For many years I have struggled with extra weight, since I am not an exercise addict I always have something extra on me, and I have never been a fan of extreme diets. I have always made fun of people who gave up lots of things to stay fit and failed miserably; Many years ago my mother started reading a book by Barry Sears about The Zone, and for many years she experimented around with it. It was not until I turned eighteen that I accepted an offer (my mother’s) to start The Zone diet. I never expected what happened.

The way The Zone diet works is simple: Carbohydrate and protein blocks (Sears’ unit to measure food/energy/etc) have to be completely balanced (X=Y) and consumed in a certain measure. Following a very simple formula any person can calculate how many blocks per day he/she must consume, this may sound simple but the results are actually frightening. During my first week with the Zone diet I was busy eating most of the time, I easily ate twice as much as I usually did and lost a lot of weight and body fat. Unfortunately I had to drop it because I moved… to another country.

No more high school: No more afternoon activities, breaks spent playing basketball, chasing people around campus, running around just because, and no more P.E. I progressively started gaining weight, and then more and more and more. It took me over a year to grow some balls and take care of myself, and a couple of weeks after I started, I also started the Zone diet.

Three weeks into the diet and I have built muscle, lost 15 pounds, 4 waist inches and 4% of my body fat percentage. I have been eating like a beast, too.

A real happy meal.

My only piece of advice?

Stop fooling around, and get the damn book.

Mix X parts of pointless dreading with Y parts of “I do not know what to do with my life” and you have over a decade of absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary worrying… At least I have the feeling those thoughts will not be coming back to annoy me for a while (freedom). Since the way things untangled themselves was really funny and simple I just cannot avoid sharing.

I already mentioned in another post how I was having problems figuring out what I wanted to do with my life; Fortunately for me, I have already figured it out, actually, I even feel a little angry at the fact that I did not realize how much I enjoy it/will enjoy it.

Fourteen years of constant preoccupation were disposed of in little over twenty hours. What did I need? A museum exhibition that got my blood boiling (what a waste of artistic talent!) followed by a couple of others that made me grin abundantly.

I blame all the pretty buildings too.

This got me thinking one more time… why must our thought process be so complex? For four years I spent days and nights trying to figure out what I wanted, what I needed… what, what! And I get my answer in a couple of days and just like magic: BOOM! There was my answer. I did not ask for it, I was not prepared for it, and I really – REALLY needed it. I wish I had found it out earlier… a lot of things in my world would have been different.

No more “what could have been”. Now things will just… be.

Back when I was a kid I was dying to be some sort of ass-kicking paleontologist – mercenary (then I played tomb raider and I added “hot woman” to that job description), and would waste days thinking how incredible it would be to discover a new species or a certain specimen and shoot my way to get some recognition or take part in something related to it. As years went by I discovered that Paleontology was not within my reach and was actually much less exciting without all the gunfighting, exotic places and sex scenes… By the time I started Junior High I was convinced that I was going to be a drone like most people I knew, and spend the rest of my life knowing that I was doing something great, useful and fun… when I really was not. I have always been a pessimist, but I was definitely at my worst back then. I wanted to make viruses for a living (and kill people by, not for, the millions) too.

Along came high school and I focused on something else, I discovered I was actually good at telling machines what to do, so I started programming. Even though most of the things I did were for the lulz, I did learn a lot and even wanted to become a game developer one day. I was enrolled in a University, in a Software Engineering program, and started climbing… All of the sudden, however, I realized I did not want that kind of life. Just thinking about crunch hours and coding (which is what I liked) stressed me, and I lost interest more and more and more. A year after I started Uni I switched my major to English Literature, pursuing a career as a writer I decidedly switched to English: I have been unable to write a story ever since. Short stories? Yes! REALLY short stories, but what about that book I was getting ready? Not anymore I am not.

The reason? Who knows? I just know I do not know what I want to do with the rest of my life.

Probably the reason why I tell every kid/teenager to shut up and enjoy his/her freedom, that lack of important decisions to make.

Pasé por wannabe, poser, true y trve en un par de años antes de decidir que en realidad no era lo mio, no obstante, hubo algo que siempre me quedé con ganas de hacer y que todavía quiero hacer y definitivamente voy a hacer.

Hace un par de años quedé con unos cuantos vagos que en twenty-ten ibamos a ir a Alemania (haciendo una escala aparentemente obligatoria en Amsterdam) para el Wacken Open Air. Llegando casi está el verano de twenty-ten y estoy mas que seguro de que nadie tiene ni los recursos ni el boleto para el festival dichosito.

El propósito de esta entrada, mas que hablar acerca del WOA es para que lo lean esos otros *vagos* y nos pongamos de acuerdo para ir al WOA twenty-twelve. Porque tenemos que ir y porque es un bonito número.

Roll call!

“If I was the man I was five years ago I’d take a flamethrower to this place!“

I tweeted that phrase months ago. Seriously people, try using google instead of WordPress’ search engine for better results.

DO watch the movie. I liked it.

Today I woke up decided to remain on my feet for as long as I could and sit as little as possible, the purpose behind this is simple: Last year during Kinetik I was still winter-fat and got extremely tired from… remaining on my feet for so many hours. This year I am going to remain on my feet for X hours every day so that 7-9 hours on my feet won’t do a thing to me (I’m cheap, I walked [and will walk] the distance from the Usine-C to my apartment every day).

Today was day one of this “standing” project and of my activity-shift plan, and I can conclude I am a waste of human life. I lived for over eighteen years in a place where it is perpetually spring/autumn and the whole winter-weight-gain thing is killing me… literally. By Poseidon’s beard! Am I grateful there isn’t any snow left on the streets.

Then I turned thirteen and all of the sudden I had to be cool and fit in, so I started listening exactly what my other classmates were listening, and not just some of them… all of them! By the end of the same year I was the one who had more albums than everyone else, a larger variety and “good taste”. Good taste was, of course, defined by the amount of popular artists I listened… and they were quite a lot. I remember I started calling myself a music junkie back then, I could listen an album seven or eight times… BADASS! High school began, and I just felt like I had to make EVERYONE listen the same things I did, which by then were: Extremely commercial Metal. The amount of music I was able to listen increased significantly after I got my first ipod in 2005. Now I was the junkiest thing ever (in my head). I remember I even used to make fun of other people who considered themselves addicted to music or heavy music listeners.

Just some months before high school was over, another thing entered my world: A comfortable version of audioscrobbler was available by now. I started using last.fm to get more and more and more recommendations, it was not long before I discovered how pretty things started to look when I listened a lot of music. I must have spent about a year playing around with a couple of usernames before I settled with my current account. The first week with my new account was normal, as normal as my days were back then, but then something happened: Kinetik Festival 2 was around the corner and there were many bands in the bill that I had not heard yet. What did I do? I spent from 12-18 hours every day checking them out. Then Kinetik came and I was left traumatized.

KF2 has been the best music festival I have been to so far, and I spent a couple of months after it took place listening my favourite festival artists over and over and over and over again. I was no longer listening music when I had time on my hands, I was listening music every minute I didn’t need to listen to someone/something else during the day; I even shortened my sleep schedule in order to listen more music.

I DO get to read a lot of books, though.

What amuses me the most about this, is that now there are people who call me a junkie or a person who wastes a lot of time listening music. I consider myself neither, just the way I could not care less if I was a music junkie or not. It is not like it will make me richer or healthier, right? Why should I care.

Felt like sharing. I was called a junkie today (again), and it made me giggle.

Por si fuera poco, tuve la oportunidad de mudarme a otro país para mis estudios, y eventualmente, para residir en él. No solo el sumergirme, sino tener que adaptarme a una cultura distinta fue (y es) una experiencia increible que me dió una perspectiva distinta de las cosas como en realidad son. ¿Cómo son las cosas?

Los Mexicanos se quejan. MUCHO.

Tal vez decir mucho sea poco, porque en realidad uno como Mexicano es criado para quejarse en exceso, y a pesar de sus muchos complejos de inferioridad (Paz), para creerse mucho. No fue hasta que empecé a extrañar cosas del diario que me di cuenta que una de las diferencias más marcadas entre los Mexicanos y muchos otros grupos es que nos quejamos mucho, de mucho y por poco. El tráfico, la tarea, la escuela, los padres, la gripe, el dolor, la misa, el precio de las cosas… es increible.

Un ejemplo que discutía con mi madre recientemente es la gente que se enferma. Cuando iba en secundaria y en preparatoria era común que uno de mis compañeros no iba porque “se sentía mal” o porque “estaba muy enfermo”. Viviendo en Canada (donde hay Canadienses: En serio), la gente aqui es muy autonoma y muy resistente. No es que sean más sanos (aunque en general lo son) o que tengan más dinero (el IDH Canadiense es 49 lugares más alto que el Mexicano; basicamente hay más media-baja y menos alta), lo que pasa es que son más orgullosos y literalmente les importa poco si se están muriendo. El Canadiense hace lo que debe enfermo no porque deba, sino porque puede; más de una vez vi a una persona ser “corrida” por estar enferma que faltar a clase por voluntad propia. De igual manera, los ancianos son más vivos e independientes que en México.

Otro algo que me llama mucho la atención es lo creidos que son muchos Mexicanos. Mi ejemplo es muy específico, pero quien lo entienda lo va a entender. En absolutamente todos los conciertos de punk, rock pesado o metal a los que fui en México no dejaba de escuchar comentarios de lo salvaje que era, de como las personas en otros paises de seguro no lo disfrutaban tanto como los Mexicanos… las bandas no ayudaban en su rutinario barberismo de decir que el slam estaba “salvaje” o que el público era de lo más vivo. ¡Mentiras! Los conciertos Mexicanos son de lo más tranquilos, absolutamente nada que ver con el salvajismo que he vivido aqui… También podría ponerme a criticar lo ridiculas que son las personas que se creen mucho por jugar Xcientasmil horas de fútbol cada mes, comparadas con las Xcientas mil horas de Ycientasmil actividades distintas que hacen en otros paises.

Probablemente escriba un ensayo en el futuro próximo acerca de lo muy ridículos que nos vemos con nuestras actitudes ante el mundo después, porque cada día que pasa descubro algo nuevo que me hace sentir soso y más frecuentemente apenado por la manera en la que, comparado a otros, reacciono a un estímulo X.

¿Culturas distintas eh?

I think I have seen all sorts of unnecessarily complicated things… Any procedure with a public or private enterprise for starters; I made my first tax declaration last year, and while it was not very difficult (I cannot remember the last time I wrote so many zeros), the amount of information that could be filled with something was ridiculous, just the way the few things I actually supplied could have been handled some other way: All that information was available online! I was raised to believe all these steps and things to do were to prevent me from becoming an irresponsible and lazy person. There is little to absolutely no sense of responsibility when dealing with forms, more frequently do I get the feeling that they are there to stop people from getting results instead of making the process easier.

Communication. Why is it so difficult to share an idea? If I say to someone “no, you are not fat” that is exactly what I mean when I use those words! There is no magic meaning behind every phrase that comes out of someone’s mouth, in fact, why should there be? I must confess that figured speech and innuendos are all sorts of fun when used properly, but there is a limit to the way people should try to place and find different meanings behind words. Another thing this world would be better without is unnecessary drama: I get it kiddo, everyone gets depressed from time to time, but do you really need to make everything so dramatic by using that set of words? Trust me when I say that there is no difference in meaning between “he is a moron” and “he often finds himself caught in a veil of confusion”. Why would you pick the most ominous sounding phrase?

Human interaction/relationships. Do I really need to go any further? Why is it so difficult for people to say things as they are? Seldom are people honest with each other, and things HAVE to be complicated when they should not. One example: Girl meets boy, girl falls in love with boy, girl becomes friendly with boy, boy is not interested, girl never makes her move, girl is miserable for three to five years until boy disappears; something is just wrong, is it not? I know plenty of men and women who are quite good at making the first move, but most people I know absolutely suck at it. Have some dignity, please.

I could go on for all eternity with this list, but since these three are the ones that bother me the most, they have deserved a spot in the universe.

On second thought, I might just expand each point to an annoying level in the future. End rant.

I used to get angry because people would spend weeks with doubts that could be solved picking up a book, or asking a professional. I get it: It was hard and tedious to look for the information you needed when you did not know where to look or who to ask.

Times have changed though. For the last seven years (probably more) it has been as easy as typing a word or a phrase into a box and hit enter, depending on what you are looking for, the results will be found in a couple of seconds or a couple of clicks. Using a search engine is easy. Why then? Why is it so hard for people to use the most popular search engine there is? From time to time I still find myself infuriated at people who ask me things via IMs instead of looking them up.

How difficult is it to find a song of a band you don’t know? How about a video? How about that cracked VST you have been wanting for months? I guess it really isn’t difficult, because after typing some very magic words you can find absolutely ANY-THING using google.

Only for professionals.

Things have changed a lot in the last decade. The way information is distributed and shared is so simple that it is a crime to be “connected” and avoid having information and knowledge at reach. It is true that there is a lot of information online that is completely based on assumptions and opinions, so what? Any person can form his/her own opinion after reading a text, unfortunately, sometimes it feels like there are more zombies than people online.

When in doubt, use Google.