je suis...bizarre

Don't get lost

2012-01-29T08:51:00.000-08:00

I have just become addicted to this app that enables the GPS in your phone to track your running route.

----Mood: happy runner

Inventing a crime...

2012-01-25T09:08:00.000-08:00

when you can't punish criminals for what they have actually done is nothing new. Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion, when his crimes were smuggling, murdering, racketeering... well, no one created a new crime (of tax evasion) just to frame Al Capone. The crime was already there and the justice system in US just made use of what it could to get the man.

But i have just realized how countries can just invent crimes to try and catch people that escape the usual offences considered under the law. And it is actually a good thing that you can do such maneuvers -- otherwise, criminals just escape unpunished.

This is what has been created (not today, a few years ago, but still) by an international convention that establishes that any public official who lives beyond his or her means may be called to the courts to explain the origins of his or her life style. (If you can't prove the guy is a thief, make him prove his multi-millon dollar house was paid with legitimate money, out of his 5000 USD/month salary).It is a great improvement -- though i am sure dodgy politicians will find a way around it. And authoritarian states will just use it against targeted people (the opposition or anyone who speaks up).

----

Mood: proud that the Economist's journalist picked up the stuff i have been working on.Today, i am going to read the Economist with gusto.

Funny little thing called work

2012-01-24T12:46:00.000-08:00

It is a detested place for most people. At best, I can manage to enjoy the first few years at it. But i wonder if it is the same for most people: i start getting itchy after a period (4 years is my deadline) and this itchness makes me want to escape as fast as I can from what i am doing.---- Funny how people's blogs are a reflection of the moment in life people are. I am not talking about the content. I am talking about the attention the blog gets. Broke up with your partner? Blog gets lots of attention. Start a new romance? Blog gets little attention. Feels depressed? Blog gets lot of attention. Got pregnant? Blog gets almost no attention. Baby born? Blog gets zero attention.I am in the "lots of attention" moment with G in Paris and lots of time on my own in the flat.------Mood: sliding out

Lack of news? Or missing an interesting life?

2012-01-20T03:03:00.000-08:00

Gosh, what is missing in Brazilian journalism for news shows and news websites spend time and space reporting on a girl who traveled to Canada? Tons of people travel around the world everywhere and they are not news, except for the fact that they are travelers' stats or when some major catastrophe falls upon them.And this Big Brother discussion about a possible rape. Is it a rape? Get the police to investigate and punish the culprits. Lots of people get raped everyday in Brazil and it does not make it to the news (well, maybe it makes it to the police section).----Mood: glad not to be a journalist these days

How to write non-fiction...

2012-01-17T13:12:00.001-08:00

Nem sei como comecar. Mas tenho 25 dias para entregar um esboco, bem acabado, desse relatorio. Estou perdida.Alem de solitaria e morta de saudades do G, me sinto que nem cachorro em dia de mudanca no meio dos livros e dos relatorios. Tenho que escrever umas 10 000 palavras a partir do emaranhado de ideias da minha cabeca. E, depois, tenho que fazer as referencias e dar os creditos...Tudo isso after working hours.--------De jornalista, passei a fonte. Da The Economist.--------Mood: queria estar com o G

Returning...

2012-01-16T09:29:00.000-08:00

home is always supposed to bring good feelings. Our bed is usually softer, our food usually tastes better, our friends are there.But what when you do not feel at home at the place you call home any longer? Or when nowhere feels like home or several places fit into the softer bed+better food+more friends criteria?No wonder some animals carry their houses on their backs. Life is too temporary to guarantee long term residency anywhere, so you'd rather uproot your long term residency and carry it with you wherever you go. Your deepest feelings should only be attached to things you can carry with you (like memory souvenirs, not physical souvenirs).One of the people I befriended in one of the places I once called home has an interesting life motto: 'Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.' I don't know if this is her authorship or someone else's, but it is a difficult objective to aim for in life. How do you let go of people you "own" (by owning, i mean love?).Traveling back home has never felt so strange or bad as it is feeling today.------Mood: sad

Damned if you do and if you don't

2012-01-12T07:21:00.001-08:00

Cities are like people. The way they look is the result of what they have lived through.

The other day, i watched a video about the population of a neighborhood in Sao Paulo dissatisfied -- legitimately -- with urban planning that suggests old decrepit buildings will be put down. And nothing that will replace them envisages keeping the people that inhabit these old decrepit buildings. Real state developers want to bring in people with money. And people with money do not like people without money (see 2011's discussion about not opening a metro station in a neighborhood of rich people in the same SP because it would attract gente diferenciada -- it is not possible to translate the subliminar prejudice this expression entails in Portuguese).

Then, on my way to a meeting this morning, i walked by posters advertising an exhibition at the Cite Chaillot in Paris. Since i had the day alone as G. is in Tours, i decided to head off to Trocadero after my meeting in a weird looking neighborhood of Paris (that reminded me of those sterile buildings in Ave Nacoes Unidas in Sao Paulo).

So, there i go and enjoy a nice afternoon learning about Paris' old mansions (aka Hôtel particulier in french). These were a bunch of beautiful city estates, that started to appear in Paris in the late Middle Ages (with the Hôtel de Cluny) and survived changes in architecture style and usage through history, until being built as fashionable urban dwellings for the rich bourgeoisie of the early 20th century.

A feeling throughout the exhibition is that people regret what happened to these mansions. They were destroyed by the opening of Haussmann avenues, by the need to use these mansions' garden space for building more residences, by real estate development that allowed Paris to become the densely populated city it is today...

But a city is what it has lived through. I couldn't complain more about the old unrenovated noisy apartments that people pay astronomic sums to rent in Paris today. G. is a victim of the lack of space, in a small city where everybody wants to live within the limits of the periferique. But these density is what allows people like G. live here. And poor people live here. If Paris had been a city of mansions and spacious gardens, for the private pleasure of their rich owners or for the enjoyment of the population in the form of museums...where would the Gs of Paris live? And where would the poorer versions of Gs live?

Understandable as it is that architects would love to see the cities as they were originally, what was the original city here? The one where the Hôtel de Cluny was surrounded by wooden shacks in the Middle Ages or the different one from the Belle Epoque?

I don't know how to prevent a city from changing. What we think is destroying a city may one day be understood as the "oh, the historical architectural legacy of that time"....
----
Mood: architect and because this damn blogger tool is not working properly, the link to the exhibition is http://www.citechaillot.fr/exposition/expositions_temporaires.php?id=180

Why can't I have something interesting to post?

2012-01-11T13:14:00.000-08:00

...

All i always post about is my life. I used to be more interesting before i got too entangled in the nitty gritty of my life.

Why can't i have a fashion blog or a political blog?

Why can't i write about how to be trendy and have style like this lady or how complex is the political situation after the elections in DRC like this other lady? (Maybe because I don't like shopping and I have not taken a PhD in political science in Africa?).

------
Mood: I wish i had more interesting things to say

Tired of not belonging?

2012-01-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

Have an impression that this is a common dejà vu feeling. Every time i leave Brazil, i ask if i made the right choice. I miss the sunny and warm January afternoons in Sao Paulo, miss the cosmopolitan side of living there, miss my friends and the type of social life we leave in a city such as SP...then i remember the negative side: the fear of violence and the bars and security cameras, the ridiculous prices for everything from a bottle of mineral water to parking your car, the traffic jams, the pollution, the lack of respect for the rule of law everywhere and by everyone.

...and then i conclude there is no perfect place and i will always miss something about one place or another where i have lived.
----
Mood: I wonder if i will enjoy life in Paris

You know it is winter...

2011-12-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

when you wake up at 10.30 and it looks like 17.00.
Don't know how norwegians can go through life like this. Oh, well, i know. they are born here and don't know better.
This makes me feel lazy, slow, sleepy, lacking in energy, dragging myself in my pj's the whole day. Being alone in the flat only makes it worse.
...then by accident i bumped into someone's photos of people racing through Sao Paulo for a cover race of the Sao Silvestre and missed it badly. Missed waking up on a sunny early morning, regardless of the pollution, and heading off to the height of my week. My long runs with my running club in SP. I wonder if i will ever had that good feeling of bonding with my running mates, the fun stretches after a run, the huge brunch afterwards. I do miss a more socially active running life.

Only 2 days until G arrives. These will feel like the 2 longest days in the week.

My book of positive things had zero today. There is nothing to be positive about staying home, watching downloaded TV series alone, dreading the grey and the rain outside. Then G reminded me about a tiny bit of professional success I should be proud of and that made it as my daily positive thing (i love you, so much!)

------
Mood: love

Why i can't do this and a few other things?

2011-12-09T15:01:00.001-08:00

I tried to tell the truth to O. today. But i did not manage to. I don't quite understand why. It is not that i would hurt him or that i owed to him not to lie. Everybody has the right to privacy.

Go figure why i have these feelings i owe total open book policies on my life to my friends.

Telling that G is not living here anymore would only be positive. I would not have to lie or find excuses anymore. But i felt embarassed of having been lying lately and telling the true would amount to acknowledging i have been lying.

-----
Mood: quite self-analytical

Weird

2011-12-09T02:28:00.001-08:00

Can someone get horny reading a peer review document?
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Mood: ridiculous

My book of positive things...

2011-12-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

...is becoming real. I have this one friend, a psychologist, who convinced me that i need to write an "everyday book of positive things". That i am a person who is afraid of failure and disappointment, so i just prepare myself for the worst always, focusing on the possible bad outcome in every possible occasion, not to get surprised by bad outcomes.

She thinks this is a useful strategy for someone who is afraid of getting hurt, cause you anticipate problems so you don't expect too much. But being cut to look at only one of the different angles of life -- the realist one with strong negative inclinations -- I don't see all other life's angles( while some bubbly people can only see the positive one).

This ends up suppressing my capacity of seeing anything good out of even the good things that happen to me (such as me focusing on the fact that when G is with me, and not in Paris, he is just for a couple of days. I focus on that "soon i will suffer again due to being separated from him". So i never really enjoy the days he is here with me).

So she asked me to start a little notebook on which i write something positive that has happened to me, on a daily basis. I had a bit of a difficulty to find some positive things to note down on the random average day. But now i am getting into it and find myself living through small moments in my day that i think can fit in my little book:

- yesterday, i was walking back home sliding on snow. I hate frozen snow because i am not made out of Norwegian material, so i fall over and hurt myself. So i generally do not like it when it snows. But then, close to home, i saw this totally white dog on a totally white sidewalk (covered with centimeters and centimeters of snow). That generated an spontaneous smile and it made it into my black book.

- the other day I woke up and found an SMS waiting for me, on my cell. It was G telling me he loved me (the message had probably been there since the previous night and i had not seen it). I had not even washed my face or brushed my teeth, but it made it into my black book.

So now i realize i am paying attention to small positive things and they do happen, on an everyday basis. I just need to look at them.
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Mood: only 6 days until G is back

The little book of positive things

2011-12-03T06:49:00.000-08:00

15 min running. No pain in my knee.
Happy again after more than 2 months.
------------
Mood: trying to look at the bright side of things

On the other side of the Atlantic...

2011-11-27T04:28:00.000-08:00

The Atlantic is a website and magazine i had never heard of in my life. But the other day, i got to read this very interesting article, though super long, about relationships that a friend had re-posted, published by The Atlantic.

It ended up opening my eyes for two things: i) that i matured a tiny bit faster than the woman who wrote the article (what i realized when i was 34, she found out at the age of 39) and ii) that i want to buy one issue of the magazine to test it out. Maybe it is not only Vanity Fair that attracts me in the US magazine editorial world. If it only had the same amazing photographs...

-------
Mood: still speechless

Speech therapy

2011-11-25T10:09:00.000-08:00

If yesterday I had lost my voice, today I made efforts to find it.
Every recipe, from Peru to Iceland, got my preference:
- Celery tea, with salt, for gargling;
- The providential lime tea, with honey;
- Boiled ginger with some weird cactus syrup;
- Vegetable soup with hot mexican pepper.

Let's see if i have a stomach tomorrow and if i find my voice again.
--------------

Have to admit, i love watching Gossip Girl because those girls are as stylish as I will never be. I would have loved to dress silly looking clothes like Serena and feel self confident. Or, better, i would have loved to wear a hat and not feel stupid. In any case, what i don't have is a personal style. For years, actually I've been thinking whether investing on one of these personal stylists would not help me boost my total lack of self confidence.

But this posting is not only about how trendy Gossip Girl is. It is also about how absolutely stupidly ridiculous the plot of every episode is. OMG, how is it possible that, in one single day, with just 24h, you can have 6 people with ages ranging from supposedly 25 to above 60 (as one is a grandfather) all scheming some silly teenager plan on one another? Or how people bump at random strangers on the streets of NY and start ridiculous conversations and that stupid stranger is the ex-boyfriend of your fake cousin? How ludicrous is that?
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Mood: Surreal land

Speechless

2011-11-24T13:24:00.000-08:00

Today, i am literally speechless.
I lost my voice in my 3rd stage of "coldfulness".
--------
Mood: i am so glad we don't have thanks giving. But i could use the day off.

Joke of the day

2011-11-19T02:56:00.000-08:00

"A physicit, a chemist and an economist are shipwrecked on a desert island. Starving they find a can of food and organize a symposiun to discuss on how to open cans. The physicist suggest "We find a pointy rock and propel it at the lid of the can at 25m per second." The chemist says "No, we heat the content to over 100 degrees centigrades until the pressure builds up to explosion." The economist, condescecion dripping from his voice,interrupts: "Gentlemen, I have a much more elegant solution. Assume we have a can opener...""
-----------
Mood: couldn't be more true

RIP

2011-11-18T01:11:00.000-08:00

Today i lost a good friend. The only umbrella which survived for more than a few months in windy rainy Bergen.

My good friend passed away this morning, on my way to work. After 2,5 years, she finally gave in to a very windy road at the city centre.

Her epitaph should say "Here lies the one that never let Alex down, until the end".

----
Mood: anxious on whether my next umbrella will survive more than 2 months

Doomed

2011-11-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

It feels doomed to live in Europe these days. At least for those who watch BBC World Service. Countries that were among the richest in the world cannot pay their debts, countries that reduced the hours of their working weeks 10 years ago (believing that free time would make their work force more creative) are facing unemployment rates never experienced before, laid back Europeans at the Mediterranean are not so laid back anymore...Has the end of the world arrived to Europeans?
------
It is in moments like these that I really bang my head against the wall for not ever having studied economics in my life. I had 3 chances and i did not take any of them.
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Mood: tired of so many financial crisis in so few years

Nema problema

2011-11-01T15:37:00.001-07:00

I am in the Balkans again. I love this part of the world and it has succeeded in not disappointing me, like Russia, so far. Not that it is not a problematic part of the world -- on the contrary. But i find it charming in an old style type of way (as if attitudes and behaviours here were still attached to some old life style that we do not have in the rest of europe anymore).

That is for the good and for the bad, however. Damaging old traits (such as dodgy networks feeding into clientelistic practices) are still very much the case

In any case, i really like being here. The only missing element is G.
------

The area of work that I got entangled with in the past 2,5 years is paying the efforts I invested in it -- at least in terms of putting me in high demand. But i still feel i am just a walking fraud.
------
Mood: dobradan

Middle East

2011-10-20T13:28:00.001-07:00

If all painful movies were that fun, i would tell G that there is nothing wrong with painful movies (G usually complains that i only watch movies that make me cry).
http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/cinema/et-maintenant-on-va-ou-interview-de-nadine-labaki_1029307.html
-----
Another painful Middle East story got to a turning point today. But it does not feel right to splash the bloodied body of K. live on TV, regardless of all the carnage he conducted himself in Lybia.
-----
Mood: curious about what has been the faith of my UEA flatmate

My left fuc...g knee

2011-10-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
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Mood: de saco mais que cheio

Confirming

2011-10-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

Loved the music and the voice of this canadian girl.
Her mixture of country, soul, gospel, folk music almost made me cry. But, then, i don't need much cues to cry these days.
------
Mood: missing G

Difícil

2011-10-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

:_[
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Mood: not a good day

Spin doctors

2011-10-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

This is for the series of things i do not understand:
Spin doctor (noun) A public relations person who tries to forestall negative publicity by publicizing a favorable interpretation of the words or actions of a company or political party or famous person.

Why is there a need for a special name for a person who is just basically a PR? Can you study to be a spin doctor? You go to uni and take a course on Spin Doctoring Theory 101?

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Mood: needless

Life PMS

2011-10-05T05:47:00.001-07:00

Hoje eu tô querendo pedir demissão de tudo (do trabalho, das pessoas, dos emails, de mim mesma...). A única coisa que me impede é o G.
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Mood: de saco cheio

Do you think you are worth a book?

2011-09-27T11:53:00.000-07:00

Would you think what you have lived in your life is worth writing a book? I don't mean Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright type of expectations. Nor Marilyn Monroe or Keith Richards type of sexual crazy drug like life. Just normal everyday citizen, with a bit of an interesting thing here, another boring aspect there, but something that others may want to pay to read?

This very interesting british old gentleman I am working with here in Dar es Salaam started this conversation today, over our very frugal dinner. He asked me what i would like to do with my life if i decided to leave my current line of work (the depressing line of work of fighting agains wind mills). He asked me if i would consider going back into journalism to do investigative or war journalism. Or if i would consider becoming an author of books.

Going back to journalism would probably imply going back to Brazil, something i do not intent to do. But being an author, you can do that anywhere (basically someone else pays your bills or you do it in your free time, in detriment to your personal life). I never thought my life worth of a book, but he thought it was. And his life has certainly been much more 'electric' than mine, fighting serious crime in the UK.
----------

I was born catholic but i guess i am more inclined to an ecletic mix of buddhism with random spiritualism these days. That means i like to think of myself as someone who respects people's religous beliefs because i want them to respect the fact that i am free to believe in whatever I want. I am not one of those atheists that splashes out on my friends' faces how i think they are ignorant for only speaking about God and believing that everything in their lives is basically out of their hands, for good or bad. People are entitled to holding on to whatever helps them go through life. Although, in retrospect, i did it some 10 years ago. But that is not the point. The point is I am getting annoyed with how my facebook has been transformed into a bible newsfeed. The most active facebook people in my group of friends seem to be the ones that have something to say about God everyday. How God loves them and they could not care less about those that betray them, how if you don't post this on your status update you are proving you don't love God...Jesus (!), this is just as boring as those that ask you to click here and there not to allow anyone else to read their comments. For God's (!) sake, don't post anything that you believe is embarassing or get out of facebook if it bothers you so much that your stuff can be read from my page. Or go and change your security settings yourselves. And as for the God-loving status, please, find variety in life people. Even God would like you to be interested in what happens around the world, so you are not focused only on your belly button while there is so much more evil in the world than not copying and pasting your status update about loving God.
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Mood: guess i can use my own advice -- just ignore the status updates that ask me to do whatever: love God or fix my own security settings to please other people.

In Maasai land

2011-09-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

Am in Tanzania, for a week of work. As with all my work travel related to this particular research, i won't see more than the fancy building of the anti-corruption commission, the not so fancy buildings of the police and public prosecutor, the inside of some European embassies and a lot of the hotel.

But i am in the land of the Maasai (well, ok, they are in larger numbers in Kenya, i imagine, but there are some of them here as well). I was always very impressed with their pictures when i was a girl. God knows why i always thought all Africans were like them. And the more i come to Africa (i have not been here many times, but in the few cases) the more mesmerized I am with the diversity of people. Guess if i started traveling to China, I would stop being so ignorant and saying all chinese people look the same for me.

Well, Dar es Salaam looks much more modern than i expected. It actually looks like some small country side towns in some poor parts of Brazil, but with much taller skyscrapers. Plus, there are many more foreigners per square meter just in the area where i am circulating than in any small town in Brazil.

Funnily enough (well, maybe not so funny), it is a major tourist destination. I had never considered tourism in Tanzania until I moved Norway and discovered it is the pet country for Norwegians. So the plane i flew in was full of Canadians dressed in a red jumper splashed with "kilimanjaro 2011" across their backs.

I wish i could travel to Zanzibar, but it won't happen as I fly back to France on Friday. And i wish i could enjoy the nice warm weather to go for runs outside, but i got this f...up knee after my fall in Bergen and it is not getting any better. I feel I may need an MR scan when i get home.

Plus, I wanted to at least dip my toes in the Indian ocean. Hope i get a chance.

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Mood: it is so nice to be away from the office and so sad to be away from G

Slapstick stuff

2011-09-23T06:53:00.000-07:00

Non obstante the drama queen i have been lately, with G taking up his new job and our newly found status (long distance relationship partners), there is still space for the ludicrous in my life.

Norway is known for emergency room crowds of broken limbs in the winter, when asphalt gets covered with black ice. No, it is not a different form of ice that only applies to very cold Nordic winters: it is just that the asphalt gets darker because of a thin layer of cold water that tends to cover it when it is not snowy.

In any case, black ice is still months away (hopefully, despite the awful weather forecast for the autumn). But i found myself splashed on the floor, walking to work, yesterday. I felt so embarassed - I was lost in my thoughts, walking much slower than i tend to, trying to organize in my head what was promising to be a crazy day, stressful not only because of G leaving but also because of too much to do in the office...and then there it was: a wet mushy leaf, on my way.

It was a wet mushy leaf, like tons of others that cover Bergen usually wet-from-so-much-rain cobbled stones in the autumn. And now my left knee is squeaking, everytime i touch it.
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Mood: i need to laugh not to cry

12 hours

2011-09-21T11:23:00.000-07:00

How long do people have to work for someone to say they are working too much? I still think I work less than when i lived in Brazil, but I am not sure that is a correct assessment.

In Brazil, we would take long lunch breaks and leave the office late at night. In Norway, they start at 8.30 and have a 30min lunch break. But they also leave at 4.30pm.

However, that is where I am mixing and matching the bad from two cultures. I arrive at 8.30 and take the 30min lunch break. And i stay in the office until 7pm.
-----

This week has been the craziest working week ever....

It's starting...

2011-09-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

G has quit, so now there is no turning back.
I am tired and wish i could quit now as well.
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Mood: low in energy

A bit more frequent

2011-09-06T11:08:00.000-07:00

The day i left Tirana I went for a morning run at the park (i had to take advantage of those 30 degrees because i won't have such a chance again until I get to Tanzania). On my run back to the hotel I saw a couple shouting at each other on the street. The guy spit on the girl's face!!! I was so shocked. My first instinct was to stop and punch him in the face. I swear to God i felt like punching him and had i been closer to them when he did it, i would have just jumped to action. I felt even a bit surprised with my guts' reaction. I did not think about it, it just came from my stomach (probably just like spitting came from the guy's guts).

But I was a fraction of a second away, running towards them, and that made me think that I'd better not, although I felt i had the right to do it (if the girl did not do it herself). But i would have put myself in a dangerous situation, getting involved in a fight in a foreign country where men think they are better than women -- just as i had noticed in two other situations involving men dealing with the woman interpreter that we hired to support us in our interviews. I guess blood feuds seem compatible with a country in which reacting like an animal against an oponent is something you can stumble upon on the streets of the capital, which i assume is the most cosmopolitan city.

The other thing I just realized is how basic instincts are capable of taking over in certain situations. My desire to hit the guy in the face was just as brutal and animalistic as his spitting on his girlfriend's face. The only difference between him and me was that i had a few meters distance from the action and that geographical space put some time between my gut's reaction and the transmission of the information from my brain to my hand.

********

It bewilders me the extent to which some people can think that the whole world is a big wrong while they are the epythome of righteousness. It is a feeling of entitlement that I cannot relate to (although I wish i could because it probably provides a level of self-confidence perception of oneself that I could do with). I have this one friend whose reflections are so absolutely self centered, so completely reassured that her view of the world and her attitude towards the world is correct, considerate and polite, while everybody around her is wrong, rude, lacking in kidness, that i simply can't understand. If her self perception was correct, shouldn't she be the first to acknowledge that probably she is also not perceived as so right in the eyes of other people? That there is actually not a 'right' and whatever attitude others have are based on their understanding of what is 'right'?

**********

The person i have had the most problems with in the past 4 years surprised me today. A big positive surprise -- although i am still agonizing over the change.

********

Mood: anxious

A biased view of Albania

2011-08-31T10:14:00.000-07:00

I am in Tirana for work. In these past couple of days, i have not really seen more than my hotel surroundings, the inside of many government buildings and a park nearby, where i run whenever i have a chance.
Some things in these few days have reinforced my pre-conceptions about the Balkans and some are absolute novelties that I had not encountered in Croatia or Bosnia.

The reassurances:
- women here must be on a 'catch-up with being sexy' overdose, since until 1990, communist rule must have made it difficult to dress up, wear make up and bling (simply because there were no such items to be purchased, i imagine). So they dress sexy up to the point of being a bit vulgar and looking like a Xmas tree. They even jog in the park with owl-sized fake prada sun glasses.
- there are a few men and women that are good looking, but most people are ugly for my taste. They are a mixture of greek with turkish and all things balkans.
- the Tiranese love mercedes and BMWs, new and old (mostly old), legal and smuggled.

The novelties
- Tirana is a nice city, much more modern than i thought it would be. It is a bit dusty, but i gather that is because it has not rained in 2 months.
- I expected to find more old ladies with heads covered with headscarves, just like the stereotypical photo one would get from this region during the 90s of war victims fleeing their villages. Maybe the old ladies are in the country side, maybe the headscarf is not fashionable anymore...but i have only seen 1 old lady wearing that tradition black dress that must be the chanel equivalent for old ladies.

Catching up (aka 4 weddings and a 5th one)

2011-08-02T04:44:00.000-07:00

After 4 months, and lots of scattered little things happening, an update:
- I became 37 (oddly enough, sometimes i forget i am 37 and say i am 38),
- G got a new job -- in Paris -- and we went through hell to decide whether he should take because it means, for several reasons, that we will live separate from each other for sometime,
- We decided that G should accept the job,
- I spent a week with mum and dad traveling through Northern Italy (and feeling i am responsible for organizing and foreseeing every tiny aspect of their holidays when i am with them, even though i had promised myself this year the task would be not my responsibility),
- I am almost done with my summer wedding marathon: 2 in Southern France, two in Northern Norway and one in central England.
- Sophie got married to Carlo, Jonathan got married to Elise, Aled got married to Kari, Stina will be married to Rune this weekend and in September James will be married to Anna. G and myself still do not intend to throw a wedding party ever in this lifetime,
- A crazy lunatic exploded a bomb and killed young people in Olso destroying my innocent belief that nothing ever happens in Norway,
- Bergen went straight from spring to autumn and summer lasted 2 days unfortunately.
--------
Mood: ticked!
-

Live royal wedding influence

2011-04-29T02:02:00.001-07:00

I want a hat to wear at the weddings i have to attend this year.
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Mood: disruptive

Goodbye Sarajevo

2011-04-27T06:48:00.001-07:00

I am still under the spell of the Balkans. I found Bosnia so attractive and repulsive at the same time. I felt i was in São Paulo, Moscow, Cairo, Hoi An, Vienna, all in once.
-----
Before travelling, i watched a decent film (Welcome to Sarajevo) produced right after the end of the war about a journalist who smuggles a little girl out of Sarajevo during the siege and has to deal with her mother's wish to get her back years later. It was a good film, very sad, but interesting and made me renew some of the scarce information i had about the war in the 90s.

Then after i came back, hooked on the soundtrack, I watched a movie from 2003 called Gori Vatra. It is supposed to treat the healing of war scars in a light way (it is a comedy about a town in Bosnia, close to the border with Serbia, receiving a visit by Bill Clinton). Even though it treats the subject with a bit of humour and makes fun of the attempts of Bosnians to put on a facade of Bosnian/Serb reconciliation for the sake of pleasing international donors, it broke my heart.

Maybe other people will feel the same.
---------------
Mood: fiendlish

Ambition

2011-04-08T03:54:00.000-07:00

A cartoon i had seen sometime ago and today someone brought it to my attention again.
Funny!

The importance of a shared language

2011-04-05T11:29:00.001-07:00

I hoped i would never have to attend a funeral in Norway. I actually never thought i would have to live through such experience whilst in a country where I do not intend to grow old in. But today i attended one.
A mother losing a child must be the saddest experience a woman can go through. Losing your child while it is still inside of you must be the worst experience one can live through. My friend was unbelievably strong.
However, i remarked how difficult it was for me to feel what she was feeling. Not only because I have never felt such pain but also because i did not to understand what was being said -- not sharing a language changed completely the way I felt.
For the past two years, crying has been a 'staple of my diet'. It comes easy, after a song, some thoughts, a few words...but i need to be able to read them, i need to understand them.
Today, I had no tears to cry. I did not understand the priest's words, i did not understand family speeches...Crying had to wait until the more powerful visual cues came in. Or the few words that I could get from my friend's, the mother, speech for her still born son.
---------------
In some months, our life might be changing again. And experiences such as this one just scare the hell out of me. How can someone think about putting himself or herself purposefully through the possibility of such excruciating pain?

April's fool

2011-04-02T02:19:00.000-07:00

This is the best April 1st pranck ever.
Google motion, the tool that allows you to respond to an email using your body but not the keyboard or the mouse. Check it:
http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html

Your pet special purpose vehicle

2011-03-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

Am still to memorize all the names of the different financial products, the toxic assets, associated with the 2008 financial crisis. Guess it is easier to remember them when they come associated with cute fluffly pets.

These american journalists, from the National Public Radio, put some USD 1000 into one of these financial instruments (a composite of several sub-prime mortgages) just to learn what would go wrong with it. The day they realized they had completely lost their money, the announced the death of their pet toxic asset, "Toxie": http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/12/15/130079590/toxie-s-dead

It reminds me of how boring financial journalism can be -- and that it takes a lot of creativity to transform such a dry piece of financial gobbledigoog into something that might interest the average Joe.
------------
Mood:bullish

Facebook

2011-03-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

I got so impressed when i heard this little old lady from Afghanistan's Human Rights Commission talk about the importance of facebook. It is impressive what 20 years worth of technological change have meant to the world. Even in a country where women are still stoned to death and believed to be less than men, there's facebook and its power to bring the reality of different worlds to a land that for many other purposes still lives in the medieval ages.

Cucumber news

2011-03-16T09:15:00.001-07:00

When the summer comes to Norway (oh, no worries, it is still a good 4 months away and it will just not really feel like real summer anyway when it arrives, with those low temperatures), journalists have nothing to write about -- as if they had during the winter, but anyway...

Everybody travels out of the country in June and July; nothing important happens at the Stortinget or the Parliament, which literally translates as a funny 'The Big (Stor) Thing (Ting)'; lots of business close for the summer (yes, unbelievably for someone from an enterpreneurial country where every moment is a good moment to close a deal, day or night); children are not in school and parents have to take their annual leave to prvent their little monsters from getting killed at home; basically nothing news-worthy happens.

So desperate journalists struggle to find any stupid piece of uninteresting news to fill in the empty spaces of their newspapers. They can always safely write about the gigantic cucumber harvested at a nearby village. Nobody will read it anyways. Hence, cucumber news is the expression used in Norway to distinguish those not so interesting pieces produced in June and July about farming produce and the like, that nobody reads anyway.

And all this intro was just to say that i have basically zero news lately. That is why i have not posted since January. I have kept on living (no major catastrophe has fallen down on me, but also no major news or intersting articles that i have felt the need to write about) and doing the same everyday: moaning about my job, grocery shopping, trying to run outdoors when it has snowed more in February than in the whole January, eagerly planning my Easter break in Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro, trying to see my girlfriends when all seem to be getting pregnant and delivering babies...cucumber news to report on, in a nutshell.

Let's see if i start looking into more exciting Marches and Aprils in the next coming weeks.

Look how nice I am!

2011-01-28T02:30:00.000-08:00

So interesting to see the amount of PR work that Russia is trying out using BBC to publicize what a perfect country for investments Russia is!
----
Mood: it's friday!

Pressure

2011-01-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

When i was 29, i felt like i wanted it but no one could offer me.
From 30 to 34, i forgot about it and lost the wish to have it.
From 35 onwards, i felt like 'i don't really want it anymore' but i am afraid i might change my mind and come to have a wish for it in the future without the possibility of having it.
--------------
Mood: to have or not to have kids? what should i do?

Finally, someone agrees with me... (My Madoff scheme)

2011-01-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

I am constantly reminded that i am 'less' because i don't have a PhD. As if a PhD would transform anyone magically into an Einstein. I know that there is nothing wrong in deciding the profile of the employees that will work for you. It is a legitimate human resources decision. What is wrong is to entice those who do not match the requirements with fake promises. What i need is a new place to work, where i fit the required skills. But it is reassuring to read some common sense.

http://www.economist.com/node/17723223?story_id=17723223

British banana republic

2011-01-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

I did not say it. They said it themselves. UK's levels of confidence in politicians are close to a banana-republic. The UK is a banana republic in that respect.
-----
I thought that the capacity to vote back in power politicians who steal from the public purse was a Brazilian prerogative. Now i know that British voters have been to the same school of brazilian ones and got a diploma for dumb voting.
------
http://www.economist.com/node/17905929?story_id=17905929

Reality check

2010-12-07T08:35:00.000-08:00

Nothing really can stand up to the reality check. Reading a book that you loved as a child might be a disappointment as an adult. Visiting a country that was eagerly placed at the top of your countries to visit list can be a huge disappointment, as with Russia this year. The racism in Vietnam. And now Norway.

One of the many disappointments here is the health care system. I appreciate that for a Somali refugee, the health care system here is the best in the world. It serves you, no matter what, even if it might take you a few months in a waiting list. And, for that matter, it might be a great system even for an immigrant from a middle income country, just as myself. But not if you had access to the private health care systems in that middle income country.

Why do i have this feeling that I am asking for a favor every time i try to contact my doctor to get an appointment? That meaning when i can get them to answer the phone so i can book an appointment. I pay taxes (high taxes) to the system and assumingly am entitled to, at least, getting a reply from someone to say that they don't have an appointment?

The more I hear about the horror stories of baby deliveries the more i fear having to use the system.
----------------
Mood: afraid

Hipocondriaca

2010-12-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

Por que será que todo final de ano eu acho que vou morrer de câncer?

Forgot to mention...

2010-11-20T06:09:00.001-08:00

The amazing stupa (stupa means temple for the buddhists in Nepal) Boudhanath. Pictures don't do justice to the atmosphere, with monks walking around because of the tons of monasteries in the area.

The cremation ritual at Pashupatinath.
Today is saturday. People die everyday, of course. But today the temples are crowded with people and those cremation temples are even more. It is impressive to see a body burning on a pire when you are not used to it. I got a bit horrified with the whole thing. It sounded morbid.

The bodies are washed in the sacred river waters, then stripped down because one should die as one was born. The body is then covered in a thin cotton white cloth and placed on the pire. It is finally covered in rice straw so that the fire does not consume the cloth quickly exposing the naked body.

I did not see the whole procedure because it takes time. Bodies are buried 3 hours after dieing. Very sick people remain in a hospice by the sacred river. As the person is about to pass away, the family brings the body close to the waters because it is said that those who die by its waters go straight to heaven.

Been blessed

2010-11-20T03:23:00.000-08:00

Finally, i took one day off in Kathmandu. The list of deities and temples and stupas is interminable and i am already forgetting half of what i saw today...Bhaktapur, Boudhanhat, Swayambhu, a gazillion temples to Shiva (who seems to be the most popular God around).

But the most touching thing was the little girl who is supposed to be the reincarnation of the Goddess Teluja (or something like that). She is a 6 year old girl chosen according to a myriad of criteria and incarnates the Goddess until her first menstruation. I was at the chowk (courtyard) by the time she showed herself to the people willing to see her. She only stared at us, for 20 or so seconds, did not move her arms neither waved, but i felt so touched. God knows why i almost cried for a moment.

------

Mood: emotional

Namastê

2010-11-17T04:48:00.000-08:00

My second first impressions of Kathmandu:

- Girls are very, very pretty. But, like everything else, they are covered in dust. And they spit. Like everyone else as well. Very disgusting!

- The Thamel area is chaotic, smells like incense and sounds like a meditation chant. Aummmmm! I bet it is just for tourists and that no Nepali really care about all those trinkets, thangkas, incenses, Ganesh masks...Everything is crowded with all types of vehicles one can imagine. The only missing ones are cows. But i have seem them wandering around happily among cars around Bakthapur this afternoon.

- What is it about westerns dressed in hiking gear that i don't like about? Thamel is full of them. Particularly old people.

- Greg suggested i should always book a weekend somewhere I like on my way back from these trips. But what he does not get is that i like to be with him....so if he was here, i would not care. Or, well, maybe i would care, but not as much.

- Where are the Himalayas? One needs to cut through the fog (polution?) to find anything here, let alone the mountains.

- Am trying food that i can't pronounce and they all look like curry. Don't remember the name of the stuff i dined yesterday but today i had Kukhura ko Jhol, a Nepalese chicken curry. Very spicy, even after i asked it not to be too hot!

------
Mood: Namastê

From Siam Paragon to Marigolds

2010-11-16T06:27:00.000-08:00

Today, I took a plane to Kathmandu. Left behind the sky train and all the techy parafernalia from Thailand to fall into Kathmandu, sort of a backward country town when compared to Bangkok.

It was a shock, I must admit. Greg even asked 'why are your working in development?', when i complained. It is a question i cannot answer most of the time. I complain so much about travelling and I don't even travel that much, compared to some of my colleagues and to when I worked at TI. But when I remember that, at the age of 14, I used to say that my wildest dream was to live a bit of my life in the several stages of humankind's history...I sort of made that dream come true working with what I work now. It only falls short of the time machine.
-----------------

Kathmandu is very very indian (at least for someone who has never been to India, like me). The traffic looks like that advert of the Peugeot 206, where the driver hits his car against a wall until it is shaped onto looking like the french car. There are marigolds chains hanging from the houses. People speak with that funny little indian accent that i find difficult to understand (from Thai English to Nepali English in less than 24h).
--------------------

When one travels so quickly among different countries, some things become over-emphasized. Like the trends in television. While in Thailand they love boy bands from South Korea and sexualized women looking like little girls, here they love dramatic bollywood romance.
--------------------

Mood: quero ir para casa. So faltam 10 dias

Another hot and humid day...

2010-11-15T05:36:00.000-08:00

with some coolness at the cineplex. Guess i am the only person that comes to Bangkok with only two days for tourism and ends up watching "Eat, pray and love" at a gigantic mall.

But it should be noted that i did do my tourism part and took the sky train back to Ko Ratanakosin to visit the reclining Buddha at Wat Pho. And i did climb those hard steps to go up the Wat Arum...and finally got tired of feeling wavy on shaky piers and boats and decided to go Siam and just hang out at a mall.

It is kind of easy to find yourself around the main touristic areas in Bangkok. Thought i would feel lonely walking around without Claudia today, but it was not so bad. Hope this coming week flies by in Kathmandu and i can come home soon.

-------
Mood: missing Greg

In Bangkok...

2010-11-14T08:33:00.000-08:00

It feels like Sao Paulo, just more humid, with more prostitution and much less expensive. I even went out at a very Vila Olimpia type of place. But what I really liked was the cheap but cute stuff at the Chatuchak market (my friend Lilian, from Sao Paulo, would find a much better Liberdade here) and the Face restaurant.
And, top of the list, Health Land (also known as 'elll laaaand' in Thai english). The shortest 1,5h massage ever but seriously the best spent 850 baht in this part of the world.

Back to the funny Thai English, my friend Claudia, whom i studied with in England and now lives here, just told me in general Thais don't understand your english if you do not speak with their accent. That is why she has to request 'Elllll laaaand' to the tuk tuk driver when she wants to go to the spa to get a massage. Or she needs to tell people at her office that they need to pick up documents at the "Empie taueeeeerrrr" (aka Empire Tower, in real English). Finally, they cant watch football, because they don't understand what you really want to watch if you don't say footbonnnnn. I wish I knew someone who could explain why they have to extend these vowels for such a long time. Just like in Kop kun kaaaaaaaa (or thanks, to be said by a polite girl).

Then there is the obsession with the royal family. Don't cross your legs in the presence of the princess. Tie at least one of your jacket's buttons.

Not looking forward to spending the day alone tomorrow.
-----
Mood: italiani

Talib

2010-11-05T02:31:00.000-07:00

It is not a very well written book according to Western standards. It certainly needs some editing to make the flow less confusing. But i 'devoured' it because it was written by a man from the moon or Mars, someone who is from a completely different world than mine.

It still strikes me that in the age of internet and supersonic flights, in a space as small as this land, people can value such different things.
-----------
Mood: astonished

In the neighborhood

2010-11-02T11:26:00.001-07:00

I might not have encountered thugs or mobsters on the streets of St Petersburg or Moscow, but 'que las hay, las hay'. United Russia will always find new charges to keep opposition behind jail no matter how many times opposition leaders get tried and serve time, curb manifestations of dissent, kick mayors out of office and switch direct elections by internal appointments. The Russia I encountered in Moscow as a tourist looked like Paraguay. But Paraguay in fact does not deserve the comparison. Russia, although richer, is poorer.

------
Mood: intrigued

A wicked problem

2010-10-28T01:38:00.000-07:00

Very interesting video lecture:http://media.owen.org/Evolution/player.html

Rephrasing

2010-10-27T00:48:00.000-07:00

I would say that the question applies to 30 somethings:

What is it about 20 somethings?
------------
I had somewhat pride in one Brazilian achievement: the effectiveness of voting mechanisms and how it could curb coercion at the voting booth. But then i read that the federal electoral management body (TSE) will dispatch troops to guarantee the safety of electoral procedures to 46 cities in the northeast region during the second round of the presidential elections, in a few days.
-----------
Mood: Uhn?

Uhn?

2010-10-26T06:59:00.001-07:00

Is this article criticizing or defending the jargon-adoration that exists in academia?
Tell me about unconscious self-inflicted criticism: the author of this text would probably need an editor himself cause his own writing is just as confusing as the jargons he discusses! (or maybe i am just stupid and can't understand good writing)

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/10/22/why_do_academics_sound_so_pointy_headed

Little disappointed

2010-10-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Vietnam.
I still like the country a lot: people are friendly (at least on the surface), willing to be nice to you (sometimes to the point of being embarassing), the food is great and there is a sense of achievement and overcoming obstacles that you do not find among other countries within the same income status.
But i got back with a strange feeling about vietnamese people because of a colleague's description on how his black wife is treated due to her colour. Apparently, prejudice against black people and against foreigners in general is rife. Vietnamese are nice to your face, but the word for foreigners or strange people can also be translated as 'monkeys'.
I cant say it has happened to me (or at least i have not been able to understand what goes on behind their chat in vietnamese), but being treated badly because of my colour or my origin (which probably would be the case because i come from a developing country just like them) does not seem compatible with the atitude that i usually get from vietnamese. Hope my colleague is wrong, but i have a feeling that this is the second country that sort of disappoints me this year.
-------------
Mood: wishing for keeping up with the appearances

Ouch

2010-10-16T10:11:00.001-07:00

I had too much time to waste in the airport in Hanoi, and a lot of dongs left in my wallet. So i decided to treat myself to a foot massage. I did not know that Vietnam was famous for its foot massage. I head heard of Thai massage, but never vietnamese massage.
So there i go, to a low lit spa inside the lounge area of the airport and a tiny little vietnamese girl that looks like she cant hurt a fly starts cleaning my feet with a wet towel. So far, so good.
But the worst was to come. She was pretty strong and she got tough on my calves to a point that i have brown bruises over my ankle today and it is painful as if i had shin splints. And she gave me an extra head and shoulder massage for free. I thought i was getting a bargain, but again she was super tough and she walked on my back.

I assume a massage is good for you?
------------
mood: massaged

Sô cô la (aka chocolate)

2010-10-11T08:15:00.001-07:00

I am having a withdrawal problem because vietnamese people could not care less about chocolate.
-----------------
One day less of workshop drama. Just two to go.
----------------
Greg finally handed in the keys of his apartment and we are now, officially, living together.
---------------
Mood: need sô cô la (no kidding, this is the word for IT in vietnamese)

Hoa Lu

2010-10-09T07:06:00.000-07:00

The megalomania for new capitals is not a feature of modern state leaders. Apparently, back in the 900 AD, some crazy little felow thought that his home town deserved attention, when he became the king o Vietnam and transformed his village of Hoa Lu in the centre of the country. After that, someone transfered the capital from Hoa Lu to Hang Long (which became Hanoi); after that, someone transfered to Hue, south of Hanoi and finally someone transfered back to Hanoi (was Saigon ever the capital of Vietnam?)
------------------------
I liked this Ha Long bay on land, but the real deal is something not to be missed.

-----------------------
Why is it that Greg is so annoying on the phone and double irritant when i am travelling? It looks like he does it on purpose.

I like Vietnam a lot 2

2010-10-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

A second day terrified with the crazy scooters, but this time a day spent inside taxis and meetings. So no personal risks incurred, other than accepting a glass of water at the National Economics University (guess if i am not even able to make it through a stay in Guatemala or Peru without stomach problems, i am bound to suffer a bit with Vietnamese tap water).
------
I not only love the country but i love how things simply get done here (when compared to Africa, because i am sure there is still a high level of bureacracy for poor people to get their things done in Vietnam no matter what). Staff of hotels, agencies, locals at bilateral development agencies, taxi drivers, waiters...everyone simply gets things done and they do things correctly, no need to re-do it afterwards. What a relief from my experiences elsewhere!
--------
Little novelties for me: doner kebab is also a vietnamese fast food delicacy. I would not have expected that this german turkish food habit would be appreciated by vietnamese eaters, but it looks like they are more cosmopolitan about their food than norwegians.
---------
People talk on the mobile and SMS (!) while driving their little scooters! I am more and more horrified with how crazy the scooter madness is here. And more and more surprised with how little people die on a daily basis, both scooter drivers and pedestrians.
-----------
31 000 people are expected to gather at Bah Dinh Sq on Sunday, for the celebrations of Ha Noi's 1000 anniversary. I am thinking whether i should try to be there or if i am going to be crushed by the crowds.

Back to Hanoi

2010-10-07T03:59:00.000-07:00

I like Vietnam a lot! And i've been lucky to be sent here again for work this year.
So this time i am not going to waste the opportunity to document all the little nice places i see and eat at...even if just for a list of things i can review in a couple of years time and do again once i come back a third time:

Paris Gâteaux - cute little bakery close to the Hilton Hotel (i wish it was closer to my hotel, instead!)
Au Lac House - amazing vietnamese restaurant that used to be close to my previous hotel here, De Syloya. Walked by (terrified!) today and this time got a business card.
--------------

One thing i can't get used to is the crazy scooter traffick. I am so freaking scared of walking around Hanoi. Being a pedestrian here is a frigthening experience, at least for me, no matter how much advice i get to 'just walk' and the scooters will avoid you. I just barely managed to walk 1km from here to the Hilton today and it did freak me out a couple of times.
----------------
Mood: love being back

Less 2 friends?

2010-09-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

"If you don't see people, the emotional engagement starts to drop off, and quickly". I did not need an Oxford-based research to tell me that.

What i question in the research is if we loose only 2 friends. In my recent account, the negative multiplier is 4, and it gets worse if you have to consider those 4 friends also having started new romantic relationships. Then, you multiply my 4, with their 4 and their partner's 4 = 64 friends pushed away because of 4 couples.

----------
Mood: wondering if it's worth it

A lesson

2010-08-29T02:15:00.000-07:00

'I am what you would like to be'
It is risky to be too much of a thing when that is considered a virtue by one's enemy.
http://www.economist.com/node/16843817?story_id=16843817
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Mood: I realize

Death

2010-08-27T10:26:00.000-07:00

G's father passed away.
G had to rush to Paris on sunday because his father's long term disease finally took its final toll. But they still had to go through the pain of the uncertainty of having him in coma for 2 days.
I didn´t know him very well, but i can´t help being so sad... He must have been a very good man to have raised a man like G, so generous, thoughtful and caring.
------
Mood: sad

Disappointedovsky prospekt (aka been there, done that)

2010-08-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

Finally, country number 2 in my 'top priority places to visit' was ticked off the list: Russia. But i am a little disappointed. In hindsight, i don't know what i expected of Russia. All those foreign press articles about mobsters, big corrupt politicians, organized crime, Chechenyan rebels... probably made me think I was flying into the wild west of the 21st century.

But Moscow looks more like a gigantic Paraguay (for those who have been to Ciudad del Leste) and St Petersburg is a poorer even more run-down version of Berlin. Plus, Moscowites are among the most unfriendly people in the world (exception should be made to 2 nice girls who not only spoke English and some Portuguese but also helped me and my parents find our way around unreadable metro station signs on our first day. God bless their hearts!).

In summary, I liked St Pete better -- but it must be just because people can speak better english there, are more used to tourists from abroad and I have a friend living in the city. But i have a feeling that Russia is one of those countries where i have been to but will not go back, unfortunately. And it is giving me second thoughts on whether I should ever aim to visit Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the other Stans that i have been dreaming about since I started reading about Russia a couple of years ago.

Maybe i should not read so much about a country before visiting it. You build up expectations that no place can deliver.
----------
Mood: mission accomplished

Brasiu!!!!!

2010-07-23T07:31:00.001-07:00

Why they don't show this advert here in Norway?

Devia estar feliz, mas tô triste...

2010-07-23T02:42:00.000-07:00

I leave Bergen to escape the rain...and go to Cracow bringing the rain with.
F...ck.
------------
Mood: 8={

What is this?

2010-07-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

http://rentafriend.com/whatis/

--------
Why don't they call it 'escort service without the benefits'?
The Cambridge dictionary says that friend is:
noun ( PERSON YOU LIKE ) /frend/
• a person who you know well and who you like a lot, but who is usually not a member of your family
Ex. She's my best/oldest/closest friend - we've known each other since we were five.

So how can this site offer to rent someone who 'knows you well and likes you a lot'?
----------
Mood: intrigued

1 night

2010-07-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

The teflon prime-minister...what a lovely expression. It was used to describe Berlusconi but i am sure it could be applied to many others.
A very interesting list of rich countries' politicians involved in corruption themselves (guess some americans, brits and japanese should be added to the list).
-----
Mood: non-sticky

2 nights

2010-07-13T12:46:00.000-07:00

Today i read somewhere that 'old people, no matter how accomplished they are, always say that the thing they are the proudest in their lives is their children'. When i read that, i got scared of having nothing to be proud of in the future, if i stick to my decision.
---------------------
Why is it that everytime the temperature rises, it rains? I know there is some air pressure explanation but i wanted someone to explain to me in lay (wo)man language.
---------------------
Mood: bored

3 nights

2010-07-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

Missing being hugged.
Never have I had problems to shout it out loud: i like being hugged!!! Big time.
I still do not have problems with it --- and never have.

I also like holding hands, always liked. Holding girlfriends' hands once almost won me a moniker and a reputation..

Living abroad --- and leaving behind the people that make me feel confortable and easy -- has only increased my need of hugging and contact. Phisical contact equals being accepted. 'I hug you and you become an extension my body'. A continuous search for foreign hugs, smiles in non-native language, approval and acceptance from abroad. A german (!)friend used to say that i am his favorite hugging person in the world.

Now...
It is a different feeling. It is not a search for being accepted, it is not foreign, not an alien accessory that makes me feel accepted. I am missing a part of me. Like someone had removed an arm or a hand temporarily. Of course i can go on living. But curiously, I limp around. I never felt like not having a hand when both hands are solidly attached to me. Never missed a part of myself like a maimed soldier.

I miss being hugged by G.
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Mood: hang on there

'Detetive'

2010-07-06T01:08:00.000-07:00

When i was a kid, there was a board game called 'Detective' (literal translation from its name in Portuguese, it was possibly called something else in different countries).

It was a very creepy scary board game -- or at least so I thought, as a 9 year old. People were murdered, you had to found out the weapons used by the assassin...very much Agatha Christie-like.

Plus, there was always a representative from the Scotland Yard, that powerful super effective London Police that helped solve murder cases and discover the most hidden secrets of those involved in the crime.

Well, yesterday i had my first encounter with the real Scotland Yard, as part of my work. I was there interviewing some chief financial investigator for a paper on illicit financial flows laundered in the City of London.

And guess what i discovered: Scotland Yard is not the name of any police institution in England. It is just the address of the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police of London. The Scotland Yard does not really exist, it is just an address.
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Mood: shattered childhood fears!

Too rich can be bad for you!

2010-06-09T06:26:00.001-07:00

A country that gets too rich can become complacent.

Norway has not gotten close to the Gulf states yet, but it is a bit to blase in my opinion. Doing business does not seem like a priority. I understand you do not respond to a customer's email if it gets to your desk at 8pm and you are with a foot at the door, but at 3:28 pm? On a Wednesday?

People are not service oriented here, because they do not desperately need customers. Office hours are from 8am to 3:30 pm in the summer (tell me about early friday!)

Not to mention my experience of lost luggage handling at Flesland airport. Why bother having someone at the lost luggage desk? Your airline has good records in not loosing luggage so no point -- just put the desk there, but never mind manning it. I was flying on a crazy routing back to Bergen because of the ash cloud and obviously my suitcase did not come with me. So i was instructed by the airline to report it as missing to the lost luggage desk. But to whom? Maybe they were waiting to get a substancial queue, so they could borrow their one staff person from the check in counter to moonlight as lost luggage desk person?

What about the the cold shoulder treatment that you get in restaurantes and shops? Well, you get the same in other countries in Europe, but the 3:30 working hour schedule is a first in my life.

Norwegians are nice helpful people but only outside of business life.

...maybe...

2010-06-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

there is a moment when we do not need to keep a diary anymore.
I wonder if i reached that point?
Do hope it is not the case. I usually like writing, especially if it is not an obbligation.
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Mood: wondering

What the f...?

2010-05-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

What happened to my calm relaxed norwegian life in which there was always time for everything? When did time decide to escape from under my control?
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Mood: too many things, too little time

BB

2010-05-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

No, not Big Brother. Been busy.
Trying to re-learn maths to take a civil service selection process exame (i am a joke in maths, but i am actually improving). And trying to take an online course on how to become a virtual trainer.
Plus, working and running in the free time.
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Mood: hectic

funny OLD friend

2010-04-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

A friend who is about to retire has just gotten a post as country economist for a norwegian embassy in an African country. As he is getting his introduction to the world of being a diplomat, he sent me his perfect two definitions of a diplomat:

1 .. a person who can tell somebody to hell in such a way that he actually looks forward to the trip!

2 .. a person who confronted with an angry dog will pat it on its head saying “nice doggie, nice doggie” until he can find a rock big enough to clubber him!

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mood: jajajajaja

Very interesting

2010-04-15T01:50:00.000-07:00

Another bit of the world I know zit about:

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Mood: interested

Pictures and postings

2010-04-11T10:29:00.000-07:00

Greg and I took a week off during Easter and headed south to visit Roz in Brussels and mum and dad in Paris. I realized i have not had time to take good pictures lately. Or that my random good pictures were just a result of chance and happen regardless of my efforts.

"A celebrity foot, other than mine"

"Sunny in Paris"

It must be the usual collateral effects of my yearly visits to Brussels but I am now applying for one of the concours...no matter how poorly i perform in maths. My long standing resolution to move back to Brussels seems a bug that spreads easily. Even Greg now decided to insist on the "lets move to Brussels" effort.
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A very worthwhile exhibition in Paris, even for fashion averts like me.
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Mood: applied

Very vocal politics (never ending cultural shocks)

2010-03-24T14:11:00.000-07:00

I cant help laughing at people, even myself, when they are a bit above the line on the 'uptight self-important more serious than life type' of behaviour. What is wrong with not believing that the world would stop if you did not show up to work tomorrow? That the things you did not manage to finish today will be finished tomorrow and those who were expecting for them will not die tonight because you were not able to send that email? Or that what you have to say is not exactly that important and that others would not really care to listen?

I could not stop laughing at watching the UK government releasing the new budget today. It is the most amusing video, with all those MPs shouting and moaning in agreement or disagreement, possibly reproducing a routine of shouting to make yourself heard above the crowd that was relevant and made sense back in the period of Oliver Cromwell or the Glorious Revolution...hehehehe, what is so impressive is how british people value those silly traditions (or at least silly to someone in whose culture no one bothers to listen to politicians).

The other day, two other delayed cultural shocks (or maybe i have had them earlier but only now i realized they are a cultural shock). The norwegian fondness for horizontal stripes and solid primary colors is annoying. They really need a style revolution in this country, forgive me my friends.

And the taking sick leave abuse in a welfare state approaches to free-riding the system to my eyes. Maybe we all should stay at home when we have a cold to avoid spreading our germs in the office? But for a week and a half?
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mood: to ficando relaxada

Limbo

2010-03-18T12:57:00.001-07:00

What happens to the webpages that are forgotten by the owners?
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Mood: ?

Under the influence

2010-03-17T03:53:00.000-07:00

Is Ayahuasca tea a drug?
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A 24 year old kid is about to have his life totally fucked. Even if he takes advantage of Brazil's skewed judicial courts and ends up not locked up for 30 years, he killed two people. He will have to live with himself and face others.
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His attourney and others are discussing if being a member of a church that uses Ayahuasca tea in its ritual could have contributed to a worsening of his psychological conditions.
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Mood: i dont know what to think. I feel sorry for the family of those killed but i also feel sorry for this guy

Is sex a foreign policy?

2010-03-16T03:19:00.000-07:00

Two stories at Foreign Policy today made me laugh. But then i thought that sometimes the most trivial thing might have implication on the most complex actions?

One is the idea of poligamy. I always thought about it with tons of prejudice. FP is not about to set a treaty on the issue, but the story made me see poligamy from several different angles. Plus, it made me reconsider the relevancy of anthropology!

The second story was a bit more obviously linked to politics, but it made me think on how we can easily be fooled by ourselves, by refusing to admit that we love but might not be loved back. One of the cases of honey traps, in the FP article, made me think that when you feel that you are loved, honestly, truly and sincerely by another person, your brain fails and it ignores warnings that should be clear enough.

Finally, the story i read at FP the other day, about Israel's tourism advertising campaign was an exposé on how ridiculous and out of place these everyday-life aspects can look when used for political purposes.

Two things are certain: one is that i am always going to have fun if i keep FP as my default entry webpage. And second that i should be humbler on my assumptions as what counts as politics and what does not.
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Mood: seduced

More from the 80s

2010-03-11T03:10:00.000-08:00

As i was writing about art from the 80s yesterday, Corey Haim, that blond kid from The Lost Boys, was in a hospital in the US. Dead.

I found it a bad coincidence, but since i realized it, i decided to blog about it cause I really liked "The Lost Boys".
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Mood: nothing

O nada (aka hehehehehehe)

2010-03-10T05:01:00.000-08:00

We went to the Bergen Museum of arts on saturday. There is not much to do in Bergen in the winter if you do not like snow and ski (and for that you would have to travel outside of Bergen anyway), so Greg and I decided to do something, no matter what, on saturday that did not imply climbing onto wooden sticks or walking on icy mountains.

That something ended up being the Bergen museum of arts. The temporary exhibition is called Bloody serious: Norwegian arts in the 1980s.

We knew it would be a bit disappointing as this is not London, Paris or NY. But in the end we had a blast....hehehehehe, the best thing was the video performance of nothingness. Though Greg's version of the performance at home was much better.

It is really funny to remember how innocent we were in the 80s (or at least i was, since i was a little girl).
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Mood: nothing

Ouch, caramba!

2010-03-03T02:47:00.001-08:00

In my opinion, it would be a sad stupid decision to disengage from the US. Latin America has a lot to gain from sharing the backyard's fence with the world's largest GDP. No matter how grumpy i am about americans and their xenophobic visa regulations or how much i can escape having to go to the US (as i practice my theory of "i dont spend my money in countries that do not welcome me"), I have to acknowledge that if it is bad with them, it can be worse without with them.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/02/how_latin_america_stopped_caring_what_the_united_states_thinks
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Moody: grumpy old anti-americanist

Windows opened

2010-02-25T08:48:00.000-08:00

Is there anything that cannot be used to launder illicit money?
One initially thinks that when the Maluf's of this world want to stash their ill-gotten gains away from the eyes of São Paulo authorities, they will hide the proceeds of their crime in the Seychelles, Jersey islands or the Caymans.

Ok, so, imagine some magical wand forcing all secrecy jurisdictions to close down business tomorrow. Maluf and his acolytes would be obbliged to keep their money home -- closer to the sight of authorities and more likely to get prosecuted, right?

Banngggg! Wrong answer! He could simply buy property in another country, any country, it does not even have to be onwned through a tax haven. There will always be an escrow agent who will do it. And once he sells it. Ding! Clean money, with legitimate origins, to be spent anywhere.

Ok, so let's ban the possibility of foreigners owning property anywhere (people like me would certainly be collateral damage, but it is for the greater good of the world) or let's ban the profession of escrow agents. Then, Maluf would buy gold, diamonds, precious stones and...bang! sell everything and clean up his money.

Ok, so we ban ownership of jewelry in this world (forgive me the stereotype but this would never be applicable in Arab countries). Maluf would then have to keep his monies in São Paulo? Nooooo! He could buy a yatch and sail with it away from the eyes of authorities selling it to anyone somewhere in the world to clean up his act. Or he could exchange it for foreign currency, or (if he had a company producing goods) he could sell the goods for an inflated price colluding with the buyer upon the agreement that the buyer would pay the market price and put the excess payment in a bank account, owned by Maluf or anyone associated with him (provided the buyer got his tiny fee, no bribe, of course)....

I am overwhelmed with the amount of possibilities there is for laundering money in this world. You might curb one option here, criminalize another there, but there are several alternatives everywhere. The proverb that says 'when one window closes here another one opens up there' could not be better placed.
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Mood: mesmerized

Any opinions?

2010-02-16T04:22:00.000-08:00

What is your opinion on the Robin Hood tax (http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/analysis/the-financial-transaction-tax-a-bit-more-detail/)?

It automatically generates a feeling that it is good and the right thing to do, given the amount of money that the financial system makes around the world. But I cant stop the bell ringing in my head that says that more money for developing countries, falling from the skies, is not exactly a good thing.

What is your opinion on that?
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Mood: inquisitive
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It is very useful to have your own economist at home. Here goes the first very informed opinion:

"I am skeptical for the following reasons:
- All major financial centres have to adopt it at the same time, or it will be useless, since it is not very costly to go offshore. For example France passed a law saying they would adopt such a tax if all other EU countries did it, but only Belgium has joined France so far. There is no way Luxemburg will agree. France suggested a tax at a recent G20 summit but there is not much support.
- It is likely to be passed on to consumers one way or the other
- In some financial markets (some commodities such as platinum or gold, some bilateral exchange rates) certain banks are so powerful that they control prices. A tax on these trades would make it even more difficult to have competition

That said I don t like the fact that banks make a lot of money by useless speculation, especially hedge funds which are not regulated and have the potential to create crises, so I think it would be worth a try. Some people mention Tobin: in fact Tobin wanted a tiny tax on currency transactions to prevent useless speculation, not to feed Africa. I think it would be useful to have such a tax, and the more of the tax revenue can be given to Africa the better.
Also this year some countries are applying special levies on traders’ bonuses. Hopefully some economists will study the impact of that and conclude whether a FTT would be feasible."

Drowning (aka num 'guento mais)

2010-02-09T06:11:00.000-08:00

I am so fed up with this snow that i do not even have words for it.
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Mood: num guento mais!

Xô, saravá! (aka Don't let it eat you!)

2010-01-20T07:53:00.000-08:00

I am barely back, but fear allowing myself into what i have always been... how can one change his own patterns?

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Shopping items:
Salt - For the first time in my life i had to ask questions about where one buys salt to melt snow off the entrance door steps.

Time - Nothing lasts forever. The bad and the good ones eventually go. I must work on keeping the good and survive through the bad, because they will eventually go.

Ignorance - where is she, the capacity of believing that any moderately endowed brain was capable of learning new things and making sense of them, no matter what those things were?
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A post at Medecin Sans Frontier?

Anyone disagrees?

2009-12-04T03:17:00.000-08:00

“The statistical evidence from this study therefore suggests that as far as happiness is concerned, it is better to give than to receive aid.” (Aid Watch)

It has always been clear to me that I entered the development business for purely selfish reasons. It makes you feel better than anybody else, cause you are not working for the money, you are working for the million dirty poor of the world. Now someone ran an econometric regression and "proved" it.

But why am I so unhappy lately? And why do I feel the most frustrated when I am working in Africa?

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Mood: why am I not happy lately?

Top 100 (aka É nóis...)

2009-12-02T02:18:00.000-08:00

The Top 100 Thinkers of 2009 think Lula is among the most relevant political figures in the world.

Piscine a Bamako (aka globalized Insh'Allah)

2009-11-10T13:16:00.000-08:00

Je suis au Mali pour travaille. Jusqu'a maintenant, je n'avais que l'impression que ça est un pays Africaine avec une version tres relax du Islam. Nous sommes dans le Sahel, mais nous ne sommes pas dans les domaines des Touaregs. On ecoute la gens prie trois fois par jour, la gens se exprime avec Salaam Aleikum, il y a d'ecoles madrasahs, mais nous sommes tolerants ici!
Voila!
Je me suis trompe. Ça ne pas le cas.
Ils sont tres fievreux sur l'Islam. Pour quois je dit ca?
Meme ici, la gens regarde "O Clone", avec Giovana Antonelli version Allah globalizee.
Vive au Bresil.
Vive au Mali.
Hehehehehehe
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Mode: Inshallah

Litters

2009-10-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

I need a chick flick.
Guess i have cried everything i had to in the past 6 months, with Gregory, and the trend of 'life-is-a-hopeless-shit' movies that i have been watching for the past few weeks:
Reporter
La teta asustada
The hurt locker

Soon i will have dried out my crying wells. Need a chick flick badly.
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Mood: chickye

Soft power (aka 11 men and a lady)

2009-10-21T06:02:00.001-07:00

Who is going to win Afghan Star?
Oh, what a thrill....
Hehehehehehe!
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Mood: =?