running running biking biking

I am doing a lot of sport. Push ups, biking, walking long distances, push ups again, abs.......

and this is not because the summer season is getting closer.

I just need to get rid of my anger, frustrations, sadness, whatever negative feeling I have at the moment. Why? because here is beautiful. I love my apartment (still with problems of finding water on the kitchen floor...maybe one day they will manage to fix that). I love the ocean. I love walking along the ocean, on the sand or just staring at it. There are many many loving things. But I don't get the mentality. Every single day it takes me an incredible amount of energy (which I honestly feel wasted) just to manage to get things going. Anything I may need from someone else takes ages, with many meetings, many opinions exchanged, many meetings again to get nowhere and start again......some days I really feel it is the never ending story and it will go on like that forever.

How can people work here without feeling frustrated all the time is something that I still don't know. Maybe you have to be born with the right DNA to be able to deal with this system of doing (or better doing only after long long time) things.

As if this would not be already hard enough, I feel very lonely. I do like spending a lot of time alone. The week ends for example are just for me. I like to have them for me. But this doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to have friends to do things with when I would like to and especially to have people to whom I feel connected too.

My ex-boyfriend lives very close to me. He totally ignores me. He doesn't even try to keep it polite. He acts as if I would be invisible. Saying that this hurts me incredibly, especially considering how much I like and admire him still (as a person, not for his behavior toward me), is a very little expression of how I feel about it.

Then the working environment, the one in which I work most, is composed by a small group of people with some leaders. And I don't mean leaders in terms of bosses. I mean leaders in terms of some dominating characters. I unfortunately seem to have stepped on the wrong feet, as clearly one of these leaders, who is a girl, doesn't like me at all. I have no idea of what I did to her or what provoked her behavior, but it is like that. And when it comes to her to decide or to organize something, of course I am not going to be invited. Considering that unfortunately I still know a very limited group of people here and that most of these people belong to just one group to which this person belongs too.....well, it is not a nice feeling at all.

It is a new experience for me. I mean of course there have been people who didn't like me also in other places, but her aversion toward me is out there, very open, very hostile. Not when it happens that we are already all together in a group. In these occasions, she is instead extremely nice and acts totally normal. She just makes sharp comments or keeps me out of things when she has the occasion.

It wouldn't be a big deal at all if I would know other people, some right people, with whom I could talk to openly. Some close friends to talk openly. Instead everyone here is best friend of someone else and so I find myself all the time walking on eggs to avoid hurting someone's else sensitivity, to not say the wrong thing because since everyone talks a lot about other people business, I am always afraid that anything I say can be misunderstood and twisted.

I am a very sarcastic person. I don't think that Portuguese people in general are big fans of sarcasm. I am not sure that it is part of their culture. So, often, they just don't get me. This is definitively not the first time in which I move to a country and sense of humor is so different that I have to measure what I say and how I say it (which is a very difficult task for me).

I am a very enthusiast person. Translation: I am arrogant.

and so on and so on....Some days it can be so frustrating that I feel like just being by myself, not even going to work, because I feel lonelier there than at home alone. I hate this feeling. And it keeps happening, because I move all the time and I keep getting to places where there are already hierarchies, networks, groups, etc. And I am the outsider.

On top of this here I am a disturbing outsider. Because all the girls here have a boyfriend and I don't. Because a lot of them also have kids and I don't. Because despite all this, I am even older than them. I just often feel that I don't fit and I don't have so much in common with them.

Today is my feeling negative day. It is normal to meet people who don't like me. I just need to balance that with people who really like me and with whom I can just be myself!

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......

Just what I need now

This place is just what I need now.

I am spending a lot of time alone and this is what I need now. I met a few people I really like here and from time to time I hang out with them. But I mostly need to be on my own, do things I like, and especially walk and run along and on the beach. It is like when I was in Costa Rica....long walks on the beach, just me, the sea and the beach. I can feel totally isolated from the rest of the world, focusing only on the sound of the waves, the feeling of the sand under my feet.

I don't know, I still have quite some issues with work, with some of the people at work, I still feel very insecure of what it will be of me and my work next year, etc., etc., but when I go for my long walks, I just feel in peace and I feel relaxed and I feel that I am doing exactly what I need for my mental and physical health. And it feels good. Totally good. It doesn't matter how much stress I pile up during the week, the week ends are just for me and I love the way I get to spend them here.

So far, this place, the long walks along the ocean, my apartment (I still have some issues with it, but I just love it) are exactly what I needed.

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!

this way...or the other

I spoke to a friend from France this evening. It was nice. I miss hanging out with my girlfriends so much. That was a nice thing that I had in Montpellier and that I came to strongly appreciate and highly value in the last months I have been there.

I also went rollerblading with my IPod and some good music in it. The wind was strong and so I got a very good exercise. I needed it. My mood is really on a roller-coast....one second is up, one second is down. I am trying to find new things to do here, so that I can meet people outside work. The town/village where I live is nice, very nice, but a bit boring for a person of my age. I found an hip hop school in Porto, where they seem to have all sort of classes, from "normal" hip hop to bboying, to other styles. I hope to make it to try one of their classes this week.

But I have no patience lately and I am easily irritable. Thing is that in this economy, I know that I have a salary this month (and it is not even a good salary if we look at European standards considering my position and my experience), but who knows if I will still have it in three months from now...so I just moved here, I am restarting my life over, I feel pretty lonely here so far, I am struggling and all this maybe for having to move again somewhere else in some months....so a lot of investment for what? and of course...all of this always on my own, thing of which I start to be pretty sick of.

The other way to look at things is to live day by day and take the best of every day. I had a friend visiting me for few days and even if he thinks a lot and he has a lot of paranoias, overall I think that he is quite able to live a lot on a day by day base. I envy him for this capacity. I am not saying that I would like to be just like that....but it is also true that I analyze everything from every single angle. Maybe I am too of a scientist and I apply this to anything in my life.....I have a system, a situation or whatever, and I look at it from every possible angle (generally in a biased way toward the more positive or negative angle depending on my mood), until I find out how to deal with that (or not deal with that at all and escape it) and move in some direction. But before that, I stress and wear myself out over any possible consequences that could come out of the situation I am looking at and any possible causes that generated the situation itself.....

This friend of mine who was visiting me just told me that I analyze things too much, and he said as a negative feature of me. I guess he is quite right. Now I probably do it even more because I am unhappy with my current life, but it is really a typical feature of mine....and I don't necessary like it.....so, how can I learn to look at things, at least sometimes, in another, possibly lighter and more based mostly on the present, way?

An algorithm will not find me Mr. Right

I have never had any idea, until very recently, that our world and many things in our world are based on algorithms. To be honest, I didn't even remember what an algorithm is and until the moment I met a colleague of mine who told me to be "not a mathematician, not a bioinformatician, but an algorithmician" (first of all, try to pronounce this word.....it is already a task!), I couldn't care less about algorithms and what we could do with them. Thanks God there is wikipedia!

Exactly...what can we do with them? basically, a lot. Algorithms will not make me a coffee in the morning (at least not for now), but they are used for a lot of things. From developing new computer games, to predict the movement of the stock market, to find your Mr. Right (or Mme Right, whatever is needed). Really? yes, really.

Enough about the algorithms that for me still remain a foreign world.
I just read an article, the sunday opinion of the New York Times, about how an algorithm, even if as we saw above they can be used to do many extraordinary things, does not guarantee finding the best mate to be happy with.

I have always doubted about the use and success of the online dating, which reminds me more of something like shopping at the supermarket than actually of anything to do with romance, but this article supports my view that not because an algorithm matches you with another person, you have an higher chance to be happy with this person than if you would meet someone at a cafe'.

I know that in the last years is getting more and more difficult to meet new interesting people without being connected (Facebook, Twitter, online dating, don'tknowwhatelsebutIamsurethereissomethingelsethatneedsaninternetconnectiontowork), but isn't at least a little bit more exciting when someone come to talk to you and you actually don't expect that (of course, I am not considering here the drunk guy who barely stands on his feet)? isn't much more fun to be out with your friends and meeting new people in this way?

For some things, I am not sure that the progress and technology improved our lives so much (and science proves it!)!

If I want to have an happy relationship......

..... I have always to keep in mind to be with someone who loves me at least as much as I love myself or more.

I can't settle down for someone who makes me feel bad about myself.

I can't settle down for someone who makes me feel worst than how I would feel if alone.

I know myself and it doesn't matter how much I can like or love someone. I am not going to be happy in a relationship if I am happier or equally happy alone.

Portugal- the poor, the rich, the car, the waste

I am getting more and more stubborn.

I don't know if it has anything to do with getting older. If there is any correlation between the two things. Or if it is just a coincidence. But not only I get more and more stubborn on certain principles of mine, but I also get more and more allergic to certain crazy behaviors...basically, to anything that has to do with an access of materialism and with a continuos research for other people's approval.

I moved here and everyone told me that I needed to get a car to have a life here. This has been giving me a lot of headaches in the last months, because while I have nothing against cars in principle, I think that we abuse of them, we rely too much on them, and in general I don't like my life to have to depend on a car.

My general philosophy is: I have two legs that function well, I am healthy, so I can walk and when I cannot walk because of the distance, I can take a bike and when I cannot take a bike, I will use public transportation.

It took me some weeks to realize that I actually don't need a car in my daily life here. I can have a life without a car. It is more complicated probably, but I can live nicely without it. I can use the metro and a bus to go to work. Yes, it takes me about an hour between my place and where I work and every day I have to walk for about 20-25 minutes (if I walk fast) on each way to get to the metro. Yes, if I would have a car, it would take me half of the time and I could sleep longer. But I actually don't need it. And while when I moved here I considered the possibility of buying a second hand car, the incredible amount of fancy cars going around here makes me wanting to puke. It is just too much. It makes me allergic. It makes me feel that I want to make a difference.

I have this thing. I cannot explain why I feel this way. But if I am in a place where everybody or the majority of the people values something too much in a way that a normal thing becomes a status symbol, then I immediately don't want that thing. I never wanted something because "everyone has it and I must have it too". Here I have this feeling mostly about cars. In the USA I have it about kids. I never feel so strongly against having a kid as when I am in the USA. I actually would like to have a kid in my life. But when I am in the USA, people praise pregnant women and kids so much that I became immediately allergic. Come on, they are just kids....yes, they are cute (and for sure not all of them), yes they can bring a lot of joy (but also an incredible amount of sleepless nights), etc., etc.....what I am trying to say is that I like to give the right dimension to everything.

....and something on which I get more and more stubborn, more and more allergic is how much we waste. We waste so much. We continuously buy new things. And here it is incredible. The times I have been to the mall to get things for my apartment, people were just buying and buying. And it is not only here. I don't know. Maybe I am making my life more complicated, maybe I don't enjoy things enough, maybe being a scientist doesn't help in living in a "lighter" mental way.....but

- when I was in Costa Rica I couldn't stop thinking of how badly we are destroying the place, making it similar to anywhere else in the world, with big hotels, big swimming pools, malls, buildings next to the beach.....

- here, it is a continuous of seeing people looking very poor on one side and people with expensive cars, clothes, jewelery....every day depending on where I look to or at, it seems to be either at Hollywood or in a very poor place. I have never seen in any European country so many people with bad teeth or just a few teeth. Here it is very very common. And then at the same time, next to these people, there are people dressed up in very expensive clothes from top to bottom. Yes, there are many places with poor and rich people living next to each other....but here it is different, because my impression is that some of these people just want to look rich to show off, but at the end, there is not so much difference between the two types, except in the outside.

My point is....why don't we all try to have a good life but living in a simpler way??? it wouldn't be just much better for the environment, it would also be better for us. Why don't we go back to value things for what they really are? why do I have to listen to someone commenting that my apartment looks too empty and "cheap" just because I didn't want to fill it in with many furniture that would just stand there without any function?

Just to avoid misunderstanding. I don't live like an ascetic. I am not Gandhi. I just hate the waste and this continuous buying and collecting useless things that will be kept for a short time and then be thrown away to be replaced by the newest thing. I got a present today. A book that someone whom I met while in Costa Rica strongly suggested me to read and said that the book changed his way of thinking. The book is Thinking in systems. I look forward to read it. I got it today....the same day in which I read the news that in the USA, in Georgia, it has been approved to build two nuclear reactors. If we would learn to waste less energy and be less dependent on oil, maybe we could avoid building new nuclear reactors......

Getting married - better sooner than later?

I am not getting married. Better to state this upfront to avoid confusion. I am not even engaged, nor I have a boyfriend.
It is not about me.
But my cousin is getting married soon. She is very excited, her future husband is very nice, we all like them together very much.
Since how long she is with her fiance'? a year and a half. He proposed to her after less than a year and a half. Too soon?

I would say that at this age, one year is enough to understand if you could, if you would like to spend your life with the person you are with. I actually lately developed the strong conviction that when it comes to getting married to someone, better doing it sooner than later.
I saw a movie last night, Rear window, and almost at the beginning of the movie, the woman of the insurance who helps James Stewart states exactly something similar to my previous sentence. That when it comes to marriage, we think too much. I am not suggesting that it is wiser to just jump into something without thinking, but sometimes we do think too much and analyze things until the bottom, so that anything magic about it gets examined so much to lose all the magical effects.

All the thinking about "will he/she be the right one?" and "what if...?". I don't believe that after a year with someone, spending more time together will help in answering any of these questions. On the other hand, many couples get to the point that after many years together, getting married is the following natural step...and at that point the relationship is already "mature" one of these relationships in which your partner is more your best friend than the person who still gives you the electric feelings. Nothing bad with mature relationships, if the partners still like each other and enjoy being together. It is a natural process. All the relationships get to that stage. I just think that it is better and nicer to get married when everything or most things about the other person still look fantastic, the encountered problems never seem so serious, and the enthusiasm of being together is still there and strong.

I got to think that when it comes to marriage sooner is better than later based on my personal experience. I analyze things and people so much, and I am so allergic to commitment (how can I know if I want and enjoy waking up next to the same person in 10 years from now???), that I let fade away the enthusiasm of being with at least one person that I would certainly have married if he would have asked me at any time during our first two years of relationship. Instead, since then, since that experience, I always feel so much fear to commit to someone, to change my life for the unknown that I end up, or ended up, pushing and pulling anyone who I like or I loved.

Will I ever be ready for the "big" step even if I would have a Mr. Right in front of me?
Will I be able to stop seeing any possible problem that I would need to face or live with and just for once jump into something which is not only about me and something that doesn't only depend on me and therefore I cannot predict and control?

Portugal- always waiting for a technician

Saturday morning.
It was so warm and nice in my bed that I didn't want to get out of it.
But I have a technician coming to my place this morning.
Why?
Because I rented this place at the beginning of December 2011 and I still have problems with finding water on the kitchen floor.....I had to apply a scientific method to find out from where the water comes from, how often and how much. Now that I tackled down the source of the problem (the same that it was repaired over a month ago....how did they repair it???), I have to push my landlord to actually do something to fix it.
It is not pleasant to wake up every morning before 7am to go to work and have to dry out the floor because of the water. It is even more unpleasant when I have to get out of bed in a very cold morning, because old Portuguese houses don't have heating systems, and the first thing I see is a pool of water on the floor.......

Lately, often on saturday morning I have someone coming to just see what to do to fix some problems in the apartment. It is very funny the proceeding adopted here when there is a problem to fix: we look at it, we discuss about it for a couple of days or even weeks, then the landlord sends someone who try to fix the thing but apparently don't fully fix it, and after three days the problem is there again and we start over with the whole thing.

Patience, patience, patience....

Portugal- settling down

Long absence from the blogsphere. This has been due to many different things, among which first of all is the lack of a proper and stable internet connection. Another country to which I have to adapt again. Another country and another culture. And this is the seventh time that I change place to live. It starts to be a bit too much. And I want to move North, not South. In any case, Portugal is not bad for what I can see so far.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS: The food is really good, people are generally friendly and I have a beautiful apartment in front of the Ocean. I can wake up every single day with a view on the Ocean and this re-pays me in some way of the days in which I struggle a lot and I just wish to be somewhere else. The difficult part for me is to be in a country where the mentality of the people reminds me a lot of Italy…..and not in a positive way. If you ever wonder why some countries are doing so badly economically, the answer is there, in front of the eyes. Here, it doesn’t matter that there is a system with some rules. The rules are made to not be followed if this means creating any sort of problem for the single person. An example. My landlord and his partner/wife/whatever are both judges, so they should in theory represent the law. We spent about 2 months debating about me renting this apartment or not because he didn’t want to give me any sort of contract. Why? To avoid paying taxes on the rent. He drives an expensive car, he dresses in a fancy way, etc. etc. And paying taxes doesn’t suit him well. So, why bothering? You can try to explain to him that everything is connected and if people don’t pay taxes, especially the ones who make a lot of money, the country will always face economic problems…..his answer will be “well, everyone does that”…well, exactly my point. The country is sinking. And this is a general example that stands for a lot of other examples. People do not get out of their way for the benefit of the community. Of course. How long since I moved here? Not even a month. So, this is my first impression and it may be totally wrong. But I get the feeling that instead my impression is getting reinforced every single day more and more.

Don’t take me wrong. People are really, really nice and helpful and friendly. But they wouldn’t get out of their way for the benefit of other or of the community. This is my general impression.

THE LANGUAGE: I wonder if I will ever learn to speak Portuguese. To me, this language sounds like a Spanish dialect. I know that it may sound bad and I should appreciate each language in its individuality, but I can understand Portuguese with a minimum effort. And this because it is like a mixture between Italian and Spanish. This is what it sounds to me. So, when I try to speak, what it comes out is Spanish with some Portuguese words. This is not speaking a language. Of course, I would like to learn it….I just wonder on how I can convince my brain to leave my knowledge of Spanish aside and consider this as a new, unique on its own, language.

CARS AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT: After 10 years without a car, I feel that here I will need to get a car. I can go to work by using public transport: the metro and then a bus. It takes me about an hour to go and get back to work, but this is also because I want to walk to the metro, and it takes me about 20-30 minutes to get there. I don’t need a car in my daily life, but a car here is necessary to actually have a comfortable life. It certainly has something to do with the fact that I live in something much closer to a small village than a city, but still, the fact is that a car is necessary if I want to have a normal life. For example. There is not a movie theater here. There is a theater in which one a week they show one movie in the evening. But there is not too much choice. There is not even a place where I could rent dvds. Not even in the next village. And for this, I strongly miss the cultural possibilities offered by Montpellier. If I want to take advantages or not of these opportunities is my choice, but at least I could chose. Here, sometimes I feel a bit stuck. On the other hand, while the need of owning a car represents some sort of problem to me, as I don’t like to be in the condition of needing a car mostly for environmental reasons, people here seem to love driving. I have never seen a place with so many cars as it is here….of course, with the exception of the USA. Everyone here drives. They may even drive an hour and a half just to go to eat some place. Come on, it sounds so much like something that would happen in the USA. But there in many places, things are scattered around, so I can in some way see the need for that. But here things are not so far apart, but it is just that everyone drives and drives so fast that biking to a place may be at your own risk. Bikes are not used for transport. Bikes are leisure. Maybe it will change with time, but I feel that people here love their shiny and expensive cars. Another difference that I notice coming from France. Many expensive cars going around. Don’t ask me how people can afford them with their salaries here. But it is a fact; there are many cars, and many expensive cars.

In any case, people are so used to drive everywhere, even for short distances, that if you ask to a Portuguese how far is to walk to some place, for sure, it is always too far to walk. This happened to me yesterday in Porto. It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect for a walk. I had to go to a garden to meet some people and I asked how long it would take me to walk there from the metro station where I got out. The first two people to whom I asked, they didn’t even know how to get there by walk….walk??? They looked at me like I come from Mars. The third person to whom I asked knew the way. He gave me the indications but he also pointed out that the place where I wanted to go was very, very far away to walk there. At the end, it was just 15 minutes walk.

Cultural differences (well, cultural differences….in some places in Italy, I guess I would experience the same)!

SOCIAL INTERACTION: The hardest part of starting a new life somewhere is the lack of friends in the place where I moved to. I suffer that a lot. I am a solitary person, but I want to choose when to be alone and when to be with friends. Thanks God, there is couchsurf. I am starting to consider couchsurf my life-saver in terms of mental health. I need to meet people outside my working environment. My past experiences taught me that it is healthy to have friends outside work, or at least, also outside work. But of course, it always takes time to meet people and meet the right people, with whom I could get along and become friends and actually want to spend time with. And I find this process always very frustrating. Because I had friends in the previous place where I was living and I had to leave them to move somewhere else where I have to start from the beginning….and I guess that starting a new life can be exciting, but not necessarily if the old life was not so bad after all.

Another thing that makes me wanting to meet people outside the work environment is that where I work most of the people are couples. I don’t mean that they all have a boyfriend and a girlfriend, which would be normal. What I mean is that in my working environment, most of the people there are part of a couple with someone else who works there. There is a kind of closure and of a “big brother” atmosphere that I don’t consider too healthy. So, while I like some of the people I work with a lot, I also feel that for my mental health, it is good if I also do things on my own or with other people. On top of this, I already experienced unfortunately that being the only single girl in a group of couple makes you immediately like a threaten to some other women. Southern European women may be very territorial….and I know this well, being a Southern European woman myself. In my short permanence here, I already learned that I may better to not get too friendly with any of the guys working with me because a) people talk a lot, as always in a very close environment where you are the last one arrived to a very well established and close group of friends, and b) I may start to have problems with some of the other girls just because I am friendly and I don’t have a boyfriend.

Gosh, this is very stressful, because I quickly learned to move in a very careful way. But it is stressful.

Anyway, what I am trying to say, even if I listed a lot of difficult/negative things, is that I am trying to settle down here and find a way to have a nice life here too, trying to learn at the speed of light what to do, how to move, what to say, etc. And hopefully, everything will work out for the best, as it always does at the end, even if at the beginning I have to struggle a lot.

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!!!!

..and life keeps going on...

I couldn't have believed this if someone would have told me.
I couldn't even imagine it.

A month and a half ago I left Montpellier crying to move to Portugal. I spent a week there before leaving for Costa Rica and then another week there before coming back to Montpellier for a few weeks. And I miss there already. I was sad to leave Portugal and I didn't feel I was coming back to a familiar place by arriving here in Montpellier, where I am now. Of course, I am happy to see my friends here, but it doesn't feel like I have been living here for three years. And I liked here. I just think to like Portugal more. I just feel that I could maybe be even happier in Portugal than here. Of course, everything seems so good in Portugal that I am scared....it can't keep being so good all the time...can it??? it would be too good....

Yes, I have a problem with my apartment and the day I left there I woke up to find my kitchen full of water on the floor. Yes, I am not settled there fully. But still. I like there. I love to be on the Ocean...it reminds me of a very very small version of Ocean Beach in San Francisco. I love the food. People are nice. People at work seem nice. Yes, the economy there falls apart....and still, I am optimist.

It feels so weird.....a month and a half ago I felt like I wanted to keep my life here in Montpellier and now that I am back to Montpellier for a few weeks, I don't feel any specific attachment to this place, except the attachment to a few people who live here.

Maybe I move so much from one place to the other, that my body automatically learned to adapt to a new place and make a life where I am living at the moment. I still think that it is very weird. It never happened so fast. Beginnings have always been very difficult for me.

Anyway, I am slowly back to blogging...I have to write down something about Costa Rica too...