Could I actually miss Irish men?

I spent my last week in Ireland swearing of Irish men. Why? Well... with decent enough experience and of course in danger of doing a terrible generalization, I think Irish men tend to vanish. What!?

Maybe it is more than Irish men, but having been in several countries, this is the first time that such a thing happens to me and girls around so damn often.

Well... My boyfriend for 8 months did it, suddenly disappeared... the one for a month, same action... the one for few weeks, same action... and even the one that was only there for a few days. I met them all in different places, they are not related at all to eachother, they don't have the same jobs (sctors, barmen, investment bankers, IT men, musicians, marketers, designers...). Nothing else in common but being Irish... from Dublin, Roscommon, Galway, Cork... all the same.

I learned it fast: If an Irish guy says he will call on x day, and he doesn't, start thinking of the replacement... wait about a week and you have a definite answer, chances are that within the week he will call and act like nothing is wrong, but this is unlikely. It is totally irrelevant if you just met in a pub last week or of you are together for several months and have met his family, friends and you are already dreaming of a house with him. It seems you simply don't have the right to know what is going on unless you figure it out yourself. Yes, it was all brilliant, and suddenly it is like someone turns the switch and everything goes to hell. So it is better to immediately forget the human being in question, give it as little importance as possible, do not wonder (no matter what has to be done to achieve this one) and move on as soon as possible.

To my experience with Irish men, they are experienced practicioners of emotional terrorism, so once they are bored, found someone else, or whatever, they treat you like crap so you have to do the dirty work instead of facing the music to their actions; and for what I spoke with other Irish women, this is a general practice (!) which has taken many of them to do the triology practice often (or NY dating style which is not my style but seems to work fine for many), and according to other Irish men:

a)They accept it, and they have done it several times.
b)They tell me I am picking the wrong ones (these always ended up wanting to have something with me)

Some people reading might see my point and some others may not, but in any case, I learnt well in Ireland that I want a guy who has the balls to dump me properly and with a legitimate reason rather than vanishing, or telling lies when I break up with him for which I will find out the truth anyways. Things like "I don't feel anything anymore", "I am bored", "I met someone else", "I am back with my ex", "Actually, I have a girlfriend" amongs others, are legitimate reasons. Some more painful than others, but I would 100% prefer to hear any of these if they are truth rather than "We want different things in life but I swear I have never been with anyone else, I mean actually I am not even sure I am doing the right thing not being with you because you are so amazing". Even if you decide to belive it, it won't take too long to meet some girl randomly in town that works in the same place as he does and tells you he knows him, he has been chasing her for a while, she doen't like him but she shares the story that he swore he had broken up with his girlfriend (you) for her. Oh yes! Ireland is that small of an island! She shares the feeling with you that he is a terrible terrible man. Awesome, you actually knew it. At that point it doesn't matter anymore either.

So well... with such stories... could I be blamed to decide to take Irish men for friends for the rest of my life? They are great friends and terrible boyfriends to my experience so... And I guess it is not about being Irish (probably it happens every where), andit is not aout being a man either (girls also disappear or nevers answer back)... but anyways... the point in all this is why I suddenly miss them, Irish men.

I am landing in Belgium... as soon as I land I notice everything is again in Dutch... it seems that the 9 months in Dublin never happened... I am carrying a huge back pack and my purse. I get to the belt, and I load the whole 100Kg of my suitcases in a trolley all 3 huge bags of them (I was still so wasted from the last night in Dublin that I forgot one of them so I had to go ack to Brussels to pick up 20Kgs of clothes). I got them in the train, I got them off to change trains in Brussels midi. I could barely move. It took me 20 minutes to move 40 meters with all my stuff. Being in the main hall I was unable to move anymore... I am 48Kgs heavy and was dragging close to 100Kgs. I considering asking for help. No one even looks at me. I see the security men... they see me, as I am about to speak, they walk faster. I see some station personnel, and I ask for help. They cannot help me because that is not their job but they point me to the luggage area 30 meters ahead. "This would have never happened in Ireland!" I thought to myself realizing if one person dragged one of the trolley bags with me I could make it. I kicked the trolley to the luggage area, where another man looked at me funny, and after saying... I only need to get to platform three, he said he would try to find someone. So he did. A man appeared with a trolley, took my bags, dumped them on the platform and charged me 5 euro. In ICE I arrive to Germany. I am getting off and the driver closes the train doors. It gets into a battle in which I use my XXL bag which is almost my size in the middle of the door, so there is no way he can close while I can get my bags off the train. He didn't care I was screaming "Meine Taschen sind immer noch drin! Moment mal!". And as I achieved this, I repeated the brave action of getting a ca with all bystanders watching. Of course I loaded the cab on my own while the cabbie watched.

So it hit me. My last boyfriend was so nice to me before he turned into a pumpkin (turning into a pumpkin is the term Haley and I coined to determine the moment when an Irish man transforms from prince charming into a total bastard without any notice) that he wouldn't let me carry my own sandwish to the table. How many times in Dublin the cabbie helped me with my groceries, my luggage... How many times a man gave up his seat for me in a pub. How many times was I not told I am beautiful? How many times did I not make friends randomly in a pub? It hit me... I left all that behind in Ireland.

So I got home... it was Sunday and everything was closed. I missed Ireland yet a bit more. I went to an empty pub, so I didnt feel like drinking. Monday... same thing. I remembered here people only go out in the weekends. This was not a pub, it is a Kneipe. And in the city I didn't find anyone as cute or charming as any of my Irish boys. Damn...

And I missed him just for a fraction of a second. And I did what by all means I avoided the last three months: I wondered: What went wrong? Everything is so different again. Life starts on a new page again, and his name is not going to come anymore when I thought he'd be there until "The End".

Oh yes.... moving on. New blog design coming up for a new time in life.

To Gaillimh

For centuries people in western cultures have been living under the belief that indulging to the natural instincts will only drive us to lose our identity and meaning in the world. This belief at times is so embedded in our deepest thoughts that we wouldn’t be conscious enough to identify it and challenge it. We look up to those that do it and live in free spirit, and live through the small things that will really make their stay in this life satisfying and fulfilling.

Today it is a day to challenge status quo, to go with the instincts. To Gaillimh is what my instincts are pointing to now.

Cha robh dithis riamh a’ fadadh teine nach do las eatarra.
Two never kindled a fire but it lit between them.

Should I stay or should I go?

The Clash is in my head, singing to the question I am asking for too many things today. Ireland: Ireland... Should I stay or should I go? Him... Ireland... Should I stay or should I go?

Listen and read: Should I stay or should I go?

Stay:
I only start to discover the country and culture.
Industry of my interest is booming here.
The economy is stable and there are many jobs.
Music scene and party scene is brilliant.
You can find all the stuff from across the ocean.
English speaking.
A man that could have potential
People are really friendly.


Go:
Work permit, it binds me to a working field when I am considering a career shift.
Too expensive to live.
The weather is terribly sad.
All clothes look British (even Italian brands) and are ridiculously large or for chicks with no butt.
Men all those that randomly disappear that here, there are too many
People rarely connect.

Is it a matter of brain and character?

Some people say a smart man with a strong character will always be with a woman who is not as smart and with a softer character. Does that mean that if you are a woman with a strong character and a powerful brain, you will end up with someone somehow not as smart or with a special character like yours?

I refuse to believe it. I know some examples of successful relationships built of both remarkable individuals even if I must say that gathering evidence by personal experience, considering myself a decently smart woman with a rather strong character; and looking at my friends who are not less than me, we haven’t been able to have a long lasting relationship with any of the remarkable men we have spent some time with.

I had this discussion with many of my good friends… why would I try to be with someone who is not special? Someone who I wouldn’t consider equal or better than me in particular aspects of life?

I certainly wouldn’t, and therefore the men I have been with have always been excellent at something and have had a personal interest and passion for something, which could be considering something similar to me and most of my friends, what brings us together or apart. And yes, most of the people I consider remarkable are single and/or confess to have a real problem to commit (to a relationship, to a country or a job) because they think/feel that this long term commitment implies they would renounce to certain dreams or ambitions that they certainly want to pursue.

Is our drive to achieve and to remain independent, free and flexible to be successful at something of our choice pushing us to believe that we don’t need unconditional love anymore? Why is it that most of us gave up “happily ever after” to take “as long as it lasts”?

Do we do it to preserve that sense of freedom, sometimes fake or is “until death tear you apart” something that became awfully eternal and impossible to manage? Have we become too selfish?

Think of all the recklessness people have to handle each other and their emotions. Most people are reckless to eachother and they will make wonder to those who are not. If everyone is reckless to hurt me, why would I care not to hurt them?

Is caring nowadays a quality that only belongs to certain people with a higher level of humanity?

Is our thirst for success keeping us apart from being human? Are we so fixated in our personal progression that we are reducing our interactions with others to the mere completion of our basic physical and social needs? Is that fixation what causes the so well known inability to feel or feel to feel something for one another we all so much talk about? Could it be what creates a void and a lack of intimacy in most young people despite the incredible connexions that today’s world enables?

Maybe it doesn’t depend on the brains or character we have, but in our individual ability and willingness to get involved…

Brussels stations

As I went by all the dark stations of Brussels many memories came to my mind. Beautiful times preceding times of change. I never thought after those days I'd never be the same.

What is the real value of intensity?

One morning a couple of years back, I woke up with the following question on my head: Is this it?
For some reason, even if life was good, I had the feeling I was missing out on something... I heard myself making a statement like "I want much more from life" and taking life changing decisions when I realized I couldn't live a life or such "normality", it was like an emotional straight line, and I felt trapped into something where there would neve be a rush again, and the fast lane was slowly becoming something for others. I had a life that was too much under control.

The decisions I took, brought me to another country, a whole different set of friends, and to the conscious desicion of letting myself feel things as they came, to open up to people for them to see who I am, and yes, I was in a very fast lane, where many things were happening and changing, and emotions were a roller coaster. I experimented intense love, delirious happiness, fear, anxiety, hope, disapointment and the deepest grief I have ever felt. And then I felt exhausted. It became difficult to manage my own thoughts that at time were so unrestful that I would beg my own brain for peace... for silence.

I saw myself strugling for that silence, for the achievement of individual balance despite everyone around, creating barriers not to let them break in the center of me as they had done before, I told myself I was balanced and indifferent to all the things, people and situations I couldn't change. I "let go" of all the passions that had been consuming my energy (or at least I told myself I did) I didn't want to feel anymore of that insatiable desire I had. It was hard to accomplish...

Today I live in that "balance" that today I challenge saying: Is this mental state harmonious balance or did all the intensity turn into indifference? Is it real balance or is it the bruises from feeling in the past?

I miss the intensity every now and then, but now I know its cost. If I am talking about experiencing two extremes; does the middle point really exist? Could it be that this is it? Is this the middle point? Will I be able to experience that level of intensity again? What is a better life? One lived through all the intensity, its blessings and curses or one lived in apparent balance, where nothing challenges the internal status quo that has finally achieved self satisfaction?

Wisdom and poetry on the walls

Genuine Creator

She is gone

I miss my AI friends. I do. I miss them as much as I normally miss Rafael or Zsolt. It has been hard to get used to live without them. To wake up one day and be all spread all over the world.

We have kept good contact with eachother, and of course there are some that I chat with every other day (Ondro, Gee, Michelle, Jeanne...). It is quite amazing the way some of them can read my reactions, how well they know me in a way. And as I am almost two months away from AI, and as many of us are working through figuring our future in very different places, I do miss the type of conversations we used to have, that special closeness.

Coming to Dublin (where there is no other former AI member) and to work for Accenture (not a global partner) was my way of deciding to finish with that cycle of my life. To really snap out of that what was a confortable environment because I've thought "it will happen anyway, so I'd better be conscious about it when I do it".

Accenture is amazing. I couldn't enjoy it more, but it is tough to have to proof yourself after a long time in which your name was almost a brand, it had a history, and it implied a certain warranty on the quality of your work, on your mentality, your potential and performance. It is something meant to happen when you become an alumn after almost seven years, but sometimes it is not the easiest.

I haven't had much time to reflect since I arrived in Dublin. It has been crazy. The whole legal stuff, finding an appartment, getting used to a new organization, a new boss and colleagues, absorbing a whole lot of information on a new role... but I did start realizing few days back, that I am a bit lonely, that I do miss my friends, that I so wish someone here could understand where I am coming from, why I sometimes come up with crazy ideas or why I have a developed obsession to recruit people from diverse backgrounds, why many times I have to figure the big picture of everything to break chuncks of activities in to simple ones to know why I am doing them and why they make sense.

Yes, my future is slowly shaping into the way I have pictured it, but it is still hard to start a new life, it is hard to do with with all of your close friends far away.

This weekend, Michelle came to visit me. It has been a really long time since I had so much fun. We did so many things, and "met" so many people. We discovered together many new places in the city, and I mean... it was simply cool to have a friend that just by seeing me, she knows who is annoying me and why, when one of my smiles is fake, why certain things are very difficult for me, she understands my self absorbed jokes in a club and laughs at them, that even knows all my eating manias, someone with whom all walls are off, because she has seen me in my best and the worst moments, someone that understand my fixation for certain things in life and we simply could talk while enjoying time in the way we both most enjoy.

The only problem now, is that now that she is gone, the loneliness is not anymore an idle thought that comes briefly and goes away. Now it is there, fixed. I feel lonely and I miss my friends. I could even say I miss The Netherlands.

Music speaks for memories, speaks for feelings

It is the tenth cold night in Dublin. It is as cold as it was January in the first week of October. And the time is there to sit and reflect once again. To remember the moments of intensity in life, those that make you feel alive after a hard day after which you are emotionally numb. I go back to music...

In my life they tend to be decorated with music, that with words in different languages or with no wors at all, when you listen to special songs, special moments will come back. Moments that make life special, more than it already is.

2000 - Music spoke to me in Dutch to picture the biggest moment of sadness. The moments of saying goodbye. Of feeling the biggest space that could ever been felt. The desire to be with someone and the purest love ever felt.



2002 - Music spoke to me in French. While in an Opera house life took a funny twist. Few weeks filled with intense feelings that were not ment to be, but let us asking the moon what was the meaning of it all.



2004 - Music spoke to me with U2. To realize that when the moment is gone, saying sorry changes nothing, the feelings are gone leaving you the memory of something sweet and wondering why the words that were meant to be said were not said at the right time.



2006 - To realize that the greatest love can die when too many things happen in between and the small things are forgotten. It becomes one boring routine with two paths that go two ways appart. There is no fresh re-start. And the worst thing that can happen to you is waking up wondering if there is more to life.



2006 - Music sometimes has no words, some people don't speak that much. It has a deep and meaningful story though. I thought he was weird like me. He thought he had a past like mine. Two crazy people in their own way. We lived briefly in a magical world in which we could become better and do something with meaning for others.



2007 - Love changes its color from pink to become yellow. The realization that the most important and greatest things can happen naturally and filled with peace. The comfort of knowing who you both are and trusting it. It worths bleeding yourself dry.

Missed chances

And one morning, at 6.30 AM the phone rings. What once you gave is offered to you. It is what you always wanted, but your brain takes too long to realize this. When it finally happens it is gone... you didn't take your chance. If I had... the worst situation ever... regret.

Of networking tools and screaming in Maltese

Netowrking tools. It doesn't matter how much I try to avoid them, I have to have more and more of them as each different social circle of mine uses one, so in the end the distribution goes as follows:

Linked in: For my older AIESEC friends
Facebook: for the global trotters
Xing: For the Germans
MySpace: For the Americans
Bebo: For the Irish
IWIW: For the Hungarian

And so, I have ended up hating almost all of them, except Facebook, which I love, because so much is on there and its magnificent user interface. So as I have heard of many others, I have refused to add more. It is already stupid to be subscribed to six of them. But all in all, I never found any of my classmates from back in Mexico in them, and I seriously started wondering, why it was that they had not integrated in the global fad of internet networking tools. Theories many, until talking on MSN to Elisa, a very old friend, she told me the trick: They all are in yet another networking tool. Hi5... Oh no! No more. Elisa shared hers with me to see some pictures, and then I realized how many people from school were there, and so I ended joining. In the end, it is weird to find out your best friend is pregnant 5 months late in an idle night in a random conversation with someone else.

The new experience of reconnecting to the people I grew up with and whom I barely contacted in the last 7 years has brought several discoveries... about 70% is already married, 20% are engaged and 10% are pursuing a second degree. 90% is still in Mexico. As always they make me feel old and nuts.

So these were my thoughts before coming to Dublin. It seems to be a city full of movement, of which I have not discovered much more than migration offices and what was included in a city tour I decided to take yesterday to have a geographical notion of what there is to see and where is what.

I have been hanging out with people from AIESEC and staying in the MC flat untill I find a place to live and Nathan comes back to Ireland from Spain as I really know absolutely no one. That is the only way you are living in a flat with 8 more people and waking up on a Sunday morning to the sound of arguing in Maltese. Yes, the start of a new life.

Next week, work in Accenture starts.

Missing someone?

Yes, this is the latest question in my head. Few days ago, I was sitting behind a bar talking to Aidan, the only thing I knew about was his name and we started a deep conversation on several topics around life, specifically how a place like Rotterdam starts if not feeling like home, it becomes a place that is special for all the things that happened there and that define you as an individual. After few drinks down, and as the honesty of drunk people develops (Nathan was saying good bye to everyone he knows before going back to Ireland, and that means walking around a lot and talking to a large amount of people that were there just to say good bye to him) he asked: Do you know what is really weird about you? – What? – I asked – Well, that you live so far away from your family and you have like no plans to go back to Mexico or even see them soon and you are cool with it? – Oh, I know it is kind of weird, but I don’t miss people – I said matter of fact – Will you miss him when he leaves? – He said, looking and Nathan – Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t usually miss people in the common sense, I may think of them… I guess I am a cold fish – Aidan smiled – I guess you are.

And that brought me back to think when the last time I had the feeling was I missed someone…

If I remember correctly it was sometime end of September or beginning of October last year, when my back then boyfriend had a week business trip to Finland. I remember I didn’t expect to miss him. I remember he called before taking the plane in Amsterdam. I remember I thought that was sweet, and that very often in the week I looked across the office to his empty desk and wondering what he could be doing. I called it by then “a gap”, and I think that the whole thing was that, since we were working together, we spent lots of time in front of each other, and I was feeling he had left kind of a space behind. I learned how to say I missed him in his language. I remember I was extremely happy to see him as he was back. I remember he said he had missed me (the only “emotion” related thing he ever told me) and he gave me a little souvenir. Same happened when he went to Spain. And those little things I carried with me to every trip until the point when we broke up and they moved to my box of memories. My little gifts for him were left behind when he left equivalent to the bin (which made me feel awesome really – I hope you hear the tone of sarcasm in this, because I felt like shit when I found that sketch among my stuff), so I guess he doesn’t and didn’t miss me. That was a really emotionally intense relationship, at least for me.

So is it that empty feeling what I would say is “missing someone” or does that also evolve? I don’t think I call it missing someone anymore… I think literally missing someone, like I did with that guy requires that level of emotional intensity, a kind of attachment to a person, that makes you feel incomplete when that person is not there. But if after such a relationship I ended up more empty than I was before it… is it really a healthy way?

And the point is that now I think I miss, leaving him on the train station to go back home was sad, but by no means is it compared to the whole classic description from the story above. I think as I can say I miss him, this missing him is not coming from my emotions as it is coming from my brain, not saying I have no emotions, but it is less passionate and more rational. I remember his smile, the fun times we’ve had together, sharing the every day stories with him, laughing, the deep conversations, the honest conversations, the sweet surprise coming from discovering imperfection and embracing it, crying, smoking, the certainty that openness gives you… Don’t know… Let’s say that if in the first case I was feeling a gap left (lot’s of wondering and compulsive thinking), right now I feel… a more peaceful yet strong desire to have what we have together, it is becoming more rather than having the illusion of becoming complete.

Oh yeah, we will be long distance only for few weeks more, the islands are our destiny. And thanks to science, we have the possibility of writing each day and calling 30 minutes each night. I can’t wait till the next time I see him.

Mo chroí, cronaím thú.

And again... shame on me, shame on me...

Truth, hard truth... decided to believe. Bad, bad... at least I get used to it.

This time I heard words, actions meant something else. The outcome didn't change. Slap back.... reality.

If you fool me once, shame on you. If you fool me twice, shame on me.

For Who deceives me once, God forgive him; if twice, God forgive him; but if thrice, God forgive him, but not me, because I could not beware.
[1611 Tarlton's Jests (1844) 11]

Notes from my journal - The first days in AI

As I keep bringing stuff back home from Rotterdam, I keep reviewing things from the past year. I have found my transition journal. I changed so much since then, and looking back at things, many things went well, others went terribly wrong... In any case... here are my notes from the first transition week.

Day One
Brodie: There is no other room... we are the ultimate responsibles for this organization.
-I have felt the weight of responsibility.

Brodie: All of you are here because you are the best for your position.
-No more wondering. The previous team sets their trust on us.

Rest of week one and week two
*I lost the fear not to have my professional expectations met.
*I get along very well with all my roommates.
*I am slowly getting to know all my teammates. Jeanne, Gabiza, Gee and Amit are clearly my closest friends here. Also Michelle.
*The local jokes and good times with Gee help me through the boring time in the board room.
*I feel motivated and inspired for this year.
*My teammates gave me a nickname. The call me Mo!
*In the end I do have a need for space.

Back for real

Sometimes very hard things need to happen in order to feel like you are back in your own skin.
You see your naked soul, you visit the limits of all the emotions you can experience, and it is when you lose control, when you trully let go of everything when you hit rock bottom.

You realize that personal definition is a continuous path and the sheet can be blank again.

Can one really get to a point in which one can say one is trully self aware? Can one really reach a point in which personal awareness and acceptance is such that one achieves true harmony, balance and freedom?

Sometimes you feel you have lost yourself and you don't have an idea of who you are anymore. It is that point, the lowest point, when you realize that there are people that love you, not because of who you are, not because of what you do for them, not because of the constant effort you can do to be nice, to meet what you assume were their expectation of you, because of a promise of unconditionality you made, but because they simply love you and who you can become because they saw into your soul when everything was going so fast in circles that you lost comprenhension.

It is the consequence of an unspoken promise. To be there no matter what. To slap you to come back to your senses. To hug you in the deepest of your pain. To take you back home. To make you breakfast and help you put all the pieces together and make you feel home. To stand up for you when no one else will. To leave a party to be on the phone across the continent at 5am to share your sorrow. To understand that sometimes you didn't know how to do any better. To help you find peace of mind. To bring you back to your own skin.

You know who you are. I love you.

Today after many months I opened my eyes and I had peace. I am back in myself. The ghost is finally gone. In a horrible night I asked it to leave. He left, and I am back for real.

Déjà Vu

It is early in the morning and I am in Rotterdam Central Station. I am extremely tired. I didn't sleep too much, as I decided to spend time with people I care for and I might never see again in a few weeks time. I met someone interesting and nice, but now it makes no sense, it is time to move on. Yet again. My arms hurt for the heavy weight I have to carry in my two large suitcases. I am once again in a transition phase. I'm moving countries, changing my life 100%, cutting the strings. I am a bit older, and hopefully a bit wiser. My suitcases have my clothes and my head is full of thoughts, full of life lessons.

But there is something different this time. I know in this move everything will be different, because it is determining the end of a phase of my life. An epoque. This year was different, and I am now different.

I've barely had time to understand and grasp all that has happened to me. It has been so much. It has changed me so much. No fear to say it was as exciting as difficult.

I arrived in Rotterdam knowing exactly who I was. I am strating to leave Rotterdam with a new road ahead, to discover who I became, for the first time going somewhere, where no one knows who I have been.

Looking above

Last night, as I was walking back home from dinner at Araz's and Gee's I took the regular way home: The big street, in front of central station, channel street and home.

Since few months, I have realized that every time I walk down the channel street I get very reflective. I simply cannot stop it. As I walk down that street, I go by looking at the cars and in the windows of those houses that for my taste are way too low (you can actually see the kitchen's sealing of one of them not higher than my hips) and the channel itself is also quite distracting. But last night I didn't start that way. Maybe because I had just eaten a large amount of Mexican food at my friends' just before I didn't sink in my thoughts and I looked at the higher part of the houses, the roofs.

And then I was able to see the typical Dutch architecture of those houses, all of them. The stairs facade, the red bricks with white lines, the narrowness of the buildings... and then a thought came to my mind "I am in Europe". Big realization after four years right?

But the point is that in my mind a picture came of the world, in which I could see how far away Mexico and Europe were. I remembered the moment few years back when in the Eiffel Tour I first realized the existence of this 15 000 Km. I remembered how 20 years back, opposite to now, I thought the world was immense... Europe was something that came every now and then on TV, something maybe I would never see with my own eyes. Later on only 10 years back as I was watching the French world cup it was the same, I thought - Will I ever go to France?- I decided I would once, maybe after I finished my Bachelors'. Who would have thought that only four years down the line I would move to the US, go for the first time to Europe, where I would end up living, France would be something that I do few times a year and that I would have discovered many other European countries I love.

So tonight, having dinner in The Netherlands, having dinner with a Canadian and a Hungarian (something that wouldn't come to my mind back in 96 either) I realize once again how Europe became my home, so much that I never look above any more, but I should.

And it is July 4th, American Independence Day. A day in which each year my life changes. Let's see what's up for the menu today.

Happy spoiled weirdo

Hearing people talk in the office and all around, casually, without any deeper meaning, made me think a lot. And also yesterday while hanging out I had a couple of realizations. One tied with the other made the closure of my reflexion (what? reflexion? Yes, I know you would not normally attach this word to my attitude towards life, but I have been pretty reflective lately, considering that I reflect not by going to meditate, do Aikido, or others, but simply... I think while I am carrying on with normal life) and that has brought me to a pretty good state of mind.

In the office, person A tells to person B "Are you bringing everybody?" before leaving the office.

The maybe innocent question of this person to the other made me think... so who is everybody and who is not? According to Webster's dictionary "everybody" simply means "everyone". But the tone of the person talking implied there was a separation between the two people holding the conversation and the rest of all human beings in this world, something like "us and them". Which made me think, so how or under which criteria do people belong in "us" or "them"?

For the last decade (no overreaction, I started thinking about this at 15 and I am 25) I have been struggling to understand why people create differences and barriers, where being all human beings,biologically , there are not many.

So... in the community where I grew up, "us" was reducing the total community to the population with certain charachteristics such as education level, level of income, coming from a "good" family, among others. And my question has always been, so... does every individual in this case, have any free will on weather they will belong to "us" or "them"? Not really. It is just a matter of pure luck (or you can call it God, or fate, or as you like the most). The point is that no one chooses where they are born, and therefore I considered the whole "us" and "them" thing as something totally unfair, as only later in life and in an accomodated position you can have a choice. Also, ever since, I consider myself as a pretty lucky person that has been spoiled in many different ways by life. From many things a young person can have around I have only had the best without doing much more than being born and doing what I consider right and fair. Materially speaking, what I did not have, I always had the opportunity to get it through effort ( I have been thought that things are not for free by not getting absolutelly all I want). And yes, even if this year has been particularly hard on me, still I am a spoiled brat of my fate to the luxurious point of having the possibility to choose many things, like the people around me so choosing when I am "us", when I am "them", or to consider the whole groupping concept as something ridiculous.

Still, society keeps making smaller and smaller groups, so in a group of let's say 100 people at school, you had the cool ones, the nerds, the ones that do lots of sports and the ones mom's didn't want around and the rest. The first group was elected on popular choice based on unknown reasons; the second ones were shy, bad at sports, knowing too much and taking the side of the teacher; the third group was self explanatory; the fourth group was chosen by my mother (based on brother doing drugs, having the fame of being a slut, her mother is annoying, her family is separated and many others) and so as the rest. I was with the sporty kids (other suprise for some perhaps?) because we were playing ball all the time, so eventually by playing all the time with the naturally talented that were gifted with patience, I became good as well.

Yes, humans have the necessity to group, even on stupid reasons, like those boys groups at school that have a sort of boss that decides which boy can play and which boy cannot based on the mood he woke up with. The others will think he is cool, while in most cases it is only a bigger boy that learned more tricks to abuse the others and keeps them living in horror under his command. And when someone is not admitted automatically in the team they certainly will have to proof themselves before asking for membership. Once in the team they will respect the rules (or any random desire of the boss when admiration to the big kid has developed), and when someone is not supposed to be in the team no one in the team will be friends with him because he has not been granted permission to join, if they are friends with that person they will be out of the team automatically. No offence boys, girls do this too.

How often do we try to proof ourselves to belong in a group? Yes... the need of acceptance, a powerful one will make us do things we don't want to fit in. But is it not funny that once we are in a group of any size we struggle to keep being different? To understand what is our uniqueness? To come out of the pattern of being "everyone"?

What a paradox, fighting to belong to everyone you will then fight to be different from everyone which to my experience will make you feel like you are weird.

Am I weird? Maybe... But when you are in a party talking all night to someone, you look around and you realize this is the hottest guy in the party, or at least that's what you think, and you bless on your weirdness because somehow he thinks this weirdness is kind of cool when you were simply floatng without caring too much.

So yes, I am a happy weirdo spoiled by life without enough problems to fill all my time, to think such complicated random things instead. Thanks to luck.

Arrogance

People filled with arrogance, may think the others are not as smart as they are, and that they are unable to see what is really going on, they lie, thinking that others are unable to understand what is happening. Unfortunately for arrogants, there are people as smart as they are and that can see things well beyond what they think people can... they are just like anyone else, but they believe too much of themselves... They think those are arrogant without realizing they are just that.

Deciding to die

She wrote the letter. The moment of brief happiness caused her to have different thoughts about the need to die, but she had taken the pills and it was too late to look back.

In any case she had ha brief moments of happiness like that one before, and she was not killing herself because she was a sad bitter woman that lived constantly as victim of constant depression. She had spent many afternoons of her life walking care free on the streets of Ljubljana or looking from the window of her room in the monastery, the snow falling on the small square where there was the statue of the poet. Once she had been floating on the clouds almost for a month because a stranger, in the center of that same square had given her a flower.

She considered herself a perfectly normal person. Her decision to die was based on two very simple reasons, and she was sure that if she would leave a note explaining them, many people would be able to understand.

First reason: Everything in her life was the same and once her youth was over, decadence would come, age would leave un-erasable marks, sickness would come and her friends would go away. In the end, stay on living was adding no value, doing so was just increasing the chances to suffer.

The second reason was more philosophical: Veronika read the newspapers, watched TV and was informed about everything happening in the world. Everything was wrong, and she could do nothing about it, which was giving her a useless feeling.

Shortly, nevertheless, she would have the last experience of her life: death. She wrote the letter to the magazine, and left the issue on the side, she focused on more important things and more according to what she was living - or dying - en that minute.

She tried to imagine how would it be to die, but she got no result. In any case, she didn't have to worry about that, as she would know it in a few minutes. How many minutes? She had no idea, but she liked to think she would know the answer to was always asking: Does God exist?

Opposite to many, this had not been the greatest inner discussion on her life. In the old communist regime, official education affirmed that life was finished with death.

Being twenty four, and after having lived all she was allowed to - recognized it had to be that it wasn't little -, Veronika had almost absolute certainty that everything was finished with death. That's why she had decided to die: Freedom, in the end. In forgetfulness forever.

In the bottom of her heart she still had the question: And what if God exists? For thousands of years civilizations had made of suicide a taboo, an offense to each religious code: Mankind fights for survival and not to let go. Humankind must reproduce. Society needs a labor force. A couple needs a reason to stay together, even if love has extinguished, and a country needs soldiers, politicians and artists.

"If God exists, which I honestly don't believe, he must know that mankind's understanding has a limit. It was Him who created this chaos, where misery, injustice, greed and loneliness reign. His intention must have been excellent but the outcome was horrible."

Taboos and superstitions can go to hell. Her religious mother would say: God knows the past, the present and the future. And in this case he would have placed her in this world in full knowledge that she would end up killing herself, and he wouldn't be surprised.

It would be a beautiful memory of this life: The sunset, the melody her cozy room, the handsome and full of life young man that had passed, had decided to stop and was coming towards her. She could notice the effects of the pills, and he certainly would be, the last person she would see.

He smiled and she smiled back; she had nothing to lose. He greeted her, and she pretended she was looking at something else. Confused he went on his way to forget forever that face on the window.

Veronika was satisfied she was desired once more. It was not lack of luck the reason for her suicide. Nor the lack of affection from her family, nor financial problems, or an incurable desease.

Veronika decides to die
Paulo Coelho

What is it that I miss?

The Sun is shinning in Rotterdam. People look happy and spend more time outside. I learn the perspectives a man has when he has only seen me few days while working. What do my appearance and my attitude project towards him? Why does he think that? Interesting theories and lots of laughter.

The burning questions that were since always anticipated are in my head as present as never before. Where will I go? What will I do? What do I miss and how do I need to bring it to my life? What are the things that I will finally leave behind? And what do I have finally to take forward? I don't miss what I thought I did, but I know something unique has to take that place, that might be empty for long.

On a sunny day on my regular routine I am on my way out of the AI office and I see two bikes stacked against one another. An incredible amount of thoughts gets triggered... only two more months in The Netherlands. Happy? Sad? Excited? Upset? Wondering? Going to the gym? Trying to spend time with people? Sometimes I feel like being alone, but how to waste the time I have left with the people I care for?

I sat with Michelle outside, under the Sun, and sharing the thoughts in our heads for the last few days in which all our time is taken. So much is going on so fast.

Switching gears

As transition in the AI office has started the switch of gears on my team has become notorious. For some weeks now, the future has become a recurrent topic in all our discussions, and yes, we can feel the certainty... in two months it will be over.

Not only our AIESEC time will be over (and after almost 7 years of AIESEC in my case it is a tremendous change in life) but we know we won't be able to be together again in a long time...

As the new team is having a "take off" weekend and you can sense the huge amount of energy they have, we had a "landing" night, consisting of cheesy songs, drinking games and copious amounts of alcohol that culminated in a visit asking us not to sing so loud.

Some of our teammates are in the new team, some of us had to leave (as my personal life kept calling my moobile for me to stop running away from it and finally sort it out) and others stayed till the end.

I have come with some big decisions. And in these two months I want to spend the most I can with my friends, as Ryan said himself "my family".

Love - Passion - Obsession

Love

“A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.”
Mohandas Gandhi

“And think not you can direct the course of love; for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”
Khalil Gibran

“He is not a lover who does not love forever.”
Euripides

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear the pain of loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.”
Tanis HalfElven

Passion

“Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.”
Angela Monet

“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. ”
Carl W. Buechner

“Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things.”
Denis Diderot

“One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested.”
E. M. Forster

“It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.”
Rebecca West

Obsession

“Passion is a positive obsession. Obsession is a negative passion.”
Paul Carvel

Just as our taste in lovers is far more revealing than our choice of friends, the object of an artist's obsession can open up doors to their soul that might otherwise remain shut tight.
Vince Aletti

The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.
Henry Moore

A posse ad esse

Is Schonheit alles? Sie kann alles sein für die Menschen die glauben dass sie sie nicht bessessen. Alle glauben dass gut aussehende Menschen haben perkekte Lebensgeschichten nur weil sie schon sind. Aber wer denkt dass schon zu sein kann su einen Problem werden? Nicht viele.

Ich weiß nicht wenn dass war. Der Tag in dem ich entscheiden habe dass auch wenn ich nicht der schonste Mensch der Welt bin, konnte ich gut aufpassen um so gut wie möglich auszusehen, es schädet niemanden, und ja... ich dachte dass gut aussehende Menschen schaffen Freundschaften schneller, haben mehr Spaß und... es wäre einfacher erfolgreich zu sein, keine Ahnung was dass bedeuten konnte. Endlich ich mag auch den gefühl dass ich kriege, wenn ich im Spiegel sehe und denke „Ja, du kannst dich nicht schämen, es passt“.

Wenn ich in meine Vergangenheit sehe... ich bin ja sehr viel verändert. Es gibt nichts viel mehr von die scheu, leise Mädel die kein Make up trägt, sich überhaupt nicht über Kleidung kümmert aber über alle Themen sprechen kann und nur ein Paar Freundinen hat, mit dennen sie Basketball spielt und über der ein Jung spricht Jahrenlang obwohl er sie nie merken wird. Aber wer bin ich geworden? Was ist eigentlicht diese Jahr passiert?

Nach 10 Monate mit den selben Menschen es ist sehr schwer zu entdecken dass sie vielleicht keine Ahnung haben von wer ich bin. Der Bild dass viele von dennen über mich haben tut weh. Es sieht so aus als die einzige gute Eigenschaft dass ich zum Team mitgebracht habe ist dass ich schon bin, außerdem es sieht so aus als ich ein oberflächiges und unfrohiges Mensch wäre dass kein Glück im Leben findet. Eine die nie genug haben konnte, und mein Freund zu sein... es muß eine sehr schewere Tätigkeit sein. Ist es wirklich so? Ich habe es gehört vom Menschen dass ich als Freunde wertete, und vielleicht der einzige dass mich besser kennen konnte glaubt an dieselbe Geschichte.

Wie so interessiert mich wass andere Menschen denken? Was konnte ich tun um diese Gedanken zu verändern? Auch wenn nicht alles richtig ist, es gibt Gründe vor alle diese Urteile und ein paar dieser Menschen sind für mich wichtig und ich würde hassen wenn sie so was über mich denken. Ich würde für dennen anders sein, ein bisschen anders das ist. Vielleicht muß ich mehr Zeit mit ihnnen verbringen auch wenn ich wenig Zeit habe, mich um alle meine Beziehungen zu kümmern.

Wieder in einer wirtschafliche Entscheidungspunkt. Was sind Kosten, und was wird zu eine Investition?

One year later...

You have a zillion movies that at some point present you a short blck screen shot with white text in the middle reding "One year later", and then you will see the same characters that appeared in the scene before the black screen in a similar or diferent situation.

One year ago, Rafael and I were sitting on the Elisebrunen park, in the center of Aachen, after I had come back from Mexico. I told him the stories of my family, or my recent election to AIESEC International, my moving to Rotterdam, and my sentenced to end relationship with my long term boyfriend, while I was spending most of the time since I came back, sitting at home and getting pleasure and entertainment from Stumble, while chatting long hours with my new teammates, sometimes untill very late at night. On the other hand, Rafi had just come back from Poland, he was complaining bitterly about university and of missing his girlfriend. Together we were wondering what would happen to us next, where would we be one year from then.

So today, one year later aproximately we sat again on a sunny spring day on the Elisebrunenpark and life is very different and very much the same at the same time. We wonder why somethings never change and why others have changed so much and so fast.

This is the last weekend Rafael will be in Aachen. Yesterday he turned in his thesis, and he has got an internship in Bonn where his girlfriend also will work, their long distance tragedy is over to bring them new and interesting life situations. The tables have turned when he is the one with the stable life and my life is absolutely gone from stable to... I don't even know how to call the situation in which you have absolutely no clue of where you will be in the next few months and barely can tell who I can trust and who after one entire year actually got to know me, who has changed me profoundly... I guess that happens when you cut the strings that attached you to the last stable relationship I had in my life one year ago. One thing has not changed... we both are broke, despite the interesting presumptions of some people saying my dad provides meof an endless budget.

Zsolti will be in Budapest and Rafi in Bonn, no idea where I will be, but in any case I guess too far from them.

Found this in internet. Pretty summarizes many thoughts of the year...

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithlessand therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day,and if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!” It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Fashion, the inside reflected outside

Fashion and its design are a shape of art, they use a variety of techniques to allow people to express the truth about their unconscious minds by way of their living. Think about it, what is the personal opinion people have of themselves and how much is it reflected on the clothes they use? It is a lie to say only those wealthy are able to determine a personal style and feel comfortable with the image they have in their world, as creating and representing this image is only a matter of creativity and awareness.

To create wearable personality designers use fabric, cut, colour, scale, references to the past, texture, color harmony, distressing, transparency, insignia, accessories, beading and embroidery. It is also used to find the average size of things, to make a product suitable for a high number of customers, hence you have the existence of trends.

Fashion as a term usually applies to a prevailing mode of expression, but quite often applies to a personal mode of expression that may or may not apply to all. Inherent in the term is the idea that the mode will change more quickly than the culture as a whole. The terms "fashionable" and "unfashionable" are employed to describe whether someone or something fits in with the current popular mode of expression. The term "fashion" is frequently used in a positive sense, as a synonym for glamour and style. In this sense, fashions are a sort of communal art, through which a culture examines its notions of beauty.

Appreciating fashion is sometimes judged as superficial, materialistic and empty... For me it is more a way to appreciate art, to create a lifestyle and a system of believes to represent yourself as an individual in a society. Caring about this external aspect of your individuality is not really a crime. Doing good and looking good are not in a fight of principles, thus:

You can look good (taking care of the clothes you wear, of the state of your body and your mind) and save the world in your own way. Or you can save your world in your own way without taking care of anything of the rest.

No, fashion is not the business of balance, spirituality and inner beauty, yet it is a multi billion dollar industry covering different needs of an individual, and it goes far beyond clothing.

People that create and direct fashions have the power to influence others and their lifestyles, it can be a real way of impact. The hardest change to cause is that that will involve a change in the attitudes, habits and behaviours of people, fashionistas and trendsetters do have some say in it.

Of victory and failure

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It is a fact of life. A door closes and a window opens. It is time to leave AIESEC. The hitlist has been written. Ready to go. Back to corporate life in 4 months. Again new people and a new country with a new perspective on life. Some chances are already there, some one must find, in any case the hunt has started. No pain, no gain.

The Sun is shining in R'dam. The spring has come hopefully to stay. New places to discover, old places filled with memories to revisit. Time to find a partner in crime for them.

A dive in the male brain

For centuries women have gathered to discuss the same issue. Nowadays we do it in "girls night", with cocktails in a bar, or complete magazines are written. How can you become the best girl for that guy? What does a guy want? What do you need to do for him to keep liking you? What are you indisposition to give in to make him happy?

So for centuries, generations of women think of different ways to achieve a bunch of characteristics at the same time to be worthily of that amazing guy loving you, or well... at least taking some care of you at some level. We think if we manage this there is no way he won't like you, because maybe all those things is what we look for in a man... We try to be intelligent, beautiful, understanding, caring, fun, not too demanding, a medium (to guess what is on his mind, why he behaves on a way without having to ask questions) etc, etc, etc. And the truth is that most of the times, still it doesn't work.

Then you gather with your friends wondering what you could have done better, what and in which moment it all went so wrong that somebody had to start with the classic speech "It is not you, it is me...bla bla bla bla". If you started the moment for this conversation to happen (so the girl) probably you have been suffering for quite a while, and if he started it, many times you still don't know what happened, because in the end, you tried to be all those things and... What happened? What did I do wrong? Surprise! In many cases nothing, he just must be an idiot... but you tried to be your best! How come...?

And tonight... "Enlightenment"! Sitting with a bunch of guys I heard it all. The discussion, where to go out. A couple of places come in the conversation, and a set of events come out... A couple of weeks ago one of my acquaintances showed up with quite a character that he called his "friend". This "friend" is the classic woman my friends and I would start talking about immediately. Artificially beautiful, not very brilliant and wearing clothes that leave not too much for any guy to imagine. Why is he with her? - I asked - I mean he is cute and smart, he could get someone so much better, someone... smarter... I mean, no offence but she is kind of dumb - And then the truth came out of those guys' mouths...

"Sometimes you don't need a girl with brains"
"Dumb girls never ask questions, she doesn't need to be that beautiful for something based on sex"
"You know... someone who wants to have fun and experiment"
"Yeah, those girls you have something some nights and you don't need to call, I mean, you call them for some fun and that's it"

I felt offended, like those guys were talking about women like an object for sex, a piece of meat more less. I looked at them dignified and said "How can you say..." to be interrupted by... "But Maria, those girls are not like you, you are smart and you wouldn't let a guy use you, I mean, they are slutty, bitches, they like to be used and if you need some sex and don't want to give anything they are happy and you are happy, a girl with no brains wants no more, asks no questions, you use them and they are happy to be used".

I was astonished hearing it... "So what kind of relationship can you start with those premises?" and the answer was "None, they are for fun, if you want a relationship you won't like a girl who slept with half the city already, you want someone smarter and with self respect" They laughed loudly "Not like a salami that felt on the floor!".

So sometimes they don't want what we think they want (it would be awesome if they would say it straight as it would save some pain). Sometimes they want someone... not so beautiful, with not so much brains, who will ask for nothing and will be happy with some sex...

Always theorizing about it, but now I heard it from them, no barriers, just spoke to me matter of fact. The conversation moved on for them to talk about something like... Ali G and cars... Sometimes we wonder why loving them and accepting them is not enough for them, but in reality sometimes loving them and accepting them is too much.

Movie sequences???

Some movies, maybe in a silly way, make you think about your life at that point of time. In the end movies are stories like the lives of the peope watching them. They can reflect the questions in your head. Directly or indirectly just human experience.