"Com emoção" (with "emotion" = thrills)

Brazilians or people who have visited Brazil and gone to visit some of its large sand dunes in the Northeast (either in Fortaleza, Natal or Maranhão) will know what I'm talking about here... (the photos below -- credit given -- are from the Genipabu Dunes [google image photos] in Natal).

Image taken from this tourism site (not on that page, though, can't find it).

When you pay for a buggy ride in the dunes, you can choose between a ride "with emotion [thrills]" or without. Here's what part of a thrill ride may look like:

Image taken from this article in a Natal hotels website  

that talks about the two kinds of buggy dune rides

All of this to say that when I was telling my husband on Monday about this metaphor that I've been using on my blog for many years (that our lives are like a roller coaster), he simply replied...

"Yeah, it's because we like it with thrills! [com emoção] It would be boring other wise!"

Oh well, what can I say to that? All I can say is that we've certainly been able to "enjoy" our ride, its ups and the downs, even though some of the downs have been really hard -- like back in 2009 putting the house on the market under financial pressure and worrying about losing it, and in 20089-10, regretting K's decision to leave big pharma and go back to academia with a 60% pay-cut and a high mortgage to pay.

Because everything has come back around, we know this is really nothing compared to what we've faced in the past (and we also have our faith to sustain us -- this is a main thing, actually, not an "and also" in our lives, I just don't blog much about it).

All of this to say that on Monday K found out that one more of the grants he had applied to for summer funding (people in science need grants so they can continue doing research with their students in the summer) had been denied. Such "good timing" in finding this out, right? No summer salary for him will definitely strain our finances.

Now... you may remember that he applied to a HUGE, "dream" NSF career grant last year and the likelihood of him getting that is really, REALLY slim. But he hasn't heard back yet, so we can have a glimmer of hope, no? I'll let you know first thing when he finds out.

Let's keep the suspense, emotion and "thrill" going in this blog, shall we?

So I hope this is the last time I'll mention my job troubles for a while here. I've done all I could do at U#2 and now I wait, maybe for months... I'll keep you posted.