Self Map

Hola again!

Quite a day of blogging and working. It is one of those days where it looks like I am high on sugar or something (and then they say that jasmine green tea thing in the pantry is good for you... yeah! RIGHT!)

My original diary today says I have to find myself, and it gives me a map I need to fill with people's perspective about me. So here's the result at the very end of the working day JUST before going to have a hair cut ("What hair are you talking about?" is an old joke by now, ok?), get Pilli a presemt and head to KUALA LUMPUR for a cool weekend. (if you are worndering: YES, I went around with a highlighter asking people to tell me what they thought of me, but today is FRI and everything and anything is allowed. I even saw Lars with no tie and Devrim singing to GOD KNOWS what, probably some Brazilian grovvy song as a prep for his trip.) Anyway, here's the chart:



As this picture well says: I am going home. Have a nice weekend you all and, AH! yes, MELISSA TIRO, I know I owe you one SPECIALLY DEDICATED POSTING, just for you. It will come next week. :)

Chau chau y portense bien!

3 seconds
2 seconds
1 second
...and I am gone like a prom dress!

Today's Lunch - A cultural note

Again, a picture equals 1000 words.

This was my Singaporean lunch today. A perfect blend of Western and Easters cultures.



Teriyaki chicken: a typical Japanese dish, salty, tasty, and quite healthy (if it wasn’t for the liter and a half of sauce they put on top if the chicken) Takashimaya!
Coleslaw salad: not Asian whatsoever, but it goes so well with the chicken, so I did not care (let’s agree and call it ASIAN FUSION CUISINE, ok?)
Popiah: My favourite in this country. A Singaporean version of what we call in Latin America FAJITAS. A very thin pancake that they stuff with peanuts, soy sprouts, lettuce, eggs and this warm juicy boiled sweet vegetable. Garlic (looooooooooots of it) and chili, of course! Wrapped, and cut in slices for your own convenience. Yummy!
Water: I did not want to drink anything like Calamansi juice, Star Fruit soda or green tea. I stuck to the classic Sparkling water (here called SODA water, GAS water… whatever)
Chop Sticks: Yes, c-h-o-p s-t-i-c-k-s! What did you think we are? A bunch of foreigners eating with our prince-like forks and knives. No, no no. You could not be more wrong, dude! (or dudette). We eat it all the Asian way: with Chop Sticks. Ok, except Krishna, who has not mastered this art and if she intends to have a pleasant meal and get something into her stomach chooses the traditional tool: the fork (or the Indian tradition: her hands)
Styrofoam cups: or plastic cups instead. Cannot say no, lah! And beware if you want NO ICE in your drink. “You think you are too smart, lah. S$ 0,50 cts more, lah!" You get charged a bit more for using a bit more of pulp of whatever fruit you are squeezing to make your drink. (Interesting, lah!)

Details:
1 - mobile phone on the table, very close to you. Without one of these you are NONE in Asia. Literally speaking!
2 - no napkins, paper tissues, servilleites or alike. (Interesting how we survived so far without them)
3 - you cannot see them, but you get lots of people passing by your table staring at your food as if it was the finest delicatessen on Earth (and the last one, too!)

And this, ladies and gentlemen, was my lunch today!
Thank you very much for your attention.
Have a nice day.

BERP!
(Excuse me…)

Coffee vs. Colgate

Friday
Friday morning
The morning is thick
It is not going anywhere
If this morning was a liquid it would be glucose: transparent, viscose still sweet, hours away from the weekend.

What to do besides going through the tons of emails and mini tasks accumulated throughout the week pursuing meeting all big deadlines?
How not to feel guilty for those email-reminders: ‘I have not gotten an answer from you yet. I wonder if you received my email yesterday. Here’s another copy’ (impatient people, aren’t they? GEEZ… ONE DAY, gimme a freaking break!) I wonder what these people do when they have to wait almost 20 minutes for a pitiful bowl of rice and some simil-beef chopped on top of it in the food court during lunch time. Do they yell at the “uncle” in the booth?. NOPE! Because they release all their stress in their emails. And Today’s victim: me amongst some other people, apparently.
Yes, OK. I will be your therapy for the day.

Whatever. It is FRIDAY, OK?.
Friday morning
Thick. Slow motion morning.

Suggestion. Instead of standing up and heading to the coffee machine, take your tooth brush, go to the bathroom and wash your teeth. It totally gives you this refreshing morning sensation I experience around 7.30AM when one just finishes to shower and do the mouthwash.

Ready to continue with my morning. Not so think now, and not so morning, almost noon.
5 hours
4 hours 59 minutes 59 seconds
4 hours 59 minutes 58 seconds

An image = more than 1000 words

What else can you add to this, right?. Nothing.

Well, I DO. I can add some comment, of course. The worst thing about these places one visits (besides the redness you get after the sun burning your skin at a modest temperature of almost 40ºC) and the pictures one takes, is that one usually keeps these images as wallpapers in our computers. Big, blunt, bright colourful image of a past great time that is no longer as such! If you really take a closer look at them they even seem to laugh at you! (pay attention and you will see)

IDIOTS! With the excuse og "reminding us of the good time we had, and the pretty place and blah blah!"

RETARDED ! That does not help me when all I want to do is kick back and relax for a second. OH NO! Because I am sure there will be some new task, computer-based 90% of the time, that will keep me away EVEN from the thought of a place like the one I have in the very wallpaper.

Ay ay ay human beings. We never learn. But, here's my contribution (you are all welcome). In order to erradicate this wallpaper disaster we usually do to ourselves, there is a webpage you can check and use to doanload the ugliest wallpapers ever (click here) and you can also rate them on their ugliness.

So you turn your computer on and all you see is such an ugly image that you will AUTOMATICALLY be MOTIVATED to open your Outlook, Excell, Word or more frequently used software. Beware of the type of images, I do not want you guys to loose your jobs by placing "those nasty pictures" we have all seen sometimes, ok?

Hey, after all, if we are not part of the solution we are part of the problem. Ooops, sorry, that's old, I should have said : It's up to you!

Random. Completely random.

Here I am sitting at my desk, brain-dead, fixedly looking at the wall I have in front of me (by the way, I have never realized how awful to face the wall is) I am just sort of lost in all the things I need to catch up with and all of a sudden I discovered I have taken out my left shoe. (Yes. I feel the cold air conditioning even under my desk, therefore there is no need to explain how other parts of the body feel, right?)

I take a closer look and I see I have a hole on my sock.
Black sock with a hole and you can see my toe.
A piece of bright white toe standing out through the hole in my black sock.

Needless to say I tried my shoe back on, and I could not avoid thinking of this morning when I collected all my clean and already dry laundry from the rack and put it back in the corresponding drawers. Then I randomly decided to count how many pairs of socks I owned (I KNOW what you are thinking, and the answer is: NO, I did not have anything better to do, ok?) Anyway, I counted and it added up to 47 pairs and ONE grey loose sock, that is lonely because I have apparently lost the “matching friend”.

47 freaking pairs for crying out loud!!!! Can you believe it!!?? One too many socks!

But then I thought again and I decided it was not fair to make such a judgement. I should not be so harsh on myself. I actually wondered: ‘How do I know if that’s too many? Maybe it is simply average for people my same age and condition”. So here it goes, the question of the day:

How many pairs of socks do YOU own?

Random. Completely random. I have said it at the beginning, right?

The most hated question after the vacations...

FAR AWAY are those days in which I placidly rested in a hanging bed in a dreamt paradise such as the one in the picture (Redang, in the East coast of Malaysia). NO NO NO, after coming back from my vacations in Canada I opened my inbox to surprisingly find 720 emails waiting for my only two eyes to read them. I struggled not to go crazy and jump out of the 23rd floor of our building. Instead I drank lots of coffee and between the nice, yet sort of retarded questions "How were your vacations?", stood up to the challenge and went through all of them. YEAH!

A comment, I know people mean well and it is also sort of cutomary to ask, but SERIOUSLY, do people expect me to sumarize 2 of the best weeks of my entire life in a 3-minute conversation in my desk or the hall or the bathroom. By the way, quite an odd moment, to say the least. Picture this: you holding "it" and while staring at the wall in front of you, you kindly share with the guy next to you - who is also holding "it", sometimes with one and soemtimes with both hands - how nice it was to be in Canada and how cold it was out there. You try to be expressive but not too much. You want to have eye contact, but NOT really. And you try not to make too many movements with your hands or you might have some embarrassing wet spots in your pants in VERY noticeable places.

Needless to say it is said the body has a memory and therefore by the soly fact or remembering the -32ºC and how cold it feels "it" shrinks once again to the same size "it" sharnk in Canada at the ridiculous and scarry temperature of -32ºC (as some of the days I experienced over there).

'It was really nice. I spent time with friends and their families. Quite cold but I cannot complain, it was awesome' This is the pre-made speech for those who asked (or will ask) HOW MY VACATIONS WERE. Some may call this being phony, I would rather call it 'being strategically nice and short while trying to freaking work, ok?! Give me a break and go bother somebody else, GEEZ!'

Enlightning note for the girls out there reading this posting: YES! It is true, with the cold "it shrinks" and with the heat "it expands". And that explains the sizes in different continents and races, OK?. (You are welcome, guys!) ;)

Coming back... coming back!

Hola dear readers!

I am at Tokyo Airport right now (I do not know what's up with this airport that makes me think and reflect on my life. Would it be the country and its milenary traditions?. Would it be the 4 cups of Baileys I drank on the plane? Maybe the red wine I drank to drag down the HORRIBLE aftertaste of the ginger beef they fed me for lunch? Dunno... whatever...)
I am on my way back home after a terrific experience in Canada. I will blog more about it during the week, cool pictures and stories are on their way, I promise.

Thanks for the patience and also THANKS for all of you who sent me emails to check on my health and physical integrity after the terrible tsunami disaster.

e-See you in a couple of days!

Nacho
(A Canadian soul trapped in an Argentine passport)