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Brazil
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Nov. 27th, 2009 @ 03:46 pm
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Hi, Friendslist! Did you miss me?
*crickets*
...Well, fine, maybe you didn't, but I am back after a semi-disastrous trip to Brazil.
Why semi-disastrous?
I got the worst food poisoning in my life for the last two days of the trip- which lead to me upchucking in the hotel lobby, then slipping in it, and running an temperature of 102- not exactly fun times, particularly when the younger sibling decides this is the perfect time to go into extreme "me" mode. I'm so glad I've already declined to staying after Christmas with her this year.
But for all the ill that happened (quite literally), it was an amazing experience, if only to have such a better understanding of my mother's life and get to connect what she's tried to explain about living in Sao Paulo as a child.
Sadly, I think the end of the trip means it will be a while before we go back- my mother has always been reluctant about returning to Brazil (The last time was in 1981, 7 months before I was born). And my mother was saddened by a lot with what she saw in Sao Paulo- we couldn't even see one of the houses she had lived in (originally, we'd thought it'd been destroyed), due to the walls and barbed wire that now surround it.
Also, after seeing many of the people my mother grew up with, I'm surprised on how relatively normal she turned out- but then again, she didn't stay, as many of the others had- but it does show a bit of where her personality came from.
Anyways, pictures will be forthcoming. I just need to recover first (and get back to Boston). |
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So, I've made it to Sao Paulo...
...and it's everything and nothing like I expected it to be.
For my mother in particular, she's connecting back with people and places she grew up with...and while she's excited to see it, its alos a bit shocking and more than a bit sad for her.
We've managed to see all three houses she lived in here- or at least, their roofs- nowadays, there are walls and electric wire around all the houses.
My mother has always had a hard time explaining her childhood to me and my sister, and seeing now, pieces are falling to place on how different her life was here, within an enclave of expats and their children. But for every familiar face, there's a good and a bad story, and I can understand a bit why mother was originally so reluctant to return.
But I think she is glad she came back, and now a bit sad she didn't take us sooner.
...My father, of course, has managed to get a cold.
Friends are taking me bar hopping in hour. Pray for me.
Pictures to come later. Twitterberry doesn't seem to work here.
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So, as some of you know, I will be going to Brazil this Friday- Specifically, Sao Paulo and Rio, for the week of thanksgiving. After 27 years, my sister and I convinced mother to go back to her childhood home.
Now, I'm starting to freak out a little bit. MEEEEEEEEEEEEP. I speak so little Portuguese, and I stick out like a sore thumb everywhere except England and New England (badumswish)... and then there are the blackouts...
We're still trying to figure out what to see and what to do, and Wiki is being babysat by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) snapesgirl34, but it now seems so surreal.
Anybody want to save the podcasts for Countdown and TRMS for me? XD
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idea totally ganked from sarken, but you know what? Apparently not enough people, particularly in Maine, got the message last November.
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Happy Halloween, everyone!
Pictured: chibiKeith, chibiRachel, chibiDoctor, chibiMaster, chibiIanto, chibiJack, chibiDonna, chibiRose.
Can you guess their costumes?
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| » The perils of working in a Natural History Museum with bored grad students... |
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So, at the museum I work at, we recently renovated our Great Mammal Hall, displaying a wonderful set of animals for all to see.
Apparently, this seems to tickled someone's inner prankster. Within a day of the exhibit reopening to the public, someone (we suspect a grad student) picked the Lagomorph's case lock and inserted a Jackalope, completely with a information placard identical to the others in the case. (I didn't find out until after it was removed, but a volunteer has offered to send me photos).
This week, the prankster struck again.
I walk into the gallery, and look over to the lagomorph case, and notice something strange:
Yup, there's something definitely not quite right here...
Someone had stuck a plastic dinosaur with bunny ears in the case.
We are giggling about this, but we really hope this is the end of the pranks- while they seem able to pick the lock open, they can't relock the case door, so you can open it. This is a hazard for both the museum and the visitors- the glass in these cases is 50+ years old, and if the door bangs, the glass can shatter and hurt someone.
But yes, I'm still laughing. The jackalope was a lot better done, but this is still cute.
And no, I didn't remove it. It will probably be removed by tonight or the end of the weekend.
Oct. 23rd, 2009 @ 03:34 pm
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| » It's a bad start of a week. |
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Checking the mailbox today after a rather nasty day, I found a nice hand-addressed envelope from Jacksonville, FL. Opening it, I first thought it was a wedding invitation. It wasn't.
It was an invitation to the funeral of my godmother.
I didn't know she had died, and was confused and shocked. I called my mother, who is currently in London, and she was just as confused as I- we had heard nothing until this.
I didn't know her very well at all- I had met her twice when I was very young, and then her husband had taken very ill and they moved to Jacksonville, when we moved back to the East Coast.
She died on September 1st, but how, I don't know.
It's sad, in a muffled way. I'm not sure entirely part of my sadness isn't realizing how much I'm not a child anymore.
Sep. 28th, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
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| » *grumblegrumblepehpeh* |
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Oh yeah. Art blog updated. A little bit Who, a little original, a little MSNBC. Finding out the hard way that purple non-photo pencils? UTTER JOKE.
Not much else to say, other than this has been a day that took my good deeds and smacked me upside the head with them:
Wore sensible shoes- they gave me blisters.
Got the flu shot- felt rather ill 4 hours later.
Voted in the primaries for Sam Yoon- he came in third.
Sep. 23rd, 2009 @ 01:38 am
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| » Fark this shite.... |
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....And another comm is going down the path of tennant_love. Wonderful. I was considering leaving, but it is the only comm dedicated to the subject. Except now...notsomuch.
:/ Thank goodness the artblog exists, so the drawings can keep to where they are.
Bleh. I have been forced to be the bitch so much lately. My fluffy-side is crying out.
Sep. 19th, 2009 @ 02:45 pm
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| » Things are...quiet. |
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Wow, I guess I've been....well, quiet. The cold's almost completely gone, though I'm still feeling the effects of the sinus pressure with a lovely ache in the top of my skull.
But other than that... I don't really have anything interesting to say. I always feel bad writing idiotic little posts with my brainfarts trapped in them, forcing you to smell them as they stink up your friendlist.
But except for work becoming increasingly busy again with the start of the new school year, and the coworker who quit in August now working for the museum connected to us (ouch, but good for him I guess), nothing much is going on- everything exciting in my life isn't that exciting or is happening in the future- I will finally be going to the city of my mother's childhood, San Paulo, for Thankgiving.
Online, things have gotten a bit weird. I briefly met a man who had been my father's classmate in college, and someone my parents had a bit of strained relationship (he had briefly separated from his wife and dated one my parents' good friends...only to go back to his wife behind her back). He was then the chief investor for my cousin's company, and saw him briefly in the hall when I went to visit. A few days ago, he shot himself.
But I didn't find out about if from my parents; I found out about from a news community, posted by someone who was convinced it wasn't a suicide, but a murder committed for my cousin's benefit. What. The. Hell. While I am not close to either men, I got really personally offended by the idea. Sure, my cousins have been attacked in the past, and called everything from Nazis to Communists more recently, dealing with a whackjob up front was... off putting.
I told the guy off, nothing came of it, but its still a weird thing in my mind. Six degrees of separation, I guess.
Sorry for the brainfart.
Sep. 19th, 2009 @ 02:15 pm
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| » *cough*HACK*wheeze* |
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I am sick. Sick sick sickity sick sick. So sick that yesterday the comments I recieved suggested I was possibly death warmed over, or my coughs belongs to consumptive or tuberculosis patient. They sent me home.
Today the only marked improvement seems to be that the cold has moved out of my throat and into my nasal cavities. This simply means that I can swallow again, but my coughs still suggest the loss of a lung is imminent and my nose seems to enjoy coming up with new and interesting colors. Thankfully the pressure on my ears has dissipated somewhat.
So I haven't drawn in the last few days and my coherence has slipped into a level of incomprehensibility even beyond my normal silliness.
Perhaps I should attempt to write fic.
So, yeah, sorry for being rudely silent- I'm going back to bed.
Sep. 15th, 2009 @ 04:23 pm
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| » Yeah, I'm procrastinating. Shut it. |
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Because some things are just too silly to be ignored, someone snuck onto my computer and created his own twitter account:
http://www.twitter.com/chibidoc
He even managed to use the webcam to take a shot of himself in the act. THE CHEEK.
And yes, it's just as incomprehensible as you might suspect.
  
Sep. 7th, 2009 @ 03:44 am
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| » (No Subject) |
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Apparently, my computer/Vista has decided that it needs to crash every time a USB device is unplugged. Even when I hit the 'eject ipod' icon in iTunes.
What. The. Fark.
Two days of this, and I haven't figured out why, partially because Mum came to visit and doing anything while she's there is a bit like jousting naked and blindfolded. *HARUMPH*.
EDIT: Microsoft released a new update to fix the problem. :D:D:D
   
Sep. 2nd, 2009 @ 10:17 am
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| » BEWARES DINOS! |
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I now have a 45# 58" strung bow.
I can't draw it yet. OWWWWW.
Oopsie?
Also, MSNBC meets Mythbusters miggggggght have happened here.
Aug. 28th, 2009 @ 07:18 pm
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| » My mother was not expecting me to say I was in the back of a patrol car when she called |
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Well, THAT was an interesting afternoon!
Long story short, while running errands with my roommate this afternoon, an elderly man hit our car right in the left wheelwell. Everyone's fine, but the car had to be towed. The police officer nicely offered us a ride home- I never thought I'd ever ride in the back of a patrol car!
Have to file an accident report on Monday, but it could have been a lot worse.
Still, I'm a little frazzled. I think I'm going to sit my feet in the kiddie pool and read smut for a while.
Edit: I was so shaken up at the time I didn't notice, but the man didn't even have a driver's license on him- he gave me his EBT card. His son hassled the security firm that was on scene for my phone number, because the man (who doesn't speak English) apparently "didn't write my information down" (I watched him do so!) and asked them what had happened. He then must have done 411, and called my home phone. I didn't pick up, because I'm still shaken and didn't pick up.
This just gets worse and worse.
Aug. 21st, 2009 @ 05:31 pm
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| » X_X |
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I have absolutely nothing of interest to say. Really. This has quite possibly been the most boring week of my life.
The only thing interesting me at the moment if figuring out food for the BBQ on Saturday, specifically being able to make this: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Grilled-Corn-with-Herbs-1222188
EDIT: Just found out my office used to be Timothy Leary's. Yes, THAT Timothy Leary. Suddenly my department's behavior is explained...
Also, please click. They are dying.
 
Aug. 20th, 2009 @ 11:57 am
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| » Funk |
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three days later, and I still can't figure out what to say about anything. It seems my wit has left me, leaving me to die, cold and alone, in this forgotten space.
Aug. 12th, 2009 @ 10:08 am
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| » I *GASP* return! |
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I return!
Sorry for being a bad friend, but as mentioned before, I was in Yuppie Hell. When I did manage to wander over to the library on-island for access, LJ had blocked that IP range to help stave off the DDoS attack. (Also, I think I solved the reason why a certain news channel was missing (literally- it's listed in the Harbor's cable list, but the channel was OFF)...As we're prepping to cast off, Mum looks up to the dock and pokes me in the rib. "That's Greta Van Sustren, isn't it?" It was. She was in for race week on a rented 90 foot yacht.)
So I'm sorry if I missed anything vastly important- I didn't do it on purpose. Also, I'm still recovering from cracking my head on the cabin hatch, and the headache is annoying. So if I tune out randomly, it's not you.
But I'm still looking for a name for my new, 500 gig, 17" Blue-Grey Dell Studio lappytoppity. The last three laptops I had were Behemoth, NROAD, and NSA. Names that have been entertained so far:
Gargantua
Colossus
The MSM
Gojira
Big Bertha
Aug. 9th, 2009 @ 08:07 pm
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| » AAAAA |
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Stuck in Yuppie Hell.
No proper cable- (They have, I kid you not, Fox News and CNN. That's IT)
No internet, save for one internet cafe and spotty wifi that has a speed equal to a 28.8k modem.
Father keeps bringing up Obama's sealed records, and I swear gets some of his talking points from Rush Limbaugh.
*whimper*
Why, why, why did I let myself get guilt tripped into spending my vacation like this?
Aug. 6th, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
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| » :p |
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Because I'm an insomniac on vacation, the sketchblog has updated with a page of doodles, including chibiDoc, Olbermann and chibiRachel, and hats.
http://jesidres.dreamwidth.org/2197.html
Aug. 5th, 2009 @ 03:01 am
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