Confessions

What I'm going to explain today it's something I've never told anyone, at least completely, it's something that I've been battling through all these years, and it's something that I'm trying to get over it. I'm not trying to seek attention, or to get anyone to pity me, I just want people to know how things are.

As a kid I was really shy, I loved reading and, well, I was a kid. I was happy for most of my infancy while going to my town's school where all the kids were equal. But I went to another school, the kind of school you've to wear uniform and your parents have to pay lots of money, and all the sudden I was the new kid in the class. There's a thing I'm not really good at, and this thing is integrating onto a group of people that have known each other for a long time, so you can imagine that it took me a while to integrate, still, somehow I did it. Yet, I was kinda different, I liked to study and to read, and I was different in a sense that most of those kids could have whatever they wanted to just asking it to their parents, but mine where doing an economic effort to give me a good education, we were not poor, I guess we were middle-class, but still that made me different. So for the first time in my life I was laughed at for nonsense, I met people that were more worried about their physical appearance than for studies. When we were about to finish primary school we made a kind of yearbook and everyone got to write something for their classmates, one of my classmates just wrote "Next year you'll be prettier", and we were only 12! But it went downhill, people teased me just because they wanted to, because I was not as pretty as other girls, because I was slightly fat and because I still liked to study, I guess that's the worst thing you can do as a teen, it's a horrible, horrible thing. Of course I was not popular, but I thought that maybe if I helped the people that where picking on me maybe they'll love me. No way, when kids have decided to bother someone there's nothing this people can do. So it went on for 4 more years. On the last two years of high school it improved a bit, but basically because I shielded myself behind irony and sarcasm, and because I had two great friends who really helped me getting over it. I was not popular but at least I was respected.

Why I'm telling you all this after more than six years? Because it has affected me in my normal relationships, it takes me longer than other people to rely on someone, I keep thinking that I'll get somewhere where I've to meet a friend and he or she won't shop up (even after knowing them for several years), I feel that everyone is judging me, I don't feel comfortable in a group where there's no one I know and all of them know one each other, and I keep pushing away any possible boyfriend because I'm afraid they're saying everything they say as a joke, just to make me look silly.

Some would say that I was bullied, maybe I was, but it was more a psychological bully than a physical one, a bully to made me feel worse about myself just because they though I was better than them in some aspects and they needed to made someone feel miserable just to feel better. Of course all kids do this, but it's the teachers and parents work to help the bullied kid and make it stop. I can't remember anytime where someone was serious about what was happening to me, of course it was really mild, but I'm really worried, because there are kids out there that are getting a much more rough treatment than I did. What's in the future of these kids?

I feel better after this though it's been tough, but I needed to do it, even if I know that it's going to be read by 5 or 6 people at most.

Some thoughts about languages

I live in a town near Barcelona, which, as most of you know, is in Spain. Why I'm telling you this? Because here we have our own language which is Catalan, but we also speak Spanish as it is the official language in Spain , in other regions such as Galicia or Euskadi, they have their own languages too. This week there has been a bit of controversy about the fact that the senators are now allowed to talk in any of the official languages of Spain, meaning that right now in the senate they're using translators. Why the controversy? Well, let's say that right-wing political parties didn't really like the idea, not because of the "waste" of money, but because they think it is a measure that "abuses" Spanish, and it's not the only thing they don't like, they're also against most of the laws that are made in here to preserve Catalan (as if they really cared!) just because they say that Spanish speakers are being pursued. Personally I think that maybe this is not the right time to implement the "multi-language" system on the senate, but mainly because of the economical situation, I'm of the opinion that it had to be done sooner or later, and anyways the ideal would be that all the senators could understand all the official Spanish languages, but that's another problem.

You see, in here not many people is really concerned about their language abilities, sure you've meet some spaniard that was speaking a decent or fluent English, but you've to come here and have a look at how many youngsters just don't give a f**k about other languages, even if they have to study English at school! Of course there is the other side of the spectrum, people like myself who think that it is important to know other languages. I can speak fluently Catalan, which is my mother language, Spanish, which I couldn't understand a word 'til I was 9 (believe me, it didn't take long for me to catch up, but I had to work hard), English, which I've been studying for almost 15 years, additionally I can speak some French, though I'm better at understanding it than at producing it, and I've been trying to learn Icelandic online for a year (problem being that since I have to do it by myself I keep leaving it for another day and I'm still stuck with basics... even if a year ago I was able to read a short simple text on my own!). I think that there's nothing bad on every people having their own language, variety is richness! And also I think that knowing more than one language is something good that everyone should want for themselves, their kids and so on. Because is there anything worse than a head of state or government that can't comunicate with his/her counterparts without the assistance of a translator? Would you like anything like this for your country? Believe it or not many of the presidents can only speak their own language, of course for English-speaking presidents that's an easy thing, English is still one of the leading languages in the world, but does that mean that they don't need to make the effort of learning another language?

P.S.: I never check my posts before posting, I'm sorry, maybe there's some kind of mistake, my English teacher doesn't seem to like my writings lately... so maybe I'm getting worse at it, which would be funny since I'm getting better at speaking...

What you're supposed to do.

Yesterday I was talking with some friends while having a drink, lately we've been talking about serious subjects, which we would never do on the old days, I guess it's all related with getting old (see previous post).

Main topic was the reason why we do some things, like not going to have a drink on a weekday or going to class every day. The answer was the same: if we did so we would feel as if we were doing something we shouldn't, but why? Since we could start to be conscious of ourselves our parents were there telling us what was good and what was not, what to do and punishing us when we did something they didn't like. But also they were there not letting us fail, on anything we did, so right now we have two problems: 1) we have so deep inside what our parents want us to do that we actually believe that the things they want are the good ones 2) we are deeply afraid of failure, we rather wait forever than do something that could lead us to disappointment, we keep ourselves into the comfortable bubble looking at the world from there.

What can we do change it? Well in my case it's pretty easy: go to live alone, and anyways I think when I get to do it it's going to take a bit long to get rid of these habits.

Getting old.

It's a fact: everyone gets old. You get old. I get old. Everyone. I've been thinking a lot about it lately. I know it's kinda creepy since I'm only 23, but still. When my mother was my age she was already married, which was rare for her time, but not unusual. My grandmothers were both married or engaged too. And I guess that if I went further I could find more than one woman in my family that already had one or more kids to take care of. If I lived in Middle Ages I certainly would have been married for several years and I could be mother of 3 (or 4 who knows) and start to be considered a middle-aged woman.

I know this is not Middle Ages or last century or whatever, yet lots of people I've know since I was a toddler are going into their full independent lives and some of them have an "almost-married" lifestyle. I don't say that I'm envious or anything, but it makes me feel old. And since I'm still living with my parents somehow useless, even if I know I'm not. The fact is that I've got a fierce sense of independence, the main problem is that I can't develop it as I would like to. Choosing an academic career over independence is a hard decision, but I would rather live all my whole live at the family house than leave science (I hope I never have to make this decision!).

So what's the problem? Well I'm supposed to be a fully functional adult with ability to create my own family (out of nothing I would say) and with adult responsibilities, with a work (even if no salary for the moment), but since I'm still living at my parents house I keep on being a permanent underage for some things. So I'm at the same time too old and too young. It's such a mess!