Summertime heat + travel = dead plants

It happens every year. My Mom and Dad visit during Spring and Fall. My Mom who has the most beautiful plants down in Ecuador, buys new plants for my condo. Then she leaves and gives me all the instructions on how to take care of them, how often to water them, and how to talk to them.
It all goes well until I leave for a week or two. Then I come back and notice one is losing its leaves rapidly. then it dies. or at least that's what I think. Until my Mom comes back and miraculously resurrects it. Some times they are really really dead, so there is no use in doing anything.
I left just for 8 or 9 days at the beginning of June, and one of the resurrected ones died on me.. bad... It was so beautiful.
Now I am leaving on a Family Trip to Europe for 18 days and wonder if I'll find something when I come back. I hope so.
At least I know there is one that surely be alive and kicking when I come back: These plants never die! And I find them really pretty. This is the first plant I got when I arrived in Houston...so it has survived almost 6 years.. Yeah I guess I should ask someone to come water them once a week... but the only neighbor I know comes back the same day I leave.
(That is one of my secrets: Haven't even met my neighbors, or seen them! isn't that a shame??) I don't understand why we don't even coincide in the elevator or something...
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New Facebook-Life realities

The other day I sent a picture to my Facebook profile, and later got an e-mail saying a good friend had made a comment. When I wanted to answer her, realized the comment was not there, and when I searched for her... she was gone from my Facebook contacts. So, are there Facebook ghosts???

I got a little worried because she is going through a divorce and went back to Ecuador to sell some things, etc. and I didn't have her e-mail address, because I contacted her through Facebook. I thought, well, I hope she is doing Ok, I'm going to pray for her.

Then today I got a call from another friend, who usually takes Facebook breaks. She has two really active toddlers and thinks that sometimes she uses too much of her time to be on-line and in FB. She told me she had briefly connected to Facebook and she didn't find our friend either, and that she was worried... That made too of us.

The strange thing is we haven't seen our friend in who knows 5 years? but when we contacted her on FB we started following her life, and we miss that. I think that with Twitter and FB our relationships are changing a little bit.. we are following people's lives, and when we don't have updates, we feel strange.

I for example am a little frustrated that my best friend back in Ecuador won't consider getting a Facebook account or a Blackberry, and since we both have too many things on our hands we never e-mail... Now we look for instant gratification and instant communication... Good thing that when we meet we have the best conversations, that won't replace FB or Twitter updates.. it will always be better.

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Announcements via Twitter...

These past few weeks Twitter has become relevant. Specially with all that was going on in Iran. Now, it seems, you learn from people that has died in Twitter first. Meghan McCain commented that many people learned about Michael Jackson from her first than from CNN.
This morning everybody was commenting on Billy Mays' death. Hmm I said to myself, well but who is he?
I went to the fountain of wisdom, Wikipedia, and seeing his picutres realized I knew who he was, who doesn't? The interesting part was that his son announced his death in Twitter. There was word that Billy Mays had been in an airplane yesterday. The tires of this US Airways airplane blew off when it landed. And if you go to his Twitter page, there it is... some of his last words about that close call. I found it first in Twitter, went to the Huffington Post and it was not there yet.

Also it seems that teen stars (or any star) don't need their publicists anymore, they promote their concerts, their new singles, albums, etc, in Twitter. Interesting trend. Read more!

Braving the heat

There is a heat wave advisory in the Houston Area. Good thing that with Daylight Savings Time, you can go out biking from 6:30 pm until 8:30 and it's quite nice. Not so nice as in the Spring time, but manageable.
I really enjoy the trails in The Woodlands when the sun is coming down... I feel like taking pictures or videos, but I guess it's kind of dangerous taking video with your Blackberry when riding a bike, still I couldn't help doing it:



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What are you thinking?

As expected, I din't pass my third CPA Exam (FAR). The fact is, I didn't study much, or cover all that I had to study. I can put the blame on my Twitter addiction but I am to blame, really.
The funny thing for me was, that although everyone kept asking me via Facebook wall or comments, If I had passed (they took a month to give the results), I wasn't brave enough to put it on my Facebook status. Of course, the story would have been different if I had passed, I would have used all the exclamation marks after the words "I passed".
Anyway, I sent a good old email to all my close friends, and it was nice to get their words of wisdom and good vibes saying I will pass next time. The best reply I got was from my old college mate: Hey! "Are you learning from me? Remember when you used to say I was really lazy?" (she slept on the couch while the rest of us studied)"But we love you anyway"... (Smile)
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Coming from the South

I love the States, but I also enjoy going to my hometown, Guayaquil (Ecuador).
I love seeing my friends and family. This time I only went for a week, so I really had to stretch time to be able to meet with everyone I wanted to. That meant I barely had time to sleep, so I came back from my one week vacation exhausted.
Ecuador is one of those ungovernable countries, so we never have good presidents. But in Guayaquil we have had great Majors, so the city is in good shape.
I become really spoiled when I go there... My family, like many others, have "help"... we have "people".. We don't have to do any cooking, or ironing, or laundry washing.
And the food is great so it's a complete gastronomic experience.

I discovered some advantages of being in Facebook. It takes too much of your free time, but in some cases it's pretty useful. My cousins and I had a reunion planned in Facebook, it was the first time in... well the first time we got together just the girls... We've had huge family reunions in the past (I have 40 cousins on my mother's side), but this smaller gathering was really too much fun!.

Also, thanks to Facebook I was able to share some of the things I wrote about the blessing of a Shrine over there (I belong to a Catholic Movement), and my photos were shared many times again and again.

And talking about connected life, my Blackberry saved my life. For some reason everybody has a Blackberry over there, so I was able to contact them via the Blackberry Messenger... cool. Although I've had Macs for many years now, and I love them, that Blackberry Messenger and ATT are keeping me from getting an Iphone. Read more!

My weeklong addiction to Twitter and what I learned from it

I joined Twitter two months ago, thanks to all the media reports about and her twittering.. I did it strictly as a follower, which basically means that you follow people but do not post anything to your status. I watched with horror when about 8 people signed up to follow me, and have forgotten to figure out how to get rid of them. There is no use in following me if I don’t post anything. I am a very private person, and it is really great progress for me to post something to my Facebook account once in a while.
I probably logged into Twitter once a week and for a really short time. But then I made the huge mistake of starting to follow Taylor Swift while I was studying for my third CPA exam. I love country music, and of course like her and her songs, as I like many other country, latin pop, or alternative artists. But when somebody gave me tickets to the Houston Rodeo for a Taylor Swift concert, I was really blown away.

I don’t think I fit in her fan demographics: I am 42, single, Hispanic. And I have really no time to be a follower, I manage a small business, study journalism online and Accounting. I am involved in different activities, which sometimes I am not able to handle at the same time. There were 74,000 people that night in the Reliant Arena, my cousins and I didn’t have good seats, but I looked around me and everyone was ecstatic. There were 8 year olds singing out loud to every one of her songs, and their grandmothers and/or mothers knew the lyrics to them too. There were thousands of screaming teenagers, most of them wearing sundresses and boots. Her positive personality and artistry was so magnetic, it was as if she had control over all of us. I learned that night that she was not only a great singer and songwriter, but an excellent entertainer as well. Also that she was a very special human being.

But back to Twitter. Taylor doesn’t post a whole lot, so that leaves you with the desire of wanting to know more. And I started ‘youtubing’ her and so I have probably e watched most of her interviews, there is something new every time. And she of course has some friends in the business, so I started following her and her friend’s interactions with Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and Jordin Sparks. For God’s sake! Most of them are in their teens! They are great girls and role models, but why the heck was I following them? I felt really guilty.

What I learned from this experience...

First of all, I learned that these girls work really hard. I realized that Taylor Swift has concerts almost every day, on top of interviews, recordings, etc, and was overwhelmed to learn that Demi Lovato had to wake up to work the day after she got into Los Angeles, after opening for the Jonas Brothers in Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brasil. They are all young and full of energy, But I just felt really tired only realizing how much, and how hard they have to work.

Second thing I learned was that I can’t go on judging other people. Like trying to understand, for example, why my 30 something sister in law keeps following Britney. Or the time when I criticized my 30 something brother for following around the now dissolved Mexican pop group RBD. He once even checked himself and his wife to the same hotel they were staying, and of course made friends with them, attended their photo shoots and took the boys out to play soccer.

Third, that as with any addiction you have to try to control yourself, and set limits. I already had an addiction to the Huffington Post and the Drudge Report. I finally found some balance when I discovered the elegantly designed The Daily Beast, because you get to read clever and more intellectual articles from intelligent people. Also because although I am not a native speaker, and have my limits when writing it, I love to read good English.

I am trying to set those limits and end my addiction, because I think that if you go on spending so much time following other people’s lives, you lose energy and specially time for the real world relationships. Or for important things like concentrating in your upcoming CPA exam. I don’t have anything against Twitter, it’s really fun, but you have to find a balance. I will try to find it, but probably won’t make much progress until someone starts Twitter-Anonymous or Youtube-Anonymous. I won’t try to quit for now my HP, DR or Daily Beast addiction… that would be too much to ask.
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