Tag Archives: life

September 1, 2011 · 7:10 pm

Blah Days

Five Reasons Today is Blah, and, Is There Any Hope For the Future?

 Yes, I get these too. Far too often, probably. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, after five and a half weeks of excitement in Brazil, that I’d have a blah day once in a while when I got home again. Still, blah days are this awful middle ground when you don’t feel great (or even energetic, for that matter), but you also don’t feel down enough to be depressed. You don’t really feel like anything. It’s kind of yucky, actually.

 My current blah day probably has something to do with:

 Lack of sun:

If it’s grey outside, I’m grey inside. Since I grew up on the sunny prairies, I need a lot of sun in my life. Rain makes me feel all cold, sticky and wet, even if I’m not actually standing in it. Fortunately, in Brazil, there was always hope it would clear up quickly, even though I was technically there in the rainy season.

If the weather changes this weekend, I’ll probably feel better too.

 

sun! by liz west. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

School:

School starts next week. Actually, I love school, so it’s weird that I’m so ambivalent about this. But lately I’ve realized being a student is such a selfish existence – you’re studying so you have a better future, you’re spending money (or going into debt) so you have a better education. Not that a good future or good education is a bad thing. It just makes you so inward-focused. If I don’t do some volunteering, or contribute to society in some way this upcoming semester, I’m going to feel like a useless human being.

 Missing being around people:

I’m not that good with people. I’m not exactly outgoing, mind-blowingly witty, or the type that brings people together. That doesn’t mean I don’t like being around people – in fact, I find people-watching fascinating. That’s probably why I’m a writer (instead of a party planner or something). While in Brazil, I was around large groups of people almost twenty-four hours a day, and now suddenly I’m not. At least until school starts again…

 Guilt at not writing:

When you’ve got the blahs, you feel like nothing you write will ever be worth anything to anyone. So why bother trying? Which is why I ended up writing about blah days, instead of the world-changing, thought-provoking topics I should be writing about… (just kidding, since when has this blog been world-changing?)

By photosteve101, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

 The good thing about blah days is that they always go away eventually. What causes the blahs for you? And how do you get over them?

7 Comments

Filed under -- RANDOMS that don't fit into other categories.

Tagged as , , , , ,

August 11, 2011 · 6:34 pm

My Typical Day in Brazil

I thought I’d give my faithful readers some idea of my life in a different culture, since some sort of explanation as to why this blog isn’t being updated as often might be nice!

Recife, Brazil. Photo by Esther S.

I wake up in the morning around 7:30 (thankfully my fellow Canadian, Esther, has an alarm clock, or I’d never know what time is it…) For breakfast, Brazilian usually keep it simple  bread (pão), maybe with cheese or eggs, and coffee. How I love the coffee part… the coffee here is always strong and sweet, and you can add milk if you want. I probably would never wake up if it weren’t for coffee.
Of course, the bread is a no go for me as a celiac, so I’ve eaten a lot of eggs. And rice. Somehow, even though they eat rice all the time here, everyone still thinks it is incredibly weird to eat it for breakfast. But what’s a celiac to do?
In the mornings, I spend of a lot of time practicing English with the people I’m staying with. They’re very enthusiastic students! Many people in Brazil do want to know English, as it’s very useful since so many books, etc., are in English. But I’ve never been anywhere where the average person knows less English than here. In Europe, it seemed like everyone knew enough English to help a poor, hapless tourist from Canada. Here, even in the airport, it is hard to find someone who speaks English fluently. Fortunately, the friends I am staying with do know a lot of English, and enjoy practicing.

Turtles that live outside the place I am staying at. Photo by Esther S. (Yes, I do not own a camera)

Turtles that live outside the place I am staying at. Photo by Esther S. (Yes, I do not own a camera)

Lunch is the big meal of the day here. As I’ve spent more time here, I’ve come to realize I love Brazilian food. It’s not known world over like French cuisine is, or anything, but I enjoy it. Just give this celiac rice and beans, and she’ll be happy :) But there’s usually plenty of meat and salad to go with the beans and rice. They take their meat pretty seriously here… and somehow their beans always taste fantastic. And their rice too…
While practicing English with the Brazilians, I am still attempting to absorb as much Portuguese as possible. On rare occasions, I find myself understanding a whole paragraph. But more often, the random phrases I understand just confuse me. (Why are they talking about chickens? And policemen? And jiujitsu? And sharks?) If I understand enough to respond in Portuguese, it’s even better. It’s such a rush to have a conversation of more than two sentences in another language.
Between all of this language stuff, I still find time to take a dip in the pool, learn about cooking in a Brazilian way, play Risk, and just get to know Brazilians better.
Well, hopefully that’s enough to give you an idea. You can probably tell I’m enjoying myself. Unfortunately, before I know it, I’ll be on a plane back to Canada!

Olinda, a lovely seaside town. Photo by Esther S.

5 Comments

Filed under - Brazil

Tagged as , , , ,

July 13, 2011 · 7:17 pm

The Portuguese Echo

As you may know, I’m currently in Brazil – which means I need to know Portuguese to communicate. The area I’m in (north-east Brazil) has very few people who know English. I tried to learn as much Portuguese as I could before I got here, but it’s been a challenge for sure!
At first, when I arrived Portuguese sounded like, “blah, blah, blah – word I know! – blah, blah, blah – voce (means ‘you’) – blah – agora (means ‘now’)” etc. But it gets better the more you try and try to understand it. Now, I’m so used to struggling to learn Portuguese than every word that crosses my mind comes with a Portuguese echo (if I know the Portuguese equivalent). So, like this: I (Eu) acho (think) that (que) I (eu) hear (ouvir) a Portuguese echo (um echo Portugues).
If you know Portuguese at all, you know I’m missing all the accents and cedillas and so on. I don’t know how to do it on this computer (English computer, you see). Wish me luck with this strange new language!

7 Comments

Filed under - Brazil

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 5, 2011 · 2:41 pm

3 Things That Scare Me About Travelling to Brazil

“Praia Juaquina, Florianopolis, Brazil, December 20 2008″, by Mike Vondran. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License, 2.0 Generic

In psychology, they tell you that the closer you get to an event, the more your excitement increases – and the more your anxiety increases. In fact, your anxiety rises faster than your excitement. Yes, that’s why they make you buy your plane tickets ahead of time. You can’t back out so easily.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about travelling all the way to South America. But…

1.) What if I don’t make it there?

One of my worst nightmares is getting stranded in Chicago or something. Or worse, in Sao Paulo, 1,300 miles away from where I’m supposed to be (and from anyone I vaguely know). I’m flown before, to Europe, but not by myself. And flying has never scared me before, but suddenly I notice the hundreds of things that could go wrong… bags stolen, strip-searched by security, suspected of drug-trafficking or being a terrorist, missing a flight… Oh goodness, now I sound neurotic.

2.) What if I can’t handle the stress?

I’ve never travelled so far alone before, so I hope I can keep a cool head on my shoulders to deal with whatever issues come up. Travelling is fun, but not always completely stress-free. Last year I had some issues with anxiety and stress. This year seems to be better… let’s hope it stays that way!

3.) What if I can’t speak Portuguese?

Yeah, I’ve been trying to learn, because in Brazil that is what they speak. Because not everyone I’ll be meeting will necessarily know any English. But I’ve been learning online and off audio tapes, so what if my accent in incomprehensible? I’ve got visions of people staring at me and thinking I’m crazy or something. In addition, I have a condition known as celiac disease, which means I can’t eat a speck of wheat. I hope I’ll have enough Portuguese to be able to tell people, “no bread, please.”

 

All the same, the day of departure is coming up fast! I’ve scheduled a few blog posts to show up when I’m gone, and for Polly, the Princess, the Enchanter and the Jadess to continue, but if I have computer access in Brazil I may add a couple travel posts as well.  Stay tuned for that!

 

If you enjoyed any of the contents of this blog, click “Sign me up!” in the column to your right. That way you’ll always be up-to-date! Or, if you are a WordPress user, you can always click “subscribe” at the top. Thanks for visiting, and do share your opinions in the comments below!

9 Comments

Filed under - Brazil

Tagged as , , , , ,

June 21, 2011 · 7:23 pm

Strange Flotsam in My Bedroom – A Photo-essay

Cleaning your room can unearth the oddest things you forgot you had. I’m a bit of a packrat – a bad habit – so it was high time to do a deep cleaning and clear some stuff out. It’s a wrench to part with some of these things. In fact, most of these I ended up keeping. Such as:

To my surprise, my old piggy bank still had money in it! A grand total of 16 cents, but still…

This is apparently a tooth-holder. For putting your baby teeth in when waiting for the Tooth Fairy to come. I got it as a gift in playschool.

To illustrate my skill as an interior decorator, here is my brilliant idea to fill an old Jones Soda bottle with my dad’s old marbles. Doesn’t it just ooze with originality?

Now THIS is a pen. It would be a pretty neat idea for a pen too, if the pen actually worked. The long, skinny part detaches from his foot, which acts as kind of a pen-stand.

The dude on the left is the aforementioned pen. The dude on the right is – er… a souvenir from Holland. It actually opens in the middle, and you eat ice cream from its belly. My sister and I got one for dessert, after eating dinner at a pancake restaraunt (yes, they eat pancakes for dinner in Holland).

And lastly, my lovely bookshelf is made of vintage apple crates I rescued from my grandparents’ garage. The crates have come in very handy, actually. The one thing I’ve learned from all this cleaning is – I have too many books! Is that even possible? Maybe it’s time for me to go buy a Kindle or something.

15 Comments

Filed under -- RANDOMS that don't fit into other categories.

Tagged as , , , ,

May 28, 2011 · 11:31 am

Subscription Disorganization

Or: Aaaaaaaaaah, How Do I Keep Track?

 

Stress, by Abie Sudiono. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

I haven’t come up with a good organizational system to keep updated on the blogs I follow yet. Not that I’m the most organized person on the planet – see last week’s post for the messy system I came up with to keep my notes for my novel straight. But it seems like there’s a million different ways to keep up with people’s blogs, and none of them work quite as well as I’d like them to.

The easiest method is with WordPress (the blogging platform I use, in case you didn’t know). If you have a WordPress account, you can just click on the little “subscribe” button at the top of the blogs you find interesting. Of course, this means you have to be signed in to WordPress to read your subscriptions, but I usually catch up with them before or after I make a post myself. The downside is this only works for WordPress blogs. Blogger, Tumblr, etc. you have to find another method for.

The other tool I use is Google Reader. If you have a Google account (for Gmail, GoogleDocs, etc.) you can get into Google Reader and type in the web addresses of the blogs you want to follow. The handy thing is you can organize blogs into folders according to topic or whatever you want, which is what I’ve down. My problem is I’ve got lots of blogs on here, and I forget to check this (mainly because I have to sign in to check it). As a result, my Google Reader currently says I have 500 or so updates to read, which I’m never going to catch up on. Also, if I read a blog without going through Google Reader first, it says that update is still unread, even though I’ve read it.

Another method is through email updates. There are only a couple blogs that I follow this way, mainly because I don’t really want to clutter up my inbox. If I get really lazy, I sometimes use my browser to bookmark blogs, because I don’t have to sign in to do this. Unfortunately, bookmarks don’t tell you about updates. And they’re not there if you happen to use a different computer.

The last way I keep up is to click on the person’s name every time they comment on Stories and Stuff, just to see if they’ve updated since I checked last. Sometimes it’s a good reminder, because I realize somehow I’d lost track of one of the blogs I’m interested in.

As a result, I often read blogs in batches, catching up on the last five posts someone wrote all at the same time. So if you’re wondering why sometimes I have five comments all at once, when I haven’t dropped by for a little while, just blame it on my disorganized system of staying updated.

What about you? What methods to you use to stay up-to-date, and how well do they work?

9 Comments

Filed under -- RANDOMS that don't fit into other categories.

Tagged as , , , ,

May 19, 2011 · 1:23 pm

A Freshman’s Observations on College

Revised and Updated with the Wisdom of Attending for Five Years…

University of Oregon by Jeff Ozvold. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

While cleaning my room, I stumbled across a list of observations I made about college way back in my freshman year. Needless to say, not all of it applies to every college, or every faculty or program, but it was entertaining. So I have posted it, with any updates I made in red:  

I’ve graduated from blackboards to a world of overhead projectors, PowerPoints and videos. Which don’t work half the time. Then the prof has to call the tech guys, who don’t show up till half an hours later, while we all fiddle in our seats and marvel at the way technology has simplified our world.

You are suddenly surrounded by people who care about good grades. On the other hand, there are enough people that make you wonder how did they ever get in nursing?!?

This applied to when I was in nursing, of course. Though I truly hope some of the people I knew never graduated that nursing program…

No class takes as much time and effort as the prof would like you to believe it does on the first day.

I still don’t understand why nursing profs liked to scare us so much… though the classes took up enough time and effort as it was.

They tell you to buy fancy-spancy calculators for Math 30, but when in college they tell you you need a SIMPLE calculator that’s not programmable. Because our profs aren’t technologically advanced enough to wipe the memory…

I did finally get to dust off my fancy TI83 for Statistics class this year.

You will be reminded again why English is useless.

And reminded again, and again…. and I say this as someone who likes writing.

Professor-jokes are not any more funny than teacher jokes.

They will decide to implement a completely new class for your year because of what a few students said the year before. It will be the stupidest class ever, so they’ll decide to take it out again for the year after you. Lucky you.

There will always be someone who makes flashcards for everything.

I still think making flashcards is a waste of time… more time making them than studying.

Exam anxiety is contagious.

Significant digits go out the window when calculating drug amounts.

You will not be a loner all year, like you thought you would on your first day.

Though it’s entirely possible some of the friend you made in first year you’ll never see again.

If your class project requires you to find complete strangers and teach them how to hand-wash, you will somehow end up at the restaurant your partner works at, teaching her brother and her best friend.

The nursing faculty will swear to you that the program you’re learning (Context-Based Learning) is best program for learning since sliced bread. You wonder why, if that’s so, they’re putting a completely different program next year?

Never start a program in a transition year, unless you like being a guinea pig.

Just because you’re in college, doesn’t mean everything will be more organized. Your classrooms WILL be switched every week, and always to a room on the other side of the campus, ensuring half the class gets lost on the way.

Sadly, university is even less organized.

Evaluations of your performance are completely subjective, with most of one group getting “A”s because they have an easy prof, while the instructor in another group will insist no one in first year nursing deserves an “A.”

This might only apply to nursing, but actually was true.

Having a nit-picker for your first instructor has some benefits – at least you’ll learn how to cite using APA. And never, ever forget…

When you get a prof who actually knows her stuff and doesn’t use PowerPoint, you will be so thankful that you’ll tell everyone she’s the best prof in the world. This realization is only heightened when she is absent and the substitute spends an hour and a half showing you pictures out of your textbook.

If you got a nice new shelf in the summer to put all your junk on, it will be filled up with books by the end of the year and you STILL won’t have a place to put your junk.

Choir is suddenly a viable recreational option because you miss your highschool band class. Your new yearly music trip now consists of going to sing in Neerlandia.

People will complain the college’s Student’s Association does nothing, and you will be amazed because it is a thousand times more active than your Student Council was in high school.

There is no way to avoid coffee addiction.

Yet it’s still all too easy to sleep in class.

You will learn how to procrastinate like never before – making this list, for example.

Oh yes, I’ve come a loooooooooong way… (now if I could just get that novel done)

24 Comments

Filed under -- RANDOMS that don't fit into other categories.

Tagged as , , ,

May 17, 2011 · 4:33 pm

Yes, That Is My Novel Splayed All Over The Walls

This is my current workspace:

And that is AFTER I spent a couple hours last night organizing my notes. Since I have a lot more free time (in theory) than I do during school, I am trying to get a large chunk of writing completed on my latest novel. I’m posting this pic because I like how it displays the messiness of my thought processes.

For a long time I didn’t have a dedicated place to write. Since I can write just about anywhere, I didn’t see a need for it. But it is useful to have a place to spread your stuff around without having to pack it up all the time.

Where do you write? Do you tack your story ideas to the wall (bulletin board) just like me, or do you have a better system?

4 Comments

Filed under -- RANDOMS that don't fit into other categories.

Tagged as , , ,

March 25, 2011 · 2:00 am

Phrase Rant: “This Will Change Your Life Forever”

I hate it when people tell you, “This will change your life forever.” Because it doesn’t. Or, looking it from the other side of things, every experience changes your life a little (if I go to class today my life is different than if I’d skipped). People say this about all kinds of things: books, movies, trips to other countries, experiences they think you should have. What they really mean is that whatever it is will have a stronger impact on you than most other things in life do. Or, more cynically, this book/movie/experience gave them insight into something in their life, so how can it not have an impact on your life?

First of all, it raises expectations too high. Insisting something’s great could possibly have a psychological impact – maybe if you say it enough everyone else will convince themselves it’s great too. But this doesn’t always happen. How many times have you read a book recommended by someone, and been disappointed? Or what if it was actually good, but not life-changing? Then calling it “good” hardly seems good in comparison to what it was supposed to be.

Now, unfortunately, the phrase “this will change your life,” make me react with cynicism. “Yeah, probably about as much as the last life-changing experience did.” Huge changes in my life would be: finding a career, moving to a different city, getting married, having kids, having a natural disaster hit suddenly, etc. None of which can be predicted by anyone else. Who do you think you are, predicting something will change my life? A fortune-teller? A prophet?

Like so many phrases in the English language, I can keep twisting these annoying words to mean ridiculous things, but that’s not the point. I know people usually mean well when they say them (unless they’re trying to sell you something). They really want you to be as excited over this thing as they are. I just want to point out that just because I can see your excitement and want to share your excitement, doesn’t mean I will. Sometimes the gap between two different people’s experiences is just too far to close.

What do you think? Have you been told something would be life-changing, and was it actually?
The Life-Changing Internet:

Ten Books That Will (Apparently) Change Your Life

Eating Raw Food Will (Apparently) Change Your Life

Ten Apps That Will (Apparently) Change Your Life

15 Comments

Filed under -- RANDOMS that don't fit into other categories.

Tagged as , , ,

March 7, 2011 · 12:21 am

Vanity, Oh Vanity

OR: What Do You Mean I’m Not a Great Poet – I Got My Poem Published In a Vanity Anthology!

The Published Poet - A Rare Beast

On the subject of poetry, it’s very difficult to publish poetry, or get famous doing it. But that’s not exactly obvious if you just google “publish poetry” or “poetry contest” and thousands of hits pop up – unfortunately a good chunks of these are vanity presses. A vanity press is a publisher who gathers people’s works (often poetry, though I’m sure fiction ones exist) into anthologies, which it then sells back to the people who wrote for it at  (often) extremely high prices, and that’s how it makes its money. The people wrote for it buy it because they’re all excited to see their name in print. But they don’t really get all that much exposure out of it, other than the narrow group of people who buy the anthology. Though it might make them feel good about getting published – hence the term “vanity press”.

I got suckered into submitting work to one publisher that was often classified as a vanity press – the old poetry.com site (the site is being revamped now, apparently). Fortunately I never bought any of the books my poetry was supposedly published in. Once my friends and I learned about their scheme, we amused ourselves by sending really bad poetry to them. There was a form on their website which would automatically post your submission on their website, and it cracked us up to see our absolute gibberish “published” for all the world to see. We checked back at the site a couple weeks later, and all our poems had been taken down, except for one of mine. I can’t remember how the one they left up went exactly, but it definitely included the line “elephant on my tongue” – which displays exactly how high their standards of poetry were.

Really, though, it’s always good to keep in mind that it’s not a simple process to get your poetry works out there – or any type of writing you do.

3 Comments

Filed under -- POETRY: odds and ends, -- RANDOMS that don't fit into other categories.

Tagged as , , ,