Goodbye 25, goodbye

Here we are again, a few hours away of becoming a year older, and everything's different in a way I never though it would be.

For a start, I'll be spending my first birthday away from my family and friends. I'm in San Diego now for the congress, and I'll go back to Mexico after that, so I won't be back to Barcelona for some time still. I'm really happy to be in San Diego attending Neuroscience 2013 congress, I've always wanted to go to the SfN meeting even if you can go crazy because it is almost too big. As I said, I'll be back to Mexico after this. Mexico is proving to be an enriching experience in all fields, both personal and professional. I think it's a teaser of the life that awaits me in a future.

Professionally this year I've been doing lots of different things. I attended a course that made me think that I'd go insane, because it was too many hours, and the professors kept repeating the same all over again, but it also helped me met a wonderful person, as well as to perfect my skills as a translator. I also became sort of a "teacher", having an excellent MSc student assigned to help me. It made me realize that I'm, maybe, not such a bad teacher. I have also had some bad moments because of my stubbornness of not wanting to ask for help. I, also, wrote, cooperatively, a review, that I hope will get published eventually. And prepared a poster for SfN13 (yes, that's why I'm in San Diego). And went to Mexico to learn a new technique for 3 months.

I've become quite a "sporty" person this year after finishing my "weight loss program" (that wasn't actually a program or anything, but...). I took part in two different 10k races, and I even ran 19k one day as a training. I also signed up for the beach volley tourney with the people from the lab in Barcelona. And went back to the MTB when it was too warm for me to run. Incidentally, I broke my left wrist falling from the bike, but this hasn't stopped me from wanting to go back on (I'm having a serious case of MTB withdrawal right now).

I've also travelled quite a lot. I went to Greece this summer to visit a very good friend of mine who lives in a fabulous island named Milos, and I had the kind of holidays I never thought I'd have: spending the day on the beach. I also visited the Acropolis in Athens, which I've always wanted to visit. In September, me and my broken wrist went to Monza for the F1 Grand Prix. And now there's Mexico and San Diego, I think I've put a nice number of kilometers under my belt.

I've done some other new things too. One of them is starting to sing, a friend of mine convinced me to sing while he played the guitar at an Open Mic, and we've already done it twice. The first time I was so scared... but the second time we did it much better, and I can now say that it was worth it. I also signed up for NaNoWriMo, I always define myself as a failed writer because I once started a novel but I never finished it, now it's my chance to prove myself wrong by finishing the 50,000-words-novel before November the 30th.

In what would be a more personal insight, I'd say that I discovered that I'm not made to live with someone. For several reasons I ended up living alone for almost two months, so it was me and my crazy self-imposed mental schedule, which no-one can really understand unless they get inside my brain. I also had to go back to live with my parents until the time came to go to Mexico, it's hard going back to live with your folks when you're used to do as you please.

I've met lots of people who have had different levels of impact in my life, some for best and some for worst, and some have had to put up with so much crap from my side that I do feel sorry for them. I also strengthened ties with some other people, specially with the guys in my office, we've created a really nice and supportive atmosphere that I needed very much. I also recovered some friends that help me understand better how I work in life.

And I fell in love. And that made me a fool. I hadn't been in love for ages, and that struck me pretty hard. I was paralyzed, I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to mess up. So I didn't fight. It made me blind. It made me irritable. It made me feel both happy and helpless. I don't know if it was the butterflies or what it was, but in the end it made me stupid. And for nothing. So I learned that when it comes to love I'm a coward, but I'm not the only one. I also learned that I become obsessed and that's not good for anyone.

It does look as a pretty intense year, and something tells me that my 26th year is going to be crazy too.