Carry on!

                Sometimes all you wish for at night when closing your eyes is for tomorrow to bring you something that will make you smile, something that will give you the strength to overcome those storms raging in your life. Unfortunately, not all wishes come true and most of the time, things do not turn out the way we would want them to. Lately, I have been through some very tough times. It is just as if issues and heartaches agreed upon choosing me to be their best buddy. You know the one you want to see everyday, chill with, do stuff with and so one. Except that in my case, having the company of heartaches and personal issues is something I could have passed on but…  things happen you know.

        So like I said… it's really been tough lately and I have been going from disappointment to disappointment. In the beginning I was just you know trying to find ways to keep myself motivated but then after a while of things not changing, it got harder for me to see the positive side of things not working out. It started to get difficult to see the good behind having to fix your heart over and over again, crying with your head under your pillow every night and making sure every morning that you have a supply of Advil in your bag because your head hurts from the crying the night before. I started to fall apart emotionally and psychologically as I felt like life was beating me up and really all I thought I could do was lay down on the couch and have some ice cream in hope that it would soothe my pain away.

              One day that I was ranting in my mind about all the things that went wrong, I realized that it was even more depressing and that I needed to change that attitude of mine and do something about all that. Other people managed to make things harder than the ones I have been through workout perfectly fine so why wouldn’t it be the same for me? What was I doing wrong? What wasn’t I doing? What should I or should I not be doing to be successful?  I am a firm believer that God plays a big part in someone’s success but the remaining part that is also important is the amount of effort we put into being successful. Because see, God can help you and He will but if you are not doing what you are supposed to in order to be successful in whatever it is that you are doing, chances are you will not succeed. And even if you do, it will not be as often and as rewarding as you would want it to be. Following that line of thoughts, I went online and start looking for good habits to develop in order to be successful. Out of all the propositions that came out, I randomly chose this blog and I was just blown away by what I read.  Basically, it says that the more challenging things get, the more you have to invest yourself and the more you invest yourself, make efforts and sacrifices, the more successful you will be. 

              It is easy to do things that are not challenging but the minute you encounter a challenge on your way, you should not bell out. You should confront it and find ways to make things work, to deliver instead of giving excuses on why things didn’t work. Shake things up a little bit, stop playing on the safe side and walk on the side of the road that is a little bit riskier. Most importantly, don’t let failure stop you from getting where you are supposed and meant to be: fall and get up. Understand why you fell, why it happened what you could have done differently and try again and again and again. Try plan A, if it doesn’t work try plan B, C, D, E, all the way to Z. Try until it works because that’s how you become successful. Keep running that race to success even though you are out of breath, even though you have had too many failures. A lot of people give up the fight too early and some other people fight and give up when they are just seconds away from winning it. And believe me there is not greater failure than to give up when victory is near. Next time you are about to give up on something you have worked so hard for, think about that and carry on :)

"Life is easy when you live it the hard way and hard when you live it the easy way"

Carry on !

C'est la vie!

“ Apprendre à rire de soi, c'est un chemin joyeux vers la sérénité.” Rien (je trouve) mieux que cette phrase ne résume parfaitement une situation a la quelle j’ai été confrontée il n’y a pas si longtemps que cela. Apprendre à rire de soi est une expérience, un examen que chacun de nous est amené a passer dans la vie d’une manière ou d’une autre. Pour ma part, le but de cet « examen » est de se rendre compte que l’on est tous potentiellement des cibles du hasard et que certaines choses échappent parfois à notre control. Ceci étant, certains de ces « facteurs »  échappant a notre control peuvent nous mettre dans des situations très embarrassantes dont je suis sur certains diront : « avec le temps on finit par en rire mais sur le coup ce n’est pas très drôle ». pour moi ce ne fut pas le cas : bien que la situation fut embarrassante, je dois avouer que j’en ai ri depuis l’instant ou j’y est été confrontée et je dois avouer que jusqu’à ce jour j’en ri encore (LOL).

Ce jour-là, j’étais de debout de bon matin et ayant fini de me préparer pour me rendre au boulot, je suis prise d’une envie saugrenue de me chausser de ma plus belle paire d’escarpins qui a mon gout n’avaient pas été assez portés. Je sors donc de chez moi et j’arrive à mon travail. Je reçois beaucoup de compliments et je suis plutôt fière de mon allure et de ma prestance alors que je me déplace de salle en salle, rien de plus normal  considérant ma « profession ».

Jusqu’ici la journée se déroule bien : j’ai fini ce que j’ai à faire au travail et je dois me mettre en route pour un rendez-vous que je dois honorer. Je prends donc mes affaires et descends les escaliers. Je sors du bâtiment et à ma grande surprise je constate qu’il neige. Ca complique tout : je n’avais pas prévu ce facteur la dans mon équation du jour et avec les  talons... je pense au temps fou que je vais perdre pour arriver à mon rendez-vous. Ayant quitté mon office un peu plus tôt, je me rassure en me disant qu’au pire des cas, ce sera un retard de quelques minutes. Je fais donc mon bout de chemin pour emprunter le métro et quelques minutes plus  tard, j’arrive au lieu du rendez-vous. Tout se déroule bien et après une heure et quelques minutes il est maintenant temps de s’en aller. Je prends mes affaires et je pars et c’est là que le destin choisi de me donner une claque. Il fait froid, il neige, il peut, je me précipite pour pouvoir rattraper le train et rentrer oubliant presque que dehors c’est une vraie patinoire. Tout d’un coup vlan ! en une fraction de seconde je me retrouve à genou, face contre terre. Il me faut quelques secondes pour réaliser que je viens de faire une chute légendaire qui au lieu de m’irriter suscite tout de suite un fou rire. Les quelques passants qui avaient suivi la scène se précipitent pour me demander si ça va, à la fois surpris de la vitesse à laquelle la scène s’est passée et un peu inquiétés par le danger de ma chute vertigineuse. Je me relève avec dignité et très amusée et je réponds avec le peu de sérieux que je peux rassembler : « ca va ne vous en faites pas. Juste quelques égratignures mais je survivrais »

Et ce n’est pas  peu de le dire ! je me suis tapée la honte de ma vie en pleine rue, j’en ai même ris et je respire encore. C’est bien là la preuve que le ridicule ne tue pas et qu’apprendre à rire de soi rend les choses moins dramatiques qu’elles le sont. Et après avoir vue cette vidéo sur laquelle je vous laisse j’ai réalisé qu’il y avait pire qu’une chute en pleine rue, qu'un jean déchiré au genou et une chasse au sparadrap dans les pharmacies environnantes pour cacher un genou qui crie au scandale des chutes en talons sous la neige. Alors souriez, la vie est belle!

The revolution starts with you

I would like to start this article by wishing you a very happy, productive, full of beautiful surprises and blessed New Year. I know we’ve past New Year for a month now, and  I know I disappeared and couldn’t be found anywhere but boy have I been thinking about what I would be writing about. And every single article I would write did not seem appropriate enough to reflect what was in my mind and as well as the flows and rearrangement happening now in my life.

A new year is usually a time where you want to take new resolutions that you will probably keep for at most a month and go back to your old habits. It is usually about what you have done wrong that you want to fix or about what you hadn’t had the opportunity to do and that you would like to do. I think it is also a time to reflect on you and think of what you have accomplished so far. Think of the milestones you have hit and tell yourself “I’ve come a long way”

Every year brings with it a lot of different things, emotions, situations, people... everything changes around us: everything becomes a variable in our life making change the only constant we will always have to deal with no matter where we are or how old we are. But are we really changing? Are we becoming a new person or just like wine, getting better as time passes?

You know how years from now, you were that guy that would hit on every girl at every party you would go to? Or that girl that thought bad boys were cool back in high school? Well maybe that’s the only characteristic of you your friends have kept in mind from all those years they have been around you. Then everyone take different paths, you start opening up to the world, experiencing what is out there. Seeing new people, new things, and all of the sudden you reconnect with your old friends, with people you haven’t seen in ages. You catch up on things, talk about what you guys have been doing each on his/her side. And all of the sudden it just hits you: you do not have that much in common anymore, you do not have the same definition of what is cool and what is not. They think exercising everyday is lame and you think spending a whole Friday night playing video game is not in phase anymore with the person you have become. And then they just drop the bomb: “oh my God what happened to you? You have changed” But have you really? 

I have recently come to that point with a lot of people I have known for ages and I had thought who would always be bounded by the same things we used to love, do years ago. But what happens is that you grow up, you see new things, see new people, experience what is out there, make mistakes, learn from them. An awful lot of things happen and you start thinking about who you are, who you want to be. You try to figure out in the middle of all that mess which path you have to follow, what you need and what you do not need. You start to sort things out and as you do that, things become clearer for you: you have a better and clearer vision of where you are going and what you are trying to achieve. 

Most people coming back in your life after that process then say you have changed because they do not see that person they used to know. Maybe you have changed and maybe you have not. I like of think of this as working on a paper: in the first draft (rough), you have the ideas, the base, the foundation and essence of your paper. As you work on it, you add more things to it, you embellish it until it looks like what you had in mind. It is the same thing with human beings: some of us change and some well, just are still the same persons they used to be. They just got another insight on life and things and just “embellished” that person they already were aback then. it’s not changing, it’s just being more mature and it all comes to understanding what is good for you and what is not, what will work for you and what will not, but most importantly it’s about figuring out who you are and where you want to be. And this will not happen unless you let that “revolution” take place. So what are you waiting for?

A guide to surviving Organic chemistry

It is weird how walking into a class on the first day you already have a feeling about the class, the professor, your classmates, and your semester. It almost makes you want to run away screaming and bumping into anyone you meet on your quest to find the nearest exit to save your life. This is exactly how I felt the first day I walked into my Organic chemistry class. I thought well… it is the beginning of the semester and you generally feel that way… adding a tad- bit of nostalgia especially if you had an epic summer like the one I had. Anyway… you assume that the dizziness-fainting type of symptoms you experience (coupled with nausea) upon entering the class will get away as time passes. Trust me… you are so wrong it will fade but it will constantly haunt you and around exams time be as virulent as the flu!

 

 

Some people say that organic chemistry is not hard. Well it is not if you are Asian, or if chemistry is your major (then it better not be hard otherwise you are oh-so screwed!)  or if you really are into this type of topics meaning if you reaaaaally reaaaaally reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaally like chem, then maybe it will not be hard (at least for the first couple of classes). Wait until you get into the whole fischer projection , SN1, SN2, E1, E2 mechanisms with regiospecificity or stereochemistry… you are going to feel like your instructor is speaking everything besides English.

 

 

 

I like to define orgo as another language and it truly is another language. You have to learn how to “speak” organic chemistry and boy this has nothing to do with learning Spanish or whatever. Of course it demands a lot of practice like learning any other language does. But at least, you can incorporate languages into you daily life. With organic the reality can be cruel and oh-so rude: forget your dream of having a life when school is in session, train your body to sleep a minimal amount of hours, be prepared to the fact that your stress level is going to be sky-rocketing during these next 4 months you will be taking it. You will eat, breathe, talk organic chemistry, you will dream about it. In one word it will oversaturate your life and ruin it. That’s how you will know that you are doing well in that class.

 

 

 

I got fooled by my professors saying “Organic is not hard, you just have to put in the time, but most importantly you should not dread it”. I was so gullible… ORGANIC IS HARD! Especially that it is not the only class you will be taking! But! Don’t get overstressed or overscared… just dread it enough to keep up with your work and read your notes and your book and you can be guaranteed that you are increasing your chances of passing the class. Passing with a good grade is a whole other level I was aiming at the beginning of the semester but I realized that I wasn’t being realistic: I had to rescale my expectations and aim for more realistic goals. One thing you should never ever EVER do though is miss a class and if you do, PLEASE, I BEG YOU get notes from someone else and catch up with your work. Because if you do fall behind guess what happens? Well… you're screwed. and don't even think about locking yourself in your room the night before your final thinking you can catch up a whole semester worth of work. Very bad idea. How do I know? I tried...

 

 

Do you feel stressed after reading this? If yes then good! That adrenaline will boost you and turn you into the superman (superwoman) of organic chemistry. It will be hard but at the end your efforts will pay and maybe somewhere along the way you will have as much fun as I had taking organic chemistry.

Signed: a survivor of organic chemistry

Make it meaningful

Thanksgiving: a time to gather around, forgive, share love and happiness, make memories but above all, a time to be thankful for what we are, what we have, what the Lord gave us. A great moment that cheers up your soul and warm your heart as you get around the people you love, those who mean “the world” to you.

Such wonderful feelings that suddenly seem to fade as the shadows take over: Paul Walker is gone. Many have known him, some people haven’t. I haven’t personally known him but if you grew up in a house where fast and furious was part of your culture (not education, there is a difference), then of course you would feel heartbroken and have, at least for a minute, your stomach upside down and your mind all over the place. We could spend years asking why, wondering what happen, trying to convince ourselves that this is not happening but it is and only God knows why and he will always and forever be the only one that has the final word and final version on how this tragic accident happened.

As I have been online myself, trying to understand what happened, I have seen a lot of controversy and debates over the victims death’s, a lot of people making some comment that are insulting, rude and disrespectful to Paul Walker but mostly to his family and friends still trying to cope with this event. He was young (40 is definitely not old), he was an experimented driver (and so was his friend driving the Porsche), he had life ahead of him and I do not believe he had ever thought this would ever happen to him but guess what it did.

This maybe is a time to remember that we do not have all life in front of us: at anytime our life can be taken away and we should make a good use of it. We are not the masters of our fate although we surely play a role into shaping it and determining what it will look like. All the testimony I have heard from him talk about how great of a person he was: dedicated, hardworking, down to earth, always helping others, bringing such a positive energy around him and sharing love with his family, friends, co-workers and reaching out to people in need. He seemed to be a great persona and seemed to have made a great use of his life.

This is probably what we should be working on too as this reminds us that life is never long enough and we never have enough time to do good and share the love with our loved ones. Tomorrow does not belong to us. As a matter of fact we might not even see tomorrow because we are not the absolute masters of our lives, of our fate. As much as we want to live our life to the fullest and enjoy every single bit of it, we ought to do is wisely, we ought to do it through things that are worth being done so that when we are gone, we leave behind us a legacy that will keep us alive in the heart and memory of people we love.

"As we are few weeks away from this New Year, we want to remember those of us who were gone too soon. At the image of this candle, we want to let the memories we have of them enlighten our way darkened by tears and sorrows and their everlasting love warm up our hearts left out in the cold of their absences"