The city where only I am missing

Caro leitor,

Não sei muito bem sobre o que esrcever, mas sinto vontade de publicar algo. Não é que eu não tenha nada novo para contar, pelo contrário, muitas coisas aconteceram desde a última vez que escrevi aqui. A questão é que tenho pensado em muitas coisas. Muitas memórias, sonhos e objetivos, ansiedade, decepções, conquistas.. surgindo ao mesmo tempo e se mesclando.  

Daily post

During the last few weeks, a lot of important things happened. I could write about them, pointing out and describing how they can change things in my life. Indeed, it would be an easy way to keep the regularity of Rex Aurum's posts, but I do not want to do it. 

Right now, I am listening to some anime songs that made me remember the old days when I was just a teenager. At that time, I believe so much in the idea of a good world in which people could achieve their best just by exercising their kindness. Poor young Vitor that did not now how complex people are.

I miss the life routine and expectations of that time. You see, I believed that everything was possible, no matter how grandiose it was, as long as you fought for it and did your best. So naive. Now, I see so many fascinating people struggling despite their effort.  

I miss my friends. Some I miss as I miss my mug when going to have lunch: It is a shame that I do not have it with me, but anyway I will have lunch, probably with a muzzy plastic cup. In the other hand, I miss some friends so deeply that I can feel my chest tearing every time I think of them.

I should not be so nostalgic, especially because  I have a lot of important things happening in my life right now so that I will have bunch of new things to think of for months, maybe years.

Post Scriptum

Terminando essa postagem pensando que tenho uma memória muito ruim, porque sempre preciso checar alguma postagem antiga para relembrar a estrutura da postagem e a denominação dos subtítulos. A propósito, ontem eu dei um passo importante para realizar um dos meus maiores sonhos e espero que um dia ao reler esse texto eu pense que esse foi um passo chave que viabilizou tudo. Outra coisa, recentemente esse exercício de escrever em inglês se provou muito valioso, vou continuar. Enfim, postando ao som de Re:Re:, interpretado por AmaLee, canção de abertura do anime 僕 だけ が いない 街 ('Erased' no ocidente). Uma música bonita (e triste) especialmente se você conhece o contexto do anime.

  

22nd Fest Comix

Caro leitor,
já inicio texto esclarecendo que a redução da taxa de postagem ocorreu em função do aumento de minhas obrigações acadêmicas nas últimas semanas. Na realidade, ainda estou em um período relativamente atribulado - inclusive nesse exato momento estou discutindo com um colega sobre metodologias estatísticas não paramétricas - mas consegui arrumar um tempinho e tomei fôlego pra escrever um pouco aqui.

Daily post

Well, in the last weeks I had exhausting days. I would not say my academic life is in the best moment right now. I am too worried about a lot of things concerning my Ph.D., project funds and the future research scenario in Brazil. But I do not want to talk about these boring things today.

In the last weekend, I went to the 22nd Fest Comix, which is an event mainly focused on the sale of comic books. In my city, São Paulo, there is a big store called Comix Book Shop that organizes this event every year. The idea is to gather all the stuff and promote a grand sale with good discounts. However, the event started to have a lot of attention with the rising of geek/nerd fad. Now besides comic sales, it is possible to see cosplayers, action figures exhibition, independent artists alley, speech with professionals, and a sort of other related things. Maybe we can say it is a mini Comic-Con.

Every year I go to Fest Comix and in 2016 is was not different. This time, I could buy some pretty nice comics, as the Brazilian manga Holy Avenger and the Marvel's Miracleman. But I wanna say some words about two indie comics I bought there:

Angela della Morte - volume 1

Created by an Argentine artist called Salvador. It is about a futuristic society that discovered a way to manipulate soul to free it from the material body and cheat death. The story made us think about what is the meaning of life and how people can be consumed by the idea of supreme power and immortality. The art is pretty beautiful and detailed capturing the essence of the story. Unfortunately only the first volume was printed in Brazil.

Drinking at the Movies (or "Entre umas e outras" in Brazil)

This comic is the autobiography of Julia Wertz, an indie artist that moved from California to New York trying to get success. The comic tells exactly this story showing how hard the transition to the 'adult' life can be. One could expect to see Julia overcoming each challenge and being successful, but that's not what it is about. Julia is a human being with a lot of faults, and inclined to make bad decisions! It is funny to go along with her, but depressing at the same time.

Post Scriptum

Bom, por hoje é isso. Espero conseguir publicar a próxima postagem mais rapidamente. Postando ao som de Brambles Symphony (uma bela homenagem à trilha de Donkey Kong Country!) e pensando até terça que vem ainda preciso terminar de preparar uma aula, terminar um trabalho, revisar a matéria de estatística e ainda terminar de corrigir um manuscrito que pretendo publicar como artigo científico um dia..

The Great Zhadonland

Quatro postagens em menos de um mês. Faz muito tempo (anos!) desde a última vez que o presente blog apresentou tal taxa de publicação. Claro que é bem mais simples escerver sobre o dia a dia em comparação com o desenvolvimento elaborado de um tema específico. Mas atualmente esse é o espírito, então vamos lá!

Daily post

First of all, I am tired. I am exhausted. I can't say exactly why, but my routine seems much more tiring than ever. And last week I started a new class (I will talk more about it bellow) on Friday morning at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, thus, I have more activities now. Unfortunately, right now it is very difficult to develop the bench work at the laboratory. :/

But I also have a good thing to say. I received the grade of one test I did some weeks ago and it was pretty satisfactory! The new class that I started is also very cool: How to write scientific papers. In the first day, we discussed the responsibility of the scientist regarding the production of knowledge. I left the class very motivated. :)

In the last weekend, I went with my girlfriend to the Sesc Belenzinho (after skating). That place is oddly calm and relaxing, I like it very much. We had a yogurt ice cream covered with grape syrup and pieces of peach. Delicious and refreshing!  

Other good things

I am watching 黒子のバスケ (Kuroko no Basuke), that is an anime about basketball teams in the high school. It is very exciting! I want to play basketball back again! haha

A few days ago, I finished watching the first season of the anime Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blood Orphans. It is nice, but the Gundam Seed is yet my favorite one. 

I started to play Terraria again, that is a game in which you have to collect materials and are free to construct whatever you want to survive in a wild planet. I play it to relax when I am too stressed. My objective is to build The Great Zhadonland! See what I have already constructed:

Post Scriptum

Bom, é isso aí, preciso urgentemente ir descansar um pouco, pois amanhã será um dia bem atarefado. Postando ao som de Kouji Wada (que infelizmente faleceu na semana passada), pensando que amanhã preciso revisar minha aula de Psicologia da Educação / Políticas Ambientais, responder a questões sobre o papel do scientista na produção de conhecimento e preparar minha mini apresentação sobre minhas pretenções de paper para a disciplina de sexta. E animado, pensando que quinta feira vou encontrar amigos queridos. 

Nostalgia

Um texto curto para hoje.

Daily post

On Saturday, I went to Belém Park to skate. For years, I tried to implement any physical activity in my routine, seeking a healthy way of life. Most of the times I tried to play Basketball, but for many reasons it never worked for much time. Since September 2015, I have been inline skating. I really like it (as much as basketball). I feel free with my rollers. :) On Sunday I decided to clean the roller and in this morning I finished the maintenance (see the figure 1).

Figure 1 - roller about to be cleaned

Today morning I also cleaned a very old folder containing some drawings, school report cards, photos and poems I wrote a long time ago. Well, I decided to throw away things that I don't need to think about anymore. The folder is much lighter and organized now. I became happy when I saw some old photos (even some photos of Rex, Ruffos and Cristal!) and my drawings (an example in figure 2). I miss drawing, maybe I should start doing it again.

Figure 2 - A very old drawing

Post Scriptum

Nostalgicamente escrevendo ao som de Barenaked Ladies, esperando o horário de pico passar para voltar para casa, aliviado por ter dado tudo certo nas provas da semana passada, leve por sentir que as coisas vão melhorar e pensando em como montar uma aula de psicologia da educação relacionando com psicologia ambiental.

Brave hearts

Bom, para manter alguma regularidade nas publicações do blog, vou continuar postando sobre meu dia a dia (em inglês).

***

Daily post

In the last post, I wrote about how the week was going bad, with a lot of bad news. Well, so I am officially promoting March as the bad news month!

There are a couple of things that are making me feel sad in the last days. One of the main things is the fact that I am having a lot of trouble to publish an article based on part of my master thesis and probably I will have to quit this specific quest. At least, I have another set of data that is more consistent and thus has more chance of being published. This may seem something quite stupid, but in my career, spreading the results of your work on scientific periodic is the main goal and it is very frustrating to not achieve it. Seems like my work is incomplete.

Well, I must admit that all these bad things happening put me down. But, today, when I was waiting for the electrochemistry class to start I realized that I also have a lot of good things happening in my life. I achieved a lot of things and gave a bunch of steps closer to my dreams. Then, giving in now would be really stupid.

So, when I arrived at home I decided to rethink, reorganize and update my plans. I also worked on my whiteboard that was forgotten in my bedroom. You can see a quotation I wrote in it:

(Sorry for not showing all the board. I also updated some information regarding my Ph.D project that I would not like to spread yet)

The quotation "Life is never kind. Kind hearts don't make a new story. Kind hearts don't grab any glory" is from a silly song that I used to listen when I was a teenager (the song is at the end of the text). At that time, I used to think that "kind" meant only goodness, but now I see this phrase in a completely different way. Living is not an easy task and it requires from us a lot of energy to escape from the flux and make things to happen in the manner and direction we wish. A peaceful (or kind) heart may not have the ability to change its own life..

Well maybe nobody can change its own destiny, but, at least, brave hearts can try.

As promised, here is the song:

***

Post scriptum

Quinta-feira tenho duas provas. E, talvez, as vezes não seja bom ficar filosofando demais..

Até mais.

Fatigue

Eu estava aqui pensando.. não queria abandonar o blog, mas atualmente tenho muita dificuldade de dedicar tempo para redigir qualquer coisa aqui. Eu tenho tantos artigos para ler (e escrever) e material de estudo para as disciplinas, que acaba ficando muito difícil separar tempo para cuidar do blog.

No entanto, tive uma ideia para que eu possa dedicar algum tempo ao blog e ao mesmo tempo tornar torná-lo útil para minhas tarefas do doutorado. Desde que comecei a primeira IC (vide post anterior), eu tenho o hábito de ler textos em inglês - normalmente artigos científicos técnicos - mas nesse tempo eu pratiquei muito pouco a redação nesse idioma. 

Assim, a ideia que eu tive foi a de escrever textos em inglês. Dessa forma eu mantenho o blog vivo e vou aprimorando minha escrita em inglês, o que certamente será útil na minha carreira acadêmica. Para tentar manter uma regularidade, decidi escrever coisas simples, sobre meu dia a dia, como em um diário mesmo. Não espero que alguém vá ler (e acho que nem desejo ter muitos leitores hehe), mas acho que será divertido.

***

Daily blog

So, let's try it out! Well, the last week was a particularly hard one. I had a bunch of bad news that put me down. Regarding the research life, I had a manuscript rejected even after working hard on it. I also started the week very insecure about my knowledge of electrochemistry, but, at least, I got some self-confidence about this subject after the class on Thursday. I never loved the chemistry, but I think now I am understanding a lot of things that in the past  used to make me feel confused.

Another problem was that I started the week considerably tired and just accumulated more fatigue until Friday. I have a lot of things to do regarding my prototype construction, so I decided to stay in the university until night late on Wednesday and Friday (until 11 p.m.). On Saturday, I was really tired. 

Although the fatigue, I went to inline skate on Saturday morning. That was cool. I always feel better after skating! I also watched the 2nd season of Daredevil series on Netflix. I like the way they expose the characters and the situations. I think it is the best superhero series nowadays.

One last thing: After many years I am excited to study Japanese again. I decided to study it since the beginning, and I expect to finally memorize the katakana (hiragana still fine)!  

ポケモンを読みたい！xD

Post Scriptum

Posting while thinking about the classes of tomorrow and that I need to sleep. Listening to: