"http://www.llumenera.com"

For lovers of NY. For those who have been in the city that never sleeps and they came back excited. For those who haven’t been there and they would like to know how the city breathes and what happens there every day. And for all the curious people, I recommend you one blogg: http://www.llumenera.com
This blogg is written by friend of mine from high school: Miquel Tuson. He studied biology in the university , when he finished the career he went to NY to do the postdoc. It was 4 years ago he is now doing researching about cancer.
He says that it is hard at the beginning ,that you can feel very alone sometimes in that city with so many people, but he also says when you adapt yourself to the city, you do not realize it and has passed one year and two, and who knows how many years is he going to be there.
I recommend this blog with some delicious reality bites and full of wonderful thoughts and comments about life in New York.
Enjoy it.

Romantic films

The other day , in class we were talking about love movies. I would like to recommend you a love movie that I saw a long time ago: Untamed Heart (Corazón Indomable) It was directet by Tony Bill on 1993 and the main actors are Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater. It tells the story of a man and a woman that work in the same restaurant. She, unfortunate in love and he with healthy problems ( heart problems) and secretly in love with her. His heart is very weak and needs to be transplanted. But he doesn't want it to be transplanted because he is afraid not to love her the same way.They live a very nice and tender love story. I'm not going to tell you more about the film You will have to watch the film to know what happens... I hope you will enjoy it.

Did you know?

This week a friend sent me this youtube video and I'd like to share it with you. This is an interesting reflection about how fast is evolving the world we live in. The video is a little bit long but I think it gives us some very interesting statistics and data. It made me think about how we must be prepared for change, especially at work because the idea of having the same job for all life is becoming a utopia .
Internet and computers are the main exponents of the speed that everything changes. The use of internet in our world began 17 years ago. Now for many people, it would be impossible to understand life without mobiles or internet. Actually, all teenagers we know were born with cellulars and internet in the world , then they couldn't see the change it meant in our lives.
It seems to be yesterday in the Olimpic Games in Barcelona.Journalists had to send their chronicles with fax or phone (not cellular yet)because the Internet did not exist yet.
The world changes fast and we have to change with it, we can not be blocked.

About puzzles

During the Easter vacation I found a very relaxing and entertaining activity: making puzzles.
Three weeks ago, I was walking around Barcelona,  down the street  Diputació I saw a puzzles shop called Puzzlemania . The store is small but well used,it is full of puzzles of all shapes and sizes. You can find three-dimensional puzzles, spherical, miniature puzzles with tiny pieces, puzzles with 20 pieces  or puzzles up to 12000 pieces!They have another interesting service, you can bring them a picture and they  create a puzzle with it.
The fact is that I decided  to buy a 3000 piece puzzle of New York. The puzzle is a photo of the  New York skyline by night. I must admit that when you open the puzzle box and you see a bag with the 3000 pieces all together  you feel a little afraid.  Making a puzzle requires a  detailed methodology. The first step is to find all the pieces that make up the outline of the puzzle. The second step is to find the  pieces that correspond to the buildings of the sky line. And finally, the most difficult step , you have to make up the sky. This is the most difficult part because you need to know to separate the pieces in groups of  color tones and all the pieces seem to be the same color.
I encourage you to make a puzzle,  it is relaxing and it makes you forget everything  when you are working on it. You will live the magic experience of setting a beautiful image from a lot of pieces that at first  seem to have no sense.

Old or Young???

Is she old or young?

Let's play a funny game. Look at the picture obove in detail. What can you see ? An old woman? Are you sure you don't see anything more? Try again , come on. Maybe you can see a smart young woman too.

If you can only can see the old woman, think her nose could be the young woman's cheek and chin. And the wart on the nose of the old woman could be the nose of the young one. If you look in detail, you will see the mouth of the old woman becomes a beautiful necklace the young woman is wearing.

Psychologists call this “Perceptual investment”.This picture was created by a cartoonist called W.E.Hill on 1915 and it was studied by a psychologist , Dr Boring on 1930. He says , when we look at a picture , our brain groups the elements that apear there according to principles of organization. There are ambiguous drawings like this one that make the brain confused. Depending on the elements we group , our brain sees one thing or another.

F.C. BARCELONA

It's Sunday, Barça football club plays in Barcelona , in the Camp Nou at 17:00. This is the best hour to go to the stadium because I 'm going to be back home early. We are leaders and we are playing a good football , the people are expecting to win again and still be the leaders of the Spanish football league.

I love going to see Barça playing. It's a kind of a ritual. I eat with my entire family like all Sundays, when we finish eating we stay all together talking. About 16:00 hour, I have a metting with some friends, Barça's members like me. We take the underground to go to the stadium. I like seeing all the different kind of people going to the stadium. You can see people of all ages, from all social classes, from everywere.

I see a grandfather with his grandson who seems to be very excited, this might be his first time going to a football match, he's wearing a scarf with the Barça's logo. The grandfather is telling stories about F.C. Barcelona's football players who were stars in the 50's. I see a pair of sweethearts, I think she has given two tickets for the Barça as a present , it maybe is his birthday or they are celebrating something. There is also an entire family beside me. A woman and her husband and their two sons enveloped with big coats and warmed with two woollen hats and woollen gloves with Barça's logo.

In front of me there is a man , very well dressed, he seems to be worried. He might be thinking about his Barça and the difficult match it's going to be today. Behind him there are two a men seated they seem to work in a kind of manual job, they have big hands , damaged for the hard work. They are discussing about the best strategy to win the team that plays against Barça today.

All these people, my friends and I are going to see what Barça does today. We are going to scream , to suffer , to enjoy seeing our favorite football team. For an hour and a half we are going to leave our problems aside and we all are going to think about Barça's victory. We'll see what happens...

Barack Obama

First of all I must say that I prefered Obama to be the president of the United States than Mc Cain. I think Obama’s eleccion means a lot about the change that is making civil society in America. Many journalist were talking about the hidden racist vote, and the possibility of some surprises in the election nigth. Finally the forecasts were wright and Obama won the eleccions. I think Mc Cain represents the conservatism and the continuation of the Bush’s policies. Republicans don’t want to recognise the homosexual rights and they are against abortion. This ideas of the republican party are shared by the vast majority of the deep America.

Having said that I think in Europe and in the rest of the world everybody have put too many expectations in Obama. It can be dangerous because I’m not sure he is going to be able to make the big change we all are expecting. For exemple , all the companies and lobby’s who has given money to help Obama’s election campaign now will ask him to give them some “favors”. No politician is free from all that kind of preasures and they are not free to make all what they want to. And more in the States, where the politician campaing is very expensive and the financial contributions are crucial to win the elections.

Another problem for Obama will be the Irak war. During the campaign, he said the troops were going to be back home if he became the president of the United States. We'll if it is true and all the aerican forces in Irak will be back home or they continue with the Irak ocupation.

The financial crisis in the United States and in the rest of the world is another big problem he has. Everybody is waiting for the magic solution but I think it will be more complicated to solve than we think.

We'll see what happens, and if the big expectation Obama has created is certain and everything changes for the better.