Coffee table Thoughts

Property of Stormberry

 I'm elated today, as I managed to finish the context chapter of my MSc thesis. Such a small thing it seems for many, but such a huge one for me, as I was stuck, lost in options and completely paralyzed by the numbness of trying to write about something that never seemed to materialize before my eyes.  I had put to myself - finally -  a date for the chapter to be completely finished, also as a way to have some leverage when contacting my thesis director about retaking the work and pushing this project forward.

I have been working on this chapter for over a year, writing and rewriting, often feeling at loss, as the idea of what I want seemed to float before my eyes but bubbling so huge, there was no way to look at it and make it "doable". For bringing it into the world, I had the invaluable aid of my tutor, though I do believe he also had grand dreams about my research. He pulls more towards knowledge and education, while I pull harder towards the workforce and the labor market. It has been a complex mix, but we've been swimming around it.

As it happened, last year - for December - he asked to a "readable" context chapter, with whatever I had, and I was able to provide one 75% done. It entailed lots of cutting back, rewriting and reframing, and only the "education" segment was entirely missing. Then he was silent. But we were on vacations, so maybe there was that. On January I had to contact him again because we had to send an update of the advance, and he mentioned that he was out of the country "for a few months", and haven't checked what I sent him, "but he will soon, and send me his comments". I kinda freaked out, BUT up to that point I had not worked much on the last 25% of the chapter, contented with just checking data, websites, and collecting data here and there.

And time passed and I had no news from him, so I started to worry. I do like him very much, and I'm afraid nobody else would be able to understand my topic has he does, plus he has changed so much of my original proposal, that I now really need him to bring my vision through. So I wasn't looking forward to write to the University and inquire about him - I don't want to get him in trouble - but I need to contact him and get a reply. And so I devised this cunning idea: I'll finish the chapter, send it to him and ask him at once for a meeting to go over the chapter, the required corrections and the next step.

Living in a Catholic country, infused with the Spanish culture (or what's left of it), we had a Holy Week, which means a long holiday (completed with mandatory vacations), so I decided to take this Holy Week to dedicate to my thesis, to this chapter, and so I have. I organized the data, searched on the sites I had pegged for information, organized what I had, decided on a format that won't swell my chapter form 35 pages to 80 (originally my incomplete chapter WAS 80 pages with just the 50% of it), and so I worked really hard at it.

I finished the chapter today at noon, and printed it... kinda. I ran out of ink. Tomorrow - which is a National Holiday - I'll review it calmly, note stuff to fix, and then program an e-mail to be delievered to my director thesis on Tuesday (first workday) around 16.00 hrs (about when academic work starts), with the chapter and the meeting request.

Now I prepare my dinner, drink a beer and read Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence. I take small glimpses at the next week, thinking of a work meeting I don't want to have, because I know it's going to irk me (stupidity irks me), happy thinking that I would deal with the thesis procedures a day earlier, so I don't bother my tutor with untimely e-mails, while I won't add to my annoyance due to the meeting with my academic tasks pending. So, by careful planning and hard work, I'll be able to prepare for the annoying meeting, and have plety of cool-off time and cool-off chances.

Recently I also worked on a tentative terror short story, though I feel I'd like to work on a longer piece, a novel. I have loads of unfinished ideas, which I call "fragments", but also unfinished novels stashed around. Maybe I could work on that.

There is a delicious comfort around me, a warm softness and liberating solitude, full of books and journals and videos and spaces to express myself that make my life such a wonderful thing. Like walking in a soft soiled forest where even for the hardships and annoyances I can prepare myself so much better than those who live in concrete poured jungles.

Coffee Days with a Friend

Source: Property of Stormberry

Today is Wednesday, and for a while now Wednesdays are Coffee Date Days for my friend Arjen and I. She's all the way in Beligium while I'm here in Costa Rica, yet we do this coffee date, where on Wednesday morning (morning for each) we would send each other a picture of our coffee. This make our morning coffee more special because we are thinking of our us and - in my case - imagine a pleasant coversation about something.

Today I didn't get a coffee because I was out of coffee, but I sipped on a cup of red tea, and I let my thoughts wander for a while, as if I were seated at a table, in front of my beloved Arjen.

So, what was in my head? There are a lot of things going on in my life right now, but as I sipped my tea, I was thinking about this guy I'm sort of seeing, and whom I'm wondering about whether it is time to let him go. It's not really a relationship, more like a hook-up thing that has been dragging for a long time because it was pleasant and convenient, but now I wonder if it's time to cut all ties.

Another thing in my head was my thesis and how should I proceed forward. It's time to get on the last stretch of the track, buckle up for the last three chapters and have them rolling.

Boy, I'm really tired of this, and this particular degree is so unrewarding! I still don't feel it.

Finally, looming thoughts want to crowd my mind, but I rush them away thinking a tad about the novel I have started to write. It's so strange, but I smile at the thought of the dear friendship I will lose if that gets published. And I want it to get published.

How can one be happy at the thought of losing someone one loves? I guess I don't like the duality of my emotions for this person, and how even though I do like them a lot, and love them, I'm also deeply displeased and deeply disdainful of them, and I rather have them removed from my life. I guess I'm just too old to find myself immersed in the Greek Dramas others concoct for themselves, and so I rather lose the person than my meager patience.

I sip my tea and stare for a moment into the sky, before returning back to the world that surrounds me.

Feeling So In Love

Today I'm in a particular state of mind. Maybe it has been something that has been forming in me since my last trip to Hungary, when my relationship to one of my friends became deeper in some emotional levels I don't fully understand yet. I went through some hard break outs - I came out of the broomcloset to a family member, which was something I had not planned to do - and that had left me sensible. I took some risks I would have not considered before, like getting a tattoo done - the word "witch" on my wrist, nontheless, and related to this I also found incredible support from other friends of mine. My Best Friend, my Angel, my Deep and Sweet Love had also gone mellow on me, so amazing and embracing and understanding, and we shared so much this time, my love for him swelled and warmed and wrapped the whole Universe. I came so close to him again, that it may have rendered me vulnerable to the softness of life and emotions.

Then there was this other dear friend of mine, next to whom I found my Spirit spreading wings and opening up. I found myself in a strange willingness to trust, to give in and unshackle myself from my eternal defensive stance. I laid down my weapons and let myself to be soft, giving, yielding. No longer a warrior or a a member of a royal court constantly cunning and plotting to stay alive in a world of politics and treason.

I came back from this trip sensible, prone to mellow emotions, and so I have found myself more often than not slipping into melancholic emotions brought upon by the sweet sadness of remembrance. A perfect state of mind for poetry to spring from my pen, where my pen prone to such, though shall we know that my few pieces of poetry are related to love and death and thus, dedicated to Henrik.

I have found myself yearning for these memories, feeding my ears and soul with movies and music that nourish this longing, and thus I have been delving into the hopeless romanticism of "Kimi No Nawa" and its soundtrack. This topic of love remaining secret, unexplainable, unattainable, a love that pierces through barriers impossible to grasp for others, and yet there, fighting with teeth and nails to remain alive in the only temple where it can find some safe haven , has struck hard in me. Loves that are eternally locked inside me, that must go unspoken, that will live eternal in my memory.

I'm thinking about getting a second tattoo, this one featuring two ravens: Hugin and Munin, who are Odin's ravens. There is a poem related to them, which goes like this:

Hugin and Munin fly each day
over the spacious earth.
I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,
yet more anxious I am for Munin.

(source: Wikipedia)

Hugin represents the Thought and Munin the Memory. As my thought has wandered and my memory has revisited these sweet memories of mine - my loved and affairs, our sweet shared moments and the departures that had inevitable come after - I have found myself hugging tighted to Munin. Then, for things don't just happen, I tumbled upon some old unsent e-mails addressed to an old adventure of mine that has had a much larger effect on me and my life that he will ever imagine, or I'll ever confess to him. Re-reading our letters (and astonished at the impressive level of French I had then) brought me to tears. Right then I wanted to run to my friend and hide in his embrace. Regardless of the "dabbling" we have engaged in - off and on - I needed a friend that would hold me tight and lend me strenght while I weathered the storm of my emotions and memories, while I held hard into Munin's wings and muttered long spoken phrases, and tasted again the aged petals of those dusty memories of mine. I had allowed myself to be breakable and I have shattered so sweetly into shards of old memories of love. Through the distance and his words, my friend lent me support, and I folded into myself, as I have in so many other times, licking my wounds, drinking my own blood and finding sweet joy in my old wounds. Oh dear, I am human, I am soft and vulnerable, and I will bear any pain so that I can keep forever in my memory the moments I have shared with them.

As Odin fears, so do I, the day that Munin no longer comes back to me.

A Geek Weekend Out

This weekend my friends Carrie, Kate and I went to a hotel in town to, basically, enjoy a big-girl slumber party. I would say an "adult slumber party", but that would make you think we had sex, and that's not what happened: we spent from Friday night to Sunday noon holed up in our hotel room indulging in series and movies of our guilty pleasures :-D.

The idea came by the end of last year, but I can't tell you exactly how. We have spent quite some time together and have gone of one-day trips to places where you can go swimming (it's not a wellness place, but like a family, entertainment center), where all we did was watch series and movies on an iPad and talk about fanfics. Believe it or not, it was amazing, and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The idea somehow had stuck, that we should do this again, but staying a larger period of time, so we could actually watch more series and more movies. We have already talked about doing a trip to Salem sometime in the future (when we can afford it), but then we actually wanted to do something sooner, while the girls still had their vacation. Thus, in a somewhat unorganized way, we ended up booking a room for the three of us at a hotel close by with this sole purpose in mind: watch movies and series.

We considered going to the beach, but really, was it worth driving all the way to the beach (I don't mind driving, I love driving!) only to end up holed in the room watching series? Because in that case, why would we even waste time on the road, when we could be already watching a movie? There was no actual program or plan as to what we wanted to watch - get on track with Supernatural, maybe, and then some Hannibal, some Sleepy Hollow - and somehow, a passion of theirs, old passion of mine, also got into the mix. The yaoi.

Carrie packed up the old hits we loved watching back when we met, and then they showed me new shows of which I have never heard, which were nice, sweet, and even disturbing. For instance, there's this series about guys - some "Binan" something - that's like a Sailor Moon with guys... only terribly corny and girly. And somehow, even some parts just make you look away for it's too corny to endure, I think I like it.

Am I going back to animé and yaoi? No, I don't think so, and if so, I'll make sure to stop before I get as sucked up by this world as I once was. However, it's nice to indulge, nice to be silly a little, unplug from the normal world, and spend some time with your best friends being plain silly, happy, carefree, all day laying in bed and eating snacks, drinking sweet beverages and cocktails and laughing out loud with your friends. Come up with funny tasks, like each of us has to find and review a fanfic from a fandom that's not Teen Wolf (Carrie and I are slightly obsessed with Sterek fics, but then again, it's not our fault Kate had developed a distaste for this fandom, and rather indulge in Star Trek, which is her only fandom since... a couple of years now), or make plans to start watching more and more series, like... yeah, I'm not into it again that much, so I won't even attempt at going on with the Japanese names.

Whatever your life is, whatever your circumstances, truth is that you do need a little time out with your friends, a break to simply be silly, be carefree. It charges you up and makes you feel... amazing. ^_^

We Have Sheers!

Our apartment looks different again, better, if I may say so, and the reason is simple: we hung our sheers from the windows. And Goodness Gracious! The difference it makes! Light isn't harsh in the room, though that has never been a problem, but the windows themselves have smoothed as well. The ugly gas pipes get somewhat better hid from sight, and the unslightly, discolored window frames are also discreetly taken away from the view.

We had bought the sheers perhaps a month ago, but didn't get to hang them, since it demanded time. We have three windows and for each of them there's a pair of sheers that need to be fitted. My boyfriend's job was to get on the ladder and hang the sheers twice - one for measuring them up and once when they were finished. My job was to measure the sheers, calculate the exact lenght with the expected 4% shrinkage (I totally love that IKEA tells you about this!), and then mark the lenght by ironing the part that would be the edge on each of the six sheer panes, then put in the fixing strip (a sort of plastic strip that sticks to the fabric when it's ironed to it, normally used to stiffen the fabric, but also to make a hem without stitching), and cut the excess fabric. It wasn't a short job, but we made it today at last, and I'm pleased with the results.

After visiting my penpal Trish on the weekend, I must admit that I'm quite ashamed of our apartment, as it isn't as taestfully arranged as theirs, but then again maybe I'm just being silly. There's no way, after all, that an economist who has spent most of her life in the tropic, could possibly compete with a consumed, professional interior designer and furniture connoisseur who happens to live in an artistic, tasteful town, where everything is just delightful.

Be it as it may, my boyfriend wants me to take pictures of the apartment, so he can upload them on the Real Estate web, to get a feel of the price our apartment could get. Realtors, you know.

I had plans for today, but none of them got completed. I was supposed to go to the Post Office, since I so brightly forgot to give my postcards to Trish - living with her kind offer - so she would post them for me from Braunau to my penpals. I think it is about time I start thinking about going to the doctor to get some "old people pills" prescribed. My memory is really, REALLY bad (maybe I sould start thinking also about getting a pillbox, so I can keep my medication in order for the future). Then I wanted to go to IKEA on a double mission. For once, the new collection would enter in August, so what better chance than right not to get a feel of what pieces of the old collection are leaving the scene and thus being sold at reduced prices. And we need two desks. Urgently.

The other reason is to search for small bottles. I'd like to take with me a few elements of Hungary that will accompany me wherever I am. Since the traditional elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) are kinda hard to get - due to the air - I was thinking about the five elements of Chinese philosophy (Wu Xing: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water). The idea of it came to me the other day, when I was once again marveling at how different the soil is from that of Costa Rica. I guess I can't get over the pale, sandy type of earth we have here. I've already located the source for all of my elements, decided on each of them BUT I haven't found the bottles. Naturally plastic bottles won't do it, because I kinda want to keep the "organic", old, natural feeling to them, AND I need them also to contain water, so wood boxed wouldn't do it either. Now, the bottle you see in this picture is what I'm thinking about, in a small size, say 7 cm (3 inches) high, or with a 1dl capacity. That's all I need. I don't want to take the whole Danube with me, along with half of the Roman Excavations. But you know what? Getting these small bottles is impossible. I'm not kidding, it is impossible!

Upon this, and having bought in February some spice jars, I thought about making it happen with spice jars.

Well, the trip wasn't made, so we shall see if I can unglue myself from bed in time to go to IKEA and take a quick check around the kitchenware and see where can I hunt down my bottles. It doesn't help my case knowing that Amazon.com has them and sells them. :-( Why!? They wouldn't make it in time! (Not like I won't buy them! I will).

I'm packing - I just finished my first packing try out today - but I still have a lot of stuff to pack and to get. I at least want a mini cauldron (you would too, if you would have eaten that FABULOUS bogrács stuff I had! Wish I could pack a real size one and tons of venison... that would make me happy), and then some replicas of medieval time swords (mini!) and jewelry I saw being sold at one of the museums I visited. I'll still visit my favorite museum, but I doubt there's anything left for me to buy there, as I've bought all the Empress Sissi books and souvenirs I could get my hands on.

Well, tomorrow is a new day, and the cleaning lady is coming, so I'll have little time and plenty to do. ^_^

Insecurity

Taken from God-knows-where in Google.
Cathy Thorne

What makes people insecure? You may meet the most wonderful, pretty people you can imagine, maybe people you think they have everything solved, and they are still insecure. Some insecure people can be easily spotted, almost as if they were giving out a particular smell of fear that precedes them everywhere they go. Others hide their insecurity better, though their façade cracks nontheless, and their fears and inadecuacies come to plain sight. Some believe that this insecurity is cute or attractive, or see their insecurity as "humbleness", and thus delude themselves thinking about it as a virtue, rather than a flaw they should work on correcting.

At the same time, insecure people are wanted by many and all of them for the wrong reasons. Publicity companies love insecure people because they are the easiest to convince to buy something they don't really need. Bullies like insecure people because they make the best victims. Abusive people love to have insecure people as their sentimental partners, because they can hurt them all they want, and the insecure people won't escape them. Insecure people are the easiest people to manipulate, which is why they often found themselves surrounded by abusive bosses or coworkers, as well as disrespectful sentimental partners and abusive "friends". They might even get into financial troubles or be often in a hard spot for buying things they don't need, only to fill a void due to their lack of confidence.

You can't help but wonder, are they happy like that? Why don't they do something to stop the situation? Yes, there are cases that are hard to manage, and often you don't have to be insecure to be subject to mistreat and abuse - see the cases of mobbing, which is usually based on the insecurity of the attacker and the distinctive sense they have that they are in a position of power that allows them to mistreat the people they perceive as a menace -, but insecure people also display behavior that hurts them, and only them. For instance, why some women have the need to look menacing or hold their boyfriends/husbands harder when a younger, prettier, sexier woman walks by? Why do they start a fight if their men look after the scantly dressed woman? It's not like the man and the woman passing by will in that instant get into a relationship, marry and live happily ever after. After all, how many cases do you know about two perfect strangers become lovers just because they saw each other on the street?

Taken from somewhere in Facebook. 

Yes, there are people who cheat at any given chance and disrespect their partners, minimize them and seek to make them feel miserable, but how much of that depends on the insecure person that let them? It's not a solution to chase away the "potential threat" or to start fights over a wondering eye or a lipstick mark on a shirt. Isn't it much easier to tell the person that such a behavior doesn't suit your concept of "relationship" thus things should be terminated? Yes, yes, the pleading and the "it won't happen again" may appear, and here's the moment to decide if you trust the person, if some transgressions deserve a second chance, and whether you are willing to continue with someone who has done the things that have been done.

If a boss mistreats you and you confront them, and tell them that you are quitting, or moving to another department, and the boss comes around saying they are sorry, they didn't meant to, they weren't aware of it... can you really trust them to change?

Insecurity is terrible, it may make you give second and third and hundredth chances to people and situations that don't deserve it, in an attempt to give themselves that same chance. What can we do to help people who are insecure? What can we do to defeat insecurity?

I only have one advise: courage. It's okay to be hurt, it's okay to fear and feel loss, as long as you are willing to stand up again and continue with your life. Remember that only you can help yourself, and if you don't do it, no matter what others do, it won't work.

Thought of the Minute: Peace Out and Let It Go

You can't avoid it, it often happens, that something or someone gets under your skin. Someone treats you unfairly, someone insults you, someone aggravates you, and even - yes, it happens as well - someone behaves like you've wounded them mortally or insulted them deeply when all you did was simply be honest. Yes, sorry, you didn't know that you should lie to someone about the actual way those clothes look on them, or that you weren't supposed to act like you are not impressed by the achievements of their children, even though you wouldn't even notice them if they bit you on the ass.

People is people and we all live in tiny, little, individual capsules called "head". We see the world through two tiny peepers called "eyes", and though some can also immerse themselves in the world that surrounds the vessel they use as world-transport  - commonly known as "body" - many still live inside the "body" and don't realize the effect they have on other people traveling in other bodies. Yes, intendedly or unintendedly, we hurt each other and are hurt by each other.

Today, in this short post, I'd like you to take a moment -  in or out of your head - to meditate, to slow down, to let it go. Jesus Christ was also subjected to injuries and unfairness, He was hurt and crucified by those with far more sins and far more guilt than He. And yet he forgave them all, He let it go, He slumbered and then came back, strong and perfect, and joined His Father in Heaven. Whatever is your religion or your believe, when the burden is hard - and do we know how these injuries can nag at our soul! - bawl, cry, scream, talk it out of your system until your face is blue... but talk it out, don't let the poison take over you. Then, when you have worn off the poison the injury put in you, sit back, meditate, calm yourself, find peace, take the time you need, breathe, connect with The Divine - whatever you choose to call Him/Her/It - ... and then come back, stronger than ever, ready to take on the world knowing that you are full of the Divine Energy, the Holy Spirit, Prana, Chi, Universe... You are one with The Undefeatable, The Eternal and thus shall prevail.

Blessings for All.

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?

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. ^_^

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.

Welcome to the End of The World - Been There, Done That

Salaam alaikum and Blessed Be, my dear readers! This year started to me as many others before: celebrating the New Year abroad. Ok, ok, maybe Hungary shouldn't count for me as "abroad", BUT, as I've had had my New Year in Paris, my New Year in Sofia, this year the New Year came at the Caribbean shores of Santo Domingo, the capital city of Dominican Republic. This time around it was my boyfriend flying all the way from Hungary to Costa Rica for the end of the year, and not the other way around, for reasons well known for those who need to know them. 

We talked about going to Dominican Republic in spring, but ended up going to Panama City due to lack of proper organizing. This time around, however, with much more time to do the planning - which is the key to everything - we made it to this lovely island, where we enjoyed the Caribbean culture and history. Yes, there were strange and odd things, like the tourist harrasing people at any step of the way, I wrote about in the last post of 2011, however all in all - particularly after taking a walk down Calle Conde - it was wonderful. I wouldn't say it was "magical", because there was so much earthy, human quality in it, that all supernatural forces were erased. Even the shores and the waves seemed like part of the effort of a nation that does know how to work it, but also know how to take it easy, not rush it, but live it.

Part of a trip - at least for me - includes the mandatory cruising of the tax and duty free stores at the airport, where I usually stock up with magazines and candy. My selection this time around included the december number of Latina - a magazine I haven't seen before, as I noted in the last post -, Vogue, Vanity Fair and The Economist. Normally I would go searching for Marie Claire, which had been my favorite magazine for ages, but as things have come by, this magazine has changed going from a smart, women's issues focused magazine to yet another shopping catalogue, with all traces of brain neatly supressed. It does upset me how the roaring "buy more, think less" wave expands to more and more newspapers and magazines, making it harder each time to actually find an article that can absorb you mentally, show you something you didn't know about, educate you, fill your braincells with useful, interesting information, and challenge you. 

After Marie Claire's plunging in quality, bigger concern with adds and pictures of clothes and accessories you don't really need, and lesser with showing the world of women around the planet, how can we otherwise get to know about them? What other way do we have to get informed from a different point of view? Which other source do we have to get glimpses of the history and the present of women all over the world? Yes, snipets can be found, but magazines are far more concerned with rags that won't last three months than the stories behind human trafficking, or efforts towards breaking new and more areas in women's labor fields. Glossy paper has become all about the superfluous and stupid, taking away any trace of thought, any trace of awareness, if not sponsored by a company or a group of them on a trendy topic, such as "Breast Cancer", or any other thing that doesn't challenge society or economical order. Anything to make you spend.

From the batch I purchased, gladly Vanity Fair kept up to the standard I set, though more leaning on the political matter, rather than foccused on the women's issues, even though this last issue had no other than Lady Gaga on the cover. I keep blinking in disbelieve how such an ugly, outrageous person can be so celebrated. Other than that, holding in my head a piece written by Joseph Stiglitz is delightful. However, before I even got around to Vanity Fair, I checked out the overly popularized and commented Vogue magazine. The magazine is an icon in fashion - as many know so - has been subject of songs, movies, books, documentries, and their Editor in Chief, Anna Wintour, quite known and celebrated. The magazine and Ms. Wintour have been also the underlying subject of the book and movie "The Devil Wears Prada" (a great movie, a terrible book, written by a disgraceful, untalented Lauren Weisberger). The magazine is certainly a stack of paper about fashion, with not much thought about any other issues - as I would have expected it to - so in that sense it came way under my expectations. Sure, "Vogue" isn't "Runway", but from no socially striking articles to no-brain articles there's quite a gap, and one that this famed magazine does not manage well at all. As you page through it, you can't see any of the "elitist" style oozing from it that the critics talk about - unless you call Kardashian-like no-brains-only-money style - but the kind of audience it seems to carter for is one you really, really don't want to belong to, specially if you have a university degree and believe in real hard work (not the maniac straining yourself for intrascendental things the magazine calls "hard work"). How can you monthly spend time reading pages that suggest you to dress like a clown, fast yourself into a toothpick and spend regardless of whether you have money or not, because "the trend" says so?

It was still interesting to see Meryl Streep on the cover, so I had to read the article on her to see if there was any mention at all about the afore mentioned movie, where she played Miranda Priestly, the homologue of Anna Wintour. Well, it made me smirk how evidently the sting of the book and the movie hasn't been overcome, as the praising of the actress was all over the place, and the moving was mentioned only passingly, in the middle of a list of other movies. It seems that "the cool people" can't put themselves past the booklet a mediocre writer wannabe composes, and keep the grudge until the end of days. Then again, who are we calling a mediocre writer, when Ms. Wintour's editorial is flat and the rest of the "articles" are blah, abundant in a language that seeks to detail luxury and a sense of grandeur, but that never get's to the nerve of things. It's all on the brands, and the mixes of humble attitude with knowing what's trendy and luxurious, but with not a word thrusting deeper into the vein, going to what's aside from the brand and the fresh oysters and "working hard".

Work hard, work hard... a phrase used up and down to describe successful people who have lots of money and still don't hit the bed before 4 am, are up in 4 hours and do this "work" thing constantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah... so, now tell me what's that "work" about. Is about organizing foundraisers and trips to bring aid packages to depressed areas, or is it sticking your nose to your computer trying to find a way to get millions of American workers to get rid of their debts, or how to create the missing 4 million jobs and make sure they stay? Is it hard work proselitizing for a candidate or a party, maybe a bill about tax cuts, or is it about waking up at 3 am to work on the fields? Or maybe it's hard work to be up until late trying to decide which picture would look better as the cover of your shallow, no-brain magazine?

So yes, there were no articles, so I paged through the magazine looking at the latest trends, what's to come and realizing once again that fashion lately has nothing that could or would hold my interest. There was then a piece (I can't call it an article) about the tendencies and how - unlike with previous times of economical crisis - the tendency isn't towards minimalism (which I like), but towards overaccesorizing. Necklaces and bracelets measured in pounds, not in units, and chandelier earrings. The lines to introduce the tendency were rather insulting, from the social and economical proint of view, basically saying "you can face the times of crisis with frugality and saving, bracing for the hard time, or you can give it the finger and put on every luxury item you can get". Okay, so we are living hard times, millions of jobs have been suppressed in the States, people have been unemployed for years, and their proposal is "overaccesorize and give the crisis the finger". The excuse to do this? "Because youth is doing it and many of them are unemployed and have no money". Oh really, so here we are, adults, trying to get a job or hang into the one we have, with bills and responsabilities to face, realizing that living on a credit card isn't doable anymore, and we need to cut the unnecesary expenses, save some so the next time the economy fucks it up we don't get it up the ass, and here comes a fancy little magazine telling you to fuck the crisis, let's go bolder and still pretend we can max our credit cards and everything will be dandy. Where are we heading to? (In Vanity Fair, meanwhile, Kurt Andersen writes about how it seems that style has remained stagnating the last 20 years, with much of the same when comparing 1992 and 2012, so that makes you think where all this "we like" and "we think" you see in these magazines actually get anywhere in a society quite depleted of resources, with trend gurus that can't get over themselves, but continue to push their own, little, outdated agenda everywhere.)

The way I see it, we are heading towards the absolute stupidization of the population, but not as part as some conspiracy, but also because of ourselves. If the magazines and newspapers dish us day after day articles and pieces of the lowest quality - and that can be seen in the very grammar and composing of many of the articles, where you would expect at least some average manage of the language - in every sense of the word. Shallow articles that not only don't grasp the surface of the matter, working the topic more as if it where a trailer of a topic rather than an article about it, but also because many of the subjects picked are not really that important. What would be more relevant, Demi Lovato's disorders or the levels of poverty reached by many countries, and what that slide down the socio-economical ladder entail? If you ask the magazines and the newspapers, Demi Lovato's issues, no question about it!

Yes, they are consistently working on making us stupid, but what are we doing about it? We keep buying their issues, we keep reading their shit, we don't demand for anything that isn't directly supplied to us. We don't demand, we take. So, demand. Demand! Don't buy the crap, but be clinical, and if you are bored, find new sources, but don't give them your money, nor be an instrument for them to get money out of you and your data for things you don't really want. We complain a lot about quality, but what are we doing to make them improve it? What are we really doing? Me, I'm doing something: Marie Claire is striked from my list, and so is Vogue now. Now it's up to you.

Vacations at the "La Española" Island

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Preparing for My Favorite Holiday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.