It's over!

(Originally written on June the 8th)

Well, sort of. On Friday the 3rd we did the last exam of the semester, and the following Saturday was the last day for uploading assignments on the Aula Virtual. But I've had to leave two subjects for later, so I can't go wild yet. Anyway, I feel relieved to a great extent; I'll take the chance to spend a week with my beloved wife in the Canary Islands and a few days at my parents' in Córdoba. I'm really looking forward to it; it's been quite a while since we last went on vacation...

We've chosen the Canary Islands once more, as we wanted to relax and do nothing much apart from lying on the beach (or by the hotel pool), eat at the buffet and laze around: as we are five months pregnant, we must take it easy. Maybe we'll do some sightseeing; we'll decide when we arrive at our destination.

Last year we went to Tenerife and spent a very active week: we rented a car and visited many landmarks and attractive places around the island; just driving around was also highly enjoyable. This time we're going to Gran Canaria so as not to do exactly the same trip. In fact, we're heading there on the plane at this very moment; the plane's in-flight magazine is rubbish, so I've decided to prepare this entry for the blog as a way of killing time... By the way, 2€ for a 33cl still mineral water bottle? That's what I call a daylight robbery!
And they have the cheek to write "Have a snack at Vueling prices" on the menu, making you think that it's going to be cheap... And another thing: who had the wonderful idea of serving such an excellent gin as Bombay Sapphire with such an awful tonic water as Nørdic Mist? I want Schweppes! Urge to kill... rising...

It's a boy!

Finally I know: I'm going to be father to a lovely boy. Great!! And there's not much time left now (well, in fact, we're more or less in the middle now)... someone is going to be the proud bearer of my surname and carry it on to the next generation :) Oh my, isn't it nice? I'm thrilled...

The girl from the future

I saw this advertisement some time ago, and I can't get it out of my mind. It showed a blue-haired girl (no, it wasn't Marge Simpson) who supposedly came from the future, and had brought a revolutionary washing powder with her. Each time I saw the ad, I thought to myself, "hey, hold on a minute. She has come from the future and all she has got to show us is a bloody box of washing powder?" This girl comes from the far future, maybe centuries away from us, from a world with an advanced society where scientists must have found a cure for every known illness, where they must have found solutions to the problems we have today... and she comes here just to show us what the washing powder of the future will look like? She must come from a world where there is no AIDS, no cancer and no Alzheimer, where they have found the secret of eternal youth, where they have a remedy for the ever-increasing hole in the ozone layer, where natural resources are plenty and available to every human being, where they have developed new energy sources; still, she wants to tell us about washing powder. What on earth is she thinking about? Well, maybe in a century or two, washing powder will be as valuable as gold, or even more valuable than that, who knows... But if we ask the woman in the advert (the one that receives the unexpected visit of the blue-haired girl from the future), who is busy trying to remove some stain from her laundry, I'm sure that she would rather get some other piece of information instead: the following week's winning lotto numbers, for instance? Seriously, this really drives me up the wall...

Slave to pastry

Yes, I have to admit it: I'm a slave to pastry. I couldn't think of my life without it; the mere thought of it is unbearable! I would eat my way through a whole box of Donuts ("mmm... donuts", Homer Simpson would most probably say) if I allowed myself to do it, but I feel too much remorse to carry it out. Why is it that all good things are harmful to you in one way or another? Why do they have to make you fat? It's so unfair!! And, in addition to this, if I want to be able to indulge myself in those deliciously sweet and spongy little works of art for the rest of my life, then I have to consume them in moderation. Arrggghhhh!! I want to do a binge!!

The end is nigh

Definitely it's time to panic. The dreaded day is approaching inexorably, and there's no way I can escape from it. Of course, I'm talking about the final exams. They have been there all the time, we knew that some day or other they would finally arrive, and that day is around the corner now.

What to do now? There's still soooo much to do, and so little time left. Usually, I work better on tight deadlines (the more time I have, the less fruitful it is), but I'm not too sure about what will happen this time. I'm so stressed!! I've been too many years safely away from this world (that is, I've devoted my time to working), and I had quite forgotten what it felt like to be a student. Man, isn't it unfair? A student can never really get away from the worries that future tasks and upcoming exams cause. If you're a student, you can never fully enjoy your free time (free time? What's that?).

Worst of all, everyone else who is not a student will think that you are leading a lazy and comfortable life, doing nothing apart from cramming for a exam from time to time. People who work and have never studied (I mean seriously) think that we study just in order to avoid working; that's absolutely false! (well, at least in the majority of cases). Actually, working is the easy solution; I myself have been working for many years, and I can tell you that there's nothing like finishing your working day and not having to worry any more about it until the following day. But if you want to get a good job, then it's essential that you study. After all, that's why I'm taking all this trouble at this stage of my life... But I'm sure it'll be worth the effort; I want my offspring to be proud of his/her daddy :)

Birds

I love birds. I'm a keen birdwatcher, and I find pleasure in listening to birds' songs and watching birds through my binoculars (or much better, with the help of a spotting scope), trying to find out what particular species they belong to. Unfortunately, I no longer have plenty of free time to devote to this hobby, but I still get carried away by a feeling of joy each time I hear a melodious bird song (now is the best time for that) or see some small bird darting through the bushes.Today I've heard for the first time this year the cry of the bee-eater, high up in the sky. For me, it announces the arrival of hot weather; now summer is just around the corner.

These spring days are great! Every day I go to University, I can hear the singing of dozens of birds (the fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of trees there contributes greatly to this): I hear sparrows (of course; they're just everywhere!), white wagtails, serins, goldfinches, greenfinches and the occasional robin or blackbird. There are many magpies as well, and sometimes I hear other birds such as the great tit (no jokes, please); one day I even heard a hoopoe. When I lived in my small village, hoopoes were a common sight, but in Castellón they don't show up too often.

But there's something that worries me. In other countries such as the United Kingdom, there are hundreds of thousands of amateur birdwatchers (the RSPB —Royal Society for the Protection of Birds— alone has over a million members), while in Spain they are far fewer (SEO —Sociedad Española de Ornitología— has only about 11,000 members). But worse than that, is the fact that the new generations don't even know the names of the most common birds; for them, every bird they see must be a sparrow, and some can't even name the sparrow: all those flying little creatures are just "birds". I find this utterly disheartening. How can you make people love birds, if nobody bothers to get to know what they really are, not even a bit? Maybe it's because now I'm living in a city (a small city, by the way); maybe in the small villages of Castellón people can actually differentiate between the main bird species... I hope that's the case. The same thing happens with tree and bush species. Has everyone lost contact with nature or what? Sometimes I feel I should have never left my dear little village...

But there's a problem with small villages: many people know the birds' and plants' names, but unluckily there are many hunters as well. I will never understand what's so fun about killing a living creature just for the sake of it. Well, at least, hunters have a big knowledge of nature, and love it their way. But the problem is, up to date I have yet to meet a hunter who wouldn't enjoy killing an eagle if he knew that nobody was watching and he wouldn't get fined. Usually they abide by the law just for fear of being caught, not because they feel that killing endangered animal species is wrong.

The only good thing I can think of about hunting is that many natural reserves have survived until the present day just because they have been preserved for the practice of hunting; we mustn't forget that many of the first conservationists were hunters who changed their minds and turned to protecting animals instead of killing them. My admiration goes to them; as for all the hunters that mill around our villages today, I wish that every single one of them would experience that change; Mother Nature would be deeply grateful to them.

Now my happiness is complete

I'm going to become a father!!

You can't start to imagine how happy I am. Finally life begins to have a meaning; I'm happily married to the woman I love, I'm studying what I like most (Translation and Interpreting) and now the circle of life is complete (insert The Lion King soundtrack here). A new generation is on the way, and I'm proud to be responsible for it.

In fact, I'm not yet fully aware of the importance of this event; for the moment I'm just happy and proud. Once the child is born and takes a liking to breaking into crying in the small hours of the night, I'm afraid I'll be brought back to reality with a bump :) Hopefully it'll be a quiet baby; I'll keep my fingers crossed...

I just can't wait to hold the baby in my arms! In about a month, we'll know whether we're having a boy or a girl; I'll keep you up to date!