My heart, body, mind and soul suddenly took shape. Exactly. Perfectly. Completely.

Snow Patrol: Set The Fire To The Third Bar

I find the map and draw a straight line

Over rivers, farms, and state lines
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be
It's only finger-lengths that I see
I touch the place where I'd find your face
My fingers in creases of distant dark places

I hang my coat up in the first bar
There is no peace that I've found so far
The laughter penetrates my silence
As drunken men find flaws in science

Their words mostly noises
Ghosts with just voices
Your words in my memory
Are like music to me

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
I, I pray that something picks me up
And sets me down in your warm arms

After I have travelled so far
We'd set the fire to the third bar
We'd share each other like an island
Until exhausted, close our eyelids
And dreaming, pick up from
The last place we left off
Your soft skin is weeping
A joy you can't keep in

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
And I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

I'm miles from where you are,
I lay down on the cold ground
and I, I pray that something picks me up
and sets me down in your warm arms

Today, no iTune and no photo because all i wanna do is

Watch:

1. Adam
2. Taking Woodstock
3. The white ribbon

Under the blanket. With Him (and HisMine sheep), with chocolate, crisps and tea nearby.

Congela-se?

Tal e qual como a água na foto aqui em baixo.

Nem mais um milímetro.
Nem mais um segundo.

No fundo, no fundo, quero simplesmente uma vida paralela neste momento: Que me leve a velocidade anos luz até lá e, ao mesmo tempo, que se me pare o tempo.

Estou tão cansada :(

Today, the photo is (revisited):

Greece, August 2007.

Today, my iTune is:

The Prodigy: Smack My Bitch Up

Saudades nr *&%$£%^7*8(

Dardos, London, November 2009.

Baggage

I think i was around 11 or 12. My dad still had his renault 12. I was inside the car with my brother waiting for my mum and dad to bring the last few bags from inside my grandmother's house. It must have been around July because the grass was all yellow and the wood was all outside, not inside the room in the roof.

I was holding this plastic key ring thing that doubled up as an address book. I think a neighbour friend of my mum gave it to me. It wasn't that amazing and it surely wasn't that practical, i mean, why would i need an address book at that age? But it was a present.

You see, i didn't get many of those.

I was holding it and when i shut the car door the address book got stuck. I don't remember crying then but i remember that my heart skipped a beat. I opened the door carefully with fear and there it was. My present was in one piece but seriously bent over. I remained silent the whole way back home - all 350km of it.

Throughout the years it has been hard to throw away stuff. Things acquire special meanings that range from thoughts, smells, visuals to invented stories of 'i wish it would have been'. It had always been a hard and bitter battle to manage to have stuff so how could i ever throw it away?

About 10 years ago, someone hurt me like i [then] never thought someone could. I was young and simple minded. Closed minded, if i am entirely honest, but i cut that person out of my life nonetheless. Literally cut it. I threw it away because something had broke inside me. It also broke the news that life does not have to be this bottomless well that hoards itself and all that comes with it.

Then little by little, things were left behind at every step of the way. I like to believe i am more open minded now so the stuff i cut away has less to do with disappointments and more to do with its potential rightful place in my life, be it a positive or a negative one.

However, i still hold on to too many things, of matter and of thought. Much of that 11/12 year old is still here although it's not fear that i feel at the moment when i stare into the piles of gathered pieces of life in front of me. I can't part with so many things but i don't want to take everything with me because i am tired. At this point in time i don't know what is worst - if the fact that i still have massive issues with leaving things behind or the fact i want to leave things behind because i am tired. Tired of carrying added emotional weight through different countries, houses, lives.

No, it's not fear. I now know that the love others can have for you is never measured by what they give you in the absence of showing it in any other way. I always knew that i loved way more than i could ever give but then again, i've always showed it 10 fold, in part, sadly but truthfully, because that's what i so wanted to get in return - simple unassuming love.

Bags and bags in front of me. And i've loved them all, some more, some less. But do they all have a rightful place in my life now?

Today, the photos are:

His view. A very soon-to-be our view.
Early morning, Singapore, November 2009. Taken by Him.

Today, my iTune is:

Aerosmith: Crazy

Scenes of everyday life

Your day, November, 2009.
0.1167/ 51.5000 vs. 103.8558/ 1.2931
Kilometers: 10847.05
Happiness taken from magazines on the one hand and chewing gum on the other hand (our RO friends rock!). It would be so much better if they were both happening in the same room, surrounded by the same air, touch distance.

Today, my iTune is:

Guns N' Roses: Patience

So fitting, today more than any other day.

Xmas wishlist nr2

Yes, please!

As cores mudaram

O Inverno chegou. E já chega.

*Sighs*

And *sighs* some more.

P.s. Where was i, my mind, all these years that i didn't know about the Common Language Project?

Knowledge, the 2nd round

This is a great documentary about some of the people who won University Challenge. It's a great insight into these people's lives then and now, and their minds. I'm fascinated by it all (and trying very hard not to look at it from a clinical point of you, btw!)!

I confess

Do you know what i have a problem with?

• With people who are not hungry for knowledge
• With students who chat with their friends in class about irrelevant stuff thus disturbing the flow of it/ everyone else (but mostly me!), without even showing the slightest embarrassment for doing so. Where's the bloody respect gone?! (nevermind that i am a control freak!)
  
• With uni students who are not (or, worst, who do not try to be) mature enough to talk about controversial subjects without taking things personally or being too damn politically correct to even have an opinion, let alone share one
• With people who do not give the benefit of the doubt
  
• With people who are not inquisitive
  
• With people who don't enjoy having their brains picked or pick someone else's
• With people who don't engage in stimulating conversations
• With people who are not happy to learn with and from others
  

Oh, and i have a problem with people who don't read books. A real, big problem and to hell with the perception of intolerance in this particular case (or the perception of intellectual snobbism in the text above). There, said it.

And don't ask.

Today, the photo is:

Istanbul, March 2009.

Today, my iTune is:

Megadeth: Symphony of Destruction

Olha, que estranho...

E não é que vamos à África do Sul?

Today, the photo is:

Essaouira, Morocco, May 2009.

Today, my iTune is:

Beck: Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometimes

To celebrate 'live and learn' (and this great film).

Xmas wishlist!

Please, please, please!

The bag, that is :)

Para mim, uma das verdades mais dolorosas de sempre e com consequências desastrosas

Muitas vezes os outros só têm a importância que nós lhes damos. Enquanto os conhecemos mal - ou não os conhecemos de todo - permitimo-nos com eles todo o tipo de excessos ou de cerimónias: afinal, somos nós que os construímos.

(...)

A não ser quando a nossa criação se humaniza, ao se tornar risível, gozável, ao apalhaçar-se involuntariamente perante nós. De repente, surge um ligeiro desprezo a permear a obsessão e há uma dúvida que se instala - e que sucede à certeza vibrante que até então nos minou por dentro. Que isso nos mate a sede e nos cure da doença, não sei, mas ameniza em muito os sintomas

Para ler e contemplar.

Today, the photo is:

Prague, August 2009.

Today, my iTune is (revisited):

Snow Patrol: Chasing Cars

Eu disse que acordei às 2, não disse?! :)

Quem é que já usou estes truques e confirma que são um sucesso?


Banana
For a brilliant deep conditioning treatment liquidize a banana, add some wheatgerm oil, and a few drops of aromatherapy oil (to counteract the banana smell) spread through middle to end of hair lengths and leave for a while. Wash and condition hair as normal after, and Voila! silky soft tresses.

Asprin
Problem with dandruff? Dissolve some Aspirin in a dandruff shampoo and the problem will clear up fast.

Beers How!
When washing your hair with beer, what you need to do is mix up one part beer and three parts water and pour over your hair for the final rinse and you'll be left with super-shiny hair.

Amayonaising!!
Put real mayonnaise, not miracle whip, on your hair over night with a plastic cap. This promotes stronger strands and growth.


Olive Oil,Jojoba & Honey
mix 1/4 cup olive oil,1/4 cup almond oil,1 tablespoon of jojoba oil and 1 tablespoon of honey on your hair rinse with warm water. BAM! prettiest hair you have ever seen!! Do not put more than one teablespoon of honey - you will come out with sticky hair.


Daqui.

O meu cabelo está uma miséria e eu já não sei o que lhe faça :(

*X factor warning*

Is it just me not really getting Joe McElderry? Everyone keeps on saying he has a fantastic voice but i just don't like it at all, mainly due to all the vibration he puts in it all the time. I know he can sing but his voice?... blarrrghhhhh! I compare his version of Somebody to love to Ben Mills' version and, in my book, there is just no comparison possible!

And because i had nothing better to do since i woke up at 2am, i had a look at some of the past performances this year. Tracy's version of The Scientist brings tears to my eyes, really. Of course i might be completely biased here because this song is one of my all time favourites. I think i would probably cry everytime independently of who sang it because it just means the absolute whole world to me but... i still think it's an amazing version. I just find it absolutely unbelievable that there are people like her out there who needed this programme to be known!

Today, the photo is@

Singapore, September 2009.

Today, my iTune is:

Queen: Who Wants To Live Forever

Just remembered how great, indeed superb, this song is. It will also always remind me of my English Teacher in highschool crying in class when she found out that he had died. I guess she knew she would love him forever :(

Today, the photo is (revisited, me thinks):

Desert, Morocco, May 2009.

Today, my iTune is:

Radiohead: Just

She becomes an adult when she becomes a perfume slut

I'm no longer a one perfume only woman. These all came with me from the duty free shop :)

The random 3 (should be more like a zillion btw)

1. The extreme in Singapore: Mall workers who stay outside in the rain handing over umbrellas so that shoppers can cross the streets from one mall to another. Stupid tourist as i am (as this is still my status quo over there) i told him that i didn't want to buy an umbrella when he handed me one. He gave me a long and confused look as if i was from another planet and just pointed to the guy receiving the umbrellas on the other side of the street, adding "Mam, you don't have to pay for it. It's free". Am i the only one thinking this is, ever so slightly, over the top?
2. I spent 12 hrs in a plane sitting next to a guy from Nigeria who snored the life out of everyone within a mile radius, i.e. every single living soul in that plane. I tried huffing, puffing and tapping him on the shoulder but it didn't work. It didn't help that he didn't wake up at all either which meant i almost peed on my pants as well.
3. I woke up at 1am today. Charming. I will now and get over myself for (still) thinking jetlag had nothing to do with me.
   

Today, the photo is (revisited):

*Guess*

*Place*, *date*.

Lonely Planet magazine just sent me an email to say "we would love to publish your photo of *guess* (attached) in the Postcards section of our January 2010 issue"!

It's something little, i know, but i am sooooooo chuffed!

Today, my iTune is (revisited):

Blind Melon - Soul one

You're joking nr 87^$%6776%4

I forgot to put the bloody kaya jar in the luggage and the sun is shinning. After it pissed down almost every single day!

Me: I hate goodbyes.

Chocante

Isto ja nao e noticia, tenho a certeza, mas so agora e que vi o video do que aconteceu numa universidade no Brasil.

Quem e que expulsa uma aluna por um comportamento animal em massa perpetrado pelos colegas? Alguem animal, so pode ser :(

Eu levava a universidade a tribunal. Se bem que o advogado da universidade em questao disse qualquer coisa do genero como "ela gosta de provocar os homens. O problema nao sao as roupas mas a forma como ela actua, fala, cruza as pernas e anda". Se este idiota e um representante da justica no Brasil (o que nao e nem pode ser, como e obvio! espero...) entao ela, e todas as mulheres, estao lixadas. Lixadinhas de todo.

Happiness is nr 767%%&*&7%^444

1. Kaya toast (i bought a jar to take back to London so some of you finally understand what i am talking about!) and ice blended coffee (which doesn't drive the few braincells i have left to exhaustion)
2. I'm typing from the coffee place next to the husband's work. Just waiting for him to finish so we can try this 'all you can eat' sushi place
3. I met a fellow SLT, friend of a very good SLT friend. Degrees of separation work wonders and are one of the main reasons why i am so happy to be a globetrotter :)
   
4. I found a job! Working with a wider age range (0 to high school age) from language, to oro-motor and complex needs. Me: Very, very happy indeed!
5. Oh! And i bought gorgeous black leather shoes from Guess for the BIL's wedding :) I can't wait to pair them with the fabulous BCBG Max Azria dress Xuxi has bought me (THANK YOU!!!)!

Today, the photo is:

Malacca, Malaysia, November 2009.

Today, my iTune is:

Levellers: What a beautiful day