Social Networks (NOT the film about Zuckerberg)

So this is my third post and it's kinda hard to know what I should talk about since I have like no one commenting at the bottom, but whatever. Today I'll talk about something which has consumed almost my whole life since I started knowing that these sort of things existed. And those are SOCIAL NETWORKS.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc... I'll talk about all these websites and apps which somehow have become another part of our life. And by this I mean that we almost spend 50 % of our time awake tweeting, liking, sharing or texting people on the Internet. Even I wake up at very weird times, like 4 am in the morning, just to see who liked my latest profile picture in Facebook or my latest post in Instagram. Some people say that the amount of tweets we read per day is more or less like we were reading a whole book.
And suddenly I wondered why we did that.
Some people somehow forget about the other problems they have when they are talking with a very good friend in Facebook or they got 100 likes on one photo in Instagram. It somehow brings the auto-esteem up a little bit. I'm not saying that just because your channel in YouTube got a 1000 subscribers, you'll be the most confident guy in the world but if you have been bullied at school or you are like a wallflower in the society, you somehow feel admired, popular and loved on these social networks.
Another reason why we use social networks A LOT is because, at least with me, I'm an immigrant and I can tell you that it's really hard to talk or communicate with our family abroad. Phone calls are really expensive and the normal mail arrives like two months after you sent it. (So if you were pregnant, probably the news about the new coming baby will spread when the child is already born.)  So thanks to these social networks we can simply write an email in Facebook or call through Skype.

But like everything in life, these social networks have also disadvantages.

1. It's addicting. Obviously you prefer to write to your girlfriend than go and study for tomorrow's test. Do exercise? "No! Why should I if I can stay home and like photos on Instagram?" Go to piano class? "EEhh... A little bit later, it's raining I don't want to get cold. I should better watch videos on YouTube." Drive my sister to the hospital because she has appendicitis? "Mmmm, maybe the day after tomorrow, I have to read what Miley Cyrus has done on Twitter"And so on and so on.
2. Like you can be bullied in real life you can also get bullied on the net. Cyber-bullying is like the new trend of bullying where you don't have to know each others face just to start insulting, stalking, hating, harassing or simply bullying people on the Internet you don't even know in real life. But this form of bullying is as bad and hurtful as any other form and we need to watch out.
3. Of course don't forget about the pederasts and morons who are on the Internet just to get late or to earn some money 'cause they didn't study.
4. Porn sites (for normal people like me, THAT's a huge disadvantage).
5. Your mood and self confidence is sometimes based on how many followers you got, how many people liked your photo or how many subscribers you have.

In conclusion, social networks can be good, useful or bad tools for life, it depends on how much we rely on them, what role in our lives they play and how we use them.

L’amour et autres choses

Así que ahora me estaba preguntando si alguien realmente está leyendo estas palabras, pero como no estoy segura, simplemente pretenderé que nadie lo leerá, para que se me facilite la existencia. Luego me preocupo de más y al final estarán leyendo puras palabras censuradas.

Como dije en mi post anterior, decidí escribir algunas veces en inglés y otras veces en español, para facilitarnos mutuamente la existencia. 50/50 (como la película que nunca logré ver). Realmente no sé si en el blog debiera hablar sobre un tema en específico o simplemente usarlo como un canal de desahogo del estrés de la vida diaria. O simplemente para las dos cosas. 

Yo opto por la tercera opción.

Ayer me quedé pensando acerca de los amores. El amor. Qué... cosa tan compleja y al mismo tiempo... maravillosa cuando la logras comprender. O al menos eso es lo que he visto en las 354 películas románticas que me he shoteado. Yo con mis queridos dieciséis años:

• nunca he tenido un novio (ni siquiera esos de mentira que teníamos en maternal)
• nadie se me ha declarado 
• nadie me ha besado
• y no he tenido ningún tipo de acercamiento físico con alguien del sexo opuesto

En resumen: ya ven mi éxito amoroso. Creo que hasta Sheldon Cooper ha tenido más éxito que yo.

Pero por alguna razón las palabras de mis padres siempre retumban mi mente y me dicen “Andrea, porqué te preocupas de eso ahorita, si sólo tienes dieciséis años. Créeme que en el futuro es muy improbable de que te cases con alguien de tu actual círculo social.” Y yo, como siempre, sé que es cierto, sé que la lista mencionada anteriormente es pura estupidez inmadura de una simple adolescente pero, Y QUÉ? ¿Cómo pretenden nuestros padres que no nos sintamos así después de todo lo que nos bombardea la televisión, la radio, las películas, el cine, los anuncios y el internet sobre las relaciones románticas y aparte con nuestras hormonas saltando por todas las partes de nuestro cuerpo, afectando nuestras neuronas y volviéndonos más vulnerables a este tipo de cosas. Les juro que una película puede ser excelente, pero si no tiene una escena de acercamiento o romanticismo, mi ranking no pasa de “Buena”, sorry (hi-five a todas mis girls). 

Al menos un suspiro, una caricia, jamás había creído lo mucho que lo añoraría. Próximamente les contaré más a detalle sobre mis fails amorosos y no amoroso.

Los veré pronto :)

Andrea 

Starting a New Me

To all of you unknown people from Africa, America, Tatooine, The Shire, Krypton, Pandora... this is my new blog. And as I said last: it is MINE. I don’t write this to impress anyone, hurt anyone, to show off something to anyone... No. This is the net where I can be myself, this is the place where I can finally take off the mask I’ve worn for such a long time and just be me. So, If you just were wondering why I’m starting to write this, I’m not really sure myself. I don’t even know if I should write it in spanish (my mother tongue) or english, which is the language that everyone understands. But whatever.   Sometimes I’ll write in spanish and sometimes in english. I don’t know, I’ll debate that with my head later. 

So, before I get started with my first writing of the week, or better said, the first writing of my blog, I’ll tell you something about myself, so that you guys see that I’m no different from anybody else. I’m pretty much mortal like you guys, no lucky super-star, no fortunate winner of Slum-dog Millionaire, no wizard student of Hogwarts, no Jedi... Well, everything started with my cries on the night of the 3th of March of 1997 (sorry about the annoying repetition of the preposition “of”). I lived in Panama for 6 happy years, and then we moved to Mexico City because of a  mysterious asteroid coming from Coruscant that hit the whole city’s surface... no, just kidding. I moved because Panalpina offered my father a new charge in Mexico and my father agreed to take it. With no family or any kind of relationship with anyone, I pretty much felt like an Englishman in New York. New school, new challenges, but I’ll come back to all of those details later (I promise :) ). And after eight years of up and downs, I moved to Switzerland last year. Again, a complete new world to me. And imagine me right in the middle of The Difficult Age, with all this hormones going up and down, saying I was an adult, that I could take care of myself, when it came to parties or trips, but on the other hand always wanting a midnight kiss from my mother. I’m talking about the so-called Adolescence. Yeah, we people aren’t very proud of these specific stage of our lives. But whatever. At the end I finally passed school, I could swear to God that this sincerely WAS a miracle delivered gently by the Holy Spirit. Yeah, this year wasn’t the best for me, not only because school, but also because of a lot of other meaningful experiences and happenings. 

And now I’m writing comfortably in my little apartment in Bronx full of garbage and bad smells with Al Pacino right next to me with a gun in my head demanding 5000 box I owe him <= (This part ain’t true AT all).

So I think for now this is it and I hope you liked this text, share this blog if you like it and of course, thumbs-up wouldn’t hurt anyone :)

See you ‘till next time