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There was a time when my friends and I started to believe in changing the world, or at least our world, making things that passionate us, not working in a monotonous schedule or running the rat race; after all, the world was already broken after the pandemic. It was the perfect time to break the dull dystopia of adult life. While learning and exploring different approaches to enhance our abilities, we enjoyed resolving programming challenges or discussing various language programs and methods. We had reached a certain level to start to make interesting stuff with our computers. Even though we had a headquarters called "El Palomar" ( the reason behind the hilarious name will remain a secret for now ); during that time there, we started doing different projects, not only computer related, but that is another tale. When we gathered to program in our office, the main idea was to launch applications and integrate services. During that time, we learned different programming languag...

If something reminds me of my infancy, it would be my toys. Throughout the years, I've tried to save and keep my toys, even if they were destroyed or incomplete. They were part of my days as a child. Although I was the only kid in my home, I enjoyed playing alone with my toys, exploring and combining them with other action figures, cars, aircraft and all kinds of things that could provide me distraction and entertainment. The joy of being a child is to be happy with less; there were many things that I never had. Nonetheless, I consider my childhood as the happiest years of my life. Fortunately, I had toys and an environment that allowed me to play and develop my imagination through the game. This is a key factor in children's development. Reinforces motricity and enhances creativity while avoiding other distractors like tv or smartphones. Preserving them is like having an old photograph of my infancy. Though I don't play with them anymore, they still provoke old memories; m...

It is incredible that I still have not talked about one of my favourite music genders or even more curious that I haven't written about music for a long. Since I learned some musical theory, I spent all my time listening to all kinds of music to expand my taste in new melodic sounds while I attempted to replicate them. The more time I spent with my guitar, the more music I wanted to learn. But when reading a good old guitar book, I found a new gender called Bossa Nova. Bossa Nova, which translated to English would be "New Wave", is a folkloric national music from Brazil, mostly played with a lead guitar and percussion; the rhythm and lyrics are characteristics of this gender who combined the melodic and jazz progression and nowadays have been recognized as a cultural part of the region. The first time I listened to a Bossa Nova song, I was stunned by the music and the melody around the song, fastly I wanted to replicate in my guitar that gender, the fancy chords and forms...

Last Friday, I had to take the second screening test for the MEXT scholarship, the results were announced with a week of anticipation, so I had to move forward to Quito to take the assessment. My last time there was in November of the previous year when I decided to take the IELTS exam. Since then, I  have practised my English to avoid forgetting it. This time was different; the assessment consisted of two parts; one was the English test which evaluates the current level of English you have at the moment of applying, and the second part was a Japanese test. Both of them were only assessing the reading and writing fields. When the day finally came, I went to the PUCE, a university located northeast of the capital, to take the exam; my plan to take the tests was to answer most questions in English correctly and to fill in at least the basics of Japanese.  Once I arrived, I saw around 15 people waiting in the classroom for the instructor and the tests. When the instructors came, ...

As we get older and over time, we are more conscious about the meaning of our lives. Like Oliver Burkeman, author of  Four Thousand Weeks, describes: Time is not a 'thing' measurable because it is our life; we are the time. Time is the substance I am made of, writes Jorge Luis Borges. "Time is the river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is the tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is the fire which consumes me, but I am the fire". Our experiences, whether you want to catalogue them as good or bad, are the matter of what we are made of; the passing of time defines our character, sharp our minds or can be the cause of all failures. Since we were born, the years put on our lives, people, places, memories, and anecdotes that shape and define the way we see the world. Now, I am near to getting 30 than 18 years old again. And if you ask me my biggest regrets or what things I would prefer to avoid in my 20s; I would say: nothing, because these experience...

Not long ago, my friends and I shared the same things: assisting at the same college, sharing passions and anecdotes, spending time hanging out, and often doing projects together. We have spent a lot of good and bad things, desires, goals accomplished, failures, and some food between. Time has done its work, and the distance between us has been dilating since we finished our careers. The pandemic gave us time to spend with ourselves, but our lives have followed different paths since normal activities returned. I'm happy to see some of my closest friends accomplish their goals and see how far they have gone; I barely was in touch for months with some of them. It is weird to think that with some of them, I used to share most of my days during my classes at the college, sometimes seeing them more than my own family. Some others, like me, still dwell in the same city, surrounded and crossing the same streets and visiting the same places that used to be time before. But despite that, th...

This week the Catholics celebrate Jesus's journey to holiness, starting in early February; it was almost 40 days, during which the Bible relates the process until the holy week. In my country, Friday's last labour day was declared a rest day. For most Ecuadorians, this rest day is excellent for recharging energy. I was exhausted from work, and this time I leveraged my time to do other things, spend quality time with my family, hang out with my friends or stay in my home, trying to relax. The analogy of the Holy Week is that someone can emerge from scratch and find salvation and reconciliation. Sometimes, new challenges and objectives can be the detonator for finding your correct place in this changing world. Whatever our faith, we always have the ability to be reborn. Every day that we awake, we can choose a new life, a new way, to rededicate ourselves to our philosophy.  S. ...