Brief re-opening...

So I post because I spent a few days in Ireland, visiting Cork and Galway, and I want to thank everybody I saw during the trip.

Galway was nice.
It was as if time had stopped. The only thing that had changed was Dean's belly, really (she looks gorgeous!). Well, and everything else, but it didn't matter.




But I must say it was inmensely depressing in Cork.
There were highlights, of course (they should know who they are).
But it was a "let's close up this episode" kind of visit, and I can't say I enjoyed the feeling.




Yes, this is going to be just this abstract.

Anyway, now.
Maybe you remember I mentieoned in my last post that I had writen something, that had become obsolete, and that I had left it back somewhere?
Well, I found it. I read it. I am going to post it.

And the I will close down the blog again until further notice.

Cheers to the readers :)

Pet Turtles

It's been around ten days that I actually left Ireland but I never got to write a (temporary) goodbye post.

I actually hand wrote along, detailed text on my last Sunday there after saying "bye" to R., explaining everything I felt and why I did so, planning to post it here afterwards, but everything changed so much on the next day that both my feelings and my plans became suddenly obsolete. So that text is somewhere in a box at E.'s house now (thanks for that again ;) )

So just to explain: life's a bitch, and I had to leave Ireland. I won't post hereuntil I go back, or at least until I've got some information regarding when I'll be back (end of the summer seems most likely now, with hopefully a visit before that, maybe in June).

So yeah, I terribly miss everyone, blah blah blah, but I'm doing ok(ish) here anyway, blah blah blah, see you soon.

"A tale of how badly life sucks", or, "Rainy Sundays"

It has been pretty difficult to shorten the list of possible titles for this text to just those two, so I'm going to be liberal with myself and let them both be.
Here are some others that would describe (some of) the feelings within my chest:

3.-Perfect Things that Can't Be
4.-The Nostalgia of Air Views of a City You're Leaving Behind
5.-Goodbyes were Invented by the Devil
6.-Lonely Cats are Pitiful Beings
7.-Ever though that "Galway" kind of sounds like "go away"? // My Friends Moved to Go Away City
8.-On Pulled Out Roots that Dry and Die
9.-Crying around Corners (and Chests)
10.-Taking back steps I took forward (hurts)
11.-Last Post Until Further Notice
12.-Empty Houses
13.-Coming to Terms with the Uncontrollable Aspects of my Life /No

It will all make sense as the post develops, so I'll better get started.

I didn't say anything to most people, but it was a month last Thursday since I got to know that I have to leave Eire for an undefined time span. That one was a hectic week as well, filled with events such as the following:
WEDNESDAY Dean: "OhMyGodI'mPregnant"
THURSDAY Doctor day with my pregnant brother;
                     .1:Are you going to breastfeed?
                     .2:Coming back home after the whole day with no battery on the phone and finding 20 missed calls from Mom. Running to top up, calling, having to go back to Spain.
                     .3:Thinking that D&D would me my last one and wanting to die on my way back from it.
FRIDAY Hey, let's lose consciousness, I bet it's fun like.

Anyway, days passed by and the rush to leave decreased. I thought that would give me some time to come to terms with the idea and the situation at home, but, ermh, no, it didn't.

We finally moved away from the hellish house we were living in on the 19th of March. The new house is so very lovely but I'm not going to get into any details here because...
...Ben got offered the best job ever in Go Away city on the 20th of March. The starting date of the job was the 31st of the same month.
My brother is having the worst pregnancy ever, and I already had my flight booked for the 5th of April, so the initial idea of her staying in Cork if Ben got the job was quickly thrown away.
In the following week, we sealed a few gaps and then...

The goodbyes started. I hate them. I hate all the "It's not like it's forever"s, "You will be back soon anyway"s, "Go Away is not even that far away"s, "You'll see how you get to like it there"s, and "Your father will get better in no time"s.
Oh, there, I said it.

Ben and Dean left on Saturday morning. Oh, fuck. The only thing my cat and I have done since is to cry around corners. The house is so quiet I can't breathe. I even "slept" with Gwen last night! With my cat!

Now, today I went on with some more goodbyes. It was the Firetruck, and I've got to say life is the most unfair thing ever. We met in the city and then we went to his very fancy apartment overlooking the whole frigging town. And looking at the whole thing,at every single building, at the river and the marina and the tiny little streets,... it kept me from breathing.

Then, I managed to relax (a bit) and even if I was sad and down, we played around and cooked lunch and had it. It was remarkably yummy.
And everything was nice until we finished and there was nothing else to do but holding tight to each other so that the physical contact made up for the future absence of poking.

It was nice to hug forever like that, because it was something I couldn't do with Dean - either Ben was around saying "Go Away is not that far", or we were both too broken about parting for the hug to feel good.

But it was alright with the Firetruck because he was so serene, smiling his perpetual stupid smile at the infinite, and I could cry a little against his chest without it being too messy.
And still, in all that warmth, I could only think of how perfect Cork looked from the windows and how I can't stay, and of how perfect the hug felt and how it could only be a goodbye hug.
And then, he has walked me outside and held a Berlin umbrella as we hugged one last time under the rain, and after that, he has given me a bunch of tissues and said the umbrella is mine now. And I've walked away. Back "home". Holding an umbrella during the whole way probably for the first time ever.


When I first knew that I had to leave, I thought of it as pulling out my life's roots and planting it again carelessly, leaving all the tips out to dry. I also thought that it's not the first time I do that and that it never felt so bad before.
So I had to work on the metaphor a bit further.
It doesn't hurt to pull out your life's roots when they are buried in dry, sterile rocks or in debris. But the process is painful when they come out of the fresh, watered ground of a garden, specially if they were intertwined with other roots, of other lives.
Getting to the garden was a tough task, but it was done, but now, will all the flowers admit back an unattended hawthorn bush that left its place? Won't there be a beautiful rosebush on its place by the time it can come back?

Reflections

I'm back in Spain once more, but I won't be telling you about my life this time.
I just want to share a couple of ideas.

First one came to me as I was enjoying the nice music in Sin É last Saturday. I was chatting about music with S. (she's amazing :)) and...
I wish I had the courae to attempt things even if I knew they were hard for me, even if I wasn't positive they would turn out alright.
She says she has no musical abilities at all but she wants to learn how to play the trumpet so hard and she totally sees her future self as someone who can play it, and she's so happy when she talks about it. I simply can't do that.

Second... second is hard.
I believe I've found out what I don't like about my life in Ireland: people come, and then, they leave. I've said "Goodbye" to so many people so many times during my tiem here. None is a safe choice.
And I'm pretty down about this point right now.

That's all. See you soon :)

this hectic life of mine

I'm travelling back to Spain to get my exams and my visiting done in less than two weeks, and the incredible amount of studying I've got to do in the meantime is not the problem. The fact that I didn't even manage the get the book for one of the subjects is not the problem. Me deciding to learn German exactly now is not even causing me any trouble at all.

When did I post last?
There was Christmas. I guess this is something very motherlike to say, but I think I might hate Christmas. Let's all be honest- it's not worth the stress. I mean, it was fun at the end, of course it was, I live with two wonderful people that are even able no make me laugh despite the tears, but... it was a lot of work, and I was feeling quite depressed around New Year's.

But, again, that is not the problem.

The problem is this amazingly big and homelike property we are livig it with all it's broken pipes and rotten walls, and the arschlochs of the agency who manage it.
And that was bad enough by itself when we found ourselves living in a house with no floor and half a wall, but it didn't stop there, no. Keep in mind this is Murphy's homeland.
As we requested getting another apartment for the time the works lasted, we spent a night out of the house with only part of our stuff moved over, and then it happened. Somebody or other broke into the house.

And it wasn't because why not.

It was because...
Fuck Yeah, that's why.

You couldn't even start imagining how much I'm smoking.

At least I get to be introduced to nice music

It's hard to find a moment just quiet enough to write in this life of mine...

So what's happened since I last blogged?
Lots of stuff, really.

Things are getting very Christmassy around.
I spent last weekend in Dublin, with a bunch of people from D&D, and it was absolutely brilliant even though I didn't have the chance to hang out with L., E., or N.; But I met some really lovely people! I specially want to mention V., 'cause she's great fun, and we even went shopping together yesterday evening!*. Before that, we had had lunch in this place called Lost Society. This is important because it's in this shopping centre somewhere around Grafton Street (but not the one at the end of it... maybe it was in Powerscourt street? whatever. Just somewhere there.) and very place was packed but this restaurant was like... completely deserted, but the food was nice, and the decoration, brilliant. Seriously, check it out!
We did that after the sketching-in-the-museum-with-an-orchestra thing, and I need to say, that the museum part was very nice (it was in the Dublin City Gallery), specially Francis Bacon's studio, kinda shocking!

Because my checkout time had been 10am, I went for a walk (and breakfast) by myself before meeting up with everyone else for the gallery. I was disappointed to find the Ha'penny Bridge Café closed down, but I found another cute little place just around the corner, by the Grand Social, called something along the lines of "The Traditional Bakery Café", and it was basically that, but with seriously good prices.

I had gone to bed early the previous night because, even if I tried to hang out with all the different drinkanddrawers from different places, I had come out of Dr. Sketchy's with a terrible headache. I've got to say, that even with the peculiar choice of music and its volume, I found it very enjoyable! I was a bit lost because I hadn't done any life drawing in an awful long time ("Ein? This? A pencil? How does one hold it? What does it do?), but I think it was brilliant practise! I did feel more confident as the poses went by anyway!
Oh, and congratulations to E. for her cupcake! Those looked veeery yummy!

Before getting there we had only all gathered together, had a craftsy dinner in a fancy place (to fancy for crafts, probably, but... who cares... right?) and checked in in our respective rooms in respective ho(s)tels. And this is when I re-thank E. for allowing me to keep her room thus making the trip possible for me. Seriously, she's awesome in too many levels.

Related to that above, and before going on to the rest of things that have happened since October 6th, I want to thank everyone who was concerned for the fact that I didn't have the money to go to Dublin, and offered to help me, including, but not limited to, my parents, who are awesome, S., C., P., and R.

Now, before last Saturday, in the last 2 months I... decided to move, found a house, moved**, had several rows this the letting agency, got my cat to be a cat, got another cat (I love you Crowley!) had S. and S. over for Halloween/M.'s birthday, dealt with several friends breaking up with their partners, reorganised my room 3 times, had my credit card eaten by Isis (dogie) and, oh, yeah, most recently, had another baby dog adopted by my housemates.

Anyway, a piece of music for ye:

*Don't you worry, we'll be buying fancy dresses in Brown Thomas any day now...
**I'm living with L=Dean and B now :)

Sorry for not finishing my last post...

... as quickly as I siad I would, but I really didn't have the time, because, you see, I've getting quite a bit of work, and I've got that paper I need to write, and a degree to study, and then...

... I spend my evenings rushing through gloomy, misty alleys in Cork, dodging dark puddles and cars that are trying to stop us from getting to Dyke Parade, with my heart beating hard against my chest as the bells on a nearby church mercilesly strike eight...

So nope, no time for blogging!

Can you believe today is Arthur's Day?

That means I got to Ireland tomorrow.
A year ago tomorrow, i mean.
On the 28th of September, anyway.

It doesn't even seem like too much time. My life here has changed that much over the past 12 months, and it feels so settled now, that it is hard to believe it has only been a year since I landed in Cork airport for the first time.
And tomorro has taken so long to come...

I cannot even relate to what was my life last August, to what I used my time for and to what I thought when I closed my eyes before I decided to follow M.'s steps and come, as aupair, to an area at the eastern edge of West Cork (AKA "Farran". It may ring a bell to you. There are some Woods there.).
Of course it never occured to me to go anywhere else but to Inis Fail*. Only the other day my mother was retelling the story of how at 9, in summer, I started learning Gaeilge because I had decided that I would live in Ireland when I grew up.
And here I am.
I tend to think that deserves one big loud FUCK YEAH!
It just takes too much effort to be loud sometimes.

[Will be continued...]

Culinary Experiment: Gravy

So here we are, the three of us, waiting for Omnipotent C to come for dinner. Of course he's late! But the chiken is going to get dry...

[So he came, eventually!]

It's after dinner now...
There was this mystery in our lives before, named Gravy :P Neither M. or I had ever seen real gravy, so we wondered what it actually was, we asked google, and we ended up watching a youtube video about how to throw away half the contents of your kitchen and get some gravy to freeze in return. I was obviously outraged! But it did make me find out what gravy means to be: enthickened roast sauce.

So that was the project for tonight's dinner and the reason why we had C. over- S. does eat well, but a whole big chicken for three can be quite too much!
It's all about being pacient, really: I put the carrots and garlick cloves and onions general veggies in the oven first, with some herbs adn pepper and salt and oil and a cup of water, on a low heat (160º in my oven probably equal 120 actual degrees...) and after an hour I put the chicken and the potatoes, with the corresponden salt and oil, having put the liquid apart first (you keep getting more, it's fascinating- cooking is fascinating, in general!), and let it roast ( heat up, too).

So now the real gravy making part comes! and it's very easy and very tricky too, because... you will see xD

You can eoither make it with olive oil or by gettin some more sauce from the chicken in the oven, that will very quicky start letting grease out of itself and into the sauce. Anyway- you put the grease of your choice in a frying pan and you add a small tablespoon of flour. You fry it, letting it toast a bit- A BIT, I BEG YOU, DON'T BURN IT! I know what I'm talking about! And then you add the rest of the sauce. It will get thick when it boils, what it does quicky. So in that sense you can say that gravy is wha tI had always known as the elavorated version of Spanish Sauce: there, mystery solved!

So yeah, that kept me in the kitchen all the afternoon (well that, and sopu, to be fair).

And it is a new week again tomorrow- isn't life just exhausting?

I'm also quite afraid of next week because new student and so on, starting tomorrow at 9.30. I didn't have the time to prepare the lesson, with all the cooking. We will see... I would like to get someone wish me good luck anyway.

The weekend was great craic, of course, with Dean and Supernatural and another ICC walk adn everything a weekend needs to include (lie- no chess game yet, I home to fix that soon!)

back to life

I was going through high levels of anxiety and feeling quite depressed since before I had to go to my parent's for the exams, but being there was (as always is) better than can expected, and now things are slowly falling back in place here too so my spirits are gradually higher.
The course hasn't started yet but I already have some of the books for my new subjects!! And that is only exiting if you're crazy out about discourse analysis, but hey, don't pretend to be surprised by my nerdyness. I never hid it.

M.'s boyfriend just moved in and I've said this in every possible social media platform but I can't grow tired of repeating it: he plays chess!! He does!! We were playing fridge scrabble yesterday (what, I'm not the only nerd in the house) when he suddenly asked whether I played chess "because it is the kind of thing he can see me doing", and I said yes, and he said we should have a game sometime. Yay!! I'm only afraid we don't have a board. Such sad souls we are...

And the writing club is being slowly worked on, and E. is going to find a way to be in two different places at the same time so he can still be in Cork while he studies in Dublin. I'm obviously very looking forward the development of such a technique.

Also, September is a month for beginnings, so there's lot of new people in town, and several of them are absolutely lovely individuals! To further increase my enthusiasm, some of those lovely newcomers want to be my students- oh joy!
Spanish tapeo meetings are back, along with ICC meetings, there is a Bank of Time to organise... we're all so busy it actually seems Summer was long and quiet,, it makes it almost feel like we did have holidays...

more on visiting home

Tomorrow is the day and I could not be more stressed! There's tons of things I've got to do today... plus I need to check whether I've got the money for next month's rent or not (it's a lovely sensation, this dubiety), and M.'s friend F. arrives today, and I need S. to print out my tickets, and my room needs a thoroughful tidying and cleaning and I need to bake something for D&D's fourth birthday (Yay!) which is tonight, because thanks Murphy.

Seriously.

It's so tiring.

But the worst part is that I won't be flying home tomorrow, nope: I'll be flying to Barcelona, then I'll be killing time to get a train that will get me to P. after a four hours journey, and there I will find my mom waiting and another half an hour later, I will, fuck yeah, be finally home.

Visiting home is always some sort of epic adventure, with all the tedious giants to kill before you get to enjoy your glory.

blah blah blah blah blah

I'm going to Spain again for a few days next week, and I'm not any prepared for it.
Visiting home is always anxiety inducing, but when I come back, the soothing effect of the Lee is there for me.
I can't be sure the Lee will be any soothing this time, though, and I'm worried.

I was supposed to meet E. sometime this weekend but I didn't get any word from him and it's so unsettleing! Our time is short! I'm slowly realizing how unprepared I am for him to go, because everything up there is about that too.
So hopefully I'll hang out with him tomorrow, and if not I'll go occupate Dean's sofa, and we'll watch Howl's Moving Castle there. Maybe both? That'd be definitely awesome!

Anyway, on the bright side:
Yesterday I had so much fun doing crafts with Dean, we're like little kids! Seriously: we bought this crafting kit for the child she's minding, but in the exact moment when we got home, we opened it and starting creating foam monsters and... well, I don't think the poor biy will be able to make anything with it, but he'll be allowed to play with our creations!

Today was completely eventless, and also, I've run pout of cigarretes. Eh, what if that is were all the anxiety comes from? :P

Cheers, whoever's reading!

How I met Dean

[semi-fictional piece in which "Dean" stands formy very dear friend L. and a reference to "Supernatural"]

I'd had a very stressful day yesterday, so I called E.  and convinced him to come all the way to the city to sooth me as we had dinner in SubWay. He couldn't posibly escape because he recently told me to just whistle whenever I needed to chat with someone, he's so nice.
So, as we were ordering our chicken rolls there, two super geeky girls came in. They got my attention because they were... super geeky, and Spanish.
We quickly went out once we got the food, and what did we find there? God, there was this beautiful kitten with think black stripes on a b rownish grey background meowing at our sandwhitches! We stopped to stroke her (even if it wasn't any easy) and fed her some of our chicken, and that's when the two Spanish people came out. The delight was obvious in their faces when they saw the cat, specially in one of them, and she as with us in a moment, feeding and stroking the little fella ( :P ), and we quickly starting talking to each other. Her name's Dean, and she's trying to stop the Armagedon that she started herself...

We all had dinner together and after crazily laughing about silly stuff for a good while we walked E. to the bus stop, and dropped the other girl home. Dean asked me whether I could help her go pick up her boyfriend at work so there we went...
The way to his workplace involved walking past the subway again, and there was still the kitten, who, probably remembering that we'd fed her before, followed us all the way to Dean's boyfriend's workplace. I spent all the way there lamenting how we are not allowed to keep any pets in our apartmen, but Dean said she could help her, and that made me feel extremely happy! She's such a nice girl, I'm so happy I met her! So we decided that the cat was going to be called Gwen, because I really really always wanted to have a cat named Gwen and even if she won't exactly be my cat Dean let me pick her name!!

So got there, and as we waited for B. to come (B.'s Dean's boyfriend), this person went into the building. And this person was... hm... he was a 50/50mix of Batman's Mr. Penguin and Silent Bob, so well, both of us were paying him lots of attention, so he dialed the code to open the door and opened the door and closed the door and I was focusing all my attention in that person who was a Silent Penguin and once he walked away I realised that I had memorised the code to open the door. So we tried, and it worked and we quietly stayed out but we felt we had something huge, and that, in case any of you don't know it, is a great feeling!

So the last bit of the story is that, once B. came down, he saw the cat, and agreed to keep her (-ish, but whatever), but he said every animal in his house needs to be given and Egyptian name and Dean and I didn't want wen to stop being Gwen but we decided she could have two names. That was when she became Gwen Anubis.


[That up there is a very distorted version of yesterday, but I did have a lot of fun with  L. and we did end up with a kitten named Gwen Anubis so... the essence of it is true. We just realised that the actual way how L. and I met isn't any cool so we decided to fit it into yesterday's story. Now, pretend you don't know this is not how it happened!
Also, thanks, E., for starring in my story :P I couldn't love you more :(]

More culinary experimenting!

Well today's cooking was not that experimental I just made Sheperd's Pie for dinner, which is just... something I'd never cooked before and that I'd only ever had at my hostfamily's.
So it could be called Cultural Adaptation Cooking, because, being quite a simple recipe (make bolognese sauce, make mashed, put the mashed over the bolognese in an oven tray, cover with cheese, grill) there was not much place for experimentation.
The reason why I'm specially happy about it is that in S.'s words, it was actually a good Sheperd's Pie.

Apart from that... the sky is cloudy! Oh joy! At last! We have had such sunny and warm weather lately, and... it was nicce the first couple of days, but I was starting to get annoyed. On the other hand, everybody loves clear skies, so the loveliness of the weather brought lots of awesome social gatherings, mostly in the form of barbecues. That was very enjoyable indeed!
So I went to E.'s house yesterday for a D&D BBQ and it was the most fun ever like! And her house is amazing, both the inside (I expected that) and the outside and the surroundings! It is amazing an amazing place, with the terrace over the creek, with its fish and its plants, and all the surrounding trees and bushes, the birds flying around (apparently whispering "eejit, eejit") and the star covered sky when night fell.

I discussed it with M. this morning and we decided we'll kick them away and keep the house for us when we get a driver's licence and a car :P

Don't know, everything's just great.

It's probablyMerrily's doing.

Didn't I tell you? She's our part time cat, with part time kittens, Merrily Murphy.


P.S.: We just made a shopping list three post-its long...

D&D, so

Hm...
So the last two D&Ds have been particularly awesome, and not only because E. was back there, but also because they're just a bunch of nice, fun people and because I'm getting used to them (well, yeah, I take my time, so what? ) and I'm getting to actually draw there too.
Anyway the other day was very nice and I got to hang out with E. before (and also afterwards... I hope he got home safe, by the way, I never asked... ), and K. is just unfairly talented and A. is so fun and whatever. I know you knwo, but I absolutely love D&Ds.

Here are some of my drawing of the last ones, by the way!

I'm very sorry about the quality of the photos. I could photoshop them into something decent, but I think I rather moan about how I have neither a photo camera or a scaner. "I wish I had a good camera or a scaner so I could get nice enough picturees of my drawings :( "

I think there's a few more new drawings somewhere (most probably the big pad) but I'm not going to get off my rocking chair to get them... some other day!

The kitchen smells of a kitchen.

A lovely light mixture of coffee, herbs, soap, and chicken soup.
I've been cooking a lot these days, and quite successfully too, I dare say! It makes me really happy when after a lot of guesswork (because cooking still involves a lot of guesswork for me) I manage to get my granny's soup or my mom's chicken stew.
And the thing is... it's hard to cook if it's just for yourself. That's why I hadn't really done it beore M. moved in, since I cooked for K. a few times but then she wouldn't eat it and... well, I stopped doing it anyway. But M. loves food xD so it's great to cook dinner for her too.
And every single day it is fun to set the window instead of the table and to climb onto it and to eat there. It's our little everyday thrill (as if we got any though...).
Anyway, my point is that my kitchen smells like a kitchen and I love it!

On a completely unretated note [I'm awesome] getting to get used to my new bedroom. I still don't like it and it doesn't feel like mine yet and I don't have enough space for all my stuff and everything seems to be in the wrong position and I can't sleep, but at least I can tell when it's daytime and when not. I like that.
I also stopped opening M.'s bedroom door everytime I want to get into my room.

And that's it about my routine. However...
Last Saturday, it was s.'s birthday party and we obviously were very enthusiastic about going (you get the most amazing compilations of people in that house, you really do :) ) but it was really late by the time we managed to get there and then we needed to leave super early because we were hosting the Spanish Summer Party in Cyprus Avenue. But! it was actually quite nice since I met two very lovely people there (appart from the always cheerful L.', and S.' and some other nice people) and they are like people with whom I would actually enjoy to hang out (because I'm not any picky or anything, you see ;) ): they're L.'' and B.

Now, I was going to also comment on last D&D because it was super fun, but I think I'll do it in another post so that I can also put some photos of the drawings I've made there lately and so.

people keeps and keeps leaving...

The fact that I'm specially sensible too the speed in which everyone I know seems to be leaving Cork may or may not be caused by M.'s absence this week. She knows how to make herself missed, you see.
But that doesn't mean it is not an objective fact.
People are indeed leaving, and it is worse than I thought it would be...
At the begining, it was people that had came to stay for a few months (like me) and that were OK with leaving when the time came (unlike me. How are they psychologically able to get out of this place? Has Murphy no strength over them?).
But now...
People I had taken as an idiosyncratic part of Cork are leaving too. S., and most of all E. God, E. is leaving Cork, and everything seems to lack logic now.

And now... now it is me who is stuck here, ...
When everyone leaves, M. will have a boyfriend and I will be stuck in a city that I love and that I don't want to want to leave but I wont have a life, and it is already starting to feel depressing.

But I'm fighting it hard.

However, as a positive point, today's Writing Group meeting has been very nice, and it wasn't even an actual session but just a meeting :) And also, because little A. is leaving too I met her in Thursday and it was very nice! And she got to come to D&D because it was her last chance (to have an opinion about E. :P) and I think it was a specially pleasant one! I got to chat with a few people who are very very nice but with whom I don't normally chat because... I don't normally talk to anyone... and it felt ood and warm...

And well, I thought that, even if the city is emptied of the people I love, those great gatherings of awesome people will still be working and they will always feel warm, because they are what make this city my city, and that the sunset will always look amazing from the living room's window, and that Cork will always have the Lee in the middle, and that the memories I made with those people will never fade, because that's my brain for you.


On a funny note:
So today in the writing session I was talking to this Croacian girl, T, and we ended up talking about languages in Spain and she asked me about Basque and I told her that you can't understand it no matter how good your Spanish is, since it is not related it, and she said "Ohh so I understand everything now, that's why you don't have and Spanish accent when you speak English!!" And I was like "Ermh... no.". God, the Basque accent may be the only one worse that the Spanish one when it comes to speaking English xD

Culinary experiment of the day: Success!!!

I decided Wednesday was going to be my free day on this crazy pre-exam week. Oh, how I needed it!

So after picking up M. at her house and walking all the way to Douglas under an unbeliebablely warm sunshine, lying on the floor of "Art and Hobby" for about half an hour, having a latte and some apple pie (thanks for that, M.) as my only lunch (OK, that's not accurate, I also had an apple later!) walking back to Cork and meeting Oink there, and chatting and drawing, I got back home at 6.17 and hell, I was starving!
So I cooked myself some very Irish style dinner, and it was yummy, but I didn't feel like I'd finished handling food yet so after unsuccessfully trying to study for a while, I went back to the kitchen, opened all the drawers, thought for a minute and decided to cook... Chocolate Rice Pie!

After that, I failed to study for a while longer and then... I'm not going to say here what I've done then *Blush*, so I needed a treat, and I am now enjoying fancy glass of the rice pie I made.

Slightly too sweet, but it meets my needs xD. Great to have still warm.

It's really easy to make: You cook 3/4 of a unit rice on 1 unit of water with some (smaaaaall bit) of sugar and cinnamon and when the water dries you pour in 1 unit of milk and melt half a bar of coberture chocolate on it. Let cook until the rice is very tender. It should be creamy, not at all dry. While you get there, melt some more coverture chocolate, adding a bit of water. Pour the rice in the cups/bols/glasses and cover it with the melted cholocate. Sprinkles welcome.


Anyway yeah, as if I didn't have enough stuff to stress over with all the studying, and the bus-fligh-but-wait-bus home this Saturday, and the exams, and the enormous anxiety of going home just to visit and sleeping in my-bedroom-which-is-not-really-my-bedroom-anymore, I did THAT...


OhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGodOhMyGod.

Experience has proved that it works both ways

"And when you think things can't get any worse, they do" is a very recurrent sentence in this world an dI have found myself saying it several times on previous stages of my life, and I was just thinking that sometimes, we fail to notice that it works both ways.
So, yep, the main theme of this post is "And when you think things can't get any better, they do", in which "things" stands specially for "people", as horrible as that may be :P.  Long story short, I love my friends.

Right now, I mostly love how they keep susprising me.
Do you know that sensation, when you are surprised? Do you know how your world suddenly expands itself a little further? Do you know when that expansion actually happens because of, not only yourself, but someone else who's there to help you discover stuff? Have you ever felt the warmth in your chest, and a smile you can't stop showing up on your face?
Well, the whole week has been like that for me.
I thought it would end with the Rocking chair but that was actually only the begining.

The actual, planned, surprises are a big part of it but that is not all...

Sometimes it is just discovering that those heroes, those people you can't help but look up to, are also human and suffer the same fears and anxieties you do. And finding out that they actually like you an denjoy your company.

Others, it is the choice of words your friends make to comunicate with you, the extent to which they adapt their discourse to make you as happy as possible.

Somethimes is people being sincerely thankful that you had them over.

Or creating a mess by crafting a box into a puppet-thetre-fort, an dthe fun on thinking every detail of it.

Seeing how people really thinks of you and pick the most propriete presents for them to give you, presents you love yourself and that will always make you think of them.

Realizing someone is whistleing in your living room and enjoying the sweetness of the sound.

Being wished "Happy Birthday" in a whole lot of languages.

Listening to people you love share their dreams and hopes with you and eveyone else.

Discovering how eager some people are to see you, when you thought they weren't really.

Hearing about some of all the planning that has been done so that everything turns out perfect for you and being able to emphatize with the excitement and anxiety felt by others for your sake.

And all the rest of the tiny details, every single one of them. They make the sun shine on a cloudy sky.

The best part of getting a Rocking Chair or your birthday is that it comes unasembled, in a gigant box, and that your friends got it for you.

And seeing the poor post man breathe "in through the nose, out through the mouth" with his head tilted to the left as he decided how he was going to get the package into my house, when I hadn't seen the package yet. adn then see him get a big box that just kept coming of the van as if it was never going to end.

Also, seeing as the box landed that a drawing of its secret surpresive contents that I wasn't allowed to know off was on it, and having M. at the other side of the phone and laughing at her for that but also being unable to believe that they had got me a Rocking Chair. And yes, it is the kind of Rocking Chair that beats the rules of capitalization.

Staring at the aforementioned postman with a look that clearly said "that thing still need to be moved into my sitting room" ans seehim walk away, and look at the box that barely fitted in the corridor. Being able to actually get it down without much difficulty.

Leaving the box and the house to themselves and going to pick m. up to help her walk her not-so-new bike home. Discovering it is a Lady Bicycle that beats the rules of capitalization, green with an actual basket, and that people are not allowed to ride it if they are not wearing a flower patterned summer hat.

Getting to the obvious conclusion that people who can get the biggest box ever down a stairway can get a Lady Bicycle up a stairway.

Opening the biggest box ever to find that, appart from the promised Rocking chair it also has The Biggest and Most Awesome Piece of Cardboard Ever in it. and deciding what to use it for even before further exploring the box.

Most of all, discovering that the footstool that accompanies the Rocking Chair is nothing else but a Rocking Footstool!


And it went on and on, really.
Such a Capitalization Rules Beating Morning, it was!


And apart from everything else, I get to build a fort out of the box =D


So, basically, thanks to everyone for making me feels this happy (you can ask M. about my actual level of happiness, she should be able to describe it quite well). Seriously. I think you may get some benefit from visiting a shrink, all of you, but you are most certainly awesome friends.