Eternal Happiness

I want to share with you the very first poem I ever wrote. I wrote it fifteen years ago, more or less, I don't remember exactly and I didn't date the poem. This is the translation but you will also find the original unedited, below. I made a lot of rookie mistakes like using too many archaic words, overloading it with adjectives, and funny punctuation... but hey! It was the first one. I hope you enjoy it.

Elusive as a tiny cloud
          faded and hidden by the wind.
Something impenetrable, cold, and imperceptible chains me undountedly
          to the bowels of my being.
My noble heart like a loyal knight brandishes its sword
          against the inexpugnable rock where I lie hopeful.
These blind eyes in a heretic world glimpse the obscure
          still enjoy the fantasy of the winged being.
But that something does not let me excogitate
          the rose that pierces my soul.
My blows seem useless
          before the sinister chain that punishes my freedom.
The fight is slow and arduous the enemy.

The valuable gem I long for protects me.
An accurate spear by my side would make me victorious.

But warriors are few
          and cowards many.
the unwithering rose knows my true path
          uncertain and stony.

Oh, elusive happiness!
          Why do you hide behind invincible walls?
One day I will have you
          my destiny augurs freedom
                    my soul clamors for freedom
                              and joy abounds in my being.
The chains will remain broken
          life, insurrected eagle
                    sword brandished in the sky.
Divine love, fleeting life, eternal happiness.


Spanish version

Esquiva como una pequeña nube
          desvanecida y oculta por el viento.
Algo impenetrable, frío e impeerceptible me encadena impertérritamente
          en las entrañas de mi ser.
Mi corazón noble de fiel caballero blande su espada
          contra la inexpugnable roca en la que yazgo esperanzado.
Ciegos estos ojos en un herético mundo vislumbran lo obscuro
          gozan todavía de la fantasía del ser alado.
Pero ese algo no me deja excogitar
          la rosa que atraviesa mi alma.
Mis golpes parecen inútiles
          ante la siniestra cadena que fustiga mi libertad.
La lucha es lenta y arduo el enemigo.

La valiosa gema que ansío guarda solaz de mi.
Una lanza certera que a mi lado venga me haría victorioso.

Pero los guerreros son pocos
          y los cobardes muchos.
La rosa inmarsecible conoce mi verdadero camino
          incierto y pedregoso.

¡Oh, felicidad esquiva!
          ¿Porque te escondes tras invencibles murallas?
Poseerte algún día lograré
          mi destino me augura libertad
                    y libertad clama mi alma
                              y regocijo abunda en mi ser.
Cadenas quebrantadas permanecerán
          vida, águila insurrecta
                    espada ceñida en el cielo.
Amor divino, vida fugaz, felicidad eterna .

 The rose that pierces my soul

My Finnish experience

As unlikely as it sounds, there has been some relation between Finland—some of its people―and I. Some mysterious connection: a part tragic, but mostly wonderful. This is the story of my Finnish experience.

It all began before I actually left Colombia on my trip to Sweden. Just a few months before my travel, I saw in Bogotá The Man Without a Past by Aki Kaurismäki. This was around summer 2004. At that moment I didn't even know where Finland was, I didn't even know the movie was Finnish, and as a matter of fact, I didn't even know it was spoken in Finnish. I did notice that people in the movie behaved extremely weird, on the 'way below average' part of the spectrum of social awkwardness. They were like robots with a very limited capability of expressing human emotions. I left the cinema wondering if the people in that country really behaved in such an unusual way... it wasn't until spring time 2005, that I met the first Finnish people. I was in Riga taking an international course on Biohydrogen Systems Analysis. Talking with them I found out for the first time that Aki Kaurismäki and his movie were Finnish and came to the realization that unlike the movie, Finnish people seemed pretty normal.

Later during the winter of 2006 (at the beginning of the year) I was sent to Turku, by the Finnish west cost, to join a laboratory for a couple of weeks in order to learn some new techniques. In this laboratory I was going to be trained by a Chinese senior PhD student, who I'll call here Miss MaoMao; she was on her early thirties and was always on turbo mode. There was also another woman that instructed me, this one from Russia, probably late forties or early fifties, let's call her Mrs. Stalin, she had short hair, probably more muscular than I was, she reminded me of a soldier, no one ever taught her how to smile. As you might have started suspecting, my days in Turku suddenly became a torture, thanks to these two women. About twelve hours of work a day including Saturdays! My only repose was when I arrived home every night exhausted.

For some unexpected reason Mrs. Stalin hated me at first sight. The first thing she said to me when we were introduced was: “here we are very clean!” I can still see her rigid stony face. Then I had dreadlocks... the reason of her hatred? You don't need to be very open minded to be a scientist, I concluded. Later on, I was going to use a piece of equipment to measure the pH of a buffer solution. The machine was switched off and because I was a stranger in the lab I didn't dare to use it on my own. To my misfortune the only person in the room was Mrs. Stalin. I asked her: “Excuse me, Mrs. Stalin, do you know how to use this pH-meter?” She turned red, she was furious, walked towards me with huge strides and yelled waving her hands in desperation: “TANAI! YOU DO EVERYTHING WRONG!” I was startled. What was wrong WITH HER?

At the same time Miss MaoMao didn't give me a break. She would repeat every five minutes: “it is not like that, that's wrong.” The last day at work I was about to explode in anger. If it was the middle ages I could have probably cut them half with my two-handed great sword of justice! I still don't understand why they hated me so much. Perhaps they were overwhelmed with my amazing personality or maybe they were intimidated by my blinding handsomeness? I'm not really sure.

It was not all bad. There was somebody that made my days a little lighter. Let's call her Josephine. She was the stereotypical Finnish woman, thirty years old but you wouldn't really know, blond, blue-eyed. She was slim, cute, nice for a change. Besides, her Spanish was perfect, she told me she was in a relationship with a man from Ecuador and had visited South America a few times. She was really kind and invited me to join her to a salsa night on a club. It was a Latin night and she was going with her Peruvian girlfriend, who was a salsa instructor. In the nightclub we met her students. The salsa students were hilariously awkward, they came straight out from a Kaurismäki's movie.

At that time I was going out with this Swedish girl. We had a very special connection and I was very attracted to her. She was not your stereotypical Swedish girl, she was brunette, her skin was darker than mine, very prone to laughter, exceedingly hot. We flirted a lot but nothing really happened between us because she had a boyfriend in San Diego. We hung out very often, yet she had to wait for me to go to Finland to send me a text message saying the following: “Tanai, I have feelings for you”. I couldn't believe my eyes when I read that message, it drove me crazy... in my inexperience, I answered that I also had feelings for her. She replied to that: “but it can not be because I have a boyfriend.” Bullshit... I concluded she was just playing with my feelings.

I left Turku without any more crazyness. I met Miss MaoMao and Mrs. Stalin many times again at international conferences. Contrary to my first impressions Miss MaoMao was a pretty nice woman, a little out of her mind, but nice... I think Mrs. Stalin still throws knives to a picture of my rasta face every night before going to bed.

A year later, there was a conference in Uppsala organized by my lab. All of them were there, including Josephine. I was never interested in her, however I was about to discover that she was infatuated with me even though she was seven years older. During the entire conference I paid her almost no attention at all, but she had a plan... there was a banquette the last night of the conference, and once the dinner was over she made her move and invited me to dance. I accepted gladly not knowing her true intentions. After that we and some of the young people went to a bar to continue drinking... she got drunk and very bold. I don't have to describe what happened later... that night the boy died and a man was born. She was that good.

A year later, more or less, I met another Finnish woman. She was friends of friends. This time just six years older than me. I remember when I saw her eyes for the first time, I was stunned, I had never seen such color before, her eyes were yellow, as if made of gold, really beautiful. It was midsummer day, we ended up wasted on wine. I ended up at her place but we were way too drunk for any real action to happen. After that I invited her for dinner at my place, I tried to reignite the fire, this time sober, but she rejected me. Nevertheless, things didn't end there... a pattern started to arise: we always met at our friend's parties, got wasted, danced, made out, but nothing really happened. We never got any more serious than that. I don't know for how long did that happened. In any case, she became a good friend, she had a hard exterior but inside she was very sweet.

Yet all those past memories are shadowed now. Shodewed by the sun of my days, the moon of my nights, the woman I love, she who was born from ice, the Finnish woman that stole my heart. I told you before, dear reader, how I met her. She was on holidays in Paris and the day we met simply love was. How unusual is that? How unlikely? Montería, Tornio, Paris. It's extraordinary and amazing because, regardless of our different cultures and radically different origins, it's as if we always knew how to love each other right. When could I have imagined I was going to find that on a person from Finland? Now she's changing my life in unpredictable ways.

So the Finnish experience goes on.

Bob Marley and my dreadlocks experience

Bob Marley literally changed my life. His music and message had a profound effect on my personality and the way I see the world and experience life. I feel it saved me from utter sadness and a bleak life.

As I grew up I developed a very introvert, reserved, and shy personality. I had rejected happiness, I had rejected love, I had rejected my dreams, I had rejected even music. The way I felt about life and about myself stayed engraved forever in a poem I wrote when I was seventeen or eighteen years old. I have translated it below into English:

Not even a murmur
nor my voice says
The crying is not heard under the morning light
The smiles are not seen under the tardy twilight
Silence
The infinite silence of the soul, where a worthless treasure rest comfortably

Everything is silent
It seems as if the true sense of living is hidden

And we rest in a bed of lairs

It is the inaudible sound of this motionless body

It is the inaudible sound of this rational soul
It is the vivid meaning of death

The catastrophe of dreams
Silent soul

The poem meant that I was trapped in my body, unable to express myself to the fullest of what I am. If I was trapped within myself, failure in all senses of the word was guaranteed and thus there was no difference dead or alive.

During those days the only type of music I would listen was classical, music from the great composers, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, List, Chopin, Dvorak, so on and so on. Nothing else I liked to hear, I did not like Colombian traditional rhythms nor Latin American music in general. As a teenager I did try to explore other genres, actually my cousin used to hear trance, I was very curious about it and borrowed a CD from him. Once my aunt realized I was hearing trance she lectured me angrily, telling me how my soul would burn eternally in the lowest pits of hell if I listened to trance. A few years later, a good friend of mine, a friend that have been a very good influence throughout my life, recorded for me on tape Bob Marley's most popular album: Legend (1994), a compilation of his most popular songs. This was perhaps the beginning of my transformation. I was also influenced by the group of people I was hanging out at the time, many of them listened to Bob Marley all the time.

I felt identified with his music. Bob Marley understood the pain and sorrow we bear on our hearts, but he didn't linger in that pain eternally. He rose up, he fought, he was not defeated, he was victorious. For example, in the song Concrete Jungle from the album Catch a Fire (1973) he says:

No sun will shine in my day today
The high yellow moon won't come out to play
Darkness has covered my light
And has changed my day into night
Now where is this love to be found, won't someone tell me?
'Cause life, sweet life, must be somewhere to be found
Instead of a concrete jungle where the livin' is hardest
Concrete jungle, oh man, you've got to do your best

No chains around my feet, but I'm not free
I know I am bound here in captivity
And I've never known what happiness is and I've never known what sweet caress is
Still, I be always laughing like a clown
Won't someone help me?
'Cause, sweet life, I've got to pick myself from off the ground

Say for example, from the album Survival (1979) and the song of the same name:

We're the survivors, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
Thrown in the fire, but-a never get burn
So I Idren, I-sistren,
The preaching and talkin' is done;
We've gotta live up, wo now, wo now!

As I started listening more and more of his music, a seed was planted in my soul, a wish to change. Yes, I was far from the person I wanted to be. Yes, I was unhappy with myself and my situation, but life is a fight, I had to get up, I had to stand up, I could not give up the fight.

When I was about twenty or twenty-one years old I attempted for the very first time to get dreadlocks on my hear, but I was unsuccessful. My technique “back-combing” was not very efficient and after a few weeks my hair would go back to normal. I tried a second time right before I traveled to Sweden but unsuccessfuly. In Sweden, this was the beginning of the year 2005, I tried once more but they were still not strong enough. 

It was early March, the winter was at is coldest, way below zero. I had decided to go on a trip with exchange students up north, across the polar circle to see the northern lights, the aurora borealis. All the students got together at Norlands Nation (one of the student associations in Uppsala) to take the tour bus up north. All of a sudden my eyes caught sight of this tall Italian chick with beautiful long blond dreadlocks! I thought she was extremely cool, but didn't dare to talk to her at all. I was still too shy to approach her. Like Mr. Marley said: and what is to be must be, it was for me to befriend her. On one hand, I did not know any of the exchange students and was too shy to integrate, on the other hand the dreadlocks chick was too socially awkward, so eventually we started hanging out together. She knew a great technique to make dreadlocks, it was using a crochet needle and with it you would pretty much knit and knot until the lock was strong and secured. She promised to do dreadlocks on me and once we were back to Uppsala I visited her every night from eight to ten to get my dreads done. It took about too weeks but finally they were completed. At the beginning they were just a couple of inches long, after five years they reached below my waist.

Tanai with baby dreadlocks, about six months old

Having dreadlocks was an amazing journey. Contrary to expectations people loved them, everywhere I went my dreads were the object of positive comments, men and women would come to me just to say “nice hair”, “cool hair”, “I love your dreads”. Once on a bus, an old lady, perhaps around 70 years old sat down by my side and told me that she had been to a Bob Marley concert in Stockholm, the year 1980. She said it had been an amazing concert, I believed her. I never imagined how attractive would be for some women my dreadlocks, more than you would bet... they were like fishing rods, every single one of my 37 dreadlocks. Once I was at the nightclub from Snerikes Nation (another of the student associations from Uppsala), I was leaning my back against the wall close to the bar, waiting for my friend who was buying some beers. All of a sudden three gorgeous Swedish girls stood in front of me and started rapping some Swedish hip-hop song, all giggly and excited. Those are just a couple anecdotes...

Perhaps the only negative side is the stereotype that every person with dreadlocks smokes marihuana. Some times people, mostly teenagers, would come to me asking if I had marihuana or if I knew were to buy. For your information, I never have smoked marihuana, as a matter of fact, I have never smoked anything at all.

Then one day I realized that things had definitively changed for the better. I was stronger, my self-esteem was healthier, I was experiencing a confidence I had never known before. I was enjoying my life, I loved the person I had become. So after almost five years of being a rastaman I decided it was time to close that chapter and start a new one, and so I went to a saloon and got them cut.

 Bye bye dreadlocks (R.I.P. 2009)

Long-distance relationships

Have you ever been in a long-distance relationship? I have. Actually, I am currently in one and it is not the first time. LDRs are less than ideal situations, they happen because for some unfortunate reason you can not be together. They could be hard to keep intact, they could be traumatic and painful; yet they could be very positive too, because each second together will be a precious treasure... it takes something to make it work, it takes real love, otherwise it will not happen. I will share here some of my experiences and what I have learnt from them.

The first time I was in a LDR, I was 22 years old. I was inexperienced and I did not realized what was going on until it was already too late. This was the year 2005 before facebook was popular; at that time I had an account on a similar site called hi5. I was already living in Sweden and I was using the site—unsuccessfully—to get some dates. Once I received a little message from an apparently cute girl in America. We started emailing each other, and day by day the letters started growing longer and longer. Everyday we messaged each other and she told me every single little thing she did during her day. Her brother was on drugs, which caused her great distress. We started chatting and talking over the internet. She even played the clarinet for me online. After a while, she literally fell in love with me, even though we never met personally. Eventually she confessed her love and to certain extent I corresponded her. However, she became overwhelming, she would write me books day after day until it became impossible for me to keep up. She was so in love that I got scared and could not correspond her feelings any longer, or was she? Later I found out that her pictures on the website were a century old and she was twice my weight. One day I said to her that the relationship should not go on, that it should stop right there, that there was not future in that. Six months later she was getting married to a guy from the navy. Creepy.

The second time, I met her at a student nightclub. She was an exchange student in Uppsala and she was staying just for a semester. She was tall and beautiful, at least three inches taller than me, of fair skin, seductive black hair, full lips, with a gentleness and delicacy that melted even hearts of stone, she loved Neruda and Klimt. When I first met her it was mid October 2006 and she was leaving back to Italy in February of the next year, never to return. We kind of knew from the very beginning that things had to end when she left. On one hand I was just starting with my PhD and had more than three years to go; on the other, she had to be back to finish her career and graduate. I was very attracted to her so I did not care about what would happen after she left. I decided that I was going to enjoy my time with her, that I was not going to hold back any little bit of my body and soul. I loved her passionately until she had to go. By the moment she left, I knew she was coming back two months later to celebrate Valborg at the end of April. During those two months apart we talked almost everyday on the phone, we spoke for a couple of hours, we also wrote and chatted all the time. Since we kept in touch and everything seemed to have been going well despite the distance, I thought things were going to be the same when she came back, however I found her a bit cold. When I tried to kiss her, she dodged. I was so infatuated that I paid really no attention to it, I just took it as a challenge, and at the third try she accepted my loving lips. The fire reignited. Then we had to say goodbye again, this time for good. After she left, at the beginning we kept in touch as we used to, talking everyday, chatting, emailing... I tried to plan a trip to visit her in Rome but because of one or another inconvenience it was not possible. Little by little the relationship started to fade away, the calls became less regular, the letters more spaced in between, until we stopped talking at all. That's how it ended. When she left Uppsala it was painful, the weeks before she left we would cry on each others arms knowing that the end was near and unavoidable. I and she went on with our lives separately... and I swore that never again I would be in a LDR, yet I broke my promise four years later.

The third and last time it happened in Paris. It was my last year in the city and it was the summer of 2011, beginning of August. I met her at a small bar, it was about two in the morning and we were both extremely drunk. This time she was Finnish and was visiting Paris on holidays, she had come for about three weeks to visit her cousin. The chemical reaction when our hearts met was immediate, catalyzed by that energy from hot and sunny summer days and nights. She was brunette, about my size tall, with gorgeous blue eyes decorated by a subtle gold ring around the pupil, and lips that were made only to be kissed and adored, she had that femininity that is almost irresistible and an aura of sweetness and tranquility. I do not know how much time passed between we said hello for the first time and our first kiss, but it had to be pretty quick. We spend that night together until the sun shone hot in the sky. I left with her phone number and texted her expecting that she would never answer me back. Against my expectations, she did not only answered but was excited to hear from me and looking forward to meet again. Unfortunately, in the following days she was traveling to the French Riviera, so we met about a week later just before I went back to Colombia for holidays. By the time I was back in France she was already back to the Finnish North Pole, where she was born. I thought that was the end of it, yet when I was in Colombia I received another text message from her and from then on we kept in touch. I noticed something in her that I have never found in other women (what exactly, that I will keep to myself), and that encouraged me to keep in touch. I came back to France and we started chatting and skyping, things were getting intimate and our feelings for each other were shared openly. I thought, if this relationship is to go on we have to meet again soon. So I proposed that we should meet in Helsinki, I would go from Paris and she would come down from the North Pole, so it was fair. I said to myself that if she said no I would stop it right there, and if she said yes and we met, then it was worth to commit to the relationship. To my surprise we met in Finland and the summer fire was still very alive in our hearts, although the autumn had chased away the sun and the warmth of the days. When I was back to Paris the oxycontin and all other love related hormones had worked out their magic in my brain and left me irremediably in love with her. I decided that she was worth the effort, that I was going to make the relationship work, and that I was going to give her everything I am. Ever since then we have kept in touch almost every single day. She came back to Paris two more times, then she went to Perú for an exchange program. I joined her there for almost a month and now we wait for the day we will be together again, and so this story has not yet seen the end. Next August will be a year since we first met.

After all these experiences I have concluded that a long-distance relationship will work only if certain conditions are met:

1. You should know that one day you will be together and the distance will be no more. Even if it is in two years time the relationship will be strong if you promise and plan that one day you will be together and never apart again (at least, until you break up of natural causes unrelated to the number of miles in between). If this condition is overlooked the relationship will end sooner than you expect.

2. You must keep in touch as often as possible and trust each other. This is necessary to keep the fire burning, to know that you are together making it work, to reassure that the feelings for each other are still strong. If this does not happen the relationship will fade away until it is no more. Little by little you will become a stranger to each other, little by little things will get colder. As the calls, the text messages, the chat or skype sessions become more spaced in between, someone else starts to fill in that space. In order to keep in touch, you need a strong will to make things work.

3. Finally, you must do your best to see each other as often as possible and when you are together you should not hold back anything, you should give everything you have got, and live every second as if it was the last one. Otherwise, if you never see each other and the relationship is entirely over the internet, then it will become a virtual relationship and that is very creepy.

Morning Glory

Four beautiful sisters, none more beautiful than the other
The first one was Crimson star
The second was The Heart
The third was Melancholy
The fourth was named Moongirl

Road to London

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a young Colombian scientist trying to find a job in Europe or abroad? Sometimes I've wondered whether an application I've submitted for a job in Europe has been rejected just because of the complications that are implicit when hiring a non-European migrant and not because of insufficient qualifications. The same I should say for the States.

Am I worth less just because I was born in the third world? Sometimes I wonder, sometimes I can't stop myself from feeling that way.

I started looking for a job during summer 2011, knowing that my contract in France would end at the beginning of February 2012. I thought I had started looking with enough time in advance, so that I could transition jobs immediately after ending my contract. I had just signed in February 2011 and a couple of months later I had to start looking for a new job, funny. I think it should be illegal to grant contracts for less than two years, or how can you focus on your current job when you have to be thinking on what's going to happen after it's over. Not only thinking, but doing job applications, grant applications, visa applications (if you even get that far). Most of the time it will be a waste of time, and quite a substantial amount of it. I don't complain, it's reality, and after all you only need ONE to be successful. In any case, it's the end of April 2012 and I have not yet started on my new job.

I sent many applications to available positions at different companies. Mainly research positions in bioenergy production using photosynthetic organisms, which is my expertise—kind of. I was positively surprised by the great number of available positions, yet the only thing I got back were automated responses acknowledging the receipt of my applications. I sent applications to some labs at different universities too, yet silence was the most popular answer. By mid September 2011 I saw an advertisement on nature.com for an available postdoctoral position at Imperial College London, with a deadline for the 19^th of September. It fitted my professional profile almost perfectly. I did applied with high hopes, and at the end of October I was told that I had made the short-list of candidates and that I was invited for an interview to the lab immediately. Awesome, I thought, then I remembered I was Colombian and that even thought I had been living in Europe for more than six years and even thought I lived and worked in France, I had to get a visa to take a train to London for the interview, yet I scarcely was going to stay in the UK for 24 hours. After postponing the interview, getting an invitation letter to take to the embassy, paying all due expensive visa application fees, and waiting a couple of weeks for an answer. I managed to go to the interview a month later than it was planned. Do you see how a Colombian is at a great disadvantage?

Early in September too I had contacted my PhD supervisor in Sweden to let her know that she might be contacted for recommendation letters. Unexpectedly, she told me that she might get some money to hire a postdoctoral researcher and that if she got the money and I was interested, she would contact me again to consider the possibility of returning to Sweden. I was very excited about it!

It was not until the first days of 2012 that I knew I was not selected for the position in London. Just one month before the end of my contract in France. All parallel applications I had submitted had remained unanswered to the date. My PhD supervisor had not contacted me neither, so I had already suspected that she might have encountered some problems regarding the chance of hiring me again. She told me later that she had the money but was unable to hire me, basically because hiring me to work at Uppsala University being a graduate from the same university would be a lot more expensive for them than hiring someone else with a PhD degree from another university.

I had been already hired for two years in Paris, my boss had moved away from France and had started a new lab in the UK, at Imperial College London too. I was told that because regulations at the CEA, the place I was working, it was impossible to continue working there directly after a postdoctoral position. My last option was to ask my current boss for the possibility of hiring me again and thus joining him in London. Fortunately, he told me that I could continue working for him in his new lab. What no one knew was how hard and complicated it would be for a Colombian (or better, a non-European) to be hired and get a visa to work in the UK. It's almost impossible, it so hard that in 2012 only three Colombians have obtained visa to work in the UK. One of the greatest difficulties is for the company or institution to demonstrate why they have to choose a foreigner for the job over a UK citizen or a national of the EU.

I started then the application process to join my previous boss at Imperial and getting everything ready for the visa application at the end of January beginning of February 2012. It's the end of April and I'm still not finished with the process.

The work visa to the UK follows a point based system described on a 100 pages handbook. You have to complete some points for a Certificate of Sponsorship, that is a certificate provided by the hiring institution confirming that you will be contracted. You have to get some points for the salary, so that it's high enough. You have to get some points for maintenance, so the applicant must demonstrate that he or she has £800 intact in his or her bank account for the last three months, or that the sponsor will provide that money. And finally some points for language, so in order to work in the UK you must have some level of English. The funny thing is that if you miss any of those requirements the visa will be rejected regardless of how many points you make rendering the point based system pretty useless. Now, one way to demonstrate that I speak English is by having obtained a degree equivalent to a UK bachelor's or above taught in English. I did my PhD in Sweden, absolutely everything was taught in English yet I can't use that as a demonstration, just because some agency decided that a PhD in Sweden was not good enough for the English requirement. So, I have no other option but to do an English exam...

Let's not talk that much about the price of the work visa, £480!! Which makes it pretty much the most expensive visa I've ever encountered. And let me tell you, I have encountered quite a number.

I have so far overcome all obstacles and difficulties: it has meant at least three months without a salary, a great deal of money, and an almost unbearable amount of stress and anxiety... because it doesn't matter how many times you tell yourself that everything is going to be alright, you'll still feel that at any step something may go wrong and all you've struggled for will just crumble down. Next Saturday I'll present the English exam, once I obtain the results I'll be able to complete everything I need to apply for the work visa and with some good luck I'll be traveling to London at the beginning of June. Almost one year after I started looking for a job.

Nostalgia Drive – Steins;Gate review

Imagine you have created a time machine. Now, imagine this time machine can only send text messages to the past using your mobile phone. What would you text yourself besides the winning lottery numbers? How much do you think a single text message could change the future? That's what Steins;Gate is all about: a new take on time travel.

The story is very engaging, thrilling, hilarious, and dramatic. I strongly recommend it to all of you that like anime and a bit of crazy science fiction. I personally loved it.

In the future SERN is an evil organization that controls all time machines to bring about dystopia. SERN is a deliberate misspelling of the real CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). In the present, SERN has developed the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) in order to create mini-black holes and research time travel; they have succeed in creating the mini-black hole but they have failed to send any living creature through time. Houoin Kyouma, a self-proclaimed Japanese mad scientist has developed the Futuristic Gadget No. 8, also called the Phone Microwave, or in other words the very first successful time machine. He and his team hooked a mobile phone to a microwave oven and this somehow can send short text messages, in the form of e-mails, to the past. They called an e-mail sent to the past a d-mail (or Nostalgia Drive). After Kyouma and his friends have sent just a few d-mails, things are already out of control. When they succeed altering the past, their memories would automatically be altered to fit with those changes, thus forgetting their former reality. However, Kyouma was able to retain his memories even after the past was altered, that was his gift, 'the magic eye: Reading Steiner'... and the fact he had this power made him destined to save the world from dystopia, the choice of Steins Gate.

Later, they upgrade their time machine to a 'time leap machine'. With this upgraded machine Kyouma is able to send his memories of the present self to himself in the past using a cellphone. In the story, the problem with time traveling is that they can only send a few bits of information through time; that's why they are limited to sending short text messages. To overcome this problem, they first convert the memories of the person into a digital file and send those remotely to SERN's Large Hadron Collider. They then use a mini-black hole to compress the memories to just a few bites, return them to their computer and send them by phone to the person's brain in the past. The great advantage of this form of time travel is that only memories are transferred so no unintended alterations of the past are caused.

Things get complicated and tragic and no matter how much Kyouma tried to repair the past, it seems that—after all—certain things are meant to happen no matter what. In order to save his dear friends and the future from SERN's dystopia, they have to significantly alter the course of time and reach 'divergence 1%'.

The anime is actually based on a visual novel released for the Xbox 360 at the end of 2009. It aired in Japan during mid 2011 and it was made into 24 episodes by Studio White Fox; a relatively new studio that also produced Katanagatari, another pretty awesome anime series. The animation quality of Steins;Gate is neat, fluid, and beautiful. I recommend it to all anime lovers.

Bonelake

A lake of bones. Cranium, clavicle, pubis, rib, humerus, sternum, mandible, tooth, bone by bone. No, not a place for fish or boat, not a place for the living. The lake of bones is the final resting place of all that lived, the place where life very own waste will rest till the end of times. Far beyond eyes can see and minds can imagine the lake of bones reigns. Some say it has no end. Some say the bottom of Bonelake is where hell begins. A realm of darkness, starless, skies covered with clouds of desperation, waves of death underneath an eternal storm, lightning and thunder binding hopelessness to overwhelming frustration.

“We have arrived,” said Batar. He spread his enormous bat wings excited. The wings protruded from the upper part of his back where shoulder blades are, black like onyx.

“So this is Bonelake,” said Siáh. “I never imagined it was all so literal.”

“It is a lake of human bones, my dear,” the winged man answered while Siáh smiled. “How are we going to cross it?” Batar asked as he picked up and examined a femur from the banks of the lake, with a piece of dry tendon still attached to it.

“You will fly,” Siáh answered. “You will continue without me, you go home.”

“I will not abandon you here. I will carry you,” there was a bitter tone in Batar's voice. They had traveled together a very long way. Not an easy way that was, a way of self-hatred, of colorless sadness and solitude, of black tears shed in silence, of pain and blood. He would not abandon her here, he would not arrive home alone. Yet they both knew somewhere deep inside that it was the end of the road.

Batar’s body was not corpulent at all, it was the body of a man that had known famine and starvation. Very thin muscles covered with a pale gray skin that turned black on the bat wings, a skin never touched by any clothes. His hair was like molten gold never touched by any comb and never caressed by any hand. Blue inexpressive eyes decorated often with the rain of sadness. His penis most of the time was coiled like a dying slug; from time to time it rose up with the sun to prove that it was still alive. The black wings were the only trace of a mighty being condemned to a sepulchral body, large, strong, and tireless as the heart of a generous mother.

Without muttering a word Batar slid his arms around Siáh's torso and embraced her tightly, his chest against her back. He flapped his wings violently and so they flew over the lake of human bones.

Perhaps what some said was true and Bonelake had no end. Perhaps the planet and Bonelake were one and the same thing. Perhaps such place called home never existed at all and existence was only a hallucination. Perhaps Bonelake was infinite, the graveyard of hope.

Batar flew and flew bearing Siáh in his arms for a thousand years, but bones was all there was to see. Exhausted at last, he lost all height and their feet were almost brushing against the bony surface.

“Let’s walk, you need to rest,” said Siáh breaking a century old silence.

“You know we can not walk, we will die consumed by the ocean of bones.”

“This is the end Batar, we always knew!” she screamed while tears burst out of her eyes.

“We can not die, we can not!” the winged man exclaimed resolutely. He inhaled deeply and a surge of strength flowed through Batar's soul.

It was too late though, a wave of bones rose up furiously from the surface, the harbinger of death. The wave of bones opened a gigantic mouth and in a single bite cut half of Siáh's body off. Siáh did not scream of pain, she was strong.

“Leave me, fly away home. Leave me please,” she said to him and then died.

“Don't die, don't die my friend!” He cried refusing to believe her fate, refusing to let her body go.

The wave of bones opened its mouth once again and devoured him entirely still holding what remained of Siáh's body in his arms. Their meat was consumed by a myriad of hungry skulls, muscle by muscle, fiber by fiber, organ by organ. Only bone was left.

Tanai's mighty and awesome tuna stew

I was inspired today and decided to create a new delicacy never seen before in the history of mankind and womankind. Tuna stew Colombian style. Easy to make and infinitely delicious. It is possible that after eating this magnificent dish the eater will cry of happiness deeply touched by the gorgeous taste of this stew.

Ingredients for 4 or 5 persons:

500 grams of tuna fillets
2 tomatoes
1 onion
1 big carrot
Half large red pepper
1 cassava (yuca), say about 300 grams
1 plantain, the green one
1 coconut or a small can of coconut milk
Salt
Ginger powder
1 liter of water

Preparation:

1. You should either make the coconut milk or buy it ready to use. If you want to make it yourself, cut the coconut soft white flesh into pieces and liquify them in a blender on a bit of water; then with a sieve, separate the coconut residues from the milk.

2. Cut the plantain, cassava, tomatoes, onion, carrot, and red pepper into small pieces; boil them in water and coconut milk on a pot until the cassava and plantain are soft to the bite. Add a tea spoon of salt and ginger powder.

3. Add the tuna to the pot and let it boil for another 20 minutes.

4. Serve with a plate of white rice on the side.

Now you're ready to enjoy Tanai's mighty and awesome tuna stew and experience true happiness.

A moment in time eleven years ago

The following I wrote eleven years ago when I was eighteen. It is a moment in time, a bit of reality and fiction threaded together in two paragraphs. First, dear reader, you will find the Englsih translation and after the original in Spanish. 


Moment

And in the middle of the room still filled with the heavy aroma of another lunch, rice, beans, oat drink, he lay down over an improvised bed, two stools facing each other and mattress on top of them. Asleep or dead, it does not matter, but he was lying down there, his thoughts were trying to find something that of course was not in his mind, a sound, another sound to bind it with the former, and so on until a concert for piano was put together, it would be called Opus 4, Number 1. But his mind empty to the sound could only bring images, one after another, until a new life that he was not going to live was put together, a better life.

He is not in bed anymore, he is standing up by the window observing other windows and their curtains, cloudy sky, light drizzle followed by indecision, whether to open the umbrella or not, the stray dog constipated abandons its filth on the sidewalk. One image and another, and another life that he will not live because it is impossible to undo his life and implant a new one in his body. He thinks that it is his natural condition, that the wonderful and deep mystery of animal development would have forged in his mind what he was, unmodifiable in essence, of accidents so variable and futile like the diversity of insects found in the forest understory; all the contrary, so rigid and transcendental like the invariable sea in its neverending routine of waves, foams, fishes, and plankton. He thinks it would be nice to hear the sea, to hear his mind motley with images. The second theme would be exposed by the clarinet and the oboe, calm, the strings would accompany with pastoral rhythms, and at last the piano would enter, very subtle, fresh, frolicsome, retaking the theme of the winds. With an air of tranquility and gallant as if it was Classic. But there was not a single sound, only the word and the image creating unlivable lives. A woman holding the flute with curved lips, the window and the house, the smell of cooked beans, all the dishes dirty, a quarter to two, Molecular Biology class at three, half hour walking.

Momento

Y en medio de la habitación, cargada aún con el pesado aroma de otro almuerzo, arroz, fríjoles, avena, yacía acostado sobre la improvisada cama, dos taburetes entrepuestos y un colchón sobre ellos. Dormido o muerto, qué más da, pero estaba allí acostado, sus pensamientos trataban de hallar algo que por supuesto no estaba en su mente, un sonido, otro sonido para unir al primero, y así sucesivamente hasta armar un concierto para piano, sería llamado Opus 4, Número 1. Pero su mente vacía al oído sólo podía traer imágenes, una y otra, hasta crear una nueva vida que no viviría, una vida mejor.

Ya no está en la cama, de pié junto a la ventana observa otras ventanas, y sus cortinas, el cielo nublado, la llovizna liviana que acompaña a la indecisión de abrir el paraguas, el perro callejero y estreñido que abandona su escoria en la acera. Una imagen y otra, y otra vida más que no vivirá porque no se puede deshacer de la que tiene e implantar una nueva en su cuerpo. Piensa que es su condición natural, que el maravilloso y profundo misterio del desarrollo animal habría forjado en su mente lo que era, inmodificable en esencia, de accidentes tan variables y fútiles como la diversidad de insectos bajo el sotobosque, o todo lo contrario, tan rígido y trascendentales como el invariable mar en su eterna rutina de olas, espumas, peces y plancton. Piensa que sería bueno oír el mar, oír en su mente abigarrada de imágenes, el segundo tema sería expuesto por el clarinete y el oboe, con parsimonia, las cuerdas acompañarían con su rítmica pastoral, y por fin entraría el piano, muy sutil, campante, saltarín, retomando el tema de los vientos. Con un aire tranquilo y galante como si fuera clásico. Pero ni un sonido, sólo la palabra y la imagen creando vidas invivibles. Una mujer sosteniendo la flauta con la boca torneada, la ventana y la casa, el olor a fríjoles cocinados, la vajilla sucia, dos menos cuartos, clase de Biología Molecular a las tres, media hora de camino a pié.