So Totally ME

Hello, O Little Ones (I discovered this wonderful nickname in Confucius' Analects today, I enjoy it and plan to use it regularly!)

Today we are going to have a bit of a grammar lesson. Let's start with the word 'wordism'. It comes from the root -ism, Eg: communism. And what does communism mean? Well, it means total and utter control of a place or situation. That is just what Microsoft Word did with my computer! I arrived home one day, looking forward, or rather dreading, to catch up on my two weeks of forgotten blogging. But as I cheerfully turned on my computer (which is green, and mine- I got it for my birthday, Yay!) I witnessed a blasphemous act: Word had taken over my computer!

All the little images that appear in the menu, desktop, and taskbar were gone, forcedly replaced by little Word symbols. They seemed to be crying out 'Save me, save me!' like in Spy Kids- the movie- but like the Floopies they too were trapped. Everything I clicked opened a Microsoft Word document, only I couldn't even type because it was blocked by some kind of Ukrainian code. It was chaos inside my screen and I could just imagine a little Bill Gates sitting on a throne while being fanned and served by stolen icons- my icons! I was on the verge of opening the computer to squish that little man with my mere thumb, when my sister suggested a much more… passive and rational solution.

She said the words 'System. Restore.' I heard 'Explosion. Of. Computer.' Well, I decided to take her advice and did the System Restore process and everything was magically cured. Oh how I love my wonderfully smart sister!

I got Worded, I guess, just because I'm ME. Allez le coup d'état!

PS: Now that were on it: No, Microsoft Word, I did not spell my last name wrong!

The assignment for today was to 'write one reflective blog entry'. We had various doubts as to what we should reflect on, and how reflective we should be, but since we got no responses, I have decided to reflect on my life. I have everything one could ask for to live happy forever, a good house, food for every meal, a loving family (even if we don't realize it all the time), caring friends, a good education, IQ points, etc. But there are very few people who are able to always be happy- you know, without the help of …um… happy pills. So this eloquent introduction gives way to my thoroughly, at least to me, complicated life.

Even though I have all these things that should make me content, I am not entirely happy. I might be joyous at times, but I still always feel this kind of emptiness, a feeling that a part of me isn't there. For my mental sanity and to give me a little hope that everything will not always be like this, I pinpoint this as being the fault of the atmosphere I am now. Our school, the situation with my family- having to go through three different teenage phases at the same time, plus a family crisis on the side-, the fact that I have lost more than half of my closest friends in the past two years. That atmosphere. I have already found the problem or a replacement of it until I really find what it is, but I cannot seem to find the solution. Every time I feel overwhelmed or just plain blue I think that I would like to pack everything and go to Australia for a year, Australia being my latest ideal escape place (yes, this does have to do with the hot boys who have the even hotter accents. I may be sad, but I'm still me inside!) I think that if I could go to another place which had nothing to do with here for some time then I would find what I'm looking for. This may have to do with the fact that last year I was living in France in an exchange for the whole year. I know I felt like this there too, mostly in the beginning of the year, but I think I have blocked all the bad memories out, another strategy to keep on waking up every day to face my life. I mostly started seeing how good I had it there when I came back, when I started feeling like this again, a feeling of being stuck inside the boundaries of my former life here, when in reality I had changed. I still tried to come back with an open mind to a new kind of life here, but as you can see, it didn't work.

I also feel completely alone. I know I'm not, but I cannot escape the idea that everything is fleeting, that if I suddenly left nobody would notice it. I am overwhelmed by the concept that life always goes on… even without you! I feel like I'm trapped in between the walls that I've built out of my bottled up and misunderstood feelings. They are separating me from the rest of the world and even though I pound and pound on the walls no one can hear me, no one comes to help me. I need help in knocking these four walls down, to let the world in, but there is no one here. I am alone.

Walking away from everything, escaping, probably isn't the answer to this problem, but the idea of it is what keeps me going forward, towards a promise that something better will come along.

Speaking of promises, the other day a girl read my fortune- out of a chocolate sticker kind of thing (a mona from a Chocolatina Jet). Even though I don't believe in that stuff, from fortune tellers to ghosts, she told me something that was scarily accurate. She said that in this moment I was feeling lost, wondering where I was going and if I should change roads. This exactly how I am feeling, like I need an exit to get on a different lane, it's a good thing that someone knows without me having to tell them, because, frankly, I wouldn't be able to explain it. She also said that someone would come along and would make snap out of it, telling me: you are on the right track, you are going somewhere with your life. She told me I was just going through a though time, I like to explain it as a kind of one-eight-of-life crisis, but that a new person would come into my life and end the toughness. One thing I cannot remember is if she said soon, that all this would happen soon. Oh, how I wish she did say soon.

This probably wasn't at all what my teacher had in mind with this assignment, really it just makes me sound like a suicidal Dr. Phil case, but that's what he gets from not being clear. Here's a piece of the real Daniela Berenguer for whoever wants it (though I really doubt he does!)

PS: The title of this is forty-two because, anyone who has seen or read A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy will understand this, forty-two is the answer to everything. It is the answer to The Ultimate Question-which is itself unknown. Right now, forty-two is all that I need.

Okay, so you know the day when you get one year older to your death? The day commonly called your birthday, the day when you are supposed to be pampered and made pretty and given presents? Let's narrow it down, shall we: the day when you should be able to sleep more than four hours? Well if you can't imagine where I am going to, let me tell you:
We were in a Leadership trip to Villeta, a small town like three hours away from where I live. My birthday just happened to fall on that Saturday, a good thing if you compare it to having to spend it at somebody else's party... or, thinking about it, not.
So, on my wonderful fifteen-year birthday (a quinceañera thing, it's a big deal here in Colombia) I was woken up at six by a not-so-soft punch by my friend who then said 'It's your birthday!'-like I didn't know?! (But I still love her)- And told me to go outside. I went out and saw my sister trying to light a brownie and a candle on it, unsuccessfully since she was standing right under a big fan. Oh my wonderfully smart, but dim, sister! Well anyways, she gave me a beautiful charm bracelet which was surprisingly made by my P.E. teacher, actually the surprising part was that it was really pretty- the bracelet not the teacher! Then we got ready and went down to have breakfast, where my friend announced it was my birthday and I got extra grapes, grapes that she should later on steal from me. Then we went to a kind of good-morning/get-ready-for-a-torturous-day! meeting, where there was really a surprise party and everyone had gotten presents for me, or that's what I would have liked. Instead, I went in and a bunch of people who I didn't actually know, or knew that they knew it was my birthday, congratulated me. It was very cool actually.

I went through the rest of the day normally, gossiping and getting birthday calls when I was in the middle of climbing a water fall- cell phone signal actually is everywhere! We did a very adventurous activity which was climbing the Cascadas del Mico, which are seven waterfalls one after the other. In one of them there was a cliff we could jump off and I consider it my own birthday present that I jumped of it. I am terrified of heights but I told myself that if I could do this then I could do anything. When I first got up there I closed my eyes and told my legs: 'Jump!' But they did not obey, they laterally just stood there shaking, they wouldn't move! I had to sit back down to calm myself, and after one person passed I stood up again. I said 'Go, jump! You don't want to stand up here while everyone is looking at you and there are people waiting behind you and freeze and look like a total spaz!' Well I guess my legs got the wrong message, because that's just what they did. I had to sit down and let someone pass, again! The third time that I stood up there looking at the water beneath me (which wasn't all that far down, actually) and, like Nike recommends, just did it. It was the scariest thing I've down until now, and my legs were still shaking fifteen minutes later, but I did it! *Hip Hip Hurrahs for me*

Then we went on to walk for a thousand years and then got to a place where you make panela- a very Colombian candy which I wasn't a very big fan of before but which I never want to even see again after that day. We had to make products from this, with our own two, very clean hands. Needless to say, it was a total disaster. There were bees all over, a lot of them stuck t the candy which we so unknowingly eat, three drunken workers to 'help' sixty kids, one of them who was extremely drunk and giving us some of his poison (I didn't have any, really!) and the panela was acid and so could not be worked with. We finally went out of there after what felt like a threefold of years, everyone tired, dirty, and of course, me with a giant brown spot of sticky panela in the crotch of my white shorts.

We were all looking forward to getting back to the hotel and going to sleep- something I should have done two hours ago- but our guides had the wonderful idea to take us out to dinner that night. It was very, very fun because we ended up being hyper in that way than you act so stupid you act drunk but you're actually not. In the bus ride back everyone was trying to sleep and shushing us every two minutes because we were being non-boring and talking with the guides, one of the effects of the 'hyperiousity'.

When we finally got back the effect had worn off and all I wanted was to lay down. But only then did the surprise party take place. My wonderfully smart, but doubly dim sister had organized a party for me and a boy who had had his birthday the day before! I love, I do, but I wanted to hit her at that moment even if it was one of the sweetest things ever. Now, here comes the best part of the day: I finally got to sleep at 11 at night while I was one year closer to my death!

All in all, it was a great day. However, not a very normal way to spend your birthday.
But who wants normal when you can be... ME?!

I just remembered a very embarrassing and totally ME story that happened just a few weeks ago, one which I haven't mentioned. Unfortunately I am not old enough to drive, I am so jealous of those who are and I so want to smack those who are old enough but are just not interested in driving *cough, my sister, cough*. So this story happened on a different set of wheels, not a motorcycle, a golf cart, or even on roller blades. No, I was on Heelys. You're anticipating it, aren't you?

First of all, Heelys are those types of shoes that have little wheels that pop out on the back. They were very popular about three years ago!

That morning I was looking in my closet and came up with the Heelys. I thought it'd be fun and original to wear them to school, so I put them on and went downstairs, almost falling on the stairs. I didn't realize how much noise they made when I walked until I was all the way at school, and I had to cross the hall, which was empty except for a couple of people who I don't get along with and of course, cute guys, while making a loud cliquety-clac which earned me a couple of dirty looks. I was finally heading for the buses after a whole day of tripping and being teased by my friends, who by the way were totally jealous of my shoes, to go home. Suddenly while walking carefully my foot kind of just slid forward and I ended up on the floor in an awkward sitting/praying position with my bag off my shoulder and half of its contents spilled out. Luckily not many were there to see this... unladylike incident. I just picked myself up and continued walking, but I imagine my face was giving me away by turning an unsightly shade of red.
Oh, you might imagine I have learned to deal with it by now!


I am appalled! Today, while I was again going to the buses, a little boy about the size of my knee told me to 'Fuck off'- with those exact words! My god, when I was in fourth grade I was scared of the fifth graders, now I'm in ninth grade and I get orally assaulted by a fourth grade boy. I think I'm scared of fourth graders now.
What has happened with today's generations?!

With that insightful question I leave you, my minions.

Life tip: Don't piss off five year old boys, you will regret it!

So, as you can guess, this has been a really sucky week for me. I don't know what happened, or why I am feeling so freaking depressed, but I have.
At first I thought it was stress from school and from homework I was missing (No, this was not one of those. Was it?). And it is true that since yesterday- when I handed in an essay I finally finished- so basically just today, hasn't been so bad. It might also have been stress, this time from people who stick their noses on other people's businesses. Remember that I told you about my supposedly 'best friend' who I decided to trust, after numerous people warned me not to, and who then decided to tell everyone about Mr. X? Yeah, well now this great-hearted person (note the sarcasm) decided that she is mad mad at me and that she is no longer talking to me. This works just fine for me, because I personally don't want to be her friend again, but I am so freaking annoyed that everyone has to act as if it was their problem and get in the middle of it. Don't you hate that too?!
However, I have managed to work past all of this and now, after a heavy session of Pilates (he he, I feel so chic saying that!), I am happily looking forward to roaming around in my pajamas all day and resting during the upcoming three-day weekend. *Crowds cheering for my totally awesome plans*

Now, scamper off and stock up on those Cookies & Cream Häagen-Dazs ice cream. We're gonna go hard core this weekend!

This post is going to be about... any guesses?... yes, My Future Ex-Husband! I know, the title kind of ruined the surprise.
Why EX-husband?, you might ask yourselves.
{Well, if you did ask yourself that, then you are WEIRD... I mean, you're talking to yourself, you know? No, I never do that... *cough, cough*}
The answer is, because it sounds cooler than just My Future Husband. Oh, my life is so full of exciting thoughts!

You obviously want to hear more about him so here are the main points:

• He's a senior at my school.
• We have a great relationship in process (he has no idea who I am and I have only seen him twice, but they were unforgettable moments).
• He has a wonderful accent! I was not eavesdropping on him, I swear!
• You can find him on Facebook and his picture in the yearbook is not so good- Really, I am not stalking him! What gave you that idea?!
• My sources tell me he has a son... yeah, kind of weird but I'm great with kids!
  

So, I've been meaning to tell you about something that I did recently. It's only that... I WENT TO THE COLDPLAY CONCERT! Yup, it was here in Bogotá last Thursday and I went. It was really cool although since I'm not really that much of a fan, I spend a lot of time just screaming nonsensical babbles in an atempt to sing the songs along with everyone else. I enjoyed it a lot, but I realized that concerts just aren't my thing, my thing is looking at all the hot guys (including the singer, Chris Martin, OMG he's cute in real life!!) that are AT the concert!



You're probably wondering if there is a ME side to this story, and, since you are very smart people who read my blog (we are back up to SIX followers people! :D) and do a lot of other smart things, you are right:
The concert started at eight, so we are clever and figure out that if we get there at around two in the afternoon, we wont have to stand in line a long time. We get there at 2:15 and the oh-so-short line we were supposed to be in is only oh-so- five blocks-short. We are finally reaching the door, it's around five PM and we aren't the least bit tired, when a couple of people from our school see us and act as if they are our BFFs just to get cut into the line. We don't mind that but next thing we know, there are about 12 people cutting in front of us and a not-oh-so-friendly crowd of people complaining about it. At least we managed to get in front of them, leaving them to deal with that crowd! :P
But it doesn't end there, oh no. After about three hours of waiting in line and another two hours waiting for the concert to start, I'm not tired at all. But then, just when the thing starts and gets into the mood, I become so freaking tired I have to sit down! No, nobody stepped on me, but my feet did not stop aching for the whole concert and the whole night!
And the next day, I have to wake up at five thirty in the morning to go to school, with my still aching feet!

Well, that's life! Or rather... that's life as ME!