Feliz año del marrano de oro :-)

As a jew, I don't celebrate Chinese New Year at all, but working in a crystal bubble like ECA is, we are surrounded by an international (or should I say global?) citizenship thing that makes us participate in different activities that we rarely experiment on a normal occasion. This time was no exception, and last friday during lunch, some Korean, Japanese and Chinese HS students were giving fortune cookies to everyone at the cafeteria. I didn't miss the opportunity to ask for a cookie, which my friend Shashi did for me, as the students were actually HIS students. The funny thing is that he got two fortune cookies and his didn't have any fortune message inside, while mine had one. We started joking saying "oh dude, you've got no fortune, hehehe". My fortune? it said "Go often to your friend's house, because weed grows in a path that is rarely walked through".

To be honest, it kinda shocked me, because my friends (Dani, Ale, Jonathan) and I haven't seen each other properly in some time... let's see what I can do about it. Also I think I need to contact my college senior classmates. In the meantime, like cantonese say, 恭喜發財,利是逗來! :-)

יום הולדת שמח to me, again!

Living in a world where the dominant western culture has a different calendar to the one your religion uses makes it a little complex when birthdays come. So the most common (and the funniest) solution tends to be celebrating both dates. In my case, I was born on January 20th, 1976, a date equivalent to Shevat 18th, 5736 in the hebrew calendar. It's kinda obvious that both dates might not coincide in a long time (I think it only happens every 19 years or so, because of the lunar cycles or something like that) and this year was not an exception. Shevat 18th, 5767 is equivalent to February 6th, 2007, and for that date I decided to do something different, although kinda unplanned. My friend José Juan (the one in the photo with a light green chemise) turned 27 on January 24th so, since neither of us are from Caracas, we decided to do something to celebrate together since have quite a few friends in common -we work together at ECA

I cannot say that it was the party I wanted -it was mostly a cervezada with Joe's friends since most my own friends dissappeared or had something more important to do, were not in town or simply forgot about my "western" birthday so I decided to to invite'm; but like my friend Lennys said, "coño Carlitos, you even had a jam session in your birthday party! Man, that's a privilege not many people can afford, especially if the musicians play just for fun!". And the cake! Yeah, I'm definitely starting to enjoy Carlos Santana's music :-)

By the way, I also got a much appreciated birthday present from my boss, who apart from his guitar solos brought me an indian shirt (a short-sleeved kurti, I guess) that comes in handy for my cousin's wedding, which will be at the beautiful Margarita Island next March 10th.


Oh, and don't miss my leprechaun rainbow hat I "stole" from my friend Joe, hehehe :-D

Career Day @ ECA

It's always been a pleasure for me to to present at ECA's Career Day and talk to the kids about my career, what makes me love it and what I have done in my life until now -as a professional, of course- so they can have a better view of what being an IT professional is like. The first time I did it, I offered myself just out of curiosity and because of the novelty of doing something for the place I work. The second time, 50% of the emotion related to it was long time gone. This time, the organizers asked me to present and I almost replied "no, I can't", hehehe.

But this time it proved to be the most special of the three occasions that I have participated as a presenter. Thank G'd I don't have to be dressed in suit & tie to work, so coming to school dressed in an italian suit caused a conmotion it seemed, especially because that same day was also the Birthday Breakfast for the ones who had their birthdays in January, and that includes me, so everyone's reaction was like "OMG, look how elegant!" "Is that the new uniform for the techies?" "Wow!" "Carlitos, you look like a million bucks!" and Ms. Lowman's reaction, which was "you look superb..If I was your age I would ask you on a date right in front of my husband!". No wonder that was my favourite!

But was definitely made my day was the presentation itself. Even this time I only had 5 students attending, after I finished two students (one argentinian and a spaniard) asked me specifically for a list of universities in Spain (for the spaniard) and Argentina and the US (for the Argentinian) that I would reccomend them. Now that's a display of interest! it seems part of my presentation was worth it :-D