Nature & Nurture

The greatest forces that shape our lives. Nature, who we are at our deepest level, something we didn't choose. Nurture, what we do and what was done to ourselves from birth, something that we can partially control.
The job of being an adult, from my point of view, is to remove your "self" from the tight grip of your childhood. To be able to self determine. To choose who we are, and to be able to re-create this person over, and over, and over until satisfaction. Not that anything in our childhood or genetic inheritance is wrong. But we need to claim it as our own in order to be emotionally free.
I believe that one has to nurture what nature gives you. That is what parents are supposed to do, and that is what we have to learn to do for ourselves.

The layers of writing

First, one has to have something to say. Then you have to figure out how to say it according to the format that you are trying to fit. So it is not the same to write an e-mail, or a blog, or a poem, or a scientific article. But there is another level, wedged in within the previous two. Language. I am trying hard to perform the task of writing in a given format in a Language in which -it seems- I am not fully proficient. So I have to stop a thousand times (ok, hundred times) to check a word (why is it underlined???) an often times its meaning is not the one I want to use, sometimes it is just not colloquial (nobody uses it) and sometimes it just does not exist. I really feel deprived of language when I write in English. Boohoo you would say. Too bad, so sad. I dare you, who believes that it is "just not a big deal", to write in a language that is not your own. Many people don't even try it, and many people are just not as self conscious and don't really care if the words they use are not completely accurate to what they are trying to convey. And then there is the sentence length...Argh.

About Family

When you are of a certain age, you manage to partially understand and wholeheartedly accept your relatives. I do not talk about the family that you create, but about the family that you come from. Your family of origin. You figure out the comfort level at which you can operate and you try to stick to it.
But the part you easily forget, and specially when you live far from them, is how much they are like you and how strange a thing is to have blood relatives. In a distance is easy to forget how much you need and like these people that also need and like you. And of course there are the times when you are reminded of the reasons why you live far from them, but in essence, these people are like you. The shared psychologically deep experiences made you the way you are, and made you similar. That is not to say that we all understood things the same way, quite the opposite, it is amazing to see how many interpretations can exist of a single event. However, it is something to cherish and appreciate that there are people "like you" in the world. You should never take that for granted. I personally miss them.

Intro

Hello Cyberworld,
I wonder how many of you face the same question I have faced for a couple of months now: To blog or not to blog? Certainly, I don't have the time or the inspiration or the discipline to keep up a blog "the right way". Who does? My stereotyped and likely to be wrong answer to this question is: people who profit from it (in some kind of way) or people that have no life (outside of the computer). Since I do not intend to fit in either category, and I don't have a lot of time to devote to this activity, perhaps I shouldn't have started this blog. However, here I am, and I am actually recording a posting.
For me, there are two main goals for this blog. One, to be able to write without concern of being graded (I am still a student). I will also use this blog to practice my writing skills. As you, imaginary audience, may have guessed, English is not my first language. Spanish is. I rarely have the opportunity to write a non-scholar piece. So, this may be the venue.
The second goal for having a blog, is to be able to read my own thoughts. Cathartic and known to be related to health, writing your thoughts and feelings is just a good thing.
It is not really my intention to share my personal life, but it will obviously come through my writing. If the reader wants to know "what's up?" with me, please call me or e-mail me. Let's have a coffee.
I might share this blog with people that I deem dear and completely trustworthy. So, if you are reading this and I e-mailed you a link, that is you. If you just stumble upon this blog, I welcome you but I also acknowledge that not knowing who you are is stressful to me. Sorry about my deeply ingrained fear of strangers. It is my parents fault.
Ok, so this is me. I will come back and read what I posted. Let's see if I am still me then.