Life changes

So long that I don't write here.
So many things happened in my life in the last months.
So many different emotional states: stress, happiness, excitement, being scared, freaking out, sadness, anger (lot of it), more stress, feeling lonely......I don't even know from where to start.
Maybe from the fact that things in life, at least in my life for sure, never happen when they are supposed to happen or when I wish they would happen or in the way I would like them to happen. I constantly feel like being at the right place at the wrong time.
I can't have things figured out. Even when I think I do. I just rest thinking that wow even if in a weird and unexpected way things are turning out quite well, when suddenly something new comes up to mess everything around again.
It may be considered a good thing, sure. But sometimes I also feel that it wouldn't be bad to have a vision for a bit longer than just the current day.
Since November I have been traveling between Ecuador, the USA, Italy, Portugal, France and in a few days I will be in Holland and then in the USA again.
I have applied to many many jobs and I also received many many rejections.
I have hoped and get crashed and hoped again.
I have been excited and miserable and excited again and miserable again for the same thing over and over in the past three months.

Part of me would like to learn how to be immune to other people. Part of me would like to learn to not care so much. Part of me would like to learn to not be polite when people do not deserve politeness, when they are not nice to me, my country, my family, or my culture. Part of me would like to learn how to be able to still be positive when surrounded by a tick layer of negativity that oppresses everything and makes everything grey.

I have a lot of beautiful things happening to me and in my life. But there is always something or someone who feels the need to ruin everything, to make things more difficult than they are so that they become an unbearable wall.

Sometimes I feel that it doesn't really matter what I do or I don't do, because things keep happening on their own, because life is just this way, and the only thing I can do is to try to get the best out of all these things, no matter how hard other people only try to make me see only the negative aspects on any of these things.
It is really not the way I am, or at least I have never been this way before. It may be a change due to aging or it may have something to do with the fact that some days I am really tired of thinking over and over about this, but I often find myself taking a decision more on "why not?" than based on over-thinking as it usually was.
Not that the end product of the two different modes of action is any different anyway.

I have been proposed. And I accepted.
And someone tried very hard to kill all the enthusiasm and expectation I had for it.
And I felt lonely and rejected.

I waited for something to happen for years. And when it did happen it was completely the worst possible timing.

I received a job offer for a job that overall I thought it would be cool. Not perfect, not ideal, but overall cool.
And someone tried his best to make me see only the negative aspects of it and how it will only make my life even more solitary.

It must be the yin and the yang. Nothing can be just good or just bad.....it must always be something in between apparently......at least in my life lately.

Single or in a couple

I just read this very nice article on the BBC News about being single or being part of a couple. I loved this piece. It is honest. Or I felt it is.

I have been there. I have been asked what was wrong with me for not being in a relationship (although now I am again part of a couple), why do I not want to settle down, why do I need to be so independent to make so difficult to be with me as a couple, why...why...why.....like if being alone instead of being part of a couple is a curse.

Understand me. I love being in a relationship with a person I love. But I do also love myself a lot. This has been a problem already in the past. I recognize this. But I do love myself and my life. And being part of a couple has never been (and I doubt it will ever be) the center of my life, nor what defines me as a person or for who I am.

Certainly, I would rather be alone than with a person who does not love me as much as I love myself.
Certainly, I would rather be alone than with a person who does not love me for the way I am.
Certainly, I would rather be alone than with someone who think he should be the focus of my life.

And this does not mean that I am unable to love or of being part of a couple. It means that it will take a little bit more effort for me to find someone who will respect, understand and appreciate than in my life being part of a couple is something that make me happy, yes, but it is only part of something that makes me happy.

...and this fear of being alone that often (at least for people I know) urges a person to be part of a couple, to not spend the week ends alone, to not have to face the pressure of the world that points the finger at single people, to just be with someone......well, in my case, it has happened that I felt lonelier in a couple sometimes that when I was truly alone, single.

When it comes to me, it actually freaks me out quite a lot the idea of being in a couple, and especially the idea of long term commitment, the idea of making decisions not only based on what it is best for me and my life, but based on what it is best for "us" as a couple, the idea of something becoming a routine rather than the true pleasure of being with someone......

I can say for experience that people relax a lot when they can fit you in one of the "standard" boxes (in couple, married, straight, gay, weird....), when they stop seeing you as a threaten to their stability and their securities of what it is known........

.....I do feel very very lonely sometimes and I am happy to be in a relationship with a person with whom I have no problems to think about myself as a part of a couple, but I hope that I will never forget to love myself first. It is my own duty to make myself happy. And if this will mean to be single again at any point in my life and have people looking at me as "poor her" or start asking uncomfortable and rude questions again, I hope that I will be able to be true to myself and not settle down for what someone else from the outside expects from me.

In any case, enjoy the article on the BBC.

I am an immigrant

I am living abroad, away from Italy since 10 years. It is a long time. I have been living in a lot of different countries and only in few of them I didn't feel that I was different, not belonging.

Here in Portugal, despite the cultural differences, none ever made me feel like I was "different" because non-Portuguese. People in general are doing a lot of efforts to understand me in my mixed mostly-spanish-a-bit-of-Portuguese spoken language...well of course, except for my landlord....but I can live with that. This until this morning.

I went to the farmers market as I do every 15 days on saturday. I love going to the farmers market here, it is one of the things I love more of living in this small Portuguese village. I like chatting with the people there, they all know me by now. They even remember my mom. They know what I like. It is a familiar environment. I really enjoy it and since there is only every 15 days on a saturday, I always look forward to this regular appointment.

However, this morning I had a not too pleasant conversation with one of the vendors. He was telling me that just a bit before me there was a Spanish girl who bought something and that he was surprised that there are so many foreigners, Spanish, Italian, etc living in this small village, because we are not here just for the holidays. I told him that we all work together in a research center nearby. He was surprised, but not pleasantly surprised. I like to state here that this guy is normally extremely nice and friendly, so it was not that he is rude or anything like this.

The first thing he said was:
- I hope that the money to pay your salary come from abroad or from the European community.

I stared at him......and only said "sorry?" I was not sure I understood well.

- I mean, why should Portugal pay someone who is not Portuguese? and even more, why should Portugal pay so many foreigners?

I understand that this may be a difficult concept for people who are not familiar with how the research world functions and that the foundations of our work are based on shared knowledge, independently of the nationality or race of the people doing research. I understand that with the current economic situation people are less tolerant. But the thing is....I have a salary, I live in Portugal, I pay my rent in Portugal, I do my shopping in Portugal, my life is in Portugal.....so, it is not that someone is paying me to bring the money to Italy and spend it there. I am part of this economy, I am part of this country until I work and I live here.

I don't understand this growing intolerance toward giving a job to a foreign person. I am not talking here about an illegal immigrant. I am talking about a person who is legally allowed to work in the country, who lives in the country, who may even pays the taxes in the country, etc. It is not that the money that the country invests on me are thrown away.....I just don't get it.....

The guy actually only chilled out when I confirmed to him that yes, a large part of our salaries come from the European community......

I am not very favorable in general to globalization, but local and narrowed thinking is a very dangerous thing, I feel.

Neither here nor there

......I wonder where is the place for me in the world......

One year I am in Portugal and I still don't get the way of doing things in this country. Procrastinating is a world that must not exist here, as it is such a common attitude that here it would lose its meaning....yeah, yeah, I know, I generalize too much.......The thing is. I am sure that there are exceptions to the general trend, but my experience living in this country for a year already shows me that I can't expect anything to happen in a reasonable time.

Three things I noticed in a year and that people who visited me got (all of them) noticed in a matter of just a couple of days.

- Service here generally sucks. Portuguese people are nice, no doubts about that. However, it seems that selling you something, serving you or whatever other interactions especially including food service could not happen in what I consider a normal service....no, instead either the person serving you does not even pay any attention to you for a randomly but generally quite long time span or if he/she does, you can bet that it will be a rather unfriendly exchange, like if they are doing a favor in serving you....no matter if I am actually paying for the service.
So, up to now this is an example of things that happened to me (and this is not a complete and extensive list, but just a few examples):

- At a restaurant, the waiter left me waiting until a soccer game action was over to get my order
- At a restaurant, my friend and me were left unattended because the waitress owner left and none else was in the restaurant except us and another customer.
- At a restaurant, the waiter shoveled the plate with the food to a friend of mine, so that most of the olives that were in the plate ended up on his pants, on the floor, or on the table.
- At a restaurant, the waiter kept smiling at us for long time before actually come to get out order, when it was clear that we were ready and she was not really busy.
- At a restaurant, the owner/waitress would not bring us the bill because she was too busy eating (and this not at the end of the service, but in the middle of opening hours).
- At a restaurant, the chef, waiters, and waitresses would sit at the table to eat when we were still there and would have liked to leave....but since everyone was eating at a table next to us, they couldn't stop to bring us the bill.
- At a cafe', we had to wait 15 minutes even if the cafe' was almost empty before someone would come to ask us what we wanted....and this after we got told 15 minutes before to sit that someone would have come (of course....they didn't specify when they would have come).
- In my apartment, I still have water on my kitchen floor every time it rains.....today I had to stay at home another day and work from home to wait someone who was supposed to come to look at the problem....only, as always none showed up and my landlord not only didn't call to tell me something, but he also didn't reply to my calls. I have no idea how many days of work I have already lost staying at home waiting for someone to show up.
- At work, my student has the philosophy that either something can be done quickly, no matter how badly it is done, otherwise we could do it together so that she could do something better with her time.

I feel that in this country, respect of other people time must be a very fuzzy concept.....
Now, considering my very organized mind and way of doing things and my kinda-of-German mentality, I can't stop struggling and being frustrated all the time.

And it seems that it doesn't matter what I can do....nothing change, nor if I try to solve things nicely, nor if I get angry. Nothing.

Too bad it is a lovely country and I love the place where I live, because otherwise I would have already had a break down.

On the other hand, I am applying for plenty of jobs in the USA, where my boyfriend is and where there are more job opportunities. Unfortunately, the fact of not being American and not having presently a working VISA in the USA, makes any of my application becoming a nightmare, as I have to keep sending email to ask if I can actually apply to the position and my application will be considered or as I am currently an "alien" I cannot even dream of getting a job in the USA.........

The older I get, the more I get the impression that I should just stop caring about things and try to abuse of any system I am in and not even bother trying to do things in a proper and efficient way, because most of the times the only one getting completely frustrated is just me.............................

42nd parallel south

It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I am shaken to the bottom of my soul.

I got this book from my mom as a present, I cannot remember if it was last Christmas or for my birthday last year. In any case, when I got the book is not important. What it is important is that some of its pages touched me so much that I just had tears in my eyes. 

I have always dreamed since years to go traveling and wondering around in Patagonia. Without a schedule. Without a goal. Just to live the place and feel it. I still don't know why Patagonia. It is just that any time I read something about it, I feel like it is my place. Maybe I am becoming too much of an hermit. I don't know. I don't necessarily think so. But I dream of the solitude of walking around in a place like Patagonia. Of being in a place where nothing can be given for granted. I have to admit that I would be too scared to go there and spend months there alone....but I always hope to find the right company to share this dream with.

In any case, I enjoy travel books. Books about places in the world. This is why I probably like so much B. Bryson's book (together with the fact that he is an amazing writer!). But this book, this specific book I am reading is not only about Patagonia and traveling below the 42nd parallel south of the world. It is about encounters with people who love this place. It is about a hard land, a difficult solitary place where people still live in a simple way, without the pressure that we have in this kind of world instead. I just read a chapter of this book about a solitary 95 years old woman living in this solitary place, in her isolated little house, drinking mate. But she is not alone, she has her dog, her sheep, her garden. I was reading about it, but I could imagine the whole place, the old lady, everything like if I was standing in front of the scenario. And the book tells about the appeal of this land to people with a lot of money who cannot appreciate the wind, the steppe, the nothing and want to use this immense space to build something on it, to change it, to destroy what it has been until now, as it happens for many other once uncontaminated places on earth. And reading this and thinking that Patagonia too will face the advancement and progresses of our civilization and most likely lose all what I ideally love about this place, the isolation, the lack of the globalization pressures, the scattered living things surviving there, the natural environments, made me extremely sad.

I love starbucks and I always enjoy getting an ice soy latte when I am in the USA. But I also love the fact that it is a treat for me, that I cannot have it all the time, because here, in most of the places in Europe, we still have little coffee places, which are one of a kind. I am not against globalization, but it shouldn't be so widespread. I like characteristic, traditional things and there are places in the world that shouldn't be bought just because someone has the money, that shouldn't be destroyed in name of making more money and making a world that looks all the same, no matter where we are. I am definitively for diversity.

Please, let Patagonia be and stay as in my dreams!

I am not superstitious

Friday 17.

I should have known better and spent the whole day in bed.

I instead decided to wake up, get out of bed and live it like a normal day, because I am not superstitious....

But what a major crappy day it has been today!

I had a major drama-like situation for work, with panic, phone calls, everyone worried.....and the thing is not solved yet....it even included someone telling me that my career after this may be over...I thought it didn't even fully start yet.....

Then I had a major fight with my ex-now-current-again boyfriend, which made me wondering why I am not just staying on my own....

Good thing that I live in a little corner of paradise, so that I escaped the two things first by biking along the sea for long time and then in the evening, by walking on the beach at the sunset looking for animals left behind by the low tide.

Second good thing is that I have many episodes to watch of BBT, which I love and which still makes me laugh even if I watch the same episodes over and over!

But gosh if this was a very harsh day!!!

Love and hate

This is how I feel for my apartment in Portugal.

Most of the times, I love it.

Some other times, generally when it rains, I hate it.

It is a beautiful day today and I just spent my morning sitting in the part of my kitchen surrounded by windows and with an ocean view. Then I went for a walk on the beach, for which I need to just cross a road, and then I got back to my place to have lunch at the window while staring at the ocean and its big waves.

This is something I have been dreaming about since I can remember. Living in front of the sea...in this case it is the ocean. The same. I don't have too much choice in terms of choosing the country in which to live...generally, I have to go where I have some chances to get a job. But in this case, I feel pretty lucky. I don't necessarily like where I work, but I love where I live, and my apartment is just perfect.....

......actually, I should say ALMOST perfect.....

The pond that I have on my kitchen floor when it rains, it is now a lake....it was a pond, a manageable pond, until I realized that if I don't dry continuously the rain leaking in from the outside, I have water advancing and advancing. Yesterday, I had to wait for the person in charge of repairing things in the building to come over and look at the problem before drying the water from the floor. In about eight hours of rain, I had 1 square meter of the kitchen floor, if not more, completely covered by water, which was scarily enough continuing to advance.

Good thing that I was here and not in holidays.
Good thing that I was at home.

My frustration for this problem was not so unbearable, even if I have problems of rain leaking in the kitchen since I moved in, until the man of the building came, look at the problem and told me that a) repairing what needs to be repaired is going to be expensive, b) it is the responsibility of the building and not of my landlord, and c) IF THERE ARE NO MONEY ON THE ACCOUNT OF THE BUILDING WHO KNOWS WHEN AND IF THIS PROBLEM WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF.

Now, if the rain would come in and occupy just a spot on my kitchen floor, I wouldn't be that worried, because this apartment is so amazing for anything else, that I would never move out. However, thinking that if this would happen one of the times in which I am not here, since I travel so much, probably:
1) the furniture of the kitchen would get ruined (and this would be a problem for my landlord)
2) I would have to move my furniture away to another room any time I leave
3) and that there are electrical things in the kitchen which could be dangerous if they get in touch with a lot of water......

all these things made me thinking of what I should do in case they will really not repair it soon. If this would have been a place where it rains once in a while, I could live with the risk, but since it could rain without stop for weeks in a row.....well.....

Easy thing would be moving out. But moving is stressful and more than anything else, my apartment is very peaceful, I don't have noisy neighbors, I can sleep well, I have an ocean view, I cross the road and I am on the beach where I can do sport and relax, I have a bakery next door and the supermarket just in 5 minutes walk (important point since I don't have a car), it is big so that I can host anyone who wants to visit me without anyone feeling packed like sardines, it is not too expensive, I have a garage in case of need....I can keep going on and on with all the positive points of this place.....

so, how can I solve this problem of the rain coming in and invading my kitchen if they will not fix the problem in some way?

Se non son matti non li vogliamo

My mom always used to say this to my sister and I to highlight the amazing talent that we both have in attracting or meeting weirdos....

I already wrote a post about my recent encounter with a weird man.....but yesterday I met another weird person....a taxi driver/philosopher....I just got back to Portugal from Italy and since I was deadly tired, I decided to get a taxi to come back home from the airport.

I woke up at 4am yesterday morning, so when I got into the taxi I was definitively not in the mood for a chat...especially considering that after 6 weeks speaking Spanish, English or Italian, any little knowledge or understanding of Portuguese that I may have had is basically gone....

In any case, I get into the taxi and this guy proposes me to make a deal...paying a forfeit for the drive to my place but I would let him chose the road to take, as he didn't want to be stuck in traffic....when he told me how much the forfeit would have been, I immediately accepted the deal as I almost never pay so little for the same ride, except if done at 5am. However, just to understand that he was proposing me a deal, it took something like 15 minutes.....

After that, instead of being discouraged by my little understanding of Portuguese so early in the morning, he decided to share his philosophy of life with me...He started by telling me that the worldwide economic crisis is real, but for sure there is also a world-spread mafia who wants us to believe that the situation is worse than how it really is.... (?) ....something like a world conspiracy....and we shouldn't care about what people or the media tell us about the crisis, we should live only according to what makes us happy and works for us, and as much as we can, we should behave independently of what happens around us...

since I was not sure to follow his line of thoughts, he decided to explain his theory to me by using a fitting example.....his example was the following....

- Couples exchange, which is a really common thing in France.....

Ok, now, beside the fact that I have been living in France for three years without realizing that couples exchange is such a common thing there, my ignorance on the subject may be due to my being very naif....However, since I didn't want to encourage him to give me further details on how he got this knowledge about couples exchange being a common practice in France, I just nodded with my head, hoping to continue the rest of the trip in silence....

But he must have read in my eyes that nothing he was saying made any sense to me....

So, his further explanation was:

- According to the church and the religion, we shouldn't cheat on each other. However, let's say that I am married and you are married (you was me in this case) and that I like you and you like me and that my wife likes your husband and vice-versa and we are all happy in having an open relationship in which we swap partners from time to time, as it is very common in France (again....can please a French person tell me if this is so common in France??? I was a bit surprise to hear this...), then we should go for it as life is short and we will all end up dead anyway....

Ok, I may agree on this one, but I still couldn't get the relationship with the economic crisis....which he further explained like this....

- So, if the media or people tell us that there is an economic crisis, it doesn't make sense to try to have a wise behavior to help things getting better, as they suggest, because since there is a world-conspiracy, we will lose anyway....therefore, since life is short, we better enjoy it as much as we can, spending money if we feel like and doing whatever we want.....

Right....it may be right that the media exaggerate the situation of the economic crisis and that we should keep the market going without completely stopping buying things and living....but spending money that most people do not have, so that they get indebted to the banks to which they ask a loan, without being able to pay them back after, will only increase the loop and the crisis.....stopping the economy is not a solution in my view, but also not being wise and keep consuming without restrain is not a solution either.....

In any case, independently of the measures to fight the economic crisis, I loved the example he used to explain his theory to me........

Creepy men

I have a special talent. The one of often, way too often, attract creepy men.
I may smile too much.
I may be too friendly.
I may look too innocent.

I have no idea why this keeps happening to me, but no matter where I am, I almost always manage to find a creepy man.
I was just in the Galapapos for work. Walking on the beach on a very early morning. This 70-75 years old guy was also there with his brother in law. There were not too many people on the beach. They approached me and asked if I wanted them to take a picture of myself there. Why not?

One of them took the picture and started to tell me all about his life. That he is Ecuadorian, married to an Italian woman and they live in Canada. That he loves Ecuador and any time he can, he tries to go back to his country and especially visit the Galapagos....that his brother has a tv station....do I want to make a movie?

no?

a documentary maybe?

no?

his brother in law has also a radio station, the only one you can receive also in the Galapagos. Do I want an interview?

no?

while he was keeping tormenting me with questions, I was politely trying to walk away.....and he kept following....finally, considering the age difference, I was much faster than him and I managed to put some distance between us. He left the beach.

On the way back from the beach to the main road, I found him again. He started to talk to me again and he followed me to where I was staying. I told him that I had to work and I was very busy. He took a taxi and left. I thought that my encounter with him could be considered over after that.

Not really....he came back to where he left me and asked about me. A woman came to look for me and I asked her to please tell to the man that I was too busy with work to stop doing what I was doing. He left his card, demanding to this woman to please give the card to me and to remind me to contact him.

I got the card.

I went for lunch with some colleagues and he was there. As soon as we sat at the table, he appeared from nowhere......did I get his card?

yes, I did.

Am I going to write him?

uh?

please, remember to write me.....

Was the guy stalking me? how could have been there too?

I met him other two times after this day. Fortunately, I was never alone when I met him. Fortunately, one of these times I made him understanding that I wanted to be alone with one of the guys who was with me....which luckily, even if happily married, played along to help me to avoid this insistent man.

The thing is....why wherever I go I always meet creepy guys?
maybe there are too many of them out there....or maybe I have something special to attract them.... :-(

Dangers of being lost in translation

A small little misunderstood word can do some damages....some unexpected damage........

The fault is due to the fact that by speaking Italian and Spanish most of the times I think to also be able to understand Portuguese...and most of the times in fact I do....but some other times I don't.

I went for a bikini wax. It is summer season. I live right in front of the beach, so for me it is bikini time. And bikini time requires waxing. Up to here no problems. The problem started when for the first time since I am here and for the first time since I had other bikini wax here, the girl asked me a simple question, which was

"Tira"?

I don't know if in Spanish "tira" has any meaning, but in Italian has a meaning that would have perfectly fitted in the context....basically, I thought that since it was the first time I was taking a bikini wax there, the girl was asking me if I was feeling any uncomfortable....So, I replied with a "no"....which overall I think it was the right answer in any case, even if the meaning of the word "tira" in Portuguese was something else.

Anyway, she then said to me "no?" with a question mark at the end.....

I got that I gave her the wrong answer.....so, without having any clue of what actually she was asking me with "tira?", I replied "yes".

She said "yes?"

I mean, I felt that I couldn't give again the opposite answer....so, thinking that how much damage can you do by giving the wrong answer while doing a biking wax, I decided that "yes" sounded like a good answer.....

....she went for the yes.....

I am not going to write here what she really meant with that question....I just want to say that since she was not even happy with the first result of her work, she tried to improve it (she must have had a very artistic soul) and the end results was not only very painful, but also something totally unexpected and not what I had in mind when I entered the place...

oh, well....nothing to do about it now, except for waiting.


I just discovered a new music group now....The Traditionalist...I am listening to few songs now.....it doesn't seem bad...

Never ending

...et voila'....after only 7 months living in my apartment here in Portugal, I still have rain leaking inside on the kitchen floor.....

Before it was coming in from the windows (and not only in the kitchen). Now, after almost 6 months of dealing with this problem (which mostly meant me cleaning the floor in every single room many times a day every day we have rain with wind, which here is not uncommon), the rain doesn't leak in anymore from the windows, but passes inside from the floor...

Anyway, I can already see that it will take a minimum of a month for my landlord to find someone to come to see the problem, then he will send a couple of other people to get a second and third opinion and find out who could fix the problem at a cheaper price, then it will take another month before the selected person is available and then we will be in the fall, when it will start raining seriously and by when I would need this problem to seriously be fixed.

As I wrote in a previous post.....pole pole....

Hogwarts School is right here in Porto

I love the official outfit (uniform?) of the University of Porto students. Every time I see one of them, I wonder if I just popped up on the set of one of the Harry Potter' movies.

I was in Porto just yesterday morning and while I was waiting for the metro, there was a girl next to me dressed in such a way that for a moment I really thought that suddenly she may took out her wand and perform some magic (but of course, magic tricks are not allowed in the muggles' word)....

Anyway, the official outfit of the students of the University of Porto is fantastic. They are all in black, with a black long mantel. Skirt and black tights for girls, black trousers for men. White shirt. Some girls even wear a black tie. I tried to find a picture on the web, because no description can really replace the image in this case, but I couldn't find any (don't know why on google images I kept getting pictures of Asian students...I don't see the relationship...)

Honestly, when you see a lot of them dressed like that all together, it feels like being at Hogwarts and it is a pretty cool feeling, at least for the Harry Potter's addicted like me.

Happy and scared

I am not sure what really happened, but for the first time in a long time, I am really, truly, deeply happy. I feel the kind of happiness that makes me walking around with a smile.

I am back to Montpellier for a short work stay and I am spending a lot of time with close friends, who keep showing me how happy they are to have me here. The same for the people I used to work with. It is a nice feeling. Plus, I found the strength of stopping a very unhealthy and painful interaction and even if this decision still makes me sad for a lot of reasons when I think about it, overall, it makes me also feel lighter and happier for having taken a step toward my own happiness, instead of always putting someone else in front of me. Last thing, I think that finally, after long long long time, I feel able to love again. I just can't stop smiling.

Unfortunately, I am also quite scared....It has been so long since the last time that I felt this way for more than just a short moment or one day, that I am afraid that this feeling will end soon......

Pole pole

A friend of mine is currently learning to adapt to a different life style and culture and she often needs to repeat to herself this thing "pole pole" that in Swahili should mean something like "slowly" or should indicate that things come gradually to the ones who are able to be patient.

Well, I keep repeating this to myself too in these last days. I don't know. She wrote this "pole pole" a couple of times to me and now it is stuck in my head. Maybe because this motto is made of two repeated words and sounds like a mantra and has really the effect of reminding me to breath and slow down....so "pole pole" to myself.

"Pole pole" to the fact that I will be in France in less than a week to work with one of my ex-boss and he forgot that it was a National holidays exactly on the day that we planned our meeting. Pole pole because I still don't know when I will meet him and I am going there to meet him and work with him. Pole pole because I still don't know where I will be staying, except for the first two nights, and how long I will be stay, because it all depends on when I will be done with the work I have to do there and because I don't want to just abuse of my friends' hospitality. Pole pole because it looks like I will be leaving my place and after two months, I still have water leaking in every single room from the windows every time that it rains strongly. Pole pole because I am excited and I look forward to go back to the last place where I have been living, seeing my friends, etc., but I am also very scared because things will be different, as I don't live there anymore since already many months. Pole pole because my family is facing a lot of economic problems due to the general crisis in Italy and not only I don't know how to help them, but I get frustrated by sitting without being able to do anything when I see the country collapsing and sinking. Pole pole because some days I wish I could receive an hug from someone special to me and I know that I have to wait for that.

Pole pole for all this and much more.....and thanks to my friend for telling me these two simple, but with quite an effect on me, words.

PS. I just saw this movie and there is one sentence in there that is just brilliant. It is "I don't need to think, I am catholic". Brilliant!

jumping contact lenses

My current week started in this way:

- Monday. After one month and a half we got the decision about a work we submitted.....more, much more work is still needed...considering that this specific work has been started some years ago...well, it is a never ending story.

- Tuesday. I received the response to a job I applied to and for which I strongly hoped to at least make it to the interview. I didn't. My previous boss wrote me to say that he cannot imagine what was wrong with my application that I didn't make it to the interview....neither can I.

- Wednesday. Today. I woke up to find water in the kitchen and a lot of water in the living room. The water in the kitchen was to be expected, as when it rains with wind, the rain leaks inside the windows and accumulates on the floor. I have this problem only since two months now....which I guess for Portuguese standards is too little time to deserve to be fixed. The water in the living room instead was a new entry. I was lucky enough to have a lot of water but which didn't got to touch the furniture, which are all in wood of course.....So, my morning started with drying the water here and there and moving the furniture in the only place with no windows where for now it seems to be the smaller risk to have rain also there.....The landlord came to my place, got angry at the person who did the work with the windows recently (15 years ago??? 20 years ago???), made many phone calls and solved nothing before leaving again.....

- Wednesday. Still today. Around 10.30am I got an email from a collaborator of mine. The subject of the email was "bad news". Just what I needed. Apparently the experiment that he was setting up for our work went very very bad...none fault. Actually, the poor guy was feeling very sorry. But it was not his fault....just bad luck....

I would say that so far the standard of bad news that one can get in a week is already pretty high.

To cheer myself up, I went for something that I want to do since very longtime, but I was actually too scared to try until now (and I am still too scared). Trying contact lenses. I don't mind wearing glasses, but I like my eyes and I wish I could show them more. But this is not enough of a reason to push me to try the contact lenses. No, it is the b-boying course I started. Even if I suck so far in b-boying, I enjoy it a lot and I want to continue it. And doing that with glasses is a nightmare. So, I forced myself and I went to try the contact lenses. I didn't succeed. I am just too scared of damaging my eyes and I can't stand having anything remotely close to my eyes....I tried to put them in for about 5-6 times and then I decided to take a break and try again another day. My approach to the contact lenses is to get them on my finger and close enough to my eye, but not too close and hope that something will happen (like my eye sucking the lens in???) to put them in place. After trying this strategy many times without actually any success, I decided that my stomach was already upset enough from the whole effort and to call it a day for now.....

Can someone invent some jumping lenses that op! can fit directly into the eye with the minimum effort and without nothing having to get too close to the eye and op! same thing for removing them???

good timing

Just as yesterday I wrote a post about the need I have for finding the right people (especially girl) with whom building some close friendship here, today I read an article on the NYT about sisterhood.

Girl friendship is very important and not only to me. I miss my close girlfriends who live basically all across the world. I hope that I will find someone to feel connected too also here. It is very important to feel mentally balanced and to not make a drama of every little daily difficulty.


I just read a quote from the movie Detachment that I consider very truthful and beautiful in a sad way.

What a jerk

I know. Jerk is not a nice word to use in a blog. And it is not a nice definition for a person....but what can I say? I met someone recently who was a real jerk.

Let's start from the beginning.
I just got back from the USA. I am totally under jet lag effect. I do really bad with jet lag....and I can't afford being lazy and recover my normal biorhythm because I have a coming deadline for work.....

Being in the USA, in my old lab, meeting my old boss, etc. brought back a lot of memories and mixed feelings. Did I like to be there again? I liked to meet some of my friends who are still working there. My ex boss was very nice to me, which was a good thing since when I was there she was not my biggest fan. We may manage to start collaborating again for work, which I guess it is another good thing.

anyway, good things and bad things....

What I didn't like of being there again was the arrogance of people who think of being on top of the world, to best the most knowledgeable in the world....I like to discuss about my work, I like to collaborate (with people I like), I like to discuss about scientific subjects and possible projects. What I don't like is people looking at me and talking to me with arrogance, listing me all the amazing things they did and how good they are and how amazing is their work and what they are planning to do and how useless my work and my knowledge are. Of course, not everyone there is like that. But I would say that the average level of arrogance is much higher there than where I work now.

The top of the whole thing has been a Brazilian guy who was there for a short work visit who offered me a job in Brazil. The whole thing went like this:

Him: I may have a job for you in Brazil, if you want it.

Me: A job? which kind of job?

Him: A permanent position there. I am going back there and I can find you a position.

Me: to work on what?

Him: vector diseases (or something like that, I don't even remember, as it is not at all my field of expertise).

Me: but I know nothing about it. It is not my field at all.

Him: well, you can change.

Me: how can I get a permanent position to work on something I know nothing about?

Him: Brazil is the future. We are growing. Our GDP is very good......and so on praising Brazil.

Me: Yeah, I heard that despite the world economic crisis Brazil is doing quite well. But I just read a book in which the author highlighted that the GDP is not really a good measure of wealth of a country.

....and here he got very angry at me and he started saying that I don't understand anything because GDP measures the wealth of a country and I don't know anything about Brazil and that I shouldn't talk about things I don't know, etc.

I tried to explain to him that my point was not about Brazil, but that it was just a comment about something I recently read on the GDP. It is true that I don't know anything about GDP and economy and Brazil. I was not making a statement neither about GDP nor about Brazil. It was just because I finished a book on the plane in which the author pointed our that use of the GDP as a measure of how well a country is doing may be misleading.....that's all.

The whole conversation was already quite weird and it didn't end very well....I couldn't understand why with all the people looking for a job someone should offer me a permanent position on something which is not at all my field of expertise and not even close to it........

Things got clearer the next day when I spoke to a friend of mine who was present there during the whole conversation.

Apparently, after I left the room, the Brazilian guy started complaining about me, about how unpolite I have been with him, saying bad things about Brazil (which not only I didn't, but anyone who knows me also knows that it wouldn't be at all in my character to say bad things about a country I don't know. I was actually telling him that I know someone who works in Brazil and he is very happy......), insulting his country......

....but the most amazing part of the whole thing is that apparently he offered me a job to show himself off to me, to show me how powerful he is to be able to get me a job if he wants to. He wanted me to admire him and to think of him as an influential and powerful person.

Not only I didn't realize at all that he was trying to impress me (I am very naive....btw he is also married), so his attempt was completely unsuccessful, but I also didn't realize that he felt so badly offended by me.

...what a jerk.....there are still men in this world who think that they can impress a woman just by showing some power.....well, he certainly picked the wrong person for that. Too bad that I am sure that he didn't learn anything from the whole thing.

......just to conclude with a note about men......

I was sitting at a Starbucks working and a guy started flirting with me. This time it was a nice guy, fortunately. Very nice and very mannered.....but come on, I am there just for two weeks....what did he hope for when he invited me to meet for a coffee later after his work (invitation that I refused)?

.....he said that he has rarely met someone so interesting as me......

come on......lame attempt.....but at least he was a nice guy to talk to for a bit.

Honestly.....can men really get some women with so little such as showing some power or by flattering them???? maybe I am too cynical, but certainly it does not work with me......

I don't want to let you go

My closest friend just sent me a nice email with written: "I understand how you feel, but I just want to see you happy".
It was nice. It is nice to know that someone wishes my happiness and look out for me, to try to protect me from suffering and being hurt. But sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes the same people who want our best are the ones who hurt us. I did the same too to people I deeply loved. Sometimes we don't realize how our actions can hurt another person. We don't mean bad, but the result can be very damaging for the other.

Anyway. My life in Portugal is not settled and I keep having huge mood shifts depending on the days, depending on work, depending on my interaction with the others, etc. I am constantly frustrated here because there is no way to get to the end of anything or have an answer to anything in a reasonable time. I am spending my time doing actually nothing for my own work, but just talking to this person and that person and this other person to try to figure out if we need to buy some materials, if we already have it and where it is, etc. It is a continuous loop in which people just talk, talk, talk.

I am definitively more a person of actions instead of just talk, talk, talk.

And I am Mediterranean, but I don't share the tipical Mediterranean mentality of "don't do today what you can do tomorrow". My motto is more "do what you have to do as soon as possible at least that thing is done and you can move on".

From here my deep frustration of living in this country so far. To get anything done, I need to ask the same thing over, and over, and over. I am already sick of it.

On top of this, there is my personal life, which is not at the top either. I always have huge problems in letting people leaving my life. When someone matters to me, either a friend, a colleague, or a past important boyfriend, I like to keep these people in my life, because they are the people who make a difference to me. My friends are few, but they are the same since longtime and when I meet new people, I keep only close friends when I move from one place to another. And I try my best to keep them as a part of my life, no matter how much time and energy I need to invest on it. They are the ones who make my life meaningful and much better.

Love and friendship mean a lot to me and to my mental health. I can't do without those.

The thing is that I don't get close to too many people. I am very protective of myself, because I know how vulnerable, sensitive, and how easily I can be hurt by people who get close to me and became important in my life. But the ones who make the cut, I wish they would stay there, in my life, forever.

I know that this doesn't work well with past boyfriend, especially if the relationship has been very intense and meant something to both. I know that this is also not easy when people live in different countries. Also because I am not able to go from a close relationship to someone to something very superficial. I have never been able to deal with people close to me who faded away in some way from my life. I always, always suffered very much because of that.

And it keeps happening. I never accept this as a fact of life. I am not the kind of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I am happy to be left with the memories of the good time we have". I am more the type of person who thinks "we had a great time together and I don't want this to be over".

But of course, this does not depend only on me...so what is the solution since I am clearly not able to let people go out of my life if they had/have an important role in it? I don't think that at this age I will ever learn how to deal with it. Should I close myself off even more to get close to people until I am 100% sure that they will play a role in my life and stay there? how can I know that in advance?

How can you avoid to get hurt since you cannot predict the future?

On cars, ecology, environment and an healthier life

It is not a secret what I think about the topics mentioned in the title of this blog, since I wrote about them many times on this blog.

Just to resume: we should drive less, have a better, cheaper and more efficient public transportation system, and take better care of the environment.

I just read one of the opinions on the NY Times who just shares a similar way of thinking to mine when it comes to these topics. It would be wonderful if everyone would start just contributing a little to live in a greener way.....I believe that little by little in every day life of most people of Earth could make a difference even on a global scale.

Me.....I guess I should fly less often if I wanted to be "greener"....I try to use the train as much as possible within Europe, but it is true that sometimes taking the train is either too long and too stressful, impossible (e.g., if I have to cross the Ocean), or too expensive.....

I try to make up to this very polluting behavior by walking a lot, consuming little, recycling anything I can.



......about walking....I just use this post to write that since I love walking because it helps me to calm down and clear my mind, today I went for a long walk on the beach (really on the beach, on the sand). It was beautiful, because it was windy and the sea was very rough. I love walking on the beach in these conditions, it makes me feel very alive!

Moving sensor light

I understand that technology is a good thing. That technology improves our lives, etc.
But I hate the invention of the lights that switch on and off according to movements. Yes, they are great, they help in saving energy. But the point is that if you don't move, they switch off. It doesn't matter if you are there doing something. You don't move, so there is no need for a light.

This is generally annoying. But it gets even more annoying when it happens while you are in the bathroom to do something that generally does not require a lot of movement. So, I am there, doing my things and puff, the light goes off because I don't move and suddenly it is all dark.....I don't know who had the brilliant idea to put these things in toilet rooms, but I really find it very impractical!