Corusca

If you’re not new here, you already know I enjoy reading. A lot.

Since I was a kid, books and comics have provided an escape from a sometimes harsh reality, they’ve been my travelling companions, and they’ve kept me company when I was alone.

Through them, I’ve crossed the galaxy beside Jedi and scoundrels, I’ve ran beside Tom and Huck on the shores of Mississipi, I’ve seen the birth of dragons and the death of knights, I’ve watched the Earth be shattered into a million pieces, I’ve been hugged by a tiger named Hobbes.

This will be the first of a series of posts where I talk about nice reading spots in Lisbon and its surrounding area.

Let’s begin with a place I found out about this weekend.

The Jardim Botânico da Ajuda (Ajuda’s Botanical Garden) is the oldest botanical garden in Portugal.

It’s a beautiful place, with lots of shade, and a wonderful view over the Tagus river on some sections of the garden. To enter you have to pay a small fee, which at the moment won’t go above 1.5 euros. The schedule varies depending on the time of the year, but you can check it out on the garden’s official site (in portuguese) at Menu > Informações > Horários.

The downside, is that the benches could be more confortable, since most (or all?) don’t have a back support, but between the flowers and trees all around, and the cultural part of the experience, I advise anyone to have a reading session there at least once.

Where exactly is it? Google maps provides.

After a perfect weekend of flowers, sushi, pretty snowglobes, reading in the shade of a tree and on the grass, going to the movies, and giving each other all the attention of the universe…

… this Monday is being harsher than usual.

On the bright side, this weekend is definitely something to repeat soon and as much as possible. :3

I’m writing this ahead of time, because I’ll very likely forget all about it until a couple of days after the actual date.

I started this blog five years ago today, on the 19th of May of 2005, easy to remember, since it was the day Revenge of the Sith came out here in Portugal. I’m sorry I haven’t been patient enough to go around MySQL dumps and ‘recover’ over two years worth of posts I made here. Maybe someday.

Corusca has had several incarnations since the start. Originally, it was mostly a place where I shared cool geek links I found, and occasionally write lengthier posts about one subject or another. Now, after several intermediate states, it’s the place where I post lots of photos, and occasionally talk about geek things, or vent about my life.

A lot happened in these past years. Five years ago I was finishing my university degree, and I had started dating less than a year before the amazing human being I ended up marrying.

Things have changed a lot during all this time.

I live in my own place. I got married. I work a full time job.

I have less contact with a lot of my friends, some due to time restraints or distance, some due to lack of (mostly their) interest in keeping in touch.

I’ve had my heart broken. I’ve lost family. I’ve been supporting my mother who, may have a different, and more serious health problem than what we knew. Funny thing is, throughout all this time, my family’s horrible comunication skills remain the same – it was my dad who in private told me about the said new (still unconfirmed) health problem – my mom just pretends there’s nothing else going on.

I travel more now, which is one of the nicer perks of having my own paycheck.

I started actually exercising, after more than a decade without regular workout.

I’ve started, stopped, then restarted, ad nauseum drawing/painting.

It’s not that I was a bigger geek, but I did have a crapload more free time than I do now, which allowed me to read more books and comics, to play more games, and to organize geek lunches and gatherings.

This is just minuscule fraction of all that’s happened, and I realize it’s a weird, shattered text, jumping from a subject to another, but this one I don’t want to edit too much. It’s mostly how it came to mind and part of how I feel.

Corusca has been written during the starting years of my ‘responsible adult’/work life. I hope to be able to continue to write here, to show that I’m still alive and haven’t been turned into a mindless zombie while the rest of humanity runs for their lives.

In a lot of ways I still don’t know what I want to do with my life.

I know I’m not there yet. And I’m sure I’ll know when I am.

I hope you continue to enjoy this enough to give it the occasional visit.

The last couple of weeks have been eventful, and emotionally draining to say the least. I feel like I’m being pulled toward a million directions at the same time…

I had a couple of huge arguments which is something I hate, and always try to avoid as much as possible. I found out (confirmed, I guess) something which made me overthink about how the universe has a horrible sense of timing and is kind of an idiot. I worried (still worrying) about my mother’s health, which has been less than great lately.

At the same time I’ve tried doing my best to be a supportive friend, to those who’ve been needing it more lately, and ended up feeling like I should/could have done more for them, which in turn makes me feel worst. When I think about it rationally, I don’t think I could in fact do much more, due to my sad/angry-at-the-universe/leave-me-alone-a-bit-but-please-don’t emotional state. But I still feel bad that I couldn’t be there more than I’ve been. And also at the same time, I’m hoping to be able to make (and especially keep) a new friendship in the weirdest situation, all the while trying not to be pushy/naggy, and give the other person space to decide how/if they also want to talk to me.

Complicated processes. Complicated life. Complicated universe.

In order for me not to go insane (or into depression), I’ve decided to: drink less coffee (just having my one a day now), avoid sad songs, and sleep more.

Oh, and to my friends, who’ve invited me to various activities lately, and also the ones who came to a GuitarHero/RockBand party we had at our place this weekend, a huge thanks.

Small, but steady steps, and things will get into place.

I’ve been feeling down for a few months now, and part of the reason for that was (I’m guessing, here, since I’m not a shrink) Seasonal Affective Disorder. Also known as ‘who stole the frakking Sun?’.

Now that Spring has finally come, the shinning Sun has indeed solved a large portion of my downward mood. For the solution to what’s left of the problem, I need to smarten up and not over-analyze things, and stop thinking about other things (like things I want so much and can’t have). Go with the flow.

I’m also trying to be more open-minded about things and people. Basically, I just want to go back to who I used to be not so long ago, instead of getting a progressively older mind. According to an article on a local newspaper (link in Portuguese), close-mindedness is one of the factors that define an old mind. I agree – I’ve always thought that age was less physical, and more of a mental state.

Re-reading a recent post I made about religion, and although I don’t feel like the general message (against pedophilia) was wrong, I do think I was a bit too aggressive on my arguments about people who in reality don’t have much to do with it. And this is just one example of how I’ve regressed to someone much more prejudiced than who I was 3 or 4 years ago. I’m not about to go back to sunday school and finish my Catholic education (I was raised as a catholic and went to catholic schools), but I’ll try to be a less raging atheist. Hey, I like some of the mythology depicted in the Bible, so not all is bad. :p

In my path toward becoming who I want to be, I’ve decided to try out watercoloring. Despite a couple of crappy attempts so far, I’ll give it a shot a few more times, to see if I get better at it (practice makes perfect).

I’m keeping up with my Iaido lessons, and am enjoying the exercise and some challenges that come along the way. The fourth kata (Tsuka Ate) has an extremely awkward and unconfortable initial position (apparently it’s the only way a ’sitting’ samurai would be able to get up quickly, with their armor on), but I hope to be able to do it better with time, if I gain flexibility. I want to add some other physical activity to my schedule, but I think it will have to be done at home. If I schedule it for a week night, the same thing that happend with my Tai Chi lessons (I quit due to constant scheduling issues) will happen, and I’d like to avoid quitting something else.

Speaking of not quitting, I’ll be trying to revive a cooking group project I was/am involved in, which has been pretty much halted for almost a year now. I’ve been trying out new recipes and I want to share them, so it seems like a two-birds-with-one-stone deal. Stay tuned!

Oh, about the 365 photos project, I know I’ve been slacking immensely regarding the time I take to post the photos online, and I’ll try to get back to at least a couple of updates each week. There’s a lot going on with several aspects of my life lately so I’m not making any promisses.

Mata ne!

So, Valentine’s Day is approaching, and as usual, I’m not caring that much about it.

I prefer celebrating our own special dates, such as our anniversaries and all that, instead of something that’s just a commercial day. Sometimes by coincidence of dates and work schedule we were unable to celebrate something one week, and ended up going out for dinner later, coinciding with Valentine’s (and having trouble finding a spot to have dinner on, on most restaurants, which were packed with people).

Last year I made a special lunch for the two of us at home, mostly for fun. We don’t exchange gifts on that date, though we’ve probably exchanged flowers once or twice, just preferring each others company.

But every year, when this day approaches, it’s impossible to forget it’s coming: every single store that may have anything to sell remotely related to ‘love’ will have a large sign stating that the day is coming a few weeks in advance.

It happened today, when I decided to head out to Fnac’s site and check out the price of a camera I’m fancying – the Canon Powershot G11, which the last time I checked, was (of course) much more expensive at Fnac than everywhere else. The camera is not listed there anymore, but there was an ad for Valentine’s gifts, divided (as expected) into two categories ‘For Her’ and ‘For Him’. Already preparing myself to enter A World of Much LOL, I pressed the button. Read the rest after the cut:

(continue reading…)

I’m not certain I haven’t used today’s post’s name some other time, but I am uninspired and couldn’t come up with a better title for another ‘what am I up to’ post.

One thing I am still not doing is playing Mass Effect 2. Though it came out in Europe last Friday, GAME’s package hadn’t arrived yet and as such my weekend did not include me playing what I hope is another drool-inducing BioWare RPG.

I was planning on getting the new Dragon Age: Origins‘ DLC and play it on Sunday (Saturday was populated with many activities already), but we were pretty tired and ended up slacking in front of the TV most of the day. I fell asleep, through the final third of the pilot of The Legend of the Seeker, which failed to impress me, and I should have guessed since the book it’s based on (Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule) was also a disappointment when I read it, about three years ago.

We went to check out some houses, with a friend who was sweet enough to came along (hai Ana! *waves*), all a bit expensive, but that’s the problem with not wanting an apartment. Prices aside, we liked one of the houses a lot, as it had everything we wanted (including a small garden and an attic, and nicely located), and not much of what we’d prefer avoiding (houses glued to ours was still a factor here though), but it’s very expensive so we checked out other houses in the same ‘group’, slightly cheaper. I liked the second house a lot but it had a no-go handicap: the terrace was very small. Too small for a doggy, which is something we want. Too bad – the house was great.The rest all had major issues, despite a good construction quality.

These were the first ones we went to check out in person, but we also got some phone numbers of houses being sold in that general area, and we might want to check them out sometime in the future. The coolest of those houses is probably way too expensive for our budget, but it’s still worth checking out.

We had a friend’s birthday dinner, and had fun. The restaurant was a bit chaotic (and I wasn’t in greatest of moods which didn’t help), but the food was pretty good. We went to a bar near the Electricity Museum, since our first choice for a bar was packed. Time flew by – I was thinking of leaving relatively early because I have The Neverending Cold and had spent the previous night coughing my lungs out thus not getting much sleep, and we ended up staying and chatting (mostly with Ana, who I’ve missed talking face to face with *sends hugs in her general direction*) and only noticed the time when the bar’s staff gave us the bill since they were about to close.

I ended up removing someone from my social networks during the weekend. It’s funny that it went from me saying ’see how lucky you are with what you have!’, to me getting a rude reply. I wished him best of luck, and then I decided to ‘cut the evil by its root’, as we say here in Portugal. Funny thing is I used to bother sending him mails with things (contests or oportunities) he might find of interest to pursue his ‘career’. No more. End of story. I’m considering this a step toward one of my new year resolutions: ‘Stress less about everything’. \o/

Going back to relaxing matters: we went out for sushi on Friday, and I ended up breaking my attempt at not to getting more books until the Lisbon Book Faire, which is a few months from now. I really liked Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice and they had a ‘buy 3, pay 2′ promotion going on at the bookstore. I was lacking the other 3 books published in Portuguese, so it seemed like a nice deal.

Oh, I didn’t forget to take yesterday’s 365 Project photo. It’s just on my sweetie’s camera and I haven’t uploaded it yet. Will do so today, and change the post’s date to the corresponding day (that’s not breaking the rules! ;)).

Have a nice week, everyone!

EDIT: This month’s visitor numbers (not hits, unique visitors) surpassed 6000, almost 6500, which is something that hadn’t happened in over a year. It may not sound like much, but since the blog is not highly publicized and has a niche theme (geek/gamer) when it’s not about generalist stuff, such as this post, I think it’s pretty good.

So, this geek gamer girl, thanks everyone for stopping by, and I do hope you continue to enjoy the generalistic/geek/gamer blog that is Corusca. :)

Due to the lack of sleep we had last week (caused mostly by my non-stop-middle-of-the-night cough), by the time we got to Friday we were beat, so decided to mostly stay home this past weekend.

So, what did I do this weekend (in no particular order)?

Slept late. At least in my scale, which admittedly isn’t very late.

Read more of Fevre Dream - really enjoying how the story is progressing, and how the vampires are a bit different from the original ones, without loosing their essence (unlike Twilight’s pseudo vampires).

Had Iaido class. Am a bit sore from it still, but it was worth it. We’ve decided to start going equipped from home, instead of dressing in the locker room. People will undoubtedly stare at us while we’re walking in the street, but I’m not really worried.

Caught up on Fringe, Bones, and House. These last two had hilarious scenes in the episode. Especially (not spoilers worry not :p) the scream/gun thing, and the Jack Bauer line. Part of what we watched was on the living room, and playing in the PS3. My sweetie moved it over there and it’s now replacing the media centre, even if we can’t use our 5.1 sound system.

Had a sushi dinner, where I ate until I nearly dropped.

Went household shopping for a million things we had ran out of, since we’ve mostly avoided large scale shopping for a while now.

Bought some new stuff for our aquarium. Our remaining fishies are healthier, and should also be happier with their new hideout.

Had a lengthy chat with a friend who’s into aquariums (ohai TNG! *waves*) and fish and who knows a ton more stuff than we do, asking for information and his advice on some things.

Cooked grilled salmon for one lunch, and a semi-improvised version of spaghetti bolognese for the other, which turned out to be very yummy.

Preordered Mass Effect 2’s special edition, for the PC. Since we’ve upgraded our graphics cards recently, we might as well take advantage of them and of the reduced price the PC version has over the XBox360 one. Yes, we’ll lose our mass Effect characters’ data by doing this, but screw it.

I’m probably forgetting something, but that’s all I remember right now. Have a nice week.

It’s ‘update-on-my-life’ time, kids!

Ahem. Yeah.

The first weeks of the new decade *insert 2010 movie music* have been a mix between ‘boring’, ‘omg so cool’, and ‘don’t want to be sick anymore’.

So, the good stuff includes us having gotten our Iaido equipment. All that’s missing now is kitten’s  Iaito (training sword that looks like a katana). We have our Hakamas, Gis, Obis, and an amazing unability to dress them correctly on our own. That will surely change with practice. When it does, we might take photos.

I went out with some friends last weekend and had a blast, despite being sick. Yeah, that’s the main downside of my life at the moment: the past week and a half, I’ve had The Longest Cold EVAR™, and it’s still not gone. This has resulted in lack of sleep, because every night since Monday I’ve woken up at silly hours, somewhere between 1am and 6am by intense, non-stop, cough. I can’t stand coughing anymore. I’ve been snappy because of the lack of sleep, and the not-being-able-to-breathe-correctly state that comes with the cough is really not helping.

Anyway, onwards to cheerier things, because I really just should stop bitching about this. Like I’ve said a few posts back, I’ve started reading Fevre Dream. Am still at the beginning, but am enjoying the setting, and the fact that I’m puzzled by what one of the characters is aiming toward with his actions. Plus, vampires. I might add Bram Stoker’s Dracula to my reading list this year, depending on how well I progress with the list I’ve made already for 2010. Also, when this year’s Lisbon Book Fair comes, I’ll definitely get the second and third novel that follow Robin Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice, which I really enjoyed, and I’m not sure I’ll resist starting them. -ahem-

One of the things that’s been slowing down my reading (which I do most of while commuting to work and back) is not only the fact that it’s dark when I get off work (my least favourite feature of Winter), but also because it’s been raining so frigging much here in Portugal lately. I swear, today was the first day in a long time where I saw the Sun. I was starting to think it was a myth of old.

So anyway, here’s the update on some stuff, just so you don’t think that due to all the photos I’m taking for my 365 photos 2010 project, this has become a photoblog exclusively. ;)

Have nice Friday and weekend, with nice readings, TV shows/movies, or gaming if you’re indoors, or a lot of fun with your friends if you’re going out.