Last hours

Andorra was great. I had loads of fun with my brother and we took quite a lot of pictures.

I fell down a couple of times and I hit my ass badly twice…mmm.

Anyways, only a few more hours to leave this year and a lot of rush around to finish up too many things and start 2008 with a clean sheet. People seem to be very very busy.

I think i have way too many things pending at the min and its gonna be impossible to finish them all before midnight, so i’ll keep on with my stuff and go on unpiling things as always….

Have a nice new year party wherever you are in this planet and enjoy this time of your life.

Snowbarding

Its 20 mins past midnight and im about to go to Andorra with my dad, sis & brother for a week in the snow. Riding downhill, enjoying the time and the views.

Hopefully the weather will be good and the snow will be ready waiting for us.

Even if going to the mountain with friends is great, I’ve almost always gone snowboarding with my family and its even better. Nothing can beat it. Definedly its a sport I like ever since I started a long time ago now.

Im going to ride for the first time what is my 4th board. Its brand new and I cant wait to test it. Wohoo.

Happy holidays to y’all!

Travelling

That’s what i had been doing the past 2 weeks.

I went to Andorra for 4 days with some friends. It was a good trip. Fun, laughs and loads of good moments. We snowboarded “a bit” since there wasnt enough snow for all the people who went there. We also chilled and hung around.

3 days after coming back, I flew to Kempen (near Düsseldorf), where i met some interesting people, saw the huge Woodward-SEG fabric and attended to some trainnings and seminars.

The difference between these 2 trips was that the first was for pleasure, and the second for work. A bit different, but still quite fun for me. Both have good sides and I cant really tell the bad, since they are hidden to me. I love travelling and the feeling of going to new places excites me and makes me happy.

Some people have told me i will end up fed up of travelling, but today, i really cant picture that. For now, i’ll enjoy it as much as I can

A Personal Lesson

It has been difficult for me to think about the title of this post as it’s hard to know where to start from.

Today I have come to realize that the biggest and most valuable lessons in life will come from a person close to you. Someone who knows you well enough. Probably your family or your friends.

This time, the lesson came from a friend. In fact and now that I think about it, today i have received 2 valuable lessons from 2 different people.To be honest, neither of the lessons were new to me or taught me something I wasnt aware of before, but reminded me what I had long forgotten. And that’s good.

To get, you have to give.

There is no such thing as something for nothing. To get something, you have to first give something. Always. This generalization is not only valid for the sunday-shopping. This principle can be applied for care, love, friendship and any sort of relationship with any other person or being.

A corollary of this first lesson i received today is that If you want to get 100%, be ready to give 110%. My experience so far is that even if you think you are doing more than the other person, the chances that the other person thinks exactly the same thing are highly probable.

If you think “nah, he’s only giving 60%, why should i give more?. I’ll give 59%”. That is a wrong attitude that will end up both giving “0.00%” to the relation and ending with no possible chance of understanding.

On the contrary, if your attitude is “im gonna give my best. My 100%. Always despite what the other person do” maybe you live in an idealistic world different from where i live. That attitude wont last very long. If you give 100 and you get 0 in return, maybe for a while you’ll ok, but eventually you will inevitably finish it.

So to end up with this part: One has to always be ready to give more than what one expects to get.

(Not always easy, but again, i didnt say they were easy lessons)

Talking is the best way to solve things out.

It is not always easy and most of the times is hard to talk about a problem or a misundestanding that has been going on for too long. We all know that the sooner, the better before a small snowball becomes an avalanch that will pass over anything and destroy everything on its way. But its hard to take the first step.

One has to be ready to “be the bad guy”, and nobody wants to be that guy. And that’s not all. On the other end, the other person has to be ready to listen, emphatic and open-minded not to get pissed off at whatever is that the other one says. Be patient and with a constructive and positive self-critical attitude to control the first response in that situation: Walk away. Be ready to face the facts objectively and willing to accept his part of responsability of the actual situation (at least 50%).

Both characteristics aint always found at the same time and an agreement is never reached in “a discussion” (i’d rather say update or refresh on which line of which page each one is).

In my case, i did do a self-critic of my faults and my behaviour in the past weeks (months?) and didnt take anything in a bad way (well, my first reaction was to be pissed off, but i think it’s normal). At the end, i did thank the other person for the lesson and was truly greateful that we had a “long talk” of how each one saw things.

I know its been a long post. It took me a long time to write it too. But it has helped me to sort out my thoughts and maybe made you think about yours too.

Still happy and maybe a little bit closer that i thought before.

PS: Acknowledging and knowing these two facts is only the first part and have no value without a second: Putting them in practice.

Non-stop laugh

Last night i had one of the best laughs i can remember. It had been such a long time since i laughed that hard that i forgot i could do it.

I couldnt stop. Once I started i had to go all the way until i could no more. After 3 mins non-stop laughing  I was unable to walk, tears running down my cheeks…All my stomach muscles hurt…even my back kidney’s zone. Hillarious.

Its a long story, but the thing is my sister’s friend made a comment that was just too much. I didnt expect it and took me by surprise.I laughed and I laughed until i could no more.

Boy, it was a hell of a time last night.