“Dilemmas is the post

everyone reads the most”

I wonder why…

So that’s it. Not that I know what to write here… I’ve already been more enthusiastic about this blog, certainly. Not that I moved to Twitter, either. I see no appeal there. I like to read and write, to exchange ideas and points of views, and Twitter’s so “pilly”. Information pills are too superficial, too chatty.

Anyways. I’m teaching a creative writing workshop right now. This is something to feel enthusiastic about, however I wonder what the future of professional writing will be. On this workshop, my aim is to motivate people. Writing is not forbidden and can be very useful to express ourselves and compose our identities. It’s good for making decisions, good to know wheter we’re on the right path or we’d better make a change.

People start by being objective and shy, but after a couple of days and exercises, it’s easy to notice how released – and relieved – they feel.

Professionally, I’ve been working with career counselling for almost two years now. Personally, I can say that career counselling has always been a part of my life. I’ve had several job experiences, have attended courses in different majors, have had a couple of turning points and have always dealt with my career shifts by myself. I have learned how to search and how to explore, how to give a meaning to the time I have spent in one or another place, and found out what is important to me and what my goals were (and are!).

After dealing with all those issues and having counselled dozens of teenagers and young adults with career doubts, I can say that I’ve become both passionate and challenged by what I do. I can say that it makes all the sense in my life and makes me fit into this world. At this point, I’m always eager to improve my skills to be a better counsellor and satisfy my clients’ needs, because they are my major satisfaction. My personal satisfaction.

I can’t deny that when I watched Susan Boyle’s video for the first time I also thought it wasn’t real, that is, she was kind of playing a role. But, for me, that isn’t the point. That’s not what matters. The whole message is what matters. And it has told us something – by “us”, meaning the world. Why is everybody talking about that? Have we all already been in the other side, seeing someone and not giving a damn to him or her? How many opportunities have we lost because of that? Opportunities of having new good friends, of being surprised, of being happy.

And are they arguing about marketing, about Susan Boyle’s past or boyfriends? I don’t wanna know Susan Boyle. I don’t wanna watch that show. I wanna be, from now on, more aware of what I may be missing in my everyday life, and also more aware that I should and can be confident when it comes to something I believe in.

a study published in 2007 in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication suggested that hanging onto old friends via Facebook may alleviate feelings of isolation for students whose transition to campus life had proved rocky. Evidently they took comfort in knowing that “Dylan is drinking Peets.” That may well be, but something is drowned in that virtual coffee cup — an opportunity for insight, for growth through loneliness. Perhaps my nieces will find a new way to establish distance from their former selves, to clear space for introspection and transformation. Perhaps they will evolve through judicious deleting and updating of profile information, through the constant awareness of their public face.

Here.

So are you sure you wanna be connected all the time, or do you need a time for yourself – and only for yourself?

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I love Alanis Morissette. Her new CD, Flavors of Entanglement, is not, in my opinion, as good as the last ones. The style has changed a bit and it’s too dancey. I hope it won’t change too much in the future – or, better yet, that she returns to what her typical style was, ’cause that’s what I expect when I decide to pick one of her songs on my mp3 player. When I listen to Alanis Morissette, I don’t expect to listen to dance music. I know artists have the right of changing, but it may be a mistake if they intend to maintain their audience. Sometimes a change is not well accepted and, when they realize it, it’s too late to go back. Yes, artists are goods, unfortunately.

But, fortunately, when it comes to the lyrics, Flavors of Entanglement is still very Alanis. I particularly loved Incomplete:

One day I’ll find relief
I’ll be arrived and I’ll be a friend to my friends who know how to be friends
One day I’ll be at peace
I’ll be enlightened and I’ll be married with children and maybe adopt
One day I will be healed
I will gather my wounds forge the end of tragic comedy
I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete
One day, my mind will retreat, and I’ll know god and I’ll be constantly one with her night dusk and day
One day I’ll be secure, like the women I see on their 30th anniversaries
I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete
Ever unfolding
Ever expanding
Ever adventurous and torturous
But never done
One day, I will speak freely
I’ll be less afraid
And measured outside of my poems and lyrics and art
One day I will be faith-filled
I’ll be trusting and spacious authentic and grounded and whole
I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time
Of being forever incomplete

As a consequence, I’ll keep being her faithful fan. When I listen to her singing, it’s like I knew her: I feel I can understand what she feels and what she means. I don’t know if this is because of an identification or because she can really express herself very well.

The two of them, maybe.

Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning 
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile 
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness 
And I have to sit down for a while 
The feeling that I’m losing her forever 
And without really entering her world 
I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter 
That funny little girl 

Slipping through my fingers all the time 
I try to capture every minute 
The feeling in it 
Slipping through my fingers all the time 
Do I really see what’s in her mind 
Each time I think I’m close to knowing 
She keeps on growing 
Slipping through my fingers all the time 

Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table 
Barely awake, I let precious time go by 
Then when she’s gone there’s that odd melancholy feeling 
And a sense of guilt I can’t deny 
What happened to the wonderful adventures 
The places I had planned for us to go 
(Slipping through my fingers all the time) 
Well, some of that we did but most we didn’t 
And why I just don’t know 

Slipping through my fingers all the time 
I try to capture every minute 
The feeling in it 
Slipping through my fingers all the time 
Do I really see what’s in her mind 
Each time I think I’m close to knowing 
She keeps on growing 
Slipping through my fingers all the time 

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture 
And save it from the funny tricks of time 
Slipping through my fingers 

Slipping through my fingers all the time 

Schoolbag in hand she leaves home in the early morning 
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile 

“let’s make love. no. let’s make love a simple thing. the simplest thing ever. and then, for a day, for a year, let’s pretend suffering doesn’t exist: because love is simple, life is simple, and living is the simplest and the least painful thing we can do”

Been struggling to read Swann, by Carol Shields. Not that is a disappointing book. Not at all. The book author (who’ s a character) is just too similar to me. Once I start reading, I can’t help thinking about myself and my thoughts and my dreams and my friends and my life. And, all of a sudden, the book is left somewhere.