Last weekend I performed my first ‘solo’ talk ever, about the Debian Project. I was really stiff at first, then I relaxed, and the audience noticed because my cursing started. I curse a lot, so that meant I was starting to feel relaxed and comfortable. The slides were shamelessly stolen from Gunnar’s, as they were quite good. Due credit was given, of course :-)

Luis Martín, from Microsoft Ibérica was there, and I replied to some of his talk topics during mine. I was slightly criticized for that, but I don’t care. It’s not personal, Luis is quite ok, and a brave person too (going to linux talks when you work for M$ looks like being brave to me). But his discourse sucks. that’s all.

I met Wonderful people there: Emilio, Javier, Rubén, Amanda, Luis, Cuevas, María... So many nice Debian and non-Debian GNU/Linux users. I was even asked for autographs! And Rubén stated that he was my #1 fan, so I let him autograph my tommy, despite driving a Rolls Roice to the iParty (and me not believing him until he showed me), he’s a cool guy. There’s pics of that, and Chicho is jealous like hell. Here are the pics.

Rubén, you fucking rock! And you’ll get an autographed t-shirt soon :-P

This weekend I’ll be at Lleida, attending a local LUG conference. This time I’m not a speaker, but I plan to improve the loads of Catalonian I have learned at Valencia. They even have binary jokes in Catalonian: 1001 1001 900 900 OO 1001. I love this one! I was told my Catalonian sounds like Basque (somewhat German), but they didn’t make too much fun of me. I don’t expect so much indulgency at Lleida, I have been laughed at before ;-) because of the way I wreck the language :-)

I was also amazed of the amount of people that think that the Valenciá language is a dialect of Catalonian and even say it’s just Catalonian. As a linguist I feel very shocked by that and can’t avoid getting everyone mad at me by my views on the subject. Still a lot to learn about nationalism, language, and feelings. I’m willing to give it a chance as it’s something very alien to me. I don’t feel anything special about having been born were I was born, or about speaking the language I speak as a mother tongue, and I really want to understand how they feel about theirs. Language is supposed to reflect your conception of the world, or so I was taught at the University, (you all know that some tribes at Africa don’t have future tenses for verbs, or how many words for white an Eskimo has, so...) so I’m very curious and in good will to learn more on it.

Anyway, I’m trying to feel and think in a positive way about staying at Madrid during Debconf-4. I have stopped thinking about Hara-kiri (my humbly wanting to die in a honorable way), which is an improvement. I’m no longer considering quitting the job, because that’s just like running away and behaving like a kid that can’t get what he wants. But $God it hurts. It hurts so bad. I need to get a job that’s friendlier to the things that matter to me. That’s a long term project. In the mean time, instead of painting my new house, and in an excellent procrastinator’s fashion, I attend conferences, search for comfort in my friends and rely on Chicho to dry my tears. I expected more empathy from my therapist, but all I get is homework :-)

I have a serious attitude problem, I’m afraid. I tend to be very self-critical, I tend to be very negative, I tend to take everything as a personal issue, I tend to feel I am trapped in a life I can't take control over. I have to fix all that, and I need a fucking holiday. It makes you think... when you bury yourself in tasks and projects and obligations, you can avoid hearing the inner voice that demands to be heard.

Let’s drop that again, a Debian Blog shouldn’t be about how you feel like. Today I was about to pay my coffee at the place I always have coffee at, but a construction worker had already paid it for me. So I had to say thanks. He’s been screaming things like “Guapa!” whenever he sees me for a month or so. It’s something I don’t really get. I look at my self in the mirror and don’t feel like screaming anything at all :-) (well, I could probably scream in disgust, but which girl wouldn't? Is anyone happy about their looks?) I see pictures of me, and I see I’m getting old, and the light in my eyes is fading. The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and I have burned so very, very brightly.

So, as I burn incense at my room, dim the lights, and listen to relaxation tapes, I think about SCO, software patents at Europe, and wonder how my problems compare to that. And I feel so stupid for feeling so depressed. Thanks Data, Zazu, Ranty, Pablo, Martín, for bearing with me. I need as many hugs as you can email to me :-*