Don't Think Again

It's quite tough to learn a new language for many reasons, one of which is having to downgrade your vocabulary. Sure, teaching your ears how to properly listen and comprehend those alien sounds is tough as well, but mostly a matter of time, and it doesn't really impair your ability to express yourself. I tend to bundle reading, writing and speaking in one big group: the "words" group. And trust me when I say i know it sounds weird. This big group has to do mostly with using and choosing the appropriate expressions and words for a specific situation. And it's usualy a matter of having quick access to those expressions. You use then when reading and writing, but you only learn by reading. So anytime you feel like you're getting too old and tired, remember those early days when you couldn't really say what you wanted. The alternative is to learn a foreign language.

How stupid can we get when we want something to happen? I always wanted to know what would be the outcome of random acts. For example, some day you look at some girl and she's so beautiful you can't help but to start imagining your kids running around on some sunny beach five or ten years from now (depending on how old you are). Just really wanting to make something feel like it makes sense somehow, and that it's not something that happened (or is happening). I'm happening right now, and it's exhausting. I keep making my own pretty stupid decisions everyday and then try to summarize them so that I don't feel stupid, crazy or both. I tell the story pretending it was simple, but it wasn't. Just lots of surprises, turdowns, unexpected outcomes and all kinds of utter randomness. That's life, dude, and it's sooo tiresome. I wish there was some sort of garantee, some move, some computer program or some religion to get me out of this. Something that, on...

Stories do bother me, and that's a simple fact. They bother me because they're mostly trying to inspire you to do something just like some character, or maybe because it's supposed to teach you a lesson. Romeo and Juliet is the foundation for what we - western people - would call romantic love; the little pigs and the big bad wolf were just to make you scared of strangers (in the original version there was no concrete house, and the pigs just get eaten one by one). Nowadays the dream-industry is based on Holywood. So when you're watching a movie, or any narrative, for my purposes, it's all about getting the story into your head so that you can copy it. But don't worry, we'll give you a good deal! Clothes, make-up, food, trips and even figures of speech. I'm not gonna bitch about the world we live in, but I think you got the point here. Well, that's not my point. What pisses me off about those silly silly fairy tales and stupid Holywood movies is th...

It's not that there's nothing new around, just that most of the time people just don't get it. Most people are just lingering somewhere in their past, or - most likely - dwelling between several conflicting remarkable times, places and friends (plateaus). Those plateaus don't really go away, unless you die, but there's no need to eliminate them to get to new things. The whole point is to giv'em some rest, and actually try to look around for a little while. And the next trap is so stupid it makes me sick: nostalgia. Just snap the hell out of it, you know? You can't discard everything just because it wasn't around when you were yet become a cynic. I don't mean you have to like everything either, but my point is pretty simple: the world is a given, it's just there and there's nothing you can do about it. Instead of complaining about the feasibility and sustainability of what's happening now, hoping that it will somehow change overnight just ...

Quite a while ago, I used to try whatever I wanted to the fullest. I just felt like quietly sitting around wasn't good enough, wasn't intense enough. So that simple idea was strong enough to drive me crazy over the simplest things. I really didn't know that, even if you're lying back alone on a dark room without any sound, there's always stuff happening to you. That fucked up girlfriend you had when you were fifteen? Remember the shit she yelled at you just to get you pissed? You probably don't, but it's still lingering somewhere, echoing around. Stuff don't go away. Remebering drives you so much more insane than forgetting, but we do remember a lot of things, even if it doesn't hold any particularly important meaning to you. It's there, and you have do deal with it somehow. I got so frightened when I first realized life was like this... So this brings me to a new concept, which is unstuck-ability , so to speak. It's just the very handy...

It happens all the time, and it requires a lot of time to happen. Even though I'd like to give it a more specific name, I'll just refer to it on this article as "processing". Some other possible names would be: digestion, elaboration and thinking. The problem with those names is that they imply something that isn't actually happening, such as a movement from a messy state to an organized state (thinking and elaboration), or some kind of specific set of steps that would had to be taken and guarantee an outcome (elaboration and digestion). The processing is merely about paying attention to something long enough. And the more you do it, the harder it is to do, like practice and learning, but backwards. As you do more and more processing you do, more effort you have to put into it. It's a lot like praying: you don't do it for everybody else, but having someone to get you through it helps a lot. Actually accepting you have to do it is terribly painful, exce...

Some days ago I posted bits and pieces of a nice conversation I had with a friend. Part of what made that particular dialogue stand out from the crowd is that it was the first time I heard the expression "international English". Some months ago, there was a hype about mandarin being the next English, because of the rise of China's financial and political influence. Even Sheldon, from The Big Bang Theory, was learning mandarin. In my humble opinion, English has a garanteed spot when it comes to international communication. Simply put, learning those ideograms (Kanji, in Japanese) is a long and hard task, even for native speakers. That being said, English is a simple language. And it's even better when it doesn't have an underlying culture attached to it: international English.

I was having this very nice talk about nationality, ground zero and identity. Those things that happen to just about anyone, but not many people have the guts to admit it, let alone talk about it. So I won't try to push this opinion upon you guys who think you're a real person... you know who you are. The rest of you, welcome to the conversation. What was in question was mostly about being able to tell if you're from one place or another, or rather having that feeling of belonging somewhere. Well, I haven't moved around a lot (internationally speaking) but I've never felt particularly connected to any given set of places (or people, for that matter). I'm not implying I don't have a past, but even so, I have this weird thing inside my head (called brain) that keeps changing what I believe is my past. I'm talking about an ever-changing past, in addition to the ever-present future. At this point, the suggestion came up: now that we've moved around and...

多分、 遺伝子検査をするのはやりすぎると言えるかな？ 新型インフル感染を確認　川島町の女性 2009.6.2 22:05 　埼玉県が新型インフルエンザ感染の疑いがあると発表し、詳細を調査していた川島町の無職女性（２６）について、県は２日、感染を確認したと発表した。女性の容体は安定しているという。 県によると、女性は５月３１日に語学留学先のカナダから帰国した。５人暮らしだが、家族に発熱などの症状は出ていない。女性の帰国後、家族全員が外出を控えており、県は「他の人への感染の可能性は極めて限定的」としている。 女性はせきや発熱があったため、２日に発熱外来で簡易検査を受け陽性となり、県衛生研究所で遺伝子検査をしていた。