Two more days and october ends. Until now I stop and start looking back. This year has been passing so fast. I remember january, when I was applying to study again. I thought this year I was going to start a PhD. Instead, I have been studying a certificate degree in  sustainable tourism. I started in april and now is october....it really has been so fast!
A lot of things have been happening; some good ones other bad ones, but I still think in my dreams and goals and how I am going to get there. There´s a saying "if you want to tell a joke, tell God about your plans". How true is that. One thinks about the future and starts making plans, but suddenly things change. It has been a year and three months since my surgery. This year I felt sick three times and I hope next year to be completely healed.
People come and people go. There is not enough time to spend it with friends but I have more time for myself. I needed this. Is this the schock of the 30´s?
For three weeks I have been dreaming strange things. Does this mean a change? Now I think about my future as a single. I can´t depend on my parents all my life. I think about a better job where I can earn more money and have something, a house, a car...nobody is going to support me unless I find a husband...but that´s not my priority. I am a woman and by nature sometimes I feel I want to have kids. I love kids! But I see how is everything outside in the world and I thank God because I´m not a mother yet. Why am I taking things so seriously now? Maybe is the age.

I am so happy because my kids got back, I really missed them so much. And today again, I met the nun...the beautiful old nun. We sat outside a sushi restaurant and started to talk. She told me again that nobody believed her that God talks with her, I do. Of course I do.  You can feel when God speaks with someone. I don´t know what it is but you just feel it and it transforms you. I am so different than two years ago, than last year and I am so happy to be what I am. I have a lot of peace and I needed that in my life.  I want to start working on my art project again, to travel, to study, to learn as much as I can, to help....I want to do many things.  I am glad all the bad things are gone, am glad I left all that.

I was telling today to my friend Khadim that people change some time in their lives. I don´t know if it´s every ten or eight years. Since last year I have been changing. How do you call that?  Most important is to feel good, to be healthy in all aspects and I have achieved a mental, spiritual, emotional and a physical peace and balance. I sometimes think about the past and ask questions, but that is just the PAST. It passed. Nothing will change the things that happened. But that doesn´t going to stop me from growing neither.
I see all the images of my life: friendships, love, travels, games, hardwork, fears, wishes. I really don´t have any reason to be frustrated or sad. I have more than many people. I have reached places that not many people reach. And I have seen a lot  that many people don´t dare to see.
I have been rejected and hurt a lot of times. That broke my heart. Now, it´s very hard that someone or something break me. Yes, maybe is the age. But everything I have been living, everything I had received and given, I wouldn´t change it.

Thanks Coach, Khadim, Rumy, Tosin, kids, the beautiful nun and lif

Yesterday I started my second month at the English School. I still work with the kids and I should say that I love them very very much. These guys are amazing! And I laugh everyday. They make me very happy.

Before traveling, I was feeling tired of teaching. I was thinking that I needed something else. I was thinking in something more challenging. But for a reason -I still don´t know which- I still teach. I don´t complaim because I am very happy there. Now more because I will have two more groups, adults. And I have a student who is prepraing herself for the TOEFL. This is very challenging! And I am very grateful for this opportunity because it will be very useful for me if I want to apply again to a PhD program.  Next week I start with my other two groups. But I feel sad because my kids have a strange schedule. And in order to keep them, we should change again their schedule,. The problem is if their mother will accept this. I hope yes because I really like these kids. Yesterday, one of them told me that he became fond of me, that he didn´t want to change teacher. These type of things are the real things in life. This is  important. Everybody should care more about love and friendship in these times of violence, hate, racism, ilness, destruction, envy, selfishness, distance...
And today we didn´t speak with their mom, so I don´t know what´s going to happen next week but I hope their mom changes her mind and change their schedule so I can keep them : )

And today, at 8.00pm, I almost burst into tears. I got out from the school and went to my car at the parking lot and then I saw the nun that three months ago I had  bought  some candies. She was walking on the streets at 10.00pm alone, carrying a small trolley and selling candies for her children. I was eating sushi and nobody bought her anything at the restaurant.
Today I saw her walking on the parking lot, I was inside the car and started it but then I saw that a boy didn´t buy her anything and I turned off the car took some money and went with her. So I started to chat with her and I asked  if they needed something for the children or for the ill and elderly people they take care of. She told me that they need a lot of things. That many nuns don´t want to be with her because she speaks things that God tells her. Nobody believes her. I do. She told me that their place is very far and dangerous, a poor neighborhood. That everyday before going out she prays but that one day, she didn´t pray and went out to sweep the street and a woman pushed her and she fell. She hurt herself but still she is on the street late, alone, selling candies because they need money. I wanted to cry so much at that moment because I thought of my mother. I would never let her be alone on the streets, walking by herself and ill. She told me that she didn´t sell anything and she wanted to take some money to buy milk, eggs or bread. I ran into the car and took all the cash I had and I asked her where I can see her again to give her some things. And she was so happy to receive something because now she had something to buy food. She returned home at that moment. She left.

I thought of all the stupid things one tends to buy. It´s okay if you have money. But it´s not okay if you spend it in silly things, in things that you will not use, things that are not neccessary. It´s okay if you have money, no one chose to be in the place we are now, in the place we live, in the country we live, in the family  and friends we have,  in the studies and job we have. It´s okay to buy something with the money you earn because of the hard job you develop. But let´s be honest, there are a lot of people outside who earn a lot of money withouth any effort and the worst is that they don´t share it. I thought that we should be more conscious about the things we buy, the excess of junk food we buy, of what we eat. Right now there are millions of people with hunger and the number will increase. Some of us, and I include myself eat chocolate, good chocolate, wine, have a nice and expensive dinner, buy expensive clothes and shoes and waste money in uneccessary things. It´s your money, you know what to do with that. And it´s not your fault have all the material things you have. Just be conscious. That´s it. Think in the other beside you in the others that are far away. Just be more conscious. Everything is a chain. We exist in a web of relationships, links to nature, people and God. If you think in that you would be making a change.

I am still figuring out what I am going to do. I don´t know what I will be doing, where  and how I will be living. Sometimes it worries me when I feel lost, but as long as I feel I am going the right way, I will be persistent and patient, I will do my best not only with myself but with others.

Things have to change. Everything and evrybody need a change, the Earth needs a change. What can we do to make that happen?

Today is my 4th week at the school. I wasn´t feeling very good in the morning. I woke up as usual, at 4.15am and took my dog Rocco for a walk. The grass in the park is huge! So It´s a little bit difficult to get back home because Rocco wants to stay there and play. I came back home and slept a little beit because I had my training at kickcboxing. I was so tired that I didn´nt want to wake up. But I did and finally.........after two weeks of my exam.....I received my brown belt!!! The next target is red belt for december and the red-black for march-april 2010. It´s becoming harder the training. So I hope to fight in december...I will loose many of my emotional, mental, spiritual and physical fears.

I had class today with my two favorite students. I brought them a chocolate after their final exam. They always fight because of candies...maybe I shouldn´nt bring them anymore. I was thinking in not going to class today because I had a terrible stomachache. Something personal...again. There are weird and twisted people outside, that´s why I am so happy being single. I was bothered again after a while of being lost and that made me very very very angry. I wish I could be in Iceland right now, or somewhere where the weather is so cold. I love cold weather.

So anyway. I am worried right now because two days ago I saw the movie from Al Gore An Unconvinient Truth and I felt so sad of what´s happening. Not only with the environment, but with heatlh, food, poverty, politics, social issues, education... people. Where are we going? What do we want? What is the reason we behave like we do now? Why we have to be so violent in finding a solution to a problem? What is going on  with respect? Where is it? HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Today I saw in the news that it snowed in Colorado.....can you imagine???!! Snow in september??!!! It´s crazy!!! I am so worried of what is going to happen. And I want to do more. Not only recycle. There are many things that I can do outside but many people don´t  allow me. I get desperate. I want to domething else.
I hope this website works and be useful for the purpose of connecting people and exchanging ideas to improve other peoples lives. I will work harder to finish it. I almost finish my thesis project with my colleague from Honduras on sustainable tourism. After finishing that course, I hope that other opportunities come, I am looking forward to do more.
Tschüs for tonight!

Today thursday I had another English class. I started to work for a new school near home. It´s almost 15 minutes!!  And I am so happy is so near! I would like to use my bike but the streets in this city are awful, as well as the city. This is my personal perspective, I just don´t like the city. I try to see it with different eyes, I try to find some magic place, a corner, a landscape, the people...but no.

I started to work formally at this school this month. I have two groups, four students. They are kids and they are amazing! I love to work with kids. They are so funny, so smart, very creative, very kind and simple and I need that in my life. I remember my work at the museum -where I used to work for 3 years- with children. I really loved that job but everything else was a mess.
One of my groups has the schedule at night. So the first time I saw them, I instantly fell in love with those children. Two little brothers. So every class I have with them I laugh and laugh, they are so funny and brilliant. There is just one thing that I don´t like. Their mom takes them to several courses, so they get tired. And you know what I am talking about.
Unfortunately, there are some disfunctional families where parents blame their children for all their problems and the result is that they don´t want to see their children at home. I am talking generally, not my students case.
I just see these two brothers and the oldest reminds me so much of my nephew. He lives in Canada and it´s been a while that I don´t see him as well as my niece. I miss them so much! And by the way, I have another nephew. He was born in July so I am looking forward to meet him. But you don´t know about that. My family is a world family. All of my siblings live in different places. So I am waiting God´s answer of what is going to be about my life. Where will I go? Where will I work? Where I will live? First things first. I need to be patient. I need to enjoy life and don´t worry about things that I CAN´T control. I still have to learn a lot of things. That´s is one of my missions in this world.

But I was talking about my day at school. Too much to say, too much to write. And at the sime time I am speaking with my friend Khadim on skype. He is not sleeping. They are celebrating the ramadan holy nights. Few days ago, he told me that he didn´t eat for 14 hours....wow! If I don´t eat when I am hungry, I have a headache or get angry...very very angry. So, he told me that it was part of his religion which I admire so much and I am desperate to taste their traditional food : )  Since I tasted spätzle in Germany...I am so curious to taste different foods, I don´t know why. Spätzle is one of my favorite dishes, but you will read about that on the food link.
Anyway, I was talking about my day at school and my friend Khadim. I will have to ask him a lot of question about his country, culture and religion, it is so interesting.

What I wanted to say is that I am very happy having these kids as my students. They talk so much and at the same time that I have to move my head from one side to the other because they love to talk! It´s funny and enjoy very much my class.

When I come back home, the part that makes me sad is to see people on the streets asking for some money. You see a man on a wheelchair, an indigenous woman, and old woman dressed as a clown...it´s terrible. I am so sad to see that everyday. So sad that other people inside their cars are so indifferent to that situation, to reality. There was a forum, two years ago, where someone criticized this society in the state of Nuevo Leon in Monterrey. They said people here live in bubble. You can imagine what does that mean. Certainly it is. And when you come back home after having the opportunity to study abroad, meet other people, know different cultures and  live in different places, experience racism or bad behaviours or experience the abscence of money and the help of others, you learn where you come from, you learn who you are, you realize what your culture is and the place you live. You change. You become a multicultural person. You become open minded, full of things to share, willing to help other people, thirsty to make changes that benefit others and then, nothing happens. Society doesn´t accept the new person you are. You don´t fit in their groups.  Sad, but not depressing. Again, this is my personal view.

I will try to do my best in managing this blog. I will try updating it as often as I can. English is not my native language but I like it because it expresses better what I want to say.

So, you will read about my thoughts on traveling, people, cultures, relationships, places, social development and other related things because that is the root of my work of art. I produce etchings, I like it more than painting and you will also see the development of the project of my life, which I don´t think it will end soon.

I hope you enjoy it and have fun.
Any comments and suggestions are very very very welcome.
Tschüss!