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Uf, ¡ya era hora de escribir un post en español! Es impresionante lo que hace hablar inglés todos los días. Aunque para ser sincero no hablo inglés todos los días, pues en la casa hablamos español todo el tiempo, y como trabajo en casa no salgo siempre. Pero ciertamente el contexto y la practicidad del inglés me pone a recortar palabras y a hacer un mix todo el tiempo. Por lo general no me doy cuent,a y cuando reparo sí me aco***o un poco.

Por ejemplo, en la casa ya no decimos ajoporro, sino lik (leek), y generalmente olvidamos verbos en español y conjugamos en inglés, y me refiero a verbos que van más allá de la tecnología, que eso ya lo hacía en Venezuela: decía linkear en vez de enlazar, decía taggear en vez de etiquetar, y así.

Pero aquí, aquí la cosa se pone más peluda, pues para cosas normales como “vamos a llamar a los panas”, decimos “let’s call los panas”.

Ja! Mentira!

Tampoco llegamos a tanto pero si decimos cosas como “look” o “check” o “improve”, entre otras palabras que podrían ser muy sencillas en español y que sencillamente quedan guardadas en un baulito hasta nuevo aviso.

Y es que sencillamente a uno se le van perdiendo las palabras en un mar de vocabulario nuevo, traducciones y performance under stress, así llamo yo a estar bajo presión tratando de pensar en otro idioma (una entrevista de trabajo, una cola para comprar tickets, etc.). Los peores casos son cuando te quedas pensando en cómo decir la palabra y no la encuentras, ni en inglés ni en español, la impotencia que se siente en tales momentos es difícil de describir.

Las consecuencias sólo se van sumando cada vez: es muy fácil cometer éstas atrocidades y maltratar a nuestro querido español pues toda la interacción con el exterior está hecha en inglés. Además de eso, uno se va encontrando libros anglosajones por ahí que por qué no leer. Yo por ejemplo en lo que va de año ya me he leído dos libros en inglés. Recomendables, por cierto: High Fidelity de Nick Hornby, que es mil veces más genial en libro que en peli, y Four Hour Work Week de Tim Ferriss, el libro culpable de mi exageración ahora con el tema de la productividad y cuyas consecuencias pueden verse en mis posts anteriores (nota mental: de hecho, creo que le debo una reseña a ese libro). Eso sí, intercalando siempre con libros en español que voy consiguiendo y que me van trayendo los distintos viajeros del mundo o yo mismo en mis periplos europeos.

Aunque esta búsqueda de literatura en español cada día influencia más nuestras maneras venezolanas, por lo que vamos reemplazando cosas del vocabulario normal para usar frases españoletas que son como más práctiva en un contexto de español internacional: “vale” funciona mejor que “chévere”, “buenísimo” mejor que “depinga” y así.

Creo que intercalar en una relación de 3:1 o menos será un buen remedio para estimular el cerebro en el idioma materno. Y éste post, es parte de ésa tarea.

So here I am. A year and a half ago I left my country Venezuela to have a little taste on the adventurer side of me. I went to New York and Phildelphia in USA, Brighton & London in UK, revisited Lisbon, Porto & Madrid in Portugal and Spain and then took a step back to “settle” in Brighton, UK.

Why I wanted to settle? Because I knew money was running through the sew and I would need more sooner or later. And actually I didn’t have a plan, so I had to made one for myself. Then I wanted to look for a job and “settle”. What a joke of plan. Then I found a job. But my internal adventurer spirit didn’t want to let me alone. I asked for permission in my crappy job and fled to Portugal to solve some things for almost two months, went back, stayed one more month in the bloody job I used to have and then quit.

If you sum all of my flights, short and long stays, you’ll find out that I am a kind of heroo. When you let go the fear of owning a life (that actually owns you with all its material world), then you are free to do whatever you want. When fear’s gone, your options are infinite. And when you have options, you don’t have fear. It’s a really good spiral to enlightenment.

But, I don’t really consider myself like a hero. The reason? I’m not one for the simple reason that I haven’t made something worthy in the last six months -anything that I would have loved to, like learn some new skills, etc-. And besides that, I don’t have yet and automated source of money that works without me, which will make me more than a superhero. Probably the lack of focus has distracted me from a real inspiration to accomplish my mission.

A while ago, I use to talk with Gaby, a dear friend of mine, to go around the world discovering new places, people and idiosyncrasies. The way I though I was going to make a living was by selling photographs and articles. And somehow I came to do it that way. I have been doing some freelance works for Terra Colombia during 2008, as well as other publications in Latin America. But yet is not enough to live out of that.

Would I be able to do it? I’ve no idea. By the moment I am working on the automation of money, hopefully my plans will do for that matter.

But, now I know I want to do next, in 6 months from now on:
- Move to Lisbon
- To have an automated source of money
- Learn to sail
- Be able to run a marathon (hence, running one)

Don’t miss the next episode!

Have a good life procrastination, but not with me. Not anymore.

I can’t believe what a life changing experience it is to have cut the time used checking email (now just twice a day) and not check at all facebook. This has to be the most productive week of my life.

Cheaters Incompatible
We were cheated: all this years being sell the whole mulstitasking stuff as a good thing. I declare it now: multitasking sucks and so do its consequences.

There’s always a fight between genders about this topic, because it is supposed that women are more effective multitasking than we men do. And I completely agree. My work experience was just about going task after task without really achieving a thing. The only moments when I really did accomplished any projects were when I wasn’t multitasking. But I kept fooling myself, reiterating me that I was able to perform while chatting, phoning, txt messaging, reading the news, putting the kettle on, and so on and onandonandon.

And I am just realizing how incompatible is multitasking with what I want in life. I don’t want to spend hours and hours behind a desk trying to do something while actually doing nothing. I’d rather prefer to do what I need to do in the bloody computer, and then get some fresh air up in the Swiss Alps. A Surf Ride in the Portuguese coast. Or wherever.

I call it a day. It’s over. So my first week e-detox included a killing. The killing of the procrastination. Have a good life my evil old friend.

If you see yesterday’s post, you’ll see that I was really really happy for how the day went and how fast I worked. Today wasn’t quite the same, but I’m not far from my achievements yesterday. I would have to blame my bank because they made me waste like an hour of my precious and superb productive day asking lot of stuff they’ve already should’ve known but they don’t.

Also, I did had to check my email more than I really wanted, due to some clients materials that went sent through, but that’s the way is it and that’s the only rule you have to check email out of fixed time: if the client calls and asks you to check your email. I had to go in there and checked it and follow the input in a website I am working on. SO it was more like a ping pong game. Not the more effective way to work, but it went quite well!

I’ll probably post something tomorrow.

I worked faster than ever today. The secret? I’ve only checked three times my email account today. Nobody died. Wow, actually I can’t believe how fast I manage to work today with all this email detox stuff.

I worked for around 7 hours in a row (well, having half hour break for lunch) accomplishing almost all of the duties planned for today, I delayed the calls to the bank and stuff because those require so many time. But it is a priority now. Top on the list. Probably I’ll do it now while having a small stroll around before my daily run or going and buying some bread or something. Or first thing morning tomorrow.

Ah! amazing! To be honest, I am aiming to work only 4-6 hours daily with all this prioritization stuff. I think I can make it, for real.

Sara, I saw your comment. Why don’t you write me an email with exactly what would you like to know. remember: flavorfla at gmail

F*ck, do it, don’t check your email that often, you will note how productive you could become!

It’s 2009.

10 years ago I was struggling trying to find out what to do with my life while binge-drinking in “La Llanera” Bar after modern languages classes, and fighting with my mom because of my heavy use of Internet. She paid for the phone. If I tell you the amounts, you would hit me straight in the face. How come I did my mom waste so much money on Internet? But the thing paid for itself. I started then making money out of the Internet while working for loquesea.com, then freelancing as a web designer/coder, then creating pareonone (a dating website) or elflojo (a students website) with Oscar.

It’s 2009 and I’m still working on the Internet. I work from home. I am doing a PR work for a client in London and my duties are all related to contacting people in Spain and report to the guys in London. I found the job on the internet. I use the internet for this job. I call locally and internationally, answer emails, and use loads of tools on the Internet to accomplish my work. I can do this anywhere in the world.

I want, as well, an automated source of money, but that one is a secret right now.

I remember that 10 years ago people were saying how Internet was going to change our lives, how we were going to be all home-based offices doing our work. I always thought that was crap, and it is somehow if you want to enter the formal world. But I’ve been living that reality at least half of this period 99-09. And to be honest I have my virtual office all here in my laptop. Where is my office? well, is all on my IP.

So, 10 years to realize that actually you can convert Internet in your very source of money.

The advantages are huge. I can travel and keep working. But I have to correct some things in my head. I mean, it’s no use that I travel if I want to keep checking my email every 5 minutes. And it’s for real, I become anxious.

I think the goal now is to reduce the amount of time I use online. It’s absurd. I’m a junkie, and I have to make a big big effort to keep my Internet use to the minimal. But I’m becoming really aware of this right now, 10 years later. And I hope to get a grasps fast with this one, as I don’t want to spend the next 10 years ONline.

Things I know: I waste too much time looking if something’s new arrived to my email. Even tho I know nothing urgent is gonna come through. That no one’s life would depend on me checking that. Conclusion: check email only TWICE a day. Once first thing morning. And after noon. Or maybe three, with one check at tea hour or so. So, from now on, if you ever need to contact me urgently, call me.

My junkiness with the msn has pass away since I came first to the UK. The reason? there’s no reason, or maybe there is it. I now I want to keep in touch with a large amount of people that I love back in my country, but somehow we’ve managed to keep in touch even if I’m not online. I think Gtalk and my addiction to checking email has helped. I don’t chat as much as I did, but still speak with the important ones. And -good stuff- now I know I have a really really good tool to replace the msn and keep in touch (whenever I want) with those darling persons. The skypephone.

Facebook. most. stupid. addiction. ever. You go in there, there’s nothing in there. Just had a peek in there. I’m selecting a random status update so you could see how pointless it is: “S. H. Need a stroll to the beach” (S. H. necesita playita!!!!!!!!). Common people. Go and do whatever you want, if need company call some friends! If people were consistent… But probably this person would end next week going to Madrid, and not to “la playita”. So, honestly, it’s no use. I’ll keep that to a maximum of 1 check per week. More if I’m commuting brighton-london and have nothing better to do with my phone.

Tumblr. I’m not gonna explain this one because is a new addiction and I don’t really understand it, but it’s gonna me a mamixum of 1 per day.

Just to recap. All of this is so you people can now that if you truly want to talk with me give me a call or write me an email. I will answer I swear. Don’t expect the lottery of Internet to put me in front of you so you can have a few words with me. I’ll do the same for you. While more time passes, it is more unlikely that we will be meeting onlineas I am less and less using those timewaster tools. Also, you can skype me during after office hours (10-18) and on weekends.

Achievements 2008:

- I loved my 2008. I had like 3 months or more vacation.
- I quitted my job.
- I started freelancing.
- I had my first contract signed.

Coming next 2009:

- More contracts.
- Moving to Lisbon (hopefully)
- Having another 3 months vacations lol.