Wednesday 7th of May 2008

I can’t help but sympathize

Orlando Urdaneta habla sobre el Facebook, buenísimo:

YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhavb8WMpCg

Tuesday 21st of February 2006

Commuting is a lot of fun

Running baby: Someone witty did this at the Acacias metro station.

Heading to work this morning, I incrust my headphones into my ear canals for my morning hearing loss session, and as soon as I step out of the gate of my building, Luetin by Underworld starts playing. I remember Flowers for Algernon. I made the mistake of not changing my MP3s in my player while I read that book last June and now I guess it´s ingrained into my head. It makes me remember how great that book is (thank you Heather!) compared to the shitty one I´m reading right now. I really don´t like to give up on books, but I´m comtemplating doing just that, it´s that bad.

I´m wearing my new bright yellow and orange Converse shoes. They obviosly don´t match. It looks as if they they would be reflectant; and who knows, maybe they are. I´ll have to try them at Gris next friday. I turn left at the Glorieta de Embajadores to catch the Cercanias (yes, those commuter trains from 3-11) to Atocha. I´m standing almost on the the edge of the sidewalk waiting for the pedestrian light to go green. I have a young lady to my left and a man in with a beige leather jacket on my right. Suddenly, I´m being pushed. I languorously turn and I see this old woman trying to squeeze herself between me and the young lady. I take a small sidestep to the left, my eyes meet with the young lady´s and we share our “what in the world is wrong with this woman?” look for a fraction of a second. Menopausal woman plants herself in front of me. She has gained a whole 40 centimeters of advantage on us. The light turns green. I sidestep around her left, take three steps and I´m again ahead of her.

What was the point of that? Making me waste more sole of my shoes by making me sidestep her once to let her through and twice to pass her once the light turned green? -Maybe she´s upset that she doesn´t own obnoxious bright yellow shoes.

I get to the station, the train arrives as soon as I turn left after the last set of stairs. The good thing about peak hours in the morning. The ride to Atocha is good. Not a lot of people. After a few seconds people start getting up to queue in front of the door. I start counting the seconds.. 1, 2, 3.. 10, 11, 12.. 34, 35, 36.. after 38 seconds we arrive at the station. Everyone is standing, a few people have almost fallen because they have nowhere to hold on to since they decided it would be a good idea to stand in front of the door before the train arrives. I go up the stairs in Andén 8, walk towards Andén 1, go down the stairs and wait for the train. The train takes about a minute to arrive. The people standing in the door for 38 seconds are right next to me.

Doors open, people wait for the incoming to get out. Eventually the people on the front start peeking inside to see if no one else comes out. Then they take that first step. And like penguins orderly coming out of the sea one after each another to embark on their yearly mating journey, we all follow that first step with amazing synchronization. We´re even walking a bit like pinguins, wobbling our steps. you have to, in order to not step on the back of the feet of the person in front of you. We´re in fast, the train is packed, It doesn´t matter if you´re holding onto anything, you won´t fall, there´s people all around you and you´re squeezed in the middle of them. I feel a newspaper on my back. I smell Chanel 43 on my left, Acqua di Gio on my right, tutti frutti shampoo in front of me. At least most people in the morning smell nice and clean.

After two stops we get to Nuevos Ministerios. I´m lucky today, I arrive in the Andén that´s in the same floor as the Metro connection. I swipe my abono twice, once to get out of the Cercanias and again to go inside the Metro system. I wait for the metro in line 8 to arrive.

Line 8 is fun. It goes to the Airport, Barajas, so you get a lot of foreigners with their oversized suitcases, It also goes to Campo de las Naciones, so you also get a helping of office yuppies.

Metro arrives. I get in, lean on the opposite door from where I came in. I start looking at traveling people coming in, struggling with their bags, while the suit laden yuppies look in disgust at them. I see a cute lady in front of me. I scan her bag. “CCS - MAD” reads her tag. She hails from Venezuela. I look at her and ask “cuanto tiempo sin una Reina Pepeada?” with a smirk on my face. A Reina Pepeada is basically an arepa filled with avocado, chicken, potatoes, carrots and mayo, popular in Venezuela. She answers “y sin Chicha!, un mes!”. I smile. I know my ride is going to be fun now.

It´s amazing how fast time goes by when you´re having a fun brisk chat. In no time It´s my stop. I tell her I must go and start heading towards the door, she says “espera!” and quickly tells me her email address. “escríbeme!” she adds. -”vale!” I reply. Doors close I wave once more, grab my pen, write down her address in my arm. How juvenile of me. I keep on walking.

I take my regular shortcut to my building. The only bad thing about is that there´s this little walkway that barely allows for two people walking one next to the other. Normally everyone who takes this route is on their way to work and is walking fast, sometimes there´s no such luck. I see this mid aged woman coming from the opposite side from where I am. She´s heading towards the entrance of the walkway. I know she´s going to take it. She picks up her pace and gets there first. As soon as she´s in, she plants herself in the middle as to not allow anyone past her and slows down to a crawl. I take it for about 15 seconds and then I let out one of my loud raccoon-shriek-monkey noise things that I do. I use this technique in the Metro stairs when moronic people are standing on the left and not allowing people by, always works. She turns around in horror and looks at me as if I had just killed a baby. She steps to the side and lets me by. I say “Gracias!” and pick up my pace. Maybe I´m an ass.

I get to my building. Go up the stairs 3 floors. Turn right, then left then left again. I say good morning to everyone I cross paths with. I arrive at my desk, I sit. Turn on the ThinkPad.

Now that was fun.

Thursday 19th of January 2006

My amaranthin duel

A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

Time. Another Salvi-year is about to pass and I still haven´t been able to stop time. Maybe I should change methods and instead of trying to stop it, I should try to reverse it.

This last year has been very interesting. It brought about many changes and while it took away many precious things, it also gave me in return some others that I never knew were there to be had in the first place. I feel in general it has been all for the better and I can definetly say I am content with the way that things are going. This is good.

The other day we where touching the subject of Asian culture, as we seem to do every other day, and Jorge mentioned how some Asian countries see death in a totally different way than we do in the Western side of things. While they embrace it, we mostly seem to just fear it. I myself am penitent of such a sin.

This spurred another of my google searches and I´ve come accross some interesting faux passes related to death and funerals:

China

• Giving someone a timepiece as a gift. Traditional superstitions regard this as counting the seconds to the recipient’s death. Another possible interpretation of this is that the phrase “to give clock” in Chinese is “song zhong,” which is a homophone of a phrase for “attending a funeral.”
• Never stick your chopsticks into your rice and leave them there. This looks like sticks of incense in a bowl used to honor dead ancestors, and such a symbol of death is extremely offensive at the dinner table.

Japan

• Sending a New Year’s postcard to someone who suffered a death in the family during the past year.
• Holding anything with chopsticks by two people at the same time, or passing an item from chopsticks to chopsticks is considered very impolite, as it will remind bystanders of the Japanese funeral ritual. Sticking them into food (and especially rice) has similar connotations.

Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, and Poland

• Giving somebody an even number of flowers. This should only be done in funerals.

Right.. back to the issue at hand, this saturday it´s my birthday once again, and once again pretendo pasarmelo pipas. :D

Tuesday 16th of August 2005

The O-bon days

Lanterns: In some park in tokyo I sadly forgot the name of.

Through the 13th to the 16th August O-bon is celebrated in Japan. It is a Buddhist event in which you pray for the repose of one’s ancestors who are thought to visit our homes during O-bon.

I remember when they thought us about O-bon in Japanese class back in 2001 or so. Yes, I remember something. Thank you Sagae sensei. :o -So, these fires called mukaebi are lit in the entrances of homes to guide the ancestor’s spirits, they also offer food such as fruits to the spirits in front of the family abutsudan which in turn is decorated with paper lanterns and flowers.

The best part, are the dances. bon odori (folk dances) are held around Japan. The type of dance varies from area to area, and people will wear yukatas (summer kimonos) go to their closest shrine, temple or park and dance. I remember Daisuke played music from gozilla in class, and we danced to it. Yes, we were crazy. We still are.

Toro Nagashi (floating paper lanterns) are sent off down a river and onto the ocean on the evening of the 15th, representing the ancestor’s spirits with a paper lantern, lit by a candle inside. Fireworks displays (Hanabi-taikai) are often held during O-bon.

I miss Japan.

Tuesday 19th of July 2005

Diving into the unknown

It has been a while since I actually tried to post something without already having in mind what to write about. Today I have decided it will be one such day.

Impromptu writing has never been my forte. When presented wich such a challenge, I generally sit and look at the white blankness of the paper for most of the allotted time I´ve been given for the task, and when there´s about 20 minutes left, for some reason, a spark lits up the fire, and I start writing frenetically, generally it just flows out, no need to even stop to behold what´s been written down, the last sentence paving the way for the next. But there´s a problem. I´m always out of time, so I just keep on writing as fast as I can, in a feeble attempt at actually finishing. It usually doesn´t work out, and I end up having to stich in some forced ending to actually finish it on time, and I turn into the hollywood of story writing, not a bad premise, but such a shitty execution and ending.

Maybe it´s a sign. And I´m not saying things shouldn´t be impromptu, I mean, what fun would there be about planning your whole life in advance? -I´m referring to the “not enough time” issue. Who says there isn´t? -lately I´ve been starting to give more credit to the belief that things should just be allowed to happen, unchecked and without constrains; the whole “if it´s meant to be, it´ll happen” ordeal. My line of thinking has generally been along the lines of “If it’s not meant to happen, I’ll make it meant to happen” -and, while it has worked in the past, I´ve come to the realization that it all seems like my forced endings. So brute. Shitty even.

I think the trick lies in not giving it a specific amount of time. Not giving it a set of expections. Not actually plotting a goal as your final target. Have a guideline, but just let it be. Feel. It´s probably just psychological, but the fact that i´m not jailed in by time or margins, allows me to freely reach the top of the plateau in more leasurely way. And since there are no worries about getting there quickly, no set boundaries, no haste whatsoever, you end up not locking yourself to a single idea. You look around. And it seems along the way you always end up finding a higher plateau than the one you originally set for, or thought existed.

This of course is not at all practical with some aspects of one´s life. But I think it´s doable with your personal and emotional life, to a big extent at least. It seems I´ve come to cherish more the situations that I didn´t actively try to make anything out of. The times that I didn´t force my ideals, or my expections, allowed those moments to reach levels that I couldn´t think of at the time, making them all that much better. And comfortable.

See, this is the magical thing about not setting a path to follow. You end up somewhere where you never thought you would. You can´t do that when you say “I want to go here“. We humans fight and wage wars over pretty much anything, mostly in the name of freedom, but we don´t free ourselves. We constantly emprison our minds with all this expectation crap. We´re so worried about getting there, faster, quicker; you don´t have time to enjoy the ride. There is all the time in the world.

This is all possibly a bit contradictory of me to say, I am, after all, scared of the passing time. Why would I go around wasting it? -simple, actually. Quality versus quantity.

Thursday 12th of May 2005

ETA -1 month, 9 days

Hospital de Jornaleros: Calle Maudes, 17.

So, I’ve been in Madrid for a month and some now. So far, the only thing I really miss is the Sea. I fear I will miss it even more so now that the summer is coming up. I’ve been told that the summer in Madrid is excruciatingly hot, and much to my dislike (mostly because of the electricity bill) I will probably end up sitting in front of the AC most of the time. I must say though, the metro is bloody brilliant.

Interestingly, not long ago, the question “if you could eliminate one season, which would it be?” came about. Everyone seemed to agree with taking out autumn. They converged on the fact that it was a sad season, everything dying up, et cetera. Personally, I love autumn. I don’t see what’s sad about it, I see it as relaxing, mellow and very much romatic. Also, in the temperate zones, autumn is the season during which most crops are harvested, and I need my food. Autumn is also fun. So, autumn stays.

I chose summer. I understand your skepticism, but I see it this way: I can go to the beach in Spring. In fact, it is Spring right now, and the weather would be just perfect to go the beach, if there was a body of sea anywhere close to Madrid. Summer is hot, sticky, bothersome, wastes energy like no other (AC running 24/7, fridge has a harder time keeping stuff cold, et cetera) it rains less and in some cases causes dry outs, it increases by a large magnitude the chances a green area might catch on fire, lowers productivity, et cetera.

When you’re cold, for example in winter, all you have to do is put on another shirt, sweater, jacket and the problem is effectively solved. You can’t anything about heat. You walk out, it’s there. It is all around you, and there’s nothing you can wear or do that will take it away. And anyways, my ass is far too hairy for it to endure massive heat. So yeah, summer, thumbs down.

Sunday 10th of April 2005

Back from the dead

Crowded street: In Shibuya.

But, no, I wansn’t able to come back as a zombie, the streets of Spain are still somewhat (I’m still here) safe. I got back from Japan about ten days ago, I loved the damn place.

On the flight back, from Narita to Munich, then Munich to Madrid, I really noticed the difference between the flights. On the one coming from Japan everyone found their seats without trouble and actually sat on them, they made no loud noises, they excused themselves when they walked past you, they didn’t litter the floor with their crap and countless other things that would make one have good etiquette.

Not so on the flight from Munich to Madrid. It was mostly Spaniards coming back from the holy week, but there were some Italians and Germans. Everyone was loud, couldn’t find their seats, sat where they felt like and later got into discussions with the people those specific seat actually belonged to. They just bashed you when they wanted to walk past you without muttering a word or looking at you in the eyes. Girlfriends sitting on top of their boyfriends making these very loud, obnoxious and disturbing sounds to my sleep depravated self. I saw one guy just chuck a piece of paper in the floor after he’d gone out of the W.C. -I ignored most of it, but when I saw one guy start yelling in Spanish to a Stewardess that only spoke German, it hit me: I’m back in Europe, In varietate concordia (right) and all that.