Motives

I often think about what motivates us to do things. I mean, what really makes us do things; who and what it is that we do them for. I've come to the conclusion that absolutely everything we do, we do for ourselves- humans are very selfish, it turns out.

Like, when you make a sacrifice. Suppose you really, really want the last cookie, but your best friend wanders in and expresses the deep love for cookies s/he has. And you decide that even though not having the cookie will make you feel kind of miserable (as not having cookies tends to do), you'll let your friend have it. Why did you just do that? Because you care about your friend?

I think it's because you thought it out and decided that if you make your friend unhappy by keeping the cookie, you'll be guilty enough to outweigh the nice feeling from getting the cookie - you'll be more unhappy than happy. If you give up the cookie, you'll be unhappy because you didn't get it, but you'll be happier because you won't feel any guilt - you'll be more happy than unhappy. So really, you didn't do it to make your friend feel good, you did it to make yourself feel good; it was the choice that made you feel happier, it was the guilt-free option. You don't care about your friends as much as you care about yourself, whichever way you look at it.

It's kind of muddled written down, so I tried my best at making that easily understandable. If you don't get it, nuts to you.

(Oh, and if you keep the cookie, it's because you feel better when you're happy than when your friend is happy. If you keep the cookie, you suck as a friend)


P.S. If anybody has $3.50 USD+shipping and a big, fluffy heart, dare I ask for this? It would make you happy to make me happy! We both win!

I wish I could sleep through this

They're at it again. Oh God.

The next-door-neighbours have some sort of noise-making organization (I guess it's a band to them) and once or twice a week we have to suffer through hours of... it. It looks like a children's story, when I write it down:

The drums go "poom-pa poom-pa poom-pa, pooooommm (dararara)!!! ... ... ... poom? ... Poom! poom-pa poom-pa..."

and then the guitar goes "heehaw! heehaw! (snort)"

and the vocalist just said something that sounds more like "awalai awayehhh!" than anything I've ever heard in my life.

They take a quick little break while the guitarist plays "Mary had a little lamb" out of tune. And then they keep at it.

My sister is recording them, and I'm having a little fantasy where I find some amplifiers and play it back at them, all day long.

Rapidín y en español

¿Conocen el castillo que está en Xochimilco? ¿El que está chiquito y bonito, pero como que fuera de lugar?

(Foto robateada cortesía de aquí)

Pues la semana pasada, en reunión familiar, disfrutando el pastel de cumpleaños de mi hermana (happy 19th, Reenie!) -que por cierto nos cayó pesado a todos al día siguiente- uno de mis tíos comentaba que se había puesto a investigar a ver qué onda con ese castillo, y resulta que alguna vez perteneció "al tío Aureliano" (tío de mi tío, o sea, tío de mi papá: mi tío abuelo). Resulta que el Tío Aureliano tuvo 18 hijos (!), fue uno de los primeros en separar gemelos siameses en 1917, y era exiliado político. Se codeó con Porfirio Díaz, con Victoriano Huerta...

Bueno, después de leer un poco, no creo que me hubiera caído bien si lo hubiera conocido... pero bueno, tampoco era para que no nos hubiera dejado su castillo ;P

Que por cierto, volviendo al castillo, ¿de quién es ahora? Ps quién sabe, pero si pusiera visitas guiadas de seguro se ganaría una buena lanilla y me haría un favor al satisfacer la curiosidad que tengo por ver cómo es por dentro.

Whee!

Okay, I keep on meaning to write, but you see I just can't find the time. Apparently when someone dies you pray every day, starting on the day they die, for nine days. And since we're close family members, we have to go extra-early to my grandmother's house to set up chairs, sleep, and sit in the kitchen nattering (it's hard work, but someone's got to do it) and then, once the prayer's over, go around and offer everybody food (Napkin? Coffee? Milk? Sugar? Atole? Tamal? Food is a big, big part of pretty much every social thingy). And then stand behind the little bar my grandparents have and pour more coffee.

So anyway, I spend a while over there. And when I get home I'm all tired. Oh, and a cousin is spending a lot of time here, making up for the fact that the other cousin we hang out with is off in England sipping tea with the Queen in a summer course thing, very near the castle where they film the Great Hall scene in the Harry Potter movies.

So we all hang out here, and then we all got sick (me, my sister, her boyfriend, my other sister and my cousin- the only one who was saved was my other sister's boyfriend) and puked a lot and felt miserable.

But mostly I haven't written because my sister's boyfriend, from now on known as Camilo (the one with the cool mom) is in this city to attend university and his home base, so to speak, is in Querétaro. So he went back to Querétaro for a few days to be with his cool mom on his birthday, which was on Thursday.

Now you may or may not (probably not) be asking your little selves what this has to do with anything. It has to do with the fact that he left us in charge of what he calls his baby, but is actually a Wii. We've been taking gooooood care of it :D

Beans

On Saturday I woke up to my 21-year-old sister chanting,

Beans, beans, they're good for your heart
The more you eat, the more you fart
The more you fart, the better you feel-
So let's eat beans for every meal!

Not a great thing to wake up to, especially because I was on the top bunk of my bed, so she was eye-level. She's been reciting that pretty often since, although today we were taking an afternoon nap in a pile on my grandfather's bed, and she sleepily condensed it to

Beans, beans, good for heart,
more eat, more fart
eat beans.

In the event that she has children, I am never, ever going to take care of them for her. I wouldn't want that woman's offspring in my house, thank you very much.

Although I did kind of get her back. I sang Tiny Tim's Living in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight until, when I reached the bit that says "Things that bother you, never bother me!" for around the fifteenth time, she said, "LIKE THAT SONG!"

Well, that's that.

I kept on thinking I saw him twitch in the coffin, or breathe. Really, I could have sworn I saw him breathe a few times. I had the feeling that he was going to open his eyes, look around and get up, annoyed that everybody was crying when he had explicitly said he didn't want anybody to be sad or to dress in black, because he had been happy man.

Everybody said he looked peaceful, and a lot better than when he was in the hospital. I didn't get to see him those last few weeks, because they don't let underage people in to see the patients. I can't tell you how much it sucked to sit on those little uncomfortable chairs/the floor in the waiting room the whole day, reading. Being the only one who couldn't visit.

I told my sister about the twitching-and-breathing thing, and she frowned and whispered angrily "Lalli!". Like I'd suggested we bury him with a sick hamster or something. Sometimes I think she'll grow up to be a little old sour lady, too- the kind that glares at you when you sneeze at an inappropriate moment.

God, I got sidetracked. Oops.

So, anyway, this is goodbye to my grandfather. Bye-bye. I love you. Take care, wherever you are, if you are anywhere :'(

Life is treating me well, but-

Not much has happened lately... I mean, yeah, stuff has happened, but nothing I really feel like writing about. Zzzz (I'm wearing pajama bottoms with blue clouds that say "sleep" and green stars that say "zzzz..." and I made them!)

You know how at a movie theater you hand over your ticket and then go into a corridor with doors to all the different rooms, showing different movies? Well, I went to watch a movie today and we were kind of annoyed at the system (or something) because the price of one measly liter of plain water was enough to buy another ticket (sans student discount, even!). So when the movie finished and we were leaving, we walked past the door to another room that was open, and the movie hadn't started yet. So we slipped in, figuring that SOMEONE owed us for the water, ahem ahem.

This is where karma kicks in. It turned out the movie was Alone with Her (Miradas Ocultas), about a stalker called Doug. Doug is walking through the park one day filming people when he sees a woman playing with her dog. Being the sicko that he is, Doug breaks into her home and puts cameras all over so he can see everything she does (and when she goes outside, he follows her and-yep- films her). So Doug and the audience get to see stuff I really would have rather not seen. Ew. Anyway, we left after about 15 minutes.

Next time I'm checking what the movie is about before doing that.

So then I went to see my grandmother (who needs moral support because of grampsies' condition and nevermindIdon'twanttodepressyou) and we watched Bend It Like Beckham, and then Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley but no Colin Firth -but that's okay, because we have the BBC version on DVD, and also several other movies with him, actually- and then when I got home I watched a Korean movie called Jeni, Juno which is absolutely adorable, plus the main male character is pretty much all you'd ever want. Mmm. And his name is Juno.

Actually, it's similar to Juno, which came out last year, but only in the sense that it's about teen pregnancy and that one of the main characters is called Juno, except in the Korean movie it's the (cute) guy, and in the American one it's the girl.

Also I don't like the American character (I like the actor, though).

I had a dream once where I was pregnant... I was walking down the street, it was sunny and a bit windy, and I was wearing a white dress. And I felt really happy for some reason.

Wow. I just... kind of... jumped from one thing to another on this post without really thinking.

I'm sleepy now... luckily my PJ's are halfway on!

I've been wondering,

Should I shave my head?

I think most women look ok bald (have you seen any photos of Natalie Portman when she shaved it all off? She looked great. Of course, I'm no Natalie Portman, but my point still stands), and if I
went swimming I wouldn't have to wear a fugly swimming cap the way the place I go to dictates, plus it would be totally nice not to have to wash the badger on my head every time I shower. Oh, and about showers, it would take a lot less time and I'd save a load of water.

Oh, and no bad hair days! That appeals very much to me.

In fact, I'll make a list.

- All aforementioned advantages.
- If you puke, none of it gets in your hair.
- No tangles.
- It feels funny if you rub your head when your hair's really short.
- No danger of chewing gum getting stuck in it.
- No need to carry four or five elastics around all the time.
- Head feels lighter.

I'm still playing with the idea... I'm not sure if I'll do it. If I can find a friend to do it with me (yeah, I know, good luck with that), I think I will.

Here's a Domo, there's a Domo

So yesterday I was talking to M.E. Serralde (on messenger) and he had this little Domo-kun icon, which made think about Domo... I was getting quite interested in acquiring one of my own, and I read somewhere that Domos often prefer warm climates and grassy places (with caves and televisions).

So of course I set out to hunt one in my very own backyard- and guess what I found!

A SQUIRREL!!

No, I'm kidding. I found a friendly little monster. But I'm pretty sure the only reason I caught Domo was because he had no arms, the poor thing. So I put him out of its misery by eating him (yum).

Anyway, I suck at icing (never done it before) plus I kind of made up my own icing recipe based on what my mom told me about icing... yeah, I won't ever be using this "icing" again.

<-- So over here is pre-legs Domo...


And down there is post-legs Domo.







My sister wanted to eat it before I even finished "icing" the mouth- and she's got a food blog and stuff. I mean, she should understand that I'd want to, I dunno, finish him first? :(

Although in her defense, he smells delicious and tastes better (it's sort of a recycled recipe. These Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes minus the cream cheese and the cup. That leaves a very special chocolate cake, see? Only very slightly modified to make it even better. Who could resist?)