We're In A Dream In The Happy House

Still remember the way you kissed that stranger. 
He told you that he had found you pretty and he asked you if he could kiss you.
You agreed. 

I wanted so bad to be him, but your friend was so obsessed with me. 
She thought I was a weak guy with mental issues. 
I found her sort of cozy. 
I couldn't tell her that I wanted to be with you.
I was so lonely and confused. 

It started by accident. 

At 13 o'clock or so, I was walking thru the alleys of your school and then I unexpectedly found your friend. She was so happy to see me. She thought I was looking for her. 
It was awkward. I wanted to find you. 

You appeared half an hour later. 
You were sort of angst and bored and proposed us to drink a bear. 

Dunno why I accepted. 
I really needed to save money. 
I was supposed to buy tickets for a Sonic Youth show. 

It was almost 15 o'clock but we were already drunk. 
Still remember what you said about that stranger when you came back to our table.
I felt dizzy and jealous. 

Then, we moved to another bar and we never stopped drinking. 

Later, we moved to a really cheap and sordid place. 
At noon, we moved to a tavern full of elderly men. 

We kissed at the end of the journey. 

The entire day I had been thinking about kissing you.
I told you that I desired to kiss you. 

We were really wasted. 
I barely could stand up.

You saw me and you held my hand.

We kissed. 

My first feeling was that your warm lips were like an open vibrating sore. 

Then you murmured: "I didn't kiss you just because she's my friend..."
(Or so I remember.)

For days I was thinking how precise were my memories about this affair. 

Now, it seems another life. 
It happened almost 15 years ago. 

We are completely different.

You're divorced, you have a child genius and you're sort of a freelance writer.
I'm married, devoted to neurosciences (or so it should be) and happy. 

Sometimes I wake up from a crazy dream about that kiss. 

I still feel your warm lips like an open vibrating sore. 

Happy House, a song by Siouxsie & The Banshees on Spotify

The Same Post, But In Spanish (Details Included)

Now My Mind Must Go On Holiday

Six years ago, I was about to have my first published paper as a first author. 

Even though I was so enthusiastic for what it meant for me, if I think about it, I really did not enjoy my life at all. 

I was so stressed and focused on my research project, working for a minimum of ten hours, almost on a daily basis, that I got drunk on weekends to deal with stress. 

I smoked tobacco and ate unhealthy food. 
The only physical activity I practiced was to play soccer on Saturdays.  

I demanded too much from my heart.

At the lab, I attended to seminars each Monday. 
They were divided in two categories. 
On the morning, we had a Journal Club. 
The second was meant to be a progress seminar and it started at lunch time and ended almost at 9:00 p.m.

At that time, they were several lazy and irresponsible students in the lab.
Frequently, they did not appear on Mondays and they did not perform experiments. They pissed off my advisor and the seminars became a nightmare.

No matter what, these seminars were never suspended -except for a couple weeks on summer and Christmas holidays. 

Outside the lab, I attended to seminars each Wednesday. 

They were organized on a Clinical of Addictive Disorders and they were basically for physicians, psychologists and therapists.
These seminars were taught in the same way students teach a class, when they have to expose: thousands of slides with statements that everybody could read.   

They were mainly a waste of time. 

I was also an asignature professor at the School of Psychology, four to six hours per week. 

As a PhD student, I attended to a class which I really thought it was a waste of time.
Also, I performed experiments, sleep recordings, stereotaxic surgeries, statistical analyses and things like that.

Six years ago, Mark Lanegan came to Mexico City.
He and his band were touring Blues Funeral and they gave a show on April 9th, 2012. 

Though I knew a little bit Mark Lanegan's solo career, I would have loved to go to his show.

I had heard several albums of Screaming Trees.
I believe that I just had bought Blues Funeral. 
I missed his show. 

I was so focused on my research project, that I heard about Mark Lanegan's show almost a year later, when Soundgarden came to Mexico City for the first time. 

I felt so stupid. 

Now, I have several papers as first author and things have changed a lot.

A few days earlier, it was accepted my first paper as corresponding author.

Through the revision process, referees made appropriate comments that improved the quality of the manuscript.

Referees did not criticize the English, not even suggested to change a single word.

Simultaneously, it is so satisfying and frustrating.

To be a corresponding author means a lot on my field.
To be Spanish-native and to be able to write by yourself your first corresponding author paper in English should mean a lot, too.

Even though it is supposed that it is a basic skill among Spanish-native researchers (science is English-written), it is not as common as it should be.

Sadly, no one of my current colleagues knows that I have written all the papers that I have published so far as a first author.

(Blame it on my advisor.)

I don't even know if my current colleagues know that I had four papers as first author when I started to work with them.

It's pretty normal, but it's so frustrating.

I must start from scratch, as if in my previous papers, I could barely write in English.
This is so damn irritating.

(Well, in a way, this blog supports my point).

Now, I enjoy my life more than I did six years ago.

Anna Hanks from Austin, Texas, USA (16 March 2011, 14:35)

I have a lot of free time.

I employ it for writing personal stuff.
I even finished a novel with which I participated on Premio Mauricio Achar 2018.

I employ it for reading several pieces of information, literature and music.
I write about these things on my blogs.

I employ my free time for playing electric guitar.
I have three guitars -a Squier Stratocaster, a Gibson SG and another cheaper one-, and I also bought a couple of amplifiers, microphones and several guitar pedals.

I play songs I like -I never learn a song just because- and I even have composed some silly songs. I don't know if someday I will have the opportunity to record them.

I employ my free time for listening music.
That's how I discovered several artists I hadn't heard, like Kurt Vile, Courtney Barnett, Cloud Nothings...

(I have a small fortune on books, CDs, cassettes and vinyls.
I could have bought a car, instead of having these small treasures).

Nowadays, I barely drink alcohol or eat unhealthy food.

I quit smoking three years ago, I had surgery two years ago...

And Mark Lanegan came back to give a show.

Unlike six years ago, I know a lot more his solo career.

Among several of his songs and collaborations, I have heard The Winding Sheet, Bubblegum, Blues Funeral and Gargoyle...

After the show, I even shook hands with him and I got he signed me a copy of Uncle Anesthesia.

This time he was accompanied by Shelley Brien on keyboards and Jeff Fielder on guitar. They were touring Gargoyle, his tenth LP and fourth in five years.

(It was an awesome show.
Eventually, when I feel less darker and negative, I will post about it.)

No matter what, sometimes I still feel invisible, like I did six years ago.

Now My Mind Must Go on Holiday

Touch Me, I'm Sick

I started to listen Mudhoney in 1995.

It had just came out a bootleg from Nirvana's Reading Festival show.

It included an almost complete soundboard source recorded on August 30, 1992.

Back then Nirvana was the most popular band of what journalists around the world had called the Seattle sound. 

The show started with Kurt Cobain mumbling Some say love is a river... 

It was a cryptic phrase. 
I felt attracted to find out where those strange lyrics came from. 

For months, I didn't know it was the first verse of The Rose. 

I was fifteen years old. 

A friend of mine got The Money Will Roll Right In from the same show, except that it was from an audience source.

Although it was originally performed by The Fang, this song would introduce me to Mudhoney. 

Since my friend and I were interested on having a band, that song drove us wild. 

It sounded like a song really fun to play. 

Back then, it was really difficult to get albums from Seattle's underground scene.

In Mexico City, we barely got albums  from Nirvana or Pearl Jam.
It was almost impossible to get albums from Soundgarden and Alice In Chains.

Imagine how difficult it was to meet someone who had already heard Mudhoney.

On December 5, 2014 they played at El Circo Volador. 

A year ago, they had just released Vanishing Point, their sixth studio album. 

The venue was so small.

It looked like an average small bar from the 90's, like those that appear in the movies or music videos of the time. 

A couple of garage Mexican bands played before Mudhoney. 

The crowd was so enthusiastic.

The band came out and started to play Sonic Infusion. 

As the hypnotic patterns of the guitar went by, the audience started to crowd surfing.

Guy Madisson told us that Mark Arm was ill.

He had sore throat and he often coughed, but it was one of the best shows of my life. 

From the beginning, the audience went crazy.

I particularly remember when they played In N' Out Of Grace. 

Can't take out of my mind Dan Peters' prolonged drum solo, while Mark Arm and Steve Turner seemed so impressed by the surfing crowd. 

The band played almost all the songs I wanted to hear, except Mudride and Suck You Dry. 

That show ended up with The Money Will Roll Right In. 

On these days, it was the 30th anniversary of Touch Me, I'm Sick

I'm A Loser Baby, So Why Don't You Kill Me

Almost fifteen years ago, I started to teach at undergraduate level. 

One of the reviewers of my thesis was a young researcher.  

He studied timing on rodents. 
I had just written a thesis about numerical competence on pigeons. 

At the end of the revision process, I told him that I was interested on teaching and he got me an interview on a private University. 

It was one of the most expensive in the country, or they said so. 

When I went to the interview, the appearance of the school surprised me. 
It seemed really modern. It seemed a first world school.

Everything looked so new and clean.  

http://www.marca.com/

I began three months later.
I had an awful schedule and a boring topic. 
Nevertheless, the experience was the best I could ever have. 

A few of my pupils were really concerned in learning.  

Since it was the first time I was completely responsible for a full course, I must have been a lousy teacher. 

Two years later, I started to teach at UNAM. 
I worked there for four years. 

On the last years of my postgraduate studies, I was so stressed that I did not enjoy teaching and then I quit. 

The relationship with my PhD advisor was so unpleasant at that time.

I had even found a way to teach my classes when it was lunchtime at the lab, to avoid any kind of conflict between us.

Sadly, it didn't work. 

He was not personally mad with me, but in general. 

The lab was full of undergraduate students. Most of them were apathetic and lazy. 

He treated me like if I were one of them. 

One day I got sick and I told him that I would not go to work. 

Unfortunately, that day none of the lazy undergrads was in the lab at that time. 

He got furious and wrote an impulsive e-mail. 

He wrote the worst things he thought about each one in the lab. 

In my case, he wrote that I had no ideas and that I just followed his instructions. 

He sent that e-mail to all of us. 

I still conserve it. 

Obviously, it hit me. 
Specially 'cause he made it public. 

I trusted him and he trusted me –I was the one who took charge of his classes when he couldn't do it–, but it was completely disappointing. 

Maybe I was apathetic and lazy, too. 

However, everybody is able to check my track record at his lab and draw their own conclusions.  

The last paper I published with him was my idea, but he refused to accept it. 

It looks like he just wanted to show how powerful he was.
Also, the most important issue above all: he never get wrong. 
Specially when it's about judging people. 

He recently published a review including part of the data of my published papers.

Not only he did not include me as a co-author –he could ask me to write the corresponding section of the paper or to redo the plots, or whatever–, but he did not even put me on the acknowledgements of the review. 

On each one of my papers he put people who actually did not collaborate at all.  

2011 SfN Annual Meeting. San Diego, CA

I was so stupid. 

I should have leave his lab sooner than I did. 

I quit as a professor. 
I should never have given up.

I would have almost fifteen years teaching at UNAM. 

I became SNI soon after I received my PhD and I had a post-doc position for three years at UAM-Iztapalapa on which I acquired several abilities related to training of human resources and to Grant's writing.

I've been teaching on a regular basis, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. 

I also have been invited to speak about some research topics on diverse academic forums. 

I was advisor of a graduate student and also co-advisor of a postgraduate student. 

I am about to send the response to the reviewers' comments to my last research paper. 

Nevertheless, what I do is barely attractive to society. 

September 19th earthquake' damaged an important research building in the institution I have been working in the last four years.  

Obviously, it worsened my chances to find a researcher position there.  

A month ago or so, I sent my CV and my independent research plans to compete for a researcher position in a provincial University. 

A colleague told me about this opportunity.
A week later, he also told me that I had just passed the first candidate filter.

This researcher position was offered by an institution interested in conducting studies on addiction to drugs of abuse. 

They wanted to have evidence to apply it on public health policies. 

They expected from the young researcher all the abilities I had acquired as a post-doc. 
This opportunity sounded like real fun. 

Besides, my postgraduate studies were conducted in a lab focused on cannabinoids and I have an expertise on behavioral tests employed to evaluate diverse stages of addiction on murine models.

My profile could be of interest for the institution.  

Nevertheless, a couple of weeks ago, while I was watching a FIFA World Cup game between Brazil and Belgium, I received an e-mail from this institution. 

I was so nervous.

Then I started to read: 

"We're sorry to inform you..."

It seems the epithet of my academic life. 

I asked them what had been exactly wrong with me. 

They told me that they didn't have the necessary resources to support my research purpose and that they were looking for a social researcher.

My profile was too oriented to basic research. 

In other words, they wanted a profound thinker rather than an expert on behavior and basic research. 

It was kind of weird, 'cause on the announcement of the vacant they asked for an expert on evaluating the effects of drugs on health. 

What the hell does that mean? 
Were they just too polite to me?
Was my PhD advisor right about me?
Am I an average untalented researcher?

I hate my situation. 

They say it cannot rain all the time.

However, this has been the second bad news I have received in the last month. 

At this rate, the best news I will have is that I can have a child. 

Perhaps I am overreacting.

I guess I should have learned how to fix cellphones and cars. 

I am a disaster. 

I fail over and over again. 

https://libero.pe/rusia-2018/

http://grantland.com/features/beck-phases-out/

I'm A Loser Baby, So Why Don't You Kill Me

My Heart Is Broke, But I Have Some Glue

When people think about to travel to the future, it is likely that they think about money. 

It is likely that they think to buy a Sports Almanac, just like Marty McFly did. 

In my case, I will travel to the future and I will return without money and even more disappointed than I was at the beginning.

When I originally published this post, I was about to have a job interview via Skype.   

It was an opportunity to work in a private foreign University. 

They looked for a psychologist with experience in teaching.

It was even better if the candidate also had experience in research. 

It was my profile, which is rare. 

80% of opportunity jobs in my research field are devoted to specialists on sophisticated techniques of molecular biology and they don't even consider behavior as a relevant issue.

A lot of these opportunities employ specialists on these techniques as workforce, and are focused on the study of plants and microorganisms.  

The main point of this type of research is to produce valuable food and to increase the exportation and the sales of these products.

As the interview approached, I was even more nervous. 

I was supposedly watching a soccer game on TV.

Nigeria and Iceland played at the Volgograd Arena. 

Even though I enjoy World Cup -I have watched all of them since USA '94-, I couldn't stop thinking about the interview. 

What if I started to behave as an idiot?

What if I started to sweat like crazy?

What if I started to stutter? 

What if I suffered a blackout? 

What if the interviewer was a neurotic?

I have always been better doing what I do, rather than selling what I do. 

I am a researcher, not a salesman!

(In any case, what I sell is research when I write original papers or when I write research projects).  

The interview was more friendly than I expected. 

The interviewer was a young girl and she was too polite. 

At the end, the job offer was a really good one. 

I felt pretty fine. 

The salary was awesome.

They gave you benefits, they paid you vacations once a year... 

All I had to do was to do the same activity I've been doing for the last ten years almost for free. It really sounded like fun. 

For the entire day, I was thinking about it.

Didn't I deserve a job like that?

Of course. 

I became SNI shortly after I ended my PhD. 

I have experience in teaching at both undergraduate and graduate levels. 

Thought this job would be the opportunity I had always been waiting for. 

I was so enthusiastic, making plans with my wife. 

All I ever wanted was to have enough money to buy my own house.

Raising a baby and doing it in the best environment and with the greatest comforts. 

As I re-write this post, I feel so miserable. 

On July 17th, I received an e-mail from the interviewer. 

While it happened, I was answering the comments the reviewers had made to my last original paper as a first author. 

We employed a postnatal overnutrition murine model to explore the role of an orexigenic system from the lateral hypothalamus. 

On the last decade, this system has been studied on genetically obese models. 

One of the reviewers was particularly strict. She even asked us to re-analyzed the entire data. The paper includes behavioral, pharmacological and Western Blot data. 

I saw the e-mail notification and my heart started to beat like a war drum. 

I finished the comment I was working on and checked my e-mail. 

It seems that rejection is inherent to my life.

I fail over and over again. 

The most common phrase I have ever read is

"We're sorry to inform you..."

(How many times have I read this phrase?)

I am pretty used to bad news. 

I am kind of tired. 

Maybe I should have learned how to fix cellphones or cars. 

What I like to do is barely attractive to the society. 

Once I assimilated the notice, I e-mailed the interviewer.

I just wanted to know why did they had just decided that I was not the best candidate.

She insinuated to me that her boss decided to hire someone else, from the same University. 

At the last hour, her boss apparently decided to change the profile they were looking for. 

I am a lucky guy in love, but a disaster to get a real good job. 

For years I've been working just because I like what I do. 

For years I've been working for free on holidays and weekends.

(For years I've been dealing with people which think I am a loser because I don't have a car.)

You could say that most people are like that, but you don't know that I form part of less than 1% of the economically active population in my country.

(I am pretty sure that you don't even noticed that Spanish is my native language.)

I will write on this post about my experiences with job interviews. 

I'm about to have one and I'm so nervous!

This opportunity would completely change my life and I want it so badly to happen. 

Also I would like to write about all the kind of jobs I've had.  

Maybe the post will focus on a girl I met when I worked in a hotel. 

Or maybe on a German girl I met when I wanted to work as tourist guide in Playa del Carmen.

My Heart Is Broke, But I Have Some Glue

You Want It All But You Can't Have It

A colleague invited me to teach a class to graduate students, a couple of months ago.

Students were so tired.  
They told me that they had had classes all day long.

He wanted me to speak to them about the most studied receptors and hormones involved in food intake regulation. 

The course was about hormonal pharmacology. 

Another colleague invited me to teach a class to the same graduate students, a week ago. 

She wanted me to speak to them about the basic aspects of food intake regulation with emphasis on the hypothalamus. 

She's so smart and I got nervous. 

Nonetheless, after a few minutes I managed myself. 

We were about to leave the classroom, when a student appeared out of nowhere.

She asked me if I wouldn't give them a musical recommendation.

The first time I spoke to them had coincided with Kurt Cobain's mournful anniversary and at the end of the class it occurred to me to recommend that they listen to his music.

The student looked kind of impatient. 
It's possible that the second class would have bored her. 
Maybe it just sucked. 

She told me about Mike Patton and a band called Mr. Bungle.

I didn't know what the hell she was talking about. 

She said that he was the singer of Faith No More and that he had a band which sounded like Primus.

She said that this band would change my life. 

A just woke up from a confusing dream.

We were sitting in a coffee shop. 

She wore Jim Morrison-style leather pants along with an intense red blouse.
The blouse had a gigantic neckline.

She crossed one leg over the other and lit a cigarette. 

For some reason, I noticed her Doctor Martens boots.
They made think of a woman with which whom I had a murky romance.

(This woman wore the most exclusive and expensive models of the British company.)  

    
As she smoked, I couldn't stop seeing her cleavage. 
It was hypnotic and made me feel dizzy. 
Her breast looked so mysterious and unreachable.  
I felt guilty, morbid, weak and idiot at the same time. 

Suddenly, she said

"Don't you really know Mike Patton?"

pulling me out of my own thoughts. 
  
I felt so stupid that I just smiled at her.

Then, as I asked her for a cigarette, I looked at her face.
As she touched my hand to give me a cigarette, I felt dizzy again. 

I brought the cigarette to my lips and she lit it to me. 

Her eyes looked kind of evil and her skin was so pale. 
Her hair was dyed purple and blue. 
She seemed a vampire. 

As she lit me the cigarette, I could see a tattoo on her forearm.
It was a tattoo resembling Lilith's Star. 

What does this mean?
Should I listen Mr. Bungle?

You Want It All But You Can't Have It