Advise for new moms

It is true that you always see other women doing it and you think how bad can it be?
It's a sham! Ask any of them!
It is true, that they have the perfect look and the perfect kids and the perfect house and the perfect picture. But just try and ask them how they manage.
They will say they don't!
It's like this old question of why isn't the moon falling towards the earth since there is gravitation? The answer: oh, but it is! Earth is just moving away during the process.

So if you want to have everything planed so you can have the perfect after birth experience and chose the best healthiest way to raise your kid you are either from a magical realm, highly delusional or don't really know what a newborn does to you. They are quiet and cute in pictures, they are a bit stressed when you visit but nothing that compares to how lovely they look and they get so peaceful when they are feeding or sleeping.

And if you are one of those women that doesn't need sleep, doesn't need eating and can multitask more than an octacore computer, maybe life will be perfect for you when you get your new born cozy in your arms. And some babies are easier than others, and some mothers are more prepared than others. Some have bought all the right items and read all the right books and have seen first hand what living with a newborn can mean. If that is the case, I have no further advise for you, I offer my sincere apologies for calling you a unicorn earlier and wish you are right and all goes well and that your little bundle of joy feels your day with rich romantic comedy like moments and poops rainbows. 

If you are the kind of mother that gets moody when you don't sleep your beauty 6 hours, when you haven't eaten in the last 4 hours or when you have a light persistent pain please kiss your other-half now and thank him in advance because he is in for a treat. If he thought your wild hormones during pregnancy were the biggest of his concerns he has another thing coming.

Bright shiny silver lining:

• Your baby will be the cutest thing you will ever behold - he comes to you on a dirty blanket, still with blood and if you are less lucky also some poo, his head will be coned from all the pushing and his skin will be as wrinkled as your grandfather's and yet he will be the dearest thing. Ya, mommy brains are not consistent or they wouldn't attempt such a torture as motherhood.
• You won't remember much, you'll actually have trouble answering your name after a week of the birth. Tiredness and hormones will make sure that your memory will progressively retain more as you increasingly learn to deal with your baby, create a routine and he starts sleeping longer.
• He is the master or surprises. Nothing in the world can prepare you for anything that he is going to be or do. And everything he learns, every day in his early life is not only a miracle but helps define his personality under your eyes... you get to meat this amazing being that you created while he discovers himself. And that is indescribable. You will feel his development in steps. My husband would actually take the baby's tiny hand into his and go "Nice to meet you sir." whenever we got this overwhelming feeling that he was becoming his own person, which is extremely often in the beginning.
• Your baby will be perfect and better than anything you planed for. No mater what you planed for or what you expected, or what during that delusional time in which you claw at your planning to constrain the unpredictability that is this revolution in your life have conceived, his real self will be so much more. This baby as a cleaning lady will be so much more perfect than the musician you were prepared to conceive. There is something inherently magical in his being, whether it is the piece of him that is you, or the piece of him that is your partner or the piece of him that he created all on his own.
• Time with your baby in your hands will fill your heart so much when he is ok that it will be enough for you to withstand anything that that little tortuous devil decides to throw at you, and prepare for he will throw some very nasty.... 
• Newborns will soon turn into infants and that is more manageable, you just have to endure 1 to 3 months of military grade experience.
• You have no idea where they come from, and don't expect to have any since you never used them, but you have instincts. More than that, no one will be able to learn to read your baby as you can, because he is so much like you or someone you hopefully love that you will know him inside out... it helps that he literally pours his insides into diapers you need changing.

Down falls:

• Your time will no longer exit. Time will be an un-stretchable force that keeps you running from  task to task on an urgency basis and will fold into a toothpick when you are finally able  to sleep. All those routines you had so you could take care of yourself, which are important to keep you sane, won't seem as important when there is a tiny human depending on you to survive his latest crisis -be it hunger, wetness, tiredness or simple discomfort.
• Everyone will tell you how important it is to exercise, to eat healthy food, to keep clean and to balance your marriage (if that is the case), your me-time and your baby's needs. It sounds natural before the birth, but becomes absurd as soon as you have a glimpse of what you're in for and a struggle from then on. Your expectations to keep everybody happy will succumb in face of his angel sleeping look and you will realize that there is no realistic way to take care of a newborn and dedicate any extra energy to anything else, unless you have an army of helpers in which case lucky you give them a raise. 
• You will only feel like you have a hold on your life in between teething, fevers and learning sprees. As soon as you think, my life is getting back on track, the baby is sleeping 6-8hours a day during the night and I am creating a routine, one of these terribly frequent events will kill your dream. This happens in a medically precise frequency, long enough that allows you to be convinced that there is hope for a normal life and short enough that your routine will never be the same again.
• You will be feeling all sorts of wonderful emotions, but all people will be able to tell is that you look exhausted and pale. Let your husband know that you are over the moon and it will be your little secret. He probably also looks like hell from all the pacing and worrying and fearing that they have to impotently go through, don't underestimate that. And he probably feels as relieved that all went well and baffled by your new precious tiny being as you and is probably as expressive about it.

 Suggestions:

• If you can have a chance of clarity apologize to your partner for having disappeared from your mind whilst being the rock that keeps your head afloat. Thank him for anything that he is doing because you can't imagine how much more difficult your life would be without his help and right now you don't really want to try. Better yet, thank him before you embrace on this journey, and before you deliver because your thanking options will be much more limited for the next three months. (ya, no one remembers to tell you that)
• Anything that can make your tasks automatic, simpler or more dummy proof is worth the money if you can afford it:
• Any cooking  appliance that has a timer and allows you to pour in the ingredients and mindlessly walk away is going to save your meals and you will need lots of meals. You will be such a zombie with your sleep deprivation that anything that is not child proof is a hazard in your hands.
• Any automatic way to clean, vacuum, wash or dry your house, your cloths or dishes is going to allow you to actually have a decent life. Because the alternative to having it easy, simple and fast to set is not having it done at all. (This includes cleaning aid that is not robotic)
• Get a sterilizer for your microwave and make sure all the bottles, accessories and pacifiers of your new born are compatible with microwave sterilization. The alternative of boiling these things on a pan takes forever and you have to keep an eye on it, remember only half eyes during short periods of times are available now. Even the newer versions of automatic sterilizers can be good but occupy a lot of space in a kitchen, so make sure that they work for you in time and space. 
• When you chose a bottle warmer, and you will most certainly need one, chose one that is fast. That will be the difference between 4 min and 9 min of your plump baby desperately complaining for the fear of starvation and he will panic over it every single time or you will panic that he doesn't.
• A place to bath your baby in which you don't have to bend. I don't know if anyone has already told you but since you first stood up after birth you realize that your body has lost its shape. No, I don't mean that you no longer fit in your favorite jeans, though forget those. I mean your muscles have spread out as much as possible slowly along 9 months, they don't even know who they are right now hanging around you hoping to find purpose and they will... in time. But for now, you need to simplify your life to avoid bending, pulling, pushing, standing... the usual. Maybe follow some after birth gym classes, they are great to show how little you are expected to be able to do and make for a brilliant support group therapy.
• A place to change your baby that doesn't make you bend and he is not going to roll out of will make it so much simpler for you to do this highly frequent task with the least inconvenience and reduce the time of exposure to those gracious smelly things that used diapers are.
• I do not know how our parents did it, our grandparents just wouldn't work, but our parents... I mean, there is no way in this century you will be able to have a baby without a washing machine. If there is an issue with yours, change it. You won't survive a breaking down of the machine. If it is not fast enough, upgrade it. I mean, forget about the car, you are not leaving the house for long distances for a while anyway, the washing machine is the must have of your post-natal family. That and a fridge... filled with food. (that is where the daddy most comes in)
• Enough cloths for you, the baby, and anywhere you both go (sofa, bed, bed, bed...?):
• Enough cloths for the baby to change 5-8 times a day. You will be using the washing machine regularly and the cuter your baby looks the easier will be to go through all of this with a smile of awe. I assume that stores know this, and the fact that you are vulnerable before the birth and that is why they devise these deviously gorgeous cloths, so you want to buy all of the store. But more important than beauty at this point is to have enough high quality cloths. You'll need the cloths to not bother the baby's sensitive skin and body and you need to wash them permanently and you need them in enough quantity and that is for all. It doesn't matter that you only need one jacket to go out in the cold, your baby will spill milk on it the first time he uses it. 
• If you are considering breastfeeding don't buy maternity cloths, but maternity cloths that allow you to breastfeed. Many times it will take a while before you fit back on your regular cloths (like for any actual human) and you will need some strategic openings in your shirts, and night dresses to accommodate for the mini-leach. Don't get me wrong, you will be topless shamelessly as soon as sleep and his screams win over your numbed down sense of self-pride. Maternity cloths are used for so little time that buying them with the second purpose will make you save money, patience and be prepared for those awkward moments of feeding without exposing too much or catching a cold. Also, you will need a lot of them, your baby does not only puke on himself, he gets jets of it on anyone around, and that is often you. 
• There is a marvelous devise which is a nursing cover, if you fell less comfortable with full top nudity if it is your own in front of your in-laws consider getting one, it is a savior. They are basically a huge cloth with a metal bending wire and a rope. The rope will hang the cloth on your neck and the wire will keep the cloth from falling over your chest leaving an opening for you and you alone to gaze at your happy little sucker.
• Find some enormous yet comfortable underwear. You weren't told yet, but you will be using extra large pads for a month or so. No, not the "I have more flux than usual" pads, the "my whole body is being drained through this pipe" pads. The same way the pads are enormous so is your bleeding, so get lots of underwear, you will be changing it regularly. Get several bras that allow to breastfeed, don't buy them too early, the girls will still grow to make you laugh at yourself when you pass a mirror. Forget the usefulness of the things, these are our apologies to our celibate partners for the next few months. And we will need a massage from time to time. Get also pads for the bras. Yes, your breast will think they are sprinklers without warning anytime between birth and a regular baby meal. Yo never remember to bring these along, some hospitals already have it cover for you.
• A machine that allows you to steam food and blend it without making you wash an extra pan and that has a timer so you don't burn anything. That will only be needed once your baby starts on solids but months pass on such a speed and you might want to prepare all your balances and checks.
• Accept help. You will need to be strong in so many other ways. You will need to focus so much on your tiny bugger. Any help that is given to you and comes in good faith accept it! Sooner than you would like to admit you will be totally dependent on others to be feed, clean and healthy. How much does your pride actually cost in terms of exhaustion? 
• Prioritize:
• If your daily routine before bed has 20 steps, all very important, and takes over 10min: pick the ones you can feet in 5min that you couldn't leave without, or that would damage you a lot, like peeing and brushing your teeth, and remember that you are at zombie speed.
• If you really want this meal you love and takes 2 hours to make, do it when you have extra help home and then don't do anything like that for a week. Just become a follower of 15 min meals, whatever your partner is better at putting together, charity handouts from parents and parents in law and healthy snacks. Try to use the less amount of dishes possible and you'll be fine.
• Don't worry about the mess. The important thing is that you and your baby survive these first months without any danger to your health. If there are things out of place then they will be sorted later, unless we are talking of falling hazards. Remember that your brain is drained, zombie proof your surroundings. If there are people coming to visit they either understand or shouldn't come. 
• If there is dirty stuff lying around, get a hold of yourself. Find the time to clean up because you need your environment to be as clean as possible. Ask your partner to help out, get house aid or call your mommy. Don't let things go rotten! That can be very bad for your baby's health. And you'll need him to have as much of that as possible.
• Breast feed. Unless it is impossible for you for some reason, breastfeeding can make your life so much easier. Think about it. You get to have on demand, at the right temperature, ready to use, without issues with transport a full nutrition pack for your little hungry lion. Also, it is incredible how fast it goes from something unthinkable and awkward to the most natural bonding ceremony your can have.

words you will never find the time to read

When I was born I had no concept of male or female, or man or woman. Then I grew up and I had cousins, we played together and enjoyed very much until they found out that I was a girl and that that somehow meant I wasn't supposed to play the same way, the same games or get interested in the same fun. I noticed that my father would refuse giving me girlish presents since he abominated the idea of a girlish girl, so I got a remote controlled car instead of a Barbie I asked for. But then the car was set aside since I didn't drive it well enough and it could get damaged. I got painting tools I loved and once in a while the lack of time to find the perfect gift and the pressure to not disappoint would force him to gift me with beautifying stuff, and the word stuff would be heart felt by his spirit. On the other hand whenever there was anything less girlish needing doing I was suddenly a nuisance who's help was worth less than the effort to explain, after all what would be the use for a girl to know how to hammer or tighten screws?

I spent my life on a limbo, more of a Tom than most girls, more of girl than most Toms. I found out there was a place in such limbo and I could define it. I liked sports, but not watching them. I liked dancing but not beautifying a room. I liked math's, which I always felt was a male characteristic of mine and I loved painting and dancing which I felt was more of a female characteristic. Determined to prove that I could as good as a man on a men's world I opted for math's and the most likely area to produce a job that would allow me to sustain my family. Yes, I didn't mind being taken care of, but I needed to know I could do it just as well.

That is how I meat you. Careless about your looks you vainly paraded your ideas and showed off your dominance in the hardest subjects. You said you thought you found your match in me, that I could actually be smarter in ways. I thought I found my match, the one smarter than me. We thought in similar ways, we used the same words and laughed at each other's jokes.

I came from a broken heart, determined to change my ways. I settled for someone that would need to put his career first, because he was such a good company. I didn't mind doing most of the house work, it wasn't much more than I would do for me alone and I loved talking while at it, the constant challenging ideas and sharing of philosophies. Time moved fast, faster than I had expected. When the time came to make our family, I knew that wasn't your priority and I tried to thank you the chance by taking as much of the responsibility as I could handle. But being a mother is not easy, and my boy wasn't either. So in time I needed your help and started to hate when you would work strange hours with little efficiency to aim at your goals. I tried to give you all the freedom, to find the best path to your career, but you snarled at any suggestion and asked me to give you more time instead. You pulled away to focus on a difficult and competitive area and the more you gave the less you seemed to be getting there. All seemed to work against you, the timing, the area of expertise, the supervisor, the fact that you were not alone and easy to up and leave if need be.

I fought you to get a second child, convinced that it would take at least two to make a family and that I could handle it too. But I had aa hard pregnancy and needed more and more help. I saw the fact that you now took charge of getting our first born to bed as a sign that you two were getting some important bonding time and you were helping in a very nice way. I kept trying to keep a float, a job, a kid and soon a baby. Now you tell me how incredibly low on my priorities you are, and that that would alone prevent you from following your dream. I was so mad at you! I have been trying my limit for almost 4 years now, have been doing everything for other 6 and you blame me for not reaching as far as you need to be who you set out to be? But I guess it is true. I asked kids of you when I knew you needed to reach for the stars and then I needed you to cover for me more often than I could anticipate. I always thought time was a ticking on my side, because I am a woman and I neglected to compensate how much it floods you with the impossibility to find your goal. I am not sure what I could have done different, certain I couldn't have done more and worried I needed your acknowledgement because all this straining of myself would have been in vane otherwise.

I hate you right now, you selfish self-centered ungrateful man, that make me feel like my best is never enough when I am giving to work like a man, to my children like a mother and to you as a wife as much as I can manage, when maybe you needed someone single that could follow you and marvel at your genius and provide some magic to your path. You make me feel sorry that I am only human and yet you love me, and know I love you, know your words cut that much deeper and your pains resonate that much stronger in me.

There is no point in keeping this letter as a draft, the chances that you would care enough to read my blog are slim and I am the one that doesn't love you enough to support you in your ambitions? I am lost, for what is worst is that after all I will only be left with a wounded heart and two brilliant children on their way to their life.

To my baby sister - a diffrent new born card

I still don't understand everything.

Mommy says I was made of love,
grown like a little bread bun in her belly.
Daddy says he couldn't wait to meet me,
 that I turned them into a family.

And then, in this day,
the XX of XXXXX of 20xx,
you left the big belly from mommy too.
You are so tiny, only XXcm and XX.Xkg
and you look funny,
but mommy says beauty comes from within
(which in you really smells).

Don't worry, don't cry.
I know you are just a little baby.
I've learned to walk and talk and play
 and now I can help you too.
And we'll be the best of friends forever and ever.

Welcome to our home, <address to visit>.
Welcome to our family, <newborn name>.
Me, mommy (<mother's name and contact>) and daddy (<father's name and contact>)
have been waiting for you.

You will love our godmother <godmother name>
and our godfather <godfather name>.
And expect to meet all our friends soon.

Love, <older sibling name>
(Everybody calls me <older sibling name>,
but you can call me brother.)

30 weeks, when does it end?

My dear, I love you and I hope you understand this has nothing to do with you and that once I am back in my perfect mental health I shall deny ever feeling this way.

So forgive me when I say this is ridiculous!I usually think of myself as a nice, happy and optimistic person.
Not as in a pathetic careless nut-head, but more of a sensitive conscientious person.
but lately... well... the last 6 months... I have been unbearable even for my own taste.
I don't know how your hot-headed father can put up with me when I can't even stand myself. He must really love you already.

My body hurts, I can't sleep and I have been moody for as long as I now can remember, which nowadays means somewhere over three weeks.
I'll explain:
I can't recognize myself!
I don't understand what crazy bitch has taken over my brain but she is desperate, winy and hungry... I meant angry... but yes, definitely hungry too.
My but has been growing to the sides making it flatter and huger than I ever thought possible and yet it can't comfortably handle the weight of us when I sit.
My back hurts from month to month as if it can't make up its mind, unstable as I, or to remind me that if I continue to grow I will never find my way back to the regular size I used to have. Which hasn't made me as unstable as I would have expected, since all else seems to be on minimum operating systems.
My breathing has been hard since your were three months, before I could officially confirm what everybody could tell for over two months.
My head has been unfocused and your poor brother has been suffering the most. I hope you compensate him afterwards by being his best friend for ever.
All of that is so normal, to be expected and there is not really that much that I can do about it and I can't really say it wasn't part of my choice in having you.

But lately... oh lately I have entered a whole new type of hell.
Who on earth designed us to fill up in liquids like camels to the point our fluids don't circulate anymore for lack of room and just start puffing every extremity like we hope that will lessen the weight over our legs? I don't mind the visual, I am a huge fan of all versions of monsters from beauty and the beast but it hurts! Your whole body hurts and when you try to sleep it just cracks out loud at you, together with the bed frame, laughing in an impossible bulling until your brain gives in to the idleness that finally matches your discomfort, just to wake you up few hours later in time to save a numb arm that takes forever to get back to normal and allow you to try and continue your most needed rest.
Oh, and all those simple tasks that you are used to perform... you actually try, which is naive, and you then either get a huge laugh out of it or a huge grudge to the nice person that ends up helping you out. You never know because your brain is so drunken in fluids that it works on a lottery based system.

But you go on, thinking this only means I am getting closer to meet you. I mean, I only felt like this with your brother when I was already home waiting to pop.
And then I f$%^ do the math... I still have to grow two more months! Can anyone please tell me where it can still all blow up to? How can I still grow?
I am always hungry and every-time I eat I can only remember a friend that saw me eating an innocent orange and couldn't help his mouth:
"Stop eating woman! You are going to explode!"
I found it so funny then I couldn't help but crack up. Right now, I feel like he might actually be right. And if for some sort of miracle I manage to survive ten more full weeks of enlargement, how could my body ever recover from all this beating? Can't be normal! Can't be what it is designed to do.

Could people actually be doing this voluntarily to themselves? Could it be most pregnancies are so light like, my first one, that we get convinced to keep having these beautiful creatures until we get a pregnancy that makes your days stop, your breath windy, your feet alien and your body resent you every day? Or are we so well built that we forget all bad parts of it fast enough to consider yet another child? Did I feel this way with your brother and no longer remember, I surely hope so. When do I get to hold you in my arms filled with pain meds and sleep deprivation drowsiness in a slow motion type of out-of-body experience? 10 more weeks? You have to be kidding me! I want my mommy! No, wait, first I want to castrate my husband, then I want lots and lots of chocolate and to write a deep felt apology letter to my boss for 6 months of crappy brain work and then I want my mommy and vacation until the summer. Oh, god! Can you imagine if I was like this during the summer? It would take all my love for you not to go crazy or do something drastic. Sorry! It is the hormones talking, meet the crazy bitch version of the person I can't seem to recognize. I just hope you can still meet the real me, the one able to smile and breathe and walk... (without feeling like the floor doesn't accommodate the concavity of my alien feet)

Life as an immigrant

I have been living in this beautiful country for over 7 years now.
Not wanting to sound ungrateful, the moment I decided to "immigrant".... well... it is yet to come.
However, I don't see myself returning for at least the next 5 years.

The truth is that the people here remind me a lot of the people in my home country. I enjoy the neighborhood, the social system, the infrastructures... Most of all I love my job, and although I don't dislike my work easily I can't imagine myself enjoying anything this much in my own country. It is not the ridiculous amount of money I earn, or the privileges you receive, or the acceptance I felt, but the fantastic way we are cherished as workers and our private lives are respected within curious boundaries. Literally though, they want to know everything about you, from why you didn't add sauce to your meal to what is within the package you just received. But curiously your family is supposed to come first and no one will ever question that or make you feel any less for that, instead you are encouraged to lead a healthy life in every way.

The sad thing is that I don't believe my home country is ever going to be able to provide me with half the professional and personal nourishing that I receive here. And most of the people that value it are opting the same way as I to find it elsewhere instead of changing our country.

But if life here is so great why do you want to change it?
Because I miss my family. As simple as that, as little as that, as much as that. My family was always very strongly bond and I miss them terribly. The first years you don't mind, you are studying or on your first job and it is not bound to last. But then you find a nice job with a permanent position -another thing which is hard to get on your home country-, and that is still fine because you can visit as often as possible and these days you can call so cheap and even video call.
And all goes well for a number of years.

The thing is I had a baby and everything changed. I had no idea how much this will change everything, but it does! Everyone tells you it will, and you trust that it will, but no amount preparation of can prepare you for how much things change. First, your mother asks why the hell can't you have the child delivered on your home country, as if you could even if you wanted to and why would you want to. A side from the fact that all the family could visit the next day, which I don't know if it would be that fantastic but of course you would love that, the hospital is the one closest to your home which happens to be really good, with the doctors that monitored the whole growth process and that will be able to handle the fact that you might need a longer stay. Of course to your mother this means that you won't be getting the best doctors (the ones she knows), with the best facilities (the ones she knows), and the best care (her care).
On the other hand, she will fly to be the first to meat her grandson or daughter and you will feel so bad that your mother in law can't do the same. Or worst, the reverse happens.
You then find out that your boss is so great he actually gets emotionally happy for you since the day you tell him the good news. Your colleagues come to visit on your payed motherhood leave and show all sorts of tokens of their appreciation for you becoming more and more your friends. Your best friend can't make it because you couldn't get her a more precise date, your sister and father can't come because they has a very demanding project at the moment. But they all will visit soon and as soon as you can you will fly your little marvel to your home country to meat everyone.

So far so good, I wish all the world's problems were thus...
You might but, your little angle is growing so fast. He doesn't recognize anyone every time you come to visit your country because it has been at least 6 months, he has changed so much but you keep posting pictures and comments and movies to keep everyone updated. The fantastic world of inter-connectivity. But the truth is you feel the pressure to do so because you are robbing your parents of their "grandfatherness", you are robbing your little basket of joy of the great bond to the grandparents that makes every childhood magical and breaks the routine of the naysayers the parents must be. He doesn't know the grandparents, the uncles and aunts but most importantly at this rate he never will, not in a real way not in a way that matters and makes him/her part of a larger family.
So what do you do? You make more pictures and this time for your priceless little diaper holder, so you can put a face to a name and maybe later a story to the face that now has name. You remember your mother asking you how it is possible that you don't remember that person you were so fond of when you were 3 and recognize that it is a terrible probably lost cause.

The thing is it is not only your family that doesn't bond with your newest addition. It is you that leave that precious world of yours, every time you say goodbye to fly back to your dream job, pretending that will stay on hold only to be remembered every time you come back that much has changed, they all changed, evolved and developed and you couldn't notice... you couldn't tell... and soon you don't know them that well anymore. Family is family and we all make the biggest effort possible to compensate this by having great quality time every time we are together, we try to be there every time it matters, but can we? will we? will we know to be? would we know how to?

We earn a hope to the future when we chose a place where we believe we can have a dignified life, where we are accepted and respected as professionals and as people and this is in the best case of being accepted. But what we leave behind, can we ever have it back? Can we keep up just by frequently flying and voip calling? Are we aware of the price we are paying, will it be too late when we become aware? Would we do it again for a new offspring because in our home country jobs are scarce and  bosses do not look fondly on workers with kids or personal responsibilities? Can we change our country from a distance? 

Marriage walls

Maybe mine was too much of a romantic notion of marriage.
Only half succeed, and "succeeding" is usually a very low bar to meet: not walking away and not killing one's partner.
I always thought that when I got married it would be forever, that we would share everything and be eachother's company until the end. As such it doesn't seem such an odd or impossible dream to fulfill. The problem is, that each marriage is uinque to the cuple, I would go even further as to say that the definition of one's marriage is unique to one's self. One can only hope to find a companion that is consistent enough with one's notion to give it a fair chance to make "it" work.
I had a romantic notion that a prince galantly held his beloved tight, held her gaze so deep she would weep were it not for the freezing of time and her whole body that was lifted by that moment to a magical dimension. He would declare his eternal love and demonstrate the infinity of his feeling with a kiss that would burst her time bubble, show a thousand starts through her closed lids, light her head to eter and draw her week in the knees. He would then grab her hand tight between his and his chest, while another hand held the back of her neck to once more focus his bright shinning eyes in the deepness of hers and he would ask her if she would be willing to proclame their devotion to one another in the presence of all that they deemed dear.
Instead, as I grew I realised words, gestures and romantic moments mean very little and one's proclamation is just as strong as their weakest word. I would be contempt with a mutual decision to partner with a man that would find me the most important woman in his life, alonside his mother and maybe future doughters, and would invest alongside me in a common future.
I thought for long, proud of my achievments, to have found such a pragmatic love. We considered life together and approached it in a similar way, allowing us to understand eachother in a deeper way than any glance of loving prince. But the truth is that marriage is very little to do with the proclamation of love, and much more to do with the dayly efford to coexist constructively with someone one cares deeply of, so deeply infact that one is open to irreparable damage if the other so decides.
I still believe love conqueres all..., if both are invested in it.
I still believe love to be the sorce of all meaningfull happyness..., and despair.
I still beleive all you need is love..., and a good deal of sleep, food, water, and warmth.
Above all I beleive that love survives everything and above all allows you to survive everything..., if, and only if, you nurture it.
I beleive love to be an entity of its own, as a person is defined by its hardest decisions, love is defined by its consequence in the toughest moments. Whenever faced with difficulties the couple can react by individualizing their response and weakening their bond or by coordenating their response and strengthning their bond. But it is not always easy to cooperate, for that both need to beare a huge amount of care for the other, humbly allow to be volnerable to the other and trust the other with full honesty of their weakness and flaud.
All my life I have wished to create such genuine connections, building no walls and shanring my chest, and this was always meat with distance and uninterest. I never thought it would be so with my marriage, while I am the one on a low all is shared building fundations for a brighter tomorrow, whenever however he is the one feeling vulnerable I am once again meat with distrust and distance. I fear this shows that the asymmetry in my relations to most individuals is a fault of my own, though I fail to understand the cause or how to prevent. Fortunatly enough, I latly made a friend that seems to get the same trouble from the world, always eagered to help, he is neglected as a friend and sometimes kept at a distance to the loss of their own. He is the reason I believe that maybe, it is no fault of my own, but that the world is not ready to hear my heart bit without a shield. I find too often that our barriers protect us not from the harm of life's harshness but from true friendship.
I always thought I would conqueror my prince's inner grounds, but everytime life shows its cutting winds he raises new walls with me on the outside and I am left wondering who is left inside, if it could still be the prince I married, the one I let foster the eternal flame in my chest for.

Woman behaviour

This might come to a shock to many, but I am a woman.
I was fortunate enough to never feel like that meant much, though I never felt any different or question my gender. I just never believed that being a woman entailed more than being a person that holds the potential to eventually bare children.
Although nowadays I fear the concept of tomboy or tomgirl might offend many, due to the lack of a simpler way to express what I mean to say, allow me to use these terms as their definitions allow. Not going into the detail of who does the considering or what typical means, for argument sake admit that there is an underlying and statistically endorsed general consideration that, associated to ones culture, attributes characteristics to define the "typical girl" and the "typical boy" and that tomboy is thus a girl that exhibits characteristics or behaviors considered typical of a boy. 
Full disclosure: I was graced with a tomboy spirit and never felt the pressure to be any different, probably because my mother was already a great athletic tomboy and my father.. Well, he married my mother, so I guess of all the ladies he could have tried to pick he rushed to close the deal with the lady that made him warmer and cozier inside and that was a tomboy girl. My mother sisters and cousins were all female and all were clear tomboys. This means that in my family tomboy behavior was actually valued. Independently of our gender we all came out with a high athletic prowess, incredible sensitivity for words and arts in general and good abstraction and logical thinking. I always took my upbringing for granted, considering that I was born to a family in sufficient financial well-being that nothing ever missed on the table or school ground, but looking back I realize that I was blessed so much more than that. My great-aunt was a woman that studied while caring for her younger sisters because her mother was ill and ended up with a maths degree giving high-school classes, divorced from a cheating husband and absolutely selfsuficient. That is a woman that blew over 95 candles and still has a wit to shame me. Most of the women in my family ended up in science. My grandmother was never that good with maths, she was a stay-home woman that took care of the household until she embodied the emancipation. She studied after her children were razed with little opposition from her husband that missed the "real cooking" but knew better than to try and stop her. By the time she was able to retire she took a master in "woman condition"she wasn't a brilliant study, but she had a shy strength that sounded like "why not me too?". This way, since very young I learned that there was no underlying reason why being a woman meant more than that you had some reproductive organs that aren't always nice to handle.  Nowadays I know mine was a very limited and fortunate view of life.
A phd, a baby and a husband later I can say that looking at statistics and reports I now understand that not all women got the chance to fulfill their true potential, many due to some cultural pressure even within my own culture, other due to unequal funding. It saddens me to know that little girls can't imagine themselves following courses that they get inspired by because they are told that they wouldn't be successful "because it is not a subject/job for a girl".
Worst than that, I fear that this is only perpetuated by the confused and mishandled media movement that assaults the concept of gender equality. There is no such thing as gender equality, by definition genders are different, that is why we came up with the genders, to mention the difference between humans in two kinds.

(picture source)

There should nevertheless be gender equity! I am all for it, but how do we get it? Assuming that what we need is to force science down little girls throats or that little boys should be forced to play with dolls is absurd and treating equally inherently different individuals equally will only result in more differentiation.

Studies show the impact of hormones on our career choices, career according to hormones. There is also no doubt that hormones control our brain functions: "Verbal memory scores are frequently used as one measure of higher level cognition. These scores vary in direct proportion to estrogen levels throughout the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause" -Estrogen wikipedia; "There are some differences between a male and female brain (possibly the result of different testosterone levels), one of them being size: the male human brain is, on average, larger. ... Attention, memory, and spatial ability are key cognitive functions affected by testosterone in humans." -Testosterone wikipedia. Now as all men like to point out, size is not always a good measure. And for a great investigative journalism on the subject watch: The gender equality pradox - documentary NRK - 2011
where you can easily get the idea that the social movement is guiding and creating biased on the undeniable truth, men and women are on average different.
Women can have their brains wired differently because biologically they were selected to perform different tasks, does that makes them dumber? Well, maybe? Now, before you rage out of this blog understand that language was developed in this patriarchy that has since been progressing into what we now know as modern society. Although we attacked the concept that only males can be clever, wasn't the measure of cleverness devised based in men abilities, by men and to measure men for men jobs? Couldn't it be that this new emotional coefficient helps complement the previous idea that cleverness was limited to the intelligence coefficient?
It all boils down to statistics, the numbers that don't lie, the data, the science, the undeniably reliable source of probing reality. Does anyone doubt that although you can define very accurately the average woman there probably isn't such a being? Statistics my friends was developed to use in bulk, to predict, and see traces in the many, but fails miserably to define or predict the singular. Are you sure that given any woman she will be more likely to be alike her sister than her brother? Can you not think of cases where that isn't true? Then fighting any statistics that prove men to be different from women, which is to be rationally expected since we are biologically different, is not only illogical but a perversion of science. Then why are we so concerned about the amount of women in science or engineering? -women scientific research women in science
Shouldn't we rather be concerned about the fact that socially we have created a higher relevance to all men-prone jobs and discredit the importance of women-prone jobs. Why is the kindergarten teacher, that possibly has more influence in designing our future societies, less relevant in our culture than the engineer that helps design the landscape? Why are nurses considered less important, when they have such an impact on patient recovery, than the doctor, that might be replaced by an artificial intelligence with access to an inhuman size database (comment). Why did career women look down on stay home mothers or women that hanged their career for few years to attend closer to their children? Why do we make it sound like only maths and science is a smart subject, when psychologists that aren't extremely smart aren't only useless but harmful?
Maybe, this "woman's day", instead of praising the women that less look "like women" to you, praise the diversity that makes each woman and man unique. Instead of parsing equality that is imposed forcefully and unnaturally on society, praise equity that allows minorities to feel welcomed and secure where they are valuable for their diversity contribution. Praise mothers for being mothers and fathers for being fathers, teachers for teaching, nurses for nursing, lawyers for defending and accusing, doctors for researching and devoting, and society for learning to adapt to the human concept that has evolved so much since my great-aunt's time. Embrace a new era in which we no longer need to fight tradition for the sake of breaking momentum. Instead of steering boys and girls to behave accordingly because it is tradition, or to behave the same because it is the new fashion, one can nurture their curiosity to explore what they like and allow people to fall in love by professions that fit them best, whether that means equal statistics or not, whether that means being a minority and learning about your own uniqueness.
From a place of absolute freedom, because I know that I was free to be as pink as I'd like -I did have that phase- and I was free to dream of becoming a painter, then a dance, then a physicist and then an engineer and finally managed to follow through on the last two:
"I have a dream, that one day every person will feel free to explore and define his/hers own self and thus contribute more efficiently to society."

bio pain

I am sure of only one thing, that everyone experiences feelings and in particular pain for different reasons in their own peculiar ways. I won't try to pretend to know what happens inside others bodies or what crosses their minds. I can only explore my own pain and hope that understanding it will shed light to people feeling it themselves or to those closest to them.

I want to start by making it very clear that I love my life, I have been too lucky too often and would not switch with anyone else's and yet I considered only too often to part from it.
In my understanding there are two types of people, those that are consistent that they exist and therefore  deserve a shot at being happy and those that are constantly wondering if they deserve all they have been given be that what may. I would never correlate this distinction to their altruistic or good nature nor their common sense.

The first won't often wonder whether they should be alive. They don't understand that need, they are alive and nothing you can say could make such a question less nonsensical. They expect that life is to be cherished and lived to the fullest of their abilities. Their most common question seems to be what can I do to improve life, mine and that of those around me. Their understanding of the question "should I be alive?" is reserved for extreme cases of pain, when life has nothing to offer and nothing to live for.

The latter, as you may well expect by now, will constantly consider "should I be alive?" in other words whether they are consuming resources that would be better spent on someone else. This is a strange concept I know, for the first type of people, but the question sums up to whether another would have taken better choices and be a better son/daughter or husband/wife or father/son. Mostly the question ends up in "would the world be a better place without me in it"?

 I started wondering if my family would be better of without me when I was 5, first time I decided to run away from home. I don't remember it well. I do remember very well though by the age of 10 when I decided again to leave home. At that time I didn't have much common sense, if I ever got any, I just ran. I was enraged, I was panting and frustrated and I couldn't even understand what was coming over me. I was violent and afraid, my thoughts were all over the place and I couldn't seem to calm down. The view helped. I had this place close to the drive way, a large open field that I used to use to run with my dog every morning. My dog had died and I hadn't been there for what felt like to long. I guess it made sense that my feet took me there although I couldn't remember deciding it or anything else that leaving for that matter. It was cold, but not too much and it wasn't raining nor was the floor wet, there were no large piles of leaves from the trees that spread erratically through the field, which means that it was probably spring time. I had had a major fight with my mother who I loved, and I felt awful. I found a place close to the moving cars that was shielded by a large enough bush that I could sit behind. The sound of the cars helped. The coverage of the bush too. I couldn't cry, until I could and then I cried like I had just murdered someone. I revisited what happened, which was so meaningful I couldn't tell you today, 20 years later. I know I didn't fell like I had to change, or improve, I felt like it was something about who I was and how I was incapable of hurting someone even as close as my mother or sister, even with as much love as I had for them. I felt selfish so it all probably started with me not willing to borrow something to my sister, my father stepping in to force the good sisterhood in me and me reacting in plain fury. Time passed and I ran through my problem, I broke it down to myself. Then I focused on options, but I could find none. I was not autonomous and had no money, there was no place I could get a job at that age, and I was not prepared to go hungry and die. I considered crossing the street, and getting hit by a car, they were passing so fast, so close, and they wouldn't have time to see me since it was night and I was just jumping from behind a bush that covered me well. I thought that I could kill someone, and that is no way to end my life. I would at least break some innocent person's car and leave them thinking they were responsible for my decease which was unfair. I considered going to my grandparents house, they would love to heroically take me in and save me from my parents, but my parents weren't bad parents and they didn't deserve that sort of pain. The whole idea was to spear them more hurt and they had enough bad blood with my grandparents without me pulling this one on them. So I went back home. My mother pretended not to be too worried or mad, and just tried to calmly say that it was not alright for me to run off like that and I too pretended it was no big deal. That is the first time I remember thinking of shutting my eyes completely for good. Since then, many times over I considered it. Not because my life was unbearable but because my pain was. Over the years I came to recognize this anxiety that takes over you and the despair afterwards, the feeling worthless and a guilt thereafter. I don't control my temper too often and many times my feelings of guilt are related. Sometimes I notice that the immense pain comes first it takes a hold of my heart and doesn't seem to let go. My patience is then reduced and I am bound to pick up a fight and feel worthless again and feel this all too familiar feeling that it could all end, the pain, the strain of trying to be better at every turn, the despair of not being a better person, the guilt of hurting those I love. Last time I felt it I cryied myself to sleep next to my beloved husband and I had no reason what so ever, not a real one. I could feel my brain searching for a reason to make sense of it, something to fill guilty for, something to explain this angst. I had years before noticed that all these episodes do happen within a certain cycle of the month and that I was brought down to this abyss of internal pain by biology. Not the hormones alone. The same way it is not reasonable to question the sanity of a woman that screams for something she asked you thousands of times not to do, just because she has her period. Biology just gets you in a lower starting point, on a higher nerve frenzy and closer to pop. I know the pain can feel so real that even having noticed the biology contribution and rationally sensing my brain fighting to make sense I went through my options. Pills, jumping, scenarios... having many options and none immediate helped. Mostly I felt like anyone else could become a better wife, and that my family would be better of without the disappointment and heart break I bring. I can honestly say I felt this, and I can honestly say that rationally there is no reason for me to be such a logical disappointment to anyone. Some people just have this internal dialog on pause in their head, it is destructive, it is impulsive and it sneaks up on you at any time you go a bit lower. These latter people gain a lot having someone or something depending on them, they want to be part of something bigger that relies on them and justify the oxygen they steal from unborn innocent futures full of potential. I haven't had such a feeling since my son was born, and I am certain it is because he needs me so that it can't cross my mind not being here for him. I wonder what I'll have when he reaches 21 and my husband is naturally exhausted of loving me to his fullest and with all my crazy.

I am sorry if I scared anyone reading, and hope this story helps someone needing answers that the self can't sometimes find. I felt many times that it is usually because it is intrinsic to us, our way of thinking and our biology that we can't make sense of it. It is so incrusted in who we are that we can't probe and have a hard time externalize. I believe also that trying to externalize this phantom pain and hollowness that leads some people to hurt themselves.

Boob envy

Everyday people see any luck I have as a result of the male world's tendency to fill pretty girls with pleasantries. I wonder where so much boob envy comes from. Is it that hard for men to compete along side women that they have to find excuses for them being there? Or am I really here because I am not ugly nor pee standing? Should I frown at pleasantries and cry the weight of my unlucky days to deserve where I stand? Is my light spirit in any way confused with isotropic flirting and I should walk like a monkey, dress like a nun and smell like a horse to ensure I am not taking advantage of the nice driver that saw me wait for 4 cars before giving me passage out of the parking lot? Is the world that far gone that men don't believe that women could be having different opportunities than men such as different men do, not more, not less, just not the same? Or do all the men in my life feel the impulse to make me smile with an easy gesture and by assuming I receive those from all corners resent me for it instead? Would it be different if I were ugly? Would they petty me instead? Would it be different if I came to work provocative, would I at least get the special treatment and embrace my fast track? Will I ever feel like I deserve my place in the world when I like everyone else own it to my genetics and upbringing as the clay to shape my life and the freedom to hold so many options. I am thankful for my looks, my wit, my happy childhood, my expensive schooling and my challenges. I know I am not here on my own, there is a world behind me and it is called past. It holds each and everyone, mine may have been more fortune than average. And yet, if I can't deserve being here, can you deserve to judge me? You that only pay attention to the pleasantries you witness, you that question my worth based on...what? The assumption that I must have had an easier life? Are you sure you aren't being an unfair prick with a boob envy of the size of my pleasant life? At least I deserve to smile, because I am thankful for my life. You should be thankful too I am sure, and for every men that smiled back making me feel pretty there was another that whistled to me to make me feel uneasy. For every time I got something for free because I am a nice pretty girl, I was looked down by people such as you and considered as just that, just a pretty girl. I am not just a pretty girl, but I won't ever know how much of what I am is a pretty girl, I can tell you that it would be expensive to hire me as an engineer to decorate the room, that it would be pretty pointless to pass me in relativity and cosmology just because I was nice to look at during classes and it would be absolutely ridiculous to have 30 years of academic progress be defined by that. I am sure that if I was an aggressive looking dude I would on average loose on the human flexibility, but the extent of that has to be infamous, just enough to make me smile more often and make you a bitter old guy. So I am indeed a full package, undivisible and self-consistent as it is I have no idea of how much I am worth a side my pretty girl face, but I am surely worth more than you make me feel when you undermine me to such a part.

My heart cries

My heart cries!
I wish I could do the same but life just goes in such a pace it is hard to breath. I know that if I could just start my heart would feel lighter and no longer drown in its own tears.
My heart cries and for as many good things I leave as many good times I had I can't blame it, for these are weary tears for the love I hold dear.

My heart cries!
It sobs at the thought of having hurt you, at having hurt us, at having driven yet another nail to our tears.
My heart cries and will for many years for it doesn't want to let go of what it holds most dear, your love and our life together.

My heart cries!
... silent unseen tears.
It cries for help, it cries for forgiveness, it cries for the hope that we find a way to fix this distance.
My heart cries, yours does too and in the middle of all this a tinnier one fears.
My heart cries with wishes and urgency, for a way to fix before the hole is too deep, before the structure is damaged, before the language is so different our attempts will be lost in its length.

My heart cries!
Because it cares too much to let life stumble on in my hands fast as they go to catch up with the moving sands.
My heart cries because it misses beating at yours speed and feeling it close to mine.
My heart cries because we had something so precious and something as mundane as life is tearing it apart to make up for the constant run to the shop, to work, to the laundry basket, to the dishes, to breath... But what good is air without a heart beat? And hence the crie of my heart, your heart, the one I gave for you to have and you've been parting slowly since.

My heart cries! And yours too!
And in that they find the sync nothing else seems to get and while there are tears shared deeper than our eyes we can fix us and it is not too deep, too broad, too torn, too broken. While mine and your heart long for each other in silence we can mend the spoken words and speak the missing ones and bring forth the healing tears.

Friend don't despair

I have been fighting for the words to say, anything that could push you the right way.
And I am disappointed to say I didn't get that far anyway.
Here goes:
This sucks! - This isn't fair, nor reasonable and you have the right to hate everything!... now.
Life's a devious bitch! - When you get a little air to breath it punches you right in the nuts and knocks you down!
Love hurts! - Love is as hurtful as leaving is deadly! We weren't build to be treated this way, our fragile existence is torn to pieces with the wimps of this treacherous adventure!

Please, please... don't forget how much yesterday felt worth it all. Sit on your fingers for a while, gorge on chocolates and as many endulgements you can get your hands on... but remember life will still be here waiting for you. You have many people on your corner, I know you can count on me, when you decide to fight back. Remember, for every present there was a past and there will be a future, and the laws of physics dictate that better days will come.

How little can you do?

What do you do, when a close friend loses his light?
When the person that daily greats you with a smile,
before which the sun refuses to rise,
loses his life long love in a swipe?

What can you do for some one who lost so much so fast?
It would be heartless to ask him to remember the rest,
the family that stands with him in the pain of this day.
It would be cold to make him feel that he should feel lucky.
Telling someone they are lucky to have had such nice dads,
or to have had great friends is honestly the greatest way to look at life.
But your love, the one person that warms your bed if only with rage,
the one person that knows your insides and not only metaphorically,
the one person that molded you as you grew together into the people you couldn't have been apart,
the one person in the world that compensates and completes you in way that is no longer dependable but an arm and a leg and half a brain and all your heart.
You can't ask them to feel lucky to have had that!
No one feels lucky to have had it!
No gandi, jesus or buda could feel anything but betrayed by death and cheated by life.
No reason or higher purpose is there to cut someone in half this way.
To reap the beating heart from its chest without a warning and then ask him to leave on.
It is not a part of you that dies. People survive, he will get up and learn to walk again, strong as he is and above all altruistic as he is, because others need him to.
But he died and was revived for the sake of others.
No one can diminish that, no one can take away the size of the pain that he must feel, that he needs to feel because he owns that much to her. Because he owns his leaving, his children, his whole being to her. Because he owns her more tears than his eyes could ever muster. Because not feeling so would robe him of the so much she meant to him, the love she gave for so long in all its human forms.
Because to rob him of her nagging, of her shouting, of her complaint, of her requests, of her expectations, of her thoughts, of her reasoning, of her smile, of her warmth, of her life is inhuman and to ask him now to recognize that she was so much more than anyone could ever ask for is even more so.
No amount of love we all as friends could send his way could hold him to earth and catch him from this fall. I just hope in time we can help him collect all of his pieces and get back a fraction of who he has been.
But what do you say to someone at this moment?
What do you do?
 You quietly cry wishing there was something you could do.
And thank heaven that he is strong and will come out on the other side, just enough for us to grab and help carry the rest of the road.

Dyslexic letter to promotor

Dear Andre,
    I am afraid we haven't spoken openly enough during the last 6 and half years. As you know I am dyslexic. I don't want you to jump into conclusions or consider this as an excuse, please finish reading this email before you make your mind up. The truth is, I have been able to live well with it and got used to not thinking of it as a limiting characteristic. However, life hasn't always gone this way.
 My most difficult year of schooling was by far the second grade, this includes your course I'm afraid. During the first grade I was unable to make two lines of the same character without making it mirrored at a certain point. I must confess that I still have some difficulties with "b"s and "d"s, “p”s and the “q”s, the “2”s and the “5”s, …, fortunately like a very used pin code you let your fingers and muscle memory decide, I can do the same. But then the professor just thought that it was normal for 1st graders to not pay attention for long. She couldn't be interpreting the reality of facts worst, I was paying attention, I actually had a very long attention span, I couldn't really tell the difference between the characters at the moment, and many times after a few minutes I couldn't still notice. Of course if I compared the upper line to the lower line of "a"..."a"s I could tell they didn't look the same, but these tricks I didn't have by then and I didn't even really know why or how I was doing it.
    During my second grade the professor's patience ran thinner, as I couldn't do the simplest tasks, like copying things from the board. The truth is that was by far the hardest task she could request of me. She couldn't understand how someone that was intelligent and well developed in every other area couldn't copy simple words from the board and decided that I was doing it out of spite or pure carelessness. I tried really hard, I knew I was hurting her, but worst of all I was hurting my mother. She felt helpless when I couldn't do my homework well, she tried pushing me and making me repeat as many times as needed, but tiredness only ever made it worst. Things got better when we moved to France on my third grade. I had an excuse, not knowing French and I actually controlled better my writing, because I learned word by word, instead of joining characters into sounds. And when I got back I had the excuse that I had learned French and my writing was a merge of it. I still almost flunked at Portuguese every year and I always had extra classes and worked hard on it, much harder for sure than in the areas I had some ease like maths and science and things that made sence. But the fact that people didn't see it as neglect or an affront to them allowed them to measure my effort in other areas, like creativity and contribution in the class room.
    Until my 8th grade I didn't know what dyslexia was, I just thought I was bad in languages and had extra classes in English and Portuguese. I was then diagnosed and gained some perspective. Until then I didn't know what I was doing wrong or how to improve, I didn't like reading because it took me forever to do so, it was real troublesome and that didn't help either. 4 years ago, when my work was going well and I realized I was going to have to write a thesis I started forcing myself to read as much as possible in English. I had read until then about 10 books (I counted them), have read since then over 100. I have started early to write the thesis because I knew this would be a big challenge for me and I tried constructing it with calm and all the info I thought relevant. I gave it for your appreciation as soon as I had a draft so I could have some pointers on structure and content. But I understand that it might have been too hard to understand or read.
    I continued improving it in my own way. By the time my scholarship ended I really thought it was the best I could/knew how to do. What for you and the other phd supervisors was seen as careless mistakes and rude thoughts was me focusing on writing a readable text, which I know how to do for creative writing but was lacking significantly in technical writing. I didn't learn much with your corrections (of all supervisors), I must say, because to me they didn't make much sense. When you geve me specific corrections I could tell at times that it read better, but couldn't figure out why. I have been trying to improve it and learn it, for which Paulo has been a great help. He had a similar problem but cracked the way of writing technical writing, and his mind works in a very similar way to mine. I don't want an excuse, I don't want to defend a worst written thesis, but I do want you to understand that at every step I was never neglecting the manuscript I was trying to learn to do better and had a hard time understanding your feedback.
Greetings
me