I am guessing that when you were a kid, dear reader, you had to answer the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” more than once.
Thanks to an undeniable obsession that I went through when being a kid, my answer to this question was in a beginning: A whale trainer… Yes, a whale trainer. The one to blame for this bizarre dream occupation was mostly the film Free Willy. It was after watching this movie that your writer spent several days attempting to draw Orcas in an ‘Orca cover notebook’(‘attempting’ because if you were to take a look at them now, they would seem more like misshapen sausages with a dorsal fin on top and a sort-of-flipper in the bottom).
I keep that notebook back at home, and I am pretty sure they look something like this:
Some years later the dream sort of came true in a different way when going to Shamu’s show in Sea World for a few times. I will never forget that one of these times the whale was swimming in the tank (the tank where the show does not take place, but the one where they are supposed to ‘rest’), she disappeared in the bright blue water and then came from the bottom, swimming slowly showing her white ‘belly’ in a vertical position right in front of me. She was huge, great; definitely the most amazing thing I had ever experience until then. A beautiful animal.
Time passed by and I figured that whales were meant to swim free just like Willy, so then the next obsession was dinosaurs and that is when I decided that I was going to become a Paleontologist! This went on and on, it was dream profession after dream profession… to then get to this present moment…
This present moment where Orcas living free in the west coast of America have to actually be treated as toxic, hazardous waste when they die; due to effects from industrial chemicals that are swept into the ocean. A real shame I must say. And your writer, well your writer an almost-fourth-year student of International Marketing, seems to be ‘selling’ neighbors the idea of wanting to burn houses down (…I will get to this later!).
…WHERE EXACTLY DID WE GO WRONG?
Almost reaching the (hopefully) last fourth year of the Marketing studies and already done with the minor abroad in Sevilla. This past month was characterized by –
Temperatures rising to quite high levels, that at night make your head have dreams such as you walking towards the house’s refrigerator, opening it and entering a magical world where everything is made out of ice. In this magical world you can go into your house (which is an igloo) and peacefully sleep without having to take all of your clothes off and still be too warm, or having to wake up at 3 in the morning to exterminate irritating mosquitos that BUZZZZ on your ear for the entire night.
(Yes, this high temperatures also make you write ‘moronic’ stuff. )
Switching from roaming only in terrestrial habitats to venturing into “a concrete tank filled with innumerable chemical compounds consisting of two hydrogen atoms joined with an oxygen one (H2O)”(…this is just weird way of saying a “swimming pool”); for doing physiotherapy due to a very annoying injury in the adductor muscles in one of your writer’s legs.
(…Or ‘groin muscles’, because adductor sounds more like a robot part… like it would not sound ‘out of context’ if C3PO would ask R2D2 to ‘repair’ its adductor part in a Star Wars movie or something).
Playing to be an ‘architect’, along with learning 28 formulas for the Merchandising course’s exam; to then forget them completely after 15 minutes of finishing the test. ‘Bulimic studies’, when you gag it all in to then just throw (almost) all up.
Practicing with creating advertisements (to ‘give tigers a hand’ of course), new fonts and book covers.
Learning that you should never, ever put pictures such as those ones shown below, in a group presentation about ‘Google Glass and its Possible Failures in the Market’ (at least not in the part when it is your turn to speak); unless you want to get a laugh attack (accidentally of course) without being able to stop for approximately 2 minutes.
Your classmates will certainly laugh (they will actually be the ones to blame for triggering your uncontrollable laugh attack), but the teacher… The teacher will look at you, with eyes that spit the words: IT IS NOT FUNNY! “I KEEL YOU”!
Making a very first “children's book” draft: Ari Bocket! As the Creative Writing course’s final project.
And having possibly the last ‘Sing Star’ night in Sevilla a couple of nights ago, just so the front door neighbor would call this house’s landowner to say that he “wants to set this house on fire!” (No joke, he really wants to set this house on fire, haha!).
I am guessing that when you sing The Darkness’ “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” at 4 in the morning up in the house’s terrace, you are asking way too much from the neighbors’ part; especially after this house has been responsible for this street’s auditory pollution… we just happened to ‘put the cherry on top of the ice cream’.
(We were like the neighbor’s mosquito BUUUZZZ at night. He was probably trying to walk into his house’s refrigerator to enter a magical world where people become voiceless at night, and cannot play Sing Star at all!… It did not work, so then he started wanting to lit the house on fire!… …I seriously cannot believe how I write this things, but WHATEVER!)
So the minor abroad is DONE, one more week and ‘au revoir’ Sevilla… otherwise this house might be set on fire (Sevilla’s crappy night life, which makes you want to look for alternatives to have fun, is to blame!).
Along with this minor goes the 3rd year of International Marketing from Fontys, which was of course a roller coaster! Follow mE stepped various places along the way – Europe, Guatemala, marvelous and beautiful India… divine Bhutan – we saw the world, a world of contrasts: Its good things, its ‘improvable’ things, some things that make you want to laugh, others that make you want to cry… Met people, some of whom I never imagined meeting, many of those who I am sure in a way will stay with me forever.
Overall it was a great year, a year for not changing a thing – not the good times, not the ‘hard’ times - they are all to keep.
Thanks for reading dear readers! And congratulations, YOU survived Follow mE with Maria… lets see what happens this next one year that’s just coming up.
Also, if you do not live somewhere in South America, enjoy the summer (otherwise enjoy the winter!), I’ll try writing during these two months… it depends.
Hasta la próxima
Peace OUT
Your writer,
Maria
