miércoles, mayo 31, 2006
The Struggle of the Everyday
These are the temptations that I'm faced with every day. Depending on my mood and, I suppose, my willpower, I do better or worse.
1. Going back to sleep--6 am. I can't say that hitting the snooze button is a temptation any more: I always, always do it. But the thought of "What if I missed [insert whatever I'm supposed to get up for]?" is always there.
2. Going back to sleep--9.30 am when I get home after my ballet class
3. Procrastinating, esp. writing my thesis.
4. Reading whatever it is that I'm currently reading instead of: a) reading what I'm SUPPOSED to read; b) writing the thesis; or c) actually going to sleep before midnight.
Ocassional temptations:
5. Eating a second brownie/piece of cake
6. Spending money
These are all I can think of right now, so I suppose they are my strongest hurdles of the season. After recognizing this, I suppose I should go fight dragon number 3; it is soon to be over, and the sooner the better.
These are the temptations that I'm faced with every day. Depending on my mood and, I suppose, my willpower, I do better or worse.
1. Going back to sleep--6 am. I can't say that hitting the snooze button is a temptation any more: I always, always do it. But the thought of "What if I missed [insert whatever I'm supposed to get up for]?" is always there.
2. Going back to sleep--9.30 am when I get home after my ballet class
3. Procrastinating, esp. writing my thesis.
4. Reading whatever it is that I'm currently reading instead of: a) reading what I'm SUPPOSED to read; b) writing the thesis; or c) actually going to sleep before midnight.
Ocassional temptations:
5. Eating a second brownie/piece of cake
6. Spending money
These are all I can think of right now, so I suppose they are my strongest hurdles of the season. After recognizing this, I suppose I should go fight dragon number 3; it is soon to be over, and the sooner the better.
viernes, mayo 26, 2006
Corollary
I got this message today from my dear friend Joel. I thought he should also have his say (Thank you, too, Diana and Er):
Since your Blog doesn't take posts from non-Bloggers, here are my thoughts - the three rules for wishes.
1.- Wishes about other people NEVER work. Or if they do, it doesn't have anything to do with the wish itself. Other people have wishes too, you know...
2.- "To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible" quoth Calvin. Not much else to say here.
3.- Every other wish comes true - eventually. Sometimes even those forbidden by rules #1 & #2.The trick is to really wish them.
I got this message today from my dear friend Joel. I thought he should also have his say (Thank you, too, Diana and Er):
Since your Blog doesn't take posts from non-Bloggers, here are my thoughts - the three rules for wishes.
1.- Wishes about other people NEVER work. Or if they do, it doesn't have anything to do with the wish itself. Other people have wishes too, you know...
2.- "To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible" quoth Calvin. Not much else to say here.
3.- Every other wish comes true - eventually. Sometimes even those forbidden by rules #1 & #2.The trick is to really wish them.
martes, mayo 23, 2006
Retro
This is not a self-help anecdote
There was one thing I used to do fervently every day; it was a sort of religion for me: wishing. It started with "I wish my parents would get back together", and went on and on to "I wish my eyes turned green", "I wish to be beautiful when I grow up", "I wish so-and-so (usually a boy who had lost interest) would change his mind and call me"... and so it was, every day. I crossed my fingers, held my breath, and wished upon stars day in and day out. You see, I was completely convinced that if I wished hard enough, at least one would come true. And you see, the problem was, or is, that I can't remember even one of them coming true. I am NOT saying that I am unusually unlucky or unhappy; if anything, the opposite is true. And I suppose my wishes finally came true in a strange way: eventually, I stopped wishing for those things, and wishing so fiercely. Does the universe work in strange ways? Is the curse ("May all your wishes be granted") true? Or was I just unlucky? (Does it even matter?)
This is not a self-help anecdote
There was one thing I used to do fervently every day; it was a sort of religion for me: wishing. It started with "I wish my parents would get back together", and went on and on to "I wish my eyes turned green", "I wish to be beautiful when I grow up", "I wish so-and-so (usually a boy who had lost interest) would change his mind and call me"... and so it was, every day. I crossed my fingers, held my breath, and wished upon stars day in and day out. You see, I was completely convinced that if I wished hard enough, at least one would come true. And you see, the problem was, or is, that I can't remember even one of them coming true. I am NOT saying that I am unusually unlucky or unhappy; if anything, the opposite is true. And I suppose my wishes finally came true in a strange way: eventually, I stopped wishing for those things, and wishing so fiercely. Does the universe work in strange ways? Is the curse ("May all your wishes be granted") true? Or was I just unlucky? (Does it even matter?)
jueves, mayo 18, 2006
¿Y quién sería yo si no manifestara mi gran orgullo?
miércoles, mayo 17, 2006
Descubriendo el hilo negro...
I was looking around and I came across a questionnaire that, I thought, could help me with my current "crisis" (which is not so current and not much of a crisis) What should I do with my life? What kind of job should I look for? etc. This is what they came up with:
I already knew what my "worst career options" were, and as for the positive ones, they are far to general to be helpful. As Scrooge would say: Bah! Humbug! So much for internet oracles.
I was looking around and I came across a questionnaire that, I thought, could help me with my current "crisis" (which is not so current and not much of a crisis) What should I do with my life? What kind of job should I look for? etc. This is what they came up with:
| Your Career Type: Artistic |
 You are expressive, original, and independent. Your talents lie in your artistic abilities: creative writing, drama, crafts, music, or art. You would make an excellent: Actor - Art Teacher - Book Editor Clothes Designer - Comedian - Composer Dancer - DJ - Graphic Designer Illustrator - Musician - Sculptor The worst career options for your are conventional careers, like bank teller or secretary. |
I already knew what my "worst career options" were, and as for the positive ones, they are far to general to be helpful. As Scrooge would say: Bah! Humbug! So much for internet oracles.
martes, mayo 16, 2006
Once more...
I am being left alone this week. Everybody is going away but me. Sister 1 in New York (or, more accurately, somewhere in the state of New York), enjoying herself with her boyfriend. Mom and Sister 2 on their way to Cuernavaca, searching to complete the quest left for them by Sister 1 (which, let me add, I am quite pissed off about, since the quest should be completed by the aforesaid Sis 1. Whoever heard of Galahad saying, "Well, I have to find the Holy Grail, can you kill this dragon for me while I go see my ladylove? I'll be back to pick up the Grail next week.... But you have to kill it before tomorrow or the Grail will disappear" Nope. Doesn't work). And, finally, Mr. Hollow Kid going off in search of glory on the weekend.
And me, sitting here, thinking of future exits with me as the exiter.
I am being left alone this week. Everybody is going away but me. Sister 1 in New York (or, more accurately, somewhere in the state of New York), enjoying herself with her boyfriend. Mom and Sister 2 on their way to Cuernavaca, searching to complete the quest left for them by Sister 1 (which, let me add, I am quite pissed off about, since the quest should be completed by the aforesaid Sis 1. Whoever heard of Galahad saying, "Well, I have to find the Holy Grail, can you kill this dragon for me while I go see my ladylove? I'll be back to pick up the Grail next week.... But you have to kill it before tomorrow or the Grail will disappear" Nope. Doesn't work). And, finally, Mr. Hollow Kid going off in search of glory on the weekend.
And me, sitting here, thinking of future exits with me as the exiter.
lunes, mayo 01, 2006
Character sketch
For you-know-who
Once upon a time there was a girl. Since her parents divorced when she was 9, her conception of love came mostly from books and somewhat from movies and TV. She was a dreamer and a Romantic (a lover of nature, of beauty, and of Love); something of a loner, she spent many hours building castles in the air, and the rest of the time she spent building something rather more complex: herself. She imagined that, in order to find True Love (this being, she had decided long before she was a teenager, the reason for her existence), she would have to be Perfect. What Perfect meant, of course, was less clear. Role models were fairytale princesses and Scarlett O’Hara. The former model was simple: one must just be three things: divinely beautiful, dazzlingly clever and angelically good. The latter sowed some confusion, since it led to the idea that being desired by many would automatically mean that she was loved (this, of course, was the same mistake Scarlett made. No wonder it took years for the girl to realize that S. ended up completely alone). In any case, of course, this led to a lot of heartbreak, because: 1. She absolutely refused to settle for anything less than True Love; 2. She believed that True Love would come in the form of the boy she liked at the moment liking her back, which, of course, never happened: boys of her age were hardly interested in finding the love of their lives, and her model of perfection was wanting—being “angelically good” and “dazzlingly clever” had been out of fashion for some time (apart from the obvious impossibility to actually reach those states of perfection; she was just seen as “a pretty, nice, smart girl”--in the best of cases--, which is not bad at all, although, of course, not an easy thing to be, and something of a problem, since, apart from all that, she was also somewhat “peculiar”, “weird”, “complicated”, and not easy to understand at all—which she translated more favorably into “mysterious”), and 3. She thought that whoever her True Love was would realize she was worth loving if as many boys as possible liked her, that is, if she was the subject of desire—she wanted to be some sort of Neoplatonic dream for men. How could her strategy fail? It is a fact that no love came her way except, to her eyes, unnecesary love (from boys she was not interested in), trouble. Lonely lonely years of heartbreak (painful, tragic, silent, tormenting) had to go by before she would actually fall in love, and of course, that was a surprise. But it was well worth waiting for, though more painful than she would have imagined, for when it really happens, it became clear that it was impossible to express that depth of feeling to her love: no words, no gestures, no looks, no touches will ever fully express it. Perfection was understood to be impossible, although to be as close to it as she could humanly get (it is very unlikely that she is even close) was a gift she offered to him. And happily ever after, she came to realize, could only be understood at the end of the story, and who can ever tell when that will come? So, Happily So Far is what we get in life. I suppose it’s good enough.
For you-know-who
Once upon a time there was a girl. Since her parents divorced when she was 9, her conception of love came mostly from books and somewhat from movies and TV. She was a dreamer and a Romantic (a lover of nature, of beauty, and of Love); something of a loner, she spent many hours building castles in the air, and the rest of the time she spent building something rather more complex: herself. She imagined that, in order to find True Love (this being, she had decided long before she was a teenager, the reason for her existence), she would have to be Perfect. What Perfect meant, of course, was less clear. Role models were fairytale princesses and Scarlett O’Hara. The former model was simple: one must just be three things: divinely beautiful, dazzlingly clever and angelically good. The latter sowed some confusion, since it led to the idea that being desired by many would automatically mean that she was loved (this, of course, was the same mistake Scarlett made. No wonder it took years for the girl to realize that S. ended up completely alone). In any case, of course, this led to a lot of heartbreak, because: 1. She absolutely refused to settle for anything less than True Love; 2. She believed that True Love would come in the form of the boy she liked at the moment liking her back, which, of course, never happened: boys of her age were hardly interested in finding the love of their lives, and her model of perfection was wanting—being “angelically good” and “dazzlingly clever” had been out of fashion for some time (apart from the obvious impossibility to actually reach those states of perfection; she was just seen as “a pretty, nice, smart girl”--in the best of cases--, which is not bad at all, although, of course, not an easy thing to be, and something of a problem, since, apart from all that, she was also somewhat “peculiar”, “weird”, “complicated”, and not easy to understand at all—which she translated more favorably into “mysterious”), and 3. She thought that whoever her True Love was would realize she was worth loving if as many boys as possible liked her, that is, if she was the subject of desire—she wanted to be some sort of Neoplatonic dream for men. How could her strategy fail? It is a fact that no love came her way except, to her eyes, unnecesary love (from boys she was not interested in), trouble. Lonely lonely years of heartbreak (painful, tragic, silent, tormenting) had to go by before she would actually fall in love, and of course, that was a surprise. But it was well worth waiting for, though more painful than she would have imagined, for when it really happens, it became clear that it was impossible to express that depth of feeling to her love: no words, no gestures, no looks, no touches will ever fully express it. Perfection was understood to be impossible, although to be as close to it as she could humanly get (it is very unlikely that she is even close) was a gift she offered to him. And happily ever after, she came to realize, could only be understood at the end of the story, and who can ever tell when that will come? So, Happily So Far is what we get in life. I suppose it’s good enough.
