Going public and getting used to it.

Some scientists argue that anxiety and stress people have are likely to result from the inexcusable need of planning ahead, inextricably associated with modern societal life. No question about it. Off course coffee might well exacerbate the effects, but planning is not always possible, despite people´s attemps. Anxious individuals are said to be those that already live their future in their present time, which inhibits them from "feeling the pleasures of present life" as much as one might be expected to . Interestingly, the last two weeks have been quite the opposite. Unexpected things have happened in many fronts, especially to Joan and as a result to Marta, new area and new experiences were not the only thing. For instance, last week Friday 5 .30 pm Joan was called to speak in the program Europe Today (BBC world radio) on the uprising attempt by the infamous general Mena, so-called “ Aguafiestas”. The experience was good, he could well have had an influence on the opinion brits have on the Spanish state structure. On the other hand, it was a good opportunity to express the view some Catalans have on a controversial issue, at least to contest strongly biased views of their usual comentator who happens to be an MP of the PP party and "diplomat & son of francoist diplomat" Gustavo de Aristegui. Overall, the speech Joan gave was fine and English was fluid enough, still needs sharpening though,..... However, Marta thinks Joan was not radical enough -to put it some way, as he should have voiced his independentist views of Catalonia more clear. Indeed, she was listening from her work with her mates. On the other hand, Joan thinks that the fact he was not too radical might allow him to be more clear-cut about the Catalan case the next time anyway, they got the details now... a matter of strategy at the end of the day.

But this is not the end, yesterday Joan gave a talk to some members of the Catalan Community in London on the Economics (and politics) of Catalonian’s Sovereignty Fundacio Empresa Oberta . The talk was fine despite no power point projector was available. Lots of interesting people were there including the head of the department of Hispanic languages at Eton College, people who work at the BBC, the London office of Banc de Sabadell, COPCA, the Spanish Embassy and of course businessman, academics, PhD students and other people that are job hunting in town. Our Friend Toni “ the priest” (that happens to be the vicary of the Gaudi's Sagrada Familia) joint us and even participated in our discssusion. Previously, he had been some days with us, literally our first guest in Kentish Town- apparently the sofa is not that bad he quotes. After the speech an interesting discussion took place, especially with Eduard Vallory on the process towards independence, though no clear-cut conclusion was drawn after all.He argued aginst the us of the term "soverighty" and "nationalism" though Joan strongly thinks that he came along fundamentally to show off a little . In fact, a simple search on the literature shows that soverightly is till an up to date concept and that nationalism despite being a stigmatised concept is the right term to ladell a self-determinantion process. Tentative conclusion is that most of the analysis is at the early stage and more research needs to be done.

So see, this week was quite a busy one in social terms, no time for planning, life goes faster than our capacioty to plan ahead, need time to stop the word and reflect, silence no more discussion. Definetely, during last two weeks we have "gone public" , though the frightening bit is that we seem to get used to it.