Many Ideas left in the inkwell

Property of Stormberry

Planning and preparation are great tools to make sure you get to do all you want. I love planning & preparing, and usually have calendars and lists and all sorts of stuff with this in mind. And it usually works... except when it comes to planning and preparing a blogpost. I think I have tried in the past, specially in 2012, when I was writing a post every single day. Wow, that was something!

I took part on a Philofaxy meeting at the begining of this month -  which I enjoyed like CRAZY! and everybody who has and loves filofax planners should seriously consider attending - and it was such an experience to show my system. So I was thinking about making a post about how I use my planner, and how have I've combined the bullet journal and the filofax system in one that pretty much works well, as well as showing a color-splashed, pretty hassle-free, free form, non-artistic spread. Ok, I work on them ONCE a year, and you could pretty much get the same thing just buying or printing out those inserts and that's all.

So I planned the theme, the idea, and even made the pictures for the post. LOTS of pictures. Really, like a huge bunch of them, so I had many, many angles and stuff to show, depending on how the text was going to turn out. And then... that's not what happened.

Life happened, that's what happened, and I was buried under a landslide of work and university homework, and preparing for lectures - because I'm one of those students that likes to read ahead of the class - and so the pictures are stored, along with the ideas, and I come here with new pictures - much less - and an etirely unstructured, different post idea. Like in the old days. Remember those?

Journaling is one of my favorite topics, in case you haven't noticed. That would be because I love journaling, and I love it because it's free. Of course the book costs money, and so the pen and the ink (for many years now, I only journal with fountain pens), but what I mean is that there is not set structure, like even the most free planning systems have. No keys, no rules, no blocks within the page to keep you organized, no indentation or color coding. Ok, I tend to write the initial "block" the same way (you know, the part with the date and so), but this has also changed through time a lot. There was a time when I always wrote it in Japanese (I don't speak Japanese, but I was learning and the date formula stayed in my brain for long), or always in French, and so. I have thought here and there to go Anaïs Nin and leave out the date and just write, BUT I actually need the dates because my memory is famously bad, and sadly I have encountered people in my life who have tried to gaslight me thinking I wouldn't know, because I don't remember. HA! Never underestimate a person with a journal.

Property of Stormberry

Journaling is kind of the other end of the planning and preparing. It is the summarizing and processing. There are many ways to do this too, and there is people that keep also many journals for different purposes. I usually have one journal, though for a while I've been also using a Simple Diary a friend of mine gave me, in which I either pick here and there a page at random, or look for one that has the kind of prompt I want to fill out - it's kinda funny to have a non-chronological diary like this. I also have a journal that's too... designed and thematic to be a real journal of any sort for me (I write sooo much and have soooo many thoughts and opinions, I just don't have time for top tens, favorite music of a whole page covered with a black butterfly), in which I only write in pencil, short and "cryptic", dark thoughts. Yeah, I have those too. It's like my punk-journal. No dates.

But these are like my "shot" journals, stuff that stays there through the years and, get attention, the-gods-know-when. Good, shot journals for the instant boost or unloading, or taking the edge of something. But my journal, MY JOURNAL - oh ho hoooo! - that's something else. Even if I don't write every day - which I don't - when I write, it's deep, detailed, and nearly forensic. I love that.

This year I also decided to start using my Witches's Datebook - a datebook I have gotten every year since 2012, if I remember correctly - also to record small notes on my mood or things that made me tick or made me smile. The idea was to start making a sort of lunar journal, which, yeah, not only I don't journal daily, I had no idea who could I make a spread for that in my planner. The idea was to record quite simply how I feel, so I could see actually how the moon and its phases affect me. In the end, well, you can see, I used it also to record stuff like a particular call from someone, a witchy virtual meeting, or just feeling like I really, really love someone in particular that day.

For two years now, I have decided to use these datebooks only to plan stuff that related to my personal or academic life. I wanted a work-free space, and so stuff like classes, exams, meeting friends and so on, got there. It was also on my bullet journal, mind you, but I also copied it there, specially because this datebook is my reference for stuff like astrological aspects to consider (Mercury Retrograde being major there, which starts tomorrow, by the way), and also the daily color. If you check many of my previous ones, most of them are quite blank, but recently they seem more full, and now... well, it feels like I need a wee bit more of space. :-) But then, for that, when the thoughts overflow, if I feel like I want to dissect them, I pull out my journal, uncap a pen - or two - and let the ink and the thoughts flow together.

So, in the end, I have a journal, and along with it, I have littl journal helpers that either aid in the process of refining the idea and shed the initial punch out of them, or they accumulate small bits here and there, so that later on I can wax poetry on this or that is so totally wrong/right about this, and what I think about it, and where the flaws in the logic are, and thus why I come to the well-thought conclusion... of whatever I conclude.

The point is, it's ok to plan & prepare, and heck! do it as much as you can! But when life throws a wrench into your gears, or you need to chillax a little or you just need to unload and let go and have a non-planned, non-prepared, just free flowing moment, don't beat yourself over it, and take any way, shape or form you feel like it. Scribble in pencil on a corner of your planner, type down a short note in your notes app, or use a journaling app, or take a picture and write a caption, or write nothing, draw a spiral on a post-it... express yourself, for yourself, in nay way you can connect.

That's the point.

Order in the Chaos... Better Just Order

There's one concept that I hear frequently that I just can't really graps, no matter how I try, and that's the idea of "order within chaos". How does that work? This is a term I normally hear from people who visibly live in rather chaotic circumstances - spacially chaotic, mind you. Overstuffed closets where you can't find a thing, with huge plastic containers filled to capacity with shoes, and you pull 50 shoes out of it and none of them matches, heaps of clothes on the floor, tables and desks that haven't been seen by human eyes in over a decade, carefully burried under tons of papers, notebooks, letters, discarded newspapers, clippings, books and an array of things that have no business near a desk or a table.

You stare at it and then at the creator of the mess, and the first reaction of the Chaotist is "I understand my system" ... because there is a system and it's not RANDOM... "I have an order within my mess and I know were everything is". Well, oddly enough, when they are looking for something, it takes them half a day in the best of cases to find it. Someone I know bought four maps of Cracow because though they had a map, they never found it when they needed it, and so they ended up buying the same map four times. I've also heard of someone looking for something that had been borrowed to them for five years. They knew it was in their apartment - they even moved, if I recall the story correctly - but they couldn't find it. The item finally surfaced five years later when they were looking for something else.

You know, it's nice to be clean and orderly, like my friend Dragonfly, who doesn't only keep her things neatly organized, they are also lively and BEAUTIFUL, but if you are a bit like me, and strick order, though you admire it, intimidates you a little bit, you shouldn't fear! Organization isn't about all books aligned to perfection on the shelve, and such an order that you don't dare touching anything. You can allow a little bit of disarray - a lived in disarray, but still organized. It's simple to put things on their place from the first moment, than drop them anywhere and then transform putting them on their place into a chore you postpone and postpone until there's a mountain of things to be stored away in the middle of your space and you need to call in an army of your friends to tackle your mess.

It starts simple. When you get home, if you take off your shoes at the entry like we do here, put your shoes on the same place all the time, and have your home slippers there, ready. It's a no brainer, just take of, put them where they should be, and put on the home shoes. Bag, don't just drop it, it has a place, put it there at once. If it doesn't have a place, assign it one! If you don't have much space, you know that a hook on the back of the door is a perfect place to hang a bag? Or from the side of a shelve unit or a closet? And how much is a good plastic hook? Pocket money!

It's all just a little bit of will. A little bit of will to put the book back on the bookshelve, store away your laptop, put away your notepads and pens... don't work until you are too tired to clean up! Stop before that, other wise the next day the job shall start with picking up the mess, or continuing working IN the mess, and who feels like doing anything in the middle of chaos?

Sorry, I don't believe in the possibility of order living inside a chaos, or any sensible, realistic order-system existing in chaos, but I do believe that order exists within you and you can achieve it and you can make it work for you. It's just a matter of wanting to. ^_^ Wanna give it a try?

Fit

Some time ago I bought for myself a fitbit ultra, which is this thingie that counts your steps, and how many calories have you burned and stuff like that. Since my friend Dragonfly-cr started running and wearing one of these to measure her performance, I was pondering getting myself one of those, basically to start running too. I wasn't planning on running here, though, as if I do I would mainly be running away from robbers and kidnappers (my neighbourhood has proved that safe...), but I do was planning on starting to run in Hungary, preferable at the Margit Island, which has a lovely running path made of something that's soft and feels cool. This things are called "pedometers" or something like that. Checking them on the Internet wasn't all that easy, mind you, as there were features I didn't get, and none of the mentioned things were clear about whether you need something else to go with them. Also, with prices running from $20 to $200 there was no way I could pick safely something that was really good and what I needed.

Luckily when boyfriend and I were flying back from Dominican Republic, I read on the plane's magazine - Destinos - (we went on Taca) about the fitbit. A page in two languages dedicated to explaining shortly this device made me decide that this is the one I'll get, and so I did (specially because I could get it in plum, not necesarity in blueberry, as you know that blue and I don't get along very well). The fitbit came with an internet page where you can track your progress and keep your statistics. Calories consumed, calories burned, activity, mood, and so on. A real delight for someone so into keeping track and tabs like me (who have been keeping tabs on my weight, not like it changes and not like I would do a thing to change it!), however... my Hyne if this is a hard thing to get by! The fitbit is all nice and cute, but it doesn't seem to be accurate. I climb 15 flight everyday to get to the office, and it says I climb 22. I end up climbing from 29 to 44 and the counter says 75 to 88. I walk distance of five meters and it claims I've taken 500 steps. What am I? A geisha??

The page also gives you an account on the calories you have eaten, for which you log every single food you eat. It's nice and cool, and rolls out a list from where you pick what did you have, and that's okay, and all, but it gets me thinking, that getting fit isn't as easy as one would think. With a thingie like this, it's not only a matter of will, it's a matter of patience. Does this really motivate? And in general, if you have a sendentary life like mine, how further do you get with a program that keeps you in front of your computer logging in your weight and every single snack bar you chew?

My goal isn't to lose weight - what for? I'm fine the way I am - but to keep myself healthy, move and keep my body well. That's why I go to yoga classes too, so is a dashboard to work with keeping me from effectively be more active or is really helping me, thoughI don't know that yet?

Another Hectic Sunday

Something must be definitively out of order whrn you wake up on a Sunday at 6:45 am all by yourself. No alarm, no plans, no trip to the beach only a disjunctive: join my usual yoga class at 10:30 am or join my friends for breakfast at this awesome location some miles away driving, with the opportunity to meet new people, update on information and plunge into the most recent topics of conversation hot on the cyberuniverse - which I may or may not know of. This was a Twitter Breakfast, a uniquete kind of meeting where you can synch with the rest of the community, or at least be updated on the latest trends without having to sacrifice your own usual search. (For instance, I'm quite disconnected of the local gossip and national actuality, as I'm more stuck in telecommunications, Amazon.com, books and American Politics.)

As I was starting my Sunday as any other Sunday, I realized that I still had to wash Sookie. But not only that. Kari and I had decided to take my older nephew for shopping to get him scubba diving equipment (he's birthday is close and his aunt - me - thinks that a T-shirt and a Chinese Chess game ins't nearly enough). Then I realized that I had to get going with Lau's scrapbook project, so either I worked on it now or I would never be ready. As result Sookie got washed and waxed, but neither the yoga class not the Twitter Breakfast were doable under my current situation.

It's kinda sad that two things that are important to me, that could be among the last one I can attend in my life, are moved for something one could say I can do any other time. Well, no. Yes, say, but I had to cancel on both for the reason that though I could do scrapbooking any other time  - pictures are not going anywere - scrapbooking is a very time consuming thing and either you get doing it on schedule, or you end up with no margins of time left, holding into any available, free minute to work on them.

It reminded me of studying and even working. Sure, you can think you can study any time, you can work anytime, but exactly that sort of thinking is what pushes you later to be unable to do it anytime, because either you do it now or you'll never get done with it, and you'll fail or lose what you where aiming for with the project. I didn't plan my time well with this project and I ended up running out of time, and as result now I have to give up things I would love to do, in order to catch up on the project and get it by the last available time possible for me.

From this I leave you a question: Are you looking forward for Hectic Sundays? Is your schedule really as flexible as you pretend it is, or are you working yourself a whole lot of rushing and trouble? Pressure isn't fun and it can end up being really expensive.

Organize your time well. Plan your activities.

Scrapbooking!

Today is my brother's birthday. ^_^ Watching him get older each day - and the years he's counting! - makes me remember that I'm not that young anymore. (He's two years my junior.) It's not like I'm delusional, thinking I'm still some snot nosed kid, but my actual age doesn't down on me as much as on the day of my little brother's birthday. Getting him a present is quite hard too - as it usually is for a woman to get a present for a man, because we can't relay on the easy things there are to give to women: jewelry, make up, body creams, splashes, purses... - but in the end we picked up a sort of organizer with many transparent drawers, where you can store screws and nails and tiny things like that. He'll probably use it to store his spare LEGO pieces. Another year solved, 364 days to go for the next one. Oh, sorry, 365 days as 2012 is a ... how do you say in English? Leaping year?

Aside from my brother's birthday, today is Saturday, which is usually a good "errand day" for me. In this particular Errand Day, I've got my first scrapbook album. ^_^ Well, not mine, as the project is going to be for my Mom and my sister-in-law and I are going to asseble it together. (I think I've explained this before, but it goes like this: Lau was making scrapbooks for herself, we decided to make one for Rose, then I decided to make one for Lau, and Mom saw it and she said she would like one for herself too. Then I decided to make it along with Yul, so the scrapbook contains the things of Mom's both kids ^_^.) The idea is to pick 100 pictures (50 mine and 50 Yul's), so I calculated how many sheets we would need to set the 100 pictures, and worked around a ballpark amount for the project. Then, thanks to my trusty datebook, I planned the benchmarking of supplies (album, extra sleeves, pages), and  I decided to make it today the day I would go pick up the supplies we required for it.

Close to my old highschool, there's this tiny house that keeps odd open hours, which is filled with all sorts of scrapbooking supplies that range from the expected to the stranges and most unexpected things I wouldn't even know how to hold on the right side. I though I was going to last a couple of minutes in there as I already had a list of what I needed, but the salesgirl was soon instructing me on the techniques and arts related to scrapbooking. And here I thought it was about pasting the pictures and putting some decoration on it. Oh no.

She explained that two pages one next to the other should always match somehow. Didn't need to be alike, but a certain theme should always carry on. The sheets, which for me were just the base to paste the pictures, are supposed to be layered, often treated with special drawing chalk for an aged effect and nothing that wasn't acid free should go on the pictures. (Holy fucking shit! I must have been assembling Laura's the wrong way! Nothing of my supplies are acid free! They sure as as acid as lemons!)

She took the chance to show me her own "multi-topic" scrapbook album - many with pages I honestly considered down right of poor taste (not offensive, just terribly designed and envisioned) - and was quick talking to me about how wonderful the owner was, and how great her style and vision for arranging pages - and indeed the pages she told me the owner had helped her with were honestly beautiful! - managing the layering of different pages, and how a double sided paper (like all I bought...) were used only as accent as the back was usually plain, one color and build on that with the design.

... My boyfriend was, meanwhile in the car - BLACK CAR! - under the noon sun cooking himself extra crispy.

My eyes fell then on the stamps and I'm crazy for stamps!!! 'Letter decoration' I thought at once - fuck scrapbooks, I need something to eventually grace up my letters, and stop being the only penpal with plain paper... filled to the margings with words. Most of them where phrases and those with pictures were mostly about babies. There was one "October 31st" and what sort of witch (figurative or real-life... depends on how you see it, either as I'm a fun, crazy person, or because I'm observing ancient celebrations - now called Pagan celebration - or because you think I'm a monster who lives only to destroy the poorly done job of others and rip at their throats instead of being benign and let them be in their incompetence) would I be if I didn't jump at the opportunity of having THAT? ^_^

Seeing that I would soon be left with no boyfriend, but a big gooey mess of melted boyfriend in my car, I did my best to make my way out, however I must admit I was caught. I left the store wishing to know more, holding my purchase and a business card with their phone number, promising myself to recruit Lau and Yul to come with me to the shop again for a class. Is this the beginging of yet another, serious hobby?

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.

Pride as a Virtue

It seemed up until a few days ago, that I would manage to write one post per day. It would have been nice to do so, to add up 31 posts for October, and round up, pair up a month with a number signaling my favorite celebration: Halloween. Before you ask, no I haven't started my planning and rounding up for Halloween/Samhain yet. According to plans, Alix shall "lead circle" for Samhain, if we actually decide to keep up this strange decision to celebrate in a Pagan-ish way the cycle of the year, so it's not like I must be working on it, planning and coordination - no matter how poorly the end result comes up - though most likely I would end up doing something small and private - Solitary Witch like - just like I did in Mabon (though I didn't took pictures of that).

In the past days, the days I didn't post a thing, I took part of two activities that made me think about pride in a very positive way, a way that should be kept and nurtured inside everybody's heart.

On Friday seven of my coworkers and I went to a work tour to know an Eolic Power Plant and a Hidroelectric Power Plant. Our company - which is a State Owned Company - started originally working on the energy sector, aiming for many years to bring power to every corner of the country at affordable prices. The ideal back then was to work hard and do the best to ensure the country could grow and develop. The company gave jobs and made sure to have the best professionals in every area, sending them to study, giving them chances to be better and serve better the country. Years after the company also took care of the telecommunications sector, also seeking actively to interconnect the whole country, ensuring low prices and access to phones to everybody. The level of penetration in both sectors was quite high, earning the country the first place in electrification, and I believe telecommunication reach in Latin America. (Or so we have been told.)

With the years, many upper tiers got corrupted and soon we found our labor force filled with people more interested in pulling personal benefit, sucking the blood of the company for the sake of their own pocket, than that of the country. Service degraded, poor choices were made, elitism sneaked into our ranks, with many middle and high management elements too quick to outcast the poorer segments of the country in favor of big companies, ready to give away important chunks of service and price, not thinking twice before fucking up the little people. The phrase "they don't make us so much money, they can go to anyone else" has been said more time than I'd like to recall.

On Friday, however, we were packed into a small mini bus and drove to the far West province of the country, Guanacaste, where in Tilarán and Sandillal we've got the chance to see an Eolic Power Plant (Tejona) and a Hidroelectric Power Plant (Sandillal). Aside from the tremendously poor planning and evident adjust-as-we-go system, it struck me how so far from the putrid higher management spheres, there were people still living the ideal, plausible proud of wearing the uniform, eyes filled with stars of love and pride when looking at the logo of the company. It got to me how these simple engineers, working in far away locations, among machines, staring intently at control panels, still had that unadulterated pride of being part of a force that's there to serve the country. They may not make as much as any of those working where I do, and yet they relate to their jobs, they would give their lives and souls to serve the country. In they lived the kind of pride many have forgotten, with their minds clouded by greed, juicy paychecks, big titles, work paid trips to anywhere in the planet, and the handshake from corrupted politicians who wish to break the company to pieces and give it away to their larger campaing contributors.

It made me think that Pride isn't a capital sin, but the sin is to forget pride, to outcast it and thus be open to sell out one's soul for money, for greed, forgetting the noble ideas that can make you grow by serving your country.

A second type of pride I learned of was the pride of being able to help. It happened on Saturday, when a former coworker of mine, Andy, and her sister, Cucha, took part of a walk for Breast Cancer Awareness. It was particularly meaningfull, because Andy and I have very different political backgrounds and positions: me more "State oriented", she definitivelly more "liberal", and yet it came the day she and I walked for a common cause, and donated for a common cause. Without any discussing, fight picking or anything (we never got into arguments anyway), we took part of a huge Pink Force, among men and women proudly sporting pink ribbons and pink t-shirts, surrounded by people who was there for a family member, a friend, and acquintance or simply for the world, in an effort to do something to help, to bring awareness about this illness and others like it.

Here differences went up in the thin air, made smoke and it didn't matter if you were against or in favor of this or that, didn't matter if you were of this or that religion, of this or that sexual orientation, poor or rich, healthy or sick, strong or weak, fit or a potato couch, what it mattered was that you were there, helping to bring a message to the world, to your fellow citizens, donating time, effort or money - as little or as much - to help those in need, to contribute with the recovery of those stricken with the illness and wishing them for the depths of your heart, without knowing them, to be better. You walked there in support, showing respect and sharing the pride of those who survived and made it, infusing your life strenght from close and from far, to those who are still in the battle. They are not alone and we, a big pink sea, came together to send them our thoughts and positive energy to encourage them to defeat the illness and soon walk with us.

This is Pride, and this isn't a sin. It's the pride of being helpful, of sharing, of doing something for others, it's the pride that doesn't seek to raise above others, but to pull others along, infect them with the feel and the happiness and move them to be part of a greater good.

Be Proud. It's a Virtue.

Out with the Old, In with the New

It's that time of the year again, after I come back from my yearly trip to Hungary, when I sit down and start cleaning up my room. Not much real cleaning needs to be done because my folks had the room painted, and my control freak, neat freak Mom took it to herself to clean up everything. Things also got massively rearranged, and though everything looks perfect, I find it difficult to find my things, so this year the need to go over every single scrap of paper was a must in the really short term.

Yearly clean-ups are one of the favorite activities of every single, true control freaks or organization junkies. Personally, I love the feeling of letting go of things. Let go of old papers, let of of old clothes, let go of old shoes, let go of old things. Sometimes it's really difficult, as you hold in your hand that thing a dear friend or beloved relative gave you once, but then you ask yourself: where did I have it stashed? Did I used it everyday? And when you realize it wasn't part of your décor, nor you used it everyday, and maybe there's someone who could make a better use of it, letting it go feels like a rain of feathers. It tickles good. The trick is also to remember that you throw away or give away a thing, not the feeling, the person or the memory. Personally, I'm big of keeping really useless things, such as old plane tickets. But it's the ticket or the memory of the trip? So tickets must go, and what means has already been saved in my memory and my journals.

I don't let go of certain things, like letters - I may have lost some, but for instance I still keep all the letters I've got from my friends when I was in Hungary between 1994 and 1996 - or university papers, but others can be thrown away. Loads and loads of paper, which I intend to send to a selective recollection center for them to be recycled, have already been stocked out of my filer, yet a lot is still to be checked and eliminated, or found a new home.

You can also find from time to time some documentation that though important, or still valid, could be saved in some other, more space efficient way. Scan some old investigations and save them in a digital format, thus liberating more paper, which can be send for recycling and reusing. As you check over all the things you keep around you, at the office, at home, and why not? in your purse, or even your computer, you come across many things that have an inflated sense of importance, that do nothing but clutter your life. Remember, if you haven't used it in a year, you probably won't use it again, but someone else would be happy to.

As a Begining of the Year personal ritual, I cast away the things I won't take with me in the new journey, things I lock in the past, give away for someone else to find them use, and step into the new year with lighter baggage, full of hope and space for all the new each year has to offer. Don't lay down the experiences and the lessons learned, but be wise enough to lay down the tools that have served you, and let others find the lessons that are still inside each of them.

This year, more than in the last ones, I'm preparing for yet another journey, a journey many are waiting for with motivations as different as the people in the planet. Some with joy, some with sorrow, some with envy, some with pety selfishness. Yes, one action provokes many reactions, and these reactions could provoke many feelings inside many people. I'm concentrating on my trip, my journey, my process. My first step is to become light, to shed all excess and find the bare necessities I need to carry over with me, leaving as much room as possible for all the important things that must come with me. Thus I'm shedding, and through this journey I'll continue shedding as much as I can, keeping a critic view to know what must stay, what must go, leave fondless aside. Hopefully it will work out, but if it doesn't work out as well as it should, maybe seasonal cleaning-up will have to be set up, right?

Getting organized isn't something that can happen over night. Perhaps you watch those shows in the TV, where a super messy family or person get's the help of an organizing professional and thus they turn a cluttered "vortex of enthropy" into a neat room you'd love to be in and work in. Do you wonder, just like me, how much time passes before that perfect room, where everything stays in place, remains like that? Well, not for long, I assure you. And it's okay, as long as you are willing to eventually come around and set order before the mess takes over your life.

My advise is simple in this case, though perhaps not very scientifical. First of all accept yourself the way you are. So you are lazy every now and then and don't really feel like putting away your clothes, or washing the dishes. Sure, take a break, but don't take it every day. Second of all, remember that a clean, organized space doesn't put stress on you. Organized places don't hide the things you need from you. An organized place will allow you to find that bill you need to pay, and even remind you you gara pay it. It helps you find the keys, the leash of your dog, the phone, the magazine you were reading, the purse taht goes with those shoes, your other shoe, your watch, the essay you must present, the pendrive with your month's work, a pen that works, your iPod, etc.

Organizing isn't a chore, a duty, a punishment, it's fun. Organizing is the perfect time to check over everything, find long lost item, discover treasures and the perfect excuse to get rid of everything you don't need, or don't really need. Cleaning up, getting organized is the process throug which you get to be free, is the process that prepares you to travel light.

Go on, try it out, travel light.

Summarizing The Week So Far

After almost a week, maybe less, of not having a clock on my desk, I finally have one now. It's a rather cheap, little "typically Made-in-China" kind with thermometer and hygrometer. Now, if Kari asks me again how cold or how hot is it, I can tell him... as long as he asks me at home. I've been working hard on my agenda, penciling up a lot of tasks and apointments, watching how a rather clear, lightly programmed week packed up to capacity.

Tasks upon tasks, everything written down in pencil so I could change it when it was change, which happens a lot.

In this week, so far, I have got to like my boss even more, as he has proven to me that he does treat me with respect and takes his time to talk to me about the projects I'm holding, explains me his observations, doubts and listens attentively to my explanations, seeking to understand. I realized how blatantly rude and lazy some people are. I had the chance to be amazed by the shamelessness of some people who believe that it is perfectly acceptable to escape responsability by placing the blame of the task on other people, or simply claiming ignorance based on not fulfilling another task, a BASIC TASK anyone should take by granted.

A meeting programed from a while ago was cancelled, and I shouldn't be amazed at seeing someone push so hard to reprogram it when he belongs to group that has done everything in their power to push the meeting appointments further, further, further. I really wanted to concrete that meeting so I could cement down a few things, things that continue to escape, and at the begining I was upset for it. However, when the whole scope downed to me, I realized that it doesn't matter that the meeting won't be held tomorrow, because that was I do now when I'm finishing at the office, and so I can arrange a meeting with my friends, and I did!

Tomorrow I'm meeting a very good friend of mine, taking a coffee and sharing thoughts and small gossip. Things like that make me happy, things like that make my week.

I Drawing I Made

Today I wrote another letter to Dragonfly, intending to mail in the afternoon, but didn't get it the Post Office in time. Like in many letters, I often sign making a little drawing that represents me. Sometimes I draw cat ears or bunny ears (since one of my nicknames is Bunny). This time, though, it kinda got me thinking, since I wanted to change my Twitter image for something other than my picture (I don't like people on Twitter, where evidently people doesn't care enough to read more than 140 letters, to know my face), I though, why not to do the drawing for my Avatar?

So, I made it, filtered it, Photoshopped it up a little, and, well, there you go. ^_^ Amateurish, but 100% me.

Live and Love in Writing

It has been awaken in me, the flame for writing fiction. It has been renewed in me the desire to pour myself in letters, write out my mind, my desires and its many possibilities, live the lives I cannot live, the lives I won't live. Fiction, stories... and more. I have been writing stories in my mind that don't reach the paper or the laptop. I have been writing also words for my Kari, that don't reach still the paper, but live there, in my head, in my heart, on my lips and burn in desire, in desperation to be spoken, written and thus be born.

Writing is a powerful way of traveling. Writing takes you to people. I write to Kari and feel him with him, think about him and laugh with him, smile at him, kiss him, touch him, whisper in his ear my desire to lick up his lobe gently, slide my hand down his chest and tell him how good he looks tonight and suggest the kind of thoughts that wakes in me.

I think of stories for Carrie, my shota-hunter, to let her know I love her and I think of her and we still share a deep vein, that slash, yaoi or whatever you wish to call it, is still our common ground, it still makes our hearts race.

I write, for myself, to keep myself, to wrap around me and bask in my, in who I am and feel the swirl, the strenght, the current of what lives inside me flap around me and live around me, not only in me, and smile, laugh and dance. I love being me, and thus I write. I write for them, for you, for myself and so, I take this path to express love.

I Love Halloween

First of all, Happy Halloween to all my dear Witchy Friends out there! ^_^ May you all have a bewitching day, and get lots of candy and tricks. ^_~. I can already see the image in my head, of a funny gay situation:

"Treat of Trick!"

Answer No.1: "I take the trick."
Answer No. 2: "Ain't the same?"
Answer No. 3: "How about I treat the trick."
Answer No. 4: "Show me the trick and maybe I'll treat it."
Answer No.5: "I'm the trick."

Up to a few years, Halloween wasn't part of the Costa Rican traditions. I still remember when I was little that the kids of one family dressed up and ran up and down the streets screaming "Halloween! Halloween!" from the top of their lungs. There was no point in knocking doors and asking for treat-or-trick because nobody celebrated this festivity. The parents of these kids were with them and smiled, and we all thought that they had no shame. My mother frowned her nose at them and my father labeled them as "brainwashed by the yankees and making fools of themselves, as the yankees wanted them to". Well, okay, my dad has never thought anything nice of Americans and was convinced that Sesame Street and the Muppets were shows designed to program the minds of young kids to become their system's slaves.

Anyway, today only in a few neighbourhoods and in a few houses, kids can go asking for candy, but Halloween has been taken up mostly for partying. Pretty much all discos and bars are sold out, or charge insanely high entrance fares to partake in a costume-party.

Another thing I've always found wicked is that we have heard that some people in the U.S. go to work in costume. Yesterday he was Mr. Barry, but today, in Halloween, he's a Pirate (hopefully not in Somalia, Boosaase). Back then it was something unheard of, and just another think to pin on the "have-no-brain" yankees. Then, the call centers come, hire loads of young flesh into no-future positions, allienate them from their own environment... and they have Halloween with costumes worn at the office. Cowboys, ninjas, Sailor Moons and all sorts of... sorts, parade around in cubicles where normal-LOOKING people sat the day before, with headsets under their hats or carefully over tiaras, haloes, wigs, horns, antennas and other contraptions, while answering:

"Thank you for calling HP's Solution Center, how can I be of your assistance?"

If people could see them, they would scream:

"Holy Fuck! A black eyed, sexy leprechaun with Mexican accent wants to fix my computer, which I just hooked to the TV (instead of the monitor), broke the cup holder (CD Unit), or won't start even if I can see the plug because I'm holding it in my hand!"

So yes, we don't celebrate it.

Anyway, each year I send an SMS to all my girlfriends with a "Greetings on your day, Witch!", which I always get answered with laugher or a "Greetings to you too, Witch!". Today, has not been any different. I enjoyed sending the messages and then picking e-Cards on Hallmark for my friends and sending them all over the globe.

There are other things I love of Halloween, and particularly about the fantastic trio of these three days: Halloween, All Saints' Day (Samhaim) and the Day of the Dead. These days, probably due to my predisposition, I tend to be far more creative. The best of my poetry comes to me in these days, or around these days (though I forcefully defend my "title" as a prose writer, which I am, for I'm a very poor poetry writer, truth to be told), and so the plots for my stories, the solutions to knotted up stories and scenes just flow to me. They all, though, have kind of a "gothic" feeling to them, and they are stronger at night, but yet they make me feel better.

Today I feel like reading Ann Radcliffe... which can't be found in this Gaia forgotten land. Hn, and then people at my favotire bookstore ask why I don't buy more: because I can't find any other decent book to buy! I pretty much sniff up every good book I see, and some not so good, but please, please, I'd be happy to buy more if you'd just listen to me and bring the books I want to buy! And keep the influx of French books coming!

I tell you, Amazon.com is their death. There I find many of the books I like...

Change of Thought by Association. I dream with the day my favorite bookstore, which I visit at least once a week, will be in Hungary. With the thesis going on that day seems so close! I'm really, really burning for going there and live there... probably with no Halloween, even if the feeling and the flood of inspiration keeps coming to me, and whispering the most interesting stories and the words for verses filled with gloom.

Lessons of Proper

A lesson hard for me to learn is to "accept" or simply "tolerate" that there's people sharing the air and the Earth with me, who have so little sense of self, style or what I consider to be the basic rules of civilized behavior. Granted, I break those rules as well, but at least I do my best to keep within them. Yeah, sometimes I'm sloppy wheh I eat and the tomato falls of the buschettas I intend to eat, or I forget of myself, and read an SMS sent to me when I'm talking to someone else, or I forget that only because the person I'm talking to is disregarding the basic norms of courtesy, I take to myself to go ahead and forget of mine, while I should really stick to them no matter what. However, I know, rationally I know (and mainly because that's what every media source pours on us) that I should be accepting the fatc that there is uncivilized people, who thinks that "manners" are just a fancy word to design a group of actions and a way of behaving you take what you want to get something from someone. Of course there are different kinds of manners, and not all books of etiquette agree on the same things, and hell, I'm not even talking of etiquette when I admit I'm the less adequate in that area! I can hardly find myself around more than one fork, and when I see so many cuttlery on the table, I remember my mother's angry mumbling: "Capitalist pigs' behavior!" and "Krőzus!". Not like Socialist societies are not well mannered, but they are simply not elitist. I am, so there I go building up a whole system from scratch, fitting in elements from my own education.

There's a lot you go picking up from friends and acquintances, and God has blessed me with friends who have taught me a lot, and a family that has also given me good basis (even if I don't hit the measure with my Grandfather....). Among the things I have learned are:

1. Your guests are your full responsability. You are responsible of their constant entertainment, and well being while you host for them. They shan't move a finger to help, nor with cleaning, nor with arranging, nor with money. You must treat them like kings and queens and supply them everything they could need before they ask for it. If the have to ask for something (save the bathroom) you are not being a good enough host. If they have to bring something for their use (save absolutely personal stuff), you are not being a good host. Also, if you are a guest and you are to stay over and you bring something that could be supplied by your hosts, say a towel, or a blanket, you are offending them, because you are saying that you think they are simply not good enough to meet your needs. If you accept someone's hospitality, you must accept it in their terms. You don't ask, you don't bring, you don't rub your lifestyle in their nose.
2. A person must show cultural knowledge in philosophy, politics, art, wines and contemporary humanity. It doesn't mean to be fully lectured in all topics, though that's desirable, nor it means you have to exhaust them thought a conversartion, but these are the milestones of an intelligent conversation.
3. One must be always gathered and stay away from tacky comments, express one's ideas clearly and be open to discussion, defending one's position with rational, reasonable, well thought arguments, never hearsays or "X said so", and if one can't deffend one's position any longer, graciously decline and recognize the other party's better argumenting. Yet do it always in a gathered way.

The life we normally lead here detours us often to less proper ways, and well, it's not really okay, but maybe a little "leger" can be excused. Go a bit hectic, a bit "décontracté", a bit eclectic and give a bit more for freedom without really hurting basic courtesy. However, as life goes by, and as the middle class manners and the cheap "burgeois", and "new rich" style comes up, sickening manners take stage. An example of this are the "quota-parties". What is this?

Quota-Parties. Someone wants to throw a party for whatever reason. Mostly Baby Showers, bachelorette parties, wedding parties and all that useless crap. The latest trend in here is to send the invitation indicating the amount to pay. Oh, and over it comes the present. Aside from this breaking all the rules of hosting, I can't see why you must make a party that others will pay for you. If you can't afford it, don't organize it. A quota-party is basically as tasteless as telling your friends the kind of party you want for yourself, invite them with the implicit request of a present AND on top of that telling them all, that they are to pay for your party. Evidently, it would outrage anyone with a minimal sense of décor.

To my ultimate horror, this kind of party has become the norm. Some people even go as far as to put up "gift lists", withthe excuse of "making sure no one gives you the same thing more than once", or "so people give me what I want" or "make sure things go well with each other. Excuse me, but my common sense would tell me that if I'm so picky about things, I rather buy them myself and then kindly request my guests to please give me no presents, letting them know that their presence is all I want, or making sure the word goes around that I have bought everything, so greeting cards, sweets, wine, books and flowers will do. Or simply, get my things, and smile at the gifts I receive, whether I like them or not. So you get three irons and four wafflers. Well, you can always place them in the market, now don't you? Discreetly, of course, or give them away to charity. Sure a Church near you would know a lovely, family who could profit from it.

However, these things, this behavior is pety and disgusting. No self respecting person would conciously go into things like that, unless, of course, they are left with no dignity, and really, people with no dignity, with no pride are better of dead.



Saturday I took a break from the thesis researching in the afternoon, and headed to the movies. Nothing really in mind, but after talking to my youngest "son", Caesar, I kinda felt like going all the way to Escazú and watch this Viggo Mortensen movie called "Eastern Promises" (which I had already seen in DVD, and which I saw up to 2/3 while waiting for Shimmy Gin the other day). I knew my kid was there with his BF, ready to watch Mamma Mía, and I kinda felt really out of place, since it really, really felt liek crashing on their date, THOUGHT I was going to watch a completely different movie. Well Eastern Promises wasn't on schedule by the time I've got there, and though my son-in-law invited me to go with them to watch Mamma Mía (which thankfully was sold out), I ended up watching "I gonna MELT" Liam Neeson in Taken. The movie is hideous, I'm sorry to say that. Has a lot of good chunks and ideas, but it was poorly developped, which I would have never expected from a movie which had the colaboration of Luc Besson (Transporter, Transporter 2, Léon, Nikita, Banlieue 13, Kiss of the Dragon), BUT it has Liam "Hot Daddy" Neeson, so who is complaining!? ^_^ After the movies I ran som errands, checked with the boys (who were still in the movie theatre), and just when I was to sit on the floor and check books on the French aisle of my favorite Bookstore (there go my manners in favor of the more "hippy" attitude), I received "the call".

"Where are you?"

Well, I was lusting after Albert Camus and his "pest", but explaingi that would either be futile or regarded as unnecessarily snobish. (Usually I stare at these books and secretly read chunks of it, just to get the taste before I allow myself to fall into the temptation of buying them. Most of these are already in our library in Spanish, but the taste of French is so seductive, more than once I have walked out of the bookstore with an armfull of French books.) So I left my haven and went to my son and son-in-law. I did found it strange that they weren't together, but then I guessed my boy went to use the facilites. Two hours with coke and popcorn tend to do that. I was ready just to greet and flee, imagining my son was going to spend the night with his man, but to my surprise, it was "bye-bye" time for them. Uhh... something wrong, my children? Cryptic talking, pent up mood covered with a stretched thin smile. My boy was sent home by his man with a handshake. I couldn't stop but wonder if that handshake would be in place also if gay couples were as acepted as straight couples.

The day before I had a lovely meeting with my son-in-law, from whom I learned that he was not willing to educate my son, which was what I was hoping for. I knew he was going to confront him and test him to decide whether to keep him or discard him, and given the fact that my son was so happy about him, I wished with all my heart that he would keep him. Hope against all hope, for everything pointed towards my child's discarding. In a way, I checked up with both that day because I felt urged to make sure my kid is fine. Yeah, there goes the overprotective mother. Good thing I have not given birth to him, or I would suffocate him! In all honesty I feared my child was hurt, and something in his voice told me he wasn't fine. He told me he was tired, yet I still feared the confrontation went pear shaped for my boy. So, and knowing that my son-in-law's main complains with my son are his manners and his lack of class, I've decided to take to myself the parent role, the "master" role and start teaching my son on the proper ways of "class". It's not the first time I impart lessons on this subject, so I have a well honed way to do so. I told my child I'd love to go eat. He claimed not to be hungry, but he would go with me and maybe get a beverage. I smiled hiding a smirk. Things were about so slowly change, if I've got my way.

He went to the Food Court, but I detoured giving him his first lesson: "if one can, one shall rather eat in a decent place, not with the mob." We went thus to La Trattoria, where I ordered bruschettas and two glasses of red wine. I straightened my spine instinctively and brought my voice down a bit, somewhat lower and deeper that my chirper tone. I picked the wine, Chilean wine, and when the waiter was gone, I turned to my child ans seriously told him:

"One important thing you should know about wines is that Italian wines are bad. One must drink only French, Hungarian, Chilean, Argentinian or Spanish. And I'm not even so sure about Spanish."

We chatted a little and I made sure to use only proper words, chosing "gentleman" instead of the more coloquial "dude", when refering to some men I have met through my life. As the wine arrived, he was surprised it wasn't chilled, so I went explaining him a few things and taught him the basics of wine tasting. To my delight, the conversation elevated and we talked several topics on different opinion and human matters, which also allowed me to start planting in my son's mind some of the seeds of my own education. The night was love, and splendor. I worked to rip him away from his need to control his money, and did it, by taking the bill in each available chance with a smile, not looking at the amounts.

"Nonsense, Darling. Let your mother take care of this..."

I can't asure that my child has changed, since I know the process takes time, but it has pleased me greatly to see him elevate, in that moment, to a more relaxed, free and more intellectually open man, rather than the child soaked in the toxic ways of his environment, poisoned with money-hunger and senseless, pointless drama.

By today I sat down and thought: "I am not his real mother, and I should not be trying to influence him to live his life my way. He hasn't asked me to change him and so I shouldn't". But I must admit, that the prospect of helping my child to become a quality man who will stand his ground, pick and fight his battles and who will never be discarded on the grounds of his manners, but rather admired... is ever so seductive...

E-bay's win a win for customers

My first thought was "fuck, I really should improve my French, because that sounded so wicked". But then, after reading it a tiny bit more carefully, I realized that, no fucking shit, e-bay actually claims that winning this trial against Tiffany's for letting people use the name of the brand on fake jewelry, and not be punished IS a step up for the rights of the customer. Fuck yeah! We are entitled to be taken for fools and cheated with cheap knock-offs in the name of fucking capitalism. Fuck dude, this makes my day! There's a company on the Internet, where trust is vital like air and fragile and expensive like a beautiful Lalique glass pendand, that ensures our right to be sold a lemon, to be tricked, cheated, robbed, misguided and subjects of forgery and fraud. Really, how can I thank them? Oh, I know! I'll never buy from them!!! Geez, that would be awesome, don't you think? ^_^ It would be just great! And since they lost a similar case in France, where those "stick-up-noses" pretend to protect the customer by forcing the enterprise to punish knock off sellers and disclaim faux products,, yet in American soil they where given the right to let their customers be cheated, well... would I buy something pricey or of a good brand from any Internet company? Oh, you can sit and wait for that to happen! Adidas sportswear from Internet? Not in my life time. Out of the cart!!! Lovely Swarowsky glass pendant ring? Give-It-Back! Lalique pendant for Christmas? Hahahahahahahahaha!!! Yeah right.

One case won sets a precedent, which will be brought up over and over and over in each long case, and meanwhile Internet companies, which should be the first ones to ensure the up-most quality and the most precise information (since you can't actually see the product and properly inspect it before purchasing it), let the veil of doubt fall upon their merchandise. It is easy to shake off their responsabilities and say that "the customer should know better", or that it a provider is bad it will eventually disappear because people will notice how bad business is with him or her. Suuuuuuuure! And rumors do not affect the stock market because eventually brokers will realize it was a rumor and they won't listen to it again.

I would like to say that the world, and the market, is not like in the books, so please don't be as stupid as to think that the perfect competition can be made a reality. I know there are a lot of imbecilic people out there, many of them product of purchasing their degrees or grouping up with "the right people" to get a job or get the school projects done instead of studying of Hyne forbid, "working". I mean, yes, I am a 108 Narcissist, but I am not stupid, and all in all my results are perfectly normal (someone as smart and hot as me NORMALLY will turn out to be narcissistic. Or what? Do you EXPECT ME to consider myself equal to my peers and just as STUPID? HA!!). So, I know about morons and imbeciles. I work at the very core of their civilization. Yeah, lazy and ignorant people, like those who think that "maths" have no use, and "history" is a waste of time, or that the "literature and language" class is a bunch of useless crap, and so, are likely to think that "perfect competition" is duable. However, the ones pushing these ideas into people's mind, pretending to have the key to get there, are not necesarily imbeciles, but rather corrupted people who need a smoke screen to ste their crooked business. Open markets so they can have a share of a former public enterprise. Sell State assets so they can get a "bonus" for it. Sure, they are imbeciles but that's not the matter. Their imbecility is shadowed by the smashing magnitude of their corruption. At least in the past, in the Ancient and Medieval times, these corrupts in power claimed to have a Divine Right, but what do these claim to have? The aproval of the people? The people they are squeezing into poverty and death?

World, where are the daughters and sons that once stepped up in France, in America and around the world in revolution for their right to be human?

The Real Cost of Driving

Today I'll share with you a few thoughts about a very serious topic. As usual, these things come from me reading the newspapers. I know, a shameful habit. Should grow out of it, right? Reading newspapers, no matter how biased and filtered they are, how the facts are tampered and the effects diluted and minimized, so we all let out politicians fuck our living conditions far beyond our wildest dreams, well, it's not a good practice. People should read... well, actually they shouldn't read at all. Celebrities and Reality Shows should be people's only concerns.

Yesterday, reading the Népszabadság Online, which I don't read as often as perhaps I should, I was shocked by an article stating that food prices would be growing some 12% to 13% next year... in addition to what it has already grown. I read the article, and really, it was talking only about poultry and pork. But it was "fine, because 20% of the consumers prefer imported, more expensive meats anyways". This all due to the Avian Flu. Question: forget my utter stupidity, but how does the Avian Flu affect the pigs? Pigs finally fly in Hungary? Surprisingly, local specialists argued, that it wasn't so bad, because an increase of 12 to 13% on food prices would only affect the inflation 3 percentual points. Then the article went out of the way talking about the producers and how it was so very hard for them, and how they were getting broke because Hungary can't put up with the EU standards of "no animal cruelty" (it seems Hungarians like their food well tortured, well killed, well cooked), then there was no way that given the current market tools producers could... blah, blah, blah... At one point there was a tiny glimpse of something: people don't care for higher quality, but for the price of the food. Why? Well, try being kinda like "poor" and having to "eat". Need food, have little money, what do you do? Buy what you can afford. In the mean time, the producers are getting broke, so more people becoming poor, more people trying to buy cheap food.

But this is Hungary, and Hungary is Schengen Space, EU country, right? Well, today my attention was caught by another article, this time in the Washington Post. The title of the article is "Food Crisis Is Depicted As 'Silent Tsunami'". Not something that would make many go read it, yet I kinda stranded there. I won't quote the entire thing, though I would like to, because I have no publishing or republishing permision, but there are a few things that I would like to bring to your attention. "Food Crisis" is a phenomenon happening around the world. You can feel it harsher in poor countries, and yet is actually something happening world wide. The price of food is growing out of proportion to the point where people can't buy food with their daily earning. There's people making US$0,50 a day, and want to know something else. It's not in that article, but it's in many others: many of those who make $0,50 a day or even less, are children. Kids taken out of school to go work and support their families. Oh yes, in real life, those two quarters don't go to one person, but more than one, many maybe, and there comes a point where the saying "where one eats, two eat too" is no longer appliable.

20,000,0000 children starving.

A child dies every five seconds for causes related to hunger.

There are many causes for this "food crisis" and many scenarios. Some countries do not produce food at all, and are completely dependant of importations. In other countries there is food, but people can't buy it because they have no money. In other cases the farmers grow less crops because they don't have enough money to grow more, and they are not subject to loans. What is happening here? Well, people don't have jobs or they have jobs but they are not being paid enough. People are not given the chance to educate themselves and their kids to ensure a better lifestyle, and then, the means of production and the food itself is cut. Thomas Malthus said in his book that there would come the time when the land would not produce enough to feed the world and so mankind would know its end. Ironically, we have not reached that point, but rather our greedy ways and our pitiful resource and need prioritizing is pushing us to teh verge of the extintion. Because, to add to the "food crisis" factors such as the oil prices and the biofuel are having a bad influence on it. Rising oil prices keep farmers from the fuel to make their tractors and machines work, so they produce less, but then when you take part of the grains produced and make biofuel out of it instead of giving it to people to eat, you are starving people and killing them around the world.

Now this is not the absolut root of the problems, but please take a second to think. Each time you are filling the tank of your car, you are taking away gas that could be put in a tractor to sow the land and make food for people. Of course, if you think small you could say: "If I don't buy it, they won't either because they have no money", but if you stop buying it and others do too, the price of gas would lower and so the farmers, most of which are not subsidied by the Government, will be able to buy it and work the land. You can use other means of transportation such as public transportation or bikes or your own feet, the farmers need their tractors. A lot of people live in the same city they work, yet they use their car to drive down ten blocks and make traffic jams. Other people live in cities, I know this, that have been planned for car driving. Move closer to the office or, really, give public transportation a shot, even if it makes you wake up earlier. Oil is needed. Arabic, American, Venezuelan, Russian... please understand that it is needed, and until we don't find new ways to produce, and I think going back to plowing with horses or sheer manpower is not a choice now, we MUST decide where these resources should go.

I know many of you would like to turn then to the "miraculous biofuel". Since it was proposed, it sounded like a bad idea. At least to me. I've published here two pictures, which are too sides of the same coin. Biofuel takes the food from the people so some can run their cars. Please! Stop that!! Biofuel is not a solution! It's murder!

This makes me think, you know? How dare different organizations forbid certain productive procedures due to "animal cruelty" and yet some politics and some products are allowed even if they are a clear case of "human cruelty"? How many more people must die from starvation so Annie can get her brand new car for her Sweet Sixteen and Johnny can have a car for each day of the week? How many must die so Pablito can drive a block to buy a fucking bottle of water from the convenience store, and Lucía take the car to go work instead of using the metro because she wants to spare her brand new Prada shoes. How many must die so that the fat asses of the world don't have to make the effort? How many must starve to death so that big cities are not replanned and clean technology public transportation means are not improved? Yes, there are options, electrical options to the gas consuming busses and taxies. There are tramways and trollis (is there a name in English for the electrical buses we call trolibusz in Hungarian?), and for fuck's sake, grab that fucking bike and ride it. People pay loads of money to sweat on a spinning bike in a gym when they could pay some bucks for a bike and ride it everyday to the office. Not so much glam in it? Well, dying of hunger or promoting the starvation to death or other people has not much "glam" either. You are in no condition to ride a bike to your office? So you sit through 45 minutes to 1 hour in a spinning class and you can't take the same time to pedal to your office? Give me a fucking break.

You all know I don't have a car, and you all know I was basically holding up due to economical reasons. Too much to pay for, gas, mechanic, taxes, insurance, technical checkings... I didn't have a car because it was not a profitable investment for me. I did planned to get a car when I moved, but not anymore. You may have a car and use it all you want, but I will not have a car so that people can die out there, farmers can broke and people starve so I can wake up 30 minutes later. Fuck no. I will not be an accomplice to this crime. I will not become an accesory to this massive murder.

Yet, let's be clear, this is not a solution to the problem, but allow me to make of this a statement, a sign of what I will not tolerate, and a banner, a flag to tell the world that insensitive producing and consuming must stop. Take a look:

"THE REIGN OF THE MARKET MUST STOP."

How Involved Do We Want to Be? In What?

Keeping up with the topic of the "lack of involvement" and the indifference, I would like to take this in a few different lines.

So, yesterday I was bitching about L'Arche de Zoé and what they do. Oh, I know, I'm such an evil person for pointing fingers at humanitarian causes such as this. Or is it that I am ignorant, selfish, or some other gathering, proper world to say "she talks shit about stuff she knows nothing about"? Yeah, yeah... keep on if that makes you happy. There are many organizations in the world trying to make a difference, and with not much impact, I would say. Okay, let's consider only the good guys, so terrorists, really, keep out of this ranking. It's not so much a matter, of how involved people are in a matter, but what's that matter? How are things executed in order to achieve the best result? Which are the consequences and how will these be dealt to minimize possible negative outcomes? Yes, I think children should be kept safe, their lives should not be threatened, their futures should not be put on stake. I believe the elderly have the right to live, to be saved, to enjoy the best life quality that can be given to people. I believe in the equal rights of men and women and that skin color, ethnia, language, nationality, religion, culture... these are not obstacles to be useful, to be considered human and treated as such. I do object, in many cases, the "how". How things are done to achieve a given goal. Do the means justify the goal? Damn it, it's not a matter of machiavelism, but a matter of "are these the best means to achieve the goal you are looking for?".

Many of these big, international organizations must think a little bit about it, because they do have a wonderful intentions, but somewhere in the delievery things just fuck up and their good deeds end up making only more damage. However, they have something others don't: a Goal. They are foccused. This is not everything, but it's a big chunk of everything. Naturally, there are no International Organizations of Something We Don't Know Yet, But It's Still Big Enough to Demand Your Energy. People do these by their own. Big, international organizations have a purpose, a focus, but people, as they go by in their lives, not always have it. Or they have a hazy goal, or a stupid goal that's really unachievable, or a total waste of time, and they pour their energy into it, empty themselves into these utterly pointless, useless enterprises and then come out bitter. (Yes, I know, no more L'Arche de Zoé bitching.) Why do I bring this up? Well, due to a neverending matter that's horrifyingly common to people: we just like to get tangled in shit that doesn't worth it. As a milestone for these kinds of cases I always bring up a group of people I used to know, who gathered because of a common interest (some kind of Japanese pop art), but ended up wrapped in personal issues, inner wars based solely on things that really weren't that much of a deal. Who dates who, who says what to whom, who did what... The typical group issues. Pity crap that lurks where peopel really have nothing to do or aren't willing to do what they are supposed to.

Well, this kind of behavior is not only seen in social groups and clubs. It's sad to say so, but you can also find it in the office... like mine. Now, one would say that at the office it is expected that people have a clear goal and know where to focus their efforts, but sadly ... that's not the case. Though there are specific goals to achieve, and quite clear, if I may add, people seem more interested in what others do and how they can fuck up (in the bad sense) each other. Interpersonal problems, vendettas that use the very job, or the wrongdoing of it as a weapon... In here it seems that the only one actually doing something in their field are the Human Resources guys, and it ain't like they do much, but they are the "lawyers" to determinate what and how much can be done. Yes, I've been subject to these maneuverings, since last year when my moving to here were on discussion, and I had to overcome the ill intentions of my former boss at fucking up with my chances to get to a better place, as well as his pity attempts at fuking up with my peace of mind through my vacations. But then, things done, you concentrate on your job, right? Wrong. Some people in here are absolutely obssessed over other people and their desire to see them suffer. Why? Beats me.

One word: "YOU WERE NOT HIRED TO DO THIS."

In what are you getting involved? Does it worth it? And even when you know it doesn't and the things you do to achieve your "goal" are not working and you "goal" is completely unrealistic, why in the fucking hell won't you just stop?