What makes a day wonderful!

I'm rather surprised what makes a day wonderful. I've always thought of myself as a person hard to please... go figure it is actually the opposite.
As my friends and a whole crew of the most wonderful people I've met are flying back home or going abroad (it will be my turn very soon,) I finally have to bring back memories and remember the most pleasant of days that I've lived lately.
1. In an ordinary Sunday, Vlad and I went to San José and started drinking vodka. By the second bottle, it rained, so we went to Parque Morazán and talked about our lives. The emotions were really intense, and the way home was an odyssey as Vlad was behaving recklessly and we ended up breaking a bottle of wine. It was a big blur, and it was perfection.
2. To Sage's farewell party, we went clubbing. We drank, we danced, and thanks to Vlad's inventive nature, we ended up shirtless. What a night!
3. After Vlad and Sage had left, all that was left for me was work and arrangements for my trip. I had to pick up my flight ticket one Thursday after my morning shift. Diana was in the office, so we had lunch and talked about life. Talking to Diana is always amusing. Then I went back to the office and I could smoke with Michael and Marco. I wouldn't ask for better company than my favorite German guy and the most irreverent tico I've met. Then, the afternoon brought beer with my best friends from college; it was bliss so far. I left the bar really sad, but before going to my night shift, Mar and I bought her web camera so that we could skype when I'm in London. I went to work thinking that I would hate my night, and then one of my students gave me a book about the Costa Rican character that awakened the passion for my roots. I went home feeling that I wouldn't trade my life for anyone's, but the day wasn't over. I had the change to talk to Vlad before going to bed. That was about all what my day needed.

When Being You Is Nothing But A Dream

It all feels like a dream when you see how far you are from being the person you want to be.
Reality confronts you in a second, and then you're shocked! You're numb and try to escape from yourself for the truth is to hard to bear.

I've been living too many years trying to be a truthful person to myself and my convictions... and here I am, slave of what happens around me when my motto used to be "circumstances shouldn't control you, you control the circumstances."

I'm failing, and miserably I've got to admit.

I was on my feet reading while the packed bus, screeching all the way, tried to take all the commoners to San José. My concentration was surprisingly good for a Monday morning, specially after a Sunday of sleep deprivation and usual lack of motivation. The world outside kinda blurred for a while, and I was the happiest person living vicariously through the life of Stephen Dedalus when a line of the book stroke me like lightning.

He felt small and weak. When would he be like the fellows in poetry and rhetoric? They had big voices and big boots and they studied trigonometry.

I realized that was my portrait more than the one of the young man as an artist. I was that kid, feeble and afraid with big dreams nonetheless, wanting to have a voice on his own like those authors you read throughout your entire life. I knew I was able to. I knew I could achieve something with my writing, but I was keeping it to myself. I wanted to wear the big boots, but I was afraid they ended up being too tight. The main problem is that I had been the kid for a little bit too long, for enough time to feel that I was shrinking instead of growing. Trigonometry meant the complexity of the world, and I didn't want any of that. I was becoming a bonsai instead of a tree. I needed to bear fruit while I still could.

Now, keeping the tree conceit, I'm aware that I'm not barren. I just feel like I should have been producing for some seasons already. I don't think I'm being blinded by the ideal self; I just want to stop self-boicoting and minimizing my potential.

Just a thought. I don't want to be the shadow of myself, the echo of my voice, a dream of the person I can definitely become.

Ghetto. The Ugly Face.

Add one more notch to my love-hate relationships in life. I really dislike my neighborhood. There I said it, not that it has been a secret for anybody when they naturally ask me where I live. I always spit it with poison, sarcasm, or black humor. The name can't come out of my mouth naturally. "Hatillo" I say waiting for the reaction in the other person's face. In many cases, that has been the end of the conversation.

Facts. My parents traded natural paradise in the north of the country for a sewer in the south of the capital of Costa Rica. In the search for a better life (which only meant more money, and in that we succeeded,) we arrived here ten years ago. In theory, this is the only culture shock I haven't been able to overcome. I came from living surrounded by protective, polite people to a town where you listen the unthinkable coming out of the students of elementary school and where you could be robbed or bullied anywhere. The scenery of greenery was replaced by cement, iron, and tin; the sound of the rain isolating the house from the world was totally displaced by the concert of car alarms, police sirens, street fights, and shootings after midnight; the scent of the dew in the grass totally is gone, and the stench of dog poop and uncollected trash float in the air instead. In this place, you can wake up to discover that a drug addict mounted a cardboard shelter in front of your house. In here, the kids can play in a newly made playground for a week before graffiti of dicks start appearing in the slides. The houses, more than built together, look as if they had been built by an asphyxiating artist trying to make an statement. Fart and your neighbor will know. In here, you get used to the cars passing with their stereos playing reggaetton as loud as they can. You see shirtless guys with baggy pants all the time during the day and a catwalk of hoodies at night. You take a walk and see girls wearing shorts just one centimeter longer to be classified as underwear. You see lots of make up with long earrings in moody faces. You see this boys and girls flirting and fighting openly, starting their cars, roaring their engines, and getting lost for the rest of the night. You see the fat laddies in sandals and old fashioned attires running errands during the day. You see their fat husbands drinking in front of the liquor store and making jokes to the drug addicts. You see the latter staggering, holding their pants in many cases, covered by smog, dirt, and smell of pee. This is a place nobody should live in. This is where I'm bringing the volunteer that is taking my place when I'll be in London. This is where I've lived almost 10 years now.

My friend Vlad calls it the ghetto. I stand in the bridge for peasants in the highway, look over the roofs crowded with clothing drying on cables, wires located in all directions and t.v. antennas eaten by rust and I think the name fits the neighborhood well. Had we a wall built around the town and some snow falling, I swear the image would resemble those scenes of the Warsaw Ghetto. Still, this is the place where I live. This is where I will return when the experience in London is over. This is an ugly face of life.

Some things I learned about myself this last week.

I rarely blog about positive experiences, but I need to do it today. Most of what I have to talk about lately is people. I work with humans, I love interacting with them, and, as a socialite and an aspiring novelist, my whole life has a reason to be because of people. However, from time to time, I allow myself to detach from them and discover what is my identity apart from people. International Week at my volunteer association gave me that opportunity. Although I was surrounded by people all the time, manual tasks like painting a tall cardboard Big Ben gave me some time to think. The events inside and outside international week that also happened this week allowed me to have a mirror in front of me all the time -- it had been years since the last time I tried to analyze myself. And boy, have I changed over time.
These are things I found out about myself:

-I can still work under somebody's lead. I thought I was a rebel, but it turns out I can still admire someone enough to follow him. All I need is leader that cares about his collaborators and that is not afraid of being a visionary. Thanks James for the lesson.
-I'm definitely not mainstream. I knew I was unconventional in many of my ways, but lately I see that I keep doing almost everything in a very sui generis manner. This excites me because I always wanted to be effortlessly eccentric, but it surely worries me because I don't think there's going back.
-I can still be so touched and moved by somebody's story that I can keep crying inside of me for some time after the telling is over. I mean, I kept asking myself what I had done to deserve earning somebody's trust. When I think about it, I still don't understand it, but I'm very grateful that somebody saw a trustworthy person in me.
-I need a purpose to keep moving on. I need to be doing something. I have a desperate need of transcending.
- I haven't quite learned my limits. Sometimes I just live feeling immortal, and there's when the chaos start. Feeling in the top of the world also means that if you lose your balance, it is a very long way to the bottom.

I'm glad I can still work in my humanity. What is to change in the following years? I just can't wait to see my evolution.

Perfect people? pff, what's that?

I met a guy, and when I asked him online the next day what he was doing, he replied in the most casual tone:
"I'm here in the computer with my cat, with the t.v. on, and without paying attention to what's on the screen. I know, bad habit."
He had bad habits. That was enough for me to know he was someone worth meeting.

Some days before, my friend Felix had asked me while we were walking in the aisles of the gold museum what my impression of him and our circle of friends was. I thought that I was unable to do so with my friends and was tempted to reply that I do not think about it, but when I came home and thought it over, I realized I do have a profile for every person.
I think about people and characters in a sort of non conventional way. I first list all the reasons why I could dislike them: bad habits, questionable behavior, interaction problems, quirks, etc. The second step would be enumerating all the reasons that I have for liking this person: energy, sparkling personality, cleverness. If the positive outshines the negative, who cares about their defects anymore? The greatest part of many people that I've known is that their positive assets are such that make the bad things about them even look attractive. Kids usually like impeccable characters like superman, who hasn't ever killed a bug. We critical adults prefer people with a little dirt in their nails.

A way of saying someone that I like him or her for me, as atypical as it sounds, could be like:
"You're loud, you rarely filter what you think and say whatever comes to your mind, you find way too many excuses for everything, but you know what? you have a beautiful smile, your sense of humor is terrific and you are good bringing people together." --That's an actual description I have for a friend of mine.

At the end, Felix should not care that much about my judgment. I probably listed the little things I might not cope with and took a look at the remaining goodness to shut them down. The outcome it's a little obvious: I unquestionably like this group of people. I assume they too have a list of the reasons of why they wouldn't like me, but I appreciate their efforts for doing the same that I do and putting the bad things behind.

Real people. That's what I think they are.

The deodorant analogy.

I ran out of deodorant by the end of the month, and I knew that meant trouble.
This might be a very atypical situation in most of the world, but in my house, the whole deodorant thing always prompts arguments and discussions. One could trace it back to the time when my dad managed all his money and we, the remaining members of the household, had to ask him for money to satisfy any need. I kind of got what I needed, but the bureaucratic nature of the process started this nonconformity in me that has not stopped until today. "Do I have to explain that much why I need a deodorant?" Well, then mom was in office and I was given a monthly salary and that fixed the problem of the begging for toiletries... for a while.

The scene moves to today. I've been asking for a deodorant for four days. This is not the first time this happens in the year.

I'm not a student anymore, so my salary was removed. I started working, but I haven't gotten my paycheck yet because my boss pays monthly. Wherever you see it, finances-wise, I'm screwed, and that's why I had to undergo the painful process of asking for everything again.

I could just wait until I get my deodorant and rest for the time being, but the reason why this whole deodorant issue gets under my skin is because of my mom's behavioral patters that this simple act of not buying that little thing reveal. This is not new for any kid: PARENTS DO NOT LISTEN! You can tell them what really matters for you, but your words will simply turn into something else in their minds and end up meaning something else, usually something unimportant. My mom does that. She goes shopping, buy the deodorants for the whole female population of my house (3/4 of the total members) and forgets mine! Then, since she's unable to admit that she's a terrible listener and that she had in mind what she thought I will need instead of my real petition, she will say a lot of reasons of why I don't need the deodorant just now. That's plainly absurd! "It's been only three days since you told me" Yeah, mom, only three days in which I've had to use my sister's, with the floral scent and all. And all of the sudden, I'm working, I should have money, and I spent too much in other things... And here's when I decide to swallow it and shut the fuck up. Right, mom, you can't do me this $4 one favor, I've got it.

I come down to this: it is the whole attitude behind the act what upsets me. My mom is such a great person, but when it comes to accept that it is her fault for not listening carefully to what I'm saying, she goes so irrational. It is the only moment when nothing makes sense, when she's confronted to a parent's responsibility that she did not meet. I've seen adults doing this over and over again. It is true, I'm the son here, but, as my friend Sage says, parents can't keep winning arguments just because they are the parents. I need a reason, a coherent explanation, not a bunch of excuses and a display of self-justification. Throwing me a history of care and love won't make it either. I need to trust my parents NOW and know that they are listening NOW. I love my mom, but these small things make me unable to rely on her blindly.

Five minutes ago, mom came by my room and gave me cash - which she previously denied she had, to go and buy the freaking deodorant. Trust, however, has been broken for three days already.

All these started with a deodorant.

Money does not write e-mails.

I remember growing up and being told by my older sister that I should stay away from teaching. She is a teacher herself, so I thought the warning had a reason to be. They worked a lot and earned a salary with which becoming rich is unthinkable. However, as the time passed and I began making my career choices, it only became clearer that I felt passionate about instructing, even with the little money that brings.
Try number 1, this is my father making me choose law school because he wanted a rich lawyer in the family. Result: total failure.
Try number 2, this is my best friend talking me into working in call centers. Result: I hated working there, hence, a failure.
Try number 3, this is me double thinking my decision of staying where I work and get a job that, although I would hate, would get me money to go to Europe. Result? Yet to see, but I think there's a well established trend.
When it comes to career choice, money has not brought me any happiness. I thought about leaving my class for a graveyard shift as an online poker dealer, but what refrains me from shifting is thinking how I am going to feel there. The significant wrong choices I've made in my life have started with me seeking for money over self gratification.

I know this, money does not tell me that I did a great job. Money does not tell me that coming to my classes is enjoyable. Money does not try to talk to me in the breaks just to find out what kind of person hides behind the mask of the teacher. Money cannot be interested in listening my opinion about issues going on in the world. Money does not necessarily give me a voice. Money does not make sure I'm ok.

Money does not write e-mails just because it seemed in class that I was a little down. Money does not buy this kind of gratification, that you're actually impacting some lives.