Pfffttt, Life...

Sometimes it is hard to not let others influence you... Not in the sense of making you do the things that they want you to do, but in how you feel. Today I am exhausted. For the past month I have been making an effort to move forward in my work, in not letting others push me or at least delay me. And everything was going more or less well, I was pushing myself but I felt that it was paying off. However, the person that should be helping me moving forward, guiding me, seems to only increase the chaos in my life, changing his mind every other day. In wanting everything for yesterday that person makes it impossible for me finish what I am doing. And then wants everything finished and done, with no loose ends... It makes me feel has if I am not trying enough...

I'm tired...

hmm...

I just listened to this song and decided to share it, just because...

It reminds me of my childhood, of times gone by. I cannot say that they where happier times, but somehow now (today, at this moment) they seem. I think most people always look at their childhood as an happier time, maybe because when we are kids we are more innocent and able to see joy in the smallest things. It would be good if sometimes we would still be able to time to time see life that way. I know that we have to become not so trusting and naïve to go through life, but... it's still sad that growing up means losing such a wonderful gift.

So, here goes:

Rod Stewart - Have I Told You Lately That I Love You (Unplugged)

Credits to  Shamara011061 @ YouTube

Only today I discovered that this song was not written by Rod Stewart, but by Van Morrison. :) 

On Posting...

If you read my previous post you might have noticed that I have kept my mind busy, which could mean that I had a lot to post. So why did I not do it?

Maybe because I am a proud person and I do not like to admit that I feel like I am not doing as good as I think I should be doing. I do not like to doubt myself, and I have done that so often in the past years. (How could we think as teenagers that life was easier as adults?!) So actually writing it down is difficult, despite also being a quite relieving action. When I am troubled I tend to close myself up more than usual, it is a mechanism of defence...

There were times that I thought of things and considered them interesting to post, but eventually I would dismiss them for a number of reasons. Being the most prominent one laziness and the second one to think that it was exposing to much. The funny thing is that this blog was created for me to write about what troubled me, how I felt at the time. It also has had the purpose of sharing experiences and things I like, but it was mostly to put my thoughts out in the world. And the latter has been the least done. 

I am my own editor. And what a fearsome editor am I...

So, you can say that one of the main reasons that I have no been posting is that I been to troubled and stressed with life...

A random fact in 15 days I'll be 30... Doesn't wisdom come with age?

Long Time, No See...

I will not even count the months that I have been without posting, It's too shameful...

There isn't much that I can say about that, life has been hectic and there are actually no excuses. :)

So, today I decided to break my silence to post a song that I discovered sometime ago, but only today I decided to search on YouTube. 

Hurt - Wonderful Life

(credits  PinkiSun @ YouTube)

The visual part of the video reminds me of the 80s. And the music in itself also kind of reminds me of that decade. Maybe that is the reason I like the music, I do quite enjoy 80s music!

Maybe it is because of the message:

Don't let go

Never give up

It's a wonderful life

I am not thinking of giving up on life, I do not really work that way. But I have been thinking and rethinking if the choice that I made to go for a PhD was the correct one. It's not that I was expecting it to be easy, it's more that it is not giving me the thrill that I expected it to give. I choose as I always do, I went for what was more appealing to me. However, I also made the easiest choice by going for a project that was more or less already drawn by me supervisor. That does not mean that do not have input, actually I think he would like me to give more. It is just that other than my boss there is no one else that really is experienced in our group, so sometimes support (in basic stuff) is lacking. There is also the question of the other lab members, I do not really feel that we are actually a group... I miss my friends from my "previous life". Work-wise things where not that good, but friend-wise... they where great.

I do not usually give up on the choices that I made. And, even though I am not completely happy with everything and from time to time get quiet depressed about things, I do not really see an actual reason to go back on this one. Meaning that I am going to stick to it and give my best as usual. I just wish that I would not make things so hard on myself by over-thinking everything...

Demanding...

Among the people that know me I am considered to be quite demanding of myself and other people. I create expectations and get frustrated when the persons that I care about do not meet them. 

Do not get scared, getting older and having expectations frustrated time and time again, has thought me to be not to so demanding or at least not to get so frustrated. Even so, there are times that my personality gets the better of me and I create them and get frustrated by them.

Sometimes life is complicated, by us...

On being me...

Lol, this title does sound pretensious...

The other day someone I know made a comment on my personality that I had not heard for awhile, but that is not a rare comment:

"You like to isolate yourself. I do not agree with that." (or something close to this).

Basically this person, as (so many) others, disagrees with me doing things by myself. Or putting in another way, with the fact that I only count on me for doing stuff that I want to do. I like going to the cinema, for walks, shopping and other stuff. And if I have no one to do this things with I will go by myself and enjoy myself. Most people find this strange, and they have no problems in telling me this to my face. As if because I do things differently from most people I am the one in the wrong...

I am not saying that this is the correct way of living. It is just my way.

I may not agree, or think is healthy, to completely depend on others to do stuff, but I do not go around criticizing people for this. I may have in occasions told someone that it would be good for them to try and be by themselves for awhile. But I do not tell them that I do not like the way they live their lives.

So, why do these persons think they can tell me these kind of things?! Is there really a single way of living your live?!

I think not!

I agree that I am basically a solitary person, and admit that occasionally I do feel lonely. However, I am comfortable with myself and in the end that is what matters.

Life is solitary journey. We are born and die by ourselves. (I do not mean with no one around us, but that these are things that can only be experienced by oneself.) Each one of us as a very particular way to perceive the world. Some people are better at conveying their thoughts than others. These are the ones that are socially more successful. I am not one of those persons, and I am cool with that. It was not always like this.

P.S. - I do like having friends and I appreciate the ones I have.

Life...

Sometimes takes us be surprise... That is all I wanted to say, even though it is nothing new...

Time for bed, but not before a brief post... :)

Sometimes I feel like I'm back to my school days as a kid, when I prepared everything for the following day in advance and had to check in to bed early... When I decided to that this was going to be the next step in my life I already knew there would be hectic times, with little self time or worse with little time for others. However, when these kind of times come it is always tough. I feel like I am falling short of what I am capable of doing... I know I have so much stuff to do, that I feel increasingly frustrated with the fact that the day only has 24h and that I really need to sleep...

And the fun part is that IT ONLY JUST BEGUN...

You know whta the solution is? Vacations... I so need some right now...

The was the rant of the day/night...

Time goes by... :)

Be warned: This post is going to be a mix of things...

First, I am already 29 y.o. and a week (;p). Wow.

You would not believe if I told you that just this friday a guy tried to pick me up at the metro when I was returning home. This is not the unbeliveable thing, I hope.. But that he asked me my age and told me to my face that he thought that I was 18/19 y.o.... He either was so keen in having some luck that he fooled himself to believe that I was young and naïve or was further pushing is luck by trying to flatter me. Though I think it was the former, he asked me the strangest questions, such as if I was going home, where did I live, if lived with my parents or by myself, if I wanted to friends with him (who I had just met)... As if I was going any of this questions to a stranger... I was both amused and shocked.

Actually, I have been told that I look younger than my age, but I really think its pushing a bit to much to say that I look 10 years younger...

So this was the part dedicated to time concerning my age. I will not address the typical issues. Sometimes I do not even believe that I will be 30 in a year, but I do not really think that I would want to go back to college or even teenagehood.

The second part concerns another measure of time, the one related to relative time. How things that sometimes occurred long ago seem recent or things that are recent appear to be from a somewhat distant past. A few moments back, while I was surfing the internet I decided to go to a certain artist site/blog/whatever. This artist is named Van Ness Wu, that I got to know through a taiwanese drama that I watch a while back. He happens to also be a singer and a heck of a dancer (guys who CAN dance just kill me...). Not so long ago he released a Japanese single, that I got addicted to when I started reading stuff for my thesis project and during February I replayed this song all the time. But I have not listen to it for awhile know, and today I decided to listn to it again. And it seemed that that period of time was so long ago that I was surprised, only 3/4 months have passed...

Having said all this I decided to share is song with you guys.

VanNess Wu - Reason

(credits to 99yuchi @ YouTube)

Long time no see...

I know... I' ashamed... Almost two months without posting (and the blog police has been mum about this, which surprises me more...).

Life has been hectic these past 2 months, too many hours working. I know that it was my choice, but I still have the right to complain about it. So I am bit on the tired side, and that means either lack of inspiration or lack of wanting to come here and write. Right now I am writing so I can proscratinate a bit more, I have something to do for work... :)

In order to completely succeed in my proscratination, I decided to share some music with you guys. I remembered this music in particular because of a CD that was given to me about 4 year a go by a good friend with whom I have been out of touch (Hope that everything is alright with you?). This CD is a compilation of albuns that he thought I might enjoy, among them there are two of Zero 7. One of my favourite song of them is Destiny, that I decided to share with you:

Zero 7 - Destiny

(credits to ub4k @ YouTube)

Remember Me

My "Baby" Sister completed her (1)26th birthday 8 days ago. I know that this is a bit late but still: Happy Birthday, SIS!! :D

Like last year she came Home to celebrate her birthday with her family, and she was with us on the actual day. Thank You. :) Considering that I am working this time around, the two of us did not spend as much time as usual together, but we did manage something. One of which was going to the movies this Thursday, one of our favorite activities. She really wanted to go see Remember Me with Robert Pattinson, that came out on that day. Originally we talked about going to the 9 o'clock session, but the tickets sold out. So we decided to go to the midnight session, which ended at 2 o´clock in the morning. Call me crazy if you want, I called myself that, knowing that I had to be up by 7 o'clock in the morning the next day... Oh well...

Tired as I have been feeling lately I was afraid I would fall a sleep in the theater, but... Actually the movie was pretty good in my opinion. Yes, Robert Pattinson once again portrays a revolted young (in The Twilight Saga is not has young has he looks, but still young) man, which suits him like a glove. The boy really has the ability to express that type of inner turmoil as if he was honestly feeling it. But that is the only "similarity" I could find. It is not a teen movie, it has romance but not of the (obsessive) fated-to-love-ever-since-I-set-my-eyes-on-you-until-the-moment-I-die kind. It is of the type where two people share similar traumatic events that allow them to comprehend each other without the need for words. The movie shows us how by finding this person, Robert's character (Tyler) is able to come to peace with his trauma and mend is relationship with is Father. Another important aspect is the beautiful relationship between Tyler and his (much) younger sister, it was one of my favorites. Now, comes the warning: the film is a real tear jerker and the ending is sort of unexpected. You have been warned, now go see it. lol

I just have one thing to mention in a not so good side. There is a scene in which Tyler and his Father (portrayed by Pierce Brosnan) are having an argument and I did not like Pierce Brosnan's performance during it... I was surprised by it, I usually do not have any complaint about Pierce Brosnan's work, but it felt too artificial, too strained and his accent sounded phony (which it was because he is Irish). But that is really the only thing that I have to mention.

A side note: The only time that I really feared to fall a sleep was during the break, specially when the lights went out and the movie took about 15 to 20s to start...

P.S. - The movie as had some really bad critics specially because of the ending, but I really think you should go and see it for yourself and then come to a conclusion. 

Back in the Lab

After 1 year and almost 1 month, today I was finally back in the lab. wow

And actually... it was kind of boring... lol

Usually, the first few days are always like this. You have to fellow people around to know how things work in the lab, which techniques you are going to use and how they apply them. Basically, you are dependent of others. Things start getting fun when you are independent and organize your own work and time.

So, even though things are kindda slow now and I am trying to learn as much as I can, I am more excited than it may seem from what I have written. I'm happy to back in a lab.

Which me luck! :)

I do not consider myself a feminist, but...

... there are things that are beyond my comprehension. And this is one of them (please click on the picture to enlarge and read the text):

 

(credits to whoever first posted this online)

I know that we are talking about a completely different decade. the World was a completely different place in the 1960s. But still, to me, it is shocking to see something like this written and to actually acknowledge that this was the kind of role that was expected from women at that time: unopiniated, obedient, complaint to your husband's wills (whatever they are) and untitled to even feel pleasure... wow...

And I think that I will leave you with that, because I might start exposing my opinion too fiercely...

I would like to "hear" your thoughts on this.

Strange Moods...

There are days that you just feel like crap... you might not really know the reason for you to feel like that, but that depressing feeling will accompany you from the time you wake up until you go to bed. You might even still feel the same the next day...

Just a random outburst... Everything will be fine in a few days. Sometimes being a girl is complicated!! lol

2009

United States of America

January

de Young Museum

 

California Academy of Sciences (only the view from outside)

February

California Academy of Sciences (the view from inside)

Japanese Tea Garden

 

Pacific Ocean Beach

Alcatraz

Portugal

April

  

My City

July

  

 

OPTIMUS Alive Festival - Metallica

Festival Marés Vivas - Lamb

I only have half of the year here, first because I still have a lot of photos in my camera, second, because I took a lot less pictures in the second half of the year. :) 

Nonetheless, it still is a good wrap of the year that just ended.

Welcome to 2010!!

Happy New Year everyone!! :)

I hope this year, you are all healthy and that it is a year full of good events.

I hope that we can all take a step forward in our lives facing the obstacles put before us straight on (our a least with the best of our abilities, so that we do not regret anything).

And do not forget to have fun and enjoy life!!!

A Story... lol

Imagine that you wake up convinced that you heard your alarm clock and, if you are as I am, you will not even let it ring twice and try to get out of bed as fast as possible. But in the meantime you think:
"Damn! It´s getting harder and harder to get out of bed these days!"


Finally, you get out of bed, go to the bathroom to take care of yourself, brush your teeth, wash your face and take a shower. Then, you get dress, make your bed and all that stuff.

Next is time for breakfast. You get into your kitchen and notice that it still is really dark outside, thinking: 

"The days are really getting shorter!" 

But you continue doing what your doing. When you are about to sit on the table to eat your toast you think: 
"It's really quite. I'm going to turn on the radio." 

You go to the living room, and before you turn on your stereo you look at its clock and notice the time: 4.50a.m. You remember that you did not corrected it for winter time (making it actually 3.50 a.m.), but what you think actually is: 

"Wow, this clock must be broken." 

But, just to make sure, you look at your wristwatch and it actually it is 3.50 a.m.!! Then, you run to your room pick your alarm clock, that in reality is you cellphone, to see what the hell did you do to wake up at that time in the morning. You see that actually the alarm clock did not ring, that you just dreamt it!!

You decide to eat your breakfast and to go back to bed. Pissed off because you just washed your head that morning, so your head is completly wet, and that after all this what you are ready for is to get out of the house and not to go back to bed...

In the end you give yourself an extra 15 minutes because you will not need to shower again in the morning...

P.S. - This happened to me last week... I need a vacation...

After 3 months of absence I came back

Uau, until yesterday I had not realized that 3 months have already passed since my last post. I knew that I had not updated in a very long time, but not that long... I am sorry for such a long absence, no good explanation is available. The only things that I can say honestly is that I have been lazy, lacked inspiration and, after September, time.

Like I said a few posts back my new life adventure started in September, since then I moved to a new town and started having a 2h commute every day (the choice was mine, but still it is tiring). I have also started going for swimming classes a few days of the week. Most of times I get to the end of the day and feel like not going, but in the end it feels really good to go and not think about work and work related stuff for 1h30m.

What else? I met a bunch of people and am still in the process of getting to really know them. I just spend to much time with them everyday. It gets really tiresome for someone who is used to be by herself and likes to be by herself. That is also one of the reasons I go swimming, I only see these persons twice a week and they have nothing to do with work. Its refreshing!

As you might have notice the blog has new look (the previous one lasted for more than a year) and I took out the photo section, since it does not make sense anymore. 

I want say here that yesterday I read most of my posts from last year and it made me miss San Francisco. It is hard to believe that I have been back for 9 months already (exactly yesterday). That is more than the time that I spent there... In some sense that time seems both longer and shorter. Those were 7 months and half filled with events and memories.

A random thought (but not mine)

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Metallica - One

I decided to share one of the not so good videos that I made on the 9th of July at the Metallica concert. It was my first time seeing Metallica playing live and actually being present at the concert, I have seen several of theirs live concerts on TV. I really enjoyed it, and they played most of the songs that I like. One of them is One from the ...And Justice For All album, released in 1988.

Metallica - One

Because of my video's the lack of quality I decided to also share the original video (which I think is awesome) and the lyrics.