13th September 2014

Finally back to Lisbon!

Can't believe I am going to start classes in two days ;______; GOOD GRIEF, IT'S ABOUT TIME ALREADY

... Except that this semester I'm going to start right at 8AM on Mondays... Getting up at 6AM in the first day of the week, going all out right from the start! Yeaaah, no, I'm not gonna enjoy this part that much, no no.

In other news, I'm in the same residence but got a different room this time! I'm all set, dad says it looks like I've been living here for years because it's packed with random stuff everywhere already. Plus points are more space and less heat during the summer. Minus points: Winter is going to be a freezing hell, and one with lots of moist.

No roommate yet (it's a new one). Apparently she's from med school 3rd year, and she's comming tomorrow evening or on Monday.

And now I'm off to bed because they want me to be up by 9 tomorrow and I always take hours and hours to fall asleep in the first night. =w='

Let's all cheer for a fresh new year with lots of surprises waiting! Hopefully the good kind too, else I'm going to cry. This year is going to be an overwhelming chaos. 

Oyasuminasai ~

7th September 2014

As you probably know, it's an undeniable fact that I'm nuts about Maneki Neko statues. I mean, I bawled out my eyes the day the neighbor's dog ripped down my T-Shirt with one on it.

So I've been waiting for years for the day I'd stop resisting buying one of the million solar-powered statues from the chinese shops. I mean, they're cheap, but I wanted to wait until I found one with the calico-pattern, or a simply too-adorable-to-even-consider-resisting version of it.

Nope. The day I gave in to buying one of the chinese shop ones was a random day where we entered a shop in order to buy my coworker a belt because his pants kept falling all day long, last week when we were still near the eastern border to collect some research materials.

And, so far, I do not regret it one tiny bit! I MEAN LOOK AT IT, HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE MANEKI NEKO.

In other news, I also changed the blog template. It's been some time since I wanted to incorporate the artwork of one of my favorite artists, Pascal Campion, into something. Anything. Well, blog template it is! The palette of the banner is a bit off, but that's because I couldn't resist using these two pictures, who are among my favorites of his.

What I like about his stuff is that he doesn't try to baffle the world with any complex technique, but manages to make his art feeling like it has more life than many realistic, heavy on technique, artworks. There's a warm, bubbly, jazzy feeling to it, and it's like each image has a story to tell. Not to mention that, for me, the star in his paintings isn't really the human figure(s) on it but rather the whole scenery. The way he makes the scenery is what takes my breath away.

Also he uses cats often, so that's an extra bonus.

Mentioning cats, one of my four cats just dashed into my room and started purring and cuddling 2 seconds after I heard a loud bang somewhere else in the house. Nice try. Let's find out what you broke this time.

The blog is officially back to activity! 

(or at least I'll try to make it so)

So many things have changed since my last posts. MANY many things. In order not to overload you with all the updates, I'll simply create topics. Because who doesn't like lists and topics, right? In any case, sorry because it'll still probably end up with an overload of updates.

• New psychological status - a bit of insiding on my status back in the first university semester

During my first semester in Lisbon, as you can probably feel from my old posts, I went through a small depression. My professional goal since elementary school had been to become a languages teacher thus I built all my academic path in Humanities in order to reach that goal in a straight line. Then I ended up in Literature because that was the bachelor degree I needed to get access to the masters degree that I wanted. Oh boy was that interesting. I think you all know by now how <sarcasm> amazing </sarcasm> I am in classes related to Literature and Culture. If you don't, I'll just say I rock the mathematical, objective and practical areas MUCH more easily. I just didn't actually know it back then because I had no idea that the fact that I things such as grammar related to the later group much more than the first one. Anyway, the truth is that I soon realized I had landed in a degree quite far from both my interests and my strong points, and started to slightly regret my decision of getting to that masters degree through the easy/straight-line way which was Literature. I borderline hated all my classes and the consistent feeling of me being worthless and dumb at what I thought (and I thought very very wrongly) was my strongest area. Add that to the fact that I had to miss classes for half my semester due to several health problems, plus my new friendships being ruined by several misunderstandings, and you can have an idea why I was actually not that much of a *genuinely* happy person back then.

• Found something I am both very good at and very interested in. Found out that I am actually the opposite of a passionless, useless kid. Found Linguistics.

My first semester consisted in classes related to Literature, but for my major I needed some linguistics classes, and all of them ended up clumped up in my second semester, by pure chance. That coincidence changed my life. I managed to post a bit during my second semester, and I think it's quite clear, despite the posts still being from the very beginning, that something changed. Lots of mentions of Linguistics Analysis, for example, which is the class that made me fall deep in love with Dialectology, and one of the first classes that started to tease my interests concerning Linguistics. My sudden Hiatus is not a coincidence. It matches the time I started to devote myself wholeheartedly to a journey of discovering the wonderful world of Linguistics Research, so deeply that I forgot whatever else was around me. I had never felt so interested in something during all my life, and I sure as hell wasn't going to let it slip through my fingers. So I held onto it, to my beloved classes, to my beloved professors, to my beloved new friends. My average score went from 12/20 in the first semester to 17.4/20 in the second. And, by the end of the semester, I realized I had never, in my entire life, felt that way, felt that happy. And I mean, GENUINELY happy. I had never wanted something that much. So much that I broke down crying really hard after a class of Linguistics Analysis while thinking of all this and being haunted by the reality that was the chance of my family not being able to afford the rest of my degree. I had finally found my muse and my passion, and I spent my whole second semester knowing there was a chance there was not going to be any more of it after the end of the year. So I forgot everything else, including the blog, in order to fully experience the love I felt for Linguistics. Miracles happen and I'm still here, through still struggling a lot. My third semester had an average of 18, and last semester I averaged 19 out of 20! And so I keep falling in love with something I now know quite well, I fall in love with my wonderful professors and mentors who lead me here, I fall inlove with research (so much I begged so much for a volunteering position in the research center to my mentor that she gave up and managed to find a way to get me there) and the complexity behind the methodology, I fall in love with the idea of becomming a researcher in Dialectal Syntax and, ideally, a professor too. I want to take the chance of helping hopeless, lost little pups to find their own and only passion, the way my professors helped me.

Okay, I apologise, I thought making topics would help reducing the wall-of-text'ing, but noooope. Didn't happen.

So, TL;DR, nowadays I am a very happy, sleep-deprived workaholic who's not going to rest until she becomes a renowned investigator and professor. I'll still post my ranty, random, oddball stuff just like I used to, though. So if that's why you're still around, you can relax. Things are going to be the same. Just with looots of Linguistics in the middle of it.

HIATUS
This blog is temporarily on hiatus. Reason: Focusing on my studies.

8th March 2013

YOU GUYS HAVE NO IDEA, it's been MONTHS since I ordered this precious little thing and finally it has arrived this week! I was anxious for the WHOLE week to come back home in order to see it ;w; what do you think? I think I'm going to wear that thing every single day from now on, I just don't sleep with it because it could get ruined, so... T^T

So, dinner tonight was cordon bleu. It's been a good while ever since I last had some, and though I was dreading for some damn pizza for the whole week, this is a very nice enough replace to pizza.

And now, going to watch Leverage until I fall asleep! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend ~

7th May 2013

Oops. Strike day. I guess I won't be able to go for my volunteering hours today. D:

Oh well. Now that I was actually -almost- mentally ready for it, I am feeling SLIGHTLY disappointed, lmao.

BUT HEY! A day off is a day off!

So let's enjoy it watching tons of stuff and procrastinating tons of hours and eating tons of stuff while snuggling in tons of blankets!!

5th March 2013

GUYS I'm just SO. SERIOUSLY. GLAD.

I have like the bestest of best buddies. ;w;

So like a couple of hours ago, I was kinda agonizing at the thought of doing volunteer work at a very... difficult social center on Thursdays from this week onwards.

AND THEN. So that I wouldn't depress much more about that, I just got randomly invited for a great afternoon WHICH INCLUDES A DAMN BOAT RIDE.

I've never ever rode a boat before in my entire life. YES I'M SERIOUS.

I'm going with Mario, who's a new college buddy. Met him at the Linguistic Analysis class. ACTUALLY we already had Linguistic Politics together last semester but we never actually talked to each other. Now we have two classes in common this semester so we kinda pulled a few strings and ended up finding out that we have A WHOOOOOLE lot of stuff in common. And now we basically talk every single day. First person that I find here that actually knows AION *AND!!!* Silkroad. Not to mention he's gonna take me out for a Studio Ghibli movie watching one of these days. NOW that's a buddy to keep.

... Please pray so that it won't rain like hell? ;_;

5th March 2013

Aaahhhh I love Tuesdays! There's such a great feeling about them. Most people hatefully glare at Tuesdays for being the day-that-comes-right-after-freaking-Mondays. I, for once, like them! *this semester, that is*

Today I served as a labrat for some psycholinguistics experience. I did my best not to bother the researcher with my overflowing excitement about this kind of things, but I think it went really well and I was warmly welcomed. Hopefully her research will show some great results! ~

I think spring came a little earlier this year! So many people around me feeling enamoured, there are even some great infatuation cases. It's a wondermix of emotions everywhere and it's making me overflowing with excitement and cheerfulness aaaand I am not even the protagonist of these stories. I just love people's honest faces when they realize these things and can't figure out what to do. It's just so precious. Spring wouldn't be spring without those little things. I wish them all a great experience, because they're so deserving of it. ;w; But make it an amusing rollercoaster, wouldn't have the same spark without those tumbling feelings and having everything handed to you on your lap. =w= ~

I'm gonna watch me some Leverage and dive into lots of stuff concerning neurolinguistics today!

Have fun everyone ~

4th March 2013

Hey, it's been a while! ^_^ ~

Most of you were on pair with the news, but since lately I've had more free time to talk to everyone, I wanted to try making a break from the blog.

You didn't miss much! I've spent that time watching 3 full seasons of Leverage (almost halfway on season 4!), spent time with some of you face-to-face, managed to catch on most of your updates, aaaaaaand now I think I caught the flu so I'm locked in my room for the day and I thought it was a nice time to come up with a new entry here TwT

The weather is aaaaaaawful out there! So foggy, windy, and heaps of rain. No way on Earth that I'd go out with that crappy weather and risk feeling worse for tomorrow's class! >_>

So basically I'm stuffing myself with Pringles and cookies (and a jar of pickles because you all know about my weird habit of eating pickles with chopsticks as some sort of snack anytime during the day), trying to see if I get something done on the laptop (not much progress but that's no newsflash, rofl), while I pray to the gods that tomorrow I'll be shinning bright like a star for Linguistic Analysis class! So cross your fingers, everyone!

18th February 2013

Back from the weekend!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand mentally drained. I've reached a point where I find myself talking to the computer in a really grumpy tone and probably loud enough for half the building being able to listen to me yelling about the non-sense abuse that is to be researching the symbology of the egyptian alphabet glyphs for a course called "Comprehension and Production of Written PORTUGUESE". Good thing my teacher looks very kind and seems like she has everything controled so I feel I can trust her on the task having a purpose.

... Still, my college teachers are nuts, I'm telling you.

You should have seen Barbara's face when she saw me trying to get a grip on this stuff. Immediately ran upstairs to tell Flavia that I was sleeping in front of my laptop. NOT sleeping, grabbing my brain in so that it doesn't fly out of my nose from all the gibberish I'm currently reading and filtering. TwT ~