HOW SELFISH WE ARE

Yesterday I was not feeling good. I was in a blue mood. It was one of those days that you wake up and you know is going to be a hard one. One of those days in which all the things that are worrying you come to your head and do not let you see the lightness. The weather did not help either. It was cloudy and rained all day long.

In the afternoon, I had arranged to meet some friends. Not really “friends”, just people you know and you see time by time, but not the kind of friends you do not mind to meet whatever your mood is. And I did not feel like spending my time with that people yesterday, but I could not reject their invitation again. So I went knowing I would have to pretend I was happy to see them and I was interested in the evolution of their lives.

To take matters worse, when I was waiting for them where we had arranged, they phoned me saying they were half an hour late. I was tempted to say “ok, sorry but I have a lot of things to do, I go home, we meet another day”. But I did not. I decided to wait patiently for them and try to calm my angriness. And then was when I saw a blood donation van. I thought that way not, how I could while away my time better than donating blood. So I went in the van and let the professionals take half a litre of blood from my arm.

Everything was ok and I left the van after drinking a juice and eat some biscuits in a much better mood. If I were not human, I could think that the time I was lying in the stretcher waiting my blood to fill the bag helped me to relax and think more positively about life. But I am afraid I am human and the fact that I felt proud of myself for helping and having a gesture of solidarity, the fact that I was feeling good with myself for what I had just done, was what changed my mood yesterday. Sadly, this is the human condition, but sometimes it is of use to somebody.

See you Almudena!

Congratulations Almudena Cid.
Congratulations for your 8th place in the Olympic Games.
Congratulations for your 4th Olympic Games.
Congratulations for your effort and professionalism.
And, of course, congratulations for your gymnastics career.
We hope you continue it in some way, because Gymnastics needs you.

Almudena Cid

Her Sunday afternoon

It is Sunday after lunch. She has a lot of things to do, but she does not want to do anything. Today, she does not feel like cleaning the house, studying or visiting her parents. She only wants to sit on the sofa and watch the TV. And rest. And do not think. After a while, she finds something to watch. It is a film. She has seen it before and she knows that she likes it. So it is ok, it is going to make the time pass and she is not going to be disappointed.

But today something is different, because the film makes her cry. She has never cried before with this film, but today she just cannot stop crying. She asks herself why, the film is not a weepy. Maybe now, being older and more mature, she see aspects that she did not see the last time, or she understands new things that were hided for her before. She continues seeing the film with a weird feeling. She does not like being sad, but it is like if she is getting something off her chest. She asks herself again why today these scenes are making her cry.

The film ends. The final music sounds. She cannot read the credits because she has her eyes filled with tears. But she can listen to the song, Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton, and she realizes that she needed a Sunday afternoon like this. She does not ask again why today the film made her cry, because she knows it was not the film.

Tears in Heaven, Eric Clapton: http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=VRsJlAJvOSM

THAT'S CHINA

Because of the earthquake, in some Chinese areas more of the 80% of the buildings have been smashed to pieces.

The new Olympic Swimming Pool in Beijing is one of the most advanced constructions from the architectural point of view.

Changes

Do you welcome changes? Do you like not knowing what is going to happen? Or do you prefer a quite and under control life?


In the last time I am living changes. Not in my particular life, but around me, in my environment. Changes in other’s life. Maybe it is a sign. Maybe it is my time to change, to make my own changes, those that affect directly my life.

Changes usually frighten. I think this is the reason that makes us to have monotonous lives. I do not think I have a boring life. Of course I do change things, but they are superficial and little alterations. I need more. I need that big change that can make me feel excited, nervous, that makes me look forward to seeing the results. I need to give that step that differentiates your old life from a new one, the life you want to have, in which you are who make decisions. The life in which you decide when to change again.

So, definitely, I am talking about changing my life. That is a frightening one.

The new benches

I like sitting on the new Diagonal subway stop benches, on the platform going to Cornellà. Have you sat there? They are very high, there is a big distance between the seat and the floor. So, even if you are a tall person, your legs hang and your feet do not touch the floor.

Your feet are free. You can move them forward and backwards, making circles, every foot in a different direction…You are not tied to the floor. It is like when you were a child. Wherever you sat, you had your feet in the air. You could move them, and you were not connected with the world. Now that we are adults and we are supposed to be serious and responsible, we have to have our feet quiet.

I like sitting there because I can feel like a child, moving my free feet as if I were free again.

AN UNCANNY STORY

I gifted to my cousin a ticket to one hour of a reflexology massage (this kind of massage in which the practitioner can access to all the body by touching your feet).

The day she decided to go, she asked me to go with her, because we get on very well and we usually do things together, and because I had to pay for it. So I did, and while she was in the massage room I waited patiently reading magazines. One hour later, we came back home, she with a pleased face and me with a little less money in my wallet but with a little more knowledge of celebrities’ life.

I wanted to know how it was, so I asked her how do you feel when someone massages your feet, and she answered “well, it’s been very good, very relaxing, but I don’t know if it’s true that they can operate over the whole body, because the masseuse said that she felt something weird in my abdominal area, and she asked me if I have pain in my stomach or intestinal problems, and the truth is that I don’t”. So we walked home thinking that the reflexology massage is relaxing and makes you feel better only because they touch a very sensitive part of the body, the feet.

What was my surprise when, two weeks later, my cousin phoned telling me that she was five weeks pregnant.