Vegetables in my kitchen: A Pea in a pod

In the frozen darkness, I lay in between my brothers and sisters. After settling down in our current positions, we haven't moved an inch. I couldn't say how we've been here, since there's no time in this place, no sun, no wind to count by. I can only account for what was before this: it seemed like a slightly warmer place with a symphony of alien sounds and smells that had nothing to do with the ones at home. I also remember lying on top of other families, separated from ours by an impenetrable and impermeable membrane that doesn't belong to any animal I know. This strange blanket still confines us to a secluded place; it seems a toxic jail we can't escape from.

The temperature is nothing I've felt before; yet in a way, is similar to the embrace of the sun in the early morning, but it has nothing of the comfort and goodness the bright star in the sky has. The freeze is deadly; there are no possibilities in this environment. Everything is latent, forgotten, left here to keep an undetermined amount of time.
This might be a promise were it not for the quiet and desolation. No one of makes a sound, we are concentrated on the feeling of being frozen in spite our wishes. Being a rock must feel this way. When it started happening, I enjoyed the process, how it gradually started from outside in, surrounding me completely in a cool wave. But now all I can concentrate on is not freezing so much that any movement might shred me into tiny pieces of green.

Suddenly, the dark universe stirs and a warm fog clings to the toxic membrane. For a while no one moves, because no one can. Later on, we can feel some of our neighbours stirring by a strange force and we are swiftly picked up. At that moment, all my siblings dance up and down and I go along with them as in a bubble pool and I lost my bearings. This goes on for a while until we are settled onto a hard flat surface. We are out of the cold and slowly the stiffness of being frozen starts to give way to our former state and we regain life. Now we are all our normal green.

We dwell in this sensation for some time. There are a lot of noises around us and again they are strange to us. We grow to our normal seizes and every one smiles silently. The toxic membrane is picked up again and something sharp slides a part of it off and a beam of light touches our faces. It’s wonderful. Then the balance is tipped and we are all sliding out of this jail. In the way we push each other out, content with the opportunity of playfully getting out of here.

What expects us at the end of the fall is a boiling pool of water. The contrast with the cold we not so long ago were confined in feels intense, but we relinquish the feeling and sink together to the metallic depth of the container. The temperature is hotter there and we are paralyzed by it. A few minutes past, and one of my brothers suddenly loses his hold on the floor and floats up. We all stare from underneath. He seems to have fun floating this and that direction so some of us decide to try.

Floating upwards is a wonderful sensation, a rebirth. When we reach the surface of the water, we dance with the bubbles in merriment. The hot water flushes our faces and we take on a grass green tan; we are shiny and beautiful. Feeling proud, we swell up and continue our party for a while.

Suddenly the bubbles stop and the water pool moves. It also gets tipped down and we slide again in the water. A net catches and the rest of my siblings press against me and the net; it gets shaken and we jump by the force. The water slides away; too small to stay with us on the net.

Afterwards we are poured into another flat surface. This one is painted with fake flowers that don’t smell. A lot of colour surrounds us and other elements are placed around us. We don’t know them, but they seem familiar. Maybe they come from a place like our home. This day has been intense, while we lay here I wonder: What’s next?

Exercise 1: Vegetables in my kitchen

I'm going to start this week's exercise with a day to day topic, the vegetables in my kitchen. Those who know me are aware I didn't used to be a green eater person. Fortunately, along with many other things, I've changed my ways when it comes to my meals and now is frequent to find vegetables in my menu.

This week's exercise consists in writing short stories about the vegetables or other greens located in my kitchen. May it make you hungry!

The No Hesitating Campaign

I'm soon to embark in a life changing experience. The dice have been cast, the cards are on the table and I've finally reached a decision: I'm going to Newcastle University to join the MA in Creative Writing, class of 2009. This is the happy consequence of a long, tough process called The No Hesitating Campaign.

Reaching a Milestone:

Personally and professionally I reached a turning point about half a year ago: the options were settling down in a specific place and in a certain career path, returning home to saw a new path or moving on to a new horizon. The crisis of the 1/4 of a century. This accompanied by a wake up call in the form of an emergency surgery was the shock I needed to stop drifting along with the current and start swimming to my destination.

The feeling of slight anxiety and profound doubt about that this uncertainty caused me only needed a firm decision to disappear. I find that there's nothing more inductive to a peaceful state of mind than deciding something major and following it through step by step. Being one commonly yet wrongly thought of as decisive, I had a hard time figuring out what was it that I wanted. But once I did, there was no possibility of turning back.

The No Hesitating Campaign:

Many phases were part of this, here are some:

• First: After deciding what I wanted to pursue and were (meaning country) the following step was intensive research. Knowing my way around the net, this wasn't particularly difficult but long indeed. Unaccountable hours were spent searching, selecting and in note making.

• 7 is a magic number: Once I went through the options, I decided I would apply on 7 universities. Applying on more seemed to be too much to handle; and applying on less made me nervous :S

• Application Package Party: After going through toooooons of applications guides, I decided to make a list of it all and prepare a major package that I could present to the different universities, making the necessary modifications to fit the different programs and requirements. Once you have the package is relatively easy, but making it is a bit more complicated.

• The wait: This could be the most nerve wrecking part, except I decided to forget about it for a month or so. Universities in my experience do answer around the time they say they will, so there's no major reason to worry about. This is the time to trust you've chosen the right programs to apply to and that they will like your application. True, I did check my email frequently enough, but I lost the worrying on the way; it would have eaten me up!!!

• The offers and the rejections: I'm happy to say I got as many offers as I did rejections. I think I was lucky about it. Rejection is not something easy to deal with, but getting a good percentage of each allowed me to make peace with the situation and choose wisely. I ended up in the program I liked best from the beginning.
  
  Saying no to a University that has accepted you is not an easy thing; I find it a sad moment. But they know as well as you do that you need to be in the best place for you, and unfortunately that can't be everywhere!

• Accepting the offer and setting the course: About 2 weeks ago I accepted the offer for Newcastle and now I'm entering the whole preparation to leave phase. It's a bit stressful, for all the anticipation building up, but well, gotta enjoy every step of the ride!!!

Pound for your thoughts

After going through this, I have come to admire the tenacity required to pull it through. So, from here to all of those who apply to Graduate Studies: I salute you.

Now that the GPS is put in place and the university is guiding the process, I'm dutifully making all the preparations. A lot of people have supported me through this process and are curious to know what’s gonna happen. This blog is a window to talk about this phase and to do some creative writing exercises.