mirando al techo. (una tarde en madrid) / looking at the ceiling. (a madrid afternoon)

En cualquier otra situación hubiera seguido haciendo cosas, si hubiese estado en la oficina seguro que seguiríamos trabajando, el paquete lo tendria la secretaria, mi ordenador seguiria siendo mi ordenador, y la vida seguiria igual, sin un pensamiento de mas. Si tuviera una buena conexión a Internet seguro que habria pasado el tiempo mirando las paginas habituales, comentando en twitter, actualizando cosas, leyendo articulos. Pero no, estoy en una casa que pese a ser de mi familia me sigue siendo extraña, y sin conexión a Internet. El paquete esta enfrente de mi, apoyado en la pared, un tubo de planos de 70×12 cm, con un cd y un sobre, todo envuelto en papel kraft, deberia decir mal envuelto. Espero que los de la mensajeria lo recojan para llevarlo a Atenas. Eso es lo que hago, nada mas. Mirar al techo y esperar. Después he quedado con el grupo a tomar algo, y mas tarde a cenar con una amiga, pero hasta entonces espero, estoy aquí atado, por mi paquete, por el futuro, por la ilusion y esperanza del ignorante. He hecho una llamada de telefono, he colgado y ahora espero. Podria leer, he traido libros conmigo, pero no conseguiria pasar de la segunda o tercera linea, podria ver la television, pero no conseguiria centrar mi atención. Bloqueado en la espera. Divagando sobre los 3 dias que voy a pasar en Madrid, pensando en toda la gente a la que voy a ver. Es raro la condensación de encuentros que me provoco cada vez que vengo. Una lucha entre el quiero ver a mis amistades y el me gusta estar tranquilo y no hacer nada. Nunca veo de forma tan seguida a tanta gente. Parece que mi vida se sigue basando en el principio todo o nada. O no pasa nada o pasa todo a la vez. Pasados estos tres dias, ire a Portugal a encontrarme con una amiga de Australia. Desde luego no hay manera facil de hacer las cosas, o al menos no debe ser tan divertida. Oporto-Lisboa-Faro y después por España.  Nota al margen. La conoci en Londres.

No todo es tan interesante como parece cuando uno lo escribe, ni tan emocionante, es simplemente normal. Mi normal.

En fin que estoy mirando el techo, esperando al de la mensajeria antes de irme a tomar unas cañas. Todo lo que voy a hacer en Madrid estos 3 dias parece muy absurdo mirado desde una perspectiva, todos son compromismos y objetivos que me he auto impuesto y elevado a la categoría de obligaciones, se supone que se hacen por gusto, pero eso depende del momento, y por supuesto ninguno reporta dinero, asi que son un hobbie. Vaya hobbies mas raros, con lo bien que una esta en casa, o no.

Sigo mirando al techo.

a nice trip around

I am back from a long road trip across Spain and Portugal, I actually came back on thursday, but it has taken me some time to recover, plus I had a nice PS going 90 km away to see one of my idols. It’s been a 2 week trip and much longer since I last wrote in the blog. No excuses, not worth, not true. I’ve made a competition I knew I was going to loose, but it was fun doing it, I injured my shoulder, I’ve had research meetings, and I’ve had one of the best trips ever going around the country with some friends. It looks like a busy agenda, but somehow it feels like an empty and void period for me. Maybe because what I am doing and what my mind would like to be doing are different things, not sure yet.  The trip has made me a long lasting impression, one of those things I am sure I’ll remember forever, it was intense, fun, busy, full of anecdotes and challenges, I had some of the best and deeper conversations in very long time,  I’ve faced the mirror, and tested my cultural and professional knowledge, I talked to people from other backgrounds to see how different we are, I’ve been drained out in so many ways, and I have to say I really liked.

small break, readings and snacks.

It’s been 6 months since I came to spain, and they have gone extremely fast. I can say that I have done many things in this time, most of them unique, fun, exceptional, things that I was not able to do before, all those things I always wanted to do but had no time for, It’s like extended holidays, after 4 years of overworking, but somehow I cannot help but feel a bit guilty inside, like if I should be doing something other, like if I don’t deserve this, though I do. I am lazy, that’s a reality, and maybe I feel guilty about that, not about my time off. I always feel I should be doing more, and doing it better. Demanding and tiring.  I’ve thought about stopping all this, about giving up and having an easy life, why not, just kick back and enjoy, 9 to 5 job and make the most of it, but somehow i feel that would not be fair and that I would not be happy, but who knows. By now, I’ll just enjoy my time off, at least 3 more months and an exciting trip ahead.

I’ll try to post more, some funny things ongoing.

Perversion

Todo ha perdido su significado, todo se mezcla, te venden consignas en chistes, en anuncios, todo ha perdido su sentido y las cosas se han mezclado, ya no sabes de lo que hablas, ni lo que ves, ni lo que compras. Te venden una batidora de cocina que a la vez tiene un gel en el mango que hace que tu pene se haga mas grande, ese es el resumen que saco de una semana en contacto con la realidad mayoritaria de este país (españa-europa-elmundo). Nada funciona porque nada tiene un rol o un objetivo claro, todo tiene que valer para todo, y mañana además servirá para otra cosas porque si no será viejo y aburrido.

Viejo y aburrido es lo que me parecen la mayoría de las personas que me encuentro, sin nada que decir, sin nada que hacer, no se hacen preguntas en sus cabezas, no dudan, no cuestionan, son felices, se creen el estatismo de una realidad pasada. Me he quedado casi sin gente con la que hablar, al menos con los que puedo hablar ya no están aquí, ya no hablan este idioma, que tontería estar escribiendo esto en este idioma, que tontería estar escribiendo esto.

La gente sigue siendo muy paleta, esta como adormecida, esta muy adoctrinada, los mensajes que he escuchado me han dado mucho miedo, me parecia increíble seguir escuchando ciertas cosas, me parecia obsoleto, inmoral, indecente. El presidente hablaba en los mitines como los peores discursos comunistas de los años 20 y 30 en Rusia, la gente aplaudia enfervorizada, los programas de televisión eran terriblemente sesgados, los argumentos superficiales, la gente de 80 años ve la televisión de manera impasible y simpatiza, el mundo se suma en el oscuro pasado y en un futuro donde la relatividad se ha entendido como el todo vale.

Por eso prefiero seguir en mi realidad paralela, por eso prefiero seguir desconectado, sin tele, sin noticias, sin cierto tipo de realidad. Tengo necesidad de leer, todo se aclara pero el campo se agranda y necesito conocer más, leer más, investigar mas. La práctica profesional es inútil si no has definido una posición social y filosófica de antemano. Si no transmites una visión social de la actualidad, la profesión se convierte en un juguete de niños, un juego divertido y entretenido, pero que no merece la pena.

Mañana cuando vuelva al mundo online escribire esto traducido, quizas revisado, quizas extendido, quizas tenga alguna idea mas clara de cómo irme. Las ideas se aclaran, pero abren nuevos horizontes aun mas lejanos y que hacen banales intereses anteriores.

Por eso tengo claro que me quiero pirar, que si no puedo armar mis ideas de forma plausible e investigar como expresarlas es mejor irse, irse a otros mundos, a otras vidas, a bajos fondos, a mundos decadentes donde todo es mucho mas directo, claro e instintivo, es supervivencia, es franco, honesto, directo. Prefiero vivir noches sin fin, disfrutar la vida sin ligaduras, abusar del sistema y ser un parasito del mismo una vez que aprendes a vivir simplemente trapicheando.

Trapicheando significa escribiendo, traduciendo, haciendo renders, es decir trabajos temporales con plazos de entrega cortos y que no tienen una coherencia en el tiempo ni aportan una producción interesante o provechosa a la humanidad, es decir simplemente cumplen una necesidad pasajera e inútil de alguien. Le ofreces un servicio efimero en el momento que lo necesita. Pero no es un servicio que “produzca” aportes o resultados ni que vaya mas alla de si mismo. Una vez que aprendes a vivir trapicheando, (lo tengo en tareas pendientes), el resto del proceso es mas sencillo, viajar a donde uno le apetezca, según los vientos, alquilar espacios abandonados, cutres, olvidados, sencillo, unicos requisitos: un enchufe, internet, una ducha y un armario.

Apegarse a una cotidianeidad y a una serie de lastres como son hipotecas, creditos, compromisos, etc, no tiene sentido sin no se lleva un trabajo que sirva de algo. Si solo quieres un trabajo para ganar dinero para sobrevivir, entonces puedes vivir trapicheando, lo que ademas te da la libertad de cambiar de aires cuando quieras.

Si por el contrario tu trabajo aporta algo, sirve a la humanidad a la par que a ti, y te enriquece, es decir es lo que da sentido a tu vida, la cotidianeidad es probablemente un peaje que hay que pagar. Pues esa labor sera sin duda alguna una labor a largo plazo, condicionada a una serie de colaboraciones externas a tu propio trabajo y con un lugar fisico mas o menos constante o con pocas variaciones, y siempre variaciones dependientes de los requerimientos del trabajo, no de la voluntad.

weird and yet so familiar

when you are not at home it can be painful to stay in a place for days just jumping from one meeting to a dinner, and waiting for a call or an email. I would prefer to be in a hotel room, but I am staying with relatives and that’s the real pain. I am loving univeristy library.

I should also explore more the city, but I’ve lived here for quite a few years already. Though I’ll try to do my best, there are a lot of things I haven’t done yet, not sure I wanna do them, but I’ll try to do some.

I am crashing at relative’s place in my own city, and that feels fucking weird, I am so unconfortable at the place and so happy in town, but when there is nothing to do, or no one to meet I don’t know how to spend time, time I would normally spend at home or at the hotel.

a proper post about madrid will follow.

London days. Stills

Following the urban of the move post, here are some picks of my walks through London in my last week there.
This was My London. sort of

hackney. 100 football fields. wanna play?

Old garages. I would love to renovate them and put my office here with a vibrant courtyard.

Directions.

Old magnetic Lloyd’s Building.

Mutivideo-two screen cocktail layout.

The curve @ The Barbican. 3D modifications

Smithfields market. Brightful meat.

Suitcases. My life in boxes once again

London days. Urban on the move

Last 10 days have been pretty intense and there is no point to try to summarize it. So instead, I post a series of videos that try to capture East London life on the move…. there are some bits missing, the farewll party, my life in suitcases again… but I’ll put more pics later.

This is my farewell to living in East London, enjoy the ride.

questions

Today I had a lot of questions, but I was not brave enough to ask all of them. Normally when I start making questions, one questions leads me to another one, so I end up with hundreds of questions and no answers, but normally I ask that type of questions that normally don’t need an answer….. more or less.

BACKGROUND.
Today I had an appointment for lunch with a friend (it sounds more formal that it was, but I didn’t know how to write it), sometime before we were supose to meet I got a call from my friend telling me that she was going to be 30 min late, basically because she was not able to take a shower before because her flatmate was taking a very long shower.

ok, so…
why people are always late when they meet up with friends? why are they never late when they go to a job interview, or to work, or to catch a plane? (i know some people are late in those situations, but percentage in hugely smaller) do they do it because their jobs are something that give them money to live? does that mean that money is more important that friendship? if so, why people say the opposite and assure that friendship is the most important thing in life? why do people tend to believe that jobs are only temporal and that sooner or later you’ll change your job while they think that friendship should last forever and ever? but then they are late when they are meeting friends, not when they are going to work. If it is not the money, is the fear and hierarchy what determines that people are not late to work, maybe  the power of the superiors? so, being late when meeting a friend is a sign of abuse to their feelings and patience?

how can an adult say that is late to an appointment because someone else not related to the appointment was taking a shower? how can you be a “successful” professional and cannot use the shower at your place whenever you need or want, and if you have to share a flat, cannot you talk with your flatmates to see the daily schedules and make the necessary adjustments so everybody is on time to their respective meetings? why people don’t make those small efforts?how architects can build a 4 bedroom flat with the two bathrooms inside two bedrooms, so 2 rooms have to go through another bedroom to access the bathroom? why nobody cares? how can someone say “i started walking out of my place a bit late, I’ll be 15 min late” and not be terribly ashamed? didn’t you know how long does it take you to get to the place? why didn’t you check? what was the reason that made you walk out of your place late?….. and this is only about a small, tiny issue like being on time to your appointments and meetings and the abuse of friendship.

sometimes people ask me, why are you such a solitary person?… I guess answers are easier than one normally thinks, but normally you don’t want to hear them.

not related
Why am I so lazy with household stuff? because I don’t care a shit, but my conscience tells me I should care.

the post I forgot what I wanted to talked about and wrote about some other stuff and I finally wrote a really long and insignificant title that is going to be as long as the post and that remembers me to the day I had a conversation with a friend only through the subject of the emails we interchanged and we discovered that 140 characters was the maximun lenght for the subject but it looks like there is no maximum lenght in this wordpress blog system. Now, the post.

So I had this amazing issue to write a post about and I completely forgot it. I cannot remember it, So you think, it shouldn’t be so amazing if you forget so easily about it, and you might be right. I’ve been the whole day, I have to write this post, I have to write this post, and I’ve spent the whole afternoon trying to remember what the hell I wanted to write about, and no way to find it. So I decided to write a post anyway, guessing that I might get this idea back while writing. I know it was something about yesterday’s post about living in the Future and so on, something that I found specially interesting but I cannot remember.

Anyhow I don’t think it matters that much as I’ve been completely sidetracked by trying to save or link facebook videos. I know that i can have some new enemies by saying this, but Facebook Sucks, yeah, you red it, Facebook sucks and make things complicated, and you cannot embed or link videos from other users, so now I am installing firefox and its tool to download and save videos from websites like Youtube.com and so on, so finally I could save and share whatever I like.

You think you can beat me, you don’t know me.

I truly think that the world should be more free and open, we have to stop trying to hide and protect things, we will only be more free (not sure freer it’s ok) when we assume what we are and we don’t hide and protect stupid things. Why can I watch a video from a friend of mine,  which he/she put on facebook for 200 people to watch, but I cannot show it to other friend of mine, well I cannot show it to him/her online, because if he/she  and I get to the same physical space and I log in facebook then I can show it to her/him.  I mean, some restrictions are so, so, so stupid. We have a long way ahead, we have to rethink ourselves.

Today was walking day, and I found myself in the water basins of the North Bank (east side), which are pretty cool and quite unknown and definitely worth checking. (pictures to follow)

sometimes The Future.

Sometimes I feel like I live in the future and I am gonna miss it so much during the time I am gonna spend in Spain. mm, fuck it.

I live in a place where I got a Tax Refund Cheque for a tax refund that I was entitled for but that I didn’t ask because at that time I didn’t know how to do it. I live in a place where I go to the bank and I can pay in a cheque without going to the teller, I can do it through the ATM and it is in my account the same day!!! I live in a place where I have a rechargeable transport card that I can manage online and that it auto tops-up when I have no credit on  and it charges directly my bank account. I live in a place where I can plan my public transpor journeys by the minute online. Not to talk about the postal service, they collect every hour from the post office, every hour!!!! and you get letters and parcels within 2 days, Amazon delivers next day, maximum 2 days most of the items.

I live in a place with 5 airports, FIVE, and a renewed train station that links me to Paris in less than 3 hours,

It’s not one of those futures of bright, shiny clean white environments, it is more that of the typical pseudo catastrophic, bit crappy environment, but I love it, because it has a lot of warehouses and lofts reconverted as offices, lounges, restaurants museums. I live in a place where you can find artits’ studios directly under the rail tracks in old fashion brick arcades spaces, I live in a place with one of the most amazing river banks I’ve ever seen and with the huge turbine gallery, I live in a place where Lily Allen plays @ Koko before anywhere else, or the roundhouse, or the Notting Hill Arts Club, I live in a place that has one of the best punk-whatever-tourist-retro-vintage markets ever, and it’s all in one, Camden.

I mean the place has also its bad stuff, but that’s the stuff anchored in the past, like “British food” whatever that is, early closing for bars, no 24 hours living (NYC, you are so awesome for that, miss it), crappy weather, (they didn’t know that the place where they were founding the city it was crap) and a horrible English accent, it’s not their fault, we embrace them anyway. They have a weird sense of humour (almost none), and some other stuff.

But sometimes THE FUTURE, and more often than you think, appears in your life. Sometimes I live in the Future.
- Where are you coming from?
- The Future
- And how does it look?
- It’s a better place,

P.S. Though it could be sunnier and had some stuff like Jamon to eat and so on… just asking.

thanks (belated)

normally it happens to me that when I am in the middle of something,  it is so demanding and so tiring that you are not able neither to understand what’s going on nor to express what you think or feel. It is also very normal to me that it is only some time after things have happened that I get to know my feelings about them, sometimes it almost feels like me watching some others behaviour, as it was not me living those situations. Last year was one of those situations, it was a rush, it was crazy, it was insane, and now I have different understanding of it, in fact I could say I am starting to have an understanding of it.

First thing I should say is THANKS, thanks a lot to all the people that pushed me so hard, consciously or unconsciously, to the guys at the office that spent long hours with me and discovered new ways, new faces, and new limits. Second thing I should say is I AM SORRY for being a dick , for bitching so much at times and for reacting foolish at some other times. I can say and promise that if I would be in the same situation I would bitch on everybody again, and would be grumpy again, but I have to say that now I know the reasons for those things.  I learnt a lot, I gain 2 years of experience or more in one.

Over the past ten years since I started college many things have changed,  I am confident to do things I never imagined I could be doing, I know and talk to people I considered always really far to reach, impossible has become easy over the last 10 years, Now I understand the look and behaviour of many people in the last decade, I’ve got friends with people I hated when I first met.

There is a point where you have to decide if your job is your life or it is just a job to pay your rent, you even might have taken the decision unconsciously. If you take the second path there are many places you could never access but you’ll have a happy cheerful life. if you take the first choice, your job is your life, you’ll probably drag yourself into a parallel world far from everything and you’ll start to be another person and do things you don’t know the reason why, you might notice that people around you will push you more and more, hard as ever, you’ll swear, you’ll be grumpy and you’ll fight to be better, to survive, you will stop living to just work and nobody from outside will understand, you will stop your entire external life for months, for years, you’ll transform yourself because you decided that is worth to fight for what you do or what you believe. Sometimes that decision is not totally conscious but people working around you will notice it, even before you and they feel that you are ready to be pushed, because you will only fight the push if you believe in what you do, in what you are, if not you will quit, decision is yours.

My profession is my life, I was in one of those rushes last year, I didn’t know what was going on, now i will take some rest from the past 10 years, now I will recap, now I understand last year (understand doesn’t mean agree), now i am thankful to all the people that have pushed me over the limit once and again in my life and have made be better, I am thankful for all my outside friends that have stuck with me even when I’ve been a total cabron, and they are still around somehow, i am thankful to all my coworkers that have shared my hours and that have forced me to learn, to survive and to improve.

so, late, but better late than never. THANKS: .

thoughts of a sunday night.

after , why do I always end up watching U2 concerts???
http://www.laestaciondelparque.com/video/u2-concierto-buenos-aires
http://es.videofindr.net/video/14249

whatever