Whenever I get the right spare amount of money, I’ll buy one of those polaroid cameras. Polaroid-o-nizer turns pics into those cute little things, try it out.

By the way, tips is going to displayed till the end of the month. Drop by if you can.

Today is a special day because it’s a special person birthday.

My friend nocas, aka miss meiadeleite.com is going to the netherlands soon. I know I’ll miss her.

Hartelijk gefeliciteerd, ana!

A couple of days ago I had a (friendly) discussion with a friend on how dangerous is Lisbon versus Porto and even Braga. I already mentioned a few times here how peaceful Braga is, nonetheless, it has it’s caveats and dont’s and I consider myself a careful person on avoiding exposing myself to robbery and such.
Since I bought a Zen, I became extra-careful – the ipodish white headphones are very revealing so a must will be to eventually replace them by some discrete ones. I don’t fancy the idea myself, but some use a more imaginative solution like the cute altoids case for this effect.

Nevertheless, earlier this week I believe I’ve been quite lucky. Near to my place, there’s a shortcut to the nearest shopping mall which I use frequently, but when it’s getting dark it’s not very nice place to be.
Despite already being dusk, I used the shortcut, happily hearing RUM on my Zen. Two african blokes smoking pot and with a german shepherd dog on a leash wasn’t something I was very happy to see, but I’ve kept going my path and when near them, I’ve tried to cuddle the staring dog. Today I think it was a very foolish thing to do, but I also believe it saved me from being robbed. No prejudice intended here, but they really didn’t seem wanting to be left alone – me not showing apparent fear might had done the trick.
Either way, I’m aware of how lucky I was, and I don’t intend to push it. No more dark shortcuts with my Zen from my now on.

A existir um diabo, diria que ele estaria a piscar o olho a estas duas notícias.

• Incidentes de Carcavelos só deram origem a uma queixa
• Michael Jackson considerado inocente de todos os crimes de que era acusado

For pretty much any Portuguese reading this, the painting on the side shouldn’t be unfamiliar. Although is not just a Portuguese thing like I thought, unfortunately it’s quite infiltrated in our culture.
It seems it all started in the UK in the 80’s, when a Spanish orphan painted the first version which ended up believed to be haunted. The painting is called crying boy and nowadays it even has a fan club. Well, maybe because Portuguese are, in a way, masochistic, the painting can be easily found on open-markets or even at some more classy art shops. This wouldn’t be a problem if a big percentage of Portuguese families (maybe my sample is biased. anyway) didn’t use it to decorate their happy homes. I guess people see in it some sort of beauty to which I’m not sensible to. Well, at least not in the same way.
The whole reason of this post it’s, perhaps, to express my strong hate for this painting. Along the years and unaware of it at start, I developed an incredible aversion to it. With all respect to whom might like it, I think it should be banned from all homes.
There is a good reason for all this and, actually, is quite simple, although as much egocentric. When I was just a kid, even before I knew what a painting really is, my mother had the unfortunate idea of hang one of this things on my bedroom wall. Can’t really blame her, she likes it a lot, and was thinking the best for me, but eventually I started asking her to remove the damn think from my room. Well, some years later she did, but moved it to the corridor wall just in from of my bedroom door which isn’t that different. I can’t precise if the painting is still there, I eventually started to ignore it completely and now I hardly go back to my parents home.

Today, I’m still not very much into painting – that’s an art I still don’t understand, I guess. Anyway, my bedroom walls don’t have any so, to replace it, there are a bunch of photographs, lots of postcards and two huge maps: one from Utrecht – already quite in a bad shape of the use I gave it while in The NL, and a even bigger map of Europe where I tagged small post-its at the places where I have friends at [edit: (the ones abroad)]. Some people think it’s funny, others think it’s strange, while some just think I’m nuts. Maybe I am, but I still find it to be a cool way to tease the imagination when everything else fails to keep me concentrated on whatever I might be doing. Plus, it’s a nice way learn some geography knowledge which I miss a bunch.

Se bem me lembro, isto começou mais ou menos assim.

Era um papelinho pequeno, daqueles que se rasga do canto de uma folha para apontar um número de telefone. No caso era um bocado de uma toalha de papel de mesa do Mr. Jacks, onde uma colega alemã tinha apontado dois modelos de câmaras fotográficas – um da Canon e outro da Nikon: – if you really wanna learn, you can start with an old reflex one. you can find really cool prices for these models on ebay, have a look!, disse-me ela.
Não sei exactamente quanto tempo deixei o dito papelinho esquecido no meio das minhas tralhas, as finanças não permitiam grandes voos e ficou em espera. Um dia (porque tornou-se óbvio que não podia regressar para Portugal sem fotos da experiência erasmus), decidi oferecer-me como presente de natal, a minha primeira câmara fotográfica.
Canon AE-1 Program, com a mesma idade que eu, em bom estado mas com pequeno risco no viewfinder, dizia o vendedor alemão. Chegou até mim alguns dias depois do Natal de 2003, muito embrulhadinha e acondicionada em folhas de um qualquer jornal alemão. O seu meio-quilo de peso impunha respeito e colocar o primeiro rolo foi uma tarefa demorada.

E foi assim que o bichinho da fotografia chegou, calçou as pantufas, instalou-se de mansinho e avisou que não tinha data para se ir embora. Entre as cores e o P&B vou fazendo o gostinho ao dedo, sempre tentando mostrar outra forma de ver o mundo (a minha), muitas vezes abusando da paciência dos amigos que têm que aturar o chato que anda sempre com a câmara atrás.
O que eu não podia adivinhar era que um ano e meio depois algumas das fotos que normalmente descançam nas paredes do meu quarto estariam numa exposição de fotografia. A ideia partiu desta menina que me convenceu a juntar as nossas fotos numa exposição conjunta. Planos feitos, algum trabalho, muitas decisões, alguns contactos e ficou finalmente pronta.

aprenda os primeiros socorros. compre no comércio local. use os transportes públicos. corte o seu próprio cabelo. veja menos televisão. faça desporto, sinta-se bem.

fazer a diferença através de coisas simples, que transcendem fronteiras.

ideias legendadas a preto e branco para ler, ver e saborear. com ou sem açucar.

uma exposição de fotografia por Ana Campos e Paulo Magalhães.

Claro que estão todos convidados :) A exposição vai realizar-se num bar no centro histórico de Braga chamado Barcode. Fica na Rua do Anjo, N.°90A e está aberto todos os dias das 21h às 02h. A inauguração é hoje, dia 30, e deverá ficar cerca de 3 semanas em exibição. Apareçam!

Although I respect peoples right to smoke, it does annoy me when I get back home after having a drink with friends at some bar and all my clothes stink to nicotine. Some bars are worse than others and, when possible, I try to dodge the real bad ones. Luckily, nobody at work seems to smoke which is a good think because it saves me the need to ask them not to do it there – as I respect their right to smoke, I expect smokers to respect the ones who don’t wish to be passive smokers. The 72m euro campaign with shocking images promised by the european commission seems to be lost into oblivion (or did I miss something?), so while we wait for it, I’ll leave a short story I find particularly funny that happend sometime ago.

Like any other mediterranean bloke, Portuguese people are avid coffee drinkers and university students are no exception. It’s usual around the universities to find a big concentration of places where people park to have their after-meal espresso cup. It’s possible to find a wide range of places for all tastes and wallets, but there’s one which is particularly looked for, probably because of the owner charisma and his sympathy and service with the costumers.
Once, there were a couple of girls waiting to be served and, meanwhile, were smoking and using the previous clients coffee cups to put their cigars ash. The owner, didn’t find this very amusing so when he brought their coffee request, he served it in two ashtrays and left, without saying a word. They did the same seconds later after paying, and my guess is that they didn’t return there so soon neither used coffee cups has an ashtray.

algumas notas sobre o meu primeiro dia de estágio:

• a piada do dia:
  – qual o concelho com mais portistas?
  – o conselho de arbitragem;
• apanhei um colega de trabalho a fazer uma pausa entre duas linhas de código, para praguejar silenciosamente todos os insultos que lhe vieram à cabeça em tempo útil; parece eficaz, meio segundo depois voltou impávido ao trabalho;
• imediatamente ao lado da porta do local de trabalho, é a porta de um café – perfeito para as injecções de cafeína que o ofício exige;
• é frase feita, cliché, lugar comum mas… há coisas que nunca mudam. o meu primeiro dia de trabalho num emprego tem sempre um efeito de onda em mim – passo o dia a crescer, a crescer. no fim do dia, desmorono, sem ninguém para apanhar os pedaços.

Today, early in the morning when I was leaving my building, I noticed something new on the elevator wall. Just above the buttons, someone posted a small cartoonish sticker of a perplexed woman with a thought balloon saying: oh my god! this city sucks!. At first this made me smile, but then it stroked me how much my opinion about Braga has changed in this last 5 years – a lot.
Until I was 19, I lived in a city called Oliveira de Azeméis which now I only visit sometimes on weekends. Although being an average size Portuguese city, my parents house is in a small village about 3km apart from the core city, meaning, it’s a very very small and quiet place, where everybody knows everybody and any outsider feels observed like an alien. Yes, that small.
Not being much of a traveller before coming to Braga to study, the city amazed me quite a bit. It would be to expect that I would have some problems to adapt to a bigger city, plus all the responsibility and all, but that part was quite smooth for me actually. What amazed me most was the city size and the amount of choices and offers which was way bigger. With it’s 150.000 inhabitants, Braga is the 3^rd city in Portugal and one of the youngest in Europe which is kinda strange when one knows about the strong religious legacy the city has – it’s ridiculous the amount of churches in this city. Anyway, being able to live 100m from the university campus and for a relatively low price was a luxury I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in a city like Porto or Lisbon.
Returning to my home town never crossed my mind again since I moved out. I was quite pleased with Braga, until I moved to the Netherlands for 6 months. Cities like Utrecht (where I stayed), Rotterdam and off course Amsterdam, putted a new meaning in the word big for me. When I returned to Braga, I’ve found myself picking on people for saying something was too far away – it’s easy to get used to this, you can trust me on this one.

Returning to the this-city-sucks sticker, I don’t think Braga sucks, at all. I surely don’t see it with the same eyes I saw before, but I still think it’s a neat city and that I made a good option to come here to study. But now, it’s just not enough.
I don’t think it’s (only) about the size of the city, really. I truly believe that, like most exchange students, I got addicted to travel. Not travel per se, but to live and really getting a grip on other cultures, places, people, ideas and ideals. I think Sarah describes this very well:

“To be constantly so completely outside of your comfort zone, to be forced to make a life for yourself from nothing, knowing no one and to be surrounded in constant unfamiliarity is tiring but sublimely exhilarating. It sounds both cheesy and obvious to say that it changed my life forever.

The downside is that I am now addicted to that feeling that you can only get from being immersed in an environment where every mundane daily chore of life (mailing a letter, getting $20 out of the ATM machine, buying a pair of shoes, finding the equivalent of Mr. Clean to mop the floor) is a challenge, and every completed chore feels like a great accomplishment.”

That’s what spices (my) life and that’s what really gets me going. Like plugging into a different voltage – the extra motivation I lack most of the time.

Now a bit of reality check – it seems that I’m stuck on Braga for the next 6 months (on a row) to do my internship. I had took an offer to do it at Philips in Eindhoven, but somehow, after waiting two months to start it, I ended up with nothing more than a deception, turning things harder for me. Nonetheless, my current plan is to do my internship here (I’ll start next monday) meaning in November I’ll finally graduate. Meanwhile, I’ll be looking for a job abroad to work for a year or two, after finishing my internship. If not, I’ll move to Lisbon or Porto hoping I’ll satisfy my addiction there, for a while anyway.

Note: by the end of the afternoon, the sticker was gone…

Ainda o meu post sobre o assunto não arrefeceu e já a minha caixa de correio foi prendada com mais exemplares da curiosa vertente publicitária do charlatanismo.
E, como a concorrência é feroz, recebi logo dois de uma assentada e com eles, novidades. Tenho o prazer de vos anunciar que o mestre kaba foi promovido nas últimas duas semanas de astrólogo medium africano para ilustre espiritualista e cientista (ver imagem anterior).

(clique para aumentar)

Mas as novidades não se ficam por aí… Para quem, como eu, achava que existiam demasiadas semelhanças nestes panfletos – o mesmo formato, no mesmo tipo de papel com as mesmas dimensões, pois surpreendão-se: agora também têm a mesma morada – aparentemente agora o mestre astrólogo camara partilha dos mesmos cómodos que o m. kaba.
Ficam as perguntas: será que o m. astrólogo camara é um aprendiz do m. kaba? Que terá acontecido entretanto ao m. bangal? Não percam os próximos episódios desta palhaçada, porque eu, também não.

Mais alguém recebe destas preciosidades, ou é apenas aqui na zona? :-|