Key ring

Short post, I am dying again :P
Today I received a gift from the Colegio de Psicólogos, the board decided to give us a key ring... well not everyone, just the ones that had already celebrated their birthdays this year, the unlucky ones will receive it in their birthdays. It looks cool, I really like it... and that's it for today :P

New grounds...

So, today I went to some schools to promote my Vocational Orientation project, I went to the territories of my... assistant (still I don't know how to call her :P), we went downtown Juarez, I really don't know that place other than a few blocks that I had to use to go to El Paso and a few other places just around there.

I thought that it would be ugly there... and I wasn't wrong :P, but it wasn't as bad as I thought, and fortunately it was pretty quiet, although on the way back I saw a man get out of a house and he just fell, just like that, I saw him and changed directions, I really wasn't comfortable as to go help him, or do something, I asked my assistant if she saw it and she told me that no, she just followed me, but told me that it was pretty common, that maybe it was only a drunk guy.

I now know a little more of this city... a place that I don't really want to know :(

Frustration...

Today I received a new patient, the brother of the girl who's mom wanted a female psychologist, since the patient is underage I had to first interview the mom, and according to her there are many things that can be worked here. After the interview with the mom I wanted to talk with the son, it's not always possible due to time restrictions, but since finished a little early with my other patient I took advantage of that time.

The boy is 16 years old and he was so disinterested that I found hard to continue with the interview, at least twice I had to feign that I was writing something to think of what to ask, I never had that problem, but I never had a patient that wasn't interested in therapy, I felt a little frustrated, but I will try to make the best out of this and not frustrate, I will give my best shot and if he continues to not be interested, well, to hell with him (I know that this might not be appropriate to say this, but know I am not the psychologist, I am me) :P, I won't force anything therapy on anyone.

Netflix...

I have always wanted to have Netflix here in Mexico, a few weeks ago it was made available here, I knew about it since last week but I wasn't able to register since I don't have a Credit/Debit Card, or that's what I thought. I was cleaning a drawer and found an old Debit Card that I had a few years ago, I haven't used it for a long time and it is obviously deactivated.

Since I had nothing to loose I tried to register with it and lucky me it  worked, I have my 1 month trial, and since it too isn't expensive I will pay for it, maybe I can even convince my brother and/or sisters to share the expenses if they want to use it too :P.

Assumptions...

Why is it that just because you where born in a certain place people think you should know, be interested or at least heard of something related to its "culture"?

A few days ago I was talking with some friends at my work, I don't know why they started to talk about a show or comedians by the name "Las Lavanderas" and I didn't know about them, I never watched the show or even heard the name of it, or at least I don't remember it.

My friends didn't believed me that I had never seen that show, and where questioning me if I was serious when I said that, I was dead serious, I have never watched that show and I don't care if I never watch it, I am not fond of Mexican comedy. The "discussion" lasted at least 10 minutes and they didn't believe me that I have never watched that show, they showed me some images and a video about them.

At some point one of my friends said that it wasn't possible to not know about it since it "it is so famous", that I at least should have watched them, or heard about them, I said that I don't watch tv and my friend said that it it was impossible, that just because I live in this city I should have at least heard of it, to which I responded that I wasn't joking, I don't know what you are talking about, the "discussion" ended there, but they where somewhat surprised because I have never seen a show. People act stupid sometimes (most of the times) :P

Dying...

I feel like I am dying of tiredness, today was a long day, a cool day, but long. First of all I wake up early (since I can't seem to be able to fall sleep again after I wake up) and finished writing some code for my work, I then went to tune up a computer I had to repair, it wasn't booting, windows started to load then it restarted every time, easy to repair, but since that computer had not been used for over a year it had many things I decided to update some drivers, software, etc., it was at least a little more decent than it was after that. While doing this I was testing that the code I wrote was working as intended and backing up my work. As far as I can tell it is working fine, the way it is supposed to do, but since people not every time do the things they are supposed to it might need a little more work in the near future, but for now it is good.

In the evening Sergio and I went to a friends house to hang out, we eat there (I prepared some discada), had some drinks (obviously coca cola) and played some darts, after that Sergio and I stayed outside my house just talking about music, Dream Theater specially and we sang some songs. It was pretty cool, I don't think that there is a band that I enjoy as much as Dream Theater. And now I am here at my bed writing almost falling sleep.

Chrome...

For the last 2 days Google Chrome has been acting weird, I don't know why but it won't load anything, not even my localhost, it just stands there "loading", but it isn't doing anything, I already re-installed it and deleted all cache and cookies, and at first it was working fine, but today it started again with the same problem, I don't know but I'll be checking for viruses and malware, and I will be using Firefox in the mean time :P

It stayed that way while I wrote this in Firefox :/

Getting the hang of...

I feel like I am finally getting the hang of this, yesterday I finished Dead Space 2, and I only played a couple of minutes in the morning before going to work (I never played more than 40 45 minutes at this times), and sometimes when I got home early (not too common), I have been on time with my work(s), except one that is giving me hell :P, but I will dedicate more time when I can since this isn't a priority at the moment.

I have had more free time that I have been using to do other things like watch some Seinfeld again, I am already at season 4 (second half) and I have been working out a little more than what I was doing, and I have spent more time with my family (not as much as I used to, but more nonetheless).

I still want to do some other things since I moved here, but for the moment I feel comfortable and productive and not as workaholic as I felt a few weeks ago, though I still feel like a workaholic, just not at the same level as before.

Project Advertising...

Since this Monday I have been promoting my project in some schools, it has been a little tough, I don't like to go to a school and be at the mercy of the security, teachers and/or principals, I'd prefer to make an appointment  or something like that, but it can't be done, at least not that easily, it is more convenient getting there and speaking directly to the principal and tell him about the project, so far I have gone to 8 schools.

I can't know if this is going to work, in some of the schools the principals looked interested in the project, but at the same time were a little skeptical, but said that they would try, in others they were somewhat interested and told me that they would tell the students, but they didn't sound so sure about it either. Just in one I wasn't able to do anything, since the secretary told me that I had to go to other place to ask permission to promote my services.

Even if this doesn't look that good at first I won't give up, I have been working way too much for this and I have to make it work, the only problem is that this doesn't depend on me now, but on the students and teachers part.
Next week my "employee" (she keeps claiming that I am her boss, so now she is now my employee lol) and me  already have planned to visit at least another 15 schools. Lets see how this works, and luckily I haven't been nervous when talking with the principals, lol, lets see if I can do that in front of a group -.-.

Long day...

Today was a freaking long day, I was out almost all day... actually from 9 to 9, I went to CAPSIC in the morning to finish some reports I had to give and then went to promote my project in 2 schools since I forgot to ask my boss to sign some letters and she wasn't there. I had to read something that I was going to work with my patient and, and after that the receptionist informed me that we had a meeting planned in the afternoon so I wasn't able to leave.

Since I finished the report for my patient almost at 5 I had a had 2 hours to do other things, so I was reading some things while waiting for the meeting. Before it two friends and I went to buy some things for the meeting (chips and coke), that was my only food of the day after my breakfast... that and lots of water. After the meeting I got home.

Since I didn't eat anything all day (just breakfast and some chips and coke) I went directly to see what was there so I could eat, I had only a cereal and a yogurt, I feel to tired, I need a better condition because now I am officially dead :P.

Moving out...

I don't know if what I am doing counts as moving out, but for the last months, whenever I felt the need to work without being disturbed I have been coming to the other house of my parents, but I got back as soon as I finished or when I was going to sleep, well, since this weekend I have not been sleeping in my parents house, I have stayed in the other house at night (and most of the day since I worked almost all weekend), still I have to eat with my parents since I only have my room, a bed, a desk and my laptop :P... and some random things.

Today I moved some other things and am planning on staying here for as long as I need, it is more convenient to me, I get distracted a lot less and have been working out a little more since I have some equipment here. I can't say that this is the best thing I could have done, but at the moment it is the most convenient. Still I will go to my parents house to do various things, like playing in my brothers computer >.<... well what ever I can't do here, lol. But when I have to work or sleep this will be my place :P

Spam!!

If there is something I hate when checking my mail or surfing the web is spam, though, I don't have that problem anymore, at least not in gmail and are more careful with the websites I visit, still I only have problems with some facebook application requests and things like that, but they are sent to the spam folder in gmail.

Today my brother bought me a bundle with all the DLC's from Magicka (I wrote about this game in May I think), they had a 75% off offer for today and I could not refuse that deal (I hate you steam :P). I thought it would only be 1 email notification, but I was damn wrong, I received 7 email notifications and steam opened another 7 windows of gift notifications.

It was kinda annoying since I had to close each one of them and then they told me that I had already received that gift (it activated with the first one) and had to close another window, but it was worth it :P... and then I realized I haven't finished this game. Dammit, I know what I will play after Dead Space 2.

Bad kind of spam, one from a game I haven't played for at least half a year, and the other from a game I never even played :|

Confidence...

Today I received a message from a person I met at the fair I had last week, she was asking me for professional help, at first I thought that it could be related to our works, since she works at another institution (Secretaria de Salubridad y Asistencia), but upon reading her facebook status I knew it wasn't for that, it was something personal.

At first she only asked me if I was working as a psychologist, and the directions for my workplace, after some messages she told me that she wanted me to be her psychologist, that from that time we talked I inspired confidence to her.

This isn't the first time something like this happens (well, it is the first time as a psychologist), I have always been told to inspire confidence in other people since I got into college, and even before that. It has been pretty interesting, but sometimes I think people expect too much from me, I have been told things that I probably didn't want to know, from suicide attempts to abortions, depression, drug abuse, and many other things.

But it hasn't been all that tragic, it can have a good side too, like this friend told me that she was getting married before telling her best friends (I wasn't that close to this friend as her other friends :P), it felt weird, because I couldn't tell any of our friends, lol, but I kept the secret.

I still feel weird when someone I barely know says that he/she has confidence in me :P

Pressure!!!

Today I prepared some food for Sergio, I told him that I was going to prepare some pasta that I used to do at least once a week when we were roomies, but I felt that I needed to do something more, so I prepared him a cake, I didn't thought it would take me so much time to do it... well I knew almost how much time it would take, what I forgot was that I had to let it cool before I put the frosting in it... and that I had to put frosting.

I didn't take that in to account when I was planning how much time it would take. He was supposed to come to my house at 12:00, but I sent him an email asking him to come at 12:30, but he didn't read it :P (I should have called him, lol). When he came to my house I was just preparing things to make the frosting (whipped cream frosting) and felt pressured to finish it quickly and I forgot to put the vanilla extract in it.

It tasted good, but too much like cream and no vanilla, well that wasn't a problem, I forgot it because I felt the pressure of him being there when I still needed to do other things, and then I forgot that the cake was still a little hot and the whipped cream started to "melt" in the cake, I thought that it would be ruined, but it did not, it didn't look THAT good (I am a little too perfectionist when it comes to food, not that much in presentation, but in flavor and other things yeah), didn't look bad either, but I know that it would have been at least a little better if I should have not rushed it.

Still, the food was good, the cake too, and we finally finished watching the Millennium trilogy. All in all, an awesome day :).

And I just noticed that I didn't take any pictures of the food :/

Oh, and thanks to Sergio's Mom for doing for me some mash potatoes and lending me her kitchen to do some vegetables stir fry (carrot, onion and red and yellow bell pepper), and to Michelle for helping me to cut most of them :P

Agenda...

It seems that I need one now, for one of my projects I have to check every week if there will be a course, conference, teleconference, training or whatever in a weekly news-feed from CFOSC (Centro para Fortalecimiento de la Sociedad Civil),  this week it had news for a course that will be held this September 30 and October 1st in the Tec de Monterrey.

I need to write this because I will forget about it if I don't have it present all the time, that's why I will start using google calendar, but I feel I need something else, I'll probably use a notebook too, an agenda is too formal for me, dammit, I just don't feel like me doing this kind of things :P (being organized and not doing my work at the last moment, lol).

Modem

Today I asked Sergio to order me a new modem since the last one Telmex gave us sucks, the old one we had was fine, but too old and was failing from time to time, this one on the other hand fails way too often disconnecting us, and that's why my brother and mom decided to buy a new one (we read that the brand and model Telmex gave us is just plain bad, and they rather buy one that we know is good than let Telmex give us another bad modem).

Lets see how this works, this modem looks like a beast compared to the one Telmex gave us :P

Genres...

Today I was going to receive a new patient at my work, a 13 year old girl, unfortunately the mom of my patient wanted a female psychologist and I only did the initial interview with her (the mom), I can not complain much about this, really, since the first patient I got was the opposite, he wanted a male psychologist and this gave me the opportunity to start working here in CAPSIC.

Since I don't have any other patient I felt happy because I was going to work with someone else, but on the other hand, I am going to start promoting my project and I'll be a little too busy the next... months. So, it might be better for the time being.

Wasted day...

Well, today I didn't do much, I can't really say that it was a wasted day as the title suggests, but at least at CAPSIC I feel that today was a waste of time, I needed the approval from my boss for some letters and brochures to start going to some schools to promote my project. I sent her this since Thursday for her to check it and help me correct whatever was needed, but unfortunately she didn't have time to read my email.

It was somewhat justified since this past Saturday we had the fair, and Friday I suppose she was still preparing some things for the fair. Today I had to call her since I needed to know if she had already seen it, but when I called she told me that she was at a funeral (I think that the son of a colleague died) and it felt uncomfortable, and since I had nothing to do I got out of work early today.

I came home and was going to start working with other things but since I had some free time I decided to play a little, I started Dead Space 2, and dammit, it looks awesome in my brothers computer :P, I only played for less than an hour, but the game is really amazing, so far I like it more than the first. After that I worked a little and watched two episodes of Seinfeld (I am at season 4 already).

I didn't work that much today, and I relaxed for a little, except for the part in CAPSIC it was a pretty good day :), I almost took a nap too, but I don't remember why I had to get up and then I forgot about it and started doing other things.

Bad Salad...

So, there is this band by the name of Bad Salad, I have been waiting for them to release their first album for a long time now, but unfortunately they have not put a release date yet, though they have been working on their album. I have been following them since I heard a pretty good cover of Metropolis part 1, after hearing it I subscribed to the channel of one of the members of the band and after that I got some requests from other members to subscribe and I saw some of the videos they had and they were awesome.

As for this moment they only have two songs, and I loved them from the beginning, I really like this band and want them to grow big, it seems that they have talent and like what they do, I leave this song here for you to listen and judge for yourself.

Feria...

Today I assisted to the "Feria de la Psicología y la Salud" that we at the "Colegio de Psicólogos" organized, well, a friend was the organizer, I assisted her with what I was able to. I was there at 8:00 am and left past 6:00 pm, it was brutal, I barely ate, drank a lot of water and was helping with whatever I could.

I met some friends from school that work for other institutions, some that are starting and other that are pretty well established now, I talked to some of them and took advantage to advertise my company and the institution where I work, and at least 2 persons looked interested in my company's work and maybe it could lead to another client, one for a personal business of a colleague and the other from a institution by the name of "Tienda de Cristo" or something like that.

While I can't say that the event was a big success, it wasn't a failure either, it was ok, but I expected more people.

Right now I feel so tired that the only thing I want is to sleep, and I don't want to wake up tomorrow since I know that I will have my arms and legs sore, but the show must continue, tomorrow I have to work, and I don't care about my tiredness, I love my work and I will do it as long as I can :P, or until I fall unconscious XD

Sick...

Sneezing, check
Soar throat, check
Stuffy nose, check
Cough, check
Body Aches, check
Fatigue, check

Apparently I was getting a cold, or that's what I thought for most of the day, I get allergies every change of season, but I don't have body aches, and I don't feel fatigue, only when I get a cold, all the other symptoms are common. This week a coworker had a cold and I was near her and I thought that she could have infected me, but I felt that something wasn't right.

First of all, it had already passed many days since I saw her, I had body aches, but they felt different, the fatigue too. After giving it a little thought, I realized that my body was aching because yesterday I walked a lot (I went to a friend's house, but since I didn't knew how to get there exactly I got lost and walked for like 40 minutes at least), I had my backpack too, so that explained the body aches.

The fatigue is obvious, I haven't been sleeping well, and have been working a lot, all the other symptoms are common whenever the season changes. So yeah, except for my allergies, I am as healthy as ever, just tired and aching :P

Hitchslap...

I am hearing "God Is Not So Great" from Christopher Hitchens (not reading, I am doing this while on the bus, and reading here in the bus is very difficult lol), I must admit that at this moment I haven't learn anything new, but this book is really interesting... even if most things I have heard aren't new to me, I want to finish it because I don't like leaving things half done, and it might have something of value or to at least reinforce some things :P

One thing I can say is that he really is weird to hear lol, he has an accent that I find a little difficult to understand if I don't put enough attention, while on the other hand Richard Dawkins has a really good accent :P

Compromise...

Today while at work my friend/co-worker/employee/person at my charge... ok, I don't really know how to call her and that doesn't matter, we were redacting a letter to the schools we will be visiting to promote our project, since we use only my laptop to work only one of us has to write, usually me. Since she was a little anxious (I still don't know why) she was playing with everything that was at her reach.

At some point she was just playing with some paper and asked if I wanted a paper boat or if I knew how to make one (I can't remember which it was), well, she made one and gave it to me, and asked me if I was going to take care of it, I told her that yes, I was going to take care of it, but she was a little skeptical. I told her that I was going to post about it in my blog (hence today's post topic) and she was a little more convinced.

And yeah, I know, lame post, but I told her I was going to do it :P and don't know what else to write.

Improvisation 2.0

Today at therapy my patient and I worked with habits, for the moment that is the main goal he has, he wants to have better habits in school and his house, I was going to work with the classic method of making an activities calendar, but due to his personality it is not that easy to follow something so rigorous, we were going to work with that, and we even started to plan it.

In the middle of the planning he went to the bathroom and while I was waiting I remembered the Seinfeld Calendar, I thought that it might work, and since he has the motivation to work I thought that giving him a little more flexibility and freedom would be better. He was more motivated with this one and he actually said that he was going to make another one at home, one more complete.

I know I am doing something out of the book, but I think this can work pretty well, I said to him that we would evaluate this method the next 3 weeks and see his progress, if it works well then we can get this done and get to another goal. If not, evaluate why isn't it working and either make a new work plan or adjust this one.

Silverware...

...who knew it could come in handy sometime?

So, Mari, Sergio and I went to the movies, the movie we went to see started like half a hour from the time we got the tickets, so we were just walking around Las Misiones, we got to liverpool and we passed some silverware while in there and Sergio and Mari were discussing who would pay for something like that and Sergio said that it might cost like $100 bucks and Mari was skeptical that the silverware would cost that much, a woman from the store approached us and asked if she could help us.

To clear things out I asked how much that silverware cost and she said like 1200 pesos, that is all I wanted to know, but she had to try and persuade us to buy other things, I realized the mistake I made too late... or was it on purpose? Since it seemed that she was paying more attention to Sergio I pulled back, and told Mari to come, we left Sergio there with the lady, he wasn't happy, but we were laughing so bad. It was worth it :P

Sorry you had to pay for my mistake Sergio, que diosito te lo pague :P

Temptation...

My laptop has been heating pretty fast these past weeks, or at least it feels that way, it hasn't caused a problem (yet), but I know it will if I don't take care of it, I already dusted it and I will try to defragment it when I have a chance.

But to tell the truth, I want to open it and clean the internal fan it has, I have always done this with other kid of electronics, but not with a laptop, and most of the times (if not always) I did this without consulting a manual or something, but with the laptop I am very hesitant to do it, unfortunately they are very delicate and have a lot of cables that aren't easy to replace.

I even downloaded the service manual since I don't want to break anything, but I want to wait until I buy a new one to open it since this one is my working tool and it will be a pain to work without it. I will wait until it is necessary or until I got my new one, which hopefully will be in December or January... or at least I hope that I can buy it by then :P

Darts...

Today after watching rise of the planet of the apes Sergio, another friend and I went to our other friends house and played darts, I had never played darts in my life and I was owning them, Sergio scored the most points in 2 occasions with 27 points, but I scored in 10 more times, in 3 separate occasions and Sergio just once. I won the most games too, lol, it is the first time I beat Sergio like this, I think I am going to sleep pretty well tonight :P

First 10 of the night by me :P

Who thought...

...that a guy like this...

would be such a good teacher?

Sergio gave us (my friends at hitosoft and me) the first part of a curse course in JavaScript and jQuery today, I knew he was good and passionate to teach since I talk with him when I have doubts or just to talk about something else other than our general gibberish, but since he is as introvert as us I didn't know how good he was going to be with more people, well 3 people isn't that much, I want to see him in front of a group of 40 or more people, that would be a good challenge :P (I have worked with that many people in more than one occasion and it sucks :P).

But yeah, great work Sergio :),  keep the good work and someday you will be like this... except for the color, you can't be that cool :P

Teleconference...

Today I had to "assist" to a teleconference imparted INDESOL (Instituto Nacional del Desarrollo Social), this is part of my training for a project I am working at CAPSIC, the conference was transmitted from Mexico D.F., since it was going to last 2 long hours I wanted to record it in case there was no other way of accessing this material, I spent at least 1 hour looking for (and configuring) a software to capture my screen, I used camstudio and it did a pretty good job, I had to configure the audio because it has some issues, but in the end it went well.

The topic of the conference was "Estrategias de Financiamiento y Procuración de Fondos", which is what I am doing right now for this project, I have to write/design a project to get funds and/or donations to our institution. It was pretty interesting, but unfortunately 2 hours is just too much time to get all the attention it deserves, and since I was watching it from my home I was getting distracted. That's why I wanted to record it :P.

Even though I wasn't paying that much attention I have to say that this really will benefit me to do a better job, I really was clueless as to what to do when I voluntarily proposed to help with this project. But thanks to this and the training I had in the Tec de Monterrey I feel more comfortable. Still a long way to go, but now I can see the light... and it burns :P