Fame

I am getting up, a harmful shiny light enters the room through the big glass of the window that covers completely one of the room's walls. I think that I should stay in bed for a while yet, but that light does not allow me to sleep or even close my eyes. I cannot think and I try to stand up but I feel quite dizzy, and it seems that my head is about to explode. And that light, that light is really hurting me, it is burning my eyes and I cannot bear it. I try hard to reach the window and close the curtains but I trip over a chair and I fall on the floor. Now, I am feeling more dizziness and more pain and that damned light continues killing me. I crawl on the floor and I manage to close the curtains and I feel a bit better but I need some rest yet. I am thinking about going back to bed but I fall asleep again, this time on the floor.
I wake up again, I am still on the floor, and feeling a lot of pain. My head is like a volcano ready to erupt and I also have a stomach ache and some pain in my right leg. I am able to sit on the edge of the bed and try to remember something but it is difficult. I look around and I see that it is 7:36pm if the clock over my bedside table is correct. I do not know how long I have been sleeping for but It has to be more than twelve hours.
After half an hour under the shower I feel a bit better and even awake. I put some clothes on and head to the room's door. When I open the door I can see a guy, a big guy standing in front of me. He greets me and asks me if I am going to need a car or I am going to stay at the hotel. I am not really sure, I only want to have some breakfast or lunch or dinner whatever is appropiate at this time. I start walking towards the lift and the big guy follows me. I remember his name, he is David and is one of my bodyguards.
As I get off the lift (the doors open), I see a crowd of girls yelling and crying like they were mad and several people, big people, like David keep the crowd away from me while I continue walking to the restaurant. There are a young pretty blonde woman and a man in his fifties who ask me to sit with them. I agree, I sit down and ask something to eat while we chat. They tell me that I have to attend a party tonight in order to continue with my last album promotion and that tomorrow in the morning we are leaving the city, so I should not drink too much there. Now I remember why I have been in so bad condition during all day. Last night I attended another party and I drank a lot and I do not even remember how I got to my room. I suppose that this is part of the job too, or maybe it is a good way to keep me under control, manipulate me and do not let me thinking a lot about what I am doing (last part of the sentence is not there really, it is just what I should think about but I do not because they are doing their job very well).
After I finished my meal, I left the table and I head to the lift again, followed by David. Just before taking the corridor that would take me to the lift, a teenager loomed up out behind a corner. My bodyguard is a bit nervous and is going to hurt the boy but I tell him to release the teenager and he does that way. But, as soon as David releases him, he jumps over me and sticks a razor blade in my stomach and in my chest. I feel big pain and start to drown in my own blood. I barely see David grabbing the kid and calling for help. I ask to myself: is this the price of fame or just part of the job?

Brave pigeon

I always thought that the best members for a hypothetical bird's air force would be hawks and eagles but as we can see in this picture there are other kinds of birds really interested in serving their "country" or their race to fight against their enemies and show them that birds can defend themselves from any kind of threat.
This is the story about Nicky and his inborn desire to become a pilot and fly all over the world. In fact, Nicky would love to be a war pilot and defend everybody against their enemies during the World War II, that was taking place in that moment. This story happened in 1940's, and it started in a place called Middlesborough in the UK.
Let me introduce Nicky. It is a little pigeon that has a dream, probably since its birthday. The idea of becoming a war pilot is stronger than ever now because of the war that is coming about in Europe. Its parents keep telling it that should think about other things and forget that crazy thoughts but these advises always fall on deaf ears. Nicky gets crazy every time it hears stories about RAF pilots fighting against nazis and trying to keep people in the UK and other ally countries safe and out of German soldiers' reach. In this precise moment, our little pigeon is reading an article in a newspaper page that found on the ground about an English pilot who was brought down and is kept prisoner in German territory. While Nicky progress in its reading, it is getting more and more angry. After finishing with the article, it drops the page and starts to free its anger shouting and explaining in loud voice what should be done to rescue that brave pilot. This is nothing unusual for all Nicky's friends and acquaintances, it happens quite often but they do not care a lot about that.
One day, Nicky's life would change forever due to an advertisement that it read in the newspaper. "WE NEED PIGEONS TO HELP IN OUR FIGHT AGAINST GERMAN ARMY"; that was the main content of the advertisement and it turned that normal day for most people in the happiest day ever for Nicky. It almost forgot to take note of the address to apply and take advantage of that big opportunity to fulfill its dreams. Nevertheless, it took that blessed piece of paper and went home to tell its parents.
"I am going to be a real pilot and I am going to fight in war against those bloddy bastards", told Nicky to its mom as it entered their nest. Nancy was Nicky's mom and, at that time thought that Nicky had read another story on some newspaper and its imagination was working hard again. But, after the whole and detailed explanation that heard from its son, Nancy realized that this was serious and it could be a very dangerous experience for its son and a lot of suffer for them, their parents.
Four days later, Nicky was standing in line to apply to join air force. There was a lot of pigeons on that line, volunteering for going to war. Nicky had been waiting for five and a half hours but that worth it and it did not feel tired or sorry about being there. It was a bit weird that all the others pigeons were in the company of humans but that did not worry Nicky. Fifty minutes later, Nicky get to the front of the line it had been for the last six hours and could see an army officer taking the applications and giving some information to the appliers. Nicky did not have a human to introduce it, so it flied from the ground to the window where the officer was. The officer seemed a bit surprised for a while and then he took Nicky and give it to a soldier who was putting pigeons in cages. These cages were not very luxurious but they were going to fight for their country and that was enough for Nicky. That noble task could require some sacrifice but it would be rewarded widely if its dream could be become true. Taking into account that most people never see their dreams come true it is understandable the happiness that Nicky showed on its face.
After about another hour waiting inside the back side of a lorry, it looked that they were starting their way to the training camp. In fact, that was right but fate reserved a light disappointment and an important decision would have to be taken. Nicky started chatting with its cage partners and after a while it realized that they were heading a training camp for carrier pigeons. As you can imagine, Nicky was undone and it felt down and without any meaning for its life. It remained silent and thinking during the rest of the ride to the camp. Its first idea was to leave as soon as they arrive at their destination, but a the end of the journey it had made a very different decision. Nicky was going to train as hard as it could, become a good carrier pigeon and help its country the best it could delivering cyphered messages to the front and back avoiding to be captured or reached by fire. It soon realized that its mission was very important and those messages that they carried could change the future of war.
Nicky did not become a war pilot as it dreamed during its life but it delivered succesfully more than 500 top secret messages and retired after the end of WWII. Now it lives in a quite place in the north of France with its family. Sometimes it remembers some of its dangerous trips doing them again but in company of its children, its wife or some of its multiple friends.

Back to life

It has been a while since I wrote my last words here. I have been quite busy completing some courses to get certifications and adquire new knowlegde and skills. But now, I have finished with that for a while and I will have more spare time. Anyway, I have not forgotten to improve my English. In fact, I had a very good chance to practice my conversation and I took it. For the last one and a half months, I have been attending English classes with a native teacher near my house and I am taking advantage of every minute of English conversation that we had. Apart from that, I am going to visit Dublin and surroundings on next August to know the city and practice all I recently learnt.
Moreover, I intend to study harder now that I have time to do it. And, of course, I will try to write posts here more often.

New Year's resolutions (II)

It is a tradition in this time that people make their New Year's resolutions. Unfortunately, it is almost a tradition not to make a real effort to fulfill them. I always liked to keep my word and then I try to make realistic resolutions.
Last year I made my list of resolutions for the first time as an excuse to put a post in this blog. I have been reading it and I have realized that I made them come true.
This year I would like to manage to make my wishes real again, and that wishes are below.

1. Being conservative, I would like to keep all that things that I have got during last year.


2. I would like to continue going to gym, keep going to run, use my bike more often, swimming, etc. I would try to share some of these moments with friends, as far as possible.


3. During next holidays, I would like to travel abroad, most likely to Ireland.


4. I want to continue improving my English level. One of the ways to be able to do it is writing posts in this blog in a regular way. Other way is traveling to countries with English as official language.


5. It would be nice to start learning other foreign language, maybe French.


6. Finally, and most important, it would be amazing if next December 31st I can say: I made it!, I fulfill all my New Year's resolutions.

I hope that your wishes and resolutions will come true and A happy New Year 2010!

Note: During last New Year's Eve I realized that maybe I should add to my list: learn to dance. That is not a priority but I will take into account.

Last day, not apocalypse

Today is an important day for me. I have quit my current job and will start working in other company and other job in the next days. I think that I am a bit sentimental because I look at everything with different eyes. Maybe I will miss it at least a bit.
However, I have an opportunity that I can not refuse and I am sure it will be more challenging and interesting than my current job. I will have to work hard but I will learn a lot and it is a job that I have been preparing for.
I am going to work in a young and small company but with good growth expectations. My future boss has a great interest in research and development, so I believe that we will work with new technologies most part of the time. Perhaps, this is the secret of the success of the company in these times of economic crisis.
Although I will miss people who worked with me along these last years I am excited to start at my new job. It is a new challenge for me and I will try to enjoy facing it.

Cooking

I am good at the kitchen, very good really. I am always ready to eat things that other people cook, I am always helping to empty the freezer and, sometimes, I also wash the dishes. I only have to learn to cook.
I have to admit that my knowledge about cooking is very little. However, I know how to cook delicious Spanish omelette (Tortilla). In this post I am going to explain how I cook that typical Spanish dish.
The ingredients needed are 6 eggs, 5 or 6 medium-sized potatoes, 1 small onion, 1/4 litre of oil and about 20 minutes of your time.
I started peeling potatoes and slicing them thinly. Then I fry the potatoes and chopped onion. While frying potatoes and onions, I beat the eggs in a bowl and season them with some salt. Add some salt to the potatoes and onion and when they are fried enough, I add them to the bowl and mix well. After that I put all the content of the bowl in the frying pan and shake it from time to time in a way that the omelette does not stich to the bottom. When the bottom of the omelette has set you can turn the omelette upside down and after the other side has set too you can
turn the heat off and put the omelette onto a plate. And that is all. Enjoy your meal.
I promise that when I learn how to cook something else, I will explain the recipe here but, I am afraid that it can take a while.

Sport in moderation

Alone in the dark at night 4 or 5 kilometres far from home and thinking that you will never arrive there. I had that feeling yesterday and it was very unpleasant. I was quite tired but the real problem was that my legs was aching a lot and I almost could not walk. My t-shirt was completely full of sweat because of the effort made previously and cold wind was beginning to make me feel a bit frozen. I walked for several hundreds of metres and then I had to stop for a while to try to stretch my legs and avoid the horrible pain but it was completely useless. In the last 300 metres I had to stop three times and put myself against a wall to keep standing up.
The reason that caused all that agony was a "bit" of exercise. I had planned to spend yesterday afternoon watching Spain team playing in European Basketball Championship on TV. Nevertheless, a friend of me propose to go running for a while and we finally spend about 1 hour and 50 minutes running without stopping, and after that we were 5 or 6 kilometres from home. That was the worst part. I was quite well in general but I had a terrible sore leg and I almost could not walk. I was talking with myself trying to encourage me to make an effort and continue because I knew that if I stopped it would be harder to continue again later, and I was getting cold.
Finally, I could get home and inmediately I had a bath in hot water, trying to alleviate my pain and I got it. However, when I try to eat something to recover some energy I threw up all I had eaten but I felt quite well, only tired and I decided to go to bed and rest.
My partner in this crazy adventure suffered a lot to get home too, but he took a different way than me the last kilometres and then we were alone in that hard moments. Anyway, he is thinking about repeating this experience in two or three monts. I am not so sure but, who knows? It is said what does not kill you makes you stronger.
Today I cannot belive that I have suffered so many only walking but it was true, unbelievable but true. Because of that I think that sport can be harmful, unfortunately it is addictive too. So, practice sport in moderation. I will try to do the same.