Torn

The trip went well, particularly at the end of the day yesterday (Tuesday) when we talked with an awesome and helpful professor whose research is mostly about Brazil (he was meeting with me, but told K to come too, which was great because he had specific advice for him).

We're torn, though, really torn. I won't be able to go into lots of details without revealing way too much about either here or there, so I won't blog this whole thing as much as I wish I could. It's hard to feel torn -- we like it here and we like it there and we have to make the hardest decision of our lives.

Sometimes I feel that I didn't want work for me to be the deal-breaker because so much is at stake for K. We haven't decided on that yet.

We're almost certain that an offer is coming, though. They went well beyond any expectations and out of their way (incredibly so) to make K feel that they want him there. So... yeah.

The whole thing kind of feels like a dream right now. I just hope it doesn't turn into a nightmare (moving again DOES sound like one :-( and I think they only pay 4K for moving, not very good).

P.S. Thanks to blogging & bloggy friends, I didn't spend all day Monday doing nothing & by myself. Thanks for letting me stay at your office, Scriv & for joining me to commiserate about academia. "We are all in this together."

Leaving for a Couple of Days

For the second interview (for K -- he's got to meet the people he didn't see back in July). My dad's here to be with the boys. I'm not that nervous. People in my own discipline don't want to see me, so I guess they're not interested in me. I will see only two dept. chairs, one in an area that is not even related to what I do, only tangentially connected to one of the writers I wrote about in my dissertation. Kind of strange.

Work for me there is kind of a deal-breaker for us. Even though I'm only an adjunct here, we feel there may a future for me because my language has only been taught offered for 2 years and now it's officially "on the books" (course catalog). If K gets an offer, I'll go to my current dept. chair and will ask her if she thinks my possibilities are real here or not (of eventually becoming a lecturer or something).

OK, gotta go pack. I'm not that excited about this trip. We'll see how it goes. Sigh. We really like it here and we're generally happy with the work, but for K working there would be more advantageous (even if tenure is easier here).

And Then... He Prayed

When I wrote that post earlier today, I had no idea that I would be thinking much more about the subject as the day went on. (and thankfully it seems that the man is calling off the Koran burning. wow. Who does he think he is? with all his "bargaining power." Blah.)

Today I worked for over three hours in the shared part-timers' office and I had a chance to talk some more with one of my colleagues. I found out that he is also from Iraq, but unlike the woman colleague, he has only been in the United States for two years. When he said that I was speechless for a few moments, pretty startled and sad too... That means that he lived through the invasion, not only that, but his hometown happens to be Basra -- the place where much of the trouble was in the later phase of the war.

He has two sons, one is only 2 (the other is five), which means he must have had a newborn when they came or maybe the son was born here shortly after, I don't know. Before I found out more details about his life we had actually been talking about how to keep our children speaking our mother language. His parents are in Syria right now (they all fled at the same time) and he is trying to bring them to the U.S. I didn't know what to say, really, or what to ask, although I do want to know more about his experience.

We were both working on our computers when he stopped, took his shoes off, found the correct direction and prayed. I was moved, and I hoped that I wasn't bothering him. Very quietly, I began to email a link to the previous post to my dear friend, telling her about the man I had just talked to -- who happens to have the same name as her eldest son. She recently wrote in facebook that she enjoyed the moments of prayer during Ramadan and I thought that she would like to know that my colleague was there praying too. Synchronicity, that's what I felt about the events of this day.

After the prayer, he went away quietly. I didn't say anything either. I just thought that he didn't know it, but it had been moment full of meaning for me. Maybe later I'll share here another story about the first time I saw a group of muslims praying. Today, I'll let his prayer stand.

And today another group of people celebrated the New Year. If only there could not be so much religious intolerance in the world!

They Are American Too...

This morning when driving the boys to school I was listening to the news on NPR and I was just thinking -- why, oh why, do they have to publicize so much this one guy's decision to burn the Koran? When I got home and checked my blogroll I saw that Laura (Apt. 11D) has been thinking on the same lines and forcefully wrote about it in latests post, aptly titled The Media is Feeding the Flames of the Koran Burner. I've also been thinking a lot about the issues surrounding the Mosque in NYC.

I think my first close contact with the Muslim faith came in 8th grade (in Brazil), when this bright and young new student came to join our class. She was two years younger than us and what they'd call here in the U.S. a "gifted student." She sat right next to me and we became good friends in that year and the next two years she remained our classmate. During Ramadan she would not participate in the physical education activities because she was fasting. I thought that was very interesting and asked her more about it. In the middle of 11th grade she decided to go to Lebanon to learn the language and live with her grandmother (her dad was Lebanese, her mom Brazilian) and she ended up staying for a year, so she graduated two years later than our class, after she came back.

I'd last seen her back in 1997, at a mutual friend's wedding, but a few weeks ago she found me on facebook! I was elated to get back in touch with her. She married a Palestinian-Brazilian and has two boys, just like I do (only younger). She has been posting on fb about how she loves Ramadan and I am just so glad that she's back in my life.

It was also on facebook that I first saw this recent and powerful video, and I wanted to share it with you today.

The first thing I thought when I saw it was that it seems unfair to me that people who were born here and, in some cases have been Americans for generations, are discriminated against. (I kn0w that this happens with Asian Americans a lot too, people just assume, because they look different, that they are immigrants. Whereas I -- who am an actual immigrant -- am rarely asked upfront where I come from because I blend in well).

Right now I'm sharing an office with three Arabic instructors. One of them is a woman who left Iraq 11 years ago. I want to take some time to ask them about their heritage and whether they've suffered discrimination. I imagine it must have been tough for them after 9/11/02, if they were already in the country (she was). It was hard even for me, since I was on a student visa (until 2008, actually!) and it became harder to renew the visa, etc.

It is very sad that a group of people have to be singled out like that. I don't even know what to say. Except that as an immigrant minority, these things are always unsettling for me.

First Day of 1st and 3rd Grade (two weeks ago)

So, today everyone was writing on facebook about how their kid(s)' first day of school went, etc... I'm taking this as my cue to belatedly post the pictures of my boys' first day and Linton's first day of school ever (8/18/10).

Of course, as good Brazilians, we were late for the first day of school. Yeah... I felt sorry for the boys, :-( but not great harm was done (they weren't really stressed out or anything. Linton had visited his class two days before, so it was OK).

There is an explanation: we had spent all of the previous day at a water park, saying good-bye to the summer vacation and we were obviously exhausted the next morning.

As a result, the only photos I was able to take of my "baby's" first day of school & his brother's third year were these:

At the end of the day, after missing them, I was able take a few more, relieved that they'd given my hungriest boy a snack (I was worried he was going to be hungry):

He was so happy and goofy! He'd certainly had a great day.

I'm thrilled that the boys have a healthy (vegetarian!) hot lunch at their school every day (they did take a lunch on the first 4 days). Life is much less stressful when I don't have to worry about preparing lunch for everybody (just for K & I now).

Oh, and today was the event that started my "teaching career" with a bang. It went really well! I'll try to talk about the film we saw later.

P.S. My internet is really slow (& it was like that in PA too). I wish I had fiber optics (though it's from evil Verizon, whom I'd vowed never to work with again & now they're our wireless providers). I love to write posts with photos & I don't blog more because of how long it takes to upload the pics. :-(

I'm Lovin' It!

I'm still doing some hard thinking about the whole adjuncting thing, but meanwhile, after teaching three classes, I can say that I'm really enjoying teaching language.

It takes a lot of preparation time and I know a lot of the students won't learn as much as they could (learning a language is way more the responsibility of the student than the teacher, I know that from experience), but it's fun!

And it's easy! I don't feel insecure at all about my grasp on the subject, after all, besides teaching my mother language, I have a BA and a teaching licensure in it.

One of the hardest things for me when I was a graduate student instructor was that I often felt like an impostor -- that I was barely ahead of the students in a lot of the material. I did teach several books I analyzed in my dissertation and I was wholly prepared to teach those. However, many others were not really my choice, they were books often taught in those classes (standards that I felt I had to include).

I always longed to teach a class wholly designed by me (and I still do), but I often thought of language teaching as something I wouldn't really enjoy. Good thing I was WRONG! I won't bore you to death with details now, but I expect I'll be blogging about some of my experiences teaching. And I do enjoy being back to work (and having the boys in a school they love), but that's the subject of another post.

No Longer Girl-Less

My husband's family is no longer girl-less. This afternoon in Brazil, my sister-in-law broke the spell and gave birth to my niece, Baby A.

If you're not keeping track, my mother-in-law had four sons: K1, K2, K3 & K4.
I'm married to K1 and we were the first to have children: two boys.
K2 & D were next and had... yes, you guessed it, two boys.
K3 & A had one more boy (born on my birthday!) and
K4 & M just had N (whose birth I witnessed)...

The math:
4 sons + 6 grandsons = 10 males in MIL's life (plus her hubby)

Well, now we all have A, to love and spoil. I just hope (against hope) that we'll be able to meet her before her first birthday. It's sad to live so far away from family members (but it's quite the norm nowadays). I think K3 & A won't mind if I share this photo of Baby A with you:
Last, but not least, besides breaking the family's spell by being a girl, A has broken two significant "records" in our family regarding birth:

• She made her grand entrance the latest in the pregnancy, five days after her due date -- her five cousins & her brother were born either on or before.
• A is the only baby in the family born in Brazil (5 in the U.S., 1 in Canada).

(I had originally written that she was the biggest baby, at 8 lbs 6 oz/ 3.8 kg, but my nephew M was actually bigger at 8 lbs 12.3 oz/ 3.99 kg -- this post set me straight).

Welcome dearest A. I'm looking forward to being your "oldest aunt." Your oldest cousin, Kelvin, my son, loves your mom (his favorite auntie), so I hope we can have a nice relationship too when you grow up! ;-) Oh... I'm also thinking of your brother and wondering how he reacted to your arrival. I think he's going to be a wonderful brother. Lots of love to you, mommy, daddy & big brother. What a beautiful new family of four!!

Immigration is Good for You, U.S.A. ...

... too bad a large chunk of your population cannot see that. :-(

I don't talk as much as I could, or perhaps should, about immigration. It is a thorny issue, even for me, who have always been a here legally, given that I know so many people who don't. And then, again, the episodes of "comment hate" I've experienced in this blog are related to this subject, so I'm not as vocal as I wish I could be for fear I'll be attacked again.

I just saw a link on twitter, though, and that made me remember something I heard on NPR a while back, so I had to come write this "linky" post.

Apparently, "Immigration Increases Your Pay" and some scientific studies suggest that "Rise in Immigration May Help Explain Drop in Violent Crimes" (other links here) -- I'd first heard about this on NPR.

So, yeah... take that, Arizona, take that, U.S.A.

First Day & Starting with a Bang!

The first day of teaching was nice and I still cannot believe that almost two weeks have passed and I haven't yet blogged my sons' first day of school. I'll get to it eventually.

The class was nice and I hope the semester goes by smoothly. Tomorrow evening I teach the second class and in spite of the fact that the students are beginners, I hope it goes as well as today's.

In fact, I'm not going back into this half-heartedly, no! I already organized an event for the students next week to celebrate Brazil's "Independence Day" which will include a movie & food (brought by myself, the former teacher and, hopefully, some other Brazilians from the community).

I had no idea, but it turns out that there is a lot of red tape to go through to reserve a room for an event on campus. Luckily, with the department's secretary's help, I got all the necessary forms in last Thursday! It's particularly tricky to plan something in which food is involved because one needs special permission to bypass the school's official caterers. I was granted permission to bring it because it's for an instructional use (food is part of the culture, right?).

I made a pretty flyer today (making sure to include in the bottom that the event is sponsored by such & such department!) and it will be put up around the department's building and some other ones soon. I'll let you know how it goes. Yeah... as we'd say in Portuguese, I'm really farofeira (which loosely means a person who likes to throw parties & stuff). Yeah, that's me.

Working and Mothering, Take 2 (or Children & Universities)

Tomorrow I go back to work for real. Wow.

And it so turns out that on our first day of teaching, the boys have the day off from school. Same thing on Labor Day (we teach that day). So in my very first day back to "working motherhood" after six years (I won't count the year at the school) I'm already having to struggle with the "home work" balance!

We've decided to bring the boys to the university since I can just come home with them after I teach my class. Not only that, though! I'm planning to bring Kelvin to class with me and have him speak Portuguese with the students who are learning it. Of course that's not the reason he wants to come -- all he really wants to do is help me with the projector, the computer, DVD player, screen, etc. (it's a "media room"). I'll let you know how it goes.

Linton is staying in dad's lab, watching videos -- good thing dad will be teaching a 50 minute class just down the hall. Both boys have already spent time at the computer in that lab and they've been to "dad's building" many times, but last Friday was the first time I took them to my side of campus so they could see my tiny office (shared with I-don't-know-how-many other part-timers) and the classroom where I'll be teaching.

They loved lots of things about our trek to the university: the parking garage (they LOVE parking garages) and its elevators, my intricate building and its elevators, and the gleaming building and classroom where I'll teach (especially Kelvin).

Why, oh why, though, people seem to think that children are slightly "strange" sight in a university campus? We didn't see a lot of people, but we did get plenty of stares. Mostly, smiles, particularly from students. When we were walking back to the car, this man who was walking alongside us on his way to the parking garage jockingly said:

"They're a little too young to be in college, aren't they?"

I'm not a witty person (unfortunately), so I couldn't think of anything smart to say and I just gave out a loud, non-genuine laugh "Ha Ha Ha!" And I felt kind of sad that I didn't know what to say. I thought of saying something lame like "Well, this is just bring your child to work day" for me, or something. Whatever. And I just felt defensive about being there with my children.

I'll tell you what, I LOVE bringing my children to campus. I always have -- after all, this is my second take at teaching and mothering. For the first two years of Kelvin's life I'd bring him to my office hours nearly every week and I "passed him" on like a baton to my husband K before class and retrieved him after, for three Spring (he was born in the middle of the first one) and two Fall semesters, two summer sections and one winter one.

And now it starts all over again. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I teach at 5 pm, so on those days I'll stay home, pick up the boys up from school at 3:15 and drive to the University where I'll pass them along to K who will drive back home while I teach. That's why I've added the label "Tag Team Parenting" (the title/theme of my friend Aliki's former blog) to the blog, as well as "Working Motherhood."

One more academic milestone linked to motherhood (bringing the boys to the university on my first day back teaching) -- the hard-core readers may recall I wrote a rather long rejected essay about this subject a while back. (I feel like re-titling that post, or, maybe finally editing/rewriting the essay and reposting it with more prominence in this here insignificant blog [ha ha! prominence and insignificance are pretty meaningless together]. I'm kind of glad it wasn't published because it doesn't say flattering things about my former department. It was all true, though. Oh, and because I continue to be insignificantly semi-anonymous! yay! Maybe I'm safer that way).

Well... still in the MARGINS, though. I have some more things to say about adjuncting, so I'll try to come back and do it some other time.

Now, I'm not yet done with my preparation for tomorrow's class (see! I shouldn't be blogging!), so I have to go do that...

on facebook (annoying!) & twitter / links

I think facebook is very, very annoying. I try to spend as little time as possible in there. I just do it so I can know what's going on with friends, family &, mostly, acquaintances. Can't stand it apart from that, though. Blah!! (if it weren't so rude to simply unfriend the acquaintances... :-( )

Twitter is not much better, a bit less of a waste of time if I quickly check it at the end of the day.

I think I'm getting really, really old -- blogging is it for me and I can't move on to other, more superficial things. I like depth & I stick to it. Am I wrong?

Fb & tweets are only food for thought when they link to good stuff (which today some of them did -- Dawn shared this link to a most moving essay that mentions adoption disruption). That's all.

Oh, and Lauren pointed out to an interesting article about Philly -- makes me miss it there. :-(

And Laura this article about how a great famine is coming. If this were her blog, this post would be titled "Spreading Love #xyz" ;-)

Remembering the "Good Engine Noise"...

Our two "crumbling Hondas" (no comments on that long post, I thought it was fun, but probably too wordy, as most of what I write) have been to the shop a few times and we've spent over a thousand dollars in them. We had budgeted that expense and our plan is to keep those cars until they "die" and only then replace them. Today my dad was stressed out about the Odyssey and K took it to the mechanic for a few minutes in the morning so he could listen to this rattling noise, so I drove the boys to school in the (even older) Civic.

As I was pulling out of our driveway/parking lot, Kelvin said, in a wistful voice:

"I miss the good engine noise of the Mazda* when daddy pulled out of our old house's driveway every morning..."

"Yeah," said Linton. "I can hear it now" (in his head, he meant).

Because we were home all of last year, they did hear it every morning, sometimes when they were still in bed. This simple statement made me marvel at the perceptive, sensitive memory of children. Not only that, but also at how one small memory can bring so many things to the forefront...

... the long driveway and our old house.

... the "good" car and its nice leathery smell.

Parts of our "old life."

"But I didn't like that school" (the small school Kelvin went for 2 years back in PA), "I like our new school better," Kelvin said cheerily.

"Me too!" Responded Linton.

See? The "new life" has many advantages too! It's not all old cars and cramped (but nice) rental house. ;-) It's also lovely new school, quiet rural neighborhood, new friends and brand new job for mom and dad!

* The post linked to above has some photos of the Mazda.

Edited to add: If you read the old post, you'll be interested in knowing that both cars still have the engine lights on, but both passed inspection. Phew!

Am I really entering the "Twilight Zone"? Oh, yeah, no doubt about that!

If I had written this post last week, it would have been titled "Entering the 'Twilight Zone' in Full Force," but I didn't, so it will feel kind of weird to write it today (I'll explain soon enough).

Oh, but first, a few definitions or clarifications for you, my faithful readers!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What do I mean by "Twilight Zone?"

I am shamelessly borrowing the term from Anastasia, one of my favorite academic bloggers (I still can't believe she wrote that last week & made my day!). She wrote this post last week, in which she elaborates on what happened here (I'll summarize for you, she had a surreal conversation with two administrators who marveled at how amazing it was that they could hire so many adjuncts). I did let her know I'd be doing this and I'm sure she doesn't mind.

So... "twilight zone" refers to adjuncting (a recent "verb" that spell check doesn't recognize).

Further details for those who are not academics out there (maybe one or two of my five readers). Adjuncts are part-time faculty, hired to teach one or more classes and paid a flat per-class rate PER SEMESTER (generally speaking 3K for those with PhD, 2.5K with MA/MS) . With no benefits and very few rights. And all the work and all the obligations of teaching. That is, same work, but NOT the same pay.

It was through a former blog called Invisible Adjunct that I first encountered blogging and later became a blogger myself back in 2004. Nearly six years later, after reading thousands upon thousands of words (particularly written by my friend Articulate Dad in his former blog) maligning all the "adjuncting" signifies,** I am about to become one. Nobody can tell me I'm not going into this with my eyes open, well aware of the implications. Willingly, even. Sigh. Dare I say, almost "thankfully"? (because I happen to have an "almost job" at the same university where my husband is teaching).
** And I won't get into that discussion in detail now, maybe later, if I have the time and energy to write other posts, if you want to get a feel for the issues involve, read this recent post & comments and this one (4 days ago) by Dean Dad -- some people hate what he says & I don't fully agree either)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK, so, having gotten the definitions and the background information, and some of the angst (no! not that!) out of the way, here are the facts:

I would have written that I was entering "full force" into adjuncting last week because that's when I found out (less than two weeks before the first day of class -- that's TYPICAL of what happens with adjuncts, we get TONS of advance time to prepare for a class we've never even taught before, look at that, how professional!) that I would in fact be teaching not one, but TWO different classes. My pocket is happy, but I'm kind of freaking out because it's a 100 level class and I hope to be able to do this (I will, it's OK, but still...). In my department's defense, I knew since before May, I think, I'd be teaching the other class and it was because of a sudden event (surgery in the family of another adjunct) that I was given this other class to teach. These things happen all the time, that's why they need us part-timers, right?

Well... not exactly!

Let's get back to today. What happened today is what initially made me feel that it would be strange to write this post -- hence the question in the title -- and at the same, what made it feel so right (hence the answer). Today I participated in the new faculty orientation at the university where K and I are teaching. And I thought it was so nice that they invited us, part time faculty, to fully participate! And I thought throughout the morning how ironic it would be to write this post today, of all days. I was happy and "up in the air" like a pretty balloon.

And then mid-afternoon rolled around and while they were holding the meeting to present all the benefits that full-time faculty have, they had this half-assed round-table for part-time faculty to which only 7 of us went (I'm sure there were many many more in the morning meeting).

After the round-table ended, four of us (all women, the other 3 were men) went outside to chat and to escape the coldness of the air-conditioning. That's when I learned that I was in "heaven" with my two sections of 10-12 students. My new friend, I found out, would be teaching 3 sections of a 300 level Spanish class to nearly 100 students.

Then, I turned to the other two women and I found out that were teaching 120 and 150 students each. The latter has four sections of an Art History class (she has an MA, so she won't be making that much, if her department pays the same as mine). The former teaches 3 sections of a Philosophy class and she explained to me that she's "one half of a two body problem" (i.e. one half of an academic couple -- worse yet, a couple in the same discipline) who had a tenure track job in Kentucky, but decided to move here where her husband as a tt job because she liked it better here.

These things happen all the time in academia. And unfortunately lots of us academics are married to other academics, so it's actually the norm -- one "half" having to choose between spouse or tt job.

So, yeah... my cheery and floaty "balloon" of the first half of the day was quite deflated as the day came to an end. Much more so when we got into the car and drove to pick up the boys to go to the faculty and staff picnic and K told me that the benefits were "really good." Oh well... lucky thing for me and those two other ladies to have tenure-track spouses and have the benefits too. I don't think that the woman teaching four classes (plus one at another college) has that, though. That's how she lives.

You know that I don't really aspire to have a tenure track job, but I still think that some things are fundamentally flawed. By the number of adjuncts teaching Spanish it looks like they sh/could have at least two or three full time professors to do it. Maybe it's the same case with Art History? Or maybe, as Dean Dad would say, it just so happens that these subjects are "in" now, but might be "out" in a few years. It's hard to be convinced of that.

There's so much I could say about this, but I'll stop now. After all, I should be preparing to teach my classes, and not be blogging, right? Oh well.

I missed them, yes I did

I'll have to write more about the first day of school tomorrow, but for now I'll just say that I missed my boys and, of course, they didn't miss me. Not one bit!

Last night Kelvin was not looking forward to going back to school, but tonight, after he declared this to be the best day of school ever, he said "I can't wait to go to school tomorrow!" Phew! Just what I needed to hear.

As for Linton, he thought the day was boring. I still don't know why. Will try to ask more questions tomorrow as we drive to school.

Good night!

Tomorrow my "baby" goes to school

Both boys are going back to school tomorrow, after our tough "cyber-schooling" year (I couldn't blog much about it, but maybe I'll use the other blog I created to reminisce and reflect about our experience).

So, in spite of the fact that Linton is going to 1st grade, tomorrow will be the first time he goes to school. I think the boys will enjoy going to school and I love their school* and the teachers.

I will probably miss them since I've been home with Linton for the past 6 years and Kelvin only went to school by himself for one year (the other one I taught 3 days a week there). However, it will be good for me because I'll be very busy this semester (more about that in another post).

Tomorrow I'll post the requisite photos of the first day in school & write about it. I kind of missed those for last year (can't remember if I posted anything...).

I'm both excited and sad. Good thing I'm not worried (I thought I'd be because of Kelvin, but I think he'll be fine, in spite of the fact he's not very happy to be going back to school -- I hope that feeling evaporates soon). Let's see how it goes.

*It's a small K-8 private school and their classes have two grades together (1-2, 3-4), around 20 children in each room (the teachers have an aide).

Almost a Given

The roller coaster ride continues. The second visit for K/ possible interview for me to the other university will be scheduled shortly (K got an email about this last Friday). That means there will be an offer for K. And maybe for me too. (what?!)

I really don't know what to think or say about that (it's really complicated). Except that Anjali will be really happy. ;-) (& I'm sure Scrivenings won't mind).

Dismissed!!

K was late to pick up my parents from the airport on Friday because I had a court hearing at 9 am on the summons that I received as a "welcome to our town" gift the day we moved here (speeding, going 41 in a 25 miles an hour zone -- I mentioned it here). Our Civic hadn't passed inspection and had to be fixed that very morning, so I had to drive the minivan to court.*

Thankfully all went well and my explanation that I was driving for the first time on this road on the very day I was moving here so I couldn't have possibly been aware that the speed limit was 25 convinced the judge.

He dismissed it. And I didn't even have to pay anything like it happened when I got my first and only (until last June) speeding ticket.

What a relief!

* This whole thing happened because of our first big blunder after moving to a new state: we had registered the minivan in VA & gotten new plates the week before, but didn't know that it had to be inspected right away! (I think in MA we had a week). We found out about it on Thursday evening after we got the Civic's plates and so we got the Odyssey inspected that afternoon, in the last time slot, so the Civic had to be inspected first thing on Friday.

That wasn't it...

Another boring, though quick, "meta-blogging"* post for you.

After I "published" the previous post (I think it's so preposterous to call putting up a blog post "publishing"!!) I realized that you'd probably think that the bulleted updates were what I was talking about in the previous post, but no, they actually weren't.

I have at least three more "update" posts coming up, OK? Just thought I'd clarify that, not that it matters at all.

* translation for those who may need it: blog post that talks about writing in the blog.

Short Random Updates (with pools and trains and... Cancun?)

• My parents arrived safely from Brazil.

• I love the clothes my mom brought me, some new & some barely used by one of my best friends (who just moved to the U.S. and got rid of lots of clothes in a tag sale there in Brazil).

• My brother's coming! But you already knew that...

• I bought a package of dice in the dollar bin at Target the other day and now Kelvin is addicted to Yahtzee (we read rules online & printed forms). I've played a few rounds with him too, but I haven't caught the bug. I prefer "thinking" games to luck based ones. (yeah, I know, I'm really annoying, right?).

• The boys spent two weeks playing with their trains nearly everyday, all day. I was sad to dismantle the huge track on Thursday so we could set up the office/guest room for my parents. Here, take a look:

• Pathetic confession: I'm way better now, but last week, when I found out that BIL and his family are going to Cancun for a week (they thought we knew since February when they bought the all-inclusive package, but we didn't, distracted much?), I was just a tiny bit jealous (gross understatement). They're not planning to do anything, though (not even to see this or that). That right there just squelches my jealousy almost entirely. What a relief!! [I'm secretly hoping they change their minds, but I don't think they will, haha :-( ].

• With all those travels I took almost 6 GB of photos & video in July. And that's because our camera takes only 8 mega pixel photos. I'll have to delete tons of photos when we get a higher resolution camera. And buy a terabyte or more external hard drive.

• Even more pathetic confession: You just can't refuse invitations to visit friends who have a pool. That's why we went to PA last weekend. Really? Well, not really, but take a look too:

C'mon, do you still blame me/us?

(K took the photo & I'm the one with the hot pink rash guard there -- I don't want scorched shoulders ever again in my life!)

Well, I'm sure I could find tons of more random things to say, such as that I already made and froze my first two batches of tomato sauce (marinara style sauce). I even have pictures to prove it. Or to report on how well my four tomato plants are doing (no photos), or maybe you'd like to know that I'm being a good host and I cooked lots of yummy food for this weekend. Yeah... but I think the post is long enough already.

P.S. I saw professional photos of my newborn nephew online today. He's the cutest thing! I also saw him on Skype. Did I mention that they're coming to visit too? AWESOME!!

oh, and it took precisely 50 minutes to write this post. uploading the photos takes time.

Lots to Write About...

... but I'll post the different things in short, "Twitter-like" or facebook style, updates.

Of course it's useless to blog during the weekend, so if I do, I may have to do a "wrap up" post on Monday when people resume blog-reading and blogging (not that anyone reads this blog, mind you ;-).

Meanwhile, this article about life in a "post-antibiotics" world is freaking me out big time!! World, please stop, I wanna get down!

Every Two Years, from Two Days to Two Weeks...

... that's how often I see my brother.

I often say this as a joke, but sadly, it's (generally) no joke. After my brother "took to the world" back in 2006 when he moved to China, I can no longer count on seeing him when I travel to Brazil. (and I used to go every year, but now it's more like every year and a half :-( ).

And now he's in New Zealand, in a job in which he travels so often even his wife doesn't get to see enough of him. Good thing my parents get to see him more often because he's been able to travel to Brazil (or via Brazil) a few times and see them.

In any case, I last saw him back in 2008 and -- oh, joy of joys! -- the two year thing will hold true, since he's coming to visit for a few days (more than two! or so it seems) at the end of September.

In the past 14 years (since K and I moved to the U.S.), this will be only the third time my brother comes to our house. The first time was in Dec. 96-Feb. 97, then ten years later in 2006 on his way to China with his wife. Too bad she's not coming this time. But maybe next year both of them (and her whole family plus my parents) will come to the U.S. for Christmas, now that her older brother moved to the U.S. too.

Well, it will be wonderful to have him here, particularly because the boys haven't seen him for so long -- he's just so good with kids it's very sad that he only sees his nephews so rarely. :-(

I'm just so happy right now!

P.S. My parents will be here too, they arrive this Friday. It will be a nice family reunion.

One is (way) Better than None! My Trip's Blogger Meet Up

This post comes to you incredibly late, but better late than never...

I had this plan, this dream, almost, of beginning and ending our road trip with blogger meet ups. The first worked out wonderfully, but the second couldn't happen. :-( Maybe someday, right, Jo(e)?

In fact, there was no need to write this, I could just tell you to go read Pithy Dithy's lovely post about our visit, but I have some more pictures to share! ;-)

My boys had lots of fun with Finn & Cullen's train table and toy kitchen, but Kelvin was really fascinated by their Magnatiles, particularly after Mr. Pithy helped him build this huge arena (all the boys posed next to it before bringing it down):Foolishly, I didn't take any pictures in the first evening, when the weather was nice, then, the next morning, it rained! But we went out in the rain anyway to see the town (you can see that our boys monopolized the umbrellas so the moms got wet):The last part of the visit was a great and thorough tour of the Fire Station led by Mr. Pithy. In the end the four boys got firefighter hats:
Thanks again, friends, it was wonderful! We hope to be able to stop by again someday on our way to Canada!

The Missing Limb

Note: Cat lovers, could you please answer the questions at the end? I need some help thinking through things.

I was sitting at the dinner table looking at a magazine when I had this illusion, this fleeting impression that my cat had just quickly passed by behind me. Sadly this happens more often than I'd like to happen. Like the amputated limb that keeps on hurting because the nerve endings leading to it don't know it's not there anymore, I feel the absence of my cat Blues almost physically.

and it hurts. oh, how it does.

A few days ago Dooce (Heather Armstrong) wrote this post and it reduced me to a messy aching pile of tears. My throat begins to hurt just thinking about it.

And then there was Friday night in VBS when my youngest son took me to see the drawing he had made and which was taped to the wall.

"Mommy, I come see what I drew for you!"

"Oh sweetie, a cat!"

"I had someone help me."

"Which cat is it, baby?"

"It's Blues. I miss him, mama."

I just had to hug him tight, saying "Thank you" and fighting tears.

Another sad thing is that Linton doesn't understand very well why I keep on crying about Blues. On that fateful day I cried and cried in the car after getting the news he said we needed to pray about it and he/we did. Then weeks later when he saw me crying he said, "But mommy, we prayed about it." And I had to explain that praying might not bring him back and make everything all right with me. It could only bring some consolation.

Last week Linton said that Blues was coming back and we explained to him that no, he probably wasn't. I think that stayed with him and made him draw the cat for me during VBS (I don't know what was the prompt for their drawings/sentences).

The hardest thing is that I keep on thinking about the boys' cat allergy and thinking that I won't be able to have a cat again anytime soon. We have other friends who are allergic to cats and had a hard time coming to visit us. And there's family (BIL K2) in particular who can't stand cats (he's apparently allergic).

How do you cat owners who read this blog cope with family and friends who are allergic?

Would you just not have cats because of allergies?

(I'm afraid that the boys were fine because we'd had the cat since they were born and now that they aren't being exposed to it anymore they'd have strong reactions, but I'm just hypothesizing).

All this thinking leaves me sad and, at times, angry. Why can't I have cats just because of other people? I've always loved cats, they make me happy.

One more thing to muse about while the roller-coaster ride of life continues to roar on endlessly.

Sigh.

Happy Birthday Vania!! or My Dearest Cousin Turns 50!

I can hardly believe it, but today my dearest cousin in my mom's side of the family* turned 50 years old! That means that a year from now I will turn 40, since she's eleven years older than me. I'm really sad that was unable to talk to her on the phone, but I hope to talk to her tomorrow. Better late than never...

Here's young Vania with her older brother:
And here she is seen behind me not too long after she met me for the first time (I was two years old and had returned from Europe with my parents less than a year earlier):Vania and I are on the right side of the picture. You can see my pregnant mom in the background -- we're wearing matching homemade dresses! The other girl in the photo is my cousin Maisa, the daughter of my mom's other sister.

I posted a similar picture to the blog when I wrote about my aunt's 50th anniversary back in 2007, but here it is again, mothers (8 years apart) and daughters (11 years apart):When I went to Brazil last December and January I had the rare chance of seeing Vania and her family twice during my visit! I went to visit her family for a weekend and then she came with her family to my parents' house (here's a photo of them!). That's when we took these:
She doesn't look 50 at all, does she? I hope I can look as good as she does when I get there. I have to follow here example of fitness, though, and start swimming several times a week and exercising regularly. The only difference is that I'm going to start now and she's been very active for many years, so chances are I won't look that great! :-(

In spite of the age difference we became really close after I grew up. In fact, I always looked up to my older cousin. I vaguely remember her 15th birthday party (equivalent to the "Sweet Sixteen" here), the party favor was small red cutout heart with her photo in the middle and when I turned 15 eleven years later I made the same party favor with my photo. I've always loved babies and kids remember when Vania's son and daughter were born (I was 14 and 16, I think). I loved to play with my baby and toddler cousins and looked forward to the day they would be in my wedding, and they were, together with their other four cousins (some photos here). Now we're looking forward to the day when my son(s) will be in her daughter's wedding -- pairing up with her new, adopted daughter, who is Kelvin's age.

I wish we didn't live so far away, but I visit her every time I go to Brazil. She hasn't come to visit yet, but that's just because I don't live in Orlando, FL (that's part of the reason why we wanted to move there! ;-)

Dear Vania, I just want to say in this very public space that I love you and I'm very glad to have you as part of my life! I hope you had a wonderful day with your loved ones in Brazil. I was thinking of you all day long!

* I have two dearest cousins, a female cousin in my mom's side and a male cousin in my dad's side who is a few months younger than me. Interestingly both of these cousins' middle names are my parents' names because my aunts were very close to my parents.

Send in The Clowns

I've been a little sad lately. More disgruntled than sad. K is away (left this afternoon, will return Friday night). And while I hope everything goes well, the fact that a decision may have to be made and that we might go as early as January just adds to the stress of just having moved.

Just having gone and come back through Philly -- "the city who ate my cat" -- before and after our trip did not feel good. I'm reminded every time that even though everything is going well for us, we're starting over once and that I miss my cat, my garden, the backyard, so many things. We're supposed to go again visit friends next week and I'm not looking forward to that. Particularly being so close to my old house (can't blog about that yet, not that I'm terribly sad or anything, it's just that it kind of "died" for me and I've forced myself to "forget" about it for the time being).

By now I'm used to being alone, unsettled. I've left my country after all and all my dearest friends behind. New friends were made, but those are away too (we moved multiple times, remember?). Thanks to you, my dear, but elusive friends in the computer, I have survived and been pretty happy these past 5+ years.

So after a pretty useless day in which I spent way too much time online watching stuff (I usually don't do that, I just read blogs), I have to take my friend's Dawn's cue and turn to music... write about my love of Stephen Sondheim and his songs, particularly one.

I "met" Sondheim through the friend that I just went to visit in Canada. She was the one to who introduced me to a performer I'm now a little embarrassed to admit I used to love, and whose cds (these two) I still listen to once in a long while: Barbra Streisand. Through Barbra I "met" Broadway. Previously I had only been familiar with The Sound of Music and other things by Rogers and Hammerstein, but now I learned of other musicals and their "standards." And I became particularly interested in Sondheim because the best songs in Streisand's two Broadway albums were his: "Putting It Together," "Being Alive" (thanks for this link, Dawn, he's truly handsome too! And all those people playing and walking, awesome), and "Not While I'm Around." "Send in the Clowns" captured my heart immediately. It is still my most favorite piece of music of all time. I love really sad music and this one is particularly heartbreaking, at least for me and I didn't really know why.

Because it was not until today, after reading Dawn's post (and discovering the lovely "I Remember Sky" -- a song by Sondheim I didn't know) that I went to read more about my favorite song. I know, silly me, right, to like it so much for 20 years and never even try to see or listen to a full recording/video of the musical. (I'm into musicals but have never really been to any, save for Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera in London -- I haven't cared for Webber in a long time, I totally agree with Dawn that you care for his stuff at first and then get sick of it and that doesn't happen with Sondheim). I loved what Sondheim had to say about this song reading his quotes here. That it is a song of regret and anger, "not a soaring ballad" (which is how it has been interpreted by those who made it most famous -- Judy Collins and Frank Sinatra). And the whole thing about them being the fools in the end.

I went to look for the song on YouTube and although I don't know if Streisand's interpretation would be considered good (angry and regretful) versus "bad" (ballad), but I guess Sondheim liked it enough that he wrote a new verse for her to record it (!) (that always surprised me, having carefully read the album's notes), all I know is that after I saw Judi Dench interpreting it (singing here is not the point), I don't think I will ever be able again to see Streisand do it. I think that the theatrical effect of the man (Fredrik) being there gives the interpretation its context and much more feeling:

I listened to Judy Collins's interpretation (OK, definitely "soaring ballad"), but could only get through a few seconds of the Frank Sinatra. I think Catharine Zeta-Jones did a good enough job. If anyone is curious, here's the original 1975 rendition of Glynis Johns. I think Dame Judi Dench's is even better.

OK, I'll embed Streisand too... just because it was how I first encountered this song.

And though I love it so much, I hope this song has nothing to do with our life situation right now. I hope that we're not the clowns (fools) that are here. Neither now, nor next year.

2,210 Miles (3556 Km) Later

We got back home on Sunday after I drove a total of 2,210 Miles (3556 Km). More trip stats:

Days and nights away: 11

Time on the road: approximately 37 hours (not counting short trips within the destinations)

Stops to refuel the car: 16 (haven't calculated how much spent)

Places visited: 6 -- town in Vermont, Montreal, Oshawa, Toronto, Niagara (ON), Rochester

Tourist Trap Attractions (TTA) visited: Canada's Wonderland, CN Tower, Niagara parking [20 dollars!!] and Behind the Falls

Money spent on TTAs: approximately $241.00 Canadian dollars.

Cultural Attractions: Ontario Science Center (not Harry Potter, though) and Strong National Museum of Play (I cannot thank my friend Aliki enough for her blog recommendation of this place!). Money well spent! (about $ 70)

Nights in hotel: 1

Fast food take out: 1 (Taco Bell on the last night of trip before returning to PA)

Eating out: 0

Yes, we ate at friends' houses or "picnicked" with food from friends' house or supermarket all trip long. That's how we can afford traveling at all in our family. Good thing the friends I went to visited are of the same thrifty persuasion. ;-) Oh, and even most of the water we drank was from house filter/ water fountains in our reusable metal bottles which I carry everywhere with an ice pack.

I think all that driving (and maybe water and food carrying too) is what caused the backache that I'm experiencing right now, not to mention pain in my wrists and arm and right knee. It was well worth it, though!

After this amazing event we spent two days with a friend I hadn't seen in 12 years, her husband and her daughters -- almost the same age as my sons. The children had a wonderful time together and we enjoyed catching up. They lives in New Zealand and I'm looking forward to visiting them when we go visit my brother (I'm hoping he doesn't move again before we visit, like it happened with China).

I was looking forward to taking the boys up the CN Tower and to Niagara Falls and they really enjoyed both things. I have some beautiful photos to share.

The drive back to our friends' house in the greater Philadelphia are after the museum in Rochester was exhausting. Driving was the hardest part of the whole trip and I had to stop several times to take short naps. I don't drink coffee, but I had to go through several bottles of lemon flavored iced tea to survive this trip.

Edited to add: To finish off the trip we went to the Barnes Foundation on Friday, our last official day in Philly, and then we spent the weekend at my brother-in-law's house in Maryland before coming back home on Sunday.

Well, let me post this and I'll come back with photos later.

P.S. the best thing was that the car survived the trip with only two full refills of oil (it's burning oil! I'm polluting the environment even more! How awful! how can I dare to drive so much! Oh well... ;-)

The Universe Gave Me an Incredible Gift!!!

I came to Montreal to stay less than 48 hours and my dear new nephew N was born while I was here and I was able to be at his birth with my brother- and sister-in-law. I slept less than two hours last night, but I'm oh, so happy!N entered the world at 5:10 am this morning weighing 7lbs 15oz (3.608 kg).

Welcome to the world and to the family, dearest and cutest N! I hope your little cousin A has a peaceful arrival in a month, too bad she will be born in Brazil, so far away...

Leaving for a (looong) road trip

I really love to travel, but I don't like driving very much. :-( Driving by myself with the boys does give me a sense of accomplishment, but having to drive so many hours (from 4-6-8 hour stretches) is not fun.

My knee hurts very badly just from the tension of my let stepping on the gas. I will try to use cruise control as much as possible and I should be happy that at least I will be driving our automatic car, not the standard one because then the left leg would hurt too, even more, if we hit traffic (traffic jams with standard gear are a nightmare. The left foot has to be constantly pressing the clutch so we can keep switching gears. Sigh. Good thing I at least learned to drive a standard).

I bought snacks and I selected CDs to listen too (although I didn't buy any books on CD as I wanted to :-( ). The boys have their DVD player and some other things to keep them busy, but they're always really really good on trips. We broke them in early.

OK, I have to finish packing, while I wait for our minivan to come back from the shop. If it's not fixed today then the beginning of the trip (and my first blogger meet up) may be ruined :-(.

Now, the big question is whether we'll be able to meet the newest member of our family -- my nephew who could be born any minute in Montreal. We'll be there from Friday night to Sunday at noon and I have a suspicion that he'll want to make his appearance after we're gone (his due date is Monday the 19th after all).

I should be happy that I'll get to spend two days with my dear friend and meet her daughters. I haven't seen her in 12 years and I can't wait to see her again!

All right, back to packing.

Ultra Efficient DMV

One of the things that I was slightly concerned about when moving to another state was getting a new driver's license. This proved to be a NIGHTMARE in Pennsylvania. Their DMVs are simply the most bureaucratic thing we've ever dealt with and the old ugly buildings don't help too much.

We delayed getting new licenses in PA for three years since it was easier and much more efficient to renew the MA ones (they didn't ask for proof of address! I don't know if they do now), but we had to get them before we bought our second house in PA (the one we just sold). K had to go back six times to the Penn Dot place because one day they were closed, another day he didn't have a document, another time he didn't have a checkbook, and so on...

I only went once, but stood in line for over an hour. Then when I renewed a year later there was a loong line again. (Because of my visa my first license was only valid fora year -- that's why I had renewed the MA one).

So last week, after a nearly useless day we'd spent in the house, making calls, paying bills online, we left home 25 minutes before the DMV was supposed to close. We got there with 10 minutes to spare and there was NO LINE! The lady complained that the receptionist assigned both K and I to her ("I want to go home!" She whined), but she was courteous and efficient and in about 15 minutes we were done!

What a relief!! The license is valid for eight years. Too bad we might live here for much less than that. Sigh.

I'm Most Definitely a "Serrated Knife Person" ;-)

Edited to add: I just republished the post with the correct date and added one more expression.

Sarah, just wrote a great guest post at Dooce titled "La Vie en Janice" in which she describes what the name/expression "Janice" means to her and her friend Anne. Fun post!

Then, at the end of her post she linked to this great essay about The Language of a Marriage in which the "serrated knife people" expression appears. I thought the essay was great and I definitely have several such phrases with my husband. Most importantly, we have several "language of a family" expressions too, most derived by funny things my father-in-law has said.* These phrases are used by my husband, his brothers, some cousins, the daughters-in-law and now the grandsons (we've been teaching the first one below to our boys since they were babies).

What I thought was hilarious though, is that I really only use serrated knives and I don't care if I may be considered an inferior kind of cook because of that!! I buy my knives in Brazil and when they get dull I just get a newer one to use. You should see how fast I can chop tomatoes or mince onions. I love my serrated knives!

Well, at least I'm not a Janice! ;-)

* The most important ones just for the record:

(1) "Fala meu primo!!" ["Speak my cousin!"] -- We say it in English on occasion as a joke. This refers to the way my FIL's greets his dear second cousin Vanja.

(2) "Bah, querida!" [Bah, dear!] -- this exasperated expression comes from the last day of the 1993 U.S. trip when FIL, MIL, K and his brothers were stuck in a traffic jam in Miami Beach. FIL had been telling MIL to please calm down (she thought they were going to miss the flight), but then he caught on and got exasperated too. This obviously doesn't make any sense for those who weren't there since it's such a common expression. It's the intonation that does the trick. BTW, I wasn't there to hear this.

(3) "Um dia que bonito para a prática do esporte!" [What a beautiful day to practice sports!]

(4) "Morreu?" "Morreu." "Ah bom!!" ["He died?" Died." "Ah, good!"] This one has a funny story behind which I witnessed first hand. FIL's youngest sister-in-law was telling a story about a construction worker who had fallen flat from scaffolding up above and FIL wasn't sure if the guy had died or not, but the way he reacted, was hilarious. He obviously said "good" because he now knew for sure what had happened, but it sounded comical, as if the guy's death were a "good" thing.

(5) "Até que o coração PAAAARE de bater!" ["Until the heart STOOOPS beating"] - at a wedding, while saying the vows, FIL exaggerated in the "stop" and we couldn't stop laughing for a long time and saying it to each other later.

I Haven't Given Up

In spite of the previous post, old time readers know that I really enjoy going to academic conferences (blank stares or not), although I do have a "love and hate" relationship with them. ;-)

In spite of all my real and imagined "woes," I have to admit that I'm a lucky adjunct. As it turns out, the department where I'm going to be teaching one class is pretty generous will give me funding to attend an academic conference!! That hasn't happened in seven years!!! So I think I've decided on the one I'm going to. See? I haven't given up just yet.

I Really, *Really* Love My Dissertation & one more useless rant against the (humanities) academic establishment

Note: this is a rant that might not be of interest to non-academics. Academics may not care for it either since I'm mostly a "lazy" non-academic right now, critical of the establishment as most of us in the margins or outside are. So, let's just say I'm writing this primarily for myself because I need to rant once in a while. Thanks.

I know I'm repeating myself -- I often do here in this blog, my apologies to you my readers -- but it's true, I really love my dissertation and I care deeply about its subject. In addition, I think it's a good dissertation, all 511 pages of it. A great contribution to its field.

And all this, first the fact that I continue to care and second, and, most importantly, the fact that it is a contribution, makes me is very, very sad and hopeless. I'm nearly reduced to tears every (rare) time I open the PDF file and read some of it. No, I do not have a hard copy of this most significant piece of work that took me ten years to bring to its final form (it began as a paper I wrote in 1998 and I defended it in 2008).

Why am I deeply saddened about this? Because the way academia works is CRUEL. Nobody really cares for anyone else's work unless it's published in countless peer-reviewed journals and somehow, catches people's attention. Then, if you're lucky, a BIG NAME in the field that you mention in your dissertation might read something and write something either citing you or, maybe, if you're really really good, respond. Even if one's work comes to be published as a book, it may still be a meaningless achievement because if not enough scholars are interested in the subject matter, nobody will even know it was published or read it. It's just, well, the "ivory tower." You either work with something "fashionable" or you're a "non-person."

Of course I'm using all this as an excuse and the truth is that I'm DOING NOTHING about it (OK, I am LIVING. I just spent a whole year cyber schooling my sons and before then I was working at the school).

I did present my dissertation results at various national and international conference, but I have concluded that conference presentations are mostly USELESS!! They are just lines on CVs for the presenters. No true dialog takes place, only amongst people who already know each other and who organized panels and picked the presenters -- not for unknown newcomers. Of course one can try to use these conferences to network and become part of already established groups, but that's hard. The only professional association I had any success with this was the Children's Literature Association, but who cares about children's literature anyway? (thankfully my former dissertation advisor does and he helped me write my dissertation chapter about this subject). As I've said here before, I got lots of "blank stares" when presenting since I guess what I did was just completely outlandish and related to a literature that is not very studied here in the U.S.

I haven't tried to publish, especially because my easiest way to publication would be to try and publish my dissertation as a book in Brazil and publish articles there, but I am not living in Brazil right now, nor do I intend to return, so that wouldn't help me at all to be more known in the Academic community in the United States.

It is impossible, really, trust me, to get a tenure track job in my area that would enable me to continue doing the research that I love. Nor would I want a TT job (remember, I like to live a little bit?). Besides, I've concluded that I don't want a TT job. Too much pressure, too much politics...

The only thing I'm left with is teaching classes here and there as an adjunct and maybe, if I'm lucky, in the future as a full-time lecturer. Teaching most probably won't allow time for research and that's about it.

So, yeah, that's some of the explanation as to why I read my dissertation and it makes me cry. So much time and energy spent for nothing really. OK, that's wrong, I'm being melodramatic and whiny. I learned lots and lots and my committee members did too. Another problem is that mentorship is definitely not a forte of my home institution and my committee members, so I didn't have much help in that respect.

All hope is NOT lost, though, my friends, because there is the internet!!! What I want to do someday is to have a website in which I display my research results. I've also said that before here, so my apologies again for the repetition. But I hope I can find alternate ways to undermine that cruel hold that academia has on knowledge and research. There must be alternate avenues to take knowledge even further than peer-reviewed research can. Sigh.

Do you know what it feels like sometimes? It feels like I'm this puny creature fighting against a huge, complex machine whose processes just got out of hand and outdated, but who still holds power over us. The academic machine. The meat-grinder tenure process. Etc. There are countless pages in the web criticizing it. My husband thinks that the few that I read (mostly personal blogs and some Chronicle articles) have simply poisoned me and made me have a negative view of everything. We cannot talk about this. He feels I am the one making all my problems up. Am I, really? I know I'm whiny and all, and that I haven't tried -- mostly because I don't see how even trying would take me anywhere. So, yeah, maybe I'm really wrong.

In any case, K is lucky to be in a field in which one can still do significant work and be recognized and even apply and get interviews and offers. Because the in the humanities? It's a wild, depressing, world out there. So, yeah... I guess I should just not look at my dissertation anymore.

Why did I even do it? A nice blog reader who teaches Spanish decided to use one of my posts (the one about the census and being or not Hispanic) in a teaching presentation she's going to do for a conference (maybe I should check this conference up!) and she's also using a picture book I wrote about in my dissertation, so I offered to email her the PDF, which she (thankfully) accepted. I hope she enjoys the part about the picture book. It feels great to be able to help someone, particularly through the blog. Now, if they can even be helped by my dissertation, that will be even nicer! Maybe someday it will be useful for something after all.

39. Next Year I'm Throwing a Big Party. Today I just went to DC.

Spending the whole day in and out of museums with my family and coming home to a full inbox with over 70 congratulating messages, either from orkut (Brazilian friends) or from facebook just made my day!

I've always fully enjoyed birthdays, always looking forward to being older and having more and more wonderful experiences in life (I'd always say my new age 4-6 months earlier, yes, even up until a few years ago into my 30s). This year, however, I'm getting a little scared and anxious about "getting old." It's my last year in my 30s, I'm officially no longer a "young adult" -- that's usually until 35. So I've been feeling very despondent about turning 40 next year. I told my mom that we'll probably be in Brazil and that I'll be throwing a HUGE party. Just to make me feel better ;-).

In any case, something that my dear friend Cibele wrote to me in orkut (in Portuguese) made me lots of good today. She wrote,

Congratulations! Simply for being the person that you are... the same loving friend [you've] always been and who continues to grow as a person, woman, mother... so many experiences, no? This is it, don't think about your age, think about the experiences, the learning [moments], that way you'll want more, instead of less!

Thank you my dear friend, that was exactly what I needed to hear today. I can't let the negative experiences of the last three years get to me and bring me down. I'll have a garden, a house and a cat (or more!) someday again. I am immensely happy, married to a wonderful person who's my best friend, someone with whom I share so many interests and two gorgeous sons who love me like crazy. How could I not be happy?

And I did have a wonderful day in D.C. enjoying some of my favorite works of art:
and seeing Julia's kitchen:Did I blog about Julie & Julia yet? No, I didn't have time. The DVD was my Christmas present from K and there's so much to write about it -- particularly the blogging part. Sigh. Someday perhaps, I'll find the time to do it.

I really loved seeing Michelle's dress too (I had no idea it was already there):












All in all, it was a wonderful birthday. On the way back we stopped at an Indian restaurant and the food was great -- although it was soooo spicy the that boys and I had some trouble enjoying it, particularly them. ;-)

And the best part was getting home and reading all the messages. Thank you so much, my friends! Lots of you who know me only through my blog sent me messages on facebook. That was lovely! I wish you could all come to Brazil for my party next year ;-).

Blogger Meet Up with Scrivener!

If there's one thing that I like even better than blogging itself is blogger meet-ups! I was sad that there were so few of them last year (only this and this, both with bloggers I'd either already knew pre-blog or had met in person before), but this summer I'm really ambitious and it looks like this was just the first of three great blogger meet-ups that will happen in the upcoming weeks!

I've been reading Scrivener's blog for years now and lately we've also been in touch via Twitter. Our children are almost the same age (his daughters are one year older than each of my sons) and I had always wanted to meet him. Actually, I wish I could meet all my blogging friends in person! It almost didn't happen because of ours and his upcoming road trips, but then we were able to meet briefly for a few minutes on Sunday.
It was great meeting you and the girls, Scriv, have a great trip and hopefully we'll see you again (if we move down there). Oh, and next time you'll have to play the guitar!

I can't stand the "Peanut Butter" phase anymore!! :-(

If you have boys you know what I'm talking about. It's that annoying phase when they can't even say "peanut butter" without giggling uncontrollably because it has "pee" and "butt" in it. Yeah, that phase (insert deep tired sigh here).

That unbearable phase when all the boys talk about is "farts" and "poop" and "burps," etc. all accompanied boisterous laughing. Sigh. When will this end? Please give me some encouragement!

It started a few years ago in school when Kelvin was still pretty young (6?), but now that Kelvin is older (8), I thought he would be past this stage, but no... it's stronger than ever. Probably because his six year old younger brother laughs so much at everything he says (or they say together).

Oh well. Sometimes it is kind of funny and I even join in the laughter, but I'm really, really tired of saying over and over to them: "Boys, can you stop that already? Everyone poops [great book with this title, BTW] and farts [another book, we own this one], and pees and burps. What's the big deal?!" Then lots of laughter ensues. Every. Single. Time. I guess it's not working, right? I should just keep silent and not participate in their fun.

Well, apparently it is a big deal when one is a boy, so I guess I'll just have to bear it for as long as it lasts, but it's getting old. Sigh.

P.S. Then, when I think about these characters, I just wonder whether men ever outgrow this fascination with physiological functions of the human body! At least some do, I think, so there's hope. ;-)

Brazil is Done Gone from the World Cup :-(

Well, we cannot win every time, right? We're already the country with the most World Cup wins (five). Then, there's the fact that the next World Cup will be in Brazil -- it would be nice to win that one, right?

So, yeah... pretty sad. And I guess it was worse because we were winning during the whole first half of the game. Not only winning, but playing better than the team had done throughout the whole world cup. But then there were errors and Holland's first goal was scored. Things just went downhill from there.

In other news, we've met my mother- and father-in-law and they're exhausted after their 20 days traveling with a group through the U.S. Exhausted is not the right word, but it will have to do for now.

We drove through the place where K will be interviewing. I don't think I can write too much about here and about his possible place of employment. I wish I could. Oh well. As always, feel free to email me about where we are now and where we might be going. I'd be ok to share that by email, particularly if I already know you.

Tomorrow will be a really, really long day. And we'll be around thousands and thousands of people. Sigh. I don't like thousands of people, but... oh well, we'll survive.