A tragic love story in Bogota

This is perhaps the weirdest romantic experience I’ve ever had in my life, and it’s as funny as it’s sad. I’ll remember this story until the day that I die because it affected me deeply.

All started during the second half of the year 2000, I was at the time seventeen years old and it was the second semester of my Biology studies in Bogotá. I was taking the Invertebrates class, and because of a new change in the Biology program the students from the second semester were taking the same class with the students from the third semester. She was my senior and probably she was a bit older than me, I will never know; she was a beautiful girl, I remember her with a long, wavy, and voluminous dirty blond hair with some highlights, maybe a couple of centimeters taller than me, her style was not really the “biologist” type but she was quite cool, and she kind of had already earned a reputation of not being the brightest; which I honestly thought it was very unfair and kind of stimulated my sympathy for her. Let’s call her, Miss X.

Our eye may have met a few times, that subtle body language, that imperceptible signals, I don’t know exactly what it was, but I started to get the feeling that she liked me. Today I know I was right, that natural instinct to detect attraction never fails! And despite that I knew and that I kind of liked her too, I never tried to talk to her; the opportunity never came during class… yet it came later in the most unexpected way.

We were having a field trip down to the Atlantic cost of Colombia deep in the wilderness of the jungles at the Tayrona Park, what a paradise! The trip was exciting and very intense, and one of those days after a long session of forced labor chasing insects, we were on the bus back to the cabins we were staying at. There were more people than the bus could take so all the seats were taken and some people were standing; I was lucky to catch a place sitting at the window and next to me a girl in the class I’ve never met before, but somehow friend of Miss X. I’m sitting there happily ever after, when suddenly Miss X decided there was enough space for her too, between her friend and me… come on, it’s a bus! And there she went, she was wearing nothing more than a tiny bikini, she squeezed herself there and finally she ended up with one leg on top of me (to my inner satisfaction and torment). I honestly didn’t know what to do, shy as I was… and then as a perfect example of my sophisticated seduction techniques I decided to do what no man would dare to do...

I faked that I fell asleep.

Three years later we had class together again, I don’t remember which class it was anymore. It had been a long time since I saw her and to my surprise I still kept on getting those vibes of mutual attraction. And three years later I was still unable to talk to her… so when I had no doubts in my mind that there was something going on, I came up with the brilliant idea to write her love letters. Not only I wrote her love letters, but I wasn’t anonymous, so she knew it was me the one writing her… so I started sending her emails using the university accounts, I told her a million things, I told her that I was just paralyzed when she was close to me, I told her that I knew she felt something for me too, I told her about the moon and the sun, the oceans and the flowers, I told her many things because I wrote her many times. Miss X didn’t answer a single time, but she was not completely unaffected; she gave me obvious chances every time in class and I never took the risk to talk to her. I could feel in her behavior that she would welcome my approach and I never approached her… Today I’m not sure how much I could have touched her heart but once in the middle of the class, she was sitting close to me and all of a sudden she burst into tears and ran out of the classroom. Was it because of me? Again, I will never know.

And like that it came the last day I saw her, classes were over and I went to pick up the results of some exams right before holidays. The university was empty, and after I got my results I was going back home when I saw Miss X with the corner of my eye, she was walking in my direction; however, I kept on going as if I didn’t see her. I gave a few more steps when suddenly she called me:

“Tanai!”

I stopped and waited for her to come close. Then she asked me a completely random question:
“Do you know when the results of the exam are published?”

She knew that the results were already published, that was the only reason we were there at the university to begin with! But I didn’t get it, I didn’t get it at all. So I said:

“Yeah, they’re already there at the teacher’s office.”

Then I said goodbye, I turned myself, and I walked away from her!

That exact moment is the very same reason why I will never forget Miss X, because there, when I was turning I saw her expression of disconcert and confusion; it was a fraction of a second but it was so so so very clear: it definitively added to the transformation of my soul that at the time had recently started to happen.

The end.

Moral of the story: take your chances; take your chances at everything you do in life if you don’t want to live with regrets.

A Thursday night in Paris with illustrations in color

Even the simplest of things like having a beer with your buddies can become a very rich “cultural” experience when you’re in Paris.

It’s Thursday, the weekend is so close, but you just can’t wait.

Yeah, that’s how I feel most Thursdays. So being true to my feelings I texted my friend Mikael (a half French half Swedish guy) to go for a couple of beers that night. We planned to meet at the Opéra metro station, 20.30, and go to a place called Footsie. When you get out of the metro station you're welcomed by the beautiful and impressive sight of the Opéra de Paris, the Palais Garnier. It’s a magnificent sight; two majestic golden angels at each side of the palace foretell that the beer’s going to be expensive… but worthy!

Palais Garnier, a rainy Thursday evening in Paris

Have you heard about the Palais Garnier? I’m sure you’ve heard about The Phantom of the Opera… well, that’s where the story occurs.

Just around the corner, at Rue Daunou we find Footsie. This is a little bar; at a first glance, just like any other but it’s actually very peculiar… you notice that the drinks menu is displayed in two flat screens up in the wall behind the bar. The screen shows you the list of drinks and at the left of some of them there’s either a green arrow pointing downwards or a red arrow pointing upwards; at the upper right corner of the screens you see a countdown. It just happens to be that the price of the drinks is not stable, it changes every five minutes! It varies depending on the behavior of the stock market (or so they say)… five minutes and half-a-pint could be €5 and then five minutes later it’s €3.5! The green arrow means the price has gone down and the red one means that’s more expensive than before. So you must time it in such a way that you buy the beer when the price is low! I think it can vary about two Euro or more… it’s kind of entertaining waiting to see which beer we’ll be lower next time.

Another particularly cultural aspect of Footsie is that very beautiful and young women go there to chill out and let go, right afterwork; but rising above all the beauties you find the waitress! She’s Cleopatra mixed with Megan Fox, a super stunning brunette running around in her high heels picking up glasses and doing waitress stuff… so so very sweet.

Why to go home when you can chill out at Rue Daunou?

Also in the same street you find Harry’s New York Bar! Which (according to Wikipedia) may be the most famous bar in the world… maybe… it seems that this bar was frequented by famous people like Hemingway and Coco Chanel, among others. Now visited by such an illustrious citizen like Dr. Tanai Cardona! I had a mojito there one week ago or so, and I thought it was funny that the bartenders where wearing white coats, just like the lab coats of a scientist: I felt an immediate connection.

Harry's New York Bar

Night is still young, so we visit a couple other bars. The first one with the quality that the beer is cheaper than Footsie even when the prices are at the lowest (yet, still far from the price you would get in the Check Republic or Hungary: where you find the only fair and true price of a beer!!!). This bar is called Duck, for a younger audience, mostly students and many internationals. The second one is cozy and cool, a trio started playing around half past eleven… country road, take me home, to the place I belong… ♪♫

I’m back at home at 00.15.

6.30, my mobile’s alarm rings. That awful sound announcing the start of a new day after barely five hours of sleep. But now’s Friday, the time has come to celebrate, once again!

________________________
The pic of the flatscreen at Footsie was taken by Giulia, click here to visit her photos at flickr. The pic of Harry's New York Bar was taken by Abstract-Thinking, visit his flickr here.

Waltz with Bashir by Ari Folman review, a must-see movie!

A few weeks ago I made a post about the best movie of all times according to Empire online magazine: Seven Samurai, click here if you didn’t read it yet. At the time while I was browsing the list of the best 100 movies, I saw one called Waltz with Bashir written and directed by Ari Folman (2008), placing as the number 34 best movie ever. What called my attention was that the movie is an animated Israeli movie; I was very curious since I’ve never heard of any animated movies from Israel, so I downloaded it (shhh… don’t tell anyone), watched it, and wow, what a great movie, such a good surprise!

The movie is classified as an animated documentary, and it’s about Ari Folman himself searching for his memories when he was in the Lebanon war in 1982 and the Sabra and Shatila massacre; both historical events of which I’ve never heard before in my life; regarding the conflict between Israeli and Palestinian people. His experience was so traumatizing that many of his memories suddenly vanished from his brain. The movie is of course a masterpiece, from the very first image you are hooked; a bunch of angry, almost demonic dogs running around the streets. The animation style is outstanding, the colors so beautiful, and it has certain three dimensional sensation that is pretty cool too… and the soundtrack fits the animation perfectly.

One of the most spectacular scenes that’s so thrilling I almost cry of excitement, is when one soldier in desperation takes his gun and start shooting everywhere like crazy in the middle of an ambush right in the city… bullets are flying in every direction and the man starts dancing madly at the rhythm of Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2.

Waltz of madness

The ending is also shocking and morbid, but I won’t spoil you the movie anymore. So you better watch it now! Definitively the 34th best movie of all times… maybe the 34th best animated movie of all times would be more accurate.

Facebook mobile identity verification problem

So yeah, my facebook account is pretty much blocked and I can’t login again. Today after sending a few emails facebook asked me to confirm my identity using my mobile phone and getting a confirmation code by sms. My country (France) is not listed on the drop-down menu so I clicked on ’My mobile service provider isn’t listed’, then it appears a new link saying ’view popup to add number’, I input my number and it asked for the confirmation code, but the sms with the code never arrived!!

There’s a link that says ’Never got your confirmation code? Let us know!’, if I click it, it asks me to login, but I can’t login if I can’t confirm my identity with the code that never arrived!!

I’ve been looking at forums and I realized I’m not alone, many people is having exactly the same problem with no solutions! For example, click here.

If anyone reads this blog post and has an idea of what to do, please post a comment.

I’ve tried everything I could think of, but in vain. I’ve reported it to facebook but you know that it's always an automated response what you get as a reply, and there’s no one you can call personally.

Is it my facebook account doomed? Can it be? I heard that someone managed to solve it but inputing a telephone land line, but that was in the USA. I've not seen anything like that so far...

____________________

Solution: to solve this problem what I did was to contact a friend in Colombia; since Colombia actually is in the drop-down many where you find the mobile operators. I asked him to get a code for me, and using his code I confirmed my identity.

I recommend you to contact facebook and report the problem using the help forms, every day. A few days after I did get answers from people in facebook that were going to help solve the problem.

I hope this is helpful for you.

Street art in Paris

One of the things that I love about Paris is that there is art, art everywhere. Paris is art… from the magnificent and mind blowing, like the tower, the beautiful parks, palaces, and fountains; to the small and heart-warming, like the mural in the picture below. The mural is located at the end of the Rue Mouffetard, where the street becomes Rue Descartes… it’s a very lively small street with market, bars, restaurants, some people doing massages for free, and you can also get roasted chicken for a not inexpensive price. It’s actually very close to where I live.

Street Tree

The mural consist of a painting and a poem; the painting is by Pierre Alechinsky, a Belgium artist born in 1927 and still alive, he lived in Paris sometime. The poem was written by Yves Bonnefoy, a French poet born in 1923, also alive today. I don’t know what’s the story of the mural, why it was made and what’s the relation between these two old men… but they do know each other since they published a book together called: Alechinsky, les traversées.

Both the painting and the poem are about the street tree. The poem says loosely: passer-by, check out this great tree, and through it, it may be enough. And although torn apart, dirty, the street tree is all nature and all the sky. The bird lays on it, the wind sways it, the sun sings it hope despite death. Philosopher, are you lucky enough to have the tree in your street? Your thoughts will be less arduous, your eyes freer, your hands more willing of less night…

It’s a beautiful poem, I like it very much; although the last sentence doesn’t really make much sense, not even in French, I would say. But well… who cares, that’s one of the privileges of being a poet, you can write non-sense and make it seem like something very deep, seriously.

If you can provide me with a better translation into English or Spanish, please send it to me. I’ll be glad to improve mine!

Here’s the actual poem:

Passant,
regarde ce grand arbre,
et à travers lui
il peut suffire.

Car même déchiré, souillé,
l'arbre des rues,
c'est toute la nature,
tout le ciel,
l'oiseau s'y pose,
le vent y bouge, le soleil
y dit le même espoir malgré
la mort.

Philosophe,
as-tu chance d'avoir l'arbre
dans ta rue,
tes pensées seront moins ardues,
tes yeux plus libres,
tes mains plus désireuses
de moins de nuit.

How to write a love letter

I wonder how many of you, my dear readers, have ever written a love letter. You might think that the art of writing a love letter might be ancient and obsolete, but make no mistake; the tremendous power that well written words can have… to stir someone’s feelings, to feed the flames of desire, to steal someone’s heart and hijack that someone’s brain, goes beyond human understanding. And that tremendous power is timeless.

But why should someone write a love letter? A love letter can be an extremely useful tool in a great diversity of situations, the most obvious one and perhaps the one that requires the highest levels of mastery of the love letter writing art, is the ‘declaration of love’: that is when a man or a woman declares his or her feelings for someone else for the first time in written form and the target person is completely unaware of how the sender feels. The high degree of difficulty is because the love letter in order to complete its ultimate function should not be just a declaration, but it has to plant the seed of love on the heart of the reader. A love letter might be also useful when the loved one is far away, perhaps overseas, perhaps destiny has separated both of you, and spoken words are not good enough to express yourself above those stormy feelings, above that confusion that distance may cause: a love letter could solidify those bonds that suddenly feel so brittle. A love letter can also be used to turn on your partner and use anticipation to ignite the fire within. It can be used for reconciliation when disagreement and resentment may have clouded your partner’s heart. You can also give a love letter as a present or to accompany a present, in order to reinforce the feelings that already exist between both of you… And these are just some examples, the true power of a love letter resides in the capacity to create, modify, or influence, the feelings of the person who the letter is written for. A love letter could also be used for evil purposes, but let’s not talk about that here…


So, how do I write a love letter? There are two important principles that you must have into account in order to write a successful love letter. These two principles are the backbone and heart of your letter, if you ignore them your letter will be ineffective and might cost you or damage your relationship… the more you understand these aspects the more powerful and effective your letter will be.

The very first principle (and perhaps the most important one) is that you must know exactly how you want your loved one to feel. So, before you start writing you must take a moment and clearly imagine how your loved one will feel while reading and after reading the love letter. Do you want him or her to feel happy or excited? Do you want the reader to feel admiration, to feel the kindness in your heart, the manliness or delicacy of your soul? Drunk in love? Infatuated? Or do you want him or her to feel a deep connection? Reassured, bathed in a strong feeling of security and confidence?

It might be counter intuitive, but when writing a love letter your feelings do not take predominance, what matters are the feelings of the person that will read the letter. You words must be targeted at causing the desired effect with the reader’s feelings in mind; if you just aimlessly write about your feelings, and your feelings are the only thing that is in focus, if you use the writing as an outlet to release your repressed emotions, then the love letter will be utterly useless and it will cause the opposite effect, it will be creepy and it will chase your loved away.

If before you start writing, you can have a clear idea of how you want the reader to feel, then when you start composing your letter, the words and the sentences will align with your purpose, they will naturally flow so that the letter will move the reader’s heart towards those emotions you want him or her to feel.

The second principle of writing a love letter is that you must have a good and healthy state of mind at the moment you will start writing. You need to be rested; you need to be in a good mood, feeling fresh and positive… do not write if you’re tired or if you’re stressed. Do not write if you’re feeling confused, do not write if you’re feeling sad or melancholic… the letter will reflect also the state of your mind. You want your letter to show that you’re in control of your feelings, that you know what you want, it should read confident it should read strong. Otherwise, your letter will leave an uneasy feeling on your loved one, he or she wouldn’t know what it is, but they will feel uncomfortable… at best, confused.

So when you write a love letter you should feel good about yourself, you should feel happy, and you should believe that your words are powerful; at the same time keep in mind at all times what exactly do you want your loved one to feel. Then you can begin writing the letter, say the things you want to say, you can use metaphor or not, you can make it poetic or you can make it funny, use whatever style you want to use… don’t really worry about it because it doesn’t really matter, anything else is superfluous. If you fulfill both principles the love letter will be truly charged with the full power of your love, and it will truly touch the recipient’s heart genuinely and deeply.

Do it sometime, you will be amazed by the almost mystical power of a love letter.

To read an example of a love letter I wrote, click here!

Tanai meets the Colombian ambassador in France

Last Wednesday I went to the house of the Colombian Ambassador in France. It was all part of a reunion of alumni from University of the Andes (Uniandes) in Bogotá where I studied Biology. The idea is to create and formalize a network of alumni, current students, and members of Uniandes. To my surprise it just happen to be that the Colombian Ambassador, Fernando Cepeda Ulloa, was the rector, vice-rector, and a professor of my university; so he was hosting the reunion of alumni at his place; which is the official ambassador’s house in France. The house it’s located at the Splanade de Invalides, right in front of a very beautiful park, and some historical buildings where you can find Napoleon’s tomb, and it’s very close to the Grand Palais; such a luxurious house boasting a collection of sculptures and paintings from Colombian most well known artists, like a Botero painting.

The reunion was quite a nice experience, the Ambassador received us, the man is really funny and friendly… with an extremely accentuated Bogotá accent, and despite his informality you could clearly feel that he’s a very wise man. We were about 20 persons, most of them were the typical Colombian upper class, with the exception of an architect whose bohemian life-style was evident, and a first year middle class PhD student engineer who was trying to look upper class… and I, the man who trascends class! All of them extremely successful and cool people, I was impressed in a very positive way. The majordomo gave us plenty of wine, and cooked for us a very tasty chicken rice, just as it’s traditional in Colombia.

Uniandes logo

The funny thing is that about two months ago I wrote to the ambassador asking for an economical support to buy my flight tickets to the Conference in China; and late in the afternoon when I was doing the groceries at Carrefour, he called me to tell me personally that they didn’t have money for those purposes and to give me contact information of someone from a science foundation in Colombia… who of course, didn’t have money for those purposes either. In any case, you can imagine my surprise when I realized it was the ambassador on the phone. Who knew I would get to meet him personally a couple of months later.

The paradox is that in Colombia it was OK to give more than 100 Euros to soldiers for killing guerrilla, but to give 100 Euros to a good man for representing the country at an international scientific conference is impossible.

In conclusion, the experience at the Ambassador’s house was pretty cool and enjoyable and I look forward for the next alumni meeting from Uniandes here in Paris. With so much potential and good people I think we could do great things!

北京 – Update on the Photosynthesis Congress and a little story I heard – Part II

The International Photosynthesis Congress in Beijing was pretty awesome! Particularly because it was announced that the Photosystem II crystal structure had been obtained at an impressive atomic resolution of 1.9 Å. Photosystem II is the only input of energy into the living world, it’s within the leaves of plants and within algae in the oceans. Without it there would be no life on Earth. Perhaps one day I’ll make a blog entry about it… in the meantime, you should check it out on Wikipedia.

In addition, my boss was elected the new president of the International Society of Photosynthesis Research, which is pretty cool. He now gets to help with the organization of the next congress in 2013; in St. Louis, Missouri.

My presentation went well; I was pretty nervous thought… I started talking and immediately I felt my mouth extremely dry! An after-effect of the nervousness? I subtly looked at the table to my left to see if there was some water… nothing. I think I should have been given a glass of water, but that was an honor that only the plenary lecturers got. I survived though; I think my old boss from Sweden was glad to see that I was doing good in France, he asked me a question at the end of the presentation and I could sense it in his eyes and voice tone, he was proud.

Conclusion: Beijing was awesome and the conference too. I’ll be back one day again for sure!


And now a story I heard about the Great Wall of China.

The story says that once an emperor had a beautiful concubine, she was his favorite, but she had suffered too much in life so she never smiled. The emperor tried everything to make her smile, he never succeeded. It seems that a counselor advised him that it would be a great idea to take her to the Great Wall at night, and light the fire signals from tower to tower to tower… a beautiful spectacle! The troops after seeing the signal would get ready and march for battle just to find that there was no enemy and no invasion, which would just add to the amusement of the concubine. The emperor thought it was a wonderful idea and so he did and so it happened. The concubine smiled and they lived happily ever after until the Mongols came, they lit the fired but the soldiers thought it was another joke. Then… Genghis Khan conquered China.

(Warning: this story might not be historically accurate).

北京 - Beijing, China. Impressions – Part I

I always thought of Chinese as quiet and timid people in general; I was totally wrong. On the flight from Paris to Guangzhou the majority of the passengers were from China, and everything was alright, I didn’t suspect anything at all; however, on the flight from Guangzhou to Beijing, which was a domestic flight… wow! What a transformation of personality, I never imagined Chinese people could be so obnoxious and prone to disobedience. Everyone was loud, no one wanted to stay put on their sits, no one wanted to wear the seatbelt even after repeated warnings of the flight attendants, and they ran through the plane from one place to another. In the middle of turbulence when the flight attendants were asking to please sit down, fasten seatbelts and don’t use the toilets… well, it seemed that for many people that was just the perfect time to get up and go to pee. It was kind of funny.

Beijing is huge, very modern, and clean. And at the heart of it all the Forbidden City, so beautiful and magnificent; so colorful, such detail! I was impressed in a very positive way. The metro and transport system is pretty good and extremely cheap, some times you wouldn’t feel like you’re in China if it wasn’t because of the Chinese characters everywhere. Yet, you can still breathe the inequality. How is it possible that you can find one restaurant let’s say T.G.I. Friday’s (an American franchise) and pay 250 Yuan for a piece of meat… and just across the street you can go to another restaurant and get a good meal for just 20 Yuan? Or get a cup of coffee at one place for 40 Yuan, when one could easily eat two dinners for the same money… that’s just bizarre. I don’t see reason for such disparity.

Tall buildings right in front the hotel

In any case, for happy tourists and visitors like me, the city could be a very economic place to be… We were ten people, we ate delicious Chinese food until our bellies exploded, including beers and drinks for just 450 Yuan… that’s pretty much what a single person would pay in Paris at a reasonably good but not that fancy restaurant: amazing. I enjoyed the food so much, oh my god! Chinese food is just made for me; I was born to eat Chinese food.

Ten happy explorers eating in excess (I'm number ten)

Then one afternoon we went to the Great Wall! Sublime, just sublime… an ode to human craftsmanship. What I didn’t imagine at all is that I had to climb to the top of a really tall hill… I don’t really know how long it was but there were like a million stairs, each step of the stair was of a different size, making it harder to climb. Once I went down my legs were shaking.

The top of the hill which only true heroes can reach

The tour guide said that if you climbed to the top you would be a true hero… so you can actually buy a ‘hero certificate’ at the tourist shop: haha…

A true hero

To be continued… tomorrow.

Prelude to China, The Great Wall and the Photosynthesis Congress

Since I was a kid I always dreamed of seeing the Great Wall of China. Such magnificent structure, a testament to human prowess! I never imagined a day would come when this dream would come true… when I would see it with my own eyes, and it came sooner than I expected.

This will be my first trip to China and I’m certain it won’t be the last… since C&C Incorporated (for those of you who don’t know; that’s the name of the hugely successful biotech company I and my friend will create in the near future) shall open a few branches in Asia. But for now, I’ll stay only seven days, I’ll arrive Saturday 21st in the morning and I’ll be traveling back the 27th in the afternoon. I will only have the afternoon of the 21st and the entire 22nd of August to sightsee and explore around. That is because the real reason I’m visiting China is to attend the 15th international Photosynthesis Congress, which is the most important and biggest congress in photosynthesis in the world! Lucky me I’ll present my work there, the title of my talk is:

“A water oxidising electrode consisting of Photosystem II in a TiO2 nanoparticle layer on a conducting surface”

And I’ll be talking the last day, 15 minutes.

Leaving the science behind, international conferences are very enjoyable occasions; generally (not always) you get great food, a lot of booze… free booze sometimes. There’s also a lot of people you know from the scientific community and new people to get to know. It’s always fun, constructive fun, since you’re there to learn (theoretically)!

The previous Photosynthesis Congress was three years ago in Glasgow and I also had the chance to go; then I was a young inexperienced PhD student. That meeting suffered badly because of the food, the food was either fish and ships or a crappy tiny wok… every single day of the week. Not only the food was of insufficient quality and quantity, but for the coffee break there weren’t enough snacks for everyone so people left the lecture sessions earlier in order to be able to compete for some piece of cookie…

Logo of the Photosynthesis Congress in Beijing

As you might realize food plays an important role in conferences, because it sucks to sit for hours at a lecture hall with your stomach empty or totally unsatisfied. It’s very distracting and annoying!

I remember the last day of the Glasgow conference; they were announcing that in three years the new Photosynthesis Congress would be in Beijing! The Chinese guy advertising the conference ended with a PowerPoint slide of Chinese awe inspiring delicacies… and his last words were: “and there will be delicious food!”. I think I shed a tear of happiness.

The Congress people also organized a trip to the Great Wall, which is deep in my heart the secret real reason why I’ll be standing there in front of the scientific community speaking about Photosystem II in a titanium dioxide surface.