Right-handed typing

While this past week has also, like the one before it, been dotted with very particular events, I will only mention two of them.

1. My mom came back from Chicago two days ago at dawn.
2. I entered Gymnastics classes on Friday and broke my left hand in two spots on Monday. I found out about the broken bones just yesterday, went to the hospital today, am going in for surgery tomorrow, and will stay in the hospital till Friday. What a single lousy flip can do to my weekly activities... not to mention my anatomical integrity.

I am, of course, typing with my right hand alone, while my left hand stays inert inside a cast made only last night. My left leg also hurts a little - just below the back part of my knee. Please, let it be something that heals well by itself.

I want to write more stuff about my week, but it's not all that exciting. Let's see, Javier turned 30 yesterday, and the night before yesterday I wrote two somewhat long, very honest, forthgiving, and reconciling letters to my mom and Alicia about Alicia's wedding and the strife between the both of them. I hope that helps them get along better. Oh yeah, and I bought 30 blank DVDs for Q60! Best price ever, huh?

And since my left hand is off sick, my weekly activities will most likely have to change. Gymnastics classes, of course, are out. Abacus practice has been put off these days, but I think my right hand can handle most of it by itself. Language classes are likely to continue beginning next week, and I'll spend more time grading TPR essays (at a slower rate of course). Reading, I hope, will become my most prominent activity. I have several books pending, and the more I've read them, the more I've liked them.

I'm sorry for this entry's sketchiness, but my present circumstances don't make it easy for my ideas to flow. More info to come later.

Eventful days & birthdays

Several singular events these days have been flashing by, so I guess this is a good time to try my first real blogging experience on the famous www.blogger.com - I gotta write them down while they're still fresh.

So I was chatting on MSN tuesday afternoon, and Scarleth was telling me about how her computer had caught an ugly virus and how it was deleting all of her and her family's documents, and how she couldn't work on her lab reports anymore. I offered to help by installing Windows XP on her computer. So I prepared my computer tools and laptop, and visited her on Wednesday at noon with the purpose of fixing her computer. I did a backup of all of her documents on my laptop and tried to install Windows XP SP2 on her computer. I failed miserably - her computer (motherboard, I should say) was either so weird or so old that it wouldn't either install or run Windows XP, by any alternative. And I tried a lot of them. It's such a long, technical story, but in the end, I used up both my Wednesday and Thursday failing to install Windows XP into an old computer, and couldn't do any abacus, japanese, chinese, piano, or parkour practice during that time. And I loaned Scarleth my laptop so they could still work on their reports and stuff. So now I have no laptop and no way to get my pictures out of my K310 cellphone :). But Scarleth & family can still do some work, and that's good :).

OK, lesseeeee... on Friday the 11th, I had Japanese class in the morning, went back home to have lunch, and had this other meeting representing AIESEC @ a project called "La RED" @ the AFS offices I mentioned in my last entry. This girl from AIESEC called Marylena told me she would go with me to the meeting, but cancelled on me about 30 minutes before. Fortunately, Naty called me like 20 minutes before the meeting and went to the meeting with me. While we were reunited at the reunion, we reunited our ideas by talking a lot about stuff I honestly didn't care much about, but feigned that I did. After the meeting, Naty gave me a ride to UFM, where I had this meeting with a so-called "Junta Revisora", which would evaluate my personality, abilities, and overall adequateness to participate in an AIESEC international work exchange. There were four people evaluating me, and I could drink all the 7up I wanted during the interview. I guess this second meeting went OK... I didn't act nervous or anything... though I did stutter a lot. But I guess that's just the way I talk, so no big deal.

After all that, I left the UFM, took a bus, the Transmetro, and was picked up by Elisa @ Pacific Center... I went back home and migrated my whole old blog from Live Spaces into www.blogger.com. OK, this isn't exactly an event caused by the alignment of the planets, but it was quite a massive task that took me between 5-8 hours total, so it's at least worth mentioning.

Saturday, I went to my Mandarin class from 8-12. I arrived 15 minutes late, but since the teacher got there 38 minutes late, it was no big deal. Not much happened during this class. We were given the copies we had paid Q30 for last week (and we were all very upset to find that this consisted of only 18 pages). Since both levels Mandarin 1 and 2 are present in this class, time should ideally be divided into 2 equal parts for both levels. This was definitely not the case. The teacher spent the first hour (after she arrived) correcting the Mandarin 2 students' homework, one by one, while the students in the newbie level (myself included) counted the wasted minutes and criticized the teacher's sloooooowness between themselves. Well, I met this cute, outgoing 13-year old girl from Capouilliez school called Josselyne. She seems a little older, maybe 15, has neat and almost flawless handwriting, and likes to color all of her notes green, purple, orange and colors like that, and draw all the titles in her notebook like little dog paws (it's hard to explain, but her letters really do look like dog paws). Between talking to her and Silvia, class time passed on fairly fast. We, the Mandarin newbie students, maybe got to have about 10 minutes of class with the teacher. The rest of the four hours was dedicated to the Mandarin 2 students. This teacher's popularity is very low between us newbies right now, and the overall comment going around between us was that we were being totally ripped off.

I can't remember what happened on Saturday afternoon, so I probably just came back home, ate, chatted, and did some other kinds of procrastination. (Later edit): Oh yeah! I remember now! I found Maia on GTalk at about 4:30PM, I asked her to go to see Spiderman 3, and she agreed! And we went to see the movie to Pradera Concepcion (a really long way away from my house - it was the first time I've ever driven so far in that direction). She seemed really tired, she had just come from an activity with children at the art gallery where she collaborates. She didn't talk much, and she had dry acrylic paint of write, orange, blue, and green on her hands. We made the long line to watch the movie, we went in, and watched it. We didn't talk much while we were inside... we just watched the movie. It was really good, FX-wise, though the acting was a little overdone. Too much drama and metaphor... action movies and metaphors don't mix well.

Sunday - oh Sunday. Sunday May the 13th, Joel's birthday. I had my day kind of planned: my aunt had organized a little family get-together @ her place at 1PM to celebrate Joel. And I had a Fundaniñas activity (Fundaniñas is a home for homeless girls, if you'll pardon the illogicality, at which we the scholars in FJBG sporadically go and do some social service) in the afternoon, at maybe 2 or 3 in the afternoon as it had always been.

It turns out I was woken up at 9:20 AM by Paula, who told me she wasn't going to Fundaniñas because she was sick, and asked me to buy her collaboration for the event (2 2L soda bottles) for her, and told me she would pay me back later. Somewhere in the conversation, I picked up the hint that the meeting was not really in the afternoon, so I asked her exactly at what time was the meeting supposed to be. It was at 10AM. A little shocked, I turned my computer on and checked all of the emails I had gotten on the subject. Not one of them mentioned that it was at 10AM. I called Aceytuno and asked him about it... yup, it was @ 10AM. "Oh well", I thought... I better get going. It was 9:46AM by now, and I was calling everyone to ask for a ride all the way to Fundaniñas. Victor Flores, very kindly, agreed to go to San Cristobal and pick me up @ Burger King. I didn't take a shower, I didn't shave, I didn't pick my clothes. I just ran to BK as fast as I could and got to Fundaniñas about 30 minutes late. It was no big deal, though... the girls weren't there yet cause they were at the Sunday mass, so I had lots of time to chat around with the other FJBG scholars, catch up with recent events, and stuff.

The girls got back at about 11:30AM, and we began doing lots of activities. Oh, we did a lot of things. We jumped, we danced, we singed, we clapped, we played, etc... Two of the FJBG scholars dressed like clowns and made the girls laugh a lot. Then we prepared the food (tacos and tostadas), and gave it away to everybody. Then I played some more with the girls (One of them had her birthday coming up soon (May 18th), so we sang for her and ate cake with the girls). And then we left at about 3PM :O... I took a ride with Alejandro, who left me off at the Muni, where I took a Transmetro directly to my aunt's house. The meeting she had organized was already halfway, but I still managed to greet everybody, eat lots of food, drink lots of drink, play lots of XBox with my cousins, and have a pretty good time till about 9PM. Then Elisa and I went back home, and my day ended.

Monday the 14th, however, was probably the most singular of these days. Alicia, one of my little sisters, came back from Chicago at about 6:30AM. Though not emotional for me or anything, it's not something that happens every day. Probably more surprising is the fact that she came for a purpose: she's getting married to Condor in about two months. Poor her. And poor him, too. Why do people do such dumb things? Worthy of mention was also the fact that it was Bidkar's birthday, Ania's birthday, and Alberto's birthday (him I haven't heard of in a long time). And during the morning, I found it that it was Matzdorf's girlfriend's birthday, too! That alone made for a pretty singular day. I think it's the day on which the most people that I know of has their birthday. AND, Richard asked me if he could come on over to my house to sleep over, cause he's having some family problems/arguments/issues. I agreed, of course. But isn't it funny that all this happened on the very same day? Bidkar's birthday seems to be special.

Besides that, I had made an appointment with Mimi at 11AM. So I went, got there 5 minutes early, but had this urge to urinate when I got there. Mimi wasn't there yet, and the bathroom was being washed when I got there, so I had to wait like 10-15 extra minutes just to get into the bathroom. Coincidentally, during the scarce 30 seconds that I was in the bathroom, Mimi got there and went into her room. I then went and greeted her, and we talked a lot about a lot of things. It was mostly about me, but it was also a little about her, and a little about our mutual acquantaince, Maia. Details are omitted for the sake of respect, but let's just say it was also a very singular event.

I then took a bus to FJBG @ Torre Empresarial. Oh, it's both so funny and so extraordinary that little things come together so coincidentally. Who should I met on the way while walking but Matzdorf, the birthday girl's boyfriend! I spent a lot of time talking to him while he bought his lunch (2 hot dogs), and just when I thought "hmmm, we are done talking", I said goodbye, and kept on walking to Torre Empresarial. Then, during this exact same walk, as if timed precisely to meet with him, I met Bidkar, the other birthday boy! I gave him the usual birthday hug, and spent a lot of time talking with him too. We talked mostly about the thesis project and about him being sick. Then he had to leave for lunch, and I went to FJBG. I was admitted inside by a security guard, I waited for the secretary to finish her lunch, and OH SURPRISE SURPRISE, I was a given a check! My last stipend check from the FJBG, dated January 02, 2007! Wooow, I thought that, as ex-scholars, we weren't supposed to get any more stipends! Seems I was wrong! I signed the receipt, put the Q1000 check in my wallet, gave her a copy of my thesis project, received my FJBG diploma from her, and left. Elisa and Alicia were waiting for me at Tia Aury's, so I went there. I drove them back home, but when we got there, I waited in the car, in the garage, just to continue listening to some music from Elisa's MP3 Player. Coincidentally, during these 2 or 3 minutes, Richard came and knocked on the door. So THEN I turned off the car, opened the door for Richard, helped him in, and took him to my room. We then spent talking about what had happened to him, his laptop, how to install Windows Vista into it, girls, and stuff like that. I tried to do my abacus exercises, but Richard's presence and music were kind of distracting, so I only managed to finish one of them. Oh, we spent the afternoon and night just doing nothing, and then we went to sleep. I wrote a journal entry (with pen and paper) that night, just before going to sleep).

Yesterday, Tuesday the 15th, Richard left very early (about 7AM) for his classes @ BANGUAT, and I went to my japanese class at about 10:20AM, together with Elisa and Alicia on the bus. I got there late, as usual, so I had to scoot an extra desk inside and sat down surrounded on every side by other late students like me. The class was OK, as always, and we learned to say the numbers from 11 to 99. While we were doing an exercise of saying all the numbers from 1 to 99, each student saying one of them, in order, another girl came in and sat down right next to me. She asked what we were doing, so I told her, and explained to her how to say the numbers from 11 to 99. She's a real japanese enthusiast - she knows how to say her own name correctly in Japanese, watches lots of Anime, knows about cities in Japan, and explained to me several things I did not know. We did some exercises in couples, and I did them with her. We presented a third person between each other, and asked about another person (at a party, supposedly. "Anokata wa donata desu ka?" "Harry Potter-san desu. Hogwarts dakugai no Gakusei desu.", or something like that). Yeah, and she turned out to be a Harry Potter fan too (she was using a Harry Potter backpack). And she's called Cindy (Shindi in Japanese, according to her :) Shindi Tachiana). She' s nice. She seems kinda interested in me, and I like her too, so it's possible that we could hit it off. Next meeting, Friday @ noon, same place. Then Pedro gave me a ride back home. I got into his new blue Jetta :O. He told me he had JUST GOTTEN IT YESTERDAY (Monday). So it was ANOTHER singular thing that happened on Monday the 14th. Maybe that day is (or was?) a strong energy center or something. Oh well... thing is... it's another coincidence to add to the list. I deposited my newly-acquired check into my G&T account, so now I'm officially Q1000 richer hehe.

After my day-activities, Richard came back home, and he spent last night here too. He's actually still laying down, about 1 meter away from me, on the auxiliary bed I got for him, postponing his getup time. I gotta wake up him soon... he doesn't want to be late for BANGUAT.

Hmmmm, I guess that's it. Oh no, wait, last night I also did one more abacus exercise (YAY), and graded 19 essays ($19 cha-ching!). Not too bad, huh?

Now, I gotta figure out how to ornament my blog entry appropriately in here. No sample emoticons like in Live Spaces... maybe I can only add color to it? Maybe I'll upload lots of pictures from my cellphone too, and attach them everywhere so it looks a bit nicer. But for now, I guess text's what I have to work with. Maybe I'll do those images with text that have become so popular in hi5, zorpia, and all those sites.... hmmm... maybe blogger should have a little scrap-page to draw on. I would definitely use it if it did.

bye blog!

Blog, we need to talk.

Blog, you know I care about you, right? Up until now, we’ve spent so many special moments together. How much time have we spent in each other’s thoughts? So many nights have I devoted exclusively to you, dear blog, just to be with you. You’ve been my companion, my advisor, my mentor, my friend, my love, my dear, dear blog. You’ve been with me in the good times and in the bad. You were my companion when I felt lonesome, you helped me relax when I was worried, I’ve shown you my most intimate secrets… and you put up with me, with my flaws, my quirks, my secrets, my passions. You were always there for me, and for this I am so very grateful to you, my dear blog.

But you know me – probably better than I do myself, so you know what is coming for us. Must I write it out loud? Oh, for Heaven’s sake, why must you make it so hard??

Blog, it’s not you. It’s me. You know, I’ve changed. We’ve both changed. During the years, while we’ve shared our precious time together, the world has moved around us, too. Have you not seen it coming? Please don’t tell me you won’t stand for it! Don’t make it harder… I’m suffering too, can’t you see?!?! We must part, blog! Each of us has chosen a different way. Neither of us would be happy to see the other live another’s life for the sake of old habit. It’s for our own good. For both of us. I have made my decision already, for I know you would not have had the courage to do it yourself. But it is done, blog. As much as we care for each other, our relationship must end here, right now, on this very entry. Do not be sad, blog… I know how you feel. I’ve been through it. But remember, just like we found each other on that wonderful day so long ago, you will find another. You will come to realize that the world is full of bloggers, and that you will share with them such wonderful times as you did with me.

As this entry ends, I should only remind you – we have only gained from our relationship, never lost. In our two years together, we’ve learned many things from each other. I take with me a part of you, and you will always keep a part of me. This is not an ending – it is simply a lowering of the tide – it will soon rise, bubbling with new experiences to share exclusively with you. And this is the way of Nature Herself.

The best of byes to you, dear blog! May you find peace and happiness from this day onward. Remember me if you will, but know that I will never forget you.

Now for the real deal. This Windows Live Spaces Blog has really become a burden to work with. My new ISP does not always have access to this site, so I cannot write whenever I want! Besides, the scripts are so sloooooow… arrrggggggh, I just HAD to change. Even now, right now, I had to postpone this last entry’s posting!! You know, I even found another guy’s blog entry describing how unconvenient Live Spaces blogging can be. And yes, it CAN be inconvenient. So I decided to migrate to Blogger. It took me about 6-8 hours to migrate the whole thing… I had to copy-paste EACH – INDIVIDUAL – ENTRY into new Blogger entries. Doing so, I was able to count my blogs, and found that I have written 106 blog entries so far. (This one is #107).

Sooooo… for anyone who may care… my new blogging site ishttp://antoniosliveblog.blogspot.com/. It contains aaaaall of the blog entries I’d posted here (except this very last one), and I expect to keep on piling more entries as my Life progresses.

bye blog! It was nice to write in you, but for several (mostly technical) reasons, you no longer fit my requirements.

A thousand times good night!

AIESEC Ambassadorial [Taken from Live Spaces Blog, 08 mayo 2007, 2:52]

I somehow manage to get into very peculiar situations.

So I'm an official AIESEC member now (though only a trainee), and I'm getting all these emails about meetings, parties, activities, and stuff going on. One of them arrived a few days ago, urging everyone in AIESEC to participate @ some big meeting about United Nations, volunteers, and CONRED on Monday the 7th @ 9AM in the ASF office in the third level of the Geminis building. Since my schedule is not really THAT tight these days, I thought "yeah, I can make it, no big deal". So off I went - I reached the Geminis building at the precise time, climbed right up to the third floor, and began looking - no sign of ASF office. I asked the guards - no one knew. I called Liz to ask her if she knew any more info about the place of the meeting - she didn't. I kept on walking through the hallways for about 20 minutes, going into every office to ask about the AIESEC meeting. No one knew. I walked into a lab where people were taking blood samples, I walked into a bank, I walked into some strange corporate meeting, but no sign of the ASF office anywhere. I went back to the first floor to look for a building directory... there was none. "OK, one last look", I thought, and went back to the third floor. I then noticed a mean-looking man with a kevlar vest and a moustache staring suspiciously at me, and surreptiously following me arround. I acted nonchalantly, as if strolling down the park, but it was obvious he thought I was some kind of delinquent.

Not wanting to be unceremoniously kicked out of the building, I walked into the first escape route I found - a stair case leading down to the second floor. What a surprise I got to see that my so-sought office was in the SECOND floor of the building! And that is wasn't ASF... it was AFS!!! Man, their business must really go the drain if they give everyone their address this way. So I avoided the mean-looking guy by going into the meeting I was actually supposed to. I was led by a white-bloused, nice-looking receptionist into a room with (gasp) FOUR other people around a meeting-type table. "Hmmm, not too much of a big meeting", I thought. Everyone was looking at me, so I summoned up my social mask and introduced myself in the manner I thought most appropriate: big smile, hand-shaking, talking out loud, and all the time acting as if I was proudly representing AIESEC. It didn't take me long to realize I was the only AIESEC member coming to the meeting. There was this old, tall, bald guy from AFS, a brown, red-shirted guy from URL, an executively-dressed guy from Fundación Solar, a big fat thin-bearded guy from Fundaeco with his shirt so low I could practically see his nipples (not that I wanted to), two old big ladies from CONRED and who-knows-where, and this strange guy who I didn't like sitting next to me because 1) he seemed gay, and 2) he came from the "Anti-AIDS" program, which made 1) even more suggestive.

There had already been other meetings of the sort with these same people, so I was the only "newbie" in the place. I acted quite attentively and silently throughout the first part of the meeting - desperately trying to get a hang of what was going on. It seemed that each person represented a different institution, and these people were there to discuss the creation of a central entity for volunteer institutions all around Guatemala. Once I had understood the facts, however, I began to say stuff. I'm not sure why, but I had lots of ideas and I just blurted them out as they came. Funnily, they came out well, and my ideas were really taken into account. I proposed action, activities, and reinforcement of the existing institutions even while more institutions were being added to this new group. The details are not that important, but I ended up placing AIESEC itself as the co-leader of the Coordination Committee, confirmed AIESEC's presence in two new meetings this week and the next, and offered myelf to help with the project's main database. Oh, and I also got to drink two cups of coffee with sugar and coffee-mate and eat two muffins.

But it doesn't make much sense. It hasn't been a month since I've entered AIESEC, and honestly, I know virtually NOTHING about the organization! Sure, I know the concept, the goals, the theory... but I haven't been involved at all. So how can I represent it? I think it's funny/weird that I, a newbie, came to represent AIESEC @ this important meeting. Yeah, important - it sure seems important - a big government-supported institution (CONRED) is involved, the project requires involvement from lots of people, and it has really long-term goals. And I practically aided in creating the organization's main structure. Not that I didn't like it, but it's... weird.

Well, Naty congratulated me on going to the meeting, so I'm glad I went. She's nice. Now I've gotta figure out who to give the responsibility about this project to, cause I don't have enough AIESEC experience as to represent them in such an important project (i.e. I don't want to). Nah, just kidding. The project actually looks nice, but I want to focus on other stuff like language classes, abacus practice, music, parkour, and well, the stuff I really like.

Yeah, I know, this is a boring entry. What did you expect? Witty remarks on the people at the meeting and on the muffins? Nope, none really came to me today. I just thought I'd like to remember this event in case I forget. So yeah, you just read an awfully boring blog entry. Oh, too bad. Deal with it.

Models [Taken from Live Spaces Blog, 05 mayo 2007, 0:15]

(The first part of this entry was written on April 29th, but it was finished only until May 4th due to technical reasons).

I woke up at 1:00 AM today for two reasons:

1. I went to sleep at 6:00 PM yesterday
2. The mosquitos in my room sucked my blood during the night and left my skin itching, so much that I woke up and could not get to sleep again.

So what could I do? I turned on the computer, had a small GTalk conversation with MGM, checked my email, and listened to so music until about 3:00 AM. Then my mind turned to the abacus - I needed to practice. So I turned off the computer and practiced until 5:00 AM. It was then that I got the urge to go walking around the neighborhood. I put my abacus stuff aside, put on my Nike shoes, and went for a walk. Lots of birds were tweeting and lots of dogs were barking already. I enjoyed watching and listening to the morning sounds, until I came up to some very pretty flowers, and I wished I had my cellphone camera. So I ran back home, got my cellphone, and took about 80 pictures of flowers, trees, the sunrise, and stuff like that around the neighborhood. It was very nice. I got to see all kinds of plants slowly changing their color together with the brightening sky, slowly getting a more intense hue, while all the time listening to birds chirping and tweeting, and seeing them fly from tree to tree, and doing some really neat flying tricks over walls, between window bars, and well, just looking at them fly was amazing.
All the nature stuff I got to see in the morning made me think: "wow, the world's really really nice. It's amazing what we miss because of being inside 4 walls all day. We now just model stuff we see, and simulate it digitally or by any other means, so that people don't really need to go outside those 4 walls, so they can perceive it all while still being inside their 4 walls. We don't need to make or go listen to music being produced... we store it and listen to it through speakers. We don't need to go places to see stuff... we just download images and look at them. So simple, isn't it? But I've spent hours and hours using the computer, and have never, while doing so, felt so good as I do with nature that morning. Is it possible to simulate the complete world - a sunrise, with its continuous hues, majestic clouds, shimmering light, intense tonalities, vivid colors, together with birds chirping, flying around, playing with each other, swaying trees all around, morning dew on every leaf, barking dogs, noisy crickets and roosters, mixed with the cool, refreshing morning wind, the smell of humidity and life all around, the intense feeling of being alone with Nature? Can that be simulated? Can it be modeled precisely so that we can STORE it all, always stay inside our 4 walls, and never have to see the 'real world' again, Matrix-style?".
My guess would be no. I think about the models people make about stuff - Mechanics models the movement of stuff, Chemistry predicts the molecular and physical state of stuff, Astronomy models the position and influence of really-far-away stuff, Economy models the wealth of stuff, and so on and so forth. But any of those models is SO FABULOUSLY LIMITED! It is really mind-boggling, how complex things actually are when as compared to the methods we use to model them.
But we accept models. They make our life so much easier. Take roadmaps, for example. If I need to plan a roadtrip somewhere, the model of the roadmap tells us exactly where to go, how long the trip will be, what places will we run into, etc... It's so simple... models take the world and simplify it, but keep the "necessary" information inside. Necessary? What is necessary? Well, whatever people would find useful, don't you think? Like a roadmap. But by adhering to this roadmap, we see only the road and the distance on the way. Most of all the other details on the way are obviated by the person being faithfully guided by his roadmap.
I'm not saying models are bad, you know. I like them, I use them, they're pretty neat. But I do believe they can be wrongly utilized. I think that if a person accepts a model as true, this person will also accept the simplicity of it, and then go on to believe that the actual, real world is as simple as the model. And nothing could be farther from the truth. It's not only models, you know - it happens with all blindly accepted truths. Take water, for instance. Water is a liquid, people drink it, it takes thirst away, it takes on the shape of its container, it's good to clean stuff with, it goes through pipes, all houses need it, etc... But if a person only sees it that way - as what it is useful for, then that's exactly what it will be. The more this person accepts the common uses of water, the less he or she will notice, or remember, how water reflects and takes on the color of its surroundings, how it can also perfectly function as a mirror, how does it shimmer during sunrise and sunset times, how does spraying it on a sunny day creates a beautiful rainbow, and how can it acquire a heavenly sweet nectar taste in specially tiresome moments. And that is sad.
I believe a word has been created for these "widely accepted common concepts": paradigms. People take them, notice their usefulness, use them, and forget about the concepts they can create themselves. Don't we have the capacity to create concepts all the time? Why should we use the same concepts all the time? Don't you think that is almost insulting the virtually endless world of possibilities around us? I DO. Let's learn to value things for what they are, not for what we THINK WE KNOW they are, or MUCH MUCH WORSE, for what OTHER PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE.
As a sidenote, my cousin Ileana died on April 29th @ 7AM. May she RIP (Rest in Peace).

(Update, Dec 28, 2013: I found this piece of text, originally together with this entry, but later removed for some reason. I thought it pertinent to include here):
Then I went back home, had some breakfast, and then Elisa told me that my cousin Ileana had died at 7:00 AM, and that a funeral had been arranged for that very same night. I cannot say I was shocked, since it had been expected for a while now, but my sister acted like she was sad - I couldn't tell if she really was. Anyway, I had a psychological test @ 10AM @ UFM as an AIESEC exchange requirement, so I asked my sister to take me to the bus stop. Given the city's crime rate and my attachment to my cellphone, I decided to leave it at home, along with my whole wallet. I only took money with me, so that in the event of a robbery, money was all I had to lose.

I don't feel like expanding on all the details, so I'll just skim on my day. I finished the test, which was administered by a psychologist who I think has turned out to be the same psychologist who evaluated most of the FJBG scholars upon entering the program. I finished it at about 12:30, walked all the way up the "2" route bus stop, went to UVG, picked up my thesis, casually met Giovanni Paredes, Frodo, and Carlos Salvadó on the way, and took the bus back home at about 2 in the afternoon.

On getting back, I found Marcelo on MSN saying he was bored. I burned a DVD for Alicia and my dad so that Marcos could mail it to them from NY the next day. Marcelo then came home, we walked and talked for a while around the neighborhood, then I came home and remembered I had to go to my cousin Ileana's funeral. So I dressed up and left with Elisa to the funeral home. I met Santiago and his brothers there (Ileana's sons), which I had not seen for at least 3 years. Even though they were mostly calm, they were smiling and making jokes about stuff. It did not seem as if their mother's death had been such a blow to them, either. Good for them. I spent my time there talking, listening to people, and even went to McDonald's with Joel, Ana, & Emily for a while. Since neither Elisa nor I had taken the house keys with us, I had to open the house with my sneaking and burglary skills.

Now, this blog was begun yesterday at about midnight and finished today at 11PM, so it doesn't really make much sense to say that Saturday has just ended. I'll summarize today too: I went to Pasos & Pedales today in the morning, met the two Parkour brothers I've been talking to lately through MSN, did about 2 hours of Parkour with them, learned a few skills, and was given a lift back home by the brothers' parents. Then I came home, and spent all afternoon here in the computer MSNing, transforming my thesis into PDF format, and mostly wasting my time. And now I'm about ready to go to sleep. Yep, I guess that will be it for today. Good night.

ATB!!! ATB!!! ATB!!! [Taken from Live Spaces Blog, 04 mayo 2007, 23:13]

Man, oh man, oh man. I'm so high.

I just came home from an ATB concert that took place inside a hangar in the Guatemalan Air Force main site. It was SO AWESOME, that I'll take my time to present an accurate description of my perceptions of the event.

Actually, my whole day was quite eventful, so I'll write it all down. It began at about 7AM , the time when I woke up and began to get myself ready for the day ahead of me. I already had plans for the day: abacus class from 10 to 12 , pay a visit to Lucia @ her house in Lourdes at 1PM (she's recovering from an operation she had two weeks ago), go to UVG to have my thesis bound into a thesis-kind book sometime later in the afternoon, go back home to get ready, and reach the ATB concert at 8PM.

So I got ready and left for abacus class at about 08:50 . Elisa asked me to take her the closest I could get to a certain place I knew nothing about. When I saw the address, her place turned out to be about 6 blocks away from my own destination, so I took her all the way (though we had a bit of a hard time finding the place). She took less than five minutes in the interview (the job was already taken), so I took her the nearest I could get her to a public bus, and went to my abacus class.

I was pretty excited about this particular class - I had finished the whole Level 1 Book in one week (considered a lot of work), and I thought I would get a really good grade on the timed addition section. Since Kira had not yet arrived when I got there, I sat down on one of the waiting chairs, took out my abacus materials, and began doing checking my #1 exercise right there on the chair - I was so excited, that I wanted my fingers to be warm for when the time came. Sadly, I got a 40/100 on my addition exercise. I was pretty frustrated about it. I even scored lower on all the other sections (multiplication, division, and mental addition) than I had last week. I was getting pretty frustrated. However, after cleaning up most of my exercise, I asked Kira for another chance to time an addition section. I got a new Level 1 book from the shelves, did the #1 exercise, and lo and behold, I got an 80/100!!! I was SO happy! At least I showed Kira that I HAD made some improvement during the last week. Before leaving class, Kira also gave me what she calls the "libretita" (little notebook). That's what it actually is - and it contains numbers. Lots of numbers. And I'm supposed to add them up and come up with answers for yet another exercise section. Oh well, I guess more practice can't hurt me. Oh, and I had a cup of coffee and a champurrada as my class meal.

Upon leaving my abacus class, I got a call from a strange number, but it turned out to be Elisa. She told she thought someone had stolen ONLY her cellphone from her purse (which seemed quite improbable to me, both because her cellphone is not exactly cutting-edge technology, and because I believe most thieves would take the entire purse instead of just the cellphone ). She asked me to call her cellphone number and see if anyone would answer. I called her cellphone number about 4 times, but no one answered, so then I desisted.

I had been wanting to visit Office Depot to get some CD sticker labels (for my required 3 thesis CDs). I luckily ran into one of their stores in Blvd. Los Próceres, but they turned out to be quite expensive . They only sold these labels by the box, so imagine buying 50 labels for Q100, but only actually using 3. What an awful waste that would be. So then I called Paula, who had already labeled her own thesis CDs, to ask her for advice on the subject. It turns out that she had bought the whole CD label packet, and had 25 CD stickers left. I then offered to buy some from her, and she agreed. So finally, I bought nothing at Office Depot.

I then drove on to Lucia's house. When I got there, she still wasn't there, so I waited about 5 minutes before she came rumbling on the street together with her mom on a clean beige Sedan. Then I went in... to make a long story short, we had Subway for lunch, I took Lucia to a construction site, moved lots of blocks all around to prepare a picture , and then Lucia took an artistic picture of me in a gray suit acting confused at the top of a construction block pyramid, representing tecnology advances during the past years (it's for a photography contest she entered in the Imagine Cup). Then we went to her house, chatted for a while, and then I left for my house.

During the way home, I called Paula to ask her if I could go get the CD stickers from her, but it turned out she left them in her dad's car , so I got no stickers and went back home. As it was 4:30 already (rush hour), it was an AWFUL drive back home. It took me like an hour to get there, and I was all the while fighting and blinking hard not to fall asleep and crash into the car ahead of me (again). Lucky for me this car had a radio .

Once home, I showered again, chose my clothes for the concert, and waited for a while. My sister went to the gym and Rosa left for the bookstore, and I was kept home in case one of Elisa's friend came looking for her, so I could give him a message from her. I wasn't that much in a hurry to go to the concert, though... Diego said he'd leave for the concert at about 9PM. Still, I was anxious. In the meantime, Manfredo came back home and gave me my anti-fungus treatment for my toenails: 90 antibiotic pills, 1 pill daily, presumably enough to eliminate my ugly fungus problem. A Q477.55 treatment. After Rosa came back home, I left for the concert at about 7:50PM . Not without first bathing my hair in gel and spraying my face, hair, chest, arms, hands, and back with my Ultramarine lotion.

With no traffic this time, I got to the Air Force site at about 8:15 . I was just driving through the avenue, trying to find the right entrance, and then I saw a looong line of cars that ended right at an entrance. There were some guys and girls outside the cars , talking, who seemed all ready to go to a trance concert. OK, this is it, I thought. So I turned around, got in line, and went inside. I was charged Q20 for the parking space (shouldn't they just include that in the ticket price??), and parked my car . I singled out the right hangar because of all the people outside it and the intense music and lights coming out of it, and went inside. There was a sign that said "No reentry", so once I went inside, I was stuck there until it was time to go.

When I first entered, a guatemalan DJ called Francis Dávila was already mixing some tracks, although the audience was still a little scarce. I walked around, checked out the girls, some of them were checking me out, I saw a little circle with glowsticks some guys were playing around with, I felt cool for a while , but having no one to be with, I was compelled to sit down at a table in the corner and play "Treasure Towers" in my cellphone until my friends came. This part of the concert was kind of boring for me. I mean, the music was fine and all, but my social skills were still not enough to hook up with girls all by myself; therefore I got bored .

Pájaro & Diego got there at about 9:30PM , by which time I was already feeling out-of-place. DL got there too. However, even my new company failed to get me happy and talkative. Diego spent his time with her cute girlfriend, and Pájaro had his own circle of friends to be with. I hanged around with them for a while, but then I got bored again and went back to walking around the hangar. I even looked for Scarlet in the VIP section, but there was no sign of her. The concert was not at all turning out as I thought it would - I had no girl , no company, and I wasn't really feeling the music flow anymore. So then I followed the Chemical Brothers' advice and began to find how to get myself high.

I'm not a regular smoker at all, but tobacco has proven to be the quickest acting drug for me. So I went on to buy cigarettes, but they had already ran out. The salesmen told me that a few promotional girls were selling the last of them throughout the place, so I went looking for them. I didn't find them, but I found a girl smoking (4 in my scale), and I asked her if she had seen someone selling cigarettes. She said no, but gave me one anyway. Oh, I loved her. A single smoke intake was enough for me to begin feeling the music again. Oh yeah, it was nice. I smoked it all while lightly moving my body with the rhythm . I smoked the cigarette until it was almost out, and then found a guy pulling out one of his. I offered him a light with the last remaining fire of mine, but they said they already had some matches, and they even gave me another cigarette. Oh, I loved them too. I enjoyed this second cigarette's effect almost as much as the first.

After this second cigarette ran out, I suddenly ran into Wicho & Sosa. They were quite an unusual combination, but since I knew them fairly well, we got along together. We moved on to the front of the hangar to be the closest we could to the speakers. Wicho had brought a girl with him (7.5 in my scale), which I at first thought to be his girlfriend, but turned out to only be a friend that was a girl. "Bingo", I thought, now I got a girl . And at least I had her attention for a while - we exchanged a few lines, we danced to the music , we jumped around, and were going fairly well.

Time really passed on quickly while we were dancing and jumping, because suddenly, it was 11:20PM , and FINALLY, ATB replaced ol' Francis with a great rumbling cheer from the excited audience. We made our way as best as we could to the front of the hangar, and got as far as two people back from the audience barrier. ATB didn't really make such a big & loud entrance - it was actually a pretty smooth transition. Whether the music really got better or it was only a louder and more cheerful audience I couldn't tell, but the concert was suddenly at least 3 times better than before. We were all suddenly jumping around, shouting, flailing our arms like crazy, making weirdy smoothy movements with our hands, and thoroughly enjoying the whole thing. Cameras were flashing everywhere, lights were changing colors continuously, people were getting on top of each other - very exciting. I took up Wicho's girl (who was called Isidora, by the way) on my shoulders so she could actually see something besides other people's backs (she was pretty short). She eventually came down though, and met another guy whom she knew and didn't talk to me again in the whole night, even though I pushed her a bit to have some conversation. Darn the girl. Anyway, I was able to dance freely again. While at the front, we met up with Pájaro & Diego again, and got to see Diego's sister Lucia too.

I kept on dancing to ATB's music , jumping and shouting all the way until about 0030 , when Wicho said he needed some water, so Sosa & I went with him. They suddenly decided to go on to the VIP area, so I took the chance and went up with them. The VIP area was not at all as exciting as the general area - it was MUCH farther away, and had MUCH less excitement, but it was also much fresher and spacier. The girls didn't seem that much of a difference... I was expecting to see 6' blonde models all over the place, but it was not at all like that. It seemed more like the VIP audience was just like the general population, but all relaxed and cool, a little repressed if you ask me. Still, the abundant space made it possible for me to try some more dance moves, and so I did. By that time, I was so high with the music and energy all around that I really felt it inside me. I didn't need to think about my moves - I just did them. I jumped, I moved my arms, I flailed my neck around, I followed the music with total abandon. Oh man, it was AWESOME. I was already sweating it, but that just made it easier to pull my hair back in sleek style, and keep on dancing to the excellent music being mixed right there.

I decided to move around the place, and I was pretty surprised to find Pinto, Chazy, Palomo, Palomo's brother, Ates, & Chuba, all together around the same table. I talked a little with them, exchanged some cellphone numbers, and then just went back to the dancing. Oh I was so high. I felt some people looking at me since I was the person that moved the most in the VIP area, and I just kept on dancing. I was really filled with trance energy, when suddenly ATB announced "This is our last song for tonight!!", and everyone shouted "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!", and the song began. "Oh man", I thought, "I HAVVVVE to enjoy THIS one!", so I danced with the most energy I had inside of me. I jumped the highest, I moved the fastest, I flailed the strongest, I felt the smoothest. I took my shirt off for a while and flailed it around like crazy during the music's stronger parts, and had the best time I remember ever having. And then the song ended.

AND THEN THE MUSIC BEGAN AGAIN!!! I was SO HAPPY!!!!! I enjoyed every last second of the music ... I shouted, I screamed, I cheered, I bounced up and down, I moved as the music flowed, the lights were all around, the people were cheerful ... it was AWESOME!

And THEN the music ended. And that was it. ATB had given us about 20 more minutes of trance delight, for which I was VERY grateful, MAN. It was now about 2 in the morning . Oh well, the rest is boring. I met up with Pájaro again, he told me he had to go early because of a 5AM flight to Costa Rica he had that very day, but that Diego's car was blocking his way. Diego was too drunk to react properly, so we had to talk to him, persuade him, push him, remind him, and push him again until he left the hangar and went on to move his car . Whether Pájaro made it on time to his flight , I don't know, but I'd guess he did.

Last night was officially the best night I've had this year, and probably in my entire life. Next time, however, I'll be SURE to take a girl to the concert. Going solo was probably my WORST mistake, and even so, the night was so AWESOME that it beat every other night I can remember. Yeah, while I was dancing, I was thinking, "damn it, why didn't I invite Leslie or Geral? They like this sort of thing too!!". Well, no regrets. They say there's a trance concert in Guatemala like every two months, so I'll do my best to take a girl by then. Until next time.

Emoticons will be placed when I have access to a faster computer.

Gifts [Taken from Live Spaces Blog, 27 abril 2007, 16:50]

It occurs frequently in our society that when someone gets some sort of prize, graduates with some degree, reaches a certain age, has a baby, commits to get married, marries, or achieves some other socially-acknowledged tradition, people are expected to give something as some kind of reward to this singular person being honored, promoted, aged, reproduced, or enslaved (let's call this person Bob); this something being given is usually called a gift. Social tradition has it that this "gift" be either enclosed inside a folded, colorful, crispy, taped-together piece of paper, encased in a shiny box, surrounded by clean translucid plastic, and/or decorated with a bright, colorful ribbon, a process called "gift-wrapping" which is sometimes even described as an art. When Bob receives a gift, he is very seldom interested by its packaging, and is kept curious as to what the gift is until it is time to unwrap it. When this happens however, the packaging is swiftly removed, thrown out, and usually destroyed, and no thought is given either to the time invested in ornamenting the gift or to what the actual use of this packaging was in the first place, since a plain cardboard box would have served the same purpose and it would probably have served in the future for other gifts and packages to come.

The decision of which gift will be actually given can be even more time-consuming than the gift-arranging. It is very common to see clueless people (let's call them Alice) roaming around malls, wandering in supermarket aisles, searching every nook and cranny inside their own houses for nice, abandoned could-be-gift objects, and mostly racking their own brains out to figure out what she should reward Bob with. This process is complicated because the gift must be a very particular combination. If it is bought, it must be good enough (expensive enough) for Bob to like, but cheap enough for Alice to be willing to buy it. If it is handmade, Alice must make it complicated enough so that Bob thinks that Alice cares for him more than she actually does. Usually, the bigger and fancier, the better. Given situations in which the deadline for the gift is near, or when Alice cares about Bob much less than the gift implies, society has somewhat simplified the process and invented joker gifts: gifts which are both cheap enough and appropriate enough for most occasions! Photograph frames, flowers, balloons, pre-printed (Hallmark) cards, liquor, chocolates, candy, and T-shirts are high on this time-saving list.

After what I consider to be a cynical approach to the gift-giving tradition, I must say that though they have become quite a burden on some people, they have obtained a purpose in society already: showing appreciation. Of course, I believe that if people learned to communicate well with each other, this much resource-consuming, sometimes awkward tradition could very well be put to an end. Until this happens, these artificial presents make up for it.

Anyway, I felt obliged to buy a gift for someone yesterday. I appreciate this person, so I bought her a fancy box of chocolates at a convenient supermarket and had it gift-wrapped with a ribbon of her favorite color. But it seemed so artificial - I would've very much preferred to write what I think about her and give her the script, or give her something she could actually find useful... something that made sense, you know. So I found myself thinking about the subject... what would've she really liked? Nah, I couldn't figure that out. Then, what would I really like to receive?

I've gotten lots of gifts from other people (though I've given them far less), and if memory serves, the frequency of gift-types is as following (highest to lowest):

1. Clothes (Socks from relatives and shirts from the general public. Maybe pants and boxers are not that fashionable)
2. Food (Junk food from relatives, candy & chocolates from the general public)
3. Cash (Thank you uncles & aunts! That's never a bad idea!)
4. Toys (That seems like such a long time ago, mainly for Christmas)
5. Cards (most pre-printed, some real)
6. Electronics (two discmen. Hardly ever used them, really)
7. Lotion (I got that about twice... maybe they were trying to tell me something?)
8. Deodorant (From a classmate in high school. Definitely trying to tell me something)
9. Fancy pen (Thank you Ania!)
10. 1 Soroban (Huh? Look it up)

So what would I really like? I thought of the following:

1. Cash (Most people think cash's not a good gift - I disagree. I think it's a really really nice gift. No kidding... everyone, not just uncles & aunts. If you're unsure what to give me, cash's the way to go)
2. Invitation somewhere (Be it a coffee date, movie watching, party night, national roadtrip, international sightseeing, adventurous trek through the wild, or torrid love affair, I love going places. Just tell me what, where, when, and how much. (Covering my expenses would be a Very nice touch ;) )
3. Lessons on something (I like to learn, you know. And I'm not really picky about what I learn - I like science, music, swimming, karate, magic tricks, crochet... learning makes me happy)
4. Words (Though pre-printed cards are sub-optimal, I like to read anything said honestly about me. Even if you say "bad" stuff about me, I don't care... The Truth is good. Verbal stuff is just as good.)
5. Unexpected stuff (A person giving something weird is surely a person to learn something from)

And what wouldn't I like? Hmmm, let's see:

1. Photograph frames (That is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO not me. I rarely keep my pictures in non-digital media, and it seems to me to be the LEAST-thought out gift ever)
2. Clothes (I know people think it's a nice gift, but I like to keep a simple wardrobe. Clothes are overrated. A plain M/L white cotton T-shirt would be nice, though)
3. Unpersonal greeting cards (Those hurried "Congratulations on this very special day!" cards do not make much for me. I'd much rather have a hug or a smile)

Yeah, I think that does it. No offense meant to anyone, whether he/she has or hasn't ever given me a gift.