Yann Arthus Bertrand

The other day while walking through the different cute shops located in Upper Haight, I found a bookstore that had some publications about Yann Arthus Bertrand -an amazing french photographer.

I was lucky to see one of his beautiful exhibitions last year called "The earth from above", that as its name says, are pictures taken from either planes or helicopters, from over 150 countries around the world. Back home, the pictures were exhibited in front of the Palace of Goverment, gathering people from all ages. Needless to say, the colours and beautiful sceneries are breathtaking.

I have attached some of the pics that he shows on his webpage. Unfortunately his work is now being shown all over the world but here! but the pics on his site give you a pretty accurate idea of his work.


http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/index_new.htm

Good test

I've been looking for a better paid job. I am also going to College. Business School.
If I had just graduated, I would be unemployed. Following the National Statistics Institute, my situation would be catalogued as "looking for a job on the field for the first time and can't find it". An unemployed. Just like that, no need to find specialized titles for it. Just unemployed. But I have my job as an "Office Manager" while I make my way through school. Not much money... but enough to pay for it.

So, I have been applying for a few jobs lately. I still can't find something good. And things could be so much different if months ago that bloody "psychological exam" wouldn't have come on the way. Prerequisite to any good job, the job I wanted, of course.

To take the test, I was invited to an old clerks office that stank like mothballs, where a very nice man, Mr. George -the psychologist- was sitting, waiting for me just to start a mini interview previous to the test. After answering the questions, specially designed to receive the exact same answer by anyone who takes it -why did I want the job?, what did I want in life?, what did I do on my spare time?- he handed me an exam divided into four parts.

Part 1. Had 30 minutes to answer 45 questions, about what was the little figure that followed the sequence illustrated in a piece of paper. Kind of a TV show competition. "This measures your IQ" he was saying to me while all I wanted was to concentrate and do it right, just to show him I wasn't an idiot. I answered 27.

Part 2. Written Test. I had to finish the phrases that were incomplete with "whatever that came first to my mind" as the header said. "In this task, besides assessing your answers, we will also analyze your hand writing" Mr. George said to me. At the end, I was just trying to write beautifully, and of course I ended up answering like a beauty pageant contestant. When the phrase would say "what I hate the most is..." I would continue the phrase with "...the lies and infidelity" with my best handwriting. Pathetic.

Part 3. The stains. The never ending stains on cardboards that show pictures of hairy body parts, dragons and samurais stabbing themselves with huge swords covered with blood. I said that I saw dancers in snow and colorful butterflies. I think that I passed this one.

Part 4. I had a minute to write all the words I could imagine that started with the letter B. The first ones that came to my mind were bitch, bollocks, bastard. So I got all blocked. Laughing. When 40 seconds had passed already and I had nothing written there, I ended up writing "beach" and "bear". That's it. Nothing like "brightness", "bounding", "broad-minded" came out. Jeez.

Talking to a friend that goes to psychology school, I got that these tests were necessary due to two reasons: first, to justify the psychologists existence, and second, to provide different companies with different people/personalities suitable for each one of the posts available they had. And then I told him: "I don't know about you, but I would go for the first option"

Time and things

I had an ugly dream. A terrifying one. And as expected, I couldn't sleep anymore. And choosing between "staring at the light that comes through my window" and "write", I'd rather write. That's what it's all about. About the time to write.

The thing is, that I started to think about time. About my time. And in those things that have their own specified time: time to drink coffee, to look at the mirror, to look at people passing by outside my window, to watch telly, to hang out with friends. Time is something that is irremediably ours. And those things that makes us happy, that allow us to fulfill our dreams, kiss sadness or anger away, or that deep anguish, indifference, doubt, idleness, are the ones that deserve that time. To die is to say that we had time and that we don't have it anymore. Time is our misfortune, is true, but it's also the tool to make a revolution, to accomplish the mission that each one of us has here, in this world.

I for one, don't have much of my time. Because I have a long list of different things that are completely compulsory: going to the supermarket, pay the bills, clean my room. Or working at a bar from 10 pm to 6 am. And sleep and recover energies for a new long late shift. I guess that from there originates my need to use my unconscious time. Thing that I am not achieving yet, but led me to think that I, working at a bar and sleeping when the rest of the city is awake, have another timing. And I need to use it in a different way, organize it depending on the weather or the traffic, my mood or whatever you can think of. Anyway. It is my time. The hours for me have a different value: for 8 hours I am immersed in another time, that although it is the right one, it is super edited to the other people's time. It is not my real time. Is the one that belongs to the kid that wants to drink for less money, or to the girl that wants to find a boyfriend, or to the group of lads that want to party. Their time absorbs mine for a while, leaving me empty at times. Leaving me quiet. And you really have to fight against the lethargy so you don't get used to living with the other people's timing. That is why, now, when I should be asleep -because is Sunday and I have my day off- I'm awake doing one of the things that I do when I have my time: write. My favourite hours are the ones that most of the people don't use, and in this loneliness, in this time, with my name and surname, I shelter myself.

There isn't just one reality and this is a weapon that can boost and boost our relation with the world and the way that we interact in it. Because now I am here, and I can see outside my window the garbage collector, a dog barking very loud and the house behind mine with the lights on. And I, live it and write about it. Even when they don't know it. And perhaps tomorrow, somebody will watch me going to the corner shop, and then somebody else will do the same with me. And the time and reality chain won't stop.

My time is like a door to freedom. Or perhaps freedom itself. And you don't know how happy makes me to think about it.

Chinitas en San Francisco

Y cuando pense que las chinitas chilenas eran top por haber viajado al espacio, me encuentro con todas las chinitas gringas hibernando en tres miseros arbolitos dentro de una reserva forestal de mas de 500 hectareas.
Resulta que las locas hibernan en solo estos tres arbolitos hasta mediados de agosto para luego salir a carretear por todo el estado de California...!
Es impresionante verlas a todas amontonadas, parecen racimos de uvas!

Nipples in SFO

Durante mi estadia en San Francisco, he conocido a los amigos computines de Miguelito. Uno de ellos es Brad, quien tiene una pagina web (en realidad es un "weblog" - que es un paso mas alla de la web normal- segun los entendidos!). Anyway. Nunca me habia visto en un computador, frente a unas fotos tan... piluchas.
Al amigo de Miguelito, Brad (chicas, un prospecto mas que les presento que es bien amoroso, tierno, sano, y simpatico) coloco lo siguiente en su pagina:

http://codinginparadise.org/weblog/2004/08/confused-and-wanderin-in-san-francisco.html