Carlos III is a Spanish university situated in Madrid. The university’s main campuses are located in Getafe, those are Humanities and Social sciences campuses. Getafe is basically inhabited by middle-low income population, immigrants and some students  since house rents are inexpensive. Other than the campuses in Getafe, Carlos III has campuses in Colmenarejo, located in the NE side of downtown Madrid focuses on social sciences, and in Leganes which is fairly near of Getafe, which is the technical campus of C3.

Even though C3 offers pure science degrees, the university is remarkably better in economics fields, such business, statistics. It has been classified as one of the best suppliers of economics and business administration undergraduate degree programs in Spain.

C3 also was the first university in Madrid (and presumably in Spain) to adopt the new Bologna process which supposes an integration of European superior education. The process ends in 2010 for Spain, so by 2010 all universities must have switched to that new plan, thanks to this early adoption advantage, c3 has received a high level of application these last couple years, raising grade points. So that is, a student willing to study economics related degrees must have an average of 7 – 8 points out of 10 to be able to access and be registered for the degree.

After the early integration into the new system, the university also has adopted full English courses, meaning that a student may attend all subject lessons in English language, even for elective subjects, something that none of the Spanish public universities have. This is really a very innovative feature (I personally think they should have done this much earlier) given the low bilingualism of Spain.

C3 university is also famous for their labor as researchers. The university has a huge network of teaching staff from permanent teachers to many post graduate and visiting teachers both national and international. Because most of the professors are experts in research, they are used to applying the theory more than studying the theory giving students a more real-life-based learning experience.

Furthermore, the quality of teaching is carefully controlled through student assessment tests and statistical inferences using students grading, class attendance and other input data.

Apart from teaching, the university has wide and varied collection of bibliographical resources. The library has main textbooks, specialized reference books (most surprisingly is that they have lots of books in English, most American), research databases that contain journals, scientific articles, online magazines, research papers and more. In addition you have internet connection in the whole campus (though very slow and restricted for academic use)  as well as lost of computer rooms scattered all over the campuses. You also can read everyday the financial times in the library.

Today, the university uses a web-based platform to arrange its the administration. Information, course registration, class notes, all the information you can think about is stored in the website (which is also something really innovative to be Spanish), so if you are thinking to apply to this university you should check the website from head to toe and deep if you want to find specific information, sending e-mails or calling will not be as fruitful. For courses information (class slides, assignments, presentation…) they are using the open source platform Moodle (impressive huh, they are really up to date).

I guess I should also comment on the ambiance. Teachers usually are passive, so if you are not his or her preferred student you will not get the attention you need, some teachers are averse to receiving e-mails with questions, others just care about finishing their class and others are a bit more caring. Students, as you may presume, are mostly Spanish, so that will mean that in class chances are that it will be filled with blah blah blah.

The thing I love the most is the green decoration. At least in Getafe campus, you will find lots of trees, and something very thoughtful – few flowers!. When a green space is impregnated with flowers people just cannot stay there with all the bugs and smells particularly in spring and summer. However a place with some trees and very few flowers will make it look good and feel good. So is that campus. Just when you enter you will see wide green areas gracefully fit between the buildings.

With all said, I hope you have the chance to meet this charismatic university.

Now,  I am not going to specify the details of how to getting the ideal body since it depends on personal characteristics, these are going to be only a few general guidelines that will be really easy to follow. Most of them are from personal experience and experimenting and some others from books.

The importance of nutrition

The biggest problems for most hardgainers is that they don’t get buff, it is almost impossible to get bulked up. Most of the time it is caused by a quick metabolism, that is almost  eat for nothing. To offset this problem we can eat several meals a day, what this method does is to slow down our metabolism, so that way our body gets recovered constantly during a day and we don’t lose fat. Once a thin person is hungry, his muscles are immediately burning fat, so be careful and try to avoid that situation. However, if you ever tried this method maybe you felt it was not very good for health, eating constantly may harm your stomach since it almost doesn’t have time to rest, and eating too much more than your normal habit may disturb your organism such bringing it up, losing appetite, feeling sick… though it generally gets you fatter. In fact, when I tried this method I got 4 kg in one week, I’d rather say that is pretty insane.

So I showed here the two extreme cases that I will break down here for clarification:

• If you eat in a normal basis, say 3 meals a day you don’t get fat. In addition, if you exercise, even if you don’t spend too much energy you will lose a lot of calories, that will make it hard for you to recover and don’t mention to get fat.
• If you eat too much out of your basis, say 6 meals a day it will be bad for you if you don’t burn it, or something worse, you will lose your passion for food. Sometimes if you eat a bit more your body will get used to your new schedule more quickly and with less secondary effects, but it may still not be enough.

Our solution:

Focus your meals on building muscles. This is something important you want to do. If you focus your meals to exercise schedule in the gym most of  the calories will go to your muscles. So here is my recommendation.

Keep your 3 daily meals plus one meal after workout. It will bust your nutrition performance.

An efficient workout

As a matter of fact, workouts vary hugely depending on your physical status. You don’t have to lift too much weight in order to make your muscles grow up. It is actually an equilibrium between nutrition and workout. For hargainers our equilibrium is more difficult to reach so we have to adjust.

There are ways you can adjust your workout to your nutrition.

• When you are not eating too much, don’t either push yourself too much in the gym.
• You can bust your gym performance with an energy buster drink an hour before workout.
• Eat a real meal after workout, not a snack.
• If you have reached failure while working out stop and come back tomorrow, you don’t have to rest one day between workout days if you don’t need it.

The best way to work with your body without damaging yourself is adapting it to your way of working. If you exercise 3 days a week keep it, don’t skip a day unless you are ill or you don’t feel good. If you don’t have too much energy for workout, say you are tired, try at least to do some exercises, something is better than nothing.

Work out methods

Not every exercise works for everybody, and much less with hardgainers. Depending on your case you may try one or another, here I list the most basic.

1. Heavy weight with less repetitions, for instance, use 15 kg dumbells with 5 repetitions each set.
2. Light weight with more repetitions and less sets, for instance, 10kg dumbells with 20 repetitions per set.
3. Or you can use a combination of both. Start with heavy weight and gradually decrease the weight or vice versa.

You must try all of this methods in order to find the one which makes it for you. Also remember that the examples are for instance purposes only. You have to take into account your age (if you are still growing don’t push yourself with too heavy weights it may harm you, the same applies to older people), your strength, your physical condition (if you have any injuries, malformations, etc…).

Overall comments about nutrition and workouts

There are still many specific details I didn’t mention, it is up to you to give them a try. Some of them might be concrete specifications about workouts. You should try every exercise it is available (depending on where do you workout) and you feel comfortable with it. Of course if any exercise harms you stop doing it immediately. Also have in mind that you must warm-up always to avoid injuries either with cardio exercises or warm-up exercises.

In nutrition you may need to eat variety, with this I mean, vegetables, meat (cold meat have high proteins concentrations which may help you), fruits, seafood, everything that gives you balance in nutrition and makes you healthy. that will not only make it easier for you to build muscles but also to have a healthy life. If you still feel a lack in nutrition you can try supplements but in general cases even for hardgainers it is not needed unless you are a professional bodybuilder.

After all you may feel that you lack time for doing all of these. So as I said if you want to do this, to build up a better body, increase your self esteem you have to sacrifice some other things you do.

I personally tried all these things, some worked for me others not, so you should take this tips into consideration and adapt them to your personal situation.

A new year is a good time, at least psychologically, to change. To change habits, to improve our daily lives in the short run, and for sure, to live happy. I hope everybody can think that way, not to wish or to desire too much, but to change the important things in our present.

Have a nice year 2010!!

Abstract: In order to ‘cure’ this kind of illness it is very necessary to understand the roots and background of the subject, I personally have witnessed the benefits of treating an illness after understood what does it exactly do, affect, work etc. The doctor is basically an assistant, he works with many patients with different symptoms so it is not easy for him to make the accurate decision for you, so that is why you should not rely entirely on him, the patient is the one who has the personal experience of having the illness so the best doctor for the patient is the patient himself. All in all, before you get frustrated with your illness be sure you have understood it and taken the appropriate measures to eradicate it.

There are many types of skin diseases, but the most worrying is the dermatitis. Dermatitis causes skin disorders that are very noticeable and easily spotted and thus very unpleasant to have in our appearance. There are different types of dermatitis: seborreheic dermatitis (dark spots), stasis dermatitis, nummular dermatitis (these last two more common in elderly people), localized dermatitis (less acute, periodical) etc, here I am going to refer to one of the most chronic and long-lasting skin disease: atopic dermatitis.
Atopic dermatitis or atopic eczema as the name infers, is a type of non-normal skin disorder, that means it is out of the usual dermatitis pattern and its causes and symptoms are really hard to define. It was firstly discovered at the end of the c. XIX named neurodermatitis so it was determined that the causes of such disease had psychological origins. It has developed exponentially in the last 50 years, being more common in large developed countries. In the US it is the most common skin disease affecting 10 – 15% of the population to a 30% in children. Most sufferers have history of hay fever, asthma, dermatitis or/and have relatives with such problems. Atopic dermatitis that appears in children may disappear after puberty but it may also remain to adulthood.

Theories about the causes

Most cases of adulthood atopic dermatitis (AD) are incurable. It means that the sufferer carries the disease his entire life but it can be soften through delicate care and medical treatment. However, the key to improvements is to determine the triggers and control it. There are many theories about the causes of AD.

• Genetic theory attempts an explanation through human heredity. It states that 50% – 70% AD patients have medical history of hay fever, asthma or other dermatitis, or they have relatives that do. Also rhinitis and conjunctivitis can be sources of AD. Children with at least one parent with AD have a 60% chance to developed the disease. If  both parents have AD the chance may raise to a 80% probability of acquiring it. The origin is not exactly determined but it is suspected that a genetic disorder in the proteins of the atopic monocyte membrane (in the cells) is the root of the problem, though reasearch is still on progress.
• Immunological theory is the most complex one, since it uses the cells in the skin as a foundation to explain the skin disease. There are many not confirmed and complex theories, they basically claim incapacity of the skin to heal, the production of inflammatory substances and hypersensitivity as the main causes.
• Allergens theory is present in many AD cases currently but it is not confirmed that it is absolutely the cause. It primarily refers to those people who had historical allergic problems originated by a disorder in the cells generating too many IgE’s and other antibodies caused by allergies. AD then is caused by allergies the patient or any relatives had before, those can be medical history of conjunctivitis, rhinitis, food allergies, allergies from the environment (temperatures, climates…).
• Infective theory points S. Aureus bacteria as a trigger to AD. S. Aureus infiltrates into the skin causing skin disorders that may derive into a range of illness such celullitis folliculitis, impetigo, pimples, carbuncles and other skin infections. As for AD, it may increase the presence of pruritus maintaining or worsen the severity of the disease.
• Neurovegetative theory suggests that an abnormal nervous system response causes slow intradermic injection of histamine. This is especially evident in AD during changes of temperature where the skin can become extremely dry.
• Psychological/emotional theory associates the character of the person to AD. Edginess, aggressiveness, sensibility, agitation, sleeping disturbances, and other upsetting events are usually typical characteristics of AD flare ups.

These are the most remarkable theories of causes for AD, though in real cases, AD causes may be a mixture of all them mostly used as a reference purposes more than direct judgments.

Current atopic dermatitis issue

The research now a days tells us that there is a common practice in AD patients, the itching-scratching cycle. AD sufferers have itch because of many reasons, contact with allergens, dry skin, fragile immune system of the skin or other environmental factors. Those are usually called triggers. These triggers are the cause of itch but the problems come after that. Once the skin is scratched it becomes vulnerable to bacteria which infiltrates into the skin and can provoke other infections. Many times, such crack in the skin increase the itch making it more itchy, for that reason this type of skin is more vulnerable to other infections than a normal skin. The final result is usually the appearance of rashes all over the body especially in areas such eyelids, neck, hands, wrists as well as creases of elbows, knees and usually in children the cheeks, chin, back, stomach, and arms.

AD also has recurrent periods. There are periods with less eczema and periods with flare ups as well as development into other infections, areas or symptoms with time.

The most frequent method provided by doctors to control the eczema are oinments like corticosteroids and tacrolimus. Corticosteroids ointments reduce the itch by reducing the inflammation of the skin. Oinments with tacrolimus or pimecrolimus are drugs which modulate the immune system of the skin. Other may include antihistamines to reduce allergies that produce the itch. These treatments are very case-specific so they should be used moderately and never for a long period of time.

Aside, the key to rash-free skin is probably the daily care. Petroleum jelly, vegetable oil or even commercial moisturizers are good for daily skin care since AD skin is often dry and it should be kept moist to prevent further scratching.  Avoiding triggers, such as known allergens also make sense.

Other complementary treatments may be photo-therapy though they have their risks (skin cancer, cataracts) and it is not recommended for children.

In the long-run, continuous scratching makes the skin thick losing flexibility.

Conclusion

Atopic dermatitis is a chronic disease and it must be treated carefully. Origins, causes, effects of this illness are still not defined, research is still in progress. There is much work to do. Even though it seems that other illnesses such viral illnesses are taken with a greater importance skin diseases are not forgotten and there is still a bunch of good researchers out there working for a better knowledge and even a cure to make human lives better and suffering lesser.

For example. A person works to earn a wage. That person is in fact buying some time for him. A person who earns a wage is certainly giving away his time to another person who in exchange gives him a wage. The worker uses this money for himself, to make purchases, for leisure, that is for spending time for himself. So actually the cycle is “I give away time (work) to accumulate time for myself (leisure)”.

With that in mind, we could probably think that money isn’t worth a penny, it doesn’t have an intrisic value, what matters in life is time. Use your time cautiously, it’s worth more than money!