a low door over which I can fling clothes.

The clothes get sorted in tops and shirts, pants and skirts, and finally dresses. This way I don't have to stand half naked in a cabin trying out clothes, or putting on and of clothes. (I always try out tops and shirts with my own pants, to make sure they look good together. After all, I might not like any of the bottoms, and trying out the new tops with them would not be a good idea.) From the original peg (these are always on a peg) I start trying out and deciding with the clothes are up for buying (left) or not to my liking (right).

I guess people has to have a system going on - unless they run to the changing rooms with every single piece individually - otherwise they would forget which pieces are the ones they wanted to buy and which where the ones that looked terrible on them. As an added oddity, for a while it has been picking my curiosity what system do people use to separate the clothes they are trying on, and what are the things they expect from a fitting room.

Have you ever had any such weird curiousity attacks?

Wider than that and far past the fitting cabins and clothes, grocery stores and compulsive behavior, there's the need of a system, and the way in which we normally order our lives in a system. This can be transparent to others or chaotic, can be easy or complex even for ourselves. Our systems make the world around us reliable, and saves us a lot of time. Our bathroom doesn't change location everyday, so when we wake up in the morning - half dead as usual, and with a hell of a mood - we don't have to start the day with looking up for it. We know where the deodorant, our creams or razor and shaving cream. Our kitchen doesn't go missing and the coffeemaker is in the same place, so is the coffee can and the filters. Our system allows us to get a smooth start, shower, dress and have our morning coffee ready. (Or morning tea, morning glass of coke, you name it).

Our systems tell us where we are most likely to put our keys, where we normally put our wallet, what's in it, where's our Driving License or ID documents, where do we keep our public transportation card or our car keys and the radio. Our system records our favorite radio stations, and keep our iPods or mobile phones filled with our favorite music. It selects how we get our news and which news do we want to get. It selects were we prefer to park our car, or at which stop do we get off, even which route we pick, both for going to a place and to come back from it.

Our system arranges how we work our daily schedule, how many activities we set for a day, and how we handle underachieving or overachieving our selected tasks.

The smallest things are also part of our system. There's a system in how we take notes, how we make comments - keep them to ourselves, make small notes in little pieces of paper, draw symbols, scribble on the back of a notebook or an agenda, add them to a note in our phone, or use highlighters, post-it flags and fix the notes in a document with crossreferenced numbers - and even on how we eat. Salad first or along the main course? Mix the main course with the side dish, or eat one and then another, or alternate them (say, stick fries in your mouth while still chewing the hamburger, or you eat first the hamburger and then the frise or vice versa, or you take a bite of the hamburger, swallow and then take a fry. Swallow and then a bit of the hamburger and so on.).

We might agree that we all resource to this, we all have systems like these in our lives, but has ever made you curious to know about the systems others use? I know it makes me very curious. Wish I can research that!

Time to Read

How long does it take you to read a book? Any book. A book you love, a book you must read for a class or a research, a book you read for your book club if you are in one, a book you must read for work (there are such)... Are you a slowpoke reader or a speedy-spider?

With few exceptions, I have always been a slowpoke reader. Some people read - for instance - the Harry Potter books in a matter of 1 to 2 weeks each, and I read each of them in an average of three to six months. There are books I started reading years ago - decades ago, probably - and I haven't finished. However, my average for books is normally a couple of months. And I love reading. Back at the University I had already realized that I read an average of 20 pages per hour, though at work I normally work at a speed of 5 to 10 pages per hour, depending on how many comments I need to make, and how much research I do next to the reading. (Yes, whenever I read something at work, and that something makes reference to an earlier project or research, a law or a Standard, I look it up and read it, analyze the connections and comment on them. If the quote is wrong, then I add extra research to correct it. I also check on the maths of the documents, and that's also time consuming.) There was a time, then, back in the 90's when my reading speed in Hungarian was of 100 pages per day (this day refering to my waking hours, and that normally included around 10 to 8 hours of reading, as much as I could muster between classes, and reading while walking on the street - a dangerous art, if you ask me, but some books worth it). So yes, compared with people who read 800 pages in a day, I'm one of the slowest of the slowest.

Then, no matter the maths, I was reading slower and slower. While at the office, I normally choose to eat alone in order to take the luch hour to read. Our of the 45 minutes of the lunch hour, normally some 15 to 20 are spent on going to where you will eat, so that leaves 30 to 25 minutes to read. I read every day, and still the books would travel in my bag for months. Why? Because I'm a slowpoke.

Then last week, as I read the book our preacher lent me, I realized that I'm not such a slowpoke, that I could very much read a book in a week (and average 350 paged book in 4 days). Today is the premier of Headhunters, a movie based on the book by the same title, of Jo Nesbo. No, I haven't finished it, but I started it two days ago and didn't have that much chance to read it. Still, I'm 2/3 into it, and if I get the time, I'll probably finish it by Saturday. What I realized was that I was relating to reading as a "filling" activity. Yes, I have designed times for reading, such as in bed before I turn down to sleep, or at luch, but these were all times where reading itself was a "thing to do while". And though I love reading and I looked forward to these moments, these times could be easily swapped. I would sit with a coworker I like, so we would chat while having lunch, or I would turn down to book before sleeping so I could watch a movie or a series I like.

Now I could say "I'll go running and then I'll read until lunch" or "I'll read a couple of hours after lunch", or even "I'll go to Starbucks, have a coffee and read for a while". When I made myself time specifically to read, I realized that I go faster through the books though I read with the same speed. One could, of course, fall into the trap and say that that's because I don't have to go to the office now, but that's not the point. You are not all day at the office, and just as you make time to go home, do some errands and prepare things for the next day, go to yoga, or to the latest classes you've enrolled to, you can also decide that after dinner, or as you get home, you'll sit down a read a little.

But that's not only for reading but whatever hobby we have. Go running or jogging, take a moment to practice sewing or knitting, or working on your scrapbook project. Paint, play piano... you name it. Don't make your hobby something you do on stolen minutes, something that can be easily shut off because you are too tired or too sleepy, but give it a slot of your day, a box in your schedule. You see, not only working and responsabilities are important in your life. Your hobbies also deserve your attention.

Dozing on the Grass

My thoughts about today's post changed in a moment, suddenly, when sitting at Mama's garden after a hearty lunch, I felt like laying down on the grass and doze a little. The memories of those days of University came to me, as we used to throw ourselves down to the grass, tuck our backpacks behind our heads and sleep under the trees and the sky, over the soft green grassblades. It turns out that dozing on the grass, or simply laying there, looking at the huge sky, the feeling of freedom and wonderment is the same. The sky stops being the blue ceiling above us, which we hardly see, if not to check for rain. As you stare at the big blue, the feeling of depth overwhelms you: it's not a flat blue thing, but a deep, deep blue that could suck you up.

Thoughts cascaded down remembering those carefree days full of academic issues and search of knowledge, not a chase for career, connections and political considerations. I found myself missing those fashion free days, when actual fashionable pieces were laughable. All you needed were a t-shirt and some jeans, and that was that. No brands, no big names, no tailored nothing. Wearing the same jeans everyday was normal, and a worn, old t-shirt with no brand on it was the standard. There was something liberating in the fraying pants and the t-shirt that had been stretched so much through the years it now reached bast your ass.

This all wasn't about being a rebel, but about taking ourselves and our commitment seriously. It wasn't about a getting a big car, it was about avoiding the shallow, phony world of empty promises and marketing, away from all you didn't need, and sticking to your believes and your true needs. You didn't need closets full of clothes, just a pair of jeans, a top and some flip-flops or some old snickers. You didn't need leather bags, a worn, old backpack does the job. You don't need to spend millions in new edition books or new books by gurus with shiny covers and lots of advertisement, as all you need is there for free at the  library. No need for expensive notepads and exclusive pens, as any pencil and a couple of pages - even used pages you can still write on on the other side - also make the trick.

What happened to us? We started working, we've got into the corporative world where looks are all, where you don't get the job in your jeans and your rasta hair, or braids and flowers in your hair, where you must lose the peace sign, the Che Guevara t-shirt and your handmade thread bracelets. It doesn't help that you have to become shallow, be political and maneuver more through contacts and favors, hipocrisy and cocktails than through actual knowledge. Where the college kid in us? Where does that person go, and their dreams, hopes and convictions?

I want to believe, that person in there, somewhere, and I want to find it, bring it back to life and make those dreams come true. Because those dreams deserved a shot, where honest and were good.

The Accomplishments of the Day

It's past 22:30 h and I'm sitting at our desk (not my desk, though I would have loved to have a desk of my own by now), sipping delicious Yoga Tea by Demmers Teehaus. This is a kind of beautiful herbal tea that helps you relax, calm down, just like a good session of yoga, and which I'd love to call Shavasana Tea. This particular tea is also beautiful because it changes color as you pour the hot water onto it. First goes blue, then gray, then green to brown and finally a golden, bronzed red. The taste is amazing and it does prepare you gently for sleep. I love this tea. ^_^

Tomorrow we'll go to Mezőkövesd (again) with my Mom and Dad to visit Mama and Papa and stay for a day. Due to this, it seems that we'll also be carrying Cinder around, since we can't ask her to feed herself while we are not here. Then Kari is right too, this is a great chance to see how she behaves around Mázli and Picur (the other two cats), as well as around Gina and Bence (the dogs), since probably he'll have to ask Mama and Papa to catsit Cinder when he comes to Costa Rica.

The plan to go to Helsinki is not going as smoothly as planned. The airplane ticket is what's giving us a headache, as there's a really good price at one airline we can't get hold of (no phone to call, no designated contact to help us in case something doesn't go as planned), and the others are a bit more expensive than we would have liked it to be. Oh well, oh well... something will come out of it... eventually, I hope. However I did manage to finish Trish's letter and mail it, as well as sending a short misive for a friend in Costa Rica, plus a couple of postcards. I had also lunch at Nordsee - first time in Hungary, as I usually have my Nordsee fix in Vienna - and then had a coffee at Starbucks, while getting acquinted with the fab mugs and thumblers you can get, and one if which (at least) I would certainly own and take with me back to Costa Rica! Yes, I know, I'm going all crazy for tea and all, but coffee... coffee is my soul!

Today I feel quite accomplished, even if for many it doesn't seem like a day where I've done much. Yes, I didn't save the world from inminent death, nor I completed my whole new List of 13, and add to that, the movie Headhunters - based on the book of the same title by Jo Nesbo - is premiering THIS Thursday, and I've only read chapter one of the book, so I have about two days to finish the book, so I can run into the movies as fast as I can to watch it as fresh as I can knowing well the difference between the book and the movie... from the perspective of the book. Yeah, better spoil a movie than a book don't you agree?

And yet, today is a great day.

Why It's All About You

Feeling insignificant is one of the most common feelings in the world. Feeling like nothing you say and nothing you do matter to anyone (or maybe only the closest people to you, like your closest family, your partner or your best friends), feeling so small, so invisible, so insignificant, you stand powerless in the middle of your own life, or the big space where all the lives around you collide, losing sight of your own life because that seems so small too, and you feel vulnerable, defenseless, powerless. If you die, who would remember you? This drives many to seek fame, enduring the troubles that come with it, or pull them to a life of constant deception and unfulfillment. Others try to make sure they will be remembered, by making a family, and thus outlive their deaths through their descendence.

In this condition, feeling so gray, so invisible, so irremediably eluded by attention, it's hard to believe that anything is about us, or that the company's record "your call is important to us" hold any truth. If you feel so, you've probably are one of the "lucky ones" that have kept to the social program, and have acted always on schedule, wanting what you are supposed to want, acting as you are supposed to act, saying what you are supposed to say and thinking as you are supposed to think. You, invisible dot invisible in the great, homogenous mass, are a successful product of the society. Things change when you are not like "the rest" even if there are thousands and thousands of people exactly like you. Things change if you are a colored dot.

In today's society, (as it has probably been for a long, long time ago, since the begining of history, probably), each time someone doesn't follow the program, gets attacked by the program and the rest of the elements in it. Whatever it is you stick out with, such a thing becomes a crime, and you are labeled several things ranging from immature, selfish to freak and antinatural. It's pretty bad when you are held guilty for things that belong to your nature and that hurt nobody at all, such as being gay, or being black/white/red/yellow, or having been born on this or that country, even for being born woman (in some cases, in others society has evolved somewhat); however, I consider the harrassing for your choices still the worse of all.

When you are born gay, just to give you an example, there's nothing you can do to change that fact. It's like being born Latin. There are "churches" that swear they can convert you and pull "the devil out of you", but they might - at best - simply repress you, but never change you. They can't change a gay person into a straight person as much as a straight person can't be changed into a gay person, or as much as a black person can't be changed white or viceversa (except Michael Jackson, but that's another story). It's hard, it's horrible, but slowly people are learning to understand that nothing changes nature. What's harder for people to understand are when you stick out for your choices.

You stick out if you choose not to marry, you stick out if you choose not to have kids, you stick out if you choose to abort your child, you stick out if you choose not to follow the "civilized" way of life, but rather live in communion with nature and grow your own food and weave and sew your own clothes. Whatever your choice is, if it doesn't fit the "get a job, marry, have kids, honor the culture and society you live in" scheme, then you are a selfish, immature shame to your community and you need to correct your ways.

Those taking such decisions are often called selfish because they deny others of something. This is particularly thrown at the head of people choosing to be childfree or aborting. Say you are childfree and you decided that's the way you want to live your life. You probably then have been said more times than you care to remember, that "What about your partner? Are you going to deny him/her the pleasure of having children?". Yes, very distasteful, arrogant, uninvited, unconsidered words. Aside from eliminating any chance for your own feelings and choices to be of any importance even to yourself, and aside from the fact that you may not have been as unconsiderate as to say "you plan on having another child? Why? Couldn't get enough fucking up the first one?", there's the fact that these sort of comments center the whole universe around you in a negative way.

So, just because you don't want to commit, and rather keep an open relationship (or several), or maybe prefer casual encounters, now you personally deny every single person you sleep with the chance to get married and have kids? Or just because you personally don't want to have kids, you are denying your partner - if he or she ever decides that they can't live another second without a kid - with someone else? Even a marriage can be broken, if one day one partner decides that children are important to them, no matter what, and the other hasn't changed it's mind. You are not the only semen-shooting-penis in town, or the last fertile-womb in the world. Also, just because you decided to abort your child, whatever is your reason, you are not becoming a killer (radical Catholics think that using anticonceptives are equal to murdering unborn children), nor make you irresponsible for taking a decision that probably is already hard on you.

Back in 1996 I met a girl, who was going to get her second abortion. That child and the first was from her longtime boyfriend. They lived together, loved each other and wanted to get married and have a family. They both worked, but their incomes were so low they knew there was no way they could support their child. So, with much pain, they decided to abort it. She knew she wouldn't be able to give the child in adoption, knowing that out there there's a child thinking that their parents didn't love them, because she did, but neither her nor her boyfriend kid themselves about their real chances to support a family. It wasn't rape, it wasn't a life threatening pregnancy, not even a one night stand or a child with severe health problems, it was a very respectable, rational decision. A decision made precisely for the child, since as you must know, poverty isn't as romantic as in the novels, nor a child is happy when it has to be all day long in daycare and see their parents pick them up, tired and worn, to get home and sleep.

The world isn't indeed about you, except when you fall off the wagon. The acusations and arguments held the power of bullying, not the power of argument. No matter the words used, the biggest flaw in their reasoning is always why do they mind the personal decisions of other people. Why is your coworker or friend so involved in your decision to leave your job, sell your house and go live in a farm, where you can make sure that the milk you drink and the veggies you eat are really organic? Why  is so important to them whether you want to have children or not? Whether you will keep your child or not? Whether you'll ever marry or not?

Do you get a say on who they marry and why? Do you get a say on how many children they get and when? Do you get a say on what job shall they pursue and which staples shall the buy? Then why do they feel so entitled to get a say about your life?

Your environment feels entitled to criticise the way you dress and how much you weight, whether you are anorexic thin, as you are expected, or if you have healthy, round curves. If your hair is short or long, dyed or peppered with grayhairs, if your mobile is new or old. Come one, have you noticed how you feel pressured to give an excuse if your mobile is anything less than an iPhone? So what if your ten years old Nokia still works? Or if you choose a phone that really does only the basic, which is "voice call"? Will the rest try to use the Internet on your phone, or read their newspapers? Then what's wrong with a phone that can't even send and SMS - if there are still such?

If your life, your choices and nobody should have a say about that. Except they seem to do. What can we do to stop that?

Tea Time

Though I'm still confess myself a coffeelover (though I'm more an "office coffee-drinker" than a daily-coffee-drinker, truth to be admitted), I'm finding myself drawned to the world of tea, up to the point that I've been thinking that I want to have tea time with my friends. I'd like to go visit my dear friend Patricia at her beautiful town, close to those awesome mountains and sip a perfumed cup of tea with some sandwiches while we gently fill in each other about all those matters that go on outside our letters. (Penpals have the amazing hability to have LOTS of things to say in a letter, and still have hours and hours of things to say to each other when they meet. It makes me wonder what happens with those friends you only talk to. Are we missing more colors of their soul? Colors that get only revealed in paper and ink?) I'm filled with expectation about going back to Costa Rica, and meet with Dragonfly to share some tea, take the lesson from having been appart for six months, and not let it happen again while we are in the same country. Let's meet, say once a month and have tea, talk over all those things that go from our progress in jogging (more like her progress in running, as summer has squashed me and smashed me), to our work and relationship related observations.

I'd like to round up my other friends as well for tea time too, get around with them, share an aromatic cup of boiled water with marvelous herbs and live the experience of tea.

For a coffeelover like me, whose taste world is all around different roasts and growing techniques, shades and sun exposition and height, vulcanic lands and forests, with a wide scope of cocktailed drinks such as Irish Coffee, Dutch Coffee, short coffee, long coffee, American Coffee, espresso, cappuccino, moccacino, frappuccino and whatnots, the world of tea where different blends are possible and fruits can become teas, it's much like for a Christian to get in touch with Paganism. Really. It's like going from the One True God, Who may have many interpretations depending on the particular sect or branch, church or shepherd, to a world of many gods, where all of them - peppermint, jasmine, ginger, black tea, green tea, white tea, java, ceylon, cinnamon... - are all sacred and powerful, demanding a special attention, rules and rituals. Sugar, milk, lemon... And yes, now I feel like circling with my friends, those who bring all this fabulous, colourful holiness into their lives.

I've discovered a Demmens Teahouse close to where I live, and now, as I drink a cup of delicious Bio Indian Chai, I feel totally transfixed. It's a walk in a forest, in breeze clothes and a hippie kind of reverence for nature and happiness for life, all happening in your mouth. I'm understanding tea time now, or at least getting closer to graps the magic of it. It's a cup that - alone or with friends - create a wonderful environment of intimacy and safety, where all your secrets are protected, but all your thoughts and feelings can be shared, knowing they will be received by the kindest of hearts.

Yes, I intend to take tea time to my friends.

Bad Books and Why We Read Them

I'm some 20 pages away from the end of a really, really bad book. Reeeeally bad book. It's not mine (Thanks Hyne!), and I want to return it to its owner tomorrow after the church service, but I wanted to post before I end it, otherwise I know that the post would be an endless diatribe about why is that book such a waste of time, energy and tree life, and why should the writer be forbidden to write or dictate as much as an SMS. Hell, the writer is so bad, he would ruin emoticons! Then again, I guess that writing about God and religion is much like writing porn: quality doesn't matter as long as you fill the pages with the usual formulas. (I'll try to remember not to say that to the shepherd if he asks me what I think about the book.)

However, this isn't the worse book I've read. This got me thinking why I even read bad books?

Reading bad books is normally an accidental thing. Usually what happens is that you get a book you don't know a thing about - maybe because a friend recommended it, or it was recommended at the bookstore, or maybe because the description or the cover seemed promising - and as you read it it goes worse and worse and worse. Naturally, the worse type of bad books (though these don't make often the worse books you've read) are the ones that start really good, continue quite well, and at the end they fuck it up royally. These are the Bad-Bomb books (BBB), or the Stinky-Bomb books (SBB). These are bad books that come with a trap: they lure you into reading them, you get all excited and swear you found the best book in town and then WHAM! shit happens and the whole thing gets ruined. If you are creative and willing, you can always rip out the bad part and rewrite it (I did that with the second Harry Potter book).

But what happens with the bad books that start bad, continue worse and end up really crappy? There have been a few books in my life that were so bad, so bad, that I couldn't finish them at all. I put them down half way, or ten pages into the story and decided to save myself a couple of hours of my life. I can't recall any of those books, so though they were so henious, I can't tell you which were they, nor I account them among the worse books of my life. Those who do make the list are the ones I've finished. But why do I finish them? Why do we finish them? I'd certainly would like to know if others finish bad books and why they do it, but these are my reasons:

1. I read them knowing they are bad because I'm curious about what's so bad about them.

2. I finish them because they are mandatory literature for a class or something like that.

3. Because in the begining I still want to give the book a chance. Like many BBB, there's the Great Surprise Effect books (GSEB) as well. I include Sunstorm (Asa Larsson) and Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert) among them. These are the books that have quite an uninteresting, weak starting, but unroll to be a page turner. So with some bad books, you start under the illusion that you are reading a Great Surprise, but as the pages move and the chapters pass, nothing seems to improve. Sometime after you realize that there's no GSEB in store, you may decide to stop reading and either give the book to someone who can appreciate it better, donate it to a library or give it away to someone you don't like. If you continue reading, it's often for a morbid inclination, simply to see how bad can the book go. Sometimes a bad book has wrapped a BBB in the end, so, it was already bad, really bad, but the ending becomes the bow on top of the shit pile.

In a way, finishing a bad book makes us feel entitled to criticize it. If you don't finish it, you can't be sure it's not a last minute GSEB - though there's only so much crappy plot and writing that can be corrected with an awesome ending - but if you finish it, you take upon yourself all the rights to say "Well, I read it cover to cover and I can tell you, it's the worse type of crap humanity has ever typed down".

Question, really, why do you finish bad books?

Blame it on the Economy/Economists

For a while now things have been hard. Nationally and globally speaking. The word "crisis" is part of our daily vocabulary, even if not part of the active one (the one we speak and write), but it's there in the passive one (the one we listen and read). All sorts of big words and big decisions are being made, and we may not get them all, we might not understand all of these, or what they mean in our daily life, how would they affect us, but this uncertainty, this crippling fear starts to creep on us.

If we live in Latin America, Asia or Oceania, things such as the European crisis might seem far, far away from us and unpertaining, yet still our newspapers are full with these news and our politicians talk about "measures" to counter the effects this crisis on us. Then there are things that we do experience on our own. We experience uneployment, the months and months that go by without we or someone we know being able to get a new job. This is also felt hard on those who do have a job and see their conditions get worse, their paychecks reduced or upheld, their workloads increased, them being exposed to more harrassment or abuse while their labor rights take a dive. Phrases like "if you won't do it there's 20 other who would do double for half of what we're paying you", get more and more frequent, as well as the "tests to make sure you are indeed the best person for this position".

We feel it too when the payments for our loans start skyrocketing, and there were we used to pay $1000 for the mortgage, we now pay $2000 or up to $4000 per month over a period of one to four months.

In the middle of this crisis we see banks being bailed out, and that money going to pay the exhorbitant wages and bonuses and "achiement pluses" of CEOs and executives who live in luxury flats, and change their luxury cars every year, and avoid the traffic by using a helicopter. The banks get a breathe, a break, but they keep their foot on the customer, burying them under unpayable payments and stealing away their money with all sorts of commissions and fees applies to their saved up money.

Suddenly it does seem - for those who hear the word "crisis" often accompanied by the words "economy" and/or "economists" - that this economy thing is the root of evil, and these economist people are the devil themselves, greedy and heartless, who look only to squeeze people out of their money. I recently even read a book in which Jesus said that he disliked economics very much. Well, it's time to start cleaning up the bullshit, so people know from where blows the wind.

Economy is something inherent to people. You don't need money, or societies, people around you or anything in the world, to have economy around you, and within you. Economy is about decisions regarding what you have, what you need and what you'll do to satisfy your needs. If you are alone in a deserted island, you are in economy too. There's economy in motion when you decide where will you put your tent -  close to water and fruits, for instance, and as you get hungry and have no idea how long will you be there, there's economy in your decisions about how much will you eat, how much and what will you store, and when shall you go explore the rest of the island for more food, or things to dress yourself or build a shack.

There's economy in daily life decisions too. There's economy when you decide with which of your classmates will you group up for a project. Depending on your personality, on your needs, you decide whether you prefer people who work well and won't leech on you, or rather pick people based on how much would you like to be friends with, or people who's other friends and parents could help you build a valuable network. There's economy when you decide what kind of dress you want to buy or sew to yourself, and there's economy when you decide at any given moment of your day whether you rather study now, go out to see a movie, walk in the park, read a book or bake a cake.

Economics could be understood as the science that studies this and that prepares people to make the best decisions in different situations - or at least know how many ways there are to look at the same situation, which solutions can be offered and what are the consequences of these decisions. Economists are the people who learn this science. Then, unlike a lot of people would think, often the economists aren't the ones making the decisions but suggesting them. Even when they make decisions - at Government level, Regulation level or FED level - what does the smack among people is the reaction of other players of the economy to them.

 In this sense economy, economics and economists are much like health, medicine and doctors. It would be stupid to blame sicknesses on doctors - even though many people does - or satanize medicine as the root of all illnesses in the world. If you don't like health problems you wouldn't say that that's the fault of health, that medicine is Satan and all physicians its servants, right? If you eliminate medicine and doctors, there still will be health and there still will be illnesses, only this way there would be no way to know what's wrong, nor people to fix the problem. Same with economy, except that in the case of economy, there are much more cases where the "patient" self-medicates, takes the medicide in a way different than prescribed, or someone makes sure that all the medicine go to someone else.

Given the sensible nature of economics, and how abusing of economy can tip the balance in favor of some and in detriment of others, some people with connections, make sure that any proposal that doesn't suit their personal gain, doesn't pass. Is it then economy or economics or economists to blame? Is it rather the corrupt system to blame?

Falling into the blaming without knowing is the typical trap set to keep attention away from the real problem, specially because it might be that we are the very root of evil. You may wonder, "me, out here in Honolulu, responsible of the Greek crisis? Gara be shitting me!" (to my knowledge, nobody from Honolulu reads me, so I guess I'm safe!). In a very, very long chain of events, yes, it could even be so. Let's just retrace our steps. Things as the way in which we consume, the products we purposefully or unawarely support, our apathy towards politics, social issues (within our community, as a lot of people is prone to contribute with charitable causes to feed children in Africa, save babies in South America, but can't give a fuck for the neighbour in need, or the starving children in the next village), and the whining about corruption, but not doing a thing about it actively.

Take a check of your steps. You may find things that could be changed, maybe as simple as buying less staples to reduce your waste, or checking the products you buy to support national production, or the production of a particular country in need, if that's your desire (in some countries, such as Costa Rica, often many national products are in the hands of the same family, and it is known that much of the product goes to make them wealthier, money which they then spend in politics and in getting more power, instead of giving back to the nation. You may choose then not to buy products from the companies linked to them - national production that supports an oligopoly - but to support maybe the production of a company from another country, which you know works with a producers' cooperative that supports environmentally friendly production). Then, there are other decisions that are worthy of being checked, like how you react to corruption, to crime, to injustice, to poverty, to social gaps, to economical gaps... and what can you do to make things better. For instance, don't condone corruption, but denounce it every time you find it. Even if you feel it doesn't solve the case, denounce it. Don't defeat yourself before hand by thinking that "it's not going to change" or "the whole system is into this", or "they all over each other's backs", do not condone it, make it loud and clear that you do not accept it, and do not resource to it. Or just because the taxpayer money is used to support a few people instead of the whole nation, it's not excuse for your to avoid paying it. Don't be part of the problem.

If you find that your decisions are all ok, then continue doing so. Don't think that you are too small. Remember that to become President, even powerful people need your vote, so your actions do count and they make the world the way it is. Don't take it as the blame being now placed on you, but as what it is: the responsability is yours, so the power to change things is also in your hands.

So Much Heat

These days are hotter and hotter, and not in the good sense of the word. Goodness Gacious, when is the cold coming back! All I can think of is that in Costa Rica these days are full of passing rains, and the air is so wet, so fresh rainbows pop up everywhere, everyday.

Summer is here, and I can't wait for it to just go away. Give me Spring, give me Fall, give me Winter, but please, where can I return Summer? How can anyone love this season??? It's totally beyond me.

I've done nothing all day, just like today. I've been home, wearing as little clothes as possible, and refraining from walking around naked because there are windows we need to keep open, and reading all day. And just by reading all day I've sweated far more than I've ever sweated on a spinning class!

Nights are no better either, with temperatures around 30°C at night. Forget pajamas, forget covers, I'd rather sleep in the fridge or the bathtub. Yes, the fridge is not doable, but I've been seriously considering the bathtub the last two nights.

From here, from the unlivable, impossible heat of the summer, I'm thinking, "hey, life in Costa Rica isn't so bad after all". Then again... maybe I could move to Iceland... anywhere away from this freaking heat...

My mind is melting...

Blessed Midsummer!

I had planned to go out and pick flowers, make myself a garland of them, make pancakes filled with jam and cottage cheese (mixed in a way that tastes like the feeling of cheesecakes), light candles, meditate and have a personal but full on celebration of Litha. Instead I stayed at home and sweated like a pig in this terrible heat, ordered a pizza and drank industrial amounts of coke. But what is Litha?

Litha is the celebration of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Here in Budapest, for example, the sun is staring to set... at 9:30 pm. In some parts of the world, such as some parts of Sweden - for what I know - the sun doesn't seem to go down at all all day. In the new Pagan tradition the beauty of life and light and possibilities is celebrated. It also marks the day when the night, the cool and the darkness starts to regain it's turf and walks slowly towards reigning again the world.

Litha for me, applied to the daily life, makes me think about the height of our work. The efforts we have prepared for, the work we started has reached it's peak. It hasn't yielded fruits yet, but this is that moment, that passionful, precise moment when the work, your efforts seem to have taken life by their own, to be pushed by their own volition, and instead of being pulled and pushed by you, they nearly drag your with them. The elements of male and fire and light and day, among others, push the mind towards the thought of action, work that doesn't cease, that continues going on, untiring. It's a fabulous moment to celebrate those times when we have stayed away at school or college, studying for a test, or when we stayed at the office long past the last night janitor, when the city out there is dark and desolated, people in the neaby buildings are either sleeping or drinking themselves silly, and we are still there, with the tie loose, or our stockings removed and wrapped into a ball, somewhere deep in our bag, while our naked feet curls toes into the office carpet next to the high heels we've kicked off. Our fingers are glued to the keyboard while our eyes roam the text we are composing, and analize the charts and the tables to make sure the data in them are right. Litha celebrates the moment when not another coke can can be tossed into our waste baskets because they are full, even if we collapse the cans and cruch them as small as they can go.

Litha is our hair pinned up with pencils and pens, the tails of our shirt out of our pants or skirts. Litha is about not about dowing what's asked from us, but what we can do, go to our limits and give the best and the most of our effort to ensure a bountiful harvest.

Blessed Litha to you all.

Model Family?

I've decided to read one of the worse books in town. I decided so knowing that the book would be bad, it's just like I didn't expect it to be so bad. No, it's not as horrendously bad as "Chasing Harry Winston", which still holds the undeliable title of "worse book ever written in the History of the Universe", but 43 pages into it (from 252), this book "The Shack" is coming dangerously close to a very disputed second place in the dubious ranking, defeating by far many other terrible books I've ever read.

If you recall, this is the book my shepherd recommended, and the one that was discussed last Thursday at the Bible Group or whatever they call the gathering. (I'm still not clear about the actual name of it.) Let's start with the fact that a lot of people mentioned (okay, all of them), that the book had been poorly written, and that half way through it, it can't be called a novel at all. Honestly, I didn't expect the book to be so severely challenged in the writing department, as it not only leans heavily on bad clichés, to the point of making the whole thing feel too fake to be real, but it also misuses clichés. Let's not enter into the land of the mistakes that happen all over, like the guy grabbing a blanket and a pillow to go to the livingroom to watch TV, and as he's watching the TV, he curles on the bed. Livingroom-bed, you see it? And this is OREGON, US, with a huge house, where the mailbox is over 600 feet away from the house entrance. Two paragraphs appart on the same page! Or saying that out of the two girls one is in college and the other is around six, but as Daddy bids them goodnight, he bids "his little girls goodnight".

43 pages into the book, and that's roughly the 20% of the book, a fifth of the book, and the characters are loose, there's no definition to them, but a lot of contradictions regarding the main character, very utilitary depictions of two other characters and the rest can't be described in any other way but as "filling". Actually, there are two sons, the older ones, that are conveniently sent away, discarded from the begining. Then why create them in the first place? It's not that's an inefficient use of characters, but it's simply noise in the story.

I was already upset that after an introduction where the main character, Mack, is described as a smart guy who grew up in a farm, with rough hands from working the land, who ran away and became a globetrotter, wants to curl up with a book and a cup of hot wine. Kinda so-so relationship with God, but he prays constantly every step of the way. So... straight, farm educated, Generic Christians living in Oregon relax like New York women and gay men, and pray more than devoted Catholics. Interesting.

Sure, it could be that he really enjoy books and wine, and walk around in pyjama bottoms (instead of track pants or boxers), but the book doesn't give you the frame to click this into the picture. The most upsetting character of all is, however, Nan, the wife. Nan is the perfect wife: deeply devoted to God, with a firm, deep connection to Him, personal and strong, but she's also "the mortar that holds the family together". She's the one who gave up a promising career as doctor to have five children (two of which are entirely disposable, other two that are filling and excuse, one who's the saint, the favorite and the excuse to make the main character a martyr), and became a nurse who takes care of terminal patients of cancer and has written and held conferences about helping the dying get in touch with God again. Because there's no other job a nurse can do, but to talk about God to the patients, and because there's no other groundbreaking field about which a nurse could talk about.

From the first moment on it raised my attention how Nan's character was left empty of personality. Her sole job and calling was to be a Mother. She sacrifices herself, her life, her dreams, her expectations, her personality and individuality on the altar of family and society, to serve and run like an invisible maid making sure everybody has a happy and uneventful life. Her hole existence is about servitude. She takes care of teh dying, she takes care of the children and she takes care of her husband, who also acts as a child. She makes decisions and severely decides one way or the other, while Mack is more like a buddy for his children. Then, as the younger child disappears, Mack's wish is to have Nan close so she can make things better. This is down right outrageous. The main character is so absorbed in his selfish pain, that he doesn't stop to think fir a moment how will his wife take the news, but he wants her close so she can confort him.

43 pages into the book and the model Christian family was laid out before my eyes in the full glory of it's grotesque shape. The family should be big, but the kids themselves didn't matter much, just the favorite one. Kids should act unnaturally mature, devoted and bordering saint, expressing a desperate desire to sacrifice themselves for their parents and all sorts of small matters. This family, however, is entirely the responsability of the Mother, which is such a demanding, absorbing role, that sucks out all traces of individuality and humanity from the woman. The mother becomes "family" and as such, it is her personal responsability to make sure the whole cluster holds together and are well served. Sure, she can be bossy, but under no circumstance she can stop serving them. She takes the kids a state away, husband stays home unable to go out due to the weather, and when she comes home with the kids after a long trip, she must put the food on the table. She makes sure things are packed for the vacations she won't participate in, and she puts away her pain to help others deal with theirs.

Not one person rebuked this image. Yes, this is an ideal family and that's the role a woman should take, and must do so with a wide smile plastered on her face, yearning fervently to do so, thinking of her sacrifice as an act of love she can't wait to perform. Why the mother? Why only her? She's a depersonalized center, a servant for a group of individuals that connect to it and serve themselves from it, but give nothing in return. Is this supposed to be desirable? Is this supposed to be healthy?

Reading such an atrocity shines the light of sense and realization about why the childfree and the woman who don't want to marry are so despised. Yes, the childfree and the singles prove that women are not only entitled to have an individual personality and an individual life, but that they can be fucking happy with it. Any asshole with a working womb and healthy eggs can have babies. Drug addicts and young teen girls have them by the dozen, but not everybody can push up in life by themselves and stand on their own feet, head held high and show that they are good at what they do. Not everybody gets to be a successful lawyer, not everybody can be elboy deep into a fascinating research, and not everybody can pursue their deepest dreams.

Childfree and singles show that women and men are equal, that a vagina doesn't make you automatically to want a husband and a family, but that you can also dream to become the champion of the Forma-1, or the winner of a Nobel prize. A vagina doesn't mean that your deepest desires are about helping others, nurturing others and sacrificing yourself for others.

Would have the story suffered so much if the mother had a personality of herself, or if the father would be a bit more active in the family chores? If the number of children would have been less? The story is terribly crappy as it is, a blatant advertisement for a way of life that's anything but natural, mingled to a devotion to God that speaks about someone who doesn't really know God at all, but rather has a close relationship with the church, and firmly believe that God and the church are one and the same thing.

43 pages into it and the book is a disappointment. But that's okay, for the writer made sure to state at the begining that if you didn't like the book "Sorry, this book wasn't primordially intended for you" (quoted, and poorly translated from Hungarian, from The Shack, by William P. Young). Yeah, a cheap trick, I know. This should warn you, in case you intend to read his crap.

So far, if you intend to read this book, I recommend you to keep a bag or a bucket close, in case you need to puke. It's excellent, however, if you want to try bulimia.

Last minutes for Completing a List

This list has been quite hard to complete, and it could be considered uncompleted, but given the progress I won't. Well, I'm still over 100 pages away from ending the book I'm reading, but I intend to stay up until I make it, so this post will be really, really small, so I can spend more time with a really fascinating book.

Today was a hard and definitive day. I've got my ticket, and that made things definitive. No turning back now. Naturally I spent a lot of time sad and blue and crying my peepers out, but then again, the begining of the year was just alike. It's taxing that the big decisions of my life always come in tears.

Discrimination and Reversed Discrimination

One would think that everybody agrees that discrimination is a type of behavior that does more harm than good only harm. Who wants to be discriminated against, after all? As a woman, do you like to see how men get the job, or the promotion? As a black, Muslim, Latin person, do you like being seen by your peers as a potential threat even if you just went out to jog, or the grocery store bag you are carrying contains groceries instead of a feared bomb? As an elder person, do you like it when you are constantly passed by because people think you are too weak or useless, or that you've reached your expiration date and all you do now with your time is wait for death? As a person with diminished capabilities, do you like it when people forget that you still can do things just like they do, and the lack of mobility, vision, hearing or any other skill or sense doesn't revoke your "human membership"? As a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual person, do you like being treated by others like you are a ravenous creature lurking in the dark looking forward to spread your curse on others? Of course we don't, or at least we are supposed not to like it.

However more often than not we find it that people are rid with preconceived ideas, prejudice and spread discrimination around themselves like a veneral disease in a college party orgy. I often find it quite ironic how Christians insist time and again on preaching about being discriminated by "the world" and how the world is around them, when here where Christianism is the official religion of many countries, Christians are the ones doing the ruthless discriminating, seeking to eliminate the last trace of any other religion "in their turf", as well as any sort of thinking or behavior that doesn't agree with traditions predating the Middle Ages. In this times, however, there's much more information, and freedom of speech, as well as the philosophical freedom isn't as prosecuted as before, though I wouldn't go as far as sy that you won't be burned on a stake for speaking out your mind, or breaking convention and fighting against discrimination.

In the fight against discrimination the attacks from those trying to break down the barriers come actually from the ones being defended. Black people fight to get the same rights white people have, but when the first white people start approaching them, treating them as equals and start the normal cultural exchange (you know, we learn from you, you learn from us), they often walk into reversed discrimination. Women apply reversed discrimination against men who accept them as equals and want to fight by our side for our full equality. People from minority religions mistreat those of mainstream religion, who try to get closer to them, learn about them. There are even cases of gay people mistreating straight people who come closer to them, accept them for who they are. It's like some people - used to being discriminated - wouldn't accept the end of discrimination because that means that their system of facilities would break. If women are no longer discriminated, then not getting a promotion can't be blamed on "because I'm woman and that man is discriminating me", or not being elegible for a loan can't be blamed on "because I'm Latin, and they think all I do is stealing". The end of discrimination means that you also have to stop relying on your well working excuses, and actually work for what you want.

Some hateful people, practice reverse discrimination because they believe they are naturally entitled to "give back" the harm done to them, or the harm done to their ancestors, or whatever crap like that. Dude, think: just as you are no longer a slave, the white person next to you is no longer a slave owner. Like you've never been a slave, the white folk has never been a slaveowner. Just as you've never been denied the right to vote, the guy next to you has never denied you the right to vote.

Allegedly, to stop discrimination, we should get close to the groups we discriminated, and promote such an exchange in our societies. However this is a two way process: both parties must be accepting of each other and willing to come to terms to make living together as smooth as possible.

Reversed discrimination is discrimination too, and the only purpose of it is to keep up the very system it is supposed to be reacting against.

Lean Spicy Chicken

Recipe for Lean Spicy Chicken

Nutritional facts per 100 grs
Calories: 125 kcal
Carbohydrates: 1,8 grs
Protein: 22,1 grs
Fat: 3,4 grs
Fibre: 0,6 grs



Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts, boneless and with all the fat removed (this can be around 500 gramms to 800 grams depending on the size of the chicken, and yields two servings at least, but can easily yield four.)
• 4 tbsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp chopped thyme
• 1/2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
• 2 cloves of garlic (each clove of garlic contains 4 kcals, so if you add more cloves and are counting your calories, add up to the calorie content 4 kcals for each additional clove)
• Salt and pepper
• water (around 2 cups)

Preparation:

1. Chop the garlic cloves as finely as you can (and want), as well as the thyme, and parsley. If you have a mortar, you can much the herbs and the garlic in it. Chop the garlic first into three-four pieces, to make the mashing easier.
2. Wash well the chicken breasts, and remove all the fatty parts you can find. You can cut the breasts in two along the joint of the left and right side, to make easier portions. If the pieces are large, you can quarter it as well. If you like, flatten the pieces a bit with a maller. The point of this would be to allow the breasts to cook through faster, so you don't have to wait too much for them to be ready. (If you don't have a maller (which is a meat hammer or meat tenderizer), you can use a rolling pin or a skillet. All you have to do is put the meat between two foils of clinging wrap or parchment paper and smack it evenly a couple of times.)
3. Put in a resealable bag the chopped herbs, the garlic, the curry and the dill. Put in the breasts and add salt and pepper as you like. Close the bag and roll well the breasts in the seasoning, massaging it into the meat. Then open the bag and add a little bit of water, a table spoon or two depending of the amount of chicken breasts. The amount should be just enough to allow the seasoning to be around the meat, but not so much that it would swim in it. You should be able to close the bag and wrap it around the meat.
4. Toss it into the fridge for one hour, or for whenever you are going to cook it.
5. When you want to cook the breasts, take a non-stick pan, and heat it without any oil on high. On a gas stove it should take you a couple of seconds. Really, no oil, no nothing, just heat the pan. When you put your hand over the pan and you can feel it's hot, place in the breasts in it and turn them a couple of times duting the first minutes (one-two minutes), then pour half a cup of water into the pan with the liquid and seasoning left in the bag.
6. The water you poured into the pan would evaporate quickly, so cover the pan with a lid, but check on the breasts frequently and turn them  a couple of times. Believe it or not, it will take a nice toasted color. Don't pour too much water at once, or you'll drown the meat. The point is to keep the pan from ruining and the chicken from burning onto the pan, while the moist heat allows the inside of the chicken to cook as well. Also check often, so whwn you see that there's no more water, you add a quarter of a cup at the time.
7. Depending on the thickness of the breasts, cook them for 15 minutes to 30 minutes to make sure they are well cooked, turning them several times and making sure that there's always enough water.
8. They are done when they get a nice, toasted brown color and they are cooked through.

Enjoy!

Yes, as you can guess, I lost weight again. Not much, just 100 gramms. However, unlike predicted, I decided to finish the diet. Yes, I was two days away from finishing it, and I was doing so well, and I kept losing weight. However, today as I woke up, I felt dizzy and very drained. The day was sunny and perfect, but I couldn't bring myself to go out and jog. My legs felt like made of jelly, and there was a lingering feeling of fainting. I got out of bed, got to the scale, measured myself, and then dragged my body back to the bed. I though "I can't move today, what the hell will I do?". The very thought horrified me. I debated a few minutes, and then decided to still put on my tracking clothes and go out to walk. No running, no jogging, just walk. However, to do so and avoid collapsing on the street, I went to the pantry and popped a piece of chocolate covered, chocolate filled wafer (it's like the Yippy, in Costa Rica) and a piece of Schoco Bananen (banana shaped sweet banana foam covered with chocolate). With that in I felt a bit more alive, and so I went to take a walk along my regular jogging path.

I had a little bit more energy, but I felt terribly, terribly hungry. Not that hunger of "wanting to eat", but rather the type where your stomach actually hurts and feels really hard and about to digest itself. Add to it, after the walk I was again completely drained of energy, so as I got home I fell back in bed and could hardly pull myself up.

I debated about the diet, and my byofriend said that I had gone so far with it (5 days out of 7), so it would be the best to finish it, but no, I wouldn't have it. Honestly, losing weight shouldn't be before your own health, and no diet that makes you feel drained and weak worths the effort. So, with 72% of the diet done, I walkd out of it, ate like a regular, real human being and felt much better. Yes, probably I'll gain weight again, but I decided that I won't do another diet again. Not like that. So, I'll be looking for a nutritionist to get on the right path, and make sure not that I lose weight to become a supermodel, but that I keep my healthy, normal weight.

In five days I dropped around 1,6 kg (around 3,5 pounds), which isn't really normal, nor healthy (the healthy ratio when losing weight is 1 kg per week), though this is still very low a ratio compared with the 7 kg (15,5 pounds) someone I know lost, and the average 5 kg (11 pounds) you are supposed to lose with the regime.

At first I was still filling sick, as my body was getting used to normal food again, and normal tastes, but as the day went by and I had some pizza, and a piece of Black Forest cake (also bought some Eszterházy cake and Lemon cake), my energy came back to me.

This got me thinking about a lesson I learned a long time ago, and which my friends Trish and Dragonfly know better than me: don't fall for the "there's a thin person trapped inside you who wants to go out" crap. Be happy with your body, but when you feel need a change for health-related reasons, then go with the professionals - meaning nutritionists, not your local gym trainer! - and get a plan that adjusts to your personal needs and conditions. Remember that losing weight should be a slow process, so that your body can adjust normally, and finally, if you feel ill, drained, tired or sick in any way, STOP and go back to the nutritionist, because the process should make you feel better, get healthier, not to push you an inch away from inanition.