February 6, 2011 – The most expensive commercials

This blog is becoming some sort of support group for me. "Hi, I'm Maria. I don't know how to ride a bicycle." "Hi, I'm Maria. I have OCD and I pursue symmetry." "Hi, I'm Maria. I get easily addicted to anything."

Now it's time for a new confession. "Hi, I'm Maria. I don't like sports. I don't understand sports. I don't know the first thing about sports. I don't care about sports."

I find life very exciting in general, but there are two things that never strike any spark in me: newspapers and sports. When I was in high school, I had to force myself reading news for our classroom presentations, but it was always a struggle. I just don't understand the newspaper lingo… not in any language. My gaze can glide over the paragraphs for minutes on end, but I will be getting nothing out of it – my thoughts would just fly somewhere far-far away, in a world that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Same with sports. I rarely get forced into watching sports, but every time I find myself in this awkward situation, I just go for it. I never bother to learn the rules. I just stare at the screen, without any understanding or any desire to understand what's happening, and think my thoughts. It's meditative reallyJ.

It could be embarrassing too, though. Last night, during the Superbowl, Tauheed said to me, "I cannot believe those ridiculous commercials are supposed to be the most expensive ones." I responded, "No, no, the most expensive commercials are during American Football!" Everybody fell silent… "Hi, I'm Maria. I thought we were watching baseball…"

February 3 - February 5, 2011: My friend’s wedding

I will be in NYC for about a week. My friend Piraye is getting married. It's a beautiful story, actually. Piraye is a gorgeous Turkish girl raised in an all-around academic family in Texas (both her parents are teaching professors) and a brilliant scientist.

A little bit over a year ago, she was staying on my couch for a couple of weeks when she had just returned from doing her post-doc in Cambridge. At that time, she had just quit academia to pursue a new business-woman career, and together with a friend created Celmatix, a biotechnology company specializing in fertility treatment for women. We had long and detailed conversations of how the company should be organized and grow, what committees they had to pass to gain respect in the industry, what networking they had to do in order to receive appropriate funding. We talked about my desire to quit my job and joked about me becoming the COO of Celmatix when it grows to be a multi-million dollar huge corporation and needs an efficient infrastructure. As a matter of fact, I was the first investor in the company, putting a very modest amount into their website development. I didn't understand a thing from what she was trying to explain to me about the new models of diagnosing infertility; I just believed in Piraye.

One day last year, at a dinner party with friends, she met Nick, who is a venture capitalist. Naturally, Piraye was very much interested in talking to him about how the process of attracting capital works. Nick was also very much interested in talking to her – as I have mentioned, Piraye is a gorgeous and brilliant woman. And thus their personal joint venture began.

And this weekend, I'm here for their wedding. Really, life is so amazingly full of possibilities!

Piraye and Nick's wedding

The wedding took place in the NYC Public Library. Need I say anything more? Well, I will. It was the most chic wedding I have ever been to. Everything from the vows to the place settings was the epitome of tastefulness and simplicity. The words said out loud were very sweet (yet not cheesy). The toasts proclaimed were full of humor (yet not "roasty"). The looks exchanged between them were full of adoration. In other words – forgive me this cliché – the atmosphere was charged with love and joy, and I felt truly happy to be part of it… And on top of everything, we had a lot of fun!

February 2, 2011 – Better late than never

I love riding my bicycle! I cannot believe that all my life I have deprived myself of this pleasure. It is nice to feel self-sufficient and be able to run all kinds of errands in a thousand little places of the island all by myself, without having to borrow a car or ask Javier to drive me around everywhere. Today, my one-hour errand route consisted of the following stops:

• Paid for the internet on Benito Juarez and 50^th Avenue.
  
• Bought a Mexican phone (finally!).
  
• Stopped by La Mega to get a charger for Liang's phone to replace the one I mysteriously misplaced.
  
• Made copies of some papers I need for my Dive Master certification.
  
• Stopped by many stores in search for delicious Mexican chocolate for Tanya (the minute I mentioned to her, that I found a source of amazing chocolate on Cozumel, the said source – Maharaja store on the 15^th avenue – has discontinued it… typical).
  

I feel totally local now, casually jumping off my bike next to the Cablemas office, tying the lock around some nearby pole in one quick masterful motion, throwing a quick "Buenos dias" to whom it may concern, and going in to pay for the internet… It feels nice.

I am definitely not very good (yet), but I am not afraid, and that is already something (thank God, I still haven't met any crazy drives of Cozumel everybody is raving about, but I'm aware of the possibility and try to be careful and alert). I am also pretty slow, but I honestly don't see any point of going fast – I really enjoy looking around, especially when riding along el malecon (the main avenue alongside the ocean). I have to speed up though if I want to get to the other side of the island with Javier one day. He has never done it himself, and in a desperate attempt to indefinitely postpone this fun yet undoubtedly long and challenging trip, he made it very clear that until my turtle speed improves I can only expect being driven there in his car. Silly him, as if he doesn't know how determined I can be. I say we'll be on the other side on our bikes in a couple of weeksJ.

P.S. All of a sudden I felt compelled to figure out the etymology of the phrase "better late than ever". The Phrase Finder website attributes it to Geoffery Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales (1386). But given that on this Phrase Finder it's spelled as "better late THEN never", I wouldn't consider it a credible source… Aha, this is more likely: it was first used by Titus Livius (59BC – 17AD) in his monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, Ab Urbe Condita Libri ("Chapters from the foundation of the city").

"Because a concession was once made in the matter of tribunes, it had been made again; there was no end to it. Tribunes of the plebs and the senate could not exist in the same State, either that office or this order (i.e. the nobility) must go. Their insolence and recklessness must be opposed, and better late than never." More…

February 1, 2011 – Take good care of your eyes

One of the girls from the GVI's group of Dive Masters here had a terrible incident the other day. She scratched her cornea with a contact lens. At first, it was just a tiny routine injury – her eye got a bit irritated, that's all. But instead taking the contact out and leaving her poor eye along, she kept rubbing it constantly, against all our reasoning. Practically in no time the eye looked completely red and totally unhealthy. All of a sudden, she was in pain, and pretty quickly (in a matter of hours, literally) it turned out that she got some severe infection in. She was hospitalized, because they had to administer various antibiotics on the hour. The next morning she had to be put on an emergency flight to Houston. It turns out that she will have to have the antibiotics treatment for another three months, after which she may or may not need a cornea transplant…

Unfortunately, she did not get a chance to finish the training and get her Dive Master certification. Fortunately, she had a travel insurance.

January 31, 2011: Year 2 – Day 1 – Annoyed

Should I continue writing this blog? I feel a bit silly about it. Since I'm planning to be in Cozumel for the next several months, with only a few Mexico road trip breaks planned, I am not technically traveling. But I'm so used to writing this, I'm not sure I can simply decide to stop and, well, stop. And who said that this blog is a travelog anyway? Maybe I should continue writing it until I'm back to NYC for good? Although where's the guarantee that I will ever again return to NYC for good? I plan to, I cannot imagine living anywhere else, I love the city, but we all know that life is full of surprises. And if I do continue writing it, should I stick to the same format or figure out something new? Write every day or every week or only when something really interesting happens? Argh! Why do I even have to ask myself these questions? Why do I have to question and rationalize everything instead of just following my instincts and doing what feels pleasant to do! This is beyond annoying.

Yes, I'm annoyed with myself today. There are many reasons for that:

Reason 1

For the past 24 hours, I have been trying to come up with that "self-evaluation" form that my brain conjured up yesterday deeming it appropriate for concluding this year of unemployment, but I can't focus at all. Thoughts scatter so easily that it is absolutely impossible to gather them into any sort of train. In fact, it is impossible to even remotely understand what it is that I actually am thinking about. I actually "saw" one simple question that I posed for myself suddenly take the shape of some cartoon character, puff up until bursting into a hundred mini versions of that same cartoon characters and start running in all possible directions. I swear I didn't take any drugs.

Reason 2

We had such amazing diving this morning – an unusual absolutely no-current Cantarel with at least 16 eagle rays and potentially a pilot whale (! although we are not sure what exactly this creature was), followed by a no-current San Juan with a giant common octopus feeding on a crab's carcass and a rare opportunity to take pictures without having to hold on to the bottom for your dear life. These dives have definitely made my Top N list. What's annoying about it, you ask me? Well, we wanted to also go on a shore night dive to hunt some lobsters, bringing the ranking of today's diving from "amazing" to "unmatchable", but sure enough – as always after the beautiful Cantarel – I developed a migraine. Honestly, what is it about that site that gives me headaches? Last year, the consensus was that it should be attributed to the strenuous swimming against the current at a pretty deep depth (hmmm, is it better to say "big depth"?). But today I can rule out this hypothesis – as I mentioned, there was absolutely no current. I also had a theory of my own – that nobody supported, of course – that I'm somehow tuning in to the eagle rays' waves and this makes my head hurt. Maybe they are trying to transmit some important message to the world through me? Again, I swear I didn't take any drugsJ.

Reason 3

We went to this new place called Kondessa last night to "celebrate" my unemployment anniversary. It is owned by the same person who opened Kinta, one of my favorite restaurants on the island. Knowing Kinta and loving it very much, we were 100% certain that we would tremendously enjoy our delicious dinner. What a disappointment! The décor is really beautiful – I have to give them that. But the food is overpriced without a reason (at Kinta they have interesting and delightful dishes, so the high prices seem to be well justified) and, frankly, not that delicious. It is good food, don't get me wrong, it's just that the price-deliciousness ratio is unbalanced big time. Yesterday, we just noted this, but for some reason it only really hit all of us today. At least, I'm not alone being annoyed with this particular item. That is slightly less annoying.

Reason 4

And last but not least, I'm very much annoyed with being annoyed. I rarely feel this way and I don't like it. This is not a good start of my second happy-unemployment year. But it looks like I will just have to let it dissolve on its own, as the "emotional deportation" of this feeling doesn't seem to be an option in this case. Oh well, this too shall certainly pass…

Day 365 – 365…

I feel nervous about today. I have this idea that I must somehow summarize all my experiences for the past year and draw conclusions. Is it the business manager in me talking or is it really necessary?

At work, I had always been a big proponent of annual evaluations. But real, thoughtfully developed, meaningful ones, not just silly ratings that are good for nothing. I am certain that it is absolutely crucial for the morale and professional growth of any employee to see how the set goals are matching with the progress made, what extra-curriculum tasks they have accomplished, what obstacles have interfered with the progress and have or have not been overcome, etc. Several years ago I even created a 360-degree evaluation template tailored for our team at Strategic Insight, and we all religiously filled out the exhaustive questionnaire at the end of every year, because this process does work. It encourages you to take a breather from your daily business chores and look at the totality of your work. Otherwise, there is a really big chance we might completely forget why we are doing this work to begin with, how we contribute to the greater good of the business, and what benefits – beyond money – we are getting from it (if any).

I wish somebody had created such a questionnaire about this year of my life. I would be so happy to fill it out.

Day 364 – Dinner in Playa del Carmen

I know Renata through Tanya, they were in the same residency program at Columbia. We clicked from the moment we met – it never stops to amaze me how those things happen – and became close, as it often happens, over the matters of the heart. Renata is Brazilian – blonde, gorgeous, intelligent. When her parents were hosting me in Brazil this past April, I was really impressed by some very beautiful forest paintings on their walls, and I was shocked to learn that those were by Renata… from when she was 6 or something! She also did ballet, singing and dancing when she was a kid. She only pursues the artistic path "recreationally" now, frequenting karaoke bars and making very cool iMovies. She does love her job (she is a pathologist), but she is so obviously artistically gifted that I wonder why she didn't choose to be a full-time artist.

I often ponder the question of what role our parents play in our selecting a vocation. I, for one, was heavily influenced by my parents' thought that it would be good for me to have a prestigious at the time degree in Linguistics. In fact, I didn't have any choice in that matter. And not because my parents were "pushing" me in any way – they did no such thing in anything I have ever done in my life, but I remember always knowing without any questioning that I had to follow their choice. Why? No idea. They just managed to instill this idea somehow in me. Is this good parenting? I am still not clear on the subject. In school I was in love with chemistry and math, but I never-ever considered those paths simply because from the early childhood I knew what University and what department I would graduate from. Strange, really. At the same time, I have certainly never regretted the education I had received. I just sometimes wonder…

Renata and her boyfriend Ben are here now. Well, not "here in Cozumel" here, but very close – Playa del Carmen. I have not seen Renata for the whole year since I left and she moved to Dallas; I had never met her boyfriend either. So it was a very exciting and chatty dinner!:) And tasty, too.

P.S. Renata gave me a lovely gift – a coffee table book of… hearts! I have actually been thinking of creating a little book of hearts myself from all the images I have collected on my travels and from friends over the past year. Now I'm even more inspired to do this – it looks absolutely great and flipping through it really does lift your spirits.