Alone again

Well, it's back to living alone again. Ruben and I were sharing an apartment while Hannah studied in England. She came back now and they moved up to Minneapolis. I'm moving across the hall to a 1-bedroom at the end of the month. It was nice to be able to find something so close. I hate moving furniture. Don't have much of it to begin with, but still...

I will miss these times. It's good when you get along with the people you live with. I don't like sharing a house with just anyone. I shared a house with 5 people in college. For the most part everyone got along, but every once in a while there was drama. Nothing at the MTV Real World level, but it could get old real quick.

At Applebee's

Me and Ruben. Farewell steak dinner at Applebee's.

Clara Nunes - Canto das Três Raças

Lyrics: Ninguém ouviu Um soluçar de dor No canto do Brasil Um lamento triste Sempre ecoou Desde que o índio guerreiro Foi pro cativeiro E de lá cantou Negro entoou Um canto de revolta pelos ares No Quilombo dos Palmares Onde se refugiou Fora a luta dos Inconfidentes Pela quebra das correntes Nada adiantou E de guerra em paz De paz em guerra Todo o povo dessa terra Quando pode cantar Canta de dor ô, ô, ô, ô, ô, ô ô, ô, ô, ô, ô, ô ô, ô, ô, ô, ô, ô ô, ô, ô, ô, ô, ô E ecoa noite e dia É ensurdecedor Ai, mas que agonia O canto do trabalhador Esse canto que devia Ser um canto de alegria Soa apenas Como um soluçar de dor

Translation (by me): Nobody has heard A sigh of pain In the song of Brazil A sad lament Has always resonated Ever since the indian warrior Went into captivity And from there he sang The black man composed A song of revolt through the air In the Quilombo dos Palmares Where he took refuge Besides the struggle of the Inconfidentes For the breaking of chains Nothing did any good And in war and peace In peace and war All the people of this land When they can sing They sing about pain Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh And it echoes night and day It is deafening Oh! What agony The song of the laborer This song that should have been A song of joy Resounds only As a sigh of pain

The universe is huge

The universe is huge. I mean, huge. This is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004. It is the deepest picture ever taken of the universe (click on the picture for a full-sized view). Each dot in the picture is a galaxy--not a star--a galaxy, about 10,000 of them. You are actually looking through time itself, the light of the first galaxies, 13 billion years ago.

This picture blows my mind. Not only is the universe huge, we don't really know how big it is. The stuff we can see isn't even there anymore. By the time the light of those stars gets here, billions of years have gone by. Those stars would have burned out long ago while the universe is still expanding.

Grilling out

Delicious sausage and chicken kebabs at Daniel's.

Buckling down and climbing the ladder

To recap the last year and a half, I moved back to the US from Brazil in January 2008, the main reason being that I still had a lot of debt from previous years of student loans and credit cards. Now for those of you who know me, I don't spend a lot of money. Years of crappy low-paying jobs didn't give me much of a chance to pay off debt, and finding a job that paid enough in Brazil was difficult, to say the least.

So I came back to Nashville, TN, and got a job at a payment processing company. I've been working at the call center as a customer service rep. This month I'm being promoted to a different department as an assistant administrator. This job involves handling the data for the clients (mostly government agencies) we provide services for. I've been training for the past 2 months and so far it's been going well.

I can't help but feeling that for the next few years I should buckle down and work as hard as I can to get out of debt. Until I get that weight off my shoulders, I'll never be able to move on. So for the next few years, folks, that's my task.

A blast from the past

4th of July 2009

It ended up raining here in Nashville this 4th of July. Josh, Susie, and I met up at Caroline's house. We were going to go to the baseball game and later see the fireworks, but then the rain started to come down. Well, no fireworks pictures this year, folks...