As I promissed, here's a story about my tendency to be sick everytime I get on something that moves fast. Take into account that this happened four years ago, so the details are kind of blurry.


In third or four year of highschool (I'm not going to pretend I remember exactly), my school organized a trip to the funfair. Of course, we all decided to go (though we were a bit disappointed that they wouldn't take us to Warner Bros) and impatiently waited for the day to come. 

Halfway to Madrid, we stopped at a road shop in which we ate lunch -basically junk food.

We arrived at the funfair and the group dispersed. I stayed with my friends and we decided to get on the first ride we saw: The Machine.

Let's just say it's an enormous circle in which you're tied up, thrown in the air and spinned around. I wasn't too sure I wanted to try it, but I didn't want to pay for nothing, so I grew the balls and hopped on.

At the beginning it was good. The thing spinned slowly and didn't fly too high. After a couple of minutes, however, it started to change. It was hot, and the horrible swinging of The machine wouldn't let me think straight. I remember screaming and not having a bad time... until it stopped.

Still tied and sitting on the circle, I couldn't help it: I puked all over the place. It sounds disgusting, but it was worse than that. I've been told that there's always someone who pukes on The Machine, but that doesn't make it better that my My Chemical Romance shirt was ruined and my pride, broken.

At the First Aid post they gave me a pill, one of my friends lent me a shirt and the rest of the day went by without any other incident. But I will always remember the other girl's laughter and words:

"You... you ate fries!"

And it was true.

The day I tried to play LoL

I like playing stuff. That's why I spend most of my time sitting in front of a computer or with a console in my hand. My flatmate pretends it bothers him, but he actually loves being able to say things like "aren't you being a bit too nerdy already?".

The problem is that I'm not really into trying new things. I'm a total fan of the last century, so I have a shitload of Zelda and Super Mario remakes, all Pokémon generations and, of course, all addons for Age of Empires II. 

My boyfriend, who considers that I don't play enough, managed, in Christmas, to make me install one of his favourite games: League of Legends (from now on, LoL).

From the beginning, I never thought I'd like it. There were many characters with a lot of stats and my boyfriend gave me a batshit insane amount of tutorials (I never read them, honey, I'm sorry).


I've never understood games with so many complications. I can't get inside my head the idea that I have to STUDY so I can PLAY.

Despite all this, I decided to give it a chance. I had to choose a character. Turns out that every week there is a certain amount of free characters and, when the week ends, you have to buy them with experience points.
Out of a group of mages and gladiators, I chose the less dangerous looking one (in retrospect, this was a stupid decision, given I'd have to kill everything I saw): a little girl with violet hair and a teddybear. I must confess that I felt some kind of empathy towards her, mainly because I love teddybears too.

After choosing the character (from now on, Annie), I was lectured by my boyfriend about which stats I had to improve and which objects I had to choose. I ignored him completely and, before I knew, we were playing a "training match" with some computer controlled characters called "bots". "Annie Bot" was a character that looked like mine but, for some reason, was a lot more hurtsy.

Of course, my first match was a disaster. I barely knew how to move the girl or what she did. As she walked, she cutely sang "Have you seen my pet Tibbers?", clearly referring to her teddybear. I was greatly surprised when I found that, when I pressed the numbers from 1 to 5, and depending on my level, the adorable baby threw, with her own hands, huge fireballs to the enemies.

But the biggest shock I had was almost half an hour into the match. My boyfriend patiently explained to me that, when I came to a certain level, I'd activate I don't know what power I could use by pressing number 6. 

Okay. Said power consisted on turning little Tibbers into an enormous bear with huge fangs that fell on the enemy team, almost killing most of them. Surprised, I stopped paying attention for some seconds, getting myself slain for the twentieth time in twenty minutes.

The worst part, however, wasn't my character's surprises or the enemy bots: it was my own team. It looks like nobody understands that when you're playing a "training match" there are going to be new players with you and that you will, most probably, lose against the AI.

If you think about it, it's actually sad: I can picture all those lads (most of them, for some reason, were polish) shouting at the screen stuff like "NOOB GO HOME" or "BACK TO YOUR LANE, ANNIE!!". I'd like to tell you all that, if my nickname is Raqy, I wanna be called Raqy, not Annie. Annie is a 7 year old girl that shoots fireball from her hands. I'm eighteen and can't even get the gas kitchen going.

Lastly, I have to confess that after a lot of matches I got strangely attached to Tibbers, who ended up being the only reason why I played. Who wouldn't wanna have a bear to defend them from evil things? 

P.d.: I can't really remember the controls. I apologize for any horrible mistake in this article.

My flatmate's newest hobby

This is my flatmate

And this is his newest hobby:

In case the amazing drawing doesn't make it clear, he's dancing sexy with my door.

Sometimes he does this with emocore music.

Sometimes he doesn't wanna get up so he dances in bed.

But I love him the same.

And he turns my boyfriend on.

Disturbing?

I had to handwash

You read it right. Today, the washing machine finally broke, just when I was going to do my bimonthly laundry. Washing your clothes every two weeks is risky, mostly when you know that the washing machine is 30 years old and won't last too long.

I obviously didn't have many clothes left. I really, really, had to handwash. It's not like it's the first time I do it: my Minecraft shirt can't go into the washing machine. And I once dropped a cheese pizza on my white dress. 

But this time it was different. I actually had to take all my clothes and grow the balls to clean them in the sink.

I first had to clean the toilet. It's not like I live in a pigsty, but we don't really worry about everything shining like gold. I didn't want my precious clothes to end up dirtier than they were in the first place.

After I finished cleaning and filled the sink with water and soap, I proceeded to start washing my beach shirt. When it was soaked in detergent, I realized that I wouldn't be able to rinse it in the same water. The kitchen sink is starting to grow its own ecosystem and the bathing tub is too big, so I had to use the bidet. 

When everything was clean, it was time to hang it. There's a magnificent balcony in the fourth floor, but crawling up two storeys is an effort I'm not willing to make four times a month. For this reason, I've used some old pijama pants as a hanging rope in my own small balcony. It's kind of freaky.

My flatmate has called the landlady, that's not too thrilled about calling a technician. I sincerely believe this is one more step in her mission to turn this house into a time machine that will take us to the 50s. Long live Spain, I guess.

This is why I will never have a driving license

My flatmate is getting a driving license. His objective is to pass the exam before summer, pretty tough challenge since we're starting session in four days. He's the only one of my friends that's any close to getting it, and his new hobby is to insist that all of us try. 


For this reason, I've decided to blog about the reasons why I will never have a driving license. Not for a car, a motorbike or a helicopter -and if there was a rollerblades license, I wouldn't get it either.

The main reason is that I have the hand-to-eye coordination of an alcoholic monkey with cocaine cold turkey. After one hour of driving, I would probably be doing a headstand, trying to use the brakes with my tongue and turn the wheel with my toes.

Besides, I'm really afraid of driving. Not only because of myself, but because of everyone around me. If i could drive a car, it should have at least a siren on top and policemen behind and in front, to warn people to make way if they value their lives.

When I turned 18, my father had the great idea to take me to the field with all my family and make me drive. My sisters cried and screamed in anticipation, but I didn't let them out of the car. That way I wouldn't run over them. 

Ten minutes into my driving lesson, I got all nervous and forgot which was the brake and which was the accelerator. Result: swerving in order not to crash the car against a tree, eternal memory of my father's laughter.

Apart from all this, it turns out that I have a weak stomach: I become sick if I ride anything that moves faster than a bycicle. I will dedicate a whole post to this, but now it just serves to explain that I couldn't drive if I had to open the window every 10 minutes to puke out of it. And the road would be all slippery.

Let's just hope that I'll never live in a city big enough to need a car to move around.

Things you learn in the first year of uni

I don't know if all new students go to university with the expectation of starting a new period of learning, studying and being responsible. I did... until I arrived here. Here is a list of the things I actually learned in the first year of college away from home.

1. Did they tell you you'd like your subjects? They lied to you. They lied cruelly. You thought you were going to study languages, but will end up buried in a sea of cables while you try to pass Computers, a decidedly useful subject for a Russian philologist. 

2. Studying is for highschool. Indeed, many people think that, in university, a huge amount of time is spent in the library studying mountains of notes. Well, unless you're studying Medicine or Difficult Things Engineering, this doesn't apply to you. You will study during the first week of your degree, feeling responsible, and during session, feeling... all you can feel when you've been awake for 48 hours staring at the same book.

3. Healthy food is overrated. At the beginning, you'll try to eat a bit of everything: rice today, salad tomorrow. However, after a few weeks, the student way of life will keep you from spending a lot of time in the kitchen; also, washing the dishes requires an amount of mental preparation that, when you're 18, you simply don't have. This way, kebab and microwave pizzas will conquer your diet little by little, until you reach the point where buying a bag of premade salad becomes an achievement so big that you'll put an X on the calendar.

4. Avoid washing. Washing is bad for your health. Some hours ago, I watched a loved one eat an icecream with her finger. This option is obviously much better than washing a spoon.

5. You don't need to study too much in order to become a professor. This will be shown to you daily by many of your teachers. Furthermore, you don't need any kind of vocation: if you're not good at your thing, university will open its doors for you. With sentences like "I'm here because my children ruined my life" or "I should be correcting a PhD in the Politics faculty, but instead they made come babysit you", the respectable professors will demonstrate their love for teaching.

6. During session, all hobbies are good. All of them! It doesn't matter if you decide to clean up the house (mine needed that), start a blog or make models of World War II airplanes (people are weird). The more people join your hobby, the better: it's perfectly appropriate that five people meet in a house to watch sitcoms for six hours straight a week before an important exam. Don't judge.

7. You shouldn't be considered "of age" till 30. Are you 18? Yep. Are you an adult? Nope. Why? I could make a list. An adult gets up at eight in the morning. He has breakfast and goes to work. He comes home at five, having eaten something healthy during lunch break. He devotes his time to his hobbies and family till 10, has fun with his spouse till 12 and goes to sleep. Result: A productive day and 8 hours of sleep.

You? You wake up at three in the afternoon, eat half a pizza from yesterday's dinner, go to classes from 4 to 8 (or 4 to 6, or 5 to 7, who said routine?), go "for a walk" that finishes at midnight, come home, watch sitcoms until you crash and sleep for around 12h. Ok, that's what I do, but it can't be so different from average.

Disclaimer:  I have not written this post as a way to generalize my own experience and feel less guilty for being a sedentary cavewoman with decadent hours of sleep that showers with cold water and feeds herself on frozen microwaveables.

Void

There aren't many feelings more distressing, painful and unsettling than the void in my heart when I hear, from the lips of my flatmate, the dreaded words "there's no gas left". No gas left. His stoic composure deeply contrasts with the sinking of my spirit, that falls into a pit of anxiety and despair.

Why do we keep letting this happen to us? Not running out of gas seems as easy as buying a replacement cylinder, but that would mean taking the empty one from under the table -too much effort for two people whose job is to go to classes for 4h a day and keep a 50 square meters house decent.

After his warning, begins my oddysey. Waking up at 8AM is already a pretty traumatic experience, but it turns even worse when I have to shower... with cold water. I put it off for as long as I can: I stay in bed overtime, play with my phone, drink my morning coffee... But I know I must face my destiny. Locked in the bathroom, I optimistically open the hot water tap. As expected, out of the hose we use as a shower head comes a jet of liquid ice, to which I unsuccessfully try to get used. 

Soon after breaking the Guinness record for fastest shower, I make the effort to go out and perform my grown adult duties. At midday, I have an epiphany: without any gas, I can't cook. This brings me to a new ordeal: I have to go to the mall and return home burdened with huge bags of frozen microwaveable food.

And at lunch time, while eating ham and cheese crèpes and drinking Mediterranean juice, I wonder how I will face the coming days, while waiting for my beloved butane to arrive.