A por ellos

If you are like me, you've been glued since Euro 96. You've had your heart pounding everytime hot boy Raul Gonzales scored. You've hoped against hope that the team qualified, amidst being in the "Group of Death" in WC 98. Your hopes hit rock bottom after the the Nigeria game and your hopes soared high after they thumped Bulgaria 6-1. When Raul missed the penalty shootout in Euro 2000 you've wanted to kill him. You switched off the TV when they lost to France 3-1 in WC 2006, and promised yourself that you would not get your hopes high. Not for these guys.

But then came Euro 08. You caught sneek peaks at restraunts and news clippings, but you didn't let yourself get into it. Never watch a full game, you told yourself. And then came super-Sunday. You did yourself proud, never once did you glance at the TV. It doesn't matter, you told yourself. I am over it. And then, the casual glance. Voila ! Torres did it ! You couldn't believe it. Offside ? No. Any chance it was a dream ? No. They did it !!!

AND IT WAS AWESOME !!!

And, that's how that ended !





And it was awesome !


Potter in my backyard..

Of all the times to be away from Boston, summer is probably the most ill-fitting. Especially when the Queen (Well, for all practical purposes, anyway) flew down to talk to some Harvard grads.

I must admit, the idea took a while to sink in to me. What was she going to talk about ? Compare the Potter - Voldemort duel to the travails of the real world? Talk about how she had the power to change the world and bring kids back to reading?

Of all things she could have talked about , talked about "Benefits of Failure". To a bunch of Harvard Grads, yes. Here is a small excerpt. The full transcript is available here.

"Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.


So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.


Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies."

Courtesy : harvardmagazine.com