Kitten Mittons!

Bedroom already organized. It wasn’t possible to do what I had in mind, but the guy that fixed the closet gave me an even better idea, which I hope to carry out until the end of the year. As I had imagined, putting everything back inside was an ordeal, almost three hours of sorting things out, dusting off old shit, putting really old shit into the bin and making room for what’s left and is still worth keeping. All clothes that don’t fit anymore are gone, which considerably reduced the number of outfits by… a couple? I realized that I was clinging on to stuff I used to wear in high school and I finally came to terms with the fact that I’ll never look like that again unless, I don’t know, I get left in the middle of nowhere with a swiss knife and live on a few berries a day and water. But I guess death would be the most likely outcome out of this.

Anyway, so yesterday I was hanging out at home around lunchtime and there was literally nothing to watch on TV; even Bloomberg, which is usually what I watch on the weekends because the CNN’s reruns are just too much to bear, was showing this car racing stuff. So, I went broadcast. Started watching Balanço Geral and was bombarded with crack dealers getting busted, car accidents, armed robbery and DUI guys caught on camera while, yes, getting busted. So, there was this guy that got involved in a minor accident and he clearly had been drinking, so he became outraged with the fact that he was being filmed and being arrested for drinking and driving. I just don’t get these people. What’s so fun about being in an accident that luckily wasn’t fatal after having huge amounts of alcohol? I don’t think that making them pay is working — it obviously hasn’t since the Zero Tolerance law passed last year. Sending them to prison isn’t a possibility because prisons are so over capacity that the judge has no option but to give them the “alternative penalty” (paying a fine or “cestas basicas”). What these guys should be ordered to do is to work in the accident ward of a hospital for six months, or take care of somebody that had been injured in a car crash. My mom says that she basically doesn’t care about these idiots that want to kill themselves, she thinks about the families that many leave behind or the life of others that these bastards take. I agree.

Well, since I didn’t want to watch that shit anymore, I turned to my series. I don’t think there’s anything funnier and more wrong than It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, on FX. I love it. From trying to bomb the competition out of business to giving a Mexican family a makeover or even going on a man hunt, it’s all absolutely hilarious and unbelievable. And, of course, there’s always “KITTEN MITTONS”!

TEDTalks is not only about environment. I reviewed this very interesting talk translated by Durval Castro that’s about changes in the math curriculum in schools. Dan Meyer presents his ideas on how to make math more interesting and challenging for students, encouraging discussion rather than only solving the problems. And he does that in a very amusing way!

We Feel Fine’s randomly selected piece of story of the day: “I can feel so peaceful and content with God and yet still feel so distant and terrible and sick and angry” (4 hours ago)

Killer holiday

The only thing more annoying than having a holiday in the middle of the week has got to be not being able to walk around in your house.

I’ve had a problem with my closet for more than two years. The guys didn’t put it together correctly and I haven’t been able to open one of the doors because it hits the bed. My tiny bedroom doesn’t accommodate the gigantic closet custom made for my bedroom in my former flat. So, after all this time I’ve finally decided to do something about it. I gotta tell you that it takes courage to take everything out of that thing, it is in fact huge and I’ve got a lot of shit that for some reason I’m holding on to.

We contacted a guy that works for the furniture store and he agreed to come today, national holiday, and fix the damn thing once and for all. All right, beautiful. 1pm.

I spent a good one hour yesterday unloading stuff and just throwing it everywhere in the living room — also tiny. The more things I took out, the more seemed to pop up from the back of the shelves. The CDs landed on the washing machine. Shoes in the balcony. Clothes on the couch and on the hanger in the balcony. Everything not wearable basically all over the floor. For a split second it felt as if I was getting ready to move out, only missing the boxes to pack everything up. Than, it felt as if I had just moved in. Than, it felt as if I was getting new furniture and waiting for the guys to put it together.

Needless to say I went to sleep almost at the crack of dawn, woke up still feeling hammered and finished taking the things out of the bedroom — bed sheets, mattress, nightstand. Turned on the TV and no cable. Just dynamite. The house in disruption and no television to help me cheer up. Mom showed up at 12:30pm. She said, “we should call the guy.” I said, “get out of here, he’ll be here any minute.” She called the guy anyway and this was the answer he gave to the question: “Are you coming?”

— Er… No. I’m actually working for the store today, I’m at a customer’s house and will be here all afternoon. I might have an opening in a couple of days.

A COUPLE OF DAYS??? Fuck you, bastard! Why did you fucking agree to come here if your plan was not to show up at all? I got so pissed off that I just wanted to call him again and let him have it, but mom wouldn’t give me the number. So, we ended up contacting another guy who said he would try to come here tomorrow but if not possible he would sent another person. I hope this one keeps his promise. This all reminded me of Kramer’s “verbal contract” thing…

Anyway, the clothes on the couch are now in a mattressless bed and I’ll probably just get the mattress and crash in the living room. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find clothes to wear tomorrow…

P.S.: Today’s AC360’s birthday! Yummier by the year… And he’s down there covering the oil spill, outraging images of birds and basically any form of life dying. Will this whole thing at least help a little bit raise awareness about alternative fuels?

We Feel Fine‘s randomly selected piece of story of the day: “I have been given a bit of inspiration from a fellow writer and I couldn’t shake that nagging feeling so here I am” (2 hours ago)

12:51

I can’t believe that I’ve finally, FINALLY, sent all the feedback on the Immersion Program to all the participants — some people had been waiting since January for that — and we’ve managed to finish editing both Podcasts, they’ve turned out to be pretty good, actually, with the added music and the effects. However, I’m nowhere near catching up with all I’ve gotta do.

And speaking of work, assessment season has been officially opened. So, I’m looking at pretty busy couple of months, which made me wonder about something important: what about my vacation? We all went on forced vacation time last year in December for 10 days, which was a good break but everybody was broke — me maybe being the shattered glass on the floor — so there was no work but there was no play either, and no work and no play also makes Jack a dull boy, right? I’m guessing that I might be forced to take some time off between the assessment and the first immersion Season 2010-2011.

It took me a long time to fall asleep last night, not surprisingly. I hate when I turn in kind of early to try to have a few more hours of sleep and inevitably end up staring at the ceiling and rolling over every five minutes. But I guess what really bothers me is that, almost every time I roll over, I look at the clock and see what time it is, you know, so that I know how long I have unsuccessfully tried to go to sleep. And one thing that bothers me even  more is that almost every night I do it, one specific time is showing: 12:51.

“12:51” is the name of a Strokes song, which I’m not particularly fond of,  and these numbers seem to haunt me for some reason. As I’ve mentioned before, almost every night I look at the clock and there it is. This afternoon, after having finished my class (at 12:45pm), I kept on talking with the guys for a little while before heading for the school and, as I looked at my mobile to check the time, guess what it was? No kidding, 12:51. I really don’t know… I think when I heard the song for the first time I might have embedded the number in my head and now, involuntarily, I seek for a clock or watch whenever the time is approaching, and it makes me feel surprised, or annoyed, every time I see the number 12:51.

What freaks me out now is that I don’t wanna become the “12:51 crazy lady”, you know? Going so crazy for being haunted for four digits that ends up in an institution, repeatedly saying the time over and over and over again… 12:51… 12:51…

Speaking of crazy, as I scroll down to see the headlines, there’s this piece on Sky News about the Gloucestershire’s cheese rolling going on even though some people dub it dangerous because of safety issues. Well, it IS dangerous, people leave the place on stretchers. But what caught my attention was the comment right after the report. It reads: “good for them or yet another English tradition will die…” Interesting. A few days ago I read this article about one traditional game played in pubs being banned because it encourages binge drinking. It’s called dwile flonking and two teams basically need to hit each other with a beer-soaked cloth, having to drink up the beer fast if failing to do so. Well, I guess people just want to put an end to the funniest things and I’m not supporting it! Let them break their neck rolling down a hill chasing a piece of cheese; let them try to hit each other with a cloth as an excuse to drain their pints as fast as they can! That’s what makes the UK such a great place!

The TEDTalk of the day is this translation by Christine Veras, reviewed by me. It’s a talk by Paola Antonelli, design curator at MoMA, who explains the work she does at the museum and also tries to create awareness of what design is — not only represented by the over-elaborate pieces of furniture, but ranging from candy to gas masks.

We Feel Fine‘s randomly selected piece of story of the day: “I no longer feel sad about our lack of relationship as the negatives far outweighed the positives”

We Feel Fine

I’ve been participating in the TED Open Translation Project for a while now, about six months, and basically what happens is that there is a list of talks you can choose from to translate and to review, so you request to do either of those two things and wait for the link to be provided to start working on the talk. Obviously, the most recent talks are the most sought for and there is nothing more frustrating than getting a message in the inbox saying something like ‘we’re sorry, but the talk you’ve requested has been assigned to another translator’.

What I do is to first see what the most recent posts are. Then, I watch the talk and see how difficult it is to translate and, most importantly, if it is relevant to me and to other people, having always in mind the question “Is it worth watching?” I’ve gladly had the opportunity to translate amazing presentations, such as the alarming Jeremy Jackson’s talk about the damage being done to the ocean — this talk was actually linked to a number of other websites; the thought-provoking Robert Neuwirith’s talk showing an incredible forecast: by 2050, one third of the global population will live in slums and these will be the cities of the future; the uplifting Sophal Ear’s talk and his family quest to escape the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. But I guess my all-time favourite — I know, so far — has to be this one: about “We Feel Fine.”

This Jonathan Harris’ riveting presentation is about collecting stories, done via web or in person. He came up with a mechanism that collects tiny parts of stories on the web containing the words “feel” and “feeling”. You can visualise them in tiny dots floating on the screen, through statistics and many other ways. Here are some examples of bits of stories randomly selected from the site:

“I feel so good after crying and letting it out”

“I feel so stupid”

“I feel God isn’t working in my dad’s life because nothing has changed so far I know God works on his own time”

“I feel my life is a tragedy because my life is losing out there is no hope and I have no joy”

“I did a diet sort of but every time I go on these diets I end up eating more and feeling worse about myself”

“I feel the movie had a little something for every woman out there to relate to with at least one or all the characters and their dramas”

“I am feeling really positive about all the possibilities before me and keep thinking of new ideas and directions for the future I have the occasional waver and worry”

And it keeps on and on. Some of these entries have been available for just a few minutes, others have been around for a few days. As I read through those posts, all I can think about is that there are tones of people out there who might be sharing the same feelings I have, and most importantly, what has caused them to write about those feelings, what happened to make them feel like that and express it. Basically, what’s their story?

I feel so good that I had the opportunity to work on this talk.

Well, as for the other TED presentations, two more are available in Portuguese. First one is the translation I did on this Esther Duflo’s talk about social experiments that help fight poverty around the world, and she focuses on fighting Malaria in developing countries. This talk was reviewed by Volney Faustini. And finally, I was a reviewer for this really interesting talk by Torsten Reil about his work to design a more life-like animation for games and movies, showing some experiments made and funny images! Translation by Caio Sanjuan.

P.S.: Jon Stewart, please, come back soon!