Last night in Ireland

Last night in Ireland.

The last few weeks were pimping.

Was able to see everyone I truly care and enjoy.

One last night of madness in Dublin. Tomorrow the continent.

Like a used paper clip

What is the power of the greatest employer brand you could ever have?
Can you be arrogant enough to make a statement like "if we call you, you are already special"?

What if you have a company with such a market penetration that you have 100 applications per
open position and you can allow yourself a complex selection process that will allow you not only to hire good people, but to discriminate among them to have the best cultural fit possible and even a particular attitude?

What if your brand though is not aligned with the way you treat the candidates applying to your positions? What if after applying to your positions, candidates are left feeling like a used paper clip?

No, I am not talking about Accenture, where we work hard to make people feel the are worthy even if they don't get through by giving them a personal call and detailled feedback. Where I work around the clock not to make them wait...

I am talking about a respected brand, a brand I personally respected and admired for its ideals and culture despite the statements of unhappy applicants and that now it prooved me... they are just like anyone else...

Very disappointed at the G brand...

Jen and Steve

Another one bites the dust! Congrats to Jen and Steve, two people who are meant to be.

My memories of 9/11

It is interesting to go back and remember something that in a way seems to have happened really long ago, and on the other seems like yesterday. Well... as you watch the news to this day, there are thousand research articles, investigations and testimonialss all over the place, and I as many others, remember very clearly what was going on in my life when all this happened.

I remember I came back to Mexico from Chicago in July that year to continue my university studies. I remember I was very nostalgic, missing Chicago, my friends and my life that I had abandoned so suddenly. Yet, 9/11 seemed to be a day like any other.

As any mexican irresponsible student, I had an assignment to turn in by noon an if it was printed, it absolutely lacked presentation. I remember I went to the printting station in my building in Campus 1 and they were somehow closed, so I went over to Campus 2's printting station. I printed everything, and I thought of going to one of the print shops close to the campus in order to give the assignment a proper look and make it into a book. The shops were right accross the streets from Campus 2, so in my way out, as I was about to cross the street, a man who was shocked said "there was a terrorist attack in the WTC in NY", I thought he was crazy. I thought: Who is this stranger telling me random stuff? This city is full of crazy people -

As I reached the print shop, I noticed the small cafeteria besides it. It was full of students watching at a small screen above their head. I looked at the screen and I saw the second plane crashing into the second building. A good hundred of students were totally quiet watching.

I could not believe what was going on, but when I realized what had happened, I thought to myself: Someone in the Middle East is going to get nuked. I went to th cafeteria on Campus 1 where I met with my classmates. They spoke about it for a bit, and then went on normally, but I was quiet. I was actually really scared. How could this happen? I felt unsafe. I had been there few weeks back, and I felt a country I had made my home for a while was being distroyed. I thought of all my friends in the U.S. Where else could they hit? Mexico? What in Mexico? - There is nothing you want to destroy here - I thought. As my classmates went back into class, I went out again to watch the news, even if only for few minutes, and there he was George Bush saying something like "We will hunt down...". I even got more scared, someone is going to get hunt down.

I got more and more nervous thinking my roommate had moved to NY recently and NYU is relatively close to the area. I called her and obviously it didn't work. I felt so bad... it had happened to our neighboring country, and in a way I felt unsafe as well... - What about the Sears Tower?- I thought.

I was not able to go back to class that day. I tried, but I had no peace at all. The teachers noticed, my classmates noticed. I was just waiting each second to go online and see news. I went home and watched more news. And even if Mia soon called back to say she was fine, and so as an uncle of mine called to say he was stuck in the airport, I kept watching the news.

The whole Anthrax thing and talking to my friends who were pretty scared didn't help. I watched the news day and night for about a month, when the feeling of anxiety, unrest and unsafety was not letting me sleep anymore. - I cannot do anything anyway - I thought, and I stopped watching.

He is gone

He is gone. He took a flight back home to start the biggest adventure of his life. I am so proud of him. Soon chroí, see you in the islands.

Awesome Rotterdam Time

I have finalized all AI stuff. Backed up 20 gigs of stuff generated this year and cleaned up my HD. I am an alumna and it feels good :) More space for music and pics :)))

So I forgot my camera, which leaves this posting with no pictures. So what is to say? I just had an amazing couple of days in Rotterdam. What?! Yes, after AI I found a good reason to go back to the city of the Erasmus bridge (Nathan), actually see it and enjoy it.

So finally free of all things that made my life miserable in the past and with my biorythm back to its natural course (going to bed at 6am and waking up at 2pm) I went to Rotterdam and spent some time with some of my friends from the AI team and Nathan, as he had some days off from work.

1. We visited the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Surprisingly, not being close to Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, this museum has a pretty ok collection of master pieces. Some Picasso, Dali, Reubens, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, among many many all-times Dutch unknown painters and a bunch of modern art that in my taste scratches too much on every day modern life design (Ikea look).

2. Went to Rink's party. A young new buddy I have made. This super young dude pulled a good party with good electronic music and lots of other stuff close to our old transition house. Started at 2am and finished at 6am. Rink has genious potential as an artist and musician. Plus Nathan, Mick and I had good fun. Lenka joined us later. She is a really cool chick as well as Mick and I hope we stay in touch when Nate leaves R'dam for good.

3. Strobel was playing at the bar with his band and was better that ever. He is always a good artist to see on stage and listen live, but with his band he went beyond. He is expecting a baby and is super excited about it, and the people in his band are pretty cool dudes as well. Spent a while speaking German with them all after a high amount of Baileys. Probably we were all pretty wasted (they were drinking through all their performance) because they said my German is perfect. Which is not, and we may meet next month in Stuttgart.

4. Good late hours in the De Witte Aap as it is becoming a tradition of the gang. Good conversations with good people.

5. Had a really amazing convo with Jeanne and Kiko. We were remembering some people in our term, and creted a whole new theory on self awareness and love. Interesting good stuff. Went to the depths of our sould to go beyond the banana.

6. Played pool with Nate, Mick and Dave. Funny, bold boys :)

7. We went for dinner to my favourite italian restaurant in town, La Borsa. The carbonara rocked as always and Nate was quite happy with the Mascarpone and the fresh italian bread.

8. We went to the movies and watched ZODIAC. We recommend you to wait for the DVD and watch it home on a rainy day.

9. Spent time with Nate. SUPER!!! As always... there is not much more to say. I love spending time with him and have fun, we catch up and deep convos over a smoke... will meet soon again. Feel in so much peace, freedom and balance. He is not only cute, but his thoughts simply wow me. He also drinks Coke from a can and well... I have only good things to say :)

I am happy... really. After so much crap this year, everything seems to be turning around :)

Will spend the weekend preparing for interviews in London on Monday (Yeay! Finally!).

Tuesday I am off again to R'dam :) Will meet up with some of Nathan's friends from back home and will have some good times. Hopefully the weather will be on our side and we will go to the beach.

Friday I will finally meet Zsolti in BPland. Ildi and Ryan will be there too. Yeapeee!!!! Cannot wait for the hungarian food and the good parties. So many friends to meet in few days.

The window is finally there

For years you've been waiting for something to happen. Years, literally years.

It didn't happen before because fate simply wouldn't help. It simply seemed that this unique wish you had was simply not ment to be. With things happening in life you forget about it, you let it almost die.

You had let go of it. You tried new and got bruissed. And suddenly it is there... your forever wish... coming slowly into the window of opportunity. The wounds are still healing, you are numb. What is with me? I cannot feel the excitement! - but you know it, it is now or never, it is what you always wanted.

Cut the strings, all of them, then you will be free. Only being free you will be able to feel. You know it because it feels right.

On turning 25

The first time I celebrated someone's 25, it was my friend Sergio back at home in Mexico City. I was by then seeing some guy from Belgium, and my friend had got an entire house full of friends to celebrate his first quarter.

I hadn't been so excited about turning 25 though for the simple fact of getting closer to 30, but in any case, January 26th was there, I turned 25 and it was real fun as the day started with SG meeting. The week had been a crazy one, and it was the first day (being a Friday) in which I was in Rotterdam.

André called me to ask what I was up to and he decided to come from Eindhoven, and I finally had the chance to cook something for some friends and to go out with the team, unfortunately as the next morning we were to leave to go to Spain teamdays, and people were tired not many people showed up, but they all called, and those that were there... I enjoyed them so much!

Of course PK and Gabiza were there from the dinner time, and along came Gergo, Abhi and Jarda. We ate, we chatted, and it seemed they enjoyed the meal very much (it wasn't anything as wonderful as I had planned as I had ZERO time to prepare something elaborate). The gave me a very nice wallet as a present, which Gergo later explained was made out of a unique sort of crocodile lol.

We went to Rotown, as I had heard there would be a good performance there. When we arrived the music was real nice, we sat and drank, and then the performance started. It was supposed to be this swedish duet, that unfortunately Abhi disliked so much that he just went home, and even if I thought Gee was not so bothered by it, he left as well. It wasn't such a normal performance, actually we could barely see anything, and when from something jazzy the music turned into some heavy rock with someone screaming "Hate me!" or something in the line, paralell with the waiter refusing to serve Jarda beer (Typical Dutch circumstance) we decided to go as well.

Jarda showed us the discovery of a bar right across my home, a nice place where we closed the night, before packing and taking the plane to Madrid.

It was a nice birthday with my closest ones close by :)

The eating season is open

Yes! It is Christmas Eve and the "eating season" is open. It is in some things a very different Christmas, in which many things happen for the first time, many questions come up as I am very close to turn 25, and other things are somehow the same as last year.

There will be no "mom cooked" meals, but there will be lots of misterious meals just as last year, big suspense wondering what will be coming in this year's dishes, hopefully nothing friendly hahaha. But yes, major eating will be coming in the coming three days.

It has started yesterday as I was in Köln with the Duplesis eating crazily in restaurants and stands on the Weihnachtsmarkt last night. And today it will continue the program for full meals is:

Xmas Eve dinner
Xmas breakfast, lunch and dinner
Boxing day breakfast

All these meals will have several courses... get ready!!!

So I imagine I will gain some kgs that will come back with me to Rotterdam in January and if I don't do anything they will go together with my very pale skin to Egypt in February.

January reasolution. Abs trainning four times a week if not more, and yes... I have resigned to Sonnenstudio. I cannot wear a bathing suit without this accomplished.

Merry Christmas!
Feliz Navidad!
Frohe Weihnachten!
Kellemes karácsonya ünnepeket!

PS. I got books that teach Hungarian with every single new word and grammar explanation in German!!! Oh! And good things come for those who wait ;)