(Written on Oct 17)

It's been 7 years since I lost my dad; 7 months since I lost my mother.

Alright, 7 months and two weeks - 2 x 7 days.

I've wanted to write something like this, but didn't really know what or how. Now I guess I know.

7 things I've learned from my father

Swimming in the sea is fun.

Being intelligent may be a burden.

Explaining things to a child is better than shouting at them.

If you're making a 3000 piece jigsaw puzzle, start by separating the colors.

You can fix a power socket.

To organize your papers, first you have to make a bigger mess.

Some lame jokes are made to be told again and again.

7 things I've learned from my mother

If you don't love it love it love it, don't buy it.

It's better to live within your means - debts are scary.

Buy best quality, not cheaper price.

If you're going to the opera, you should listen to the music beforehand - it's an acquired taste.

Theatre premieres are fun, things happen at them - like a trapdoor that has to be punched to open.

It's possible to be an intellectual snob and still enjoy silly romance books.

50 is not too old for a career change.

Not everything I've learned from them was good or nice or fun. But for today, that's what I want to remember.

City and state workers dispensed from working yesterday. People crying on the streets,celebrating as if we had won another football world cup. Only one topic on the news. What world changing event was that?

Rio is going to held the olympic games in 2016.

My first reation is: oh no. Now all the resources that are not available will be spent in building stuff for the games, and the rest of the town will go on being ignored. Now the politicians have something to brag about when they want to distract people from looking at real problems.

But it's possible in the end thing will turn out fine. It may even be fun. Anyone wanting to come watch the games?

Tell me what you think about it.

Dear friends,
I have the pleasure of informing you my thesis was approved yesterday. I'm a doctor now!!!

Now that it's done and over, I invite you to celebrate with me. Come join the party!!!

The best people in the world will be attending!!!

There's no dress code - as long as you remain dressed in public areas!

We have some funny hats to wear...

and there's plenty of drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic...

and soft drinks for those who prefer them...

some tasty finger food....

and some of the sweet variety as well.

Come join the party!!! Let's have lots of fun!!

A friend told me, "When the thesis is over, you'll feel sort of empty, you won't know what to do with your time. You'll miss the work and the writing." And now I'm thinking. Will I really?

Writing a thesis is anguishing. And part of the thesis-writing angst comes from the fact that writing the thesis is anguishing. Thus the angst is feeding itself - endlessly. The writing itself may be either continuous or in spurts, frantic or non-existent, but the angst is always there. Persistent. Ominous. Huge.

And once it's finished - yes, yes, good news, I've finished, it's done!! - what remains is not emptiness. It's lightness. Freedom. The angst is gone, and now the space it occupied is revealed to be not empty, but wide and open. Ready to be filled with anything I want - and what a happy thought!

The space of angst becomes time - free time or busy time, according to each moment's need and preference. Time to do so many things that had been forever postponed to a vague and nebulous distant future 'post-thesis'.

Even time to write blogs.

It's a little less than a month before the date when my thesis final-final version must be handed in, and my computer has died. It's toast. Completely. It won't work anymore. Not ever. No way to fix it. End of the line. That's it.

And all of a sudden I saw myself computerless. Worse. Access-less. Web-less. Not-even-the-keyboard-to-write-my-thesis-with-less. Everything-less.

How troublesome it is to be without a computer! I've been TV-less for more than six months. I was DVD-less longer than that. Radio-less, as well. I've never had a microwave. And a fridge... No, OK, I've never been without a fridge, that's impossible. But it's astonishing to realise the computer has reached the same necessity level of a fridge.

I could have survived for a while without the internet. I'd probably be feeling like punching the monitor every 15 minutes, bouncing up and down for not being able to read my emails, follow the crisis in Iran, see the latest celebrity gossips, check the spelling of some more exotic words, and why not say it, shopping for a new computer. Because I'd still have within my reach the technological wonder that is the word processor, alied to the modern life magic known as the keyboard, without which there is not even the slighest possibility of me finishing my thesis one day, not to mention within schedule.

But no, not even that. All of a sudden I was back to pre-informatic times, having only a pen or pencil and the blank page to write with. Pre-historic times, indeed. What a waste of time, writing and then rewriting and then re-rewriting! And the joint pains? Unused to the effort, the hand hurts after several pages. A few more, and the pain becomes paralising. What was bothersome typing becomes, when writing by hand, a pain that hinders, immobilizes, cripples.

Luckily for me, I found out I have a friend who had a spare computer at home. Had. Now it's with me, solving a big problem. And I can go back to writing my thesis, and also to reading emails, following the crisis in Iran, seeing the celebrity gossips, checking the spelling of obscure words, writing blogs, and all those things that distract me from the original purpose that was writing the thesis.