Double Rainbow

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Nuevas Texturas 01

One of the many daily "commutes", caught on fish-eye

:)

Late night ranting

Hace unos días estuve conversando con una de mis amigas aquí en la universidad.
Tenemos la misma edad, ella me gana por algunos meses, pero ella ha estado en la universidad por bastante tiempo, prácticamente 4 años. Y yo acabo de empezar mis estudios aquí.
Es extraño.
Yo tuve que atrasarme un año y medio por motivo de las diferencias entre sistemas y años escolares. Además, el fin del bachillerato aquí es muy importante, así que quise estar lo más preparado posible. Mientras tanto, ella había terminado el bachillerato a muy temprana edad, y aún era una menor de edad cuando empezó la universidad (eso creo). Para describirla en pocas palabras, ella es muy buena onda, pero esta super ocupada.

En fin, le estaba hablando de cómo me sentía al principio de mis estudios universitarios.
Todo me parecía como un sueño: perfecto, con muchísima gente alrededor (en todos mis sueños siempre hay mucha gente), muy divertido pero con un reto que parece al principio ser enorme.
Todo me parecía demasiado perfecto, como si en realidad mis sueños de estar estudiando en la universidad se hubieran vuelto parte de mi realidad. Había estado esperando, preparándome, llenando formularios y circulares, mandando emails, haciendo llamadas, visitando embajadas, etcétera, todo para poder estar en tierra firme australiana, tener mi ciudadanía y estudiar en una universidad australiana.

Mis ojos se humedecían con el simple pensar que todo lo que había hecho anteriormente recreó la realidad que tengo ante mí, y que todo ese esfuerzo y paciencia en realidad valieron la pena. Finalmente, un ciclo largo y laborioso fue completado, y otro más está empezando.

Pero me puse a pensar de las consecuencias que también me trajo el ser un estudiante muy dedicado a mis estudios (ahorita estoy bastante desorganizado como para considerarme dedicado académicamente). Todos esos años como adolescente, teniendo y aprendiendo únicamente lo que la escuela me podía ofrecer, pero viviendo de manera solitaria y aislada, sí que han tenido su efecto en mi personalidad. Si te pudiera decir en resumidas cuentas qué fue lo que hice en todos esos años como adolescente fue simplemente ir a la escuela. Naa' más. Entonces, cuando llegué al continente oceánico, no tuve muchas habilidades sociales. Aún así me integré a la sociedad escolar y local muy bien, y aprendí bastante de mis errores y éxitos.

Admití que a veces me pongo a pensar de las cosas que posiblemente perdí viviendo de tal manera, ya sea ciertas experiencias, amistades y amores. Mi amiga me corrigió inmediatamente, diciéndome que era innecesario y ridículo que pensase tan negativamente ahora que estaba en un nuevo mundo. Que de aquella soledad y dedicación se creó la oportunidad de venir aquí a esta universidad y de convivir con tales amistosos y divertidos compañeros. Después de todo, estando ahí en la universidad se puede vivir más que nunca en cualquier marco de tiempo en cualquier otro momento de la vida.

Le sonreí en aquel instante.

Hace poco me dí cuenta de lo verdadero que es aquello que mi amiga me dijo.

Aún tengo que agradecerle por la plática que tuvimos, se me aclararon muchas cosas que llevaba en mi cabeza desde hace mucho tiempo. Me siento aliviado y sin remordimiento.

Sabes qué? Le voy a escribir una nota. Sé que está muy ocupada, pero ella tendrá tiempo como para leer algo breve. Lo pondré debajo de su puerta.

Por lo pronto, la vida va muy bien.
Espero que muy pronto pueda organizarme BIEN para mis estudios aquí, porque por el momento casi todo es un desmadre.
Buenas noches, mis queridos ciudadanos del mundo.

Double Rainbow

Call me crazy

There are instances when you just realize what you are doing, you stop and call it quits. There are other times when you just keep on going on, pressing on, until you get what you want despite the discouragement from other people or the environment.
There are times when you just go crazy. And not always because of something, but also perhaps by someone. (It may not be a bad thing anyway) [no tl&dr here]

It happened to me one day that I decided to meet a friend, call him J, after a lecture, while another friend of mine, call her N, went over to the university's library to do some work.

I couldn't find J anywhere, he was just nowhere to be found even though he had given me a precise place to find him. So then I decided to go back to N, who was at the library. She had told me that she was going to be at a corner, somewhere, doing her work. Fair enough, so I thought. The library has plenty of corners but it should be easy to find her among the books and computers.

But I was so wrong. The library is about ten floors high, each floor almost identical to the rest. The furniture, the color palette on the walls and furniture, the book stands, the computers, the windows; all of them identical, as if the architects did Ctrl-C Ctrl-V all throughout the building. I went through the first four floors, investigating and searching through every corner of each floor.

At the same time, I came across some friends who I worked with while in high school, some whom I hadn't seen in years. I spent a few minutes talking to them while my dizziness evened out. But once I got up to the fourth floor, my head was spinning. Fast and Hard. No pun intended.

With my body sweating, I decided to call it quits and went outside. The cool air refreshed my mind, and in my madness, I decided to do one final thing. If it didn't work, to hell with the world and all, I would just go to my dorm to drink some really cold water and have bite or something. But that madness, that little flickering flame engulfing my chest and burning my mind, told me to keep on searching, despite the ridiculously minuscule chances of actually finding her in one of the thousands of corners that the library has to offer throughout its many floors and chambers.

What the hell.. I said. Let's just do it.
I walked to the nearest elevator and pressed ten, the highest floor that the elevator could possibly take me to. The guys in the elevator where possibly wondering why I was squinting my eyes so hard, while I held my palm against my forehead during the entire ride. Meanwhile, in my mind, I was telling myself: DUDE, just lemme find her!! I'm almost out of my mind here!!

Tenth floor, my head still spinning, and I was the last person to leave the elevator. I was amazed that there were actually people up in that floor, minding their own business like normal library-users. I guess they might have been wondering why on God a short-haired guy decided to charge in and walk furiously through each of the corners of the highest floor in the library with apparently no purpose.

I kept on searching. Nothing. Nope. Not there. Not here either. Ohh.. maybe? Nope, not her.

Finally, I had inspected the whole floor, except for one bit.
In my mind, two processes were running: If I didn't find her I would just gotten the hell out of the building and never come back again. But if I did, I would have exploded and the Pope would have come by and call this a miracle.

And just guess what, just seriously, what kind of trick was being played on me? Like.. OH MY GOD.. WHYYYYYYYY??!?!!!
There she was, on the edge of the room, at the uppermost floor, silently doing her work with such unperturbed tranquility which is only replicated in art and silence. She seemed like one of the most serene persons I had ever seen in my life. Well, I'd be damned. I mean, there she was, 100% herself! No fakes, no copies, no nuthin'. And there I was standing there with a whirlpool in my head, sweating and my heart in my throat.

I double facepalmed myself, while my brain was being crushed by a hammer inside my skull. I wasn't angry at her, not at all, but I was rather amazed by my determination to find her. I swear, I didn't know that I had such in me. Normally, people would quit from the first floors. But no, I did quite a lot of search and played dice with my last floor search.


If that was an act out of craziness, then I surely must have gotten it wrong. Something besides that must have kept me going. Maybe I'm just waaaay too crazy? Seriously, something interesting developed right there.
As for now, good night to y'all, keep on rockin'.

New World @ UNSW

Finally!!!
Ok, tl&dr at the bottom.

This project that took about 4 years of planning and waiting has finally come to its end!

Four years ago I was walking along Circular Quay in Sydney, and saw an advertisement from the University of New South Wales. This add was particularly about an open day. I, in my still youthful and fresh mind, back when I was 16 years old (really? I feel so old now...) decided to check it out. I found UNSW a really incredible university, just ... wow. The buildings were astonishing, and every where I went there was always some interesting activity on. I just loved it from the first time I saw it.

But before moving on, I'd like to put that moment in context with my personal world.

I was just finishing year 11 and was beginning to think ahead, trying to see far beyond the little world I lived in back home in Mexico. I was always the top of my class, and had started to feel limited by how everyone else dragged me from pushing the classes forward, learning new stuff, etc. The education system over there is not flexible enough to let and encourage the better students to really excel further than every one else.

So I just started to think about what university I would go to:

If I stay and start uni here I'm not going anywhere. My life would just be sh#t. Even if I worked overseas, all my professional titles would be considered useless.

I can go to the States and study over there. No big deal, no problem. I'd do just fine and have a good time + life. Just that maths is really bad over in Mexico, so I would be kind of disadvantaged.

I can go to Australia. Australia... kangaroos, koalas. Not much really?


I knew enough about the US, but Australia seemed quite exotic to me at that time. I decided to take on the challenge and the adventure of going to a country where people drive on the wrong side of the road and speak weirdly.

Although it was tough adjusting to this country, I survived and prevailed. I'd be damned, I did much better than anyone would have thought. My life here has been awesome. And I've met the most beautiful and friendliest of people ever.

Those dark years of being educationally limited are gone.
Those dark years of waiting for becoming an Australian are history.
Those dark years of hoping to get into university in Australia, a dream that I thought to be far too complicated to achieve and unrealistic according to the education I have received in my life..

gone they are as well.

I'm in university!!! FINALLY!!
I can now call myself a university student! This, this is just...
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!


---tl&dr---
I am a university student.
I am overloaded with happiness. :D
That is all.

Moving out

Damnit!! I missed yesterday's post!!! RRRRRRGHGHGHRGHRHGRH!!!
Oh well, I was incredibly busy working with my packing for my transition to UNSW.
It's going to be such an incredible thing being over there.

I might come back home to get more stuff, if needed.

So now I'm just getting stuff into the car, and getting ready to go to bed for an early morning. Warm, light breakfast. Some bacon, toast, maybe some oatmeal, apple, grapefruit juice, something like that. Then I move out.

And then New College.
And then O-week.
And then uni starts!!!