Dream Job

I got to be honest. I don't have a single clue of what job I want to have. I assume, since I'm studying Chemistry and Pharmaceuticals, I'll work as a pharmaceutical chemist.
But like they taught us at the beginning of the career, there are a lot of different areas where I could develop: pharmacies, pharmaceutical factories, pharmacies in hospitals, research and investigation, and even pedagogy.
From them all, I'd feel more comfortable with the administrative roles of a pharmaceutical than the scientific ones. These would be working on a hospital or a community pharmacy.
I made my intermediate practice in a Cruz Verde pharmacy, and I'd call it an acceptable experience.  It was an indoor job almost all the time, except when I was sent to other pharmacies for small deliveries. My boss, the pharmaceutical were seated all the time, checking emails, ordering papers and watching mexican telenovelas.
Generally speaking, I got the impression that it was a very routine job. This would be ideal to me, because my real goals aren't the ones related to my professional career, so I need to have a good amount of free time and space for myself.
                                               
Everybody says that this job are very well paid, which means that I'd be making around 1 million Chilean Pesos, or even more if I'd applied myself. To me money is not that important, as long as I can buy a house big enough to provide a healthy space for my future pets, i'm good. But what I really need, since i'm useless on my own, is employment stability. (I wouldn't last a day unemployed).
If I decided to make it a little more close to my personal interests, I'd like to complement my studies and specialize in veterinarian products, because when I was a child my dream job was to be a vet, and I'd like to be able to do something for animals from my position. Or maybe I'll specialize in cosmetics, which is also inside the pharmaceutical sciences, so I could become something like a professional cross dresser during the night times.
Anything else about my future are still nothing more than fleeting dreams. Sometimes I want to give up on everything and study to be a librarian, or a book seller. Or maybe an author myself. Sometimes I see myself as a famous flutist, or a drag queen who travels around the world winning contests... but the real dream job would be a corpse for medical researches... hopefully soon.

New Antipsychotics

According to the OMS, last October 10th was International Day of Mental Health, that's when we discuss topics regarding mental illness such as depression, anxiety, bipolarity and schizophrenia.

"The Madman's Tale by John Katzenbach"

These are diseases that deeply affect the life of the ones who suffer from them, including symptoms like abnormal thoughts, emotions and behaviors that difficult the relationship with the environment, reality, their relationship with people and themselves. 

Despite the high amount of mental diseased people in the world, we still have to face an incredible amount of stigma and prejudice when it comes to discuss the issue. Since they originate in the mind, sometimes is hard to understand what's going for people from the outside. But it all have its root in the biochemical balance of the brain.

The treatment for them consist in a combination of psychotherapy and medicine, but we still have a long way until we can produce satisfying results that really help to improve people's quality of life. Most of medicines for mental illness, called psychotropic drugs, barely manage to reduce the symptoms and produce a lot of problematic side effects.

For example, antipsychotics, the drugs used to treat psychosis and bipolar disorders, consist in chemical molecules that decrease the action of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the central nervous system. Normally, this neurotransmitter is responsible of motivation, pleasure, memory, attention, etc. But when in higher concentrations than usual, in specific areas of brain, it can cause psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia. 

However, it is very complicated to reduce dopamine only in some areas and not others. This means that antipsychotics keep under control the  "typical" or "positive" symptoms of schizophrenia, like hallucinations and delusions, but on the other hand, most of them fail with other issues like affective dullness, slow thinking, lack of motivation and incapacity to maintain habits. Meanwhile, the side effects include sedation, which can cause toubles for working and studying, nausea, sexual disfunction... sometimes, to fight this side effects they take more pills with their own side effects.
Peopel with this diseases fill they are trapped between two nightmares.
Becauseof al this, farmaceuticals have the must to find different options for treatments that accomplish more specific targets in the brain, or at least have more manageeable side effects so we can actually talk about an imporve in the patient's life, and not only make them less dangerouse for society.

Some New Antipsychotics approved by FDA in 2017

Las year, some of the new antipsychotics were approved by FDA. They allow wider intervals of administrations, which leads to less intense side effects with a better improvement on the patient's social integration

About pets, love and friendship... and responsability. 

I must confess I'm very excited about this blog. Telling the story of my pets is basically telling the story of my life.
I'll make my best to summarize everything. Or maybe not. 

Chapter One: Yuma, The Forgotten One

When I go back to my first memories, I always picture a large female german shepherd living in the backyard of my house. My first pet, although it wasn't actually mine.
My mother always made sure I understood that animals were sentient beings, capable of feeling pain and love. Even if they didn't comprehend these concepts, they deserved our love and protection. 

But, as I grew up, I could see how she and everyone in the family didn't really believed what they said, including myself.  Eventually, carrying with the responsibility of a large dog was too much, and Yuma was left behind in that small backyard... growing old, getting sick... fed with human left overs, surrounded by her own trash. She wasn't allowed to get out, because she was too hard to control. Years passed before she could saw any green grass, when her soul was finally freed by the hand of a vet because of a vascular disease. Her meaningless remains are still buried in the front yard, with no more than a pencil as tombstone, nailed in the ground by a heart broken 12 years old me.
My regret will never be enough to make up for the fact that I never did anything to help her. If anything, I made her life worse. 

But I hope that what I didn't do for Yuma, I did for the rest. 

Chapter Two: Teodoro, The Loved One. 

A couple of years before Yuma passed away, one rainy afternoon my cousin brought home a little cat in her arms. My grandmother acted like she didn't want it, but we all succumb to the heavenly cuteness of this hellish creatures. 

It was school day, and we needed to leave. I think I was in the first course of basic education.

He was left in my room, windows closed so he didn't escape from our love. I was more than happy.
Every time I tried to leave, he'd cry out loud. I would enter, wondering what would he want. A bowl of milk and a bowl of water was all my mind educated by american cartoons could offer. I went in and out a couple of times before realizing what he needed was company. 

And that was the begging of the most beautiful relationship I've had with an animal, in which I learnt the true meaning of love and friendship. 

I remember waking up at 5am to give him his food if he asked for it. I remember hiding the blankets and sheets from my mother because he peed on them. I remember losing my fear of darkness so I could take him to the bathroom to drink water. I remember the first times I dared to speak up to adults, because they were yelling at him or trying to hurt them... 

If what I felt for him isn't love, then love doesn't exist.

Chapter three: The blond brothers. 

It was normal for us to see cats passing by our home, stealing teodoro's premium food we bought. But these ones really gave a fight to stay. There were brothers apparently, three yellow cats with tiger lines, while Teodoro was white with grey spots. My cousins and I developed some affection for them, and without thinking too much, we disobeyed the human rules and followed our humanity. 

We called them: Mi Niño, Mi Rey and Pompilio. Even though they were not ours officially, we gave them food and allowed to stay in our beds when it rained. 

Unfortunately, this led to a territorial conflict that made my best friend, Teodoro, leave the house.  Aparently, cats had their own rules. And part of having any pet is respecting their nature.

I was coming back from a vacation, and he wasn't there. I was told different things: the blond brothers kicked him out, he left searching for a partner, he left looking for me...

To this day I suspect that the true was the one nobody even suggested. Maybe I needed to feel like it wasn't my fault, maybe I needed someone else to blame. But I suspect he died, and that he was poisoned like it had happened before in the neighborhood.  He was the first family memeber whose death I had experienced, and those were my very firts grief tears.

Chapter four: Otto, The Devil. 

Meanwhile we struggled to maintain peace between King Teodoro and the invaders, another creature came to our lives. 

The old lady who lived alone next door called the bell of our house one night. She requested our help with a noise that came from her backyard. She was very religious, and at first she thought it could be the devil himself. We went to her backyard and heard the noise. It seemed like a very scared cat that was probably trapped between the bushes. It was dark, so we searched around, moving some branches and wires here and there, until a skinny black cat came out of no where and escaped before we could give a better look.
It's funy that I never look for a pet. They always just appear somewhere in the house and say "you take care of me now, congatulations". Sometimes I feel like they are sent by God whenever a dark time is ahead. And after Teodoro went buying cigarettes and Yuma returned home, some dark days arrived. So dark, God had to send the devil himself... but we named him Otto.

Chapter five: Cleopatra's Reign

"Cleopatra, your new queen"

We still had the issue of the blondies, but they didn't last longer after Cleopatra made her entrance in the house, since then called "Cleopatra's personal slaves house". Much like the queen she is, we found her sleeping under the shadow of the bushes, a young female cat with orange and black mix as fur and a twisted tale, surely from an epic fight against a shark or something. I went running to my grandmother and begged her to keep her. I wasn't even living there at the time. Years later my grandmom confessed that she only agreed to keep Cleopatra because she hadn't seen me that happy in a very long time.
So there I was, my eyes glowing full of hope with another living thing I could give love to and receive orders from.
She was instantly recognized as a natural killer. Not a "hunter", because once the victim died and she couldn't have any more fun with it, she threw it away and Otto devoured it. When I went to pick her up from the vet, I came back so, so proud... they told us they needed five of them to keep her under control... and some of them didn't live to tell. She knew how to open doors and she understood her own name... she didn't care, but she understood. She was smart enough to not eat stranger's food, and that's how she survived the following cat assassinations that occurred the next months, that took the life of Otto.

Chapter Six: Federica, The Surviver. 
I think I was in 8th grade when I received the new that he had been poisoned. I'd like to say I was

"Federica, The surviver"

lucky I wasnt there and see his agony, but that wouldn't be true. Even my grandmother said that whoever did it, was not human as far as she understands it. I still bame the old lady... finishing down the devil who peed on her plants. I repulse her, just in case.
Later, I heard from an aunt that she thinks she saw Mi Niño and Mi Rey dead too. I cannot describe the feeling of impotence I felt and still feel. By the time, I already pictured myself as the future best veterinarian in the galaxy. A little taste of it came when my mother secretely came home with another cat in distress, like three years ago.
That one was a case. She was found in a suitcase along two dead brothers under the heat of sun, struggling to get out with not much strenght left. She couldn't open her eyes because of ocular secretions. Worms in her stomach, bugs in the little fur she had left ... We kept her hidden until we got rid of those things, but the tub was an issue. The medicines were more expensive that the others. We tried, but we needed to buy in a very strict schedule and we were always late.
At the end, we used sea water.IF YOU EVER HAVE A PROBLEM WITH TUB IN A DOG OR CAT, BATH THEM IN SEA WATER FOR TWO WEEKS. 
It is miraculous. And that's how she bacame one of the most glamorouse, elegant and beautiful black cat you could see. She likes smocked ham sleeping dangerously close to the heater in winter.

               
And to this day, she and Cleopatra are my lifelong roommates, and I could not be more grateful for them. I also had two dogs more, some fishes and some birds, but Cleopatra just told me nobody cared so I'm going to sleep.

Your Best Holidays or concert ever

"Look at the quality of that graffiti" -My Art Teacher, once. 

"Generic Beach"

My grandmother always goes to vacation. Every single year. Even the times she doesn't have much money, or no job at all. To her, travelling is unmissable, the thing that made all year's work worth it. So of course, she always took me and my brothers to vacations. Her favorite place to go are beaches of the North of Chile.
This might sound weird to some people but I've gone to the beach so many times in my life, I don't like it anymore. I don't even remember the names of the cities that I've been... La Serena? Coquimbo? They are all the same to me in my mind.

Cows! :D

Sometimes I accompanied my other grandmother, by mother side, when she traveled to visit her family across the the country side of the South of Chile, like Linares, Conception and Punta Arenas. There, I got to appreciate a life a little bit more rudimentary than the one I had in the city.  I saw lots of animals like cows, pigs and sheeps, and since I was an animal lover, these were very enlightening experiences.


But the holidays that I enjoy the most remembering are actually these last winter holidays.  It was the first time I traveled out of town with friends instead of family. I went to Valparaiso with two of my best friends. We took the bus early in the morning, and then came back late in the afternoon of that very same day.
When we first arrived, we went to a little beach by the coast. Swimming wasn't allowed, but we played in the water a little bit, and it was much more fun than playing alone...
After eating and shopping, we went to a botanical garden in Viña del Mar, where we rested and talked and took lots of pictures. We were tired, but there were so many different things to see.

"The colorful stairs of Valparaiso"

We finished the day just walking around, enjoying the iconic colorful streets of Valparaiso, full of wonderful urban art. There I remembered the first time I met Valparaiso, on a school trip, when my art teacher said "Look at the quality of that graffiti". I don't know why, but this is important. My friends didn't get it.





It was really short time, but I will always keep that day in a special place of my heart, for I know how important it is to spend time and build memories with the people you love the most before you lose them.

"National Viña del Mar Botanical Garden, Viña del Mar" 

A Country I Would Like to Travel

Since I was a child, I'm a big fan of all kinds of myths and legends, specially greek and egyptian mythology.

I think that studying the different religions of the ancient civilizations is the perfect way to understand the way they lived. It not only explains how they believed the world was created, but also how they would relate to it. For example, the Greeks said that Demeter, goddess of agriculture, was  lovely and kind... if you respected her and her rules. That can be translated to the idea that you must follow stricly each plant's requirements to grow healthy, like the season they must be seeded, how much water they need, etc. When things aren't done the way Demeter has taught us, it would only bring poverty and famine... Respect earth's cicles. Listen to it before you take from it.

A lot of the ancient wisdom has been lost with the pass of time, but what remains is still full of knowledge and different perspectives about issues that we humans still face. We need to protect and take advantage of it. According to this, the places I would like to visit someday are the places where the most mysterious legends took place: Egypt and England.

Egyptian civilization was born by the largest river on Afrika, the Nile, who to the egyptians was the giver of life. To old egyptians, death was even more important than life. So much, the more wealthy spent all their riches on their tombs, wich now are one of the most important sources to study the egyptian history. They are full of descriptions about their deities of the afterlife, and what they would find there.

"Temple of Isis, Philae Island, Egypt"

I would like to visit the Tomb of Cleopatra, who was one of my favorite strong female icons of history. Unfortunately, it hasn't been found yet.
Instead, I'd like to meet the Philae Island, known for its large complex of temples dedicated to Isis, the major female goddess of the egyptian pantheon.
However, its arid clime doesn't make a good home for me. If I ever go to Egypt, It wouldn't be for a long time. I need color green to survive.

"Stonehenge, south of England"

The other country I want to visit is England and the different countrys around it, like Ireland and Scotland, old home of the celtic culture. To me, its myths and legends were very advanced to their time, very spiritual and deeply related to nature. To celtic people, the best temples were not the ones made by men or women, but the ones preserved in the most hidden forests, the waterfalls only seen by a very few lucky ones who got to dance with the fairy folk and never came back. Their deities were understood as a manisfestation of the world itself, with its blessings and dangers.  It is from England that most of my favorite literature come from. I definitely must see by myself the "Stonehenge", whose origin raises as many doubts as the pyramids.

One of my highest dream is to settle down in a country similar to Ireland. Unlike Egypt, in Ireland everything is possible when it comes to weather. You can start your day with the brightest sun and end it covered in rain and hail. Specially rain. So... much... rain.

                   Is there anything better than rain? Give me your thoughts :)