And it all continues...

This year (2013) started with a white Canadian winter, full of hopes, dreams, expectations and plans. Although I was away from my loved ones, I felt their love and care all the way there. The year passed and many things happened: apparent failures and also triumphs, lots of love and heartbreaks, but most of all many changes.

I had to leave Canada and return to Mexico. I applied for different scholarships and had some job interviews, but things were not working out (or so I thought). After a long search –and feeling a bit frustrated already— I came across an M.A. program in Guadalajara that was just what I had been looking for. It was there all the time and I hadn’t seen it. By August I was ready to start a Master’s that had been a dream to me until that moment: Translation and Interpretation.

The second half of the year was very difficult. Although I was very content with my academic life, it is not only about studying and working, and things were getting tougher on some other areas of my life. I was on the top of my rollercoaster, but little I knew what was next: what the end of the year had to offer. Then it happened, almost as a free fall and it was hard! But as I’ve always known, we won’t go through all our free falls alone: I knew my family was going to be there to catch me and God to support me.

I may have more free falls this year and the following years (that’s what life is all about), but I know that it is all part of my character building and though it is difficult, there’s always something to learn. So facing another hill in the rollercoaster of my life, I am ready to climb!

Sobre libros y más libros

Para leer muchos libros comprar pocos. (Juan Ramón Jiménez)

"...Mi aire se acaba como agua en el desierto,

mi vida se acorta pues no te llevo dentro. 

Mi esperanza de vivir eres tú, y no estoy allí..."

Te espero, Mario Benedetti

It's October, at UAG

It's already October and that means I am half way through my first semester of the M.A. in Translation and Interpretation. (And that also means I'm one more class to finish my M.A in Terminology!). 

Here are some pictures of the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara (Mexico), where I study.

Library

Humanidades

First day of class, with Prof. Finks

Date a girl who reads

This is a GREAT post! I really do not know if this blog is the original one (I really don't think so), but I first read it here (and now it is all over the web). So though it can be googled and found in a few seconds, I leave it here to have it on my records.

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

Rosemarie Urquico

Digital Photo Editing 101

Intro to digital photo editing using the free Pixlr Advanced Editor. Awesomer pictures for all!

A very hot hot summer

I was invited to teach for a month in the University of Navojoa. Sonora is a terrible place to be in the summer, but at the same time it was a great opportunity for me to have more experience in teaching. So despite the high temperatures and the long hours of intensive teaching, I had a good time. Even had the chance to play two special songs at church and be with the family (my dad's side).

How to succeede in your studies

This is a post written by one of my students from English Composition I during the summer at Universidad de Navojoa. I had to do lots of editing, though.

The three steps that people should follow to succeed in their studies are organization, punctuality and communion with God. Organization should start with writing the errands and writing down what has been achieved. If you do it at night before you fall asleep, you can set what time you will wake up and what needs to be done the next day. There is a sayings that goes something like this, "he who knows not where he goes, already arrived." Second is the punctuality (to be on time for your classes, to get to the dinning hall or church, etc.). Punctuality is needed to perform small everyday tasks that in the end make a whole. And most important of all is communion with God through worship, Bible study and meditation. Ellen G. White says that fellowship with God must be first in our day, it should be our first work. If we follow these easy steps, sure we will succeed in our studies this summer.

We need to believe

Today's song is also in Portuguese* > "Antes você precisa crer".

"God wants to open the sea for you but before you need to believe."

I like it because it uses several stories throughout the Bible to remind us that we need to do our part in order to receive God's blessings > that is, to have faith in God. Sometimes, doing our part means to be brave, risk something and go forward, even when it does not make any sense to us or we don't know where we're heading. But God knows what's best for us and He wants us to believe.

*Though English is my strongest foreign language, I find myself thinking and speaking more in Portuguese than in English these days. But that's just another topic for a blog entry. Maybe another day I'll write about that.

Keep a song in my heart

So I've noticed that for the past few days I've been waking up singing. Literally, when I wake up I start singing; every morning a different song. First I thought it was just, you know, for a day or so, but it's been like that every day. So I've decided to try to keep a record of the songs I sing every morning, or at least of the most significant ones.

Today's song is of one of my favourite Bible verses. In fact, the whole song is about Joshua chapter 1, but the very part that I started singing this morning was from Joshua 1:9: "Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

"Sê forte e corajoso, não temas nem te espantes

Porque o Senhor teu Deus é contigo onde andares"

The song is in Portuguese, from Pr. Daniel Lüdtke's second DVD Filhos de Israel (Children of Israel). I love this song because it's as if you're reading the Bible while listening to it. It's a promise and encouragement at the same time. So good for today, perfect song!

Last Sabbath in the Brazilian church in Montreal

I've had the opportunity to be in many churches, and especially to play viola in different countries. And this time, while living in Montreal, it was not the exception. Feom the very first Sabbath that I arrived, I shared my talent and worshiped with my music. Since then, I felt accepted and welcome in that church. Many people would not understand why I chose to go to a Brazilian church instead of going to the hispanic one or even a french-speaking one. Besides the obvious reason that is not to ne explained here, I like the Brazilian worship style and convivencia.

But then I had to say goodbye, and believe me, saying goodbye is never easy. And this time is especially difficult because this church had become my "family" in Montreal (I did not know anybody in the city, and even before I arrived, they helped me out).

I might not be Brazilian, and I might not have moved to Montreal (for now) as a permanent resident, but the people in this church opened their heart to me as if I was to stay there as part of their church family.

I know that (almost) anywhere I may go, there will be a church where I can feel at home.

Chronicles of a winter in Canada - part 2

Continuing with my winter chronicles...
*click here for part 1

same place, summer and winter

In general, trying to cope with the winter hasn't been that bad. In fact, I find it better when it snows, or the few days after when there's still snow here and there. Not that it's starting to melt, it's not pretty anymore! Plus, it's still cold, but since you don't see lots of snow out there, what's the point of being cold?! I prefer it when it's all humid and snowing. At least I feel it's worth it wearing that big coat and those huge (but warm!) snow boots.

After one of the many snowfalls we had this winter.
Do you see the bust sign and the red lines? 
Well, that's where people usually walk to get in the bus.
The blue lines are for the sidewalk.

People had already told me that February was the worst month of the Canadian winter. In my opinion, in terms of temperature, January was way worse than February.

And February still looks white!

Then March started. Somehow, my mind started to think of spring, but at the same time I know that we still have a few more months of cold days. The snow is starting to melt (though I saw the news and there's more snow coming up tomorrow!), but that does not mean warmer days, yet.

Montreal, March 1st

In the meantime, there's pretty much no more snow in Toronto!!!!

Toronto, March 10th

What I've always liked about winters in the States, and now in Canada, is that though it is very extremely cold outside, once you're in the bus, metro or any building, that's it, you are not cold anymore. And you can find very warm winter clothes and boots.

So, in general, I don't think it has been a bad experience. Though I do want the winter to end already lol. The thing is that it's just too long. Yes, the snow is beautiful, but the temperatures are just not nice at all!

heroes

"[Los] verdaderos heroes pueden estar en tu propia casa, pueden ser tus padres."
Pavel Semanivsky

Liking fruits by countries

Every time I go to a new place, I stop disliking a new fruit. It is not that I love them all now, but at least I can eat them!
*Read GO as "live in place for a month or more with other-than-holiday purposes."


Tennessee > bananas
I worked in Tennessee for almost two months, and the family I lived with didn't eat lots of healthy foods. So I suggested them to buy some fruits, and guess what they brought home next day? Bananas!!! The problem was that I found bananas quite disgusting back then. But, I was really craving for fruit so I started eating bananas. The result? Now I can eat them without feeling like throwing up right after :)


Brazil's Northeast > coconut water
I don't think there's much to be explained here, since in the Northeast of Brazil, well... there's just LOTS of coconuts!! 
So when I was living there, people would offer me coconut water all the time, and I didn't want to be impolite so I would always drink it. But, being a super humid and hot place, I couldn't help but end up loving cold coconut water!


Sao Paulo > Kiwi
And here I need to explain that I didn't hate Kiwi, but I just didn't love it either. However, after almost a month of studying in Sao Paulo state, with lots of kiwi in the cafe, I ended up eating 3 or 4 per day!

My mouth just watered now! lol

Quebec > apples
Now I'm in Montreal, eating lots of apples, which were not exactly my favourite. But here, I find them juicier!


I can't find any real reason why I didn't like these fruits. I simply hadn't learned to enjoy their deliciousness. Which one is next? And where?

Chronicles of a winter in Canada - part 1

You can surely find many posts and articles about the winter (in Canada): how to survive winter, how to prepare for your first winter, Canadian winter 101, etc. And by no means this post intends to present a guide or a how to. This is just something I thought I had to write about, since it's my first official (two white Christmas holidays -Utah and Cali- don't count because both times were just for two weeks, with a car and on a holiday mood) and real winter. And by that I mean not the winter we have in Monterrey, with a few weeks days of 0º C and the rest of the season with temperatures around 10º C or more.

So the first snow of the winter 2013 was in November 28th, but it was very light. Little I knew how bad normal this winter was going to be. Normal because last year, the first snow was on Dec 24th, there were very few blizzards, and by March winter was all gone. This time? Well, it's been lots of snow so far. And there's more coming!

Views from my apartment window

Luckily, Canada, unlike the USA, has a great déneigement snow removal service. This, added to Montreal's great STM (public transportation system), helps people continue living their routines, despite the terrible weather conditions.

Winter went on and I had to get used to very cold days, and walking on messy roads and sidewalks (half of the time it was hard to walk on the sidewalk, so we just end up going to the streets instead). I didn't have, yet, appropriate winter boots, nor a warm enough winter jacket, so I had to wear like 3 sweaters plus my jacket in order to kind of tolerate the crazy temperatures.

There's no way your shoes boots won't get wet, so better go for waterproof ones.

I spent Christmas at my roommate's parent's place, 2 hours drive from Montreal. It was good to get out of the city for a few days. Since they are all Québécois, used to this kind of weather, they all decided to go out for a walk (on a day with -15º C!). And wanting to get some fresh air too, I went out with them. Oh boy! it was a bad idea!!

Taken right outside the door, so I was still ok.

As we started walking, my hands, feet and nose started to get colder.

The day they decided to drive us back to Montreal (December 27th), there was a very very bad blizzard (la tempête du siècle, 45cm in one day) and it took us 8 hours to get back. Most of the time, we had to go 20 km/h in the highway and it was twice blocked because of a carambolage multiple crash. Twice the car almost got stuck on the road because of the snow, and a couple of times visibility was almost 0. When we finally arrived in the apartment, the entrance was blocked with snow.

We almost got stuck trying to get back on the highway after this.

The blue lines show where the sidewalk is supposed to be.

This is how I found my room window when I got back.

After that historic storm, there has been more snowfall, but nothing as bad as that one.