I´ve been doing a lot of walking since last weekend. The initial and main motivation was to avoid some intrusive thoughts that come to my mind when I´m home, but now I guess I just began to miss London... Also, these past few days I´ve been quite lonely (in part because I felt like being alone), and I am so lucky that I get along with myself that well.
I went to see the marathon last sunday. Well, truth is I didn´t specifically go to watch the marathon. I guess I just wanted to stop wasting my time at home, and go to my favourite place in London instead (which, as you already know, is westminster). I didn´t know the marathon itinerary and I was hoping to get to see it as well, because people in the lab were so excited about it, but my main target was the bridge and surroundings.
But yes, I saw the marathon!
And I have to say, I really enjoyed the ambience! It was kind of touching, every runner was wearing a T-shirt from a charity (or a custome), and the cheering-up crowd was so committed that even I felt supported while I was walking!
I could find the group or people cheering up for Anthony Nolan, but this was the banner I liked the most!
And I think I´ll post the rest another day, cause today I just feel like listening to music!! :)
Sigue el buen tiempo por Londres, después de la granizada del jueves.
Hoy necesitaba pasear un poco y no pensar en nada, así que salí de casa y cogí el metro, sin saber muy bien a dónde iba a ir. Pensé en bajarme en Westminster porque es la zona que más me gusta, pero decidí seguir un poco más. Westminster me lo conozco ya muy bien, y no me iba a ayudar a no pensar...
Así que seguí hasta London Bridge, y al final fue un paseo bonito que además cumplió su objetivo durante un par de horas.
Primero fui a la Southwark Cathedral.
De ahí fui andando al Tower Bridge.
Luego di un rodeo a la Tower of London.
De ahí, fui andando hasta St. Paul´s Cathedral.
Y después, por Fleet Street (pasando por The Royal Courts of Justice)
hasta Embankment. Y luego ya, caminando por la orilla del río
hasta llegar a Westminster, donde había quedado para cenar con Mar y su prima, porque la otra opción era cenar en casa y esperar y pensar...
De todas formas me volví muy prontito a casa y para distraerme he estado viendo cosillas en internet... pero creo que ya es hora de irme a dormir.
Mañana será otro día! Y parece que será otro día de sol...
I guess things must come back to normal at any point, and one must stop dreaming and start making things happen.
The meeting will be over tomorrow and I will go back to the labs and the pipettes. I thought this whole London thing would help me find out what I want to do with my life, but now I´m even more confused. But at least I think it´s clear that I want to focus on diagnosis instead of treatment (which means more labs, and hopefully a flow cytometre).
Además, ahora sí tengo claro que no tengo por qué quedarme ni en Madrid, ni en España.
I should stop writing here. I´m really tired and I can feel danger coming if I don´t stop now. So I guess this is good night, let´s see what comes tomorrow...
I´m just writing for myself today anyway...
It´s not that it´s been a long time since I last posted, but there were some things that I wanted to write about, and I couldn´t because my computer didn´t feel like accessing the internet.
So now I have more things to write about.
In aim to follow some order, I will start with some things that I´ve noticed in London and only London. Then I will continue with meetings, frogs and souls...
LONDON PECULIARITIES
1. The wheather. It´s always impredictable. It was sunny on Tuesday, it´s been windy and snowy ever since. Londoners complain: it´s been the coldest March in the last 50 years. Bad luck that of mine, within the last 50 years I had to choose precisely this one for coming.
2. Riddles. Londoners really love them (at least lab Londoners). As I told you, silence is sacred during lunch time, but you´re allowed to talk if you tell a riddle. The most absurd one will be welcome. Someone is reading the paper and suddenly breaks the silence saying: "Guess who I met last weekend in..." (don´t remember the place). Then everybody starts asking yes-no questions and he gives some clues, and everybody is excited. Then someone finds out, and silence again. I was so bored (and worried) yesterday during lunch time, that I couldn´t help a guffaw when one of the guys said his birthday was the 4th of May and someone replied "May the 4th be with you"...
3. Builders. They are more discreet here, but still they whistle when you pass by.
4. Me. Don´t ask me why, but on my everyday walk from lab to home, I always stumble on the same fckng paving stone.
5. Newspapers. How they love sadist and macabre news!! There´s always some horrible death to read about during the whole week. A stabbing, a fire, a guy pushed down to the train rails, a teenager that crushes against a house, a girl attacked by her neighbour´s dogs, a poisoning during a cruise, a buggy pushed by the wind and gets hit by a car with a "little angel baby girl"... All those are real ones. And they love transcribing the grieve words in the cards at the funeral and all that.
6. The work environment. It´s so nice. If we forget about silence and riddles. Nobody is better than nobody. Everyone has a place and a lab worker is as important as a medical researcher, the cleaning woman, the IT guys or the receptionist. I can´t even think of that happening in Spain...
7. Shoes. I had been warned before about the horrible taste of London women with shoes, but oh my! How could I imagine!! Wow. I have no other words.
MEETINGS
Only a few words to say that Mar and I will attend the EBMT meeting!!! Best part, 3 days not pipetting.
FROGS AND SOULS (click here for further information)
About that, I shall start saying that I´m quite sure there is no deffinition for the word "soul" in the text, which I find to be essential if we want to get to any conclusions. I don´t know if there is something such as our Real Academia Española de la Lengua for English grammar, so I´ll just translate here the RAEL deffinition for "alma":
Basis that shapes and organises vegetative, sensitive and intelectual aspects of life.
Spiritual and immortal substance of a human being.
Basis that gives life and instinct to animals, and feeds and grows plants.
Re-reading, this is the closest to a deffinition that I could find: "there is a something in each half which possesses the power of adapting means to endsin a manner which is as deserving as the epithet ‘rational’ in the one case as in the other." Huxley doesn´t talk specifically about central and peripheral nervous system. He just cuts off the poor frog, over and over accross several different sections, and points what happens. I guess if we take the 1st RAEL deffinition, then we could say that the frog´s soul lies within the integrity and interaction of both central and peripheral nervous system. The former organises and manages wills and emotions and voluntary movements, and the latter manages reflex acts and drives the nervous inputs and outputs towards and from the CNS. If we take the 2nd deffinition instead, and we cut off the connection between both parts of the nervous system, PNS still can perform some reflex acts. So maybe the soul, as "immortal substance", is nothing but the PNS... On the other hand, some reflex acts can be voluntarily suppressed by CNS. As when you try not to close your eyes for a long time, or when you hold your breath for a while. The 3rd deffinition is too abstract, I think members of the RAEL didn´t know what else to write but they had to fill some blank space or something. After all, here´s what I think:
And I´m pretty sure Luke didn´t understand a shit of what he was talking about...
...And suddenly I find out that I have this huuuugh ability of missing someone. I am screwd.
When I came home yesterday night my italian mates asked me if I was on weed. I didn´t ask them why.
On the other hand, for a little joy, it seems that spring finally remembered to show up, and it´s a sunny day and the sky is blue and cloudless and the birds are tweeting. I even had to open my windows because it´s so hot in my room! Maybe I can wear my new not so warm coat within a few days... Thinking positively!
Hoy al salir del trabajo me he metido en una biblioteca y he hecho una breve toma de contacto con la poesía en inglés.
Por lo demás poca cosa que contar. Hoy ha venido un american student al laboratorio, supongo que se quedará todo el mes. No tengo ni idea de qué tipo de student ni qué ha venido a hacer aquí, pero espero que ande rondando por ahí. Así al menos no seré la única pardilla que está pipeteando sin parar...
He comprado unos cereales nuevos.
I guess I´m having a girly day or something, y estoy feliz y triste a la vez... Y no dejo de canturrear How de Regina Spektor. Fuck! So girly!
