Lessons for life.
Monday, Dec. 17, 2001 - 10:34 a.m..

Surprisingly, I didn't wake up so achy yesterday. So that's not the reason why I didn't write. Actually, my cousin came to visit. He's 27 years old, and a complete bussiness man. He knows what to do and how to do it right. A wise man, in spite of the age. He told me a lot of stories about how he got started. Quite interesting.

But first of all, we went to mass early in the morning. We got back home and there was a message of a friend of Renan's, asking him if he could come over. So we dropped off Renan and Rebeca at his place. His parents are friends with Renan and Denise and they have three kids: this boy (Renan's and Rebeca's friend) and twins (twins! twins!), a boy and a girl. They're both so precious.

Like Denise tells now and then, life in Houston passes you by while you're driving. Everything is far away from everything. So in all the time we went from here to there, it was almost 12 o'clock. My cousin was arriving at 12:30. Denise and I went quickly to Randall's to buy some stuff, went to Taco Bell's drive through and dropped the stuff off at home. We left at 12:10 and we ate in the car.

Now....this is something I always wanted to do: eat in the car, travelling at a fast speed, on a rainy day, listening to any given Aerosmith album. And there I was, enjoying that moment. Listening to Deuces Are Wild, drinking Pepsi, seeing the highway and the raindrops hitting the window...it was priceless.

Anyway, we had a few problems and we met with my cousin until almost 2 o'clock. We picked up the kids again and went home. It was almost 3:30 when we got home.

Now here's when my cousin started to tell me that I'm here. And he meant: I'm here. I've got the opportunity to be here, and here I can do what I want. I just have to throw myself in life. It was a huge speech about me taking risks and making them become chances. The best advice someone has ever given to me. Although I knew all of what he told, I think I needed to be told so. He said I should've gone to high school while I was here. That I should volunteer at the hospital. He mentioned so many things. Denise told him that she had offered me to do something while I'm here but that I'd said no, which is true. And he said that she shouldn't even had asked. I couldn't say all of the stuff he told me, but it was one of those speechs that makes you like you can do every-fuckin'-thing in this world. And out of it.

He said: so this is my advice to you. It's up to you if you take it or leave it.

It's taken already.

Anyway, after the long, nice talk we went...shopping. He needed some stuff. Denise dropped us both at the mall, the Memorial City Mall and she went to drop off Rebeca to her basketball classes, and took Renan also, because he gets easily desperate in a mall, specially when he can't buy anything.

We both walked around for a while in Foley's, looking for lotions. We ran into this good ol' lady...and when I noticed, my cousin and her started talking like good friends. The conversation lasted about 15 minutes. No, they didn't know each other. The thing is they were talking about how she (the lady) wasn't able to learn spanish. She started saying that a friend of hers, from Cuba, was always putting her down, because she couldn't pronounce well. She had also noticed that people from South and Central America were kinder to her than the rest of latin people (mexican people), because they were always encouraging her to keep learning, "although -she said- I'm only a stupid old lady from Texas". My cousin was so touched with the story and started telling her that even for the spanish-speakers is quite hard to learn it very well, not to mention all the accents, and different meaning of the same words, the tenses, different words for the same meaning...he even gave her some basis on how to learn. The Basics. The subject. She did pretty well, and said a few words in spanish. She was really happy. She was really nice. We said good-bye and even shook hands.

See? You have to get involved with people, watch them, talk to them, put a smile on their face....basically, make a difference. That's what my cousin told me. Frankly, I felt I was hanging out at the mall with Patch Adams.

Every people we saw, he'd tell me where they were from and why he knew that, based on their accent and the shapes of their faces. He's incredible. We only were to four aisles of the mall, because we'd stop almost in every shop to check stuff (and people) out. I helped him to find his lotion and he bought me some weird ice cream..."The Ice Cream of The Future". Weird little balls, like rocks, but they melt in your mouth. Weird, wild, stuff.

The lady who was serving them looked chinese but he talked to her in spanish. She answered in spanish! When we were walking away from there, he asked what I saw in that lady...I told him that she looked chinese yet she could talk in spanish. The key is, he said: she learned the flavors and the money in spanish, and in other languages also. That's bussiness. The part of the bussiness that involves talking with the costummer needs -of course- communication. Quite simple, but not everybody can see that.

And that's how we both spent 2 hours. Walking around and seeing people. I bought a few things. He bought a few things. And I have a job. He gave me a little job, if everything goes fine with a client of his, that is. But he already told me how I could change $160 into $300. That's bussiness.

Our last stop was a bookstore. He bought about 5 five books, bussiness and computers. I bought Calvin & Hobbes, the Tenth Anniversary. I asked him to help me pick out one...it was between that one and Yukon ho!. I chose the other because it has a lot of text, written by the creator himself. Like my cousin told me, I had to think if I wanted simple entertainment or learn more about the creator. We ended up talking about Walt Disney and other people who left a huge mark in this world. That's what he had told me and Denise earlier..he wants to be someone. What a coincidence. Me, too. And that was basically a long, thoughtful half-day with my wise cousin. I wish he was staying longer. He's leaving tomorrow, and today will be out of the house almost the whole day. He's got friends here (he seems to have friends everywhere!) and he's doing some paperwork about residence or something.

Other than that....Rebeca and Michelle are friends again, and Rebeca and I apologized to each other. I'm reading the Calvin & Hobbes book....comics are great, but that's another story.

The lesson for today and for the rest of my life is to do something with it. Something good. Something I like. Something I feel like doing. Something that kicks major ass.

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