What Happens to Our Dreams?

Walfrido Garcia - Dockside Dreams

We learn never to give up, never to compromise our dreams but does that mean we cannot change them? What if we decide that our dream is not OUR dream anymore but someone else’s? What if we realise that it has never been OURS or if we set new goals ahead? How does it happen and why? What happens to our previous dreams then?

When I was around four years old, Michael Jackson was huge and I wanted to be his wife more than anything. Dallas kicked in around the same time and then I wanted to be just like Victoria Principal. Later Spice Girls ruled my primary school years and we formed an indigo band, went from stage to stage to perform their songs and dance the choreography we put together.

It was the same thing whenever I tried some new sport: kick-box, jazz-ballet, basketball, aerobics, handball, hip-hop dancing, kung-fu… I always wanted to work in whatever the actual sport was for the rest of my life. Does this mean that I am a flag? Floating where the wind blows me? Or could it mean that I have really enjoyed all of these things?

When I was 17, I was asked to teach hip-hop to two groups in the dance school I attended and since then, I have been teaching dance and/or aerobics. That time I thought I would definitely be a choreographer and as my love for motorbikes grew as well, I wanted to put shows together to open MotoGPs and get Valentino Rossi’s attention so that he can take me for a ride .

One morning, riding my wee moped to school though, I crashed and injured my knee. Years later they found out that I had a heart condition as well so I could say goodbye to dancing professionally. I was devastated but did not want to give up. The show must go on.

With an entrepreneur-spirit I moved on coming up with new ideas: I turned to my poetry as I have been writing poems since I was 15. I thought I would get them published and then I realised no one cared for poetry anymore so I thought about submitting them as song lyrics which is not as easy as it sounds.

Then I turned to studying, was accepted to several universities to attend different courses: Astronomy, Italian, English, Economics, Film History, Physics, Film Studies and Gaelic, PR, and Journalism. Meanwhile I also finished some NVQs in Marketing and Advertising, Sports Coaching (Aerobics) and started a Beauty Therapy course multiple times.

Every single one of these interested me for a while. I spent as much time studying them as I was willing to spend. The necessary time to learn what these professions were all about and then quit as they were not fascinating or important enough. I did this until I finally accepted that the only thing I could be passionate about was family. Bringing up children, teaching them, caring for them. After all these years of learning and searching, thinking there was something wrong with me I realised that I just wanted to be a wife and a mother.

However, if you are not 16 and drunk, getting pregnant is not that easy. Not for me, at least so I had to work out a plan that would be satisfying enough until this dream could become reality and that is when I attended an ice-hockey match. I felt the same rush I felt when I was playing basketball, having more adrenaline working in me than there was in the players. I fell in love again and I thought about Marco’s death and what MotoGP and the sport itself meant to me and discovered the beauty of Sports Journalism.

This is not the end of the road, I reckon but does this make me an indecisive person or a multitasker? Am I bringing shame to the emancipated, careerist approach of the 21^st century? And if so, is that really a problem? Who decides what dreams are normal and who can say one is more important than the other? If our dreams, our goals change from time to time (maybe not as much as mine) what happens to our previous desires? Do they die or just change into something else, something new? Are we allowed to say that we would love to do this and that one day and think totally differently about it the next?

Why could not we?

Disappointing Men in Britain

This is a headline (sorry guys, practicing HTML)

Let me pour my anger and disappointment out here, to you and cyber space.

Moving countries is not always a question of where you want to live but most of the time it has to do with the financial situation of the person, you might even say that he/she had no other choice if they wanted to pay off their debt/mortgage and still having food on the table and clothes in the cupboard.

• It is bad enough
• to have to leave family,
• friends and everything
• they new behind and learn how things work in that foreign country
• and try to make a living, a home and new friends there.
• It is not easy and can be very lonely sometimes.

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If you have moved to the UK, I have to say, you are in the worst country to make friends unless you drink and get “wasted” every weekend, or smoke (whatever), or are a party-goer. It is especially hard if you are constantly broke (as you will be sending money home because that is why you have moved in the first place).

I can accept that you are left out of certain conversations and experiences this way but eventually these people should realise that just because you do not dig yourself in their mud does not mean you are a bad or boring person.

I can also accept that people are so obsessed with cueing that politeness flies out of the window even if it is raining; gentlemen (I would not call them that though) would not let ladies in front of them as an act of generosity and caring for the “weaker” sex when getting on the bus, for example.

I can live with all this but Saturday morning was not the first time I was walking to work and had a colleague and a team leader passing me by (both men) without saying “good morning” or “hello”. Then we went in through the door together and started to work and they tought everything was ok. Well, it was not and is still not ok!

It is not ok not to greet each other, spit, use foul language, talk about women irrespectively or women’s body parts in all, pick your nose, bite your nails, clean your ears in public, etc. It is not cool to be rude and/or disgusting.

I feel that some men in the UK should by an etiquette and courtesy book and read it day and night if their parents and teachers have failed to impart them these evident, basic things. It is actually sad and pathetic. I do not see how they eventually find a partner if not by getting drunk and getting her pregnant.

Could you please just change very quickly before women go mental? Thanks.