los jueves al sol

The film "Los lunes al sol" is centered around a group of friends, recently unemployed after the closing down of a shipyard in the town of Vigo, who meet every day in a bar for drinks, small talk and nostalgia of an unaccomplished future. One of them is obsessed with going to Australia, another is depressed with an inferiority complex to his wife who has become the sole provider for the family, a third one simply misses his own significant other who has left him, while a more obstinate one keeps filling in application forms in constant search of a new job. Everyday seems the same, and although it is not so sunny in Vigo, every Monday (lunes), as well as any other day, looks like Sunday.

Back to Barcelona in the year 2008, it is mostly sunny and there is a clear distinction between week-ends and week-days. Apart from that, though, I sometimes wonder if the inertia of a daily working routine is to be indistinguishable from the one of unemployment in the same way a stable speed cannot be distinguished from immobility. "Los jueves al sol", like today, I find myself on the terrace of the institute, staring at the sun and talking with my colleagues, which suddenly assume their distinct roles. There is the rebel, optimistic one, who is not thinking about Australia (yet), but has a different plan every day. There is the slightly depressive one, who is getting too anxious about his work being published by others and over there stands his alter-ego, who disgusted with the scientific community altogether, is depreciating everything relevant to biology and the such. Strolling by, with a cup of coffee in his hands, passes by the persistent type, the one who keeps doing the same experiment over and over, with his hope for success unconsciously blending with the acceptance of irrevocable failure. There I see myself, carrying a little bit of everyone of them.

We all meet there, day in, day out, up on the sunny terraces of our institute, with our hopes and motivation for a bright future succumbed under the dense flow of routine and its boring seminars and fruitless meetings. The plans are still there, but there is simply no time for them on the margin of all that. And so time goes by and the days feel the same and nothing seems interesting enough to shake the stagnating waters.

Barcelone s' ennuie...