Happy Halloween

A quick post about the Halloween today, I am so happy I am going to celebrate it, I haven’t ever done so! Remember that in Portugal, as well and in Spain, France, Italy.. Germany (?), maybe a lot more places the Halloween does really exist and whatsoever is nowadays celebrated it has been imported from the US such as like a lot of other things.

But then it means that once a kid I didnt enjoy dressing up as a pumpkin and go knocking the doors scaring the neighbours and get a lot of sweets! Well, since I am 24 it just not applies to me anymore but at least I can go out at night dressed in a spooky, creepy manner and scaring (or not) whoever passes by.. (or there is also some girls who defend that the Halloween is suppose to be sexy! Then I would have to dress as a sexy dirty witch but then I think I would be even scarier! At least I am sure my friends would be a bit scared about whatever would be happening to me, not that I dont like to dress sexy but this sexy I am talking about is beyond what I find sexy and instead goes towards what is dirty almost pornographic.. you should come and see me in Nottingham and I will show you what I am talking about if you dont believe me... girls here are far too much...and too many!)

Alright, so I am going out tonight and celebrate the Halloween and I am happy about that! I wish you a very terrifying Halloween! Have fun! And I will put a photo of me later ;)

And because of the Halloween I found a very sadistic thing, quite funny though, remember these cruel bunnies?? Check them in the You Tube, there are several 30'' movies like the one I am posting, have a look whether you are bored!

Chronicles of the (re)discovery of the (GREAT) all times' classics

Yesterday, and not only yesterday, it happens every time I am with someone who has got a really vast musical culture, I felt really dull. The reason is just because I actually think I lack quite a lot of musical knowledge. It is not that I dont know a lot of songs and artists, not that I dont like music, because I love it and all parts of my life have great soundtracks but it just seems that I dont memorize very well either the lyrics or the artists or bands' names or actually I perhaps didnt spend a fairly good time listening to them! Maybe I just listened to the radio some time or it was at a friends' place, in the car, in a party or in a random concert.. but not in my walkman, Discman, mp3 player or i-pod (I havent got one yet, please dont make fun of me)..
Maybe I did not used to carry any of these sort of device with me.. (thats quite true.. although I have got them all).. Nevertheless, dont take me wrong, I listen to music at least once a day, all days of my life, therefore I do know a lot of music but havent got much selectivity, if thats the word, or for instance I cant really tell you my all time favourite band, my favourite song, my current favourite band.. etc etc.. I could make a massive list of bands I like, but I cant promisse I would know a lot about them.. and the worst is that I like a lot of stuff that I dont know the name!

Yesterday, one of these persons who knows a LOT about music, in this case I would repeat, really a lot .. got me into a very nice "trip" (with the help of YOUTUBE - this so much nice tool, I cant believe the humanity survived 10 thousand years without it..) through what everyone knows as the classics, those songs that mostly everyone can sing at least the refrain, mostly everyone likes it, and it perfectly fits with some point in one's life!

Obviously or not, BUT in fact I knew over 95% of the songs besides I just realized that most of them I had no idea about the song's name and not even the singer! I just thought that was pretty shameful and embarrassing being 24 and neglecting all this information! OMG!
The funniest thing was that the beginning of the saga through the old time best classics ever did not start with a proper classic but with a song that is suddenly now playing in my head (Thanks!) and that I find appropriated to use as the great beginning for this chronics about the all times classics!

So expect me to publish that really romantic song from the 80s or that 90s dance floor hit but today, I am going to leave you with... this one:



So Gosto de ti, Porque?
Nao sei
Mas tou bem assim
e tu tambem ;)

Its not a brilliant song (At all!), but it gave place to a brilliant time! A very good time to share and burn a very nice CD (I hope I will do)!

Have fun! (I am writing up my first year PhD report, dont expect me to make much sense ;)

What day is it?

Funny!

The Science of TODAY is NOT the Science of before

I think everyone who is involved with science nowadays and I don’t even say as involved as I am, but anyone who actual likes science or read scientific news on a magazine, someone who is generally interested on what is going on about new discoveries in physics, mathematics, genetics.... new technologies or whatsoever brings up a breakthrough on what is known so far may have thought the same thing:

The Science of TODAY is very different from what it used to be 10 years ago!

(In the past, but past in science is a very short time due to the speed of how things evolve and change and grow and.. ufff is exhausting!)

The reasons:

The most striking one is obvious: There was a lot more done in the past ten years than possibly in the 50 years before! It is just crazy the amount of findings that came out during the last decade! And of course, every time a step goes forward a new question arises or a new need arises taking the topic a lot further and further and then it’s just like a snow ball that goes faster down the mountain as soon as it gets bigger and bigger!

Also obvious is that the topics researched 20 years ago were different than what is going on now and that's always changing very quickly according to what comes out and what becomes needed and required and on the fields of medical research, pharmaceutics and IT it goes particularly more more fast!

Another big reason to explain this entire boost is INVESTMENT! Despite of the big economic crisis that is now spreading all over the world and the small ones that affected the USA and Europe, the principal scientific investors, there was a lot of money invested in science in the past decade. I am not going to tell you numbers but the results talk by themselves and since a lot more has been done it means there was money for that and that also generated more money! For instance, I noticed the amount of charity funded research provided by institutions fighting against cancer and other malignancies.

The chart below explains how science, technology and society talk among each others and the arrows connecting them, thanks to the big development in the IT fields are getting shorter and shorter and everything just happening very very fast.

The issue:
My personal reason why I am writing about this topic is because of my concerns on how do people are actually actively involved in this very fast circuit and how do they feel about it!

With everything moving and evolving very fast it is hard to stay on the front line and for a scientist that is absolutely essential! There makes no sense to research something that has already been unveil and published by someone else! That takes one to read and read and keep himself very up-to-date but that is a lot of time and then where is the time to perform the experiments? That is also a lot of time either! Shall we scientists become human robots and be design to perform science at the same speed it goes and forget about what behind it makes us human beings and not heartless machines?

How can a scientist succeed in THIS kind of life, professionally, having at the same time a family, a kid and a spouse? Most of them will definitely suffer. I just think that to be fairly recognized in this world one needs to work at least 16 hours a day, half of them reading and the other half performing experiments and the remaining 8 hours will be to eat/sleep and of course there will not be days off or holidays!
Personally I don’t feel programmed for that and I can’t cope with this fast, exhausting, pointless style of life, can you?

But then, since I have chosen that science is what I want to do, as my profession not as my whole live, I might not be taking it serious or enough serious and that means I might not get a job and then I might not work at all and then I cant have my private life because I wont be able to support it.. bla bla bla bla.. That is over then!

So, what way to choose? How far is this gonna be? How people are going to face this and cope with it?

The Little Red Riding Hood written according to the Portuguese Ortographic agreement 2058 (ya tásse)‏ ..

Once upon a time...

Tás a ver uma dama com um gorro vermelho? Yah, essa cena! A pita foi obrigada pela kota dela a ir à toca da velha levar umas cenas, pq a velhatava a bater mal, tázaver? E então disse-lhe:
- Ouve, nem te passes! Népia dessa cena de ires pelo refundido dasárvores, que salta-te um meco marado dos cornos para a frente e depois tenho a bófia à cola!
Pá, a pita enfia a carapuça e vai na descontra pela estrada, mas a toca davelha era bué longe, e a pita cagou na cena da kota dela e enfiou-se pelobosque. Népia de mitra, na boa e tal, curtindo o som do iPod...É então que, ouve lá, salta um baita dog marado, todo chinado e bué uglymêmo, que vira-se pa ela e grita:
*- Yoo, tá td? Dd tc?*
- Tásse... do gueto alí! E tu... tásse? - disse a pita- Yah! E atão, q se faz?- Seca, man! Vou levar o pacote à velha que mora ao fundo da track, que tákuma moka do camano!- Marado, marado!... Bute ripar uma até lá?- Epá, má onda, tázaver? A minha cota não curte dessas cenas e põe-me depildra se me cata...- Dasse, a cota não tá aqui, dama! Bute ripar até à casa da tua velha, até te dou avanço, só naquela da curtição. Sem guita ao barulho nem nada.- Yah prontes, na boa. Vais levar um baile katéte passas!!!E lá riparam.

Só que o dog enfiou-se por um short no meio do mato e chegou à toca da velha na maior, com bué avanço, tázaver? Manda um toque naporta, a velha 'quem é e o camano' e ele 'ah e tal, e não sei quê, que eusou a pita do gorro vermelho, e na na na...'.

A velha abre a porta e PIMBA, o dog papa-a toda... Mas mesmo, abre a bocarra e o camano e atéchuchou os dedos...O mano chega, vai ao móvel da velha, saca uma shirt assim mêmo à velha quea meca tinha lá, mete uns glasses na tromba e enfia-se no VL... o gajo tava bué abichanado mêmo, mas a larica era muita e a pita era à maneira,tásaver? A pita chega, e tal, e malha na porta da velha.- Basa aí cá pa dentro! - grita o dog.- Yo velhita, tásse?- Tásse e tal, cuma moca do camâno... mas na boa...- Toma esta cena, pa mamares-te toda aí...- Bacano, pa ver se trato esta cena.- Pá, mica uma cena: pa ké esses baita olhos, man?- Pá, pa micar melhor a cena, tázaver?- Yah, yah... E os abanos, bué da bigs, pa ke é?- Pá, pa poder controlar melhor a cena à volta, tázaver?- Yah, bacano... e essa cremalheira toda janada e bué big? Pa que é acena?- É PA CHINAR ESSE CORPO TODO!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!!

E o dog manda-se à pita, naquela mêmo de a engolir, né? Só que a pitadá-lhe à brava na capoeira e saca um back-kick mesmo directo aos tomatesdo man e basa porta fora! Vai pela rua aos berros e tal, o dog vem atrás edá-lhe um ganda-baite, pimba, mêmo nas nalgas, e quando vai pa engolir agaja aparece um meco daqueles que corta as cenas cum serrote, saca demachado e afinfa-lhe mêmo nos cornos.

O dog kinou logo alí, o mano china abelly do dog e saca de lá a velha toda cheia da nhanha. Ina man, e a maltaa gregoriar-se toda!!!E prontes, já tá...


And that's it.. because it is about the portuguese ortographic agreement there makes no sense for me too translate this, but to those who can understand I quite think that there are not many differences between this old story written as it is here and an episode of Rebelde Way (SIC), therefore this ortographic agreement might eventually happen earlier than expected !!

Thought of the day (Two thoughts of the day actually)! (.....) The desert, the crisps and the monkey shows off!

First thought of the day:
While working after 11 hours with no breaks at all, even lunch I had sitting in front of the lap top while analysig my FRAP data (FRAP stands for fluorescence recover after photobleaching.. a very boring technique by the way although quite useful and the results turned to be interesting but to sit in front of the computer acquiring the data is very painful and analysing the data is another pain.. therefore it suits the rhyme "FRAP is CRAP".. thats what always comes to my mind.. sorry!), but ok, today I just came here to complain, bahh,

The (first) thought of the day ..

I did know the PhD would be a lonely jouney but I didnt know I was going to do it in the desert!

Second thought of the day:
The english food (in my opinion! sorry by the second time) has serious problems and in general is hard to find something nice to eat - I dedicated a post, some time ago, to the english culture where I expanded my thoughts about english food but today I have got to know that for christmas, therefore a seasonal speciallità, one of the crisps companys here in the UK, will sell a new flavour dedicated to the Christmas season which seems to be a cocktail of christmas flavours in a pack of crips!! It is reasonable to say WOW! How far are crisps taking us? Crips are becoming like meal tablets nowadays! There are every flavour for crisps, everything you can imagine, almost every day I find a different flavour! You have salty, cheese and onion, salt and vinegar and these are what I consider the NORMAL flavours but then it starts to becoming really creative coming with prawn cocktail, followed by greek kebab, feta cheese, sweet chili, roasted turkey with bla bla bla, roasted beef, dark souce whatever, tomato ketchup... four cheese and red onion (which is apparently different than cheese and onion!), bacon on toast.. sausage bla bla bla, turkey and thyme, etc etc etc, its ridiculous! It never ends!

SO.. some time ago every one would think that one day there would come some sort of tablets with flavours to replace the food in a plate taking much less time to eat and less effort as well and also could be helpful in a diet BUT instead of light tablets full of nutrients and with food tastes we have got plenty of tasty crisps possible to make a four or five course meal with all the flavours on it, (and a lot of calories though!)

Thus, concerning this reality, the second thought of the day is:

Even the monkey loves them!

and in a Jose Cid style.. the monkey loves crisps as I love you - even though it didn't improve.. Oh poor Jose Cid, you've got no chance! And who is Jose Cid? It's a must see ! ... (google it!)

And just a brief third thought of the day:

I ate three packs of crips today and they were nice and they are more or less the best thing I can eat in the desert...

In the meantime I try to have fun and hope you also do!

Got the counter and got a map BUT not the place..

Ok,
Dear readers,
finally got the visitors counter that I mentioned a few posts ago and even better!! Instead of a normal basic counter I have got a map counter that not only tell us how many visitors did come to this blog but also where they are from in the world! I hope I dont get too disappointed and the map will be getting red dots soon :) (At least my effort of writing in english for everyone should be worthwhile !)..

The point of today is.. ITS SUNDAY, I am sleepy, very tired though, going to bed after this, cant be bother working any further, I am death, has been such a busy time now and its just going worse and worse towards the first report and the Xmas holidays when before I must get a lot more work done than I have.. uff And just in sequence with my busy life of nowadays the following song reflects what I felt in a quite distant past (regarding that with my age one year is a long time and then I can also tell you that it takes me back to 2006)@ that time this song would be a great soundtrack, today it is one of my favourite Linkin Park's songs (therefore still makes part of life!): The place I belong I still dont know and I cant predict when I will know that, I have a special passion for moving and travelling although recently more than ever I have been feeling a need to go back at a certain point which was something I primarily discarded in the past affirming I would never go back to Portugal.. How and Why my mind is changing it is out of my conscious control under world influences (maybe astral ?!..) but you know time changes everything (and love as well!) so, from the uncertainty of my life for long terms I enjoy my PhD time and look forward to, sooner or later, travelling and or settle somewhere I belong ...

RE-DO MANGA

Apparently someone (who is not a stranger but someone I do really care of course, otherwise I would not come back to the blog today for this up-dating, besides I have got "nothing" to do then a lot of time for another post.. lolol.. actually I have got a lot to do but no motivation at all, I can't even believe that I brought my work laptop with me - teorectically because I was gonna work hard tonight, but really, I cant do anything else today apart from resting my brain that is really tired..like steaming.. bahh) then, decided that my Manga version did not match with the actual Pippa (me).

There you go Pips Manga strikes back :)

Actually I look much better now, ihihihih, Thanks =)))

Its seems that went to one of those TV shows where they transform people like Before/After!

Pippa Manga

Following suggestion from Miss Pipeta @http://caopatadeborracha.blogspot.com/ decided to check whether I could find me in a Manga world. Get a try, its funny when you have nothing to do or waiting the western blot to go home @http://www.faceyourmanga.com/ !!

Have fun, I do ;)

Crying Out Loud for Love

My post for you today is a Ode to love and to lovers. There is not much to say about feelings unless you put it into a nice poem otherwise it just sounds silly. An extensive description in a formal text about feelings and love sounds boring and does not make sense anyway.. therefore I cannot extend my topic of today ;P (which is great because I dont feel like writing that much) but I wanted to say something and I listened to this song today and went through the poem which is brilliant and really romantic and feel so much like that.. wanted to share, I am happy :)

"
I would die for you
I would die for you
I’ve been dying just to feel you by my side
To know that you’re mine

I will cry for you
I will cry for you
I will wash away your pain with all my tears
And drown your fear

I will pray for you
I will pray for you
I will sell my soul for something pure and true
Someone like you

See your face every place that I walk in
Hear your voice every time I am talking
You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored
I will burn for you
Feel pain for you
I will twist the knife and bleed my aching heart
I’ll tear it apart
I will lie for you
I can steal for you
I will crawl on hands and knees until you see
You’re just like me

Violate all my love that I’m missing
Throw away all the pain that I’m living
You will believe in me
And I can never be ignored

I would die for you
I would kill for you
I will steal for you
I’d do time for you
I would wait for you
I’d make room for you
I’d sail ships for you
To be close to you
To be a part of you
’cause I believe in you
I believe in you
I would die for you

Freaky weather, shity food and facebook

What makes England such an attractive place for students all over the world?
That question comes to my mind from time to time, because actually there are loads of students coming to England every year to stay for their degrees either undergraduate or post graduate degrees, also for Erasmus or other sort of exchange programs not yet to mention all those other people who emigrate here to work!

England or shall I say the United Kingdom although Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales seem not to be as attractive as England nonetheless they also get a fairly good amount of foreigners looking forward for a good education and a better work.. for such a phenomena that must be a good explanation of course!
From my experience and since I came to England anyway, my reasons rely on the very high standard research with state-of-art facilities open to everyone permitting top world research specially in my field where a lot of equipment is required to do a proper project with no restrictions, therefore there is a lot of investment in the universities and there is, indeed, a lot of Money!
Secondly, what makes England more attractive than other countries in Europe with as good research conditions as England? The language of course! Doing a PhD is already a lot of work; I personally could not be bother learning another language in the meantime, which would be crucial for my thesis and project. These are my personal reasons and I am pretty sure that whether I would come out with a survey about this everyone would pretty much go for the same reasons as the top ones.
There might be other good reasons to move here but honestly I can’t see any other strong reasons to bring me here for living, not that I wouldn’t come for visiting because the country is nice at some points, but that’s it! Please feel free to express yourself whether you feel you had other reasons to come here ;)

And now let’s face the culture... tcharan: Freaky weather, shity food and facebook are the key words when you are a foreigner. (I could make a song, a poem about this! maybe later)

There is not ever best subject for a conversation that British weather! Portuguese whether is boring, any other weathers... BORING, BUT, British weather is so crapy that there is always a wish to complain about it and because it varies a lot you can have twice or trice many conversations about the weather than in any other country like:
In the morning waiting for the bus: "Oh, its sunny today but its freezing!" and after one or two hours in the morning break for a shity coffee (that’s another issue by the way) "its becoming warmer isn’t it but the sun is gone, its completely overcastted and it seems that will be raining soon" and later on when going for lunch with the colleagues "its so humid, because has been raining for two or three hours and there's no chance we eat outside" in the end of the day when heading for the lift a lab neighbour "the weather today is pretty rubbish it has been changing all over the day", etc, etc.. At least, it is always possible to break the silence and just in a Monthy Python's style "always Look on the Bright Side of Life"!!

Second reason one cannot avoid coming to England is the food (and it also includes the Coffee!). The food it’s just horrible! Sometimes I have to starve because nothing seems eatable! Mostly everything they have is chips (former French fries) and crisps (former chips) and other rubbish like a lot of grease everywhere, a lot of processed food, the cheese is bad, the bread is very bad, the ham is ok but very stupidly expensive, then they are a island but they don’t eat fish (can you get this???), and the fish they eat its fried on batter so again a lot of grease, them they mush peas and eat it with a big half boiled half roasted potato that they call jacket potato, and usually its accompanied by they lovely beans.. baked beans which are, seriously, really bad! And because their food its always bad anyway they end up putting a lot of sauces (and what they call gravy) in everything to hide the real flavour and give it an even more artificial flavour.. then their sandwiches with its inexplicable awful mayos and mustard.. thats just too bad. So traditionally a good lunch here is composed of a packet of crisps with a coke and a triangular sandwich, that in Portugal you only find in the gas stations and that even though are better then these here... The coffee.. its another issue, I cant count how many time I ordered a coffee and had to trough it away immediately because I couldn’t drink it even with 3 or 4 packs of sugar on it.. where are they getting the coffee from???

And now the really tcharan thingy which completes the story here and represents up to 1/3 of the time spent by a normal worker on its normal working day: The Facebook! this is a real phenomena.. moving to England? First question would be: Did you set up your facebook account? Not that you have got accommodation and a job, you might not get a job if you are not on face book! This is a serious issue! What is meant to be a leisure thing becomes more and more an important part of people’s life and its own part of the society by how do they interact on facebook. FAcebook is the tool to know more people therefore to enlarge your network, to be invited to the events to be noticed and to be known! there is no other place in the world where a gadget like facebook has been gone so far, and here its just a fundamental tool!




And now the overview of what I have got in England (from the country):

- Nice university that being part of my CV can give me a very nice job in the future wherever I go.
- All the conditions for my research as far as I am concerned there’s nothing missing!
- The opportunity to improve the English language and to become almost a native speaker, a skill recognized all over the world and that makes me able to communicate with a lot of people.
- Shity depressing weather
- awful food
- a strange society, actually I forgot to mention the alcohol which is a big part of the issues in this country but I will talk about that in another post later.

Any questions why?

The sides of people's life (are their choices)

It is incredible how social dependent we are, human beings and how important is for us to be loved by the others and have a good network of friends and people in general. And whether you think otherwise you must see a doctor. Healthy minds need other minds and alive hearts need other hearts, and just such like ants and bees, humans live happy in societies sharing experiences and thoughts towards a building up of what is meant to be a nice life there is a place on top of Maslows’ pyramid that I posted some days ago! That’s self satisfaction that makes us smile in a way that is possible for the others to see that we are confident of ourselves and that makes us recommendable people. People dont neither want nor like to co-live with people lacking self confidence, surrounded by problems and expressing sadness and pains unless they are their friends (and even though must be truly friends.). Nevertheless in the social routinely environment meeting people everyday one will always approach a positive looking person rather than a problematic obscure one hiding behind what seems to be a black curtain full of troubles within.

Overall, this in part useless conversation that is actually my post for you today is to state that my moody days are gone for now and that I feel good again. Not gonna go into details of what happened but Im simply summarizing the reasons for these changes as changes in perspectives and general overviews of my current life and life style. Such as like the moon, everything has a light and a dark side ("Star wars" additionally explains it pretty well: when you are in the light side you look good and people like you but if you turn to the dark side you will become ugly and everyone will avoid you). Basically after a fairly long reflection I concluded that whatever happened was because I couldnt, for a while, see the light side of my life despite all the good, positive points present everywhere! And thats why people one loves is so important here, because they are patient enough to listen to you when you are good and also where you are down and it just helps you so much changing sides, improving and recovering!
I am happy I have got the right people to talk to, and I am happy because I have got the right people to be with. I feel I am growing up really fast at the moment and my life becoming full of challenging situations where I have to manage to respond to them and keep going and for one spoiled girl like me, I may say, it was difficult to cope with it in the beginning but I do believe that things will be alright.

When it comes to time to decide and make decisions it is really striking whatever you choose because it might change your life forever either for good or for hell! I feel I went through that way a few months ago when I decided to completely change my life coming to Nottingham and leave a lot of people I love behind me and face a totally new world where I only knew a very few people. But nowadays I feel that my decisions are even more compromising. I grew up, evolved and belong now to an adult life where I don’t eventually find myself but indeed I have to, forced by the circumstances. I didn’t think it would be so quick and when I look 10 years back I was fourteen and had started thinking a lot more than before with questions raising everyday about life and stuff and now mostly all those questions seem very simple while a several more turn to be flashing around waiting answers that I will not probably ever have time to answer unless I live forever!!

Since I don’t believe I will live forever, except I get a special power such as one of those from Heroes (really enjoyed watching it), I am content with what I have now whereas being challenged and facing the demanding s of life from where I try to squeeze the best out of it! Therefore I am telling you: Have fun, I do!