Blood

After seeing the title you may expect a bloody story related with murders or some very old vampire living among us. However, I am going to write about something perhaps less interesting but much more important in my humble opinion.
A few days ago, I was driving around in the nearest town to where I live and I saw a coach parked in front of the council. It was CTG's coach (CTG stands for Centro de Transfusión de Galicia). I was not very busy at the time so I decided to park my car and to make a good action. When I entered the coach, I realized that there weren't anybody inside but the doctor and two nurses. That was perfect because I didn't have to wait in order to make the donation.
The doctor asked me to enter in his tiny office and to answer some questions (always the same) about my health and life habits. When the doctor finished to check if I met all requirements, he sent me to talk with one of the nurses who made a little cut in one of my fingers and tested my blood to see if my level of iron in it was ok. Everything was fine with my iron, in fact, I should stay away from magnets (I am joking). After that, the donation started and it took me a while to fill the bag with my blood, almost 10 minutes. I drank a bottle of water during the process to recover the fluids my body was losing as soon as possible, and another one after finishing the donation. I also ate something.
In about half an hour of my time I made a blood donation. That is all I needed in order to help someone who needs it and, at the same time, I feel happy being able to help.

Groundhog day

Yesterday, I was watching the news on TV and they were talking about Groundhog day. I had heard about this day before but this year I decided to investigate a little bit to know more about this holiday in the United States and Canada on 2nd February.
There are several theories about its origin but where there is no doubt is about where is the largest celebration. This one takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. It is a very popular tradition and now it is well-known in part because of a movie released in 1993 whose title was "Groundhog day" starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.
The basic idea about this tradition depends on the behavior of a real groundhog called Punxsutawney Phil, the true weather forecaster if we believe its neighbors in Punxsutawney. Apparently, if the weather is cloudy when Phil goes out its burrow and it can't see its shadow, then it will go back to continue sleeping at home for at least six more week and that will be the time that winter-like weather will continue outside. On the contrary, if when Phil steps out his burrow the sun is shining in the sky (it can see its shadow on the ground) then winter is coming to an end soon.
I thought that we had strange ways to make weather forecasts using small rooster toys and saying that bad weather is coming when some body part is aching. However, I have changed my mind and now I think we are not strange people, we are just different. In my opinion, these traditions make TV weather forecasters more reliable and, believe me, I am not a big fan of them. Anyway, if you have a doubt, you can find a groundhog and ask it.

Faster

World is getting faster and faster. People is stressed and suffer a lot of pain derived from our new way of life. Our health, physical and mental, is fighting a new battle against the speed of life. I think that stress is a symptom of not being able to keep the pace of life. I would compare that situation with somebody running in a treadmill and when starts to increase the speed, at some point, he needs to slow down or stop running because it is not possible to keep running at that speed.
I am completely sure that stress is a consecuence of speeding up our life, but my question is, who is going to decrease the speed of our "treadmill", modern life. When you are running at gym, you can stop as you get tired, however, when you are suffering stress in your life, you can't stop your life and simply get off.
Two or three decades ago, life was more peaceful than now. There were a lot of problems, of course, but everything happened slowly, and you had time to think and realize what was going on. In these days, there are a lot of things happening right now and we will probably never know, and all the events that we are involved in, sometimes we are merely witnesses, because we do not have time to react and think about which should be our response to those stimulus.
The main diference is that, back in time, we had much less information to process and communication means were slower than now, so we had much time to think, if we wanted or needed. Nowadays, we can communicate with anybody at any time and anybody can communicate with us whenever they want. So, things happen faster, kids grow faster, fashion trends last an instant. So, in summary, we do not have time to assimilate all the changes that occur in our lives and, eventually, our body, our mind or even both crash.
Taking all above into account, maybe in some years the only human being capable of keeping the pace will be Usain Bolt.

John Doe

Do you know John? That is what I thought. Let me tell you something about him. He is 21 and is living in Gorebridge while he is attending to the School of Economics at the University of Edinburgh. His hometown is Sunderland, a city near to Newcastle, but he moved 2 years ago when he started at the university. He uses to go back home at least once a month to visit his parents, his younger sister Mary and friends, but he is really happy with his life as it is now. He is doing quite well with his studies and has a lot of new friends to have a lot of fun when he is not studying. He has a driving license but he does not have a car and only drives his dad's car when he is visiting his home. He usually uses public transport when he is in Edinburgh or, if wheather is good, his bike.
John likes sports a lot. He practices basketball and football often and goes to the swimming pool and to the gym once or twice a week. His closest friends call him "Blondie" because he is so blonde he looks like Swedish or German. He has a lot of friends because he is outgoing and friendly, he is quite funny and girls love him because he is handsome and witty. He is thinking about going abroad for 2 or 3 years after finishing at the university and maybe learning a new language like French or German, meeting new people and maybe getting a good job.
For now, he will continue living with two other students in a rented apartment in Gorebridge, a village about 30km away from Edinburgh. During the week, he wakes up at 7am, has breakfast and takes a bus at 7:45 to get to Edinburgh. There, he goes to the library and stays there until 11am or 12am studying and at that time he attends some classes until 3pm or 4pm. After that, he uses to have lunch with some of his friends and during the rest of the afternoon he attends several optional classes and spends one or two more hours in the library. At the end of the day is when he uses to practice some sport, before taking the bus back to the apartment to have dinner and go to bed at about 11pm.
During the weekend things are different. On Saturday, he wakes up not before 10pm because he uses to go out the night before until late. Then, after having a light breakfast he uses to go to the swimming pool for at least an hour before lunch. During Saturday afternoon he uses to make plans with some friends or with some girl, and usually those plans extend late into the night. So, Sunday morning almost does not exist for him and he usually spends the afternoon having a coffee and chatting with some friends or flirting with some girl. When he goes to visit his family he does almost the same but changing the location and people involved.

Need

Here it is again, this irrational need that raises from the bottom of my soul. I do not understand why this is happening to me and how long it is going to last. I am trying to handle it the best I can, I have managed to control it and take advantage of it, but I am a bit concerned because I do not know if I will be able to keep it this way or not in the future.
So far, it has been something good for me. It helped me to improve my skills and I am more confident, but the future is a mistery, it could change. This is the reason why I defined it as irrational in the the beginning of this post, because I can not figure it out what is the reason why this has been happening to me. It sounds a bit crazy but this is the way it is.
This impulsive feeling makes me write about anything that comes up to my mind, and when it occurs my fingers just start to type and words appear in my laptop's display as from nowhere. I could try to ignore it and avoid writing but it helps me with my English and, above all, I enjoy a lot doing it. So, I prefer to continue writing this crazy posts in my blog and I hope somebody enjoy them. If you read some post in this blog and you like it or dislike it, I invite you to leave some comment.

Starting

I am collecting a lot of information about French learning. I am going to start reading as much as possible to adquire vocabulary and get used to the language. I will also start listening to some basic dialogues related with what I read.
This is the first step to fulfill my New Year's resolutions and I intend to carry out all of them. So, in order to do that, I will start as soon as possible and I will be patient and constant.
This situation makes me understand people that is starting learning English now and I am feeling that I have a lot to learn. It seems a huge task and it is indeed, but I know that it is worth it, and I only need to spend a small amount of time every day in order to learn step by step and enjoying it. In my opinion, this is the best way to learn a language or to learn anything. If you spend a good time while doing something you will keep doing it and that is what you need to learn, studying a bit every day. So, I am going to follow my own advice and will try to learn some French, while continuing to improve my English.
This is also going to be the year that I am going to quit smoking after a few years being a passive smoker. This would have not been possible without the last government's law against smoking and, of course, of all the smokers that are smoking outdoors now. I think that our lungs will be grateful, and will work better from now on.

Injured

It hurts and I think it is going to be something serious. The pain started in the morning and it was growing and growing during all day. I applied a pomade hoping that tomorrow in the morning all this pain will be gone. However, I have to admit that I do not rely on this happening.
I am pretty sure that I injured my knee the day before yesterday while I was running in the rain. I did not feel anything wrong then, but apparently something bad had happened to me. I put some ice over my knee trying to reduce the inflammation but it is not working very well until now.

Now, it is the day after and I have a diagnosis. Some of the fibers in my left knee have been torn and I have to avoid doing sudden turns and, unfortunately, I can not run, cycling, going to gym, or even dance. This last thing is a good one because I am a very bad dancer. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I would like to be in a good condition now, even if I had to dance during all night long.
It is not the first time I have an injury and I presume it will not be the last. So, I know that I have to be patient and in a week or two I will be running, cycling, or even dancing again.