Submitted

I just submitted a paper proposal for an academic conference next year and I'm really excited about it! I wish I could tell you more about my paper and the conference, but then I would make myself easily googleable as soon as the program appears online.

I'm considering going to two conferences next year (in April and June), I hope it's not too much! Now if only I could get at least a couple more of my dozens of conference paper presentations into published papers, that would be awesome! I wish I weren't so lazy. :(

Fallen Tree Branches, the day after

I was too tired to post these yesterday, but here it goes. I was also too depressed about my beloved tree (the one my cats loved to climb all over!) to go outside and take photos, so I asked K to take these.

Really, I'm pretty traumatized with snow right now, what I wrote paraphrasing one of my favorite songs ever is very true... now I know both sides of snow, the good and the bad. I imagine I would be even more traumatized if I'd had a car accident in the snow (shiver!).

So sad...

Nephew Watch 2011 Begins

I am going to be a pile of emotions in this month of November as we wait for my nephew (my only brother's son) to arrive... on the opposite side of the world (NZ). I think the due-date is Nov. 22, but the emails exchanged among the family (them, my parents, SIL's parents and us) are already getting all involved with the expectation of Dani's birth. It was reading such an email from my mom to them that prompted me to come write this post.

In just a few days my sister-in-law's parents will travel to New Zealand and my parents will stay behind, longing so much to go, but waiting patiently until March that is when they're finally going. And I don't have the least idea of when I'm going to meet my dear nephew. My brother didn't get to meet Kelvin until he was 1 year 9 months old and Linton when he was 8 months old... that's how it is when we live so far apart. I wish I could find a way ($$$$) to go to Brazil next year for Xmas and New Year's, but it's the most expensive time of the year to travel, when travel is already horribly expensive year round.

Well... maybe there'll be a miracle. Maybe teaching 40 kids in my class will help me make enough to save for that. The problem is... going to Brazil twice in one year sounds awfully wasteful (if wonderful!). Let's see. Maybe I should make this one of my "new year's dreams" hahaha...

My nephew's coming, wasn't he my main new year's dream? Yes, he was!

P.S. Never mind that my last wish was to post more than 365 times. Ha ha! I've since downgraded that to 243+ and that seems attainable enough. "Lowered Expectations!"

Snow: Both Sides Now (or NO!!! My Trees!!!!)

"I've looked at snow from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow
It's snow illusions I recall.
I really don't know snow at all."

For 15 years, I've loved snow. Sure, it was annoying at times, lots of work to shovel, slushy and brown after several days and melting... but snow was magic! It was amazingly beautiful and turned a dreary winter landscape into a "winter wonderland." The dangerous and awful one was freezing rain, not snow. That is, until today.

I was a bit freaked out, but still excited about snow in October. All I could think of were beautiful photos of  red leaves covered with snow. I could not imagine this:

This was just yesterday:

And now today:

I'll write more later, OK?

My Mommy's Birthday!

I know this is my fourth (technically fifth) post today, but I just had to write about my dear mama's birthday! And I've decided to post a bunch of photos of the two of us to celebrate the day!

I love you mami!!

It's Snowing in October!!!!

Remember when I mentioned that yesterday was nice and warm?

Well... not for long and this time I knew because -- for once -- I'd checked the forecast, I just didn't think it would really happen like predicted!

So today "winter" came with a vengeance. There were really cold temperatures and... who knew? Snow in October! I think I experienced this only once or twice in my 15 years in the U.S. Both times in Massachusetts... (I don't remember exactly, but the earliest snow we experienced was Oct. 16 and it was way less than an inch -- it looks like we might get more).

I will most certainly take pictures in the morning and try to share them ASAP.

Today I winterized the house... put the glass up in three of our storm doors that have glass panels in front of the screen and changed our bedding into the "winter" one (photos later). I just didn't finish winterizing the backyard -- I need to cut back a lot of plants. I still have several flowering mums and several green tomatoes (I should have picked those, right?! stupid me!).

In any case, we had to drive to town for a meeting tonight and on the way back when it was already snowing, my seven-year-old exclaimed: "Look outside, it's snowing! We have to put up the Christmas lights!" Well... not so fast, sweetie! The boys are really excited about the holidays, especially because we're going to Florida for 10 days with all or K's family! The 7 grandkids: 6 boys, one girl.

171 Bulbs Planted!

Yesterday was a very warm day (considering it's mid-late autumn), with temperatures in the mid-60s. It was also windy and it looked like it might start raining at any minute in the afternoon, but I spent several hours (the strenuous work I referred to in my previous post) planting dozens of bulbs. I worked until it was dark, about 8 pm.

This is what I planted:
96 bulbs of mixed-color tulips (my favorite flowers, period, ok, together with wild red poppies);
50 bubs of Dutch iris (my favorite kind, of Monet's paintings' fame), and
25 crocuses (which I think are cute).

I would have planted more if I had bought more (I bought them over a month ago), but then I would have run out of time too since I knew today it would get cold and it did. Not only that, but... well, subject to the next post! I'm already planning to plant more next year, but now I'm relieved and happy that I got them planted before it was too late.

I had never planted bulbs in such an organized fashion -- I cleaned the plots from old mulch, distributed the bulbs where I wanted to plant them and them I dug each hole and planted each one. This was inspired by what I saw landscapers do one morning in front of (of all stores!) Walmart in town. I guess I'm a visual learner and I had to see it done to understand how these flower plots around town and shopping centers look just so good. I hope my garden looks good too! I'll share photos next April!

I Can See Clearly Now... the pain is gone!

Maybe I didn't even need to have spent the night on the sofa two nights ago, or maybe that helped! (it was a good night, no pain at all), but it was surely great to go back to my own bed and have a painless night of sleep! (perhaps all the work I did yesterday helped, more on that in the next post).

And for those who are not familiar with Jimmy Cliff's rendering of Johnny Nash's song (gotta give credit where credit's due, there are people in youtube who are crediting this song to Bob Marley!), here it is:

P.S. the song actually talks about pain, not in the first line/title of post (rain), but later "I think I can make it now the pain is gone/ All of the bad feelings have disappeared..."

I Heart Michael Moore

I just do. Look at his latest blog post "Life Among the 1%!" This guy has more integrity than I do since I sometimes grumble thinking of paying taxes.

what he says here? I think it hits the nerve of the problem: When people ask him...

"How can you claim to be for the poor when you are the opposite of poor?!" It's like asking: "You've never had sex with another man -- how can you be for gay marriage?!" I guess the same way that an all-male Congress voted to give women the vote, or scores of white people marched with Martin Luther Ling, Jr. (I can hear these righties yelling back through history: "Hey! You're not black! You're not being lynched! Why are you with the blacks?!"). It is precisely this disconnect that prevents Republicans from understanding why anyone would give of their time or money to help out those less fortunate. It is simply something their brain cannot process. "Kanye West makes millions! What's he doing at Occupy Wall Street?!" Exactly -- he's down there demanding that his taxes be raised. That, to a right-winger, is the definition of insanity. To everyone else, we are grateful that people like him stand up, even if and especially because it is against his own personal financial interest. It is specifically what that Bible those conservatives wave around demands of those who are well off.

Oh, and in the past weeks, reading his tweets in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement made me realize that the ending of Capitalism, A Love Story, which I thought was just sooooo lame (with MM cordoning off Wall St. with "Crime Scene" tape) and pathetic -- a small weird guy against this huge thing -- has actually become a movement. A strange, multi-faced movement, true, but a movement nonetheless. It's good to see how proud Michael Moore is of these people and their efforts to try and change something from the bottom up.

Yeah, his friend was 100% right!!

Back on that November day in 1989 when I sold my first film, a good friend of mine said this to me: "They have made a huge mistake giving someone like you a big check. This will make you a very dangerous man. And it proves that old saying right: 'The capitalist will sell you the rope to hang himself with if he thinks he can make a buck off it.'

:)

P.S. and IMHO his brief definition of capitalism, is great! ("Capitalism is a system, a pyramid scheme of sorts, that exploits the vast majority so that the few at the top can enrich themselves more.")

Great Anti-Racist Campaign for Halloween

Did you see these posters? I think they're great. I can imagine several with Brazilian stereotypes -- a samba dancer or a Brazilian indigenous person. (they were also featured on cnn)

When I was in graduate school there was this huge brouhaha when a Spanish student appeared at a Halloween party painted black (and accompanied by a "Conquistador"), so I've  been thinking about these issues since then. This campaign just made it relevant for other cultures & ethnicities.

Well... that's it for today, tomorrow I'll blog more.

I found a therapist I like!

I had never looked for a therapist* before, but tonight, I thought I'd google the local town plus "Adult ADHD" and I found a nice website (Psychology Today) that gave me a list of local providers, including their photos, bios (written by them), specialties, etc. Very comprehensive! I really like one of them, who seems to be perfect even in the detail that s/he also pastoral/spiritual care, which is important to me.

S/he offers a complimentary phone consultation and maybe I'll take advantage of that, in spite of the fact that I really dread talking on the phone with strangers (one more reason for therapy!!). You know... I think I'm seriously considering doing therapy. Maybe then my blog won't be clogged with overly long my "issues/cheap therapy" posts, right?

I'm excited/apprehensive. Let's see if I'll find the courage to contact hir. (I don't know exactly why I'm going all gender neutral on this therapist... whatever ;).

* why, oh why, do you call them "shrinks" here in this country? (or, maybe other Anglophone countries? What do I know?) I only learned that word while watching Before Sunrise.

My Very Own Waterfall Picture!

Next time I'll bring the tripod, but I think I held my breath long enough for this one last Saturday.

Didn't I say today's post would be cheerier? 

Just to be safe, though, I'm popping an ibuprofen and going to sleep sitting up on the sofa.

P.S. I think that maybe, just maybe, I'm OK with having bought the DSLR camera for my birthday (and K's too) -- problem is, it hasn't been paid yet, if you know what I mean. :(

Still Can't Sleep Well

It's been a week since my lower back pain started and I am still longing for a painless night of sleep... (sigh).

I know that it will eventually come since I already feel soooo much better (virtually no pain during the day). I wonder if it would be a good idea to see a doctor, though. My right hip, which had already been bothering me before, but with localized (and brief) pain, is where it hurts the most when I'm laying down and the pain  kind of radiates to the rest of the lower back a bit.

Sorry to be bothering you with this again! It's just that I'm beginning to dread going to sleep and I feel it's not right to have to sleep with a heating pad and still feel some pain.

I will try to have cheerier subjects tomorrow, but now I have to go read the book I'm teaching in the morning and... try to go to sleep. Wish me luck!

I'm Doin' It!

(In fact, I've been "doin' it" for better or for worse (see below) for nearly seven years!

Earlier today (when I was busy cooking lunch for 25 undergratuates -- it went great, BTW, it looks like they enjoyed my food!) Laura (Apt. 11D) published the first post in her "All About Blogging" series: "Just Do It!"

Her post is really interesting and full of advice for people who are starting to blog or already blog. The first item made me cringe a bit when I realized that seven years later I'm still doing rookie mistakes in this silly little blog of mine (hello?! writing about family?! STUPID me!), but I think I've learned my lesson once and for all (I hope). And I obviously won't blog what happened, or probably even talk about it in real life, if you know what I mean. By the way, most of the time I blog about my sons I ask their permission: my oldest reads the posts about him before I publish. The little one is über embarrassed by anything and everything, right now, so I try to write about him very sparingly. My long-suffering husband understands "my bloggy ways" as Laura put it and never says anything about me blogging about our life -- I think he copes by simply not reading the blog. Bless his heart. And it is by his request that I remain semi-anonymous here in the blog and don't disclose our location and employer.

I'm glad that she said that the design of the blog doesn't much matter because I don't really have the time and energy to change mine right now.

And last, but not least... I didn't have a job for SIX of the last seven years, so that wasn't a problem. I blogged intensely about writing my dissertation and about my flaky advisor. My husband is still worried about that, but I really don't mind if he read what I wrote if he ever found my blog. He was very bad. Period. So... now that I kind of have a job (not a real  job, as you know, I'm only an adjunct), I don't ever write about it, obviously. I would have to be 100% pseudonymous to do that. I even created that blog, but I don't have the time for it and the issues involved in adjuncting are really depressing to blog about.

So... yeah, I've been doing it. Not hugely successfully, but OK. I'm happy with my blog because it makes me a saner person.

Mice!!

There are mice in my office right now and there were mice in the office across the hall from ours a few weeks ago. I actually saw where it lives -- inside the heater -- when a colleague (who has self-nominated herself our official exterminator) came and lifted up the cover. When the tiny little mouse moved, I screamed and the office mate that was there (there are seven of us, but only three at a time, usually) lifted up her feet.

I don't keep any food there, but I have a hotpot, disposable cups, napkins, tea and a box of hot chocolate pouches. I hid as many of those items as I could in a desk drawer and put the cups up high on a shelf. A trap has been set up, but I'm not excited at the prospect of sharing the office with these tiny, but undesirable office mates.

Remember the time when we watched Ratatouille and the next morning we saw a mouse in our kitchen? Sigh... I don't think it's fun to have to share living/working spaces with rodents! I hope they don't come into our house again. Maybe our farm cats will be good hunters (my heart breaks for the birds they may one day kill, though...).

I will always feel a little uncomfortable in my office from now on... :(

I like it when I can use outside as a refrigerator...

... but not so much when it can be used as a deep freezer. ;)

Seriously, though, it's very practical when I can just stick my huge pressure cooker outside on my deck and know that the beans I just cooked will be nice and cool in the morning. Of course once in a while in the winter when we have guests and I run out of room in the freezer, I sometimes stick frozen things out there too.

Tomorrow I'm bringing food for my Brazilian culture class (26 students) and I put not only the black beans outside, but also the dessert which I just took out of the oven (a chocolate "flan"-type dessert that we call Brigadeirão). I hope they like the food. I'm also making rice, "farofa" (a toasted manioc flour dish) and fish* "moqueca" (a kind of stew) as well as sautéed finely copped collard greens.

Maybe I'll take pictures... but I always take tons of photos of food I cook and I end up never putting them up on the blog. I probably should, right?

*I still eat fish, once in a long while, so I'm not 100% vegetarian.

Better, but not so much at night

I was feeling optimistic about my back pain last night, so I decided not to take medication and not to use the heating pad and while I was able to sleep with the help of K, my dear human heating pad, :) I still felt pain all night and tossed and turned (I sleep on my side).

At 5 am I got up to a very chilly house, went to the kitchen to drink water, and put the heating pad on my back when I got back to bed, but still felt pain (and had several weird dreams).

At 8 am, frustrated, in pain, and still sleepy I sat up in bed, wondering whether there was a way to sleep sitting up when I remembered a detail -- to put a pillow between my legs (in addition to the heating pad) and then I had a lovely, painless 1h hour of sleep, woo-hoo! I feel refreshed enough to get to work and try to catch up to all the house-work I didn't do all week because I was in so much pain. I hope it'll be a productive Sunday!

In Pain... (pretty unbearable pain too)

Note: I was only able to finish writing this after the pain was gone. Similar to the eye problem.

I thought I dealt well with pain... after all, I had two completely unmedicated births and I didn't even take the Motrin that the nurses brought for me after the boys were born.

yeah... ibuprofen, who knew I'd be so thankful for it today, 9 and 7 years later.

I've always been pretty "brave" regarding minor aches and pains (although I have taken acetaminophen for headaches in the past), but I had never experienced the kind of pain I experienced this week -- lower back pain.

I blame it all on carrying the laptop in addition to my heavy bookbag on Tuesday to the university. Then, sitting for two hours in a conference room in which the chairs were too high for me to reach the floor and type of the computer at the same time.

On Wednesday I felt back pain all day long (bad enough that breathing , but didn't take anything). Then, that evening I decided to do the stretches that I do when I have (mild) lower back pain before going to bed and that was a really bad idea! I woke up feeling really bad pain at 5:49 am on Thursday morning. I took children's ibuprofen, the only kind I had. It helped a lot, and I was able to go back to sleep for a little big more. The day wasn't that bad, especially because standing up and sitting felt way better than laying down.

On Thursday evening I was feeling a lot of pain again, so I took a long hot shower and the kids' ibuprofen (three pills, 300 mg -- more than the dose of the regular adult kind, which is weird, since it's the dosage for kids 11-14 years old or something).

Well... that didn't help much because at 1 am I woke up feeling horrible, unbearable pain. I could hardly bear to get out of bad and it was so scary! Mostly because K was gone to a conference and I was home alone with the boys. Thankfully, K was online and I chatted with him on skype and got the idea of using the heating pad (humid heat with water on that little sponge that can be inserted under the cover). Well... the heat helped immediately and I waited until 2 am (5 hours since my taking my last ibuprofen) to take more medication -- four 100mg kids' tablets. Sleeping on the office chair wasn't helping, so I went to bad, with the heating pad still attached to my back and in the high heat. The pad didn't leave my back for nearly 24h (with breaks to get the kids ready for school and taking them, and picking them up and, obviously! going to the store to buy "real" Advil) and that helped!

Thankfully I was feeling better in the evening and K came back. I used the hot pad (and took ibuprofen) last night and I still felt some pain on my hip. Today I decided not to take any medication and then we went for a hike in the afternoon. I was extra careful walking down to the waterfall and back, and really afraid that my back would get worse, but it actually feels OK and I will try to go to bed without taking Advil and without the heat pad. Wish me luck!

Now I totally understand why people with chronic pain or with acute pains and aches really really need to take pain medication! Being in pain is just horrible and feels inhumane. Really, we cannot feel normal and do normal activities while in pain. People who do so are heroes, in my mind at least (and I know there are millions of people who do).

I know my pain was NOTHING compared to what other people feel. I hope this experience can help me be more compassionate towards others in pain. And from now on I'll be EXTRA careful with my posture.

Benign Acute Myositis, Second time around

It's not as bad as it was back in 2009, since he can walk very slowly and even participated of his soccer practice this afternoon (but didn't run much), but I think Kelvin has "benign acute myositis" again! (here's a more recent medical journal article about it). My blog is actually the second result on Google when one searches for this condition. No wonder once in a while I get comments on that old post.

It's the second time in three years and thankfully I know what is bothering my son... who had (still kind of has) a virus and missed two days of school last week. He went back to school yesterday and today, but has been sleeping as soon as we get home until the next morning (more than 12 hours yesterday). I hope he gets better soon!

Meanwhile, it's a pity I can't help him walk or carry him because I'm struggle with lower back pain (more on that in the next post). We had a tough week, I'm ready for it to be over!

This is just so beautiful... "Milímetro" by Daniela Araújo

This... absurdly talented young woman is married to K's "second" cousin (who is also absolutely and wonderfully talented). After I heard her single (released by Sony music Gospel in Brazil) I was desperately, anxiously waiting for her first, brand new CD (in the making for years and years) to arrive from Brazil, but today I found out that the songs are available on YouTube. Pure delight. And I've only listened to three of them.

She wrote the music & lyrics to this song that is the introduction of the CD (I learned from here --> in Portuguese). The strings were recorded in Prague. ETA: Detail: Daniela also does the arrangements [orchestrations] and overviews every single detail of the production. That's part of the reason it took so long for her album to be ready (and affording it too).

Milímetro                                          Millimeter

Pode ficar, se tiver que ficar           You can stay, if you have to stay
Pode ir, se tiver que partir              You can go, if you need to leave
Estou sem medo de reestruturar          I'm not afraid of re-structuring
Minha vida a partir do partir                My life based on the leaving
Tudo está a se repetir                         Everything is repeating
Nada é novo por aqui                         Nothing is new here
Como um milímetro de um segundo   Like a millimeter of a second
É a minha existência no mundo           Is my existence in the world
Tudo está a se repetir                         Everything is repeating
Tudo está a se repetir                         Everything is repeating
Nada é novo para Ti                           Nothing is new to You

Edited to add:
This one is even better: