Considering Going Back to Blogging

 It's been a while since I wrote last here, or more than a year, to be precise. I stopped for many reasons, none of them a conscious reason to actually stop blogging. 

The Reason

I just simply didn't post. My digital footprint was more in the shape of videos for YouTube, where I went from books to planners, both of them in Spanish. I was into booktube for a while, I was part of it with haphazard videos uploaded with no editing and no visible schedule, but that stopped at some point. From there I later moved into the plannerverse, with my own channel on planners and tips for planning. I added to the small community of planners in Spanish, which is not a group as bing as you can find in English.

That channel went well, though I do tend to keep small numbers in most of the things I do. I didn't break into the +1000 world, and was really amazed when people spoke of "small channels with +10k subscriptors". That was not me. I'm smaller than that, and I like it. My channel had a new video every Sunday, and I had a kind of set program that took most of the anxiety out of posting, and I did learn to edit. My format was simple, the editing was minimal and the content was reliable. All was well. Except that I was spending a lot of time in YouTube, and the algorithm was twisting around me with annoyance. I started hating YouTube, as a user.

The way I was using YouTube was as entertainment, also as a way to find information on things I wanted to learn, but then mostly I used it as background noise. I put some video of people talking in a calm way, or instrumental music. This kept me focused during work or at monotonous tasks. Eventually YouTube started bombarding me with annoying adds, all of which, by the end, where scam adds. It didn't matter how much I denounced them, they kept popping up, and they were notoriously scammy. This got to me so much, that I decided to walk off the platform, as a user. However, I couldn't, in good conscience, step out of YouTube as a user, but keep producing content to keep my viewers tied to the platform, subject to the annoyance I just escaped, so I moved out.

Finding your footing once you leave a platform that has consumed you online is quite hard, and yes, I miss the channels I used to follow, but now I'm finding other content and other content creators. I'm going more into podcasts, and searching more for blogs, though those are less common than years before.

The New Project

After all this, I feel that my content creator days are not over yet, and so I've been giving thought for a new idea: a podcast/blog on personal finance.

I've got into personal finance - the commercially available how-to market - last year, after I finished paying my debt on my credit card. I'm usually very skeptical of self-help anything, but after having gone through the process of becoming debt-free, I decided that I wanted more information and started looking for it. I wanted more tips and ideas to improve my finances and invest. Given my background in all-things-money (economics, finance, accounting), I had tools many people didn't have, which allowed me to discern better when someone isn't giving sound advice. I did find great content creators and quite good books, though I have to admit that many of those books are good, if you know what do apply to you and what doesn't.

I talked a lot about that to some of my friends - many of whom gave me input based on their personal experiences with money - and that's how this idea started to form: how about a podcast, a blog or both, where I can help people understand personal finances better, read a book on personal finances and know if they are being scammed or if there are parts that don't apply to their case, how to deal with their own risk tolerance, and how to actually determine if they should take risks with some parts of their financial lives.

I don't know exactly when or how, but I do plan on reading several popular books on personal finance, give them a review, explain what works and what doesn't, and concentrate on the Costa Rican market, how ever small it may be, so I can actually explain things that can be found in books written for the USA, applied to what's available in Costa Rica for the regular people.

I have other plans for the next year and the next few years, but I think I would love to do this.

Bloggers Fading

Screenshot by Stormberry

I think I need to go exploring again, finding new blogs to follow and read, but where should I start? Back in the day (oh yes, do you remember those golden days in 2012 when I used to blog every day?), one of my main sources of daily information was the "to read" segment of my blogger, where the many posts of the different blogs I followed were lined up to be read. It was fun, I must say ^_^. It was like having a little window into the lives of many, many people around the world, where I've got to peer into the tiny windows of their lives, and see what they set on their windowsills.

But then came the draught, and I went away for extended periods of time, hardly even made it back here for the Sabbaths - which are quite important for me, mind you, from an inspirational point of view - and then... then I forgot about my peering window. I must indeed tell you, that breaking time for blogging isn't necessarily easy when you are studying, and working. Of course, it can be done, as so many #studyblr blogs and sites show it, but it got a tad complicated for me. And then I didn't feel like it either, so why force it? There are so many things you have to do - like work and such - that imposing more chore on yourself is completely moronic. Blogging must be a joy, something that flows out of you because you feel like it, because you really want to... not because you have a schedule you feel you have to stick to.

Screenshot by Stormberry

My rutine - like many other things in my life - morphed, and I picked up on another thing I had abandoned a while ago: now my days start with me checking the news on an e-mail address I keep only for newspapers. My days thus fill with news, though curiously I do not read any news from my own countries (have yet to find a newspaper I would trust, which would send me an e-mail with the headlines), and then go on with my day. Blogs and blogging pretty much fell off my schedule, and even when I came around here, I just wrote some and then was off on my way. It wasn't until recently, these days that somehow I was bit again by the blogging-bug, that I noticed again the "to read" list only to notice that all my to-reads come from one source: philofaxy's blog.

Picture owned entirely by Stormberry

My list of followed blogs is extensive, but as I scrolled down on them I noticed that most of them were already quite inactive. Perfectly nice blogs had not been updated in 8 months, a year, five years... what's happening? Is the era of the blogs dying? Are we going to retreat into archaic blogs, maybe kept alive by their thematic nature, and those of us, writing blogs in the shape of personal journals, will retrieve into the safety of paper? As one glances through remaining blogs, they are looking less and less like logs of text, stories and thoughts, and more like websites with lots of pages and segments dedicated to different media, almost building up like online stores where you can purchase whatever things you probably don't need. Even the old journalers are prefering pictures, slowly moving their outpour of ideas into other social networks where words are less commanding, and pictures and videos make the bulk of it.

Are we hating words now? Are we picking a fight or parting ways with words, text, and rather move to what we can quickly consume? And those of us who like to write, string up words and make a longer text, are becoming the old timers? I want to read blogs, personal blogs, blogs from people telling the big, unknown darkness of the internet about their day, about their friends, about their joys and sorrows, their discoveries and rediscoveries. I want to read about the rants of others, stretch my hands through my small cyber window and peer into those other, unknown windows and marvel at the things displayed in those windowsills. I want to feel, to know that across the large sea of dark connections and wavelenghts and optic fibre, through the many submarine cables that mesh the oceans and connect us all, that there's people out there living ordinary lives like mine, but so different from mine.

I want to peer through those many tiny windows again.

Are Long Posts Fun?

I write quite a lot, I'm aware of that. I don't really consider myself a typical "long letter" type of penpal, but I like writing. However often long, condensed, letter-dense posts are simply annoying. One would thing that it doesn't make sense when you like reading - many books, after all, aren't full of pictures, nor have short chapters or segmentations between chapters to help the attention deficient reader keep up with the story - BUT lets face it, letters and posts aren't often just as books.  Yes, it depends on what was written. Two pages, or 80 lines depicting in painful detail your blurry ideas about why peas are better than beans are not enticing. 200 densely written pages following the story of a vicious murderer that manages to decapitate people in a populated city while a brilliant detective is hot on their tracks... that's not nearly enough.

Anyway, this idea came to me just because I'm on this site, and I receive posts by e-mail for different forums, and there's this user who got a posting rush and has send us all ten long posts about sex and tantric sex. Yes, it would normally be very interesting, but... not. Fuck, how do you manage to kill sex?

So, yes, after that I've been brought to reconsider my posting habits, and really, REALLY make an effort to trim them. Not an easy task when your head is full of plotbunnies, or postbunnies or... just bunnies. Do you know what plotbunnies are? It's a word I learned in my fanfic writing days. Those are the ideas for a story that you have rolling around your head, but that haven't evolved into a full story. I have a couple of that... a couple A LOT of those, and some are.... well, they are not plotbunnies, but gara be like plot-horses or plot-dragons. Regarding stories, not posts. Wait, I have post plotbunnies too... Yes, well, anyway. Where was I and where was I going? Yeah, right, so it's not so easy to trim posts when you have a lot of ideas and things to say rolling around in your head. Has that happen to you too or am I the only person with a messy head and undisciplined thoughts?

Anyway, I wanted to tell you all a little piece of news: it's very, very likely that my thesis mate and I will be published. Yay! ^_^ I finally had a meeting yesterday with someone from the faculty, who reviewed our thesis, since we expressed our desire to find a way to publish it either as a book or as an article, and they told me that our work was actually rather good, that needed trimming some segments, but that our approach was actually refreshing and new within the given topic, and it would be great to publish it as an article. They quickly give us suggestions about which parts of the thesis use to construct the 15 page article (out of 195), and pressed on the matter that we should keep our focus where we had it: on the social part.

You see, my mate and I made our thesis about the artisanal fishermen of a given island. We were supposed to do a traditional economical analysis and propose a way to improve their activity, but once we arrived at the island we realized that all of that would have been a bunch of crap. The economical situation of the fishermen is tied tightly to their social circumstances, thus throwing at them all sort of market solutions won't work, as it hasn't been working for 20 years or so. Meanwhile they are vulnerable, exposed to abuse, and the sealife is in inminent danger, which only deepens their problems. As result, my mate and I changed our initial position and leaned heavier on the social side of the equation, explaining as clearly as possible that no model or mathematical proposal, no economical solution would turn this region into a burgeoning hub of commerce, but that inherent social issues had to be addressed first.

It's interesting to think that what's going on here is a miniature of what goes on around the world, and what can be seen in Europe. The "solutions" proposed are like trying to push a cart down a road that no longer exists, when the wheels of the cart have already broken off. You can't pretend a cart to rush smoothly as if it were racing on a highway when you are pushing it down a cliff. Yes it's going to rush in the short term, and it's going to rush downwards, free falling. Most of you are not interested by this topic, I assume so I'll close it by saying this: You know what pisses me off the most about the whole situation? Both European and the fishermen's? That there's this bunch of economists and politicians with big titles, probably prizes and publications too, and they are all so fucking blind about the reality that they think people in real life are no different than their paper modeling, and so they just throw in all sorts of "solutions" without actually thinking them over, almost as if expecting either to buy time to get their capital somewhere safe, or simply see if it works. It's not even like putting a band aid on a gashing wound, it's like having a gashing wound and putting stones on it.

Yeah, well, the important is that we might get published, that the first publications where my name appears won't be as a writer, a work of fiction, but as a scientist. ^_^ That's cool.

Braunau Here We Go!

Finally we are on our way to Braunau. 09:10 train, departing from Budapest, Keleti Train Station (that's what means "pályaudvar") with destination Salzburg (the city where Mozart was from). From there it's yet another train to get to our final destination, where I'll meet - at long last - a penpal of mine. ^_^

The day started with an early waking, for which nobody was gratefull, except Cinder, of course, who got her daily food at once and about one hour earlier than usual. Our crazy little monster looks now ahead to a three day vacation from her "humans", who are always trying to pet her and hug her and never let her go. (Hell, we remind me of Elvira, from the Tiny Toons!). Though I had packed up all of my things yesterday night, my boyfriend had only packed part of his stuff, as he was otherwise occupied. (I'm loosing my boyfriend to the dubious art of philatelia, so currently the hunt of the rarest post stamps in the world is far more important than menial things such as packing ^_^)

After pulling our sleepy bodies from the comforting embrace of the bed, we made the bed, cleaned the cat's litter throwing out the old one and pouring in fresh litter. Finished the last aspects of packing, such as packing the deodorant, flip flops (and I think my boyfriend may have left his at home...), and then put to use my unique luggage winzipping skills. As time goes by I'm amazed at my ever improving skill to fit overflowing masses of stuff into small suitcases. It makes me feel like Mary Poppins! My boyfriend, on the other hand, was busy preparing a huge amount of sandwiches, which I believe he intends to feed to the poor or for an Army stationed on the way that's waiting for his sandwiches to save the world from eternal damnation. Really, what's with Hungarians and their idea that you need to make 10 sandwiches per person for a 6 hour trip... on a train that has a bufet wagon? Or is it just my Costa Rican side telling me that there's no need to pack food when you can surely buy it on the way?

We've got our tickets yesterday, and at the express recomendation of the lady selling us the tickets, we've got reserved seats. These are numbered seats that are good only for a given trip. This means that you pay more, but you have to take a given train, because the reservation is good only for that one trip. (You can take other trains too, but then you'll loose your reservation.) Piece of advise: when the lady at the train station cashier tells you to get the reservation, GET the reservation! We've got to the train about 30 minutes before departing and got our seats - fabulous and with table secured, which allows me now to blog comfortably ^_^ - and as we were looking around realized that most seats are already reserved, and there's not one single good seat that's not taken. Many people have gotten on the train without reservations and had to suffer the discomfort of being made move out of the places they've taken because they were reserved for others.

A lot of people is traveling these days to Austria from Hungary, due to the summer vacations - and because Hungarians are crazy about Austria - which has prompted the railroads to sell the tickets at lower prices (less than half of the original price), but also to have these frenetic runs for seats. We are traveling on an Austrian train (ÖBB), but the internet in it doesn't work. :-( Bugger. Oh well, there's always our mobile internet, which I have to give to my boyfriend shortly before we get to the Hegyeshalom, where the border between Hungary and Austria is located, and from where on the fee for internet goes on roaming standards.

I can't wait to see my friend, meet her in real life, and I can't wait to see what Braunau looks like... and how should I actually pronounce it.

If everything goes well, the next post will be from Austria.

A Break from Daily Philosophy, to some Daily Life

Yesterday's post turned out hard to read, right? For posterity I may go back on it and liven it up, because personally I believe that the topic is quite interesting - you know, talking about immigration, and how nobody can actually say that they've always-always belonged to the place they live in, nor can anyone say that they have a millenary culture that hasn't changed a bit since the begining of times. However the reason for it being so dull and hard to read - I presume - is due to the lack of pictures and my trademark colored text, which I use for highlight. If you have ever wondered what's my system for coloring, if colors and bolds or italics mean something, the answer is "not really". I pick the colors when I open the palette, see what colors I've used and which colors I feel like using. Perhaps normally I tend to used green to mark myself or my personal thoughts, fuchsia for religion or divinity, red for importance of shock, often aggression and violence, dark red for gore and supernatural, and blue for the things I don't like much... though I've used blue also for the things I do like, only for a splash of color. But anyway - I just derailed there - the reason why I didn't do that was because I was blogging from a train, on my way home from Mezőkövesd, where I had accidentally left my mouse (and half my power cord too). Have you tried to use your laptop without a mouse? And get online and blog without a mouse? Some parts are tricky, like I forgot how do you shut down a window or open a new page in your browser, but the rest is simple, only tedious.

Yesterday I went to visit Mama and Papa at Mezőkövesd, but I went without my boyfriend, who has been burried in work up to his eyeballs. So, instead of driving there, I took the train. On my way there I had the mouse and the cord, and so took out the laptop, the mouse and the mobile internet and started drafting up the post without any particular embellishing. Ideas and refining would come later. At Mama's place I then took out the laptop, charged it - I had used it on battery on the train - while we had lunch and then partook in a delicious traditional meal made in a caudron, outside over an open fireplace. The expression in Hungarian is "bográcsozás". It was my first one and it was DELICIOUS! It was basically a thick soup made with pork hoofs and venison, and it tasted like Heaven on Earth.

Inspired by Dragonfly's enthusiasm for photography and her beautiful pictures, I decided to experiment around the garden and took a few (okay, plenty) of pictures myself, from which I'll show you here some.

Waterlily

Flower Alone

Careful Close up under light brise

Flower cluster

Flower field

Household farming.

Families sow their yards to produce their own food.

Then, when I packed my things to go home, the mouse and part of my power cord (the one that's easily replaceable, thanks Hyne) decided to stay there without my conscent. I knew of the mouse the moment I decided to inish my blogging on the train, because I was going to get home quite late (I was arriving at the train station at 10 pm). I new about the cord when I've got home and decided to charge up my laptop. Oh well, after the holidays are over I'll go get myself new ones to have while I go back to Mezőkövesd to get the ones I left there.

Today the day was more calm. It's a Sunday-Monday holiday called Pentecost (also Whitsunday). Don't ask me, don't look at me, I don't really know much about this. Due to this even the stores that open on Sundays were closed, and so will be closed tomorrow too, which means that I'll only get to replace the mouse and the cord on Tuesday. However, by then I might also be able to get some photos printed out.

 I've decided that it's time to continue the embellishing of the apartment, and what better to make the place more lively and more of a home than to hang pictures from the walls? Naturally things are never easy, so I'll have to go over my picture archives and start selecting those I want on the walls. Pictures of us, pictures of the family - though this seems more on the line of "pictures of my family" for there aren't many pictures of my boyfriend's family around - so I'll have plenty to do from here to Tuesday. Then again, not like I can complete many of my repeating tasks from my List of 13 during this time. However, I believe it's fair to let you know that I'm getting ahead with the task of making myself June jewelry. I'm not entirely satisfied with the results yet, and basically because so far I was used to get already made chains for the necklaces, and here I have to make the chain link by link. Also, though I have wire sticks with a stopped on the bottom, there were a few only, so I made my own with bead stoppers, but they have given out sometimes.

For this set I used a picture from a book I've got recently as inspiration, but the one I'm making isn't hitting the mark with me. I guess I still have a lot to learn. :-) But that isn't taking away my desire o continue doing it, but rather make me want to see what else can I do and how can I come closer to the concept I'm looking for.

In beading, one of the biggest limitants are the materials: you don't always get to work with the beads and materials you really want, BUT you can work with anything as long as you get around it and know how to make it work. Beading, in the end is an art part knowledge and part experimenting, and that makes it more rich and more magical. Well, we shall see how this goes on in the future!

Surprise Yourself

I've been posting everyday for the last three and a half months, and believe me, finding a topic hasn't been easy all the time. Actually, nearly never has it been easy. Sometimes good ideas come when I can't write them down, and the forget about them - and bitterly whine for a couple of hours due to that - and other times I do jot them down, I do have them pasted in my handy agenda in colorful post-its, but I don't really feel like writing about those topics either. Then after being down and recovering little by little (I'm getting there, getting there, maybe 6 degrees over dog, which is pretty good), I wasn't gonna write again on the matter. I thought about writing a post on taking notes but as I did a search on the net, it happens that I've posted a lot of pictures on the subject, and a lot of posts as well. Ooooops. Sorry, but I really like everything that has to do with writing, in case the "Book of Records" isn't a clear indication to it. But then I found this awesome picture on the net and stared lovingly at it. Man, don't you love the way handwritten pages look? The tight lines, the colors... it's so inviting! Don't you feel tempted to magnify the picture all you can so you can read the text? ^_^ Oh come on! I know I'm not the only weirdo in here!

Anyway, this wasn't going to cut it, or at least not now. I checked on what other bloggers have written, what my friends said on the net, the newspapers... something to spark the inspiration, but soon I was only interested in checking out pictures of the current Korean series I'm watching ("Shilla Kingdom" or "Queen Seondeok", depending on the translation you have) and my favorite characters: Lady Mishil and Bi Dam.

I really like Mishil's character, even if she's the ultimate Evil of the series, because she goes for what she wants, and always keeps her cool. Her means might be objectable, but I like how she does take time to think and always remains serene... or almost always. Thinking about that and what has been happening, suddenly I remembered what happened today to me. I managed to wake up early, and the day was pretty, so I put on my jogging clothes and went out. I wanted very much to go out and walk around the Margit Island to thing and find peace, to overlook the situation and find a solution, strenght and recover my hopes and my spirit. It was quite pleasant outside, and so as I started jogging, I let my thoughts fly, enjoying the rhythm of the run, the soft air that wasn't burning my nose, throat and lungs with cold. I normally run the same distance and have decided not to try too hard to run more if I don't feel like it. I was pretty much jogging for four corners (maybe some 400 mts), and it had been a bit hard more often than not to keep my breath. However today I kept on running, thinking "I won't set myself a goal, reach this or that lamppost, I'll just run until I feel like stopping", and I did just that. I thought I would run a couple of meters more, but suddenly I found myself running about 200 to 300 meters more! I've got much, much farther than I thought I would or I could by now!

As I finally slowed down, I thought to myself that inspite of all my self confidence, I maybe wasn't giving myself all the credit I actually deserve. Maybe I am stronger than I think, maybe I can do more than I think, maybe if I stop setting markers and just let myself go free and flow as hard and as much as I can, I could surprise myself with what I can accomplish.

Sometimes we are too wrapped in our circumstances, our expectations, to actually realize what we ourselves can do. I ran, and I found the Mishil in me. You know what? I can do it, and even if I don't, then what? You know something, I'm in a win-win situation, I've my own Lady Mishil inside, and I'll let myself surprise me.

The Nookie

Today I've a really awesome topic, or should I say I "HAD" a really awesome topic for the post. It's really good and I haven't even forgotten it, which is rare, and it's perfect! Yes, except that it's almost 22h, and today my boyfriend and I had a lot of things to take care of regarding our soon-to-be home, and one of those things was cleaning. We did hire a cleaning lady, an adorable, sweet Transilvanian lady (they speak Hungarian and refure to be acknowledged as "Rumanians" even though they are, but rather like to be considered as a Hungarian minority) wearing her beautiful traditional clothes - yes! People today wearing traditional clothes! I still can't get over it - but we helped in because the work was quite some for such a small place, and so we are tired to death with the scrubbing of the kitchen. Honestly, it was also quite disgusting to scrap up from the walls, the floors and the stove the remnants of other people's dinners. Bits of bread on the windowsill, baby bottles stuffed in the closets, and old pieces of noodles and onion, rice... stuck all over the stove? Come on, people, really?

Some parts of that kitchen looked like we would need to call in a HAZMAT team.

Work isn't finished, but we certainly are. God willing we would be buying our furniture on Monday and start the moving (in and out, as all the old furniture I haven't personally approved is a goner), or busing in Tuesday, but still tarting the moving on Monday, and you know Ikea furniture, you gara ensamble it yourself because "that's part of the fun"? Whadda fuck? Freaking Skandinavians, they creat a LEGO and then they think all people wanna do is DIY. So we are up to our eyeballs in tasks and chores, but right now we are TIRED. I mean, I could go on for a little bit more, but I've got an ultimatum from my boyfriend: either I'm in bed within 30 minutes or he'll be asleep, and that means, no nookie. So sorry, nookie beats blogging, so that awesome topic shall be written some other time!

In the Blogging

I can't help but stare in sheer wonder at the bloggers who strive for recognition. From the constant effort to be read, to the writing always in the same style - maybe even in the same line - hunting for the best tactics and secrets to guarantee a high traffic... The question time and again comes and time and again is left unresolved. Could it be a sort of a cybernetic outlet to the need to get attention - as I've had the chance to meet a few blogger personalities, and some of them do strike me as what's called "attention whores"? Or could it be... a way to make a living? Then again, I also have known some of that.

Maybe the question with the blog is "do you want to be read or not?" Maybe, if you want to be read, you should do something to be read, and if you don't want to be read... well, why do you blog, right? However there is something about blogging that caters to those who want to write but don't necessarily want to be read - or widely read: a place to shout in anonymity. The blog can become a sort of personal, secret place - much safer often than the journal book you could be carrying in your backpack or your bag - where you can vent about anything on the world. (Like I do not so rarely ^_^)

There's this fairy tale about a girl who has seven brothers and they are turned to ravens and she has to save them by making during seven years seven shirts - one for each and must not speak a word during the seven years. Through this time she's married off to a prince and gives birth to children - all of which are snatched and killed by someone jealous of her. Unable to speak, she can't say a word to defend herself or express her sorrow, so one day when the pain is too big to bear, she goes out to the woods, digs a deep hole and cries into it.

Well, blogging often feels like that. A blog, if not much read, becomes the black hole in the ground where you can shout out everything that upsets you and pains you. It doesn't matter that unknown people who will never meet you read what you have to say - hell, in some issues a word of comfort, a good advise from the depths of the darkness can come so good! - but when you start realizing that people around you read it and know you... how free do you still feel to express what's going on?

As a blogger, yes, you can seek to be public, to be read by many to bring to their attention social issues and several truths denied from them - blogging becomes thus a tool at the hands of the people to gear up and spread the news corporations and governments don't want them to know. But as a blogger, you can also be ptivate, faceless, indentity-less crying into the dark hole what you are bound to say face to face. Has anyone blogger considered creating a new, secret blog, unfound, non-circulated, where they can spill their secrets safely? Ease the heart, but keep the issues well locked down?

Rattled and "Starstruck" in a Good Way

I'm shaky. I can't explain - maybe won't - but I'm so shaky right now! No, not too much coke in my system, but I've got... shaky. Topics for posts pile in my paper agenda - ah, the perks of going old school and planning on paper! - but right now none on them are up on my plate for the post at hand.

I received some unsettling information regarding a future plan I have on the cooking (non reasoned, just it seems that I won't get things exactly the way I want them, and sure, that can make me shaky with the fits of my upset control-freak self), but that doesn't mean that my plans - set in motion millions of years ago, nailed into place, hammered into shape - will be altered in the least. I'll fight and claw and tear up and punch if I have to, but I'll get my way. Always have. (Still, I'll be lighting a couple of candles just to make sure things are going smoothly and whatever the conditions, my further plans fall into pace with them.) I keep saying myself "no biggie, we will tackle it", and hope-believe I've the muscle it takes to get things done the way I want them. However - never the less - this is something I didn't need. An extra pound to carry around for this project. Oh well, didn't I say that God doesn't give us more than what we can carry? And haven't I said that it isn't God picking our load but ourselves? So, I bet you I can tackle this thing and still read my mangas and witchy books (I'm into reading witchy books right now).

I've got a message from the past as well. Oh dear, I think thinking of it also adds to the general shaking. When I thought all ties had been severed - though I have never forgot those ties as they were quite a milestone in my life - a small multicolor spark shot up in the air and made the memories real. Do you know the feeling? When a memory is so sweet, of such a fleeting moment in time, that after some years you start wondering if it was actually real or simply a trick of your mind? Well, this spark lit up the memory and brought it back to life. Right now. At yet another life changing point of it.

I'll take it as it looks like: a good sign. Things may look dire, may look obscured, but in real life, what lies beneath - even if facing a period of loss and confusion - is the brightest of all lights and the coolest of all paths. Thanks, my friend, you are a shooting star!

Can't Settle Yet

This blog has changed faces quite often and quite dramatically in the past days. From black to white to brown again and a small window of time trying out some of the themes and proposed formats. No, I'm not one to easily fit myself in a pre-formed, pre-thought, pre-emptied scheme. That ain't me! I'm jumping on one leg, tilting to the side and rubbing my chin while saying "nope, that's not it either". A mix of pictures of colors of... je ne sais quoi that's missing, that's stating my current state of... me. Thing is that so far neither combination hits the mark, but one thing is for sure: I want the shot of the bathtub.

That godly bathtub! Has ever a picture ever described you so totally, so fully, so perfectly... what you feel you are, what you yearn to be, the absolute balance of in and out, of past, present and future... the very essence of you... that's the picture of the bathtub. And it's not even my bathtub! It's not even the best and most wonderful bathtub I've ever experienced (that's a tie between Sofia and Paris - for real! - though I believe that the one in Venezuela was also pretty amazing!), but that's the picture that contains me, describes me, summons me and resumes me. It's an icon not so much of luxury, as it is an icon of comfort, of time for oneself, me-time, and just chilling out. No worries in the world, no schedules to keep, no appointments to rush to, no deadlines to honor, no bills, no work, no pressure. Some may say they work better under pressure, but I'm not one of them, and though I'm perfectly capable of pulling my weight, stick my nose to the paper and do the job, this state of no pressure, or relax and enjoyment is what reflects me better the most. But how to splash it across the blog?

Hn, well maybe I need a hot shower, a Smirnoff Ice, snuggle in bed in comfy clothes and a good book (or manga) to figure that out. :-)

Post Note: Yeah, yeah, yeah... I changed it again. It seems all I needed was the thought of "comfy" for it to come to me. ^_^ I sunk in my mental bathtub, read my mental Kindle and mental magazines, paged across the mental glossy paper and... it happened. ^_^ I'm liking it, so it's staying... most likely. ^_^

Caught in the Middle of a Meltdown

Here I was, happy go lucky, blogging my way into yet another day, remembering those old days when different realities were put together to share a space, all equal at that moment, but different in their background, when fuchsia bumpers were a nightmare and I couldn't start even grasping the idea of someone younger than me (and I was only 18) not only knew how to drive, but had a car and drove around all day.  However as I was to upload a picture, Blogger froze it's ass on me. O_O Dude, you don't do that when I have less than 10 minutes before leaving and my blog is on European Central time, and I won't make it home in time!

What's most strange is that I actually had quite good ideas for blogs popping on my head, and even scribbled one down on my trusty notepad with a purple mini sharpie. (Remind me to carry around a regular pen with my trusty notebook... which also doubles as the cover for my Kindle.)

Be is as it may, it was interesting: the mind lights up and connects, download to the paper, idea deep from the brain splashed out and captured in an idea-net in the outside word... and the bigger net and transport decided to be uncooperative. Ain't that ironic, to say the least? (Or Murphy?)

Blogger(ina)

Through the social networks I've got to a post about "15 Words of Advise to Become a Good Blogger". It was early morning, I haven't had my coke yet, so I was stupid enough to CLICK ON IT and READ IT. A quarter of the way down the super-moronic text, I was wide awake thanks to outrage and pissed-off-ness (a brand new word!). (I guess I was far more pissed by being directed to this article by someone I had on my social networks, whom I'll be probably be ripping out... once I discover who the offender was.) Now, what was there exactly that upset me? Well, I should have seen it coming from the title (the post is actually in Spanish, that's another reason why I'm not liking it), but it was basically about 15 dos-and-don'ts for so called "being a good blogger". It was filled to the brim with crap like "Good Bloggers don't use cursing words" and "you are a good blogger if your name appears as author of the post. If not, you are a 'content maker'". It was ironic also to read in the list that "good bloggers creat content, not re-blog (I didn't know that word!) or translate from other blogs", and yet the "15 Tips to be a Good Blogger" appear in other blogs in English. (Guess this moron blogger isn't a good blogger also by their own standards!)  There were also simplistic tips like "don't put out only text, but add visual interest to attract readers", and other bull- about how you had to strive to get "traffic". Since when blogging is a socially tied down activity instead of an expression of freedom and individuality? I mean, if I wanted to read socially approve blank, bleached articles I would pick up any of Rupert Murdoch's papers. Now, give me some credit - this could have gone both ways: the bad way it did go, or on a snappy, funky, irreverent way, which is what I would have expected.

So, what is actually being a Blogger or Bloggerina, and what makes us Good?

Well, you make the Blogger. A Blogger or Bloggerina (female blogger), is someone who has something to say, something to show, something to express - something original - and does so, normally in a "blog" which is this: a corner of the Internet where you can write things and publish them for others to read. Like a journal or a diary. It's original, it's own and it's atuned to your soul and who you are. It doesn't need to encompass the whole of who you are, as you can blog only about one topic , or have several blogs to blog about several things, or blog in one blog about anything that comes to  mind.

There's not one formula to make a post or a blog a successful one, other than the very spark, the very spirit of the blogger or bloggerina herself. No type of text or picture, no outlay, no language, no topic makes what only the spirit of the blogger can. When you blog, you are a blogger. Good or bad, as the one behind the keyboard and the screen, that should be indifferent to you. As a true Blogger, you write, to upload pictures and sounds and video because you have this unstopable need to express. You blog because you feel it in you - or that's why I personally believe you should do it.

The good or bad blogger exists in the eye of the reader, and it's not measured by the traffic to your blog (that shows only how popular you are, and popular isn't the same as "good", as you can see from the Jersey Shore, Glee and Twilight). A blogger can be both good and bad at the same time and about the same post, and it doesn't matter what's the majority of opinions, what matters - as blogger, to oneself, is what we express and how good, how originally, how perfectly have you managed to say what you wanted to. Paraphrasing Kierkegaard "it doesn't matter what you blog about, as long as you are true to yourself".

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.

The Time that Passes The Things I've Done and the Book I'm Reading

After a freaking long time since my last post (oh yes, I had to mention that!), and some of the feedback I've got on the subject (the annoying people), I finally sit down again to write and mumble and share my musing. As a matter of fact, today I FINALLY went to Dragonfly's cubbie to pivk up a lovely-lovely souvenir pouch she brought me from her trip to Puerto Rico. Well, I'm head-over-heels for it! Post-its, pen (with black ink!) and a green little sum-sum... it's plain PUUUUUUURFECT! We also took the chance to recap on several things, talk about a certain immature, Bitter-B who rants like a child and can't get through her thick skull that certain things she does to "keep her turf" only make her look stupid and causes more damage than... well, causes no benefit, but it sure causes damage. Truly, the sheer number of stupid people.... and the stupidities they come up with! If I've got a dollar ... if I've got a penny for each time I had to witness or endure stupidity, I could buy a country and get back enough change to annex a few minor islands too.

Also learned that she moved from her old cubbie to a new one, but not for long as they are moving - again - to yet another district. I'm sad because that means that Dragonfly will be once again far away, BUT now I've a car, and hopefully will be taking it to work soon, so I could meet up with her more frequently. On the other hand, her whole division moving out to another building, kinda puts in evidence (for those willing to see) the huge mistake the acquiring of the current building was. Then again, you gara take some of the 1300 people you crammed into a 600 people building before teh structure collapses, right?

While talking to her, I mentioned that she hasn't blogged in quite a while. Says me, who also stopped blogging for some weeks. This is how I decided that it was time to shut my pie hole and do something about it. Thus I blog.

In the past days I finished the book on philosophy I was reading, but haven't got around to write to my father-in-law about it, which I would really like to do. As a matter of fact, I've been lagging terribly with my letters, piling up my adorable penpals in a waiting line suitable for a Public Service Office, while I juggle with either a down mood - have had a few of those - or the gigamontic amount of work that suddenly lands on my hands at the office, and even lately the craptacular amount of work related to the thesis my mate and I have to tackle thanks to the latest observations of our second lector. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one fucking big animal to tackle. After checking them over (some 107 observations, from which 37 are "major" and 2 are "cardinal") my mate and I sat in a sweat-boot in a local BK looking at each other and asking "do you think he read this part?" and "fuck, what the hell do you think he means?". There were also a few observations that were down right outrageous, which I won't even repeat, but were of the kind that dumbstrike you and after being launched and landed you stay paralized, eyes wide open and thinking "Totto, I've the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore".

It has been raining like it's the end of the world, which brings me to that latest "end of the world" crap. Dude, aren't all those uneducated "sheppards" tired of pulling out the same old stupid stunt? Since I remember we have been having "end of the world"s at leasts every 5 years, but right now the rate of them has boomed! Every month we have a new end of the year, and people are actually waiting for 2012, just like they did for 2000 for "the end of the world" only to wake up the next day with a huge MORON sign on their foreheads. But do you know how the end of the world will look like? Well, with climate change, widening of socio-economical gaps, and the spread of different illnesses as well as all sorts of wars, population will start to diminish. The planet will heat up, resources will disappear GRADUALLY, less and less people will be born, less even live until all life dies. Millions of years later this planet, turned into a dry rock, like the heart of those motherfucking preechers, will hit something and explode. The End. So rapture? Look me in the eye and tell me who the FUCK is worthy of being raptured?

However, our current end of the worldy rains and storms have been cutting the power more often than not, forcing me to light up all the candles I can put my hands on, just to read.Yes, those on the picture are 8 - count them, 8 - candles lit, but those are not all. There were 4-5 more lit in my room, just to have enough light... for reading. So, work on the thesis? Not so easy, sure I would if I could light up my laptop with a candle, or power it on gas, but no. Battery does work, but I wouldn't trust myself to watch the 2 hour time window it gives me, and losing my work because the battery died on me is not acceptable. However it has been done. We are back at doing legwork, tapping some sources, hitting the library for more backbone and trying to better fit our baby.

So there was that, but for everybody's ease of mind, my mate and I are working really hard on the matter, even if at times it's disheartening, but we are not giving up! We're so, so close to our goal and we're gonna make it!

So, yes, there's that.

The new book I'm reading is "Women in Love" by D.H. Lawrence. Yes, you know me. No self respecting fan of Anaïs Nin would leave without reading the books of her favorites, of the ones she has inspired and have inspired her as well. Thus Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence. (I have the distinct feeling of having written about this...) Miller is, awesome, though for Nin lovers I strongly recommend to read his books - as far as possible - timed up with her journals. This gives far more meaning to the text, explains it better, and allows you to find the vein of the writing more easily. Just like "House of Incest", of Nin, the poem in the light of the journal becomes an "aha!" experience. With Lawrence, on the other hand, her unprofessional study, as she named it, gives you her very personal vision, quite submerged in her own self. The study is rather a "Ninization" of Lawrence, than a study of it. Rich and wonderful, where you keep finding her need and attraction towards servitude and punishing humbling - marks probably bore after her childhood and her relationship with her father.

This particular edition has the crapiest introduction ever, so if you pick up this copy of the book, don't read the introduction first, read it after if you'd like, and prepare to be confronted with a man who lashes bitterness and will tell you just how bad the book is and how crappy the writer is. But is Lawrence that way? I'm still quite in the begining of the book, few chapters into the story, and what I can tell you is that he seems ambiguous, keeps you on your toes and showers you with flawed characters. Not flawed in their construction, though it's early for me to judge their building, but rather humanized characters, all of them with visible flaws. Love is vanished off the scene, hatred is the primadonna of the show with strange, heated discussions, shock and losing of patience, which are all fun to witness.

Pornographic? He has been labeled so. Maybe when he published the book, his constant drawing attention to genders in biology, the stopping to describe male and female flowers being drawned by children, was indeed considered pornographic, but today that's Discovery Channel, and nobody would think that Discovery Channel and Playboy Channel are one and the same thing.

The book has yet another interesting feature: the mean characters are actually treated like secondary characters, devoting tremendous amounts of attention to just about any other thing around them, but them. Well, we shall see what comes up from that too.

Reincident

The next time I decide to click on the "Next Blog" button, could someone smack me on the head? It is letal, I tell you, LETHAL! No matter what your prepare yourself to, it will always, ALWAYS give you a long sequence of blogs that will send you screaming. What the fuck si wrong with Blogger? Why can't they either list completely random things or list things that match to your liking. That's why they gather all that info about us, right? Now, before you ask, no, I wasn't plunged into yet another mom-rampage of evil, as this time Blogger kept me from the obnoxious mom-blogs and proud-mom crap. (I still find it quite weird to be a "proud mom". For once, you are proud a whole human being popped out of your vagina? And second, dude, isn't being a "proud mom" - particularly if being proud of being a mom - kinda like objectifying the child? Parents hardly realize children are people, but let's not go there right now.) This time around Blogger sent me on a whirlpool of Christian blogs. Oh man!!!

These horrid creations have all sorts of names, some even pick a chapter and verse as name "John One 13" and things like that. (Have no idea if there's a John 1:13...) The tone is always the same: the "I'm so blessed and I have overcome so much thanks to the lord/faith/church and is so filled with..." crap. You roll down, because you know, sometimes people have the urge to write about something, but some other day they write about something else. Nope, not these ones! It's like mom-blogs, I swear. Entry after entry it's all the same. Amazing Grace, graceless version. And as you roll down hoping for some goodie, for something of a regular nature, all you read is how blessed they are, and how miserable they were in the past, but now they are so well... and there are things, affirmations that do sound - it really does -  like someone is trying to convince themselves about something. Writing it down makes it so?

Somewhere someone said their family "served the Lord" and the blog was about that. Sometimes I wonder what church-going Christians consider "serving the Lord". Going to church, giving a tenth or a symbolic amount of money to the church, being part of the choir, or the Bible studies, baking cupcakes for charities, teaching children about the bible, about sexual abstinence, dressing in boring pastel colors, long clothes and voting against abortion and gay marriage? Or is it feeding the poor, clothing the naked, taking care of the elderly and frown at the Wiccan neighbour who sings weird songs while watering the plants, and casts demonic rituals according to their "mistaken beliefs". The other day I read through Human Rights in Facebook, that a certain Christian Sheppard said something like "gay marriage was inevitable"  - you know, like chaos after a catastrophe - that Christians had to brace it with the trademark "Christian kindness", and they would support any scientifical project that could detect homosexuality before birth and treat it.

I would smack my head into the desk, except that I want to smack HIS head into the desk. Repeatedly.

He's a Sheppard in a Christian church. Is that bullshit considered "serving the Lord"? Question, and have they asked God what does He think about it? Perhaps I could aid a little bit there. You know, when God says that your fellow gay person is just like you, He means - no pun intended, my interpretation - that gay people are just as people like you, feel the same, suffer the same and deserve the same respectful treatment you do. Well, not you, but any other person. He doesn't mean "make the gay to be exactly like you". Of course, this is me and my primitive interpretation.

The Bible says? Yeah, about that, have you considered that maybe people tampered with it? We all know it was assembled at the First Council of Nicea, and if so, what would keep people from penning a line here, a chapter there, a book over there to fit it to their convenience? So why don't you open your heart and ask the source? Oh, and before you come with the "The Bible is the Word of God" thing, where does it say so? In the  Bible, right? Uhum. Not very scientific there.

Somewhere I read someone being thankful about how their marriage have been "saved" as it was going through a rough time, really, really bad, and now was coming back to normal. Sure, I don't know the person, hell, I didn't even finish reading the entry (it was way too uninteresting for me), but I tried to imagine what would a fucked up relationship feel like and how could that be mended. I mean, scars remain and people will continue picking at them. I believe that what broke once remains broken forever. Glue it all you want, it's not going to ever be the same. So there I kinda felt sad for that person, because they seemed to desperate to believe everything was solved - still leaving a little linger that it might not be so - and I wondered what would it feel if the relationship cracks again. Would they put it on God's tab and say He didn't save their marriage?

Anyway, after some many blogs on this line, I stoped and came back to the normal. There was an entry I read at Childfree about blogging-moms uniting into bitching because in a recent survey it came up that they are considered the most annoying thing on the social networks and blogs. Yes, you know, people hate how they post picks of their dirty children covered in food, because it's "so funny", or breastfeeding because it's "such a love connection", and 24/7 posting about kids and kid stuff and schools and clothes and all that crap... Well, the proud mommies say they are being hated "but they don't give a damn, and if people don't like them they can always unfollow them". Sure, we'll do that, but then don't come asking why we unfollowed you - personally I'll have to problem telling one of these mommies that I'm sick and tired of reading them, that their postings are as uninteresting as and introductory speech to an annual gathering of morons - and furthermore, don't request us to follow your or friend you again. Get the hint! Have dignity!

Anyway I was thinking what did Christians and moms have in common, that makes them so annyoing, and I've got to the conclusion that it was their one sided, monothematic speech. Blogging-moms come up with excuses like "well, I spend all my time with my children, so yes, they are my life". Okay, once upon a time I worked as a teller at a bank. Monday to Saturday, all my waking hours were spent - literally - at the bank. Sure, I had a lot to tell about the bank and the people I worked with, but my talking range was still broad, just like that of all my coworkers. We didn't speak only about the loans paid, the number of clients, the funny things that happened (and some of those are hilarious), but we also talked about a new café, our family, our friends, our hobbies, and though time-tight, we had a life that wasn't all about the job. I simply can't believe that having a children would keep you from reading good books - that have nothing to do with raising kids - watch a good movie, take interest in local politics, express your opinion about the latest raise in taxes and so on.

Christians, on the other hand, say they are entirely dedicated to God, consumed by it, overtaken by the "calling". Yeah, about calling, I've one, my career, and it really, really obssesses me. I'm on the point where I can't imagine my life without it. I love it, love to do it and process the whole universe around me in relationship to my calling - I'm an economist, as you know. I see every relationship as a balance of investments, expenses, externalities, and keeping a good scorecard. I see trust as a credit score card. Do I write about economics all the time? No, I don't. I have other things in my life, and though economics are fundamental, vital and the core of my being, I actually am capable of thinking about other things, and speaking about other things.

What makes someone or something - like a blog - annoying is that onesidedness, that flat topic that yields no richness, no real analysis. Do you know what journals are so fabulous? Because someone can gave a blog about complaining about their job, and yet as their daily life mingles into it, it makes it fantastic. Yes, blogs are outlets to many things, but the good side is that they can tackle a whole lot of topics and perspectives. But when a blog is flat and always the same, it doesn't matter if it's deving into the most exciting topic of all, it becomes boooring!

I've a penpal who's a mom, and she's quite a cool one. She mentions her child here and there, but she speaks about herself, her plans, her dreams... about the person I know and I write to. There was another, quite the opposite, who sent me letters detailing the day of her child. The kid did this, got into that school, got that grade... Where's the thought? Where's the delving into the human impression? Geez, get a life of your own!

Knowing myself, eventually I'll push the "next button" again, it's kinda like a self-destructive impulse, like people picking stories or pictures that gross them, but can't keep looking at them - though not a guilty pleasure, as there is no pleasure, only hoping to find something worth reading. I guess I'll keep going to this until I find a new way to mine for personal journals online.