Doesn’t mater religion, beliefs or race. It can happen to anyone. And despite everybody knowing this for a fact, everybody still falls on the very same mistake: we all prefer not to think about it, and just assume that they will always be there, side-by-side, till the old age. Until it happens.
So one day, we feel inside a space that is completely empty, a big hole that makes all the difference on the daily life. I’m still not certain about how I’ll cope with all this – people says that time cures everything, but I find it hard to believe. I miss my tooth a lot.

Portugal is a place where people are used to eat well. Very well. Not only the meal time is a moment to sit around a table, with time and a nice warm meal, Portugal has one of the best gastronomy’s in the world.
Despite all that, young people are known for not having very healthy food habits, in particular the students who live by themselves during school time. Usually this is even worse between male students that live together and find out that the amount of recipes they manage to do successfully is quite low. Even counting with the microwaves ones.
Some become avid fast-food consumers, others re-invent the concept of breakfast cereals, but only a few really try to cook on a regular basis. From this last group, I’ve seen a lot in the past 5 years, but I’m not going to rant about that now.

I happen to live with an excellent cook. Not only he enjoys eating well – like me and any portuguese -, but he also enjoys cooking and does it in a way capable of blushing quite a bunch of so called professional cooks. Each meal is not only a pleasure to both eyes and mouth, but cooking is also a constant place for improvisation being the surprise one of the ingredients he masters best.

I know I’ll miss this one day.

Yesterday, was one of those days when it’s easy to catch me with a distante look and a stupid smile drawn on the face: it was exactly one year since I returned from my 6 month exchange period in The Netherlands. From time to time, watching someone riding a bike, seeing a windmill, or a simple mention to it reminds me of how much I miss it and how much I want to return there. It’s on days like this that I restart making plans to return, while wondering why I’m still here and why I didn’t return already.
On any other day, I just want to return there.

PS: sometimes I thank myself for not owning a credit card.

Some time ago, for some odd reason, I decided to reach my building rooftop. People are not supposed to go there so the passage is closed, but I didn’t see anything wrong about that (other than my own safety) so I’ve kept my intentions. At some point, it became a personal challenge and I was ready to learn lock picking, elevator mechanisms and whatever it was necessary to reach it. But, it turned out that there is a fairly easy way to reach it after all. So much the better for me.
Once up there, there are only two things to see: the building chimneys and the view around. Usually, I like to put them together. That is, to sit on top of a chimney and watch the view, if possible, at night with an hot drink between my hands. The seven floors might not be as impressive as the petronas towers, but it has a nice view over my university campus, and a big part of the city. At night, all those nearly-almost-there fading lights mix up with the moving ones from the cars forming a live city map. It’s quiet up there, so once in a while I go there to relax, to think, or just because I don’t have anything better to do.

The queues for surgeries in the Portuguese social health care services are known for being long. What I wasn’t aware of, was that this doesn’t apply only to surgeries.

Around June last year, my father asked for a psychiatrist consultation in his local hospital and was putted on hold. Unfortunately, in August he had a stroke and now he is part of what he was before. After several consultations on private doctors he managed to recover quite well, but never 100%. He was lucky though, it could had been much worse and we know that.
Why am I writing about this now? Because today he told me that on last January, he got a letter from the hospital, scheduling the requested consultation, for next April. He had already forgotten of it. Would a on time consultation change anything for him? I really can’t tell. Still, 9 months to get a psychiatry consultation that lasts a few moments is ridiculous. At least to me.
I’m tired of living on a country where this things are so common they are considered normal by some. Where some people still have to get up at 5am to try to be received by a doctor that has too many patients to attend to properly. Where some people got to the point of nicknaming their local hospital as the ‘butcher’. And mock about it. Where some people have too much suffering that could be avoided if there was a proper social health care service. Where the guys who are supposed to fix this are fighting and pouting about their sexual orientation while running to get to be prime-ministers.

Note to self: I can’t compensate 4 hours of sleep and an exam with 5 coffees.