Lessons I'm learning.

I'd read on LinkedIn that the traditional resume is changing. The white paper, as we know it, inked with statistics and boring details that are hardly telling of a person's true character, is inching toward the same trend as print newspapers. That is, becoming extinct. At least for some of today's most innovative companies, who seek to hire someone based on the person that is demostrated beyond the 2D. More than facebook, this means any online social medium: Twitter, blogging, LinkedIn, and more. And if you don't have this "self" online, you should start etching because a growing number of industries expect it.

Thus, I came to have Twitter. My only "friends" are people I've never met before. They don't comment. Ever. But on the positive, I now follow and get further news updates from the BBC, the New York Times, Runner's World and Outside Magazine. They never once comment about their breakfast of choice, silencing my internal protest to Twitter. Rather, I receive gems of news I may have missed or inspirational running quotes like this, "You cannot grow and expand your capabilities to their limits without running the risk of failure." "When all else fails, start running."

--Dean Karnazes

However, the business writer that tipped me off to this point also hinted that one sleepy Twitter account didn't quantify an attractive digital resume. So, I expanded further. Here's my most recent creation in the making. Take a look, http://annafrisk.wordpress.com/, it should at least drive home the point: Hire me if you want an affable weirdo. (Does that combination exist?)

Hoping for some luck.

You can also read my resuscitated blogging for the California Tea House, http://www.californiateahouse.com/blog/tea-trips/235-alhambra-granada-spain-tea.html here. 

Holy Week

The city is cloaked in purple, Semana Santa (Holy Week) is almost here. Baeza, a relatively quiet town of 18,000, is going to be bursting with tourists, bands, processions and images of Jesus, in just a few days.

Semana Santa was made famous to the outside world by Sevilla, the capital of Spain's largest provence, Andalucía. Come Easter, most tourists know Sevilla as the city with the ghosts or KKK men parading through town. The images are striking and shocking to the uninformed, including me before I came to Spain. So I asked, wh y the KKK uniforms? Not surprisingly, I received this answer: the costume has always had religious origins, however, the KKK took this symbol and distorted it for their own specialized aims. Moreover, Sevilla and Spain have no penchant to make political or racial statements; they just want a good party, the basis of all Spanish fiestas.

Except, I'll only see the purple banners and the blowing debris of the aftermath. I'm getting out of here. To Madrid, Barcelona and then finally, southern France.  I'll be spending the week of vacation hopping from beach to city on the Mediterrean, I'll let you know if any images of Jesus cross my radar.

(Another Spanish fiesta, Las Fallas, Valencia, Spain)

Burn, burn, burn.

Tonight marks the night for these giant minarets (or in Spanish, fallas) to burn to the ground. All, that is, except one. The best is saved from the jumping flames and placed in a museum to be admired for the rest of the year. 

I found most of the fallas to be highly entertaining, for example due to the deep crisis, the much talked about politicians of Europe were having their own crisis, but as you can see above, some were just admirations of past heros. 

Your regularly scheduled programming will continue in just a bit.

Until then, a photo of why I've been delayed.

A falla at Las Fallas this weekend in Valencia. 

To be a polygot...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17107435