communicating babble

It's so cool the way life happens. I don't mean this from a scientific perspective, although things happen as equally bad-ass on a microscopic level, but rather through the lens of social interaction and chance. Someone else might sum this all of as normal networking,  but i'll take the long-winded road of trying to make it seem more complicated than it might be. What I'm referring to:  those moments when you can track the significance that one small and seemingly unimportant daily decision has made on your life. I read some articles a while back about how to be more creative and not get caught up in the hum-drum march of life when you stop taking notice of the small things because you naturally forget to observe them because you are so set in your daily routine (note to reader: i don't feel like using commas today). Not that I fervently have been trying to do this (nevermind), but the notion arises sometimes. For example... I used to walk to work the same way everyday on the same side of the street, but then I began to change which side of the street I walked on. Then i got a bike and still took the same way, although riding it gives me many more accessible ways to see different parts of the city on my way home. Sooo, I decided to mix it up every now and again. Doing this last Wednesday, I uncharacteristically stopped to grab dinner to take home from a local tapas bar. I almost didn't, because i have been training myself to eat at home because of all the new and costly hobbies i would like to maintain.

Alas, entering the place I noticed an American guy that i had met once before sitting at a table  with some other people. Here begins the intangibles. Why does one act or think differently from day to day? In my case, why do I sometimes not bother with social "risks", and other times have no qualms about them? This day I was second-guess free. Leaving the restaurant and passing their table, I said "hello fellow americans" and then sat down, chatted, and eventually had some beers and passed the next couple of hours. Since then i have hung out with one of the people, Lorena, a few times, and she seems to be a very interesting person that fits in with my other friends, and is helping me to better solidify some of those friendships nicely.

If you made it though that, i really just wanted to comment on how invigorating and sporadic life can be when you are creating and nurturing new experiences and friendships on a weekly basis. Being in a new country helps immensely, as well as speaking the local language (another aspect completely), but one can also still easily enclose him/herself in the same near-sighted routines that life so often throws at them if they are not careful. Don't hate on my lack of pronoun agreement.

I have other examples, as i'm sure everyone does, but the essence, i think, is how much of a difference the utterance of a few words can make on life. Here is where i should embark on an intellectual and technical discussion of ancient and modern communication, but i'll leave those words unuttered.

Instead, i'd like to invite those who read this to think of a personal example of some small coincidence or event that impacted your life in anyway and to share them in the comments section. Nothing extreme, maybe something you bought that has changed your daily routine and so on...

New Occurrences

1.   I went surfing for the first time. The bomb diggity. I was able to get to my feet and felt alive in the freezing water. You naturally feel supercool wearing a wetsuit and trotting toward the ocean with a surfboard at your side. I´m going again this weekend in hopes of trying to really catch a wave. Also, I am a now imagining a summer of surfing on virgin beaches with mountainous backdrops. Idealism is a beautiful thing.

2.  I´ve joined the local climbing/hiking community which should add some more excitement and friends to my life. It will also be a good outlet to hike through some of the beautiful countryside that i´ve mostly been seeing by car.

3.  I´ve picked up some private classes on the side which is a nice, easy bump to my monthly income.

4.  I´ve reached the 4 month mark. When i reached it in Mexico i was just starting to feel really comfortable with the life and language there, but then i went home. Now, I am feeling the same and have at least another 6 months to go.

5.  I´ve been lent some interesting books in spanish and so should be doing a lot more second language reading.

6.  I´ve begun to practice water paints. I´m still pretty bad.

7.  My roomies are helping me to learn the music creation/production software Ableton Live.

8.  I´ve decided that in the future, if nothing else grabs my attention, I will get an associate´s degree and become a physical therapist´s assistant. I think i could dig it. This would be after teaching english at a ski resort, though.

9. I´ve switched from drinking coffee from a french press to an Italian perculator. Playa´s so cultured!

Galiza é ben feita

The title sums up this blogpost, but allow me to elaborate. I mentioned in an earlier post how nice it was the first time I left the city and saw some of the countryside. Well, I have done it a few more times since then, and it continues to endlessly impress me. This specific trip, documented in photos on facebook, took me west of A Coruña along the Coast of Death. What a cool name, eh!? It´s called this because of the 60+ notable shipwrecks that have happened there in the past 100 years. For this reason, the many small towns are riddled with myths and legends and I hope to read up on some of these in the future. We stopped in Finisterre, which translates to ´the end of the earth´ because it was once thought to be so. On the cliffside overlooking the vast Atlantic, one can see scorched, black stone where the many modern pilgrims burn their shoes after thousands of kilometers spent walking in them. This reminds me of my dad´s story of he and his friends burning their school uniforms in the woods after graduation. Physical and mental journies both deserve a good fire I suppose. My friends Dan and I scaled the cliffs at our next stop and got as close to the crashing waves as we could. It was awesome, to say the least, to look up and only see rock and to look down and see that surging and powerful body of water throwing itself at the cliffs like a child does to the locked door in his room when he´s in timeout. Or maybe that was just me. But I was never in timeout because I was the good son, Macaulay Culkin style. The countryside leading to these virgin beaches and wild cliffsides was also impressive. It is filled with old rural houses clustered together in small enclaves on the hillside like barnacles on a rock. It is a cliche scene filled with grazing cattle and goats, fresh produce gardens, the deepest green grass and the cozy sight of smoke billowing out of chimneys. One can rent a house anywhere in this classic atmosphere for only a few hundred euros a month. Pastoral getaway, anyone?

-ity

(drop the bass)

Narrativity is my proclivity

If you didn't know - it's something close to divinity -

D'you have an affinity?

to do something to the best of your ability?

If you don't you better try from now until infinity

to find that thing that brings you closest to sanity