The thin one

I was walking around last weekend in one of those big department stores that you find scattered throughout malls accross the U. S., while visiting the audio section I couldn't help to eaves drop on a conversation between a man and his son. They were talking about an ipod, the same item we hear mentioned over and over again. The leading mp3 player in the market. Here's what I remember from that:
- Don't you have one of those at home.
- Yeah! But I want the thin one dad!
- But aren't they the same thing?
- Yeah! But everybody has this one!!

After listening to this most interesting conversation I deduced that the little kid got away with his plan and made his father buy him the slim ipod, the thin one. I was a bit surprised, not much though. I remember my childhood, and the way I looked at things. If I wanted something, I wanted it because it appealed to me. Nobody had to have it, I just wanted it. Although I didn't get it most of the time. Which I think affected my grades, since I thought that with good grades my parents could buy me the world. I don't think that it is a generational or cultural thing. The "I want what they have" attitude is something that comes with your personality. I'm not very fond of people like that. What happens when they're alone? How do they know what they want? Do they not eat or do anything that has to do with choices? What is worse is the fact that these people think that they shouldn't change at all. And what happens when they like something that nobody else does? Do they sacrifice their preference for social acceptance? The more I think about this, the more I feel like I'm describing someone with a bipolar disorder or at least a possible cause of that. Is this right?

On the other hand, I stand. I always liked to follow my own wishes. If people wanted me to fight, I didn't, I would rather do what I wanted. The few times I fell victim to peer pressure it felt like the biggest shame. I knew that if I did what I wanted I would have gotten what I wanted.

That's basically what I understand now. And it's funny how I knew something that some people take so much time to learn. When you go through your teenage years, I don't know yet if it's because of the hormones, external influence, or whatever the reason is, you lose confidence. Not necessarily permanently, but there is a loss; because we start to understand the losses that we can suffer when we do the things we used to do freely as children. We get "social awareness", at least most of us. When I talk about social awareness I address the fear of doing something that others might not like.

At the end, I think that not caring about what people say in most situations is healthy. The most sweetest victories are the surprising ones. The truth is that nobody should sacrifice their prerogative easily. In the old days people didn't know the power of their choice, right now we still don't know what we are able to do, undo or redo. So ask yourself this: Do I want to cut off my happiness and make others happy? or do I want to do what I want and not expect anything in return?

Reality TV, is it worth your time?

It's kind of nice, it's kind of boring; you admit you like it, but you can't help but feel a bit of guilt admitting it. Am I catching up with the reality tv trend? It is sad, but it is true. At first I started with one, then another and before I knew it, I saw myself glued to the Apprentice. I haven't gone to the point of watching survivor, and God forbid, but I really wanted to stop now. I confess that there are some commonalities between some of the contestants and I, which is why I find them so interesting. I'm not surprised, I like it when I see something familiar, at the same time I like it when something is different. It's a delicately complicated balance, difficult to explain but the reason why I don't watch most movies or shows because their "stupid" or "boring", and by "stupid" I mean that they don't make any sense to me because I don't identify with them, and by "boring" I mean that they don't offer anything new.

I like stand up comedy, I'd like to one day perform stand-up and/or improv; I like cartoons, because I like visual arts and animation, specially the really rare ones; and I like teamwork and the idea of having a successful business, which is something new to me since I've never worked in teams successfully. So that's what you can sell to me as an expectator or even as a hopeful contestant.

So is it worth my time? Reality TV is a "new" product (not so new because the first reality tv show was mtv's real world back in the early nineties) and producers are trying to sell them so desperately that it might be worth my time. But after looking at everything through my perspective, I would say that it has been worth it. It was denial, but now is catharsis. Now I have to figure out what to write about next.

Summarizin'

With less than two weeks left until my return, I have a few things to look forward to; going to the gym regularly is one of them. I have gained a lot of fat in the last few weeks, due to the increment in eating. At the same time I've slowed down my excersize, last week for instance, I didn't work out at all. My flexibility must be really low and my resistance must be on the floor. I hope that when I return I commit once more to an exercise regimen and a healthy lifestyle changing diet; I'm not going to achieve my goals if I don't change the way I eat. There's a lot of loose ends I need to tie once I return, and with my birthday rearing its head it would be great to have all those things resolved so I can have a nice get together with my close ones at a nice location. I'd love to go to a theme park and scream the day away in roller costers, but that would take a lot of money and coordination. I can't expect all of my friends to join me, although some I'd prefer to stay, since meaning well is not the same thing as wanting to be there. I hang out with all sorts of people, so some of them don't like rushes, that doesn't mean I stop liking them, just that I won't stand their whining about not doing something when I'm doing it, AND I won't even mention how irritated I get when someone tries to convince not to do something because they don't want to. But hey, that's me, and that is what I have to live with for choosing to make friends with people that have different backgrounds.

March 17 2005

This post is originally from the date of the title, just that I couldn't post it then for some weird reason that doesn't matter.

So today marks my last day in the Milwaukee training experience; and if I could describe the whole process in one word I would call it: Exhausting. Trying to cram such a vast amount of information in such little time is possible, but the retainability factor is very low. Although the training basically consist on how to look stuff up in catalogs, I don't think I'll remember everything that I was taught. I got an 80 out of 100 in the final exam, which is not what I was aiming for; but when you got the time on your back and with my perfectionist personality (which paid off, since what I answered without guessing was absolutely right), 80 seems like a 100. To be honest I didn't study, and why would I? The whole thing was about looking stuff up, it's like using a dictionary; only if I needed to memorize everything, and that's just plain stupid, I would've studied. I met some people, which I think I won't see any time soon, or again. My first experience mingling with distributors (the other people taking the crash course) was ok; they're all, in a way, alike. They're sales people, so they travel most of the year, most are avid drinkers, and I noticed that getting wasted while in a strange location came easily to them. I can't do that, getting drunk has no sort of positive retribution for me and it messes up my vocal chords (hey I don't know if I'm a good singer yet).

So that's my experience from Milwaukee, the brewery tour I was in after the whole class was pretty interesting, I learned how to gamble. HIT ME !!!