Real life ensuing

I can't believe it's been more than a month since I last updated... I am a very lazy blogger, no surprise actually, I am very well aware that the number of monthly posts is proportional to the amount of spare time I have (by spare time I mean the time I used to spend at school, catching up on TV shows -sad but true- or catching up with life in general -i.e. friends and family-).

I've been very busy lately, I'm done with my two-weeks-and-a-half training period and tomorrow afternoon I'll be meeting my colleagues and boss/es... Needless to say I'm a little nervous (little= drop dead) but I am so tired of classes that I can't wait for the change.

In two weeks and a half my daily life has turned 180º, from the time when my sister woke up every morning before me, woke me up with the noise, made me angry, then left for work and left me to my own devices for the rest of the day to a no longer shared room, a sister living thousands of kilometers away and a daily routine that includes a real job and real responsabilities. I get home late and I have no sis to play Wii with (I haven't used it since she left actually), I watch Malcolm and no one falls asleep in the middle of the episode...

Three paragraphs to say two things:

1. I miss you sis!
2. Please, please, wish me luck!!!

Hey! Here it goes... Such is Life!!!

Crossroads

Be careful what you wish for...

Months complaining about the job market, countless interviews that came to nothing and now... now I have two job offers, and I have been cursed (or are incredibly privileged, I still don't know which of the two) with the gift of choice.

Choices are double-edged swords, cause they always leave a lingering question in our minds: What if I had done something else? Law or Consulting? This or that? Here or there? The difference, in my case, is a number followed by four zeros and the uncertainty of ignoring what the future holds. Where will I be in a year if I choose option 1? Where will I be if I choose option 2?

I should feel fortunate, cause whatever I choose I'll be somewhere I want to be, and I wont be able to blame the crisis for my misfortunes, it will be my own choice, and that idea makes me feel I have regained control of my life after so many months of trying to find my place in the real world.

Will I make the right decision? time will tell, unfortunately we don't have a looking glass through which we can see ourselves in the future. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mistery... And today? Today I finished my classes at my current University forever.

I am done with lectures after six long years (and two degrees, don't you dare think I took longer than expected to finish my studies!) and I have been tasting a bittersweet sensation all day long. Happy-go-lucky days are over. My final Finals are here and then... then The Leap. I don't want to finish this post without mentioning my dearest friends and severest critics. I love you girls, and I'm going to miss our daily routine, the coffees, the beers, the laughs, the talks, the plans... As I told Ale this afternoon, it's been an honour!

The title of this post is Crossroads, I don't think I have to explain why... Congratulations Class of 09, we are finally done! See you on the Road... Such is life.

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst

Amazingly enough just three days after the interview with the HR girl from the law firm the assistant of one of the partners gave me a call to schedule an interview next week. I am a little bit at odds right now, reasons?

1.- Maybe I sounded more convincing than I thought I did and she thinks I have a chance with them (Unlikely but not impossible).

or

2.- She thinks I'm not suited for their firm so instead of telling me herself she is going to make me go through the toughest legal interview ever so that they can kick me out of their interview process for an actual good reason (Very likely and possible).

I really hope it's option 1, but I expect 2 to be the right answer, just like the song: "Hoping for the best but expecting the worst..." I'm not going to fall without fighting though, and I'm spending the morning going through all my notes on contracts and business law.

Whether you know where you'll be next september or are wandering aimlessly on these troubled job-search waters, I'm sure we all want to be forever young, but... (wait for it!) SUCH IS LIFE!!

Sick of sickness

In such times as these the worse thing that can happen to you is fall sick. Not only because you feel like hell (head and back ache, high temperature and the subsequent nightmares...) but because everyone thinks you have THE FLU, as in H1N1 flu... me included. I've been trying to track the source of my ilness, and have come down with two possible sources of it and none of them relate to anyone who has The Flu, but still, if you know me, you must know I'm obsessing about it. A lot.

I have the weirdest nightmares when I'm sick, last night it consisted on me infecting the whole world with my flu, but there were massive factories involved in it, but still I was aware I was in my bed and half awake... and I kept waking up and dreaming the same dream all night. By 7 a.m I was so tired of not sleeping that I decided to wake up and watch TV, wich is what I've been doing all day long.

I have a very busy month of May ahead. Classes and interviews as usual, but to that you have to add an internship that should start this week but that may not because I am... sick.

And with these words I'm going to shut my computer and keep doing nothing but fill my bin with tissues. Nice.

You all keep away from me till further notice.

Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos

While my Muse gets to see the World (she actually sent a letter yesterday saying she is not planning to come back any time soon) I carry on with my routine: Class, Interviews, TV... I am seriously starting to think that if I really want to find a job I have to step out of my comfort zone and start looking for the unexpected.

This morning, I was lost in such thoughts about the job market when I read an email from a friend, and she made me feel a little less alone. "Mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos" which means that if a bad thing happens to a lot of people, it feels less bad somehow. Sorry but I am no translator, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to translate this saying, I accept any kind of help.

The email had this link attached:

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/04/17/business/1194839618058/life-after-wharton.html?ref=business

I deffinetely feel less alone.

Thanks Lu. I think we should keep looking though, things don't usually happen if you just sit around and wait for them to actually happen.

Esoyarse en un majano

Before anyone wonders, the title of this post has little to do with its content, it's just a very fun way of saying: Fall on a pile of rocks (Remember what my sister did two Sundays ago? That's literally it).

But there is some metaphoric relation between the actual expression and my current situation. I'm afraid I may just fall on a pile of rocks very soon. I'm climbing it right now, and have started to find the climb exhausting, stressful and tense. If anyone wonders what the f*** I'm talking about I'll be clear about it: I'm looking for a job. I graduate in less than four months and I can't bear the idea of not having a plan after that, so looking for a job has become part of my daily routine. Applications, letters, tests, interviews, cases...

I think I'm doing fine, some of those interviews go well, others not so well, but still I have to learn how to say what the interviewer wants to hear, and that I can only achieve with practice. Some days I feel I'm doing more than well, I feel I'm doing excellent, so I wander what will happen when I get to the top of my pile of rocks... will I fall? will I stay there for a while? Is there a higher pile behind it?

Why don't we all have a crystal ball where we can have look at our future depending on our different decissions? Life would be a lot easier... Maybe a lot more boring too.

I like myself better when I write humorous posts but hey! Such is Life.

Not breathing a word (Feb 14th 2009)

After five weeks of writing Notes I've ran out of ideas. I finally have nothing to say, at least this week. I don't think my notes were very inspired, but at least I could fill a couple of lines that made sense!

Who knows, maybe next week, maybe not, I may be going on hiatus for a while, until again I have some paranoia worth telling.

Till then, Happy birthday Mr. Darwin:

PHOEBE: Go ahead and scoff. You know, there're a lot of things that I don't believe in, but that doesn't mean they're not true.

JOEY: Such as?

PHOEBE: Like crop circles, or the Bermuda triangle, or evolution?

ROSS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, you don't, uh, you don't believe in evolution?

PHOEBE: I don't know, it's just, you know...monkeys, Darwin, you know, it's a, it's a nice story, I just think it's a little too easy.

ROSS: Too easy? The process of every living thing on this planet evolving over millions of years from single-celled organisms, too easy?

PHOEBE: Yeah, I just don't buy it.

ROSS: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact like the air we breathe, like gravity.

PHOEBE: Ok, don't get me started on gravity.

Singing the Songs (Jan 31st 2009)

Every single morning I wake up with a song in my head. I can be lucky and wake up with a song a really like, or I can be really unlucky and wake up with a very annoying jingle from a TV ad. This week in particular I've woken up siniging the same song for three days in a row, and by now I'm sick of it. I guess it doesn't help I only know the chorus, and it doesn't help either that I keep playing it on and on in my iPod.

"And you're singing the songs thinking this is the life..."***

Had a final yesterday, not good, as usual. I am starting to think I really have lost my ability to concentrate. It's been a very boring week, I've only seen the sunlight to go to English class on monday and wednesday evening, and then yesterday I went to ICADE to take the exam and then back home. I feel somewhat trapped, but I shouldn't complain, it could be a lot worse.

While I was being held hostage, Madrid was attacked by fog. So snow, rain, wind and now fog... It was thursday morning, and I woke up at 8 to sit in front of my notes and study. As I looked out (trying to find something more interesting than my financial analysis notes) I saw the city covered by a thick grey fog, that kept getting thicker and thicker until I couldn't see the buildings right in front of my block. I'd rather call it mist, cause to me it has a more mysterious aura around it. I opened the door to the balcony and contemplated (not that I could see anything though) the view in front of me: just white emptiness. Not only the city had disappeared in front of my eyes, but suddenly it was all silent too. Very odd, incredibly odd for a city of 3 million people. I stood there for a couple of minutes until my bare feet started complaining. I have to agree with them, it was a terrible idea to walk outside barefoot. I shivered, walked in again and just a little while later the mist was gone, just as suddenly as it fell over the city.

Again last thursday half of Spain was paralized for a couple of hours, this time the reason was the fog.

This is by far the weirdest winter I remember, and not only weather-wise. Ever since classes started after winter break I've felt like I'm in a constant state of packing. Gathering the things I've done for the last five years, putting them all together in a bag and carrying them with me somewhere, the only thing I ignore is where I'm going, but truth is I am leaving. Leaving my life as a student and starting yet again a different life. Strange feeling, I am suspended in a place between the real world and the easy life of a college student. For five years I've been "singing the songs, thinking this is the life" and now I can see a tiny door at the end of the road, a door that gets bigger by the minute as I step closer. I will have to open it, eventually. Till then, I keep packing, "singing the songs, thinking this is the life".

Picture by EFE

I'd better go back to my next final, I really want to watch Nadal in the Australian Open Final tomorrow, and if the match takes as long as yesterday's I'll be in front of my aunt's TV for at least five hours... that kid doesn't stop to amaze me. Vamos Rafa!!! Yet another duel of Titans, Sunday is going to be an interesting day...

"And you're singing the songs, thinking this is the life... Where you gonna go? where you gonna go?" If only I could answer that!

*** This is the life, by Amy Mcdonald (Thanks for the discovery Dul!)***

Snow White Chaos (Jan 10th 2009)

Snow is not something we get very often in Madrid, not at all. Last snowfall I remember was sometime in the winter of 1999 and it was just an afternoon of snow. Sure we were let out of school to play outside but in a few hours the snow was gone, and we were all back home, soacking wet with a very sore throat (lots of screaming plus very light coats have that outcome)...

January 9th 8 am and I get off the bus to go to class (Oh joy!) as I step out I feel something cold lightly touching my face... After two days of temperatures below zero it has started snowing in Madrid, and it keeps snowing for more than ten hours. By 10:30 am, the time of our coffee break (I am going to say coffee break because it sounds more adult-like, but we have breaks every morning, just like school kids), the street is covered in snow, I am wearing my very thin red shoes and Ale is wearing high heels, us madrileños really know how to cope with bad weather... just crossing the street is quite an adventure and the preassure is increased by the fact that one doesn't want to trip and fall in a street full of the people she's been seeing everyday for the last six years.

Barajas Airport
(Photo: Javier Beneytez taken from elmundo.es)

We make it to our cafe, the one we go to every day, sometimes twice, or three times, breakfast, beer before lunch, lunch, coffee after lunch, coffe after class... En fin... Back to ICADE just to find out spanish bureaucracy is just as slow as I remembered, plus everyone is worried with the snow outside, parents calling warning their kids to be careful with the car, streets covered by a thick white sheet (thick for spanish standards at least!), there is no salt left to avoid the snow from turning into ice, people slipping while they walk, fifteen times more emergency calls than a normal day, Barajas airport closed, one thousand flights cancelled 400 km of traffic jams... Ahh Spain is different!! But this time we have an excuse, it hasn't snowed like this since 1977, and we are not ready for it.

Cibeles (taken from ABC.es)

The bus back home shows me a side of Madrid I had never seen, I feel like I'm in a post card. El Paseo de Recoletos is covered in snow, the goddess Cibeles gives me an odd look as I pass by her, her lions are covered in snow, she is covered in snow and the fountain is completely frozen. I pity her, outside in the cold while I watch everything from a bus with heating. Not romantic at all, but very cosy at the moment. My memories drift back to a morning in late november, when I woke up to a very white Philadelphia and a beautiful Locust Walk covered in snow, I should have taken pictures then, I should have taken pictures of Madrid yesterday... but I lost my camera in a Bolt bus, and my telephone had no battery (just my luck) so all I have are memories, memories that get blurrier by the minute.

Paseo de Recoletos (Photo: EFE)

Off the bus and I walk home trying not to fall, yet again. I successfully make it with my pride unharmed but my shoes are soacking wet, my feet are freezing cold and black. Yes, black, it seems the shoes tainted them, and there is no human way of taking that black away... I could be a Siksika at the moment... But I am not. I am a Cat, and we cats are not used to snow, even if some of us go skiing from time to time.

I take a two hour nap and when I wake up it's dark and still snowing. My sister and I meet Maria and Daniel for dinner. We go bar hopping to the most traditional/popular/old/us

ually crowded tapas bars in Madrid, but they are empty. Even though it's stopped snowing people have decided to stay home. We are not used to this weather in Madrid, and all the madrileños have agreed to stay home for a night, even if it is a friday.

Una ración de gambas a la plancha, croquetas, tortilla brava, calamares, bacalao and some cañas later we head home. It is amazingly easy to get a taxi for Madrid standards as the city has decided to rest for once on a friday night.

Saturday morning and Madrid is surprisingly white still, the low temperatures have kept the snow on the trees and the roof tops. From my 13th floor window I see cars covered in snow, people still walking carefully to avoid the ice and lots of small columns of white smoke, every house has the heating on, shops have sold more heating devices in the last two days than in the whole winter.

-5º Celsius, Madrid is not used to the cold, and nor am I.


*** Siksika: Black feet Indians. http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/blackfeet/blackfeetindiantribe.htm

Cat (Gato): People from Madrid. From what I've read online, the name dates back from the XI century, when the troops of King Alfonso VI reconquered the city climbing its walls, just like cats.