Mobile - Tensaw Delta

There is one reason why I came here

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Farinha torrada

I just had this cake that a friend of mine brought me from a place South of Lisbon...

Fantastic!!!! I have to force myself to stop eating it. I love everything with cinnamon and this is so good!!!!! I should try to make it....

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!

My little corner of paradise

I had a very bad, with a very down mood day today.
It would have been even worst for sure if it is not that I live in a fantastic place.

Yes, I still have a pond on my kitchen floor every time it rains hard.
Yes, I still have problems at work and no close friends.

Yet, I love being here. I love living here.

Yesterday I went to the farmers market, just near my place. And not to a fancy farmers market, where things are double the price than at the supermarket. This is a real farmers market. With people who actually clearly cultivate their products. People who sell only seasonal products. A farmers market where I could get tomatoes that still taste like tomatoes and not just like a water bomb, where I can get many many lemons for 25 cents, where I can get cucumbers that taste like something.......

I love it.

And then yesterday I went for a long walk on the beach. I saw the little birds playing with the waves, I saw all the seagrasses on the shore, and I enjoy the feeling of the sand under my feet....and today I went running. First I tried on the sand, and my heart was pounding like crazy and I was out of breath after two minutes, but then I continued running along the beach and then I did stretching in front of the sea, on the evening light....and my mood got much better and I felt in love for this place.

And at the end I also saw shooting stars from the beach!!! Isn't it great?

My mood and the music I listen to...

After many articles telling us that we are what we eat, now also that what we are depends on when we eat...I can make my own motto, which is I am what I am listening to (in terms of music, of course)....

....it doesn't really work this way, but for sure the music I feel like listening to is highly correlated to my mood at that moment and what I am doing...

I am a music addicted....meaning that one of the things I couldn't live without is music. I am into discovering new singers/groups and I love to share my discoveries with others (and that others share their discoveries with me). I recently met an extremely interesting person during my stay in Montpellier. He was completely taken by Gretchen Parlato. It is not the kind of music I am used to listen to, but she has a wonderful warm, caressing voice. Little by little, I am trying to appreciate also the arrangements of the music she is singing on.

Anyway, in my always looking for new music to discovery, I just visited the blog of inkiostro, which I always find very inspiring and entertaining, and I found this very nice post taken from another blog, on the most indicated music to improve the productivity at work/work better. I did it...I mean, I followed the signs to discover the most appropriate music for my work. Beside that my work is quite atypical as I sit in front of the computer most days, but it is also a creative job, but I don't work with numbers and I am not a programmer....anyway, I looked at the music suggested according to these different options....but I think that I will stick to my playlist as if I would listen to classical or jazz music I wouldn't be able to concentrate and think properly (come on, this is not a background music! this is a music to listen to), if I would listen to ambient music, depending on which kind of it, I would feel like I am in the waiting room of the dentist (which of course wouldn't make me feel any productive in terms of work), if I would listen to polka I would feel like moving and dancing, etc., etc. The only music I actually listen to most of the time, which is indie-rock, is not considered in any of the working categories closer to what I am actually doing....

I think that I will keep my productivity at work as it is and keep enjoying the music I like, no matter of the final results...work productivity is not everything in life after all!

Getting ready.....

....for The Avengers....

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I am looking forward to watch it. I am not as addicted to the sci-fi movies as I am for Harry Potter, but still.....I really like them. So, I started to re-watch the X-men movies and now I am going to watch the Incredible Hulk...

I enjoy watching different types of movies, from the ones that are very artistic, to the classic ones, etc. But the sci-fi movies, in a similar way to what happens to me when I watch Harry Potter, for a couple of hours completely take my mind off from any daily thing and transport me to a fantasy world. They are not only very relaxing, but also therapeutic in some way....

I hope that The Avengers will be as good as I expect it to be!

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!

Overenergetic

I have too much energy. I don't know why, but I often look like I am on some exciting drugs...instead, it is all natural...a lot of people envy this surplus of energy and I agree that it is a useful tool, because I always manage to do million things in a day....the thing is that I also need to manage this surplus of energy very well, because when I don't use it, I risk to get very down, very paranoid, I don't sleep well and I get agitated, very stressed, and nervous very easily....

Of course, in general I have a life-style which allows me to burn all the energetic surplus. I wake up and I do abs and push up, then I walk very fast to and from work (20 minutes each way), then I work a lot, and in the evening I always dance a little at home or I do some other activities...anyway, in general managing the overenergetic me is not a problem. I do a lot of sport and everything fits well in place..and I can smile at the world.

The problem is when I am in holidays or when I don't have my own life.

In the last 3 months I have been living either in hotels or at some friends place. And while I am very thankful to my friends for having hosted me and I am very happy for my trip in Costa Rica, it is also true that it was much more difficult to have a routine to avoid building up too much stress and energy. Plus, I had too much time to think during my holidays alone in Costa Rica.....and since for me thinking too much always ends up in some kind of paranoia, I really needed a lot of sport to keep myself under control and in a good mental shape....

In Costa Rica, I hiked a lot, and tried stand up board paddling. I had plenty of occasions to do some outdoor activity. It was very easy. The problem was when I got back to Portugal, and in Montpellier after and now in Italy. Fortunately, I brought my running shoes with me.

I went running tonight and I am so proud of myself. Not only I was impressed of still being in a good shape, I ran very well and my mood improved in an incredible fast way. Sometimes I get so down and stressed that I forget how badly I need sport to keep myself balanced.

Anyway, my wish to everyone for this new coming year is to have a very healthy 2012.

I have to keep in mind to hit the road regularly, no matter what the weather outside is, to be in good mental and physical shape!

Happy 2012!!!!

Two more days

Two more days and my year of waiting will come to an end. The last Harry Potter movie is coming out this Wednesday and I am really looking forward to that!
I am planning to go to watch the movie alone, as I don't have any friend who is so crazy as me about Harry Potter and I deeply want to enjoy it. I am also hoping to find a shop where I can rent some Harry Potter's stuff to wear it on Wednesday. I may even go to work in a Harry Potter look if I find something.

I know that this passion of mine sounds very childish, but I absolutely don't care at all and I am extremely excited and I am strongly looking forward to this new movie (unfortunately maybe the last one, if no more books will come out.... :-( ).


PS. I really enjoyed the last Harry Potter's movie. I will go to watch it again very soon, I think. The movie also broke the box office record in the USA.

PPS. It is very weird...here in Montpellier, it was not a big thing at all this Harry Potter last movie. I went to the movie theater very early to make sure to get tickets and there was NOBODY! I was very surprised. Nobody was dressed or anything. I felt a bit of a nut-case here....but I then saw that around the world the movie has been received as I would have expected.

Walking the streets of Montpellier

I went to see the movie "Midnight in Paris" with some friends last night. They all liked it except me. It was funny, but it was very predictable and I found the story in itself to be very poor. After the movie we went to a pub...like always.
I discovered one thing. For the people of Portugal, it is all about food. Getting together is all plaid around food and eating (I guess in Italy it happens the same....I just don't remember). Here in France, it is all about "prendre un verre", which basically means going out to drink something. I have to work hard to convince people to do something else beside sitting in a cafe' or in a pub to drink something and even when I do convince someone to do something else, the afternoon or the evening program MUST also include "de prendre un verre". Fortunately yesterday we didn't stay at the pub too long. I just get so bored after a while of sitting in a group in a pub drinking and talking. I am more the kind of person who likes to do things instead of just sitting and drinking (also because how many juices and glass of water can I drink in a single evening since I don't drink alcohol???).
In any case, after the pub we went for a long long walk and since I was not alone (I don't like to walk alone at night here, there are too many drunk people around), for once I really enjoyed walking around the streets of Montpellier at night. It was a bit chilli, but overall it was very pleasant. I guess that we walked for about two hours and it was very nice. I am a nocturnal person, definitively, and I love walking around. I think that it is the best way to discover a place. So, even if I live here since almost three years, last night I had the chance to really enjoy this city. I hope to have the chance to walk around at night again in the future. I love it. Plus....I got the chance to see a few geckos on the walls of the old houses here. Nice!

La botte piena e la moglie ubriaca

This is another common Italian way of saying that indicates a person who wants it all. Like me right now. And not only right now, to be honest.
I just got back to Italy. Crazy how much I miss being there, with my family, my close friends that I know since I was little (or much younger anyway), my home town, the familiar things, the food I love. I know that I would get saturated of all these same things within a couple of days if I would live there, but when I am there for just a few days, it is never easy nor pleasant to leave.
It may sound very childish, but I do wish that I would have it all.
My family and my friends close to me, so that I could spend a proper normal time with them, without always having to rush.
My home town, which I truly, deeply, love because it is beautiful (too bad that I cannot say the same about the typical "Lucchese", the people of Lucca).
All the familiar things that make me feel immediately at home.
The hugs of my mom and my grandma.
The long beaches on which to walk in the evening, at the sunset.
The laughs.

Many years ago I took a decision, which was to leave Italy to try to do what I like as work. I have never regretted that decision, even now, even when things were very hard for me. I do what I like and I consider myself lucky for this possibility that I have. But my roots are important to me and there is not success in my work that can replace the emptiness given by not having my family and friends close to me to share things with them. I could try to go back, but in this moment of general economic crisis, there are not possibilities in Italy, especially considering that my job is not "commercially valuable".
My last ex-boyfriend often said that we should have tried to find a way to spend half of the year living where we had a job and the other half of the year in Lucca, where I am from. Maybe half of the year would have been too much, but some months every year would be ideal. My next job is much more flexible of what I have now, so maybe it will be possible to work for some months from abroad...with abroad meaning Italy or any other place where I would like to be. For now I have to slowly get back to my life here.....one step at the time....

PS. Fortunately I have The Big Bang Theory and Sex and the City episodes to watch....perfect cheer me up tools!

The beauty of this world (and beyond that)

I love week ends. Week ends can be quite tough if you are alone, no boyfriend, no plans with some friends. But I love them. Today is sunny, but with a light breeze. I went to get a baguette for breakfast and I think I just had the perfect morning start.
My perfect saturday morning start includes having breakfast while listening to the Nature or Science podcast. I always feel privileged by being a scientist. It is very frustrating sometimes, very often, especially in this economy and for how the world set its priorities. But I do think that I am privileged. It may sounds a bit like an opening from The Big Bang Theory Tv show, but I do think that as scientists we are able to grasp and appreciate life as full in a way that other people don't or can't. Since school, I always thought that physics was fascinating. I mean, look around yourself, to all the natural (but also technical) beauties and phenomena that you see every day. A sunset, the wind, a thunderstorm, even deadly things, such a earthquake. For me all these events are just magnificent. I still get impressed by TV and internet and phones. And these are technological things which have been built on physical proprieties of matter. Just thinking of all started, with the Big Bang, makes me feel so lucky to just be here and being able to see all this.

I wish that more people would be able to grasp the beauty of all this, because there is an entire Universe out there in which we are just a small piece of the big puzzle.

The mysteries of technology

First. Because I am in France, everything must be in French. I tried to set my internet browser to ENGLISH and as soon as I close it, well.....it restarts in French....or it restarts in English as a main page while all the rest remains in French...it is like watching an English movie with French subtitles to me....very annoying.

Second. Mysteries of technology. Since yesterday my Firefox internet browser wouldn't let me access my blog. I could access Gmail, the readers, everything else, except the blog. I thought that it was a momentary problem...but it is still not solved. However, I can access the blog by using any other browser (of course, otherwise I wouldn't be here posting). Sometimes Firefox stops liking my favorite sites and doesn't let me access them anymore.....Why that? no idea......fortunately, I have installed any sort of internet browser on my computer, so that I can use one or the other depending on my mood and needs....of course, Firefox is my favorite....but sometimes it drives me crazy (like in any respectable relationship....love and hate are often going together).

Last. I should be at work already, but since here it is already more than 30 degrees (and it is only May) and since last night I worked till 1 am, I guess that I can arrive a bit later today (even later than the time at which I normally get to work....which is already quite late....no idea how I could have a job from 8am -or even 9am- to 5pm.....I mean, with a normal schedule)...

what next? ..... a private jet, maybe

I finished the work thing on which I have been working till middle of February and for which I couldn't at the end travel around the world (I wouldn't have gone around the world anyway, but I would have liked to travel a bit). It was a liberation to be done with it.
Such a liberation that required to spoil myself a bit. With a short trip to Florida.

It was good.

It was so good!!!

After 5 years, I went scuba diving again. I have to say that the scuba diving place we chose (and which received a lot of good reviews from I don't know whom....) was a disappointment. We took a refreshment course, because after longtime without scuba diving it is always safe to check if you remember everything well before jumping into the water. They charged us a lot for this refreshment course, which was unnecessarily long. They charged us twice for renting the scuba diving equipment that we used in the morning for the refreshment course and in the afternoon for the actual scuba dive. This after that on the phone, when asked, they told us a complete different price for all the equipment for the entire day. Then (and this is a classic PADI philosophy), they would try to sell to us any possible thing, even after I told them many time that I used to scuba dive a lot, I did it for work too, and I have all the necessary equipment in Italy and so I would not buy anything that I already have. To be even more pursuing in convincing us to buy things, they told me that they couldn't have rent us the scuba diving computer or even a table for the afternoon dive and that if we wanted them, we needed to buy them. Of course, at the end it was not true....but it was a nice try.....Basically, the impression the Silent World scuba dive place left on me was that it is a money-making place (or they want to be that way). But I didn't want this to spoil my "back to the underwater" world adventure and my short holidays. It was so nice to be down there again. See all the fish, the corals, the feeling of peace that reigns underwater. Marvelous. I missed it so much. I should do it more often, but in Montpellier and without a car, I wouldn't know how to do so.

Anyway, my little holidays in Florida was very good and I wish I could have stayed longer. I didn't want to leave.

But.....I have been living in the USA for a couple of years some time ago and my impression is that things got more expensive and the society is getting more and more materialistic. This is absolutely true everywhere. But I am the opposite of that and I get very sad every time I see so many big, giant cars, big, giant houses, all the space taken away for immense, huge buildings that do not allow you to even see the sea and the beach when you are next to it.

I always wonder what next....
Once you have the giant car, you live in a huge apartment in a huge building, once you have an immense tv in your apartment, and all these big, expensive things....how can you get even bigger and more expensive things when you get tired of the old ones????

What is the point of all these big things? to show them? is it a sign of having money? and then what?

I don't get it. I heard a woman saying that her big, immense suv was getting too small for her and her children and that she needed to buy something bigger. What can she find bigger than that? a private jet????

All this materialism makes me so sad. I wish there were more people biking around, buying small cars, living in places of normal size (of course, what it is considered normal for me is not considered normal for the people wanting immense, expensive things)...and that there were less huge buildings and more trees and nature at their place.

How can someone really desire to live in a city of concrete huge buildings when they could have the sea, the beach, a forest, and a lot of nature instead?

Feeling tall and a new addiction

I just got back from a short trip to Portugal.
I found a country where I feel tall. At least taller than the average.
It must feel weird to look at people from the top.
I have never experienced that before. I am 1.63 m tall....or short...dunno....I consider myself of an average size in Italy, average in France, very small in Holland and Germany, and surprise!!! I am above average in size in Portugal. Not only I realize that I am taller than a lot of women there, but I am also the same size of a lot of men. Isn't that weird? It felt very weird to me.

Anyway, beside this pleasant surprise (pleasant? I guess....at least this is the first word that came to my mind thinking of how I felt when I realized that), and having got a good news while there, I also discovered a new addiction.

The big bang theory show.

I can't stop laughing. It is the best pick up mood I have found in years. It is very hilarious and the dialogs are brilliant. I have to thank the olandesino for this discovery.

Only negative point of this. I can't stop watching it...and so I am getting very little sleep....but it is so funny!

Book club

We had the monthly book club meeting yesterday. It was about the book "Yellow Blue Tibia". I really enjoy the meetings of the book club. It gives me the chance to read books that I would never buy and read. This one for example was a science fiction book. I would never buy a science fiction book, as it is not the kind of stories I enjoy to read.
But I am glad I read this one. Even if the end of the book is totally confusing and quite disappointing, if we would remove the last let's say 60-80 pages of the book (I don't remember from where exactly I started to not like it), then it is a very enjoyable book to read.

The next book chose for the book club of January is "The girl who fell from the sky". I still didn't start it, as I am already reading other two books. Fortunately, I have a long train ride ahead of me (to go to Italy for Christmas), so it will be the perfect occasion to read a bit more.

Wanting to travel

I am not going to have a work contract in February.
I actually asked to my boss to start my new contract from March.
Why?
I work too much and this year that is coming to an end didn't bring me anything good in terms of work, despite the time I dedicate to it, the passion, and all the rest. At the same time, months and years pass by and if I don't take the chance to do what I always postpone, I may never have that chance.
I need a trip.
I don't need a holidays.
I need a trip and for a trip I mean traveling the way I like.

I am not sure on where to go.
I will have about a month. I would like to spend some days in the Netherlands. Why? Because the Netherlands is always good and I love being there.
Same goes for San Francisco.

Let's say that out of a month, I would have two weeks to myself for traveling (which may mean just going to a place I have never been before and exploring the place without moving around too much). I was looking on internet for some tips of places where a woman can travel alone without problems.

The thing is, I am a traveler. I have been to many places in the world. I got to this book called: "Fly Solo: The 50 Best Places on Earth for a Girl to Travel Alone".... I read the reviews of it. It is not for me. My idea of traveling has nothing to do with finding a party, or what to wear, or where it is fashionable to go. Furthermore, I wouldn't buy such a book to travel through Europe. What I am more thinking about is either going somewhere to scuba dive for an entire week or to go hiking somewhere, maybe in Costa Rica.

Here the characteristics that the place where I would like to go should have:

- Nature. Underwater, forest, mountain. It doesn't matter, as long as I am not going to spend two weeks in a city.
- I need a place which can be safe for a woman to travel and be alone.
- Not too expensive, otherwise I could not afford it.
- Not stressful. A place where people are helpful in case of need.
- I don't want to have to drive a car to go somewhere. I want a place where by public transportation I can get to the places I want to see.

I was thinking of going to Oregon and then from there down to San Francisco. There is plenty of nature in Oregon, but February may not be the best month to enjoy it and in the USA without a car you basically get nowhere...so it may not be a good choice.... :-(

I though of going scuba diving in the Cayman Islands....but it may be a bit too expensive....

I thought of going in some park in Costa Rica.........but if I am going to walk in the forest and see a lot of animals and get totally excited for it and happy, it would suck to not share that with someone whom I know would love that as well.

It is very very longtime that I want to walk in Patagonia.....but I am not sure this would be the right time and two weeks are not enough to do that.

Hard decision.....any suggestion, shared experience, warning, etc is more than welcomed!!!!

Too young to be old

You can be young, in terms of effective age, and look and feel very old. I know many of these people. People who lost interest in who they really are and in what the world has to offer. And then you can be old, and feel very young. Beside the typical crisis that many men face when they start to get old, making them acting out of fear of aging, which often ends up with a divorce from their current wife and a new girlfriend with half of their age (my father is a typical example of this), beside this case I was saying, there are also healthy people who are just so enthusiastic of what life has to offer, that they are very young in spirit despite their actual age.

Myself. I can't consider myself neither young or old. Not even middle age. I mean, as a actual age, the one corresponding to my birth certificate. In any case, it doesn't really matter to which age category I fit in, because in my mind, I am still young. I feel young. I feel as a young person wrapped up in a world made of a lot of responsibilities, till the day, which I know it will come sooner or later, I will feel saturated of them and break free. There are too many things I want to do and that I keep postponing because it is never the right moment to do them. And what if there will never be a right moment?

I dream to travel across Patagonia. I had this dream since probably at least 12 years old. I had this dream after reading books about Patagonia. About the strong wind, the wild environment, the km and km of nothing. And I always feel that it would be the right place to find some peace with myself. I need empty spaces. I think that this is one of the reasons why I love Holland so much. Holland is densely populated, and so it wouldn't probably come up to my mind as a place with many empty spaces. But there are. And they are just next door to big cities. They are just at a bike distance from crowded cities. This is what I love of living in Holland. Getting lost by bike in places with empty fields, water, birds, nothing. Anyway, I am digressing.

I can't say that I don't like here, or that I am not happy here. None of these things would be true. But it is not my place. It is not a place where I feel totally in peace. Maybe I should move again, work is not all. True. But work is what made me move in the first place and leave Italy. My work is my passion and large part of my life. But it is not enough. And the more I only focus on my work, the more I get the feeling that I am missing out a lot of things, and that I am growing old.

I miss sleeping on the beach to survey the nest of the turtles, as I did many years ago. I miss acting on instinct and do something totally unplanned. I miss the adrenalin shocks that make me feel alive. My life lately is quite flat and the people I know here are quite flat too. Nothing bad about that, they are happy with their life. I am just not. Not fully. I am not flat and I am too young, or I feel too young, to have a life that moves around work, eat, sleep, pay the bills, have dinners/lunch together. I need something more. I need the unknown and I need adrenaline, undoubtedly. How can I go from totally flat to less flat? have a bit more excitement???

Let me make clear an important point. I don't want to give up my work and start to travel around the world. That is not my call. I just wish my life was less flat.

I tried to hang out with younger people and even if I had some fun, they do look at me like the old one and we do really have little in common. When you go out with people that are 10 years younger than you, it is just weird.
First, they have a lot more time in their hands generally than I have. I have a job, which I want to continue to have and it is one of my priorities.
Second, the generation gap is difficult to ignore. Third, these people are exciting or they do exciting things as I did 10 years ago, but then they will grow older and they will be like most of the people of my age with whom I don't feel comfortable now. It is just a process.
It didn't work well for me. I just felt even more out of place.

People of my age, are either married to their work or married to someone, sometimes with kids. Thus, except in a few cases, they have very little in common with me. Plus, I have many interests which I want to keep alive and it is difficult to find someone to share them with. I don't know how to get out of this out of place situation in which I am since many years.

Yesterday, I had planned a meeting with a weird person who traveled a lot and contacted me sometime ago. I thought that we could have a nice chat, so I accepted to meet him.
He didn't show up.
I stood at the meeting point for half an hour waiting for him and he didn't show up. Great! There it went my attempt to meet someone that I thought he could have been interesting (please notice: he contacted me on couchsurf, not the other way around).

Finally, this morning I got an email from one of these younger people I know here. She just got back from a bike tour in Norway and Finland. I saw a few pictures. It looks like they had a lot of fun. It looks like something I would have enjoyed a lot. Of course, I wouldn't have taken two months off (one of the girls who just came back from the bike tour, left again for another two month tour in India.....).... but I would have loved to do something like that.

Here, I can't even manage to organize a bike tour of a few hours with someone of my age!!!!!

New - old addiction

I love it, I love it, I love it!

I have a new addiction.....my old addiction was to watch the episodes of the Avatar. Not the movie, the cartoon. It is so good. Good, funny, relaxing, with a good message, nice characters. I heard that the movie based on the cartoon, the last airbender, it is not minimally as good as the cartoon.

I just started to watch it from the beginning again. It is very relaxing. But the new addiction is....I am watching it in Dutch!!! and it is even nicer, because I love to listen speaking Dutch!!! I really wish I would know the language....For now, I just enjoy listening to it and understanding something here and there.

If you have never seen it, watch the episodes of the Avatar.

The best job in the world

I think that I have the best job in the world.
Not only I think that. I am fully convinced about that.

I am a scientist and I am proud of it. There is nothing more powerful, more wonderful, more challenging, more heart-shaking that feeling part of the ones who discover things. I imagine Leonardo, Darwin, Einstein, and all those people who moved our understanding of things a step forward and even if I am not like them and I will never be, just feeling allowed to be part of the same community to which they belong too, it is a fulfillment.

I was watching a talk on Ted. Not a great talk I have to say. But it still gave me a lot of emotions. I love this world. Not what we are doing to this world, but the world itself. I love the nature that is around us. I love the diversity. I love to understand the factors that promote the diversity that we observe. What it is outside there is magnificent. And I am always feel short of world when I see a documentary or just when I walk around in nature or when I scuba dive.

I am having a hard life in my work. What I am doing is not economically valuable. My kind of science is for understanding, to discover things that maybe one day could benefit the human kind, but not now. And now economically. Some days are just so hard that I feel that I am too idealist and that my passion will not be something I will be able to live off. Some days I hear in my head the voice of my uncle telling me to get "a real job, and stop to just play around".

It is true. Us, the scientists, we play around. We don't do anything important. We build knowledge. But knowledge is not something you can eat, nor something that makes you feel warm when it snows outside. But I love it, with all myself. When I have a bad day, when my motivation is down, when I feel that I should quite, what keeps me going is the thought of myself in Venezuela, working for a marine park. The image of myself floating underwater somewhere, the image of myself in the jungle, covered in mud, the image of myself looking at a mom scorpion with its babies on the back. And I know that in all these moments I feel part of nature, and I feel in peace, and I feel I am in the right place. I feel full.

I know that all this sounds very boring to most of the people. But to be in peace, I need to feel in the nature, to be part of it. My job for me is more than a job and this is what keeps me going in the days in which I feel that what I am doing is not valuable.

What I am doing is not valuable for most of the people.
But it has no price to me. I wouldn't be the person I am without it. I am a scientist and being a scientist is not a job for me. It is a way too look at the entire world.

I wish I could do something to show to people how much beauty there is in it, in this world, in nature, before we destroy most of it.