Some Worries... Radioactivity & Loved Ones' Bones

"And then there's the issue of the bones that's worrying me..." said a cryptic line in my mom's email.

After talking for a few minutes on the phone with her this afternoon I asked, matter-of-factly... because I knew she might be dreading the question, "Hmmm, mom, and what about the bones you mentioned in your email?"

Well, it turns out that my aunt and uncle (mom's older "middle" sister, who had had my living grandma at her house before she died) hadn't been able to afford the cemetery yearly payments for several years and hadn't told anyone about it (why they did so is beyond us, but they're always struggling financially because my uncle is a lawyer who doesn't work in a big firm -- I don't know why they had to be responsible for these payments!). And now there's a judicial order that was given to my aunt saying that she either pays up (about 2,300 dollars + the yearly cemetery fees from now on, about 200 a year) or my grandparents' remains will be transferred to the city's bone repository or a city mass grave or something.

Oldest uncle, who's really rich, was a bit upset, but didn't seem to want to pay up either. "Guilty" aunt said she didn't have the money and that these were just bones -- her parents' bones, but simple bones. My mom seemed to be OK with the idea, but then thought about it overnight and felt really bad about it all. So... yeah, something will have to be done about it. I agree that it would be nice if the family could contribute the money to be able get their remains exhumed and transfered somewhere. One option is to transfer the remains to a church cemetery in my grandfather's birthplace (two states further South) -- my (paternal) aunt who lost her husband 34 years ago has already said that his grave there can be used for this purpose. And my mom has volunteered to drive South to bring the bones.

Interestingly enough, once in a while I think about the cemetery in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil where my four grandparents are buried. When my second grandfather died in 1986, after the burial we walked to my the grave of my first grandfather to die (back in 1979). I was not at my grandmothers' funerals (1997 and 2008), but they were both buried there as well. I had thought of maybe visiting the four graves in my next visit to Brazil... and now there's this. I know the problem will be solved somehow, but it is interesting to think about these issues, if a little sad. This situation has pushed my mom to think about her options and choices about what she wants to be done after she dies. I don't like to think about it, but I know it's necessary.

My parents will have plenty of time to discuss these issues because they're traveling tomorrow to Curitiba. They're not going there to visit family, though, in spite of the fact that most of my paternal and maternal relatives live there. They are going so my father can get a radiation cancer treatment on his nose. My parents  live in a rural area and they would have needed to drive 50 minutes (one way) to a major hospital and back daily for a couple of weeks for his treatment, so they're going to get it done in a big city, where they will only need to drive a few minutes to the hospital.

It's nothing serious -- my dad has had a couple of carcinomas removed from his nose and face before, but it seems that there were pre-cancerous cells in his nose that had reached the cartilage and couldn't be removed without significant disfigurement of the nose. Therefore, the oncologist suggested he gets localized radiation therapy treatment in his nose. I hope it really is not a big deal. I was asking my mom if they had gotten second or maybe even "third" opinions and she told me that they'd do that there.

I'll keep you posted, I really don't know much about radiation therapy. All I want is for my dad to be as healthy as he can be, without worries of cancerous cells lurking below the surface of his skin... and I'm determined to never again get suntanned. I just bought another rash guard shirt last week in a seasonal clearance.

So... yeah, these are some of the latest things crossing my mind. Life, health, and death...

Crazy Musings

I don't like the title & the what I wrote in the previous post too much -- although I do think those videos are interesting -- so, let me just share some crazy musings with you and move forward a bit.

K is upstairs & I'm in the living room downstairs, so we're chatting on Gmail. Ah!... modern life. :-p

I don't know if you remember that our first choice of place to move to was actually Florida, but it was. It turns out that there are four advertised positions in K's area in FL right now. (two of them are positions in the same school/dept). Isn't that crazy? K is lamenting the timing of this. I'm saying he could still apply, but it's a crazy idea, isn't it?

Oh well... Life is a curious thing sometimes. Nothing will come of this, most probably. I just don't know why in the world he had to go look this stuff up! Usually I simply don't check job postings. This year I did, and it was a bit sad to find a handful of positions that matched my qualifications pretty well (you have no idea how difficult that is).

In any case, yeah... crazy bad timing.

My Open Wound: academia, the (useless) phd, etc. & Animated characters!

Go ahead, skip this post. Nobody likes to look at open wounds, or, do they? Sure, maybe they do in an irresistible attraction to trainwrecks kind of way. I won't write much, though because I can get these Xtra Normal animations to speak for me. So, yeah... a pinch of bitterness for nothing right now (as usual).

The first animation: "So you Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities?" has become ubiquitous in the academic blogland at this point (and elicited several responses, this one which makes graduate student life sound amazingly great -- mine was pretty good, I have to admit -- we had full health benefits, tuition waiver, etc & my husband, in the sciences, traveled a lot). My sister-in-law blogged about this animation today and commented: "My dream is a tragic joke" to which I promptly replied "If your dream is a joke, my life is a joke." And I urged her to learn from others' mistakes.




 Since I've made the mistake alreay, this last video is more on target. It was created by a blogging friend in a similar situation as mine. Adjunct-Mill:

My situation is not that dire just because I do have free access to the photocopier and a small office with two computers shared by only six or seven other adjuncts! ;-) In any case, I shouldn't whine. It's hard, though, quite hard.

Why I Don't Like Facebook - Zadie Smith said it better than I ever could

Obviously, I had to spend a few minutes on facebook before writing this post. I do it, but I often feel sad and disconnected afterwards. I mostly enjoy reading the updates of those people whose blogs I read, so I already have a "bigger picture" of what's going on and/or who they are before reading their snippets.

In second place, I enjoy the updates of a handful of people I know really well and about whom it doesn't bother me in the least to see just bits and pieces out there. This category also includes colleagues (particularly from grad school) whose updates make me feel that I still know what they're up to to some degree. Oh, and people who are acquaintances and who post lots of photos of their gorgeous newborns so I can keep up with that new development in their lives. ;-)

More commonly, though, facebook just makes me feel disgruntled and disconnected. "What is really going on in his/her life?" I often wonder after a cryptic post from a friend with whom I'm not really in touch. "Hmmm... I wonder what happened to him/her." There's no underlying narrative, no context, nothing. When really serious things happen (like a death in the family of the friend in question) I am eternally thankful when the person spells it out for me -- or someone else does in the comments. More often than not, I'm just left hanging.

One classic example was that over a month ago someone posted a prayer request for someone who was gravelly ill. A commenter asked whether this person was such and such's father and I commented too, asking for more details. Nothing else was forthcoming and in the busyness of everyday life, I forgot to call a friend in Massachusetts who might have more information (calling her would have involved awkward apologies as to why I'm not in touch and a lengthy "catch up" conversation -- see? that's why I feel upset when friends don't read the blog). Yesterday, K was on the phone with another friend of ours (one with whom we're regularly in touch) and he happened to ask about our common friend. It turns out the man died two weeks ago. I felt so bad!! Facebook gave us a hint to the situation, but that was that... oh well.

Last, but not least, most of the people in my contact list are random folks I met 20, 30 years ago and in whose lives I'm not interested in the least (thankfully, those hardly ever post and I can easily hide them, now that I FINALLY figured out how to do that! Phew!).

So, yeah, when Laura (Apt 11d) wrote this post today, I really identified with what Zadie Smith has written about facebook. Thanks, Laura!

I want to cite the same excerpt Laura included in her post. And here is Zadie Smith's full essay, "Generation Why?" in which she reviews the film The Social Network and the book You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier for The New York Review of Books.

When a human being becomes a set of data on a website like Facebook, he or she is reduced. Everything shrinks. Individual character. Friendships. Language. Sensibility. In a way it’s a transcendent experience: we lose our bodies, our messy feelings, our desires, our fears. It reminds me that those of us who turn in disgust from what we consider an overinflated liberal-bourgeois sense of self should be careful what we wish for: our denuded networked selves don’t look more free, they just look more owned...

Shouldn’t we struggle against Facebook? Everything in it is reduced to the size of its founder. Blue, because it turns out Zuckerberg is red-green color-blind. “Blue is the richest color for me—I can see all of blue.” Poking, because that’s what shy boys do to girls they are scared to talk to. Preoccupied with personal trivia, because Mark Zuckerberg thinks the exchange of personal trivia is what “friendship” is. A Mark Zuckerberg Production indeed! We were going to live online. It was going to be extraordinary. Yet what kind of living is this? Step back from your Facebook Wall for a moment: Doesn’t it, suddenly, look a little ridiculous? Your life inthis format?...

It’s a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore.

That's why I shall stick to blogging. It is meaningful, messy, full of individual character. This is still a small, virtual slice of who I am, of the fullness of me, but it's infinitely more than one can get with status updates or 140 characters on Twitter. Those who care enough about me will read what I write. And it's been a real pleasure to make so many wonderful friends through this virtual "window on the world" that is my blog. Too bad nearly all of my "real life" friends are caught up in the superficial tangle of facebook and other social media. Ha! And last, but not least, this blog is all green, because that's my color, not the impersonal white with a bit of blue over there...

So it is ILLEGAL to criticize how certain foods are produced in this country, depending on where you live?*/ Monsanto is EVIL

I had to add a new label to the blog after watching Food, Inc. last night: OUTRAGEOUS! I watched it by myself last night and when I woke up this morning the first things I said to K were about it.

Seriously. After I saw it I just want to sit down and cry. You know, this world we live in now is CRAZY. And every day I get more and more convinced that every single aspect of the world we live in is rotten to the core. Because there's no escaping big business. Big business crushing individuals.

I still remember the day -- years ago -- my brother (who is a forest engineer and was a student in the school of agriculture of the University of São Paulo at the time) told me about Monsanto and the patented seeds and how horrified I felt about the idea of a farmer not being able to keep his own seeds. In Food, Inc. they talk about how in a matter of a few years (11, I think) farmers went from being outraged to 90% of them adhering to Monsanto's exigencies and buying their evil super seed. Yikes!

The meat producing parts of the film disgusted me a bit, but since I already am vegetarian, they didn't concern me personally. Everything else upset me, though. And, as I was telling K this morning -- this is NOT the Michael Moore-style appellative documentary. Food, Inc. is almost too low key at times, but it addresses sensitive issues that are extremely serious and haven't been addressed satisfactorily by the government.

To make matters worse, food is probably one more subject in which the recent election will have unfortunate consequences... oh well.

I apologize for these "filler" posts. I have a nagging suspicion that I'll totally blow NaBloPoMo this year... I'm just too tired and uninspired most of the time. And we'll travel to Florida at the end of the month. We'll see.

* I generalized, apparently, it's not so extreme, but the documentary says that in the state of Colorado one can go to jail by criticizing how meat is produced.

Xmas Photo Teaser

Today we had our visiting friend take photos of our family for our Christmas card. Here's a sample take (I'm not including K):

Nice, huh? Closer to the holidays, after the cards have been mailed, I'll share more . Does this count as a NaBloPoMo post? We only see these friends once a year or less, so we have to spend time together, OK?

Nearly Blowing it.../ Reminiscing

Well, it's 1 am, but there are other time zones in the country, so, can we pretend I'm in Pacific time right now?

You can blame it on our dear house guests... we're telling them the whole epic tale of the job search. It's pretty thrilling to relive all the details...

... the nine and half hours driving in the worst snowstorm in a generation...

... the key locked in the rental car that had K's computer and everything else less than six hours before he needed to give his talk four states away!

... the unexpected email that nearly changed the course of our lives.

So, yeah. Even I can't believe everything we've been going through. I hope it's made for entertaining reading, at least.

more tomorrow, we'll keep on talking for a few more hours. I don't know who will watch two active boys all day tomorrow. ;-)

Difficult

As usual... I live my life constantly thinking of blog posts, but lately, I just can't seem to be able to get the words down for most of them. I don't want to sound ungrateful and whiny, you see?

Right now, the main reason it is so difficult to try and wrestle with the words is that there's so much I wanted to write about, but which I think won't be productive to discuss. I don't know exactly for whom, though...

This whole "working in the margins" thing. The keen awareness of one's situation, the reality of it, unsurmountable nature of the problem. Hard to swallow facts such as these: part time faculty "now make up at least 50% of the nation's higher-education faculty." (from here -- I wish I could find the energy to write more about this thought provoking piece). 


Is there a way out of this systemic problem? Is there a way we could do something from the bottom up to try and see if we could have some rights? Highly unlikely. And thus I feel stuck. Shut up (in all its meanings), shut out. 


Yeah... the ones with "the room of their own" have a hard time understanding this/us. Maybe I will come back and write more about, or maybe I will have to find another (wholly anonymous) outlet. I'll keep you posted.


And sorry for the depressing post.

Beatriz: more amazing Brazilian music for you (English Translation too!)

At the end of nearly every Portuguese class I teach we listen to a Brazilian song whose subject is related to what we just studied. I am passionate about Brazilian popular music (MPB: Música Popular Brasileira) and I want to share that passion with the students.

Of course more often than not, the students just listen to the songs as a curiosity, but last week I think they were moved by one of my many favorites, Beatriz, a song by the amazingly talented songwriter/lyricist/novelist/singer (he's not the best singer, but he sings OK) Chico Buarque in a partnership with Edu Lobo. The best interpretation of the song is by another amazing Brazilian singer, Milton Nascimento.

After my students seemed so touched by the song I went to research a little bit more about it and found out that it is part of a ballet called O Grande Circo Místico. The spectacle first took place in 1982, but the CD was not released until last year. The ballet has a great website (in Portuguese) which is where I learned what it is all about --  it's fascinating!

The inspiration came from a really crazy poem by Jorge de Lima which, in turn, was loosely based on a real story! The story of how the Knie Circus (nowadays, Switzerland's "national circus" -- site in German) and how this Austrian medical student fell in love with an equestrian acrobat (Agnes in real life, Beatriz in the ballet). If you're interested I can give more information in the comments (translating some of the circus' story from Portuguese). For now, I just want you to listen to this song... it's beyond lovely, I should include the lyrics and translation in the future too. Last see. I hope you like it!

Note: the slide show is really cheesy, so you don't have to look at it. ;-)



Spanish subtitles only:


Edited to add (on 3/22/2011):
Someone found this post Googling for the English translation of Beatriz and he emailed me to ask for a translation. Here is is:
Edited to correct the translation, see comment below (07/07/2014) -- thanks Jules!

Beatriz
(Edu Lobo/ Chico Buarque)

Look

I wonder,* is she a virgin?

I wonder, is she sad?

I wonder, is it the contrary?

I wonder, is it a painting?

The actress’ face

If she dances in the seventh heaven

If she believes it is another country

And what if she only memorizes her role

And what if I could enter her life

Look

I wonder, is it made of porcelain [or china]?

I wonder, is it made of ether?

I wonder, is it madness?

I wonder, is it a set decoration?

The actress’ house

If she lives in a sky-scraper

And what** if the walls are made of chalk

And what if what she cries in a hotel room

And what if I could enter her life

Yes, take me forever, Beatriz

Teach me not to walk with feet on the ground***

Forever is always by a thread

There, tell me how many disasters are there in my hand

Tell me if it is dangerous for us to be happy

Look

I wonder, is it a star?

I wonder, is it a lie?

I wonder, is it comedy?
I wonder, is it divine?

The actress’ life

If she one day falls from the sky

And what if the costumers [payers] demand an encore

And what if the archangel passes the hat around

And what if I could enter her life.

* Será means “will be,” but será que ela é cannot be readily conveyed in English. I have decided to use “I wonder” in spite of the fact that Será que is impersonal.
** I had originally translated "E se" literally as "And if..." but decided to add "what" because I think it makes more sense in English and makes the "wondering" of the narrator stronger. I made this change on 6/24/12

***she was a tight-rope walker on the play

Democracy in America: When the voice of those who care to vote (and only those) gets "heard"

I was mildly annoyed all day. It all started with a facebook app that asked me whether I'd already voted. "I can't vote!" I replied in my wall, "I really wish I could, but I can't 'cause I'm one of those 'scary aliens.'" BLAH!

Then on campus I saw several people looking smug while walking around with their American flag backed "I voted" buttons and I wished I had this button (I just made it on Picasa):

Well, I'm not really that bitter about it, you know... Politics is tricky stuff. And I know if I stick around for a few more years and I decide to become a citizen, I'll be granted this "privilege." The worst part of politics for me is that for an overwhelming number of people, this privilege does NOT come "with great responsibility" -- they don't really care to vote. 

When I came to this country I couldn't understand the two party system and how it really worked or what each party stood for. In Brazil there were two parties only when there was some kind of dictatorship or when elite minorities were in charge. Once the political opening took place in the 1980s, many political parties were created, fostering a diverse political climate (almost circus-like at times, literally! This year people voted an allegedly illiterate circus clown into the house of representatives as a lame protest: BBC). It's not only here that people seem to be losing their minds in the political discourse... :-(

In any case, for me the most remarkable difference -- which can be looked at from a positive as well as a negative point-of-view -- is that in Brazil, voting is mandatory. Sure, that can lead to the clown representative, but one can also argue that the elected officials are truly the ones chosen by the majority of the population, 16 years old and older (between 16 and 18 years of age one can opt to vote on a voluntary basis -- but one can't get a driver's license until one is 18 in Brazil, this all makes much more sense to me!!). 

When the Bush Vs. Gore debacle took place in 2000 and whenever there's a presidential elections here, a lot of people in Brazil get really confused and cannot believe that a president got elected without the majority of the popular vote. I know how it works (it took over 10 years, but I finally understood), but lots of people around the world don't get it (and of course Americans could care less, right?).

I think what I wrote in the title is one of the things that bothers the most about American politics. And I know that you, "my fellow Americans" will argue that this is the very basis of your "democracy:" people have freedom not to participate in the election process. Fine, but when people don't get involved, they have no say and that is not good for them or the country. 

A couple of days ago Laura (Apartment 11D) blogged about Saturday's Rally and a productive discussion ensued in the comments. One of the things that her friend Suze wrote here exemplifies one of the things I feel is "wrong" in the current political sytem/climate:  

But I know a lot of others who did attend the rally. And they are not particularly political. Voting is the most political thing they do, and they only do that when there’s no line and they’re passing by anyway after picking up milk. It’s not that they’re so disillusioned they won’t vote, but rather that it may not fit conveniently into their day. They’re likely to go into the voting booth having only the vaguest idea of who’s on the ballot. 

Yeah... so only the voice of those who care to vote is heard. And right now there's lot of screaming and screeching out there. :-(  (at least the clown is comparatively harmless, no?)

NaBloPoMo - 4th year in a Row

Well... here we go again, this is my fourth year of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).

I hope to write some mildly interesting posts, but this will not be one of them. :-p

November... it's an OK month. I think Fall is pretty and all, but it's not my favorite time of the year. And winter, which this month begins to usher, is my least favorite season too... I do think that summers are just exceedingly hot in the U.S. (they really aren't bad like this in Brazil, only perhaps in the Northeast or for a few days at a time) and that's why a lot of people seem to enjoy the cooler temperatures in the Fall, but I prefer hot weather.

Today I was walking on campus when one of the reasons why I don't like winter dawned on me. One can't wear cute clothes in winter, particularly not cute shoes (I love cute, and cute shoes are one of my weaknesses). I pretty much wear clogs-style shoes all winter long, boots once in a while or sensible waterproof shoes if it's snowing or wet. Not pretty, not cute. I also wear lots of dark colors (and I'm OK with that) and I enjoy wearing hats, but they make one's hair get all weird. Oh, and not to mention how cold I get (I know, it's part of my "small body privilege," I'm not complaining, I swear). I wear long underwear or leggins under my pants all winter long, six long months.

So, yeah... I don't much care for a winter wardrobe. If I could afford really nice winter clothes I think I'd be fine, but, as it is, summer clothes are way cheaper (in the off season) and I have tons of cute summer dresses, sandals, blouses, crop pants, etc.

I can't wait for summer and I'm already tired of my winter clothes even before I get to wear them. I bought a few new things and a pair of boots, but I know I have to be sensible and not spend money on clothes when we have to save to buy a house. (ah, that will be exciting!).

OK, this has probably bored you to tears, so I'll stop. Is there anything you'd be curious to know or that I should blog about? I will try to post some photos too.

I want to thank Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, from the bottom of my heart for...

... bringing my precious niece to Washington D.C.!

For those who don't remember the significance of a girl in this family, let us back track. My parents-in-law had four sons. Until September 31st when baby A was born, they had six grandsons (my son is the eldest of the six since K is their eldest son).

My sister-in-law is a huge fan of Jon Stewart and when she was planning her 10 day visit to the U.S. she changed her whole trip around in order to attend the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear! That meant that she was able to spend the night at my brother-in-law's ("K2") house and we got to meet baby A. I'm so so thankful! We didn't go to the rally because we had a prior engagement (and we couldn't really do it with our two boys), but I can't wait to watch the whole thing online (I watched the beginning with K).

Thanks, Stewart, thanks Colbert! I never imagined I would have you two of all people (and I do love you guys, don't get me wrong) to thank for the sweet privilege of meeting my one and only niece!

Look at her! Isn't she the sweetest thing? I'm holding her, in my pajamas. I hope you don't mind the photo in my blog, sis. Thank you so much for coming to see us! It was nice to see you too, not just your gorgeous daughter. ;-)

P.S. As a reward for your effort sis, I think Texas should win the world series. Too bad it's 3X1 right now. :-(

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's New Woman President/ NaBloPoMo

I don't have much of an opinion or deep thoughts to share with you about Brazil's new president, but I think that as a Brazilian, it would be a bit strange for me not to blog about it...

In a few words, lots of people in Brazil were campaigning against Dilma (we usually use first names for famous people in Brazil) using arguments that were not particularly strong: corruption in the former president's government because she belongs to his party, the fact that she was a former "terrorist" or "guerrilla fighter" opposing the military dictatorship in the 60s in Brazil, inaccurate statistical comparisons between next to last president's four years and Lula's eight years, and more. There were even conspiracy theories attesting that she had actually been born in Bulgaria (country her parents, or father? is/are from) and therefore was ineligible to be Brazil's president. All those campaigns notwithstanding, she won today.

Today was the second round of the presidential election because Dilma hadn't won 51 percent of the votes back on October 1st. There were many other candidates in the first round and the second runner up, José Serra was not particularly strong and thus unable to beat Dilma.

The truth is that in spite of the strong criticism, the former president Lula (whose popularity is about 80% right now) did great things for the country -- doubtless as his detractors point out -- because the previous president, the respected sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso, had set the country on the right track. In any case, I think it's not bad that there will be continuity between the previous government and Dilma's.

So, yeah, these are my thoughts. I know I should write more about Brazil, but I don't.

Well... maybe I should challenge myself to write at least, let's see... 7 (my favorite number) posts about Brazil during NaBloPoMo -- what about that? If you have any questions (not only about Brazil, anything), please send them my way!! Because I'm pledging to write at least 30 posts in the next 30 days, as I've been doing for the past few years...

P.S. I am a bit excited that Brazil has a woman president, but I think I would have liked the other candidate, Marina Silva better. Do I think it was this huge breakthrough or something? Not really, and I would be hard-pressed to explain why. Brazil is, after all a very "machista" country, that's for sure! Well, I can try to write more about that later. Maybe it's because I'm "out of it" -- 14 years living here.

3 days late to the "Marty McFly Day" Party

I don't really read the news (only a weekly newsmagazine), so I missed linking on the correct day to the the fun posts about the 25th Anniversary of the day Marty McFly went back to 1955 in Back to the Future. It was very interesting to see the photo of the main actors in that first post.

I join K and his three brothers in their appreciation for the Back to the Future Trilogy,. I am curious to see which of the brothers will be the first to give away or sell his boxed set to get the new 25th Anniversary Trilogy (they even have it in Blu-ray)! We're already thinking to whom we could give ours. ;-)

We've watched these movies over and over again and my favorite remains the first one, though the second one is lots of fun! Are you a fan? I'd love to know!

My Mama Left on Her Birthday

Today is my mom's birthday. And not only any birthday, but her 70th.

Two years ago I wrote this post with several cute photos of "mami" and I wish I had time to make a slide show of some photos of grandma and her grandsons to celebrate today, but I'll have to do that some other time. (this just gave me an idea for an awesome present for her, hmmm...)

My parents flew back to Brazil last night and arrived there safely. They got to their house 29 hours after leaving mine for the airport, poor things, but they were happy to be home. Too bad their house was so dusty that when I called them this evening my mom was mopping their bedroom floor so they could sleep in a relatively dust free environment.

My brother is still in Brazil because of his business trip, so my parents will be able to spend the weekend with him -- that's so delightful! I'm glad they were able to change their ticket (they were only supposed to fly back on Nov. 15).

It was her birthday present, mom said.

Here's a recent (and rare, remember the 2 year rule regarding my brother) family photo:

Happy Birthday Mami! We love you!

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

This is the perfect poem for right now. I showed it to K this morning and he really liked it. Years from now, I want to be able say those last lines with great conviction.

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost (1874–1963).  Mountain Interval.  1920

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I got the poem here.

The Saddest, Most Open "Closure" Ever

this will be long. please bear with me if you're so inclined. (oh, and if you want to read with a lovely song in the background, scroll down and hit play :)

All I/we want(ed) was closure, this has been dragging on since that fateful Friday, April 29th.* Bringing conflicted feelings and not letting us enjoy all the new experiences that come with moving to a new place. A nice, beautiful place at that. Starting brand new jobs (OK, I don't have a real job, but it's something). Going to interviews on the first weeks on the job not once, but twice -- K in the summer and both of us in September.
* Day when K first read the email that brought us to today I didn't blog it until a few days later.

The easiest thing to do would be to just move on, but it's so sad and difficult after K had the most surreal academic job offer refusal conversation ever this afternoon.

Sigh. Gulp.

They truly desperately want(ed) him. And still do. Left all doors open. For those who have experience with academic jobs, this doesn't happen very often, unless they really want you. (It happened with our friend P back in 2007 when he had 5 offers, including one from the place where K got his current/past offer from.) Sometimes, when someone rejects an offer, this person is almost "blacklisted," but this was clearly the opposite of that.

The truth is that the department is in a dire situation right now, two people didn't get tenure and left, they're struggling to hire more people. It's a department with some faults and tons of potential, but budgetary problems at the university level present some constraints (e.g. the low salary for K which makes it more desirable for us to stay here even with my low part-time salary and it was because of the budget problems that there was nothing for me -- I have an insider friend who assured me of that).

And then, there's my current "job" which was one of the main reasons for the decision (there are others, including a conviction that here might be a better place for the boys to grow up) -- I'm enjoying the teaching, but it was positively lovely to think up some potential classes and syllabi.

I know it's a cliché to say this, but it's the best way to describe it. This whole experience felt like an alluring dream that we were going to wake up from at any minute, but that we willingly kept dreaming just to see where it would lead. I often wondered out loud to K if it wouldn't have been better to just to have let it go back in late April/ May when the first email came. The problem is that saying that he was not interested in pursuing this (our #2 option, remember?) would have been a lie.

Here we are today, though. We can decide to wake up from the dream and live on, just recalling what it felt like to walk on that lovely campus, wondering if we would be coming to work there or not. I can go on teaching my classes, but I know that deep down I'll always remember the "dangerous exercise in dreaming" that was designing those syllabi.

You know, I don't even mind anymore that as we get older life only gets more and more complicated. And beautiful. Because if everything were simple and straightforward, I think it would be boring. Over the past 14 years as an expatriate I have learned to let go of so many things... and I think this makes the decision on where to settle down so much harder and fraught with conflicting emotions. It feels easier to just keep going, moving on and on.

Like my dear poet/entrepreneur friend Articulate Dad said, I want to enjoy the canyon and ride the burro, but I wonder what the other path would look like. Especially because the door of the limousine has been left open like that...

yeah, I thought I'd be writing a different post tonight, but this is what I have. And when K told me about the phone call he said he knew I wouldn't like the outcome. I've been shedding a few tears in the past two days as the burden of this momentous decision felt so heavy and I thought that it would all be over after today, but probably not. I'm a little sad right now, and I don't know where to put this sadness because it doesn't fit anywhere...

This is the song I wanted to have included in that post, I hope it works this time. Listening to it soothes me right now...

well, I'll have plenty of time to reflect in the daily posting month that is coming... And I hope the bubble/dream will not burst, but live on.

. . .

They have nothing for me.

Now we need to decide. I'm speaking to my current dept. chair first thing on Monday to talk about future prospects of more permanent employment.

We'll make a final decision by Monday. It's a really, really tough one. We'll see, but maybe we're not going. More later.

And the final answer is...

... I won't know until later today when K receives a phone call with their "final point" in the offer process.

I can hardly breathe right now and I'm shivering, so I had to share the suspense with the internets. I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

Today may be the day in which the rest of our lives will be decided. Well, at least where we'll live in the next 6.5 years or... for a long time.

Maybe we'll get to stay (which is good -- we go see and can put an offer on the house we liked! we get to live in a nice peaceful place), maybe we'll get to go (which is better -- challenging intellectual, more academic work and other things).

So, yeah... I'm on pins and needles. Sigh.

Flower & Song...

Flower...
I want a garden again someday. I want to try and plant poppies, like these I photographed at Longwood last April:

Song...
And listen to this tender song "Estrela, Estrela" composed by Vitor Ramil, a singer/songwriter from the South of Brazil, and interpreted by Maria Rita. This song is only available for download after one buys her cd: Maria Rita. I think I will do it, not only because I want "Estrela, Estrela," but because her voice is just so beautiful  and the song list is good.

No wonder her voice is so good, because she's the daughter of Elis Regina, one of the most amazing Brazilian singers (who died of an overdose in 1982 when Maria Rita was only five years old). A young person in Brazil provided an "amateur English translation" to the song. It's just a piano and her voice, just like the title of her father and brother's CD Piano & Voz (beautiful album too).

Unfortunately, "Estrela Estrela" cannot be embedded here :-( so you'll have to click and listen to it on YouTube. I highly recommend that you do so.

P.S. I thought you'd enjoy more a flower photo & a song than a pathetic email about my insecurities as a teacher. I may still write it some other evening...