Aisha (A Pi)

At the end of this entry I was kind of angry with Continental for screwing my flight up, but I never mentioned what happened after the canceled flight: My mom said that when she got back from work she found my cat Mimi in the closet asleep on top of my robe, and that she looked so sad, like she had been crying since I left that morning. I came back from the airport and happily spent the rest of the day with her, then said goodbye to her in the morning. It was the last time I ever saw her :(

I've been really depressed since I found out she passed away. I had recently purchased an expensive plane ticket for Christmas, but now I don't even feel like going anymore. It's not that she died that saddens me the most, but rather the fact that she suffered so much and I wasn't there to care for her in her last days.

Anyway, the main reason I wrote this entry is to acknowledge that sometimes things like a canceled flight are really a blessing in disguise. Those extra few hours with Mimi mean the world to me now.

Ugh I have been so lazy today! I cannot believe I've been awake for 7 hours and all I've really managed to do is reserve a plane ticket for Christmas which I don't even think will go through since I accidentally put the wrong billing address. Fuuck.

I've been happier recently. I think that's in part because I've been getting out of the house more, and for some reason the weather this week was pretty good, and I guess I like my job. But I seriously think I'm mainly happy because I've recently found a food co-op, tofu, pita bread, and vegan products like whipped cream, yogurt, and cream cheese. If I could find soy ice cream again I'd be set; United States of who?

I never realized how much of an impact food made on my life, but it turns out it makes a HUGE impact on it. Or maybe I'm getting older and things that shouldn't matter so much do...

I would write more about my job but I'm kind of paranoid that my boss somehow found this LJ and is reading. Soo, maybe a private entry?

( 12 things to do )

20 minutes til 30 Rock starts (reruns, of course :|), so I'll make a quick update. I started working 2 weeks ago. I really like my classes and the school and everything, things are great except for the pay. I hope I have enough money to go to the US for Christmas... (Well, I do, but I don't want to go out of my comfort zone of money)

I thought I would suck at teaching English, but it's not as hard as I thought it would be. It helps that most of my students are pretty smart/well behaved and the school has a lesson plan made up for me.

Not much else is new with me, my job is taking up all of my time and that kind of sucks. But I guess it's better than staying at home all day and not making any money.



( 12 Things to do )

It seems as though this is turning into a travel journal lately. My traveling will end soon enough :(

I went to Lisbon for the Kylie Minogue concert last weekend. It could not have come at a better time, I was massively depressed before leaving. I never used to get this depressed this often, I really think living here is getting to me. It is still COLD here even though it's the middle of July.

Anyway, I went with Claudio's cousin since Claudio didn't want to go with me. Saturday was a lot of fun, we went to the beach which was hot/cold at the same time but the water was crystal clear and went to a nearby museum before heading out to the concert. The Kylie show was amazing, and barely anyone was there so we were fairly close to the stage despite getting there right as it started :o
I wrapped myself in a gold streamer that fell from the ceiling at the end of the show, and then we accidentally went into a residential parking garage instead of the public one and got trapped! I was convinced we would have to spend the night there but we found someone who lived in the building to let us out. Haha I must have looked retarded in my gold streamer.

The shopping mall across the street was open til midnight so I finally ate something vegetarian and we saw "The Hangover" in English with Portuguese subtitles. I never see movies in theatres here because they're all dubbed into Spanish. That movie was hilarious, but I bet if I watched it again it wouldn't be that funny.

Then Sunday, just as we were about to go to a nearby castle, Edgar's car got broken into. We actually saw the guy who broke into the car/stole his GPS, but we didn't know he had broken the window or stolen anything. It was so weird. I was confused, he told us we couldn't park there but I didn't know he had been inside of his car. We spent the rest of the day going to police stations (7 in all) and then drove home with a little bit of duct tape on the window. Edgar claims the GPS was covered by his car insurance and they deposited money into his account already, but I'm starting to think he just told me this to make me feel better.

I got offered a low paying position teaching English starting mid-September. I'm not excited about it, I feel kind of blah being here. It's like I have goals and being here is preventing me from accomplishing any of them. I don't know, I need to get my shit together.

I was in Tokyo last week, I'm kind of sad that I left. I'm also in a zombie-like state since I haven't slept in a while.

I was looking forward to buying a Kogepan book and getting a cute messenger bag, but unfortunately I found neither. I was also really looking forward to visiting the Sanrio theme park; let's just say I get a little angry every time I see Hello Kitty's face now :|

I was surprised with how friendly everyone was, and how... I don't know, organized they were. Organized isn't the best word, but whatever it was I liked it.
I wish all cities could by like Tokyo in certain aspects. You shouldn't have to worry about getting ripped off or cheated, or about getting asked for money everywhere you go, and you should be able to walk down the street at night and feel safe, for example.
Yet, while I felt "safe" my entire time there, I was completely overwhelmed by the hugeness and complexity of the city. The sensory overload started to get to me, and that in addition to being tired from being on my feet all day and not being able to read Japanese was very exhausting.

I don't usually write this much about cities but Tokyo was so different from anything I had ever seen. I felt like I was on the outside looking in, the entire week was so surreal.

Many of the people I saw reminded me of cartoon characters, in that they were cute and had faces that showed these exaggerated, albeit unforced expressions. And deep down you could tell they were silly and carefree!
Japanese even sounds like it was made for cartoons. There are "kawai" drawings EVERYWHERE, they made me smile even when I was frustrated.

I want to go back and see more of the country. I hope to continue to study Japanese and hold conversations beyond the very basic stuff that I know right now.

Now I'm back and the societal differences are painfully obvious. Yesterday I had to walk up a huge hill with all of my luggage so I left a hardcover book and some canned cappuccino behind a bush in a parking lot intending to pick it up later. I went back less than 2 hours afterward and it was all gone :o
And today I'm at the airport, my flight was supposed to leave at 7am and it's leaving at 1pm. Yeah it's a holiday weekend, I mean, I'm not mad because in my case I don't have to be there at a certain time, but this would never happen in Japan unless there was an earthquake or something.
EDIT: I left the airport at 33O and the flight still hadn't left. What a mess. Going to Houston tomorrow, supposedly.

I havent updated in a while and a lot has happened since then. Ill try to do a 10 minute update:

- Went to London for a day-long layover, visited the Old Operating Theatre museum which was soo interesting. Im glad I live in this century, getting an amputation and bleeding to death or dying of the infection that follows isnt appealing at all. Visted Mengfei whos studying in Oxford now :o It was great to catch up with her. London and Oxford were both beautiful, Im glad I got a chance to visit.
- Good times were had in Houston with friends and family. I laughed more in those few days than I had this past year.
- I didnt fight with my mom except once! In 3 weeks!
- Visited Jennelle in Portland, the weather was mostly crappy but we went for a walk and revamped her apartment so its clean and organized now. I think I should become a professional organizer, it would be so much fun and could make up for my HGTV withdrawl.

Im in Tokyo now, I had never been in a place where I couldnt read the signs. Being able to read makes a huge difference... Plus their public transportation and city grid is soo complicated.
Im still excited since I just got in yesterday, I dont want this feeling to go away. Its so clean and pretty here. Claudio should be arriving in a couple of hours, lets see if I dont get lost on my way to the airport

Ugh I don't want a job. I should be getting my residency card soon, and after coming back from visiting the US I ought to look for work, but fuuck. There isn't really anything I want to do here. No wonder Claudio never really worked all these years.

Asia Argento, my favorite celebrity for over 8 years, wrote to me! I guess I've been trying to downplay it but deep down I've been like "ee!" She has a radio show and you can send in mp3s so I sent a few. I didn't think she would reply, but she did, various times :D
2 songs she's featured that I now love: Dumb Head and Roaches

Hmm, what else? Someone hacked my bank account (but I didn't lose any money, thankfully), I dropped my birthday cake on a rug but still ate most of it lol, we've been spring cleaning quite a bit and I'm addicted to selling stuff on ebay again. I fell in love with Cheese Family, but that lasted only a day (probably because I couldn't find more info on them.) I still love Kogepan the most.


That one's for Jess

( 8 Things to do )

I now own a parrot costume, it is truly one of the coolest items in my possession. I mean, it says it's for 6 year olds (an exaggeration if you ask me) soo it's kind of small, but just around my legs.

On Tuesday me and Clau (as Steve Perry) went in costume with his cousin Edgar and his cousin's friend (2 Watchmen) to the hypermarket Alcampo for their costume contest. It was the last day of the contest and we got there 20 minutes before the end to have our pictures taken. Edgar casually asked if the contest at Vigo's other Alcampo was the same drawing and they said no, so we hauled ass to the other side of town to make it in time for another chance at winning. It was hilarious because the other three were like "Hmm do you think we can make it?" and I was already running towards the door saying "Come on! We have 15 minutes!" But in a parrot costume.
And we made it in time, just barely. Then we went upstairs for a snack and this chick with Down syndrome said Edgar looked bad with his makeup on and called Claudio her boyfriend and tried to take off his wig. She said bye to us like 10 different times haha.

( 7 Things To Do )

I feel like winter is ending soon, which is a great feeling, like when you start recovering from the flu.

I'm really looking forward to going back to the US, I have this list of things I'm going to do or buy when I go there and it constantly gets updated. Do not take things like Netflix, thrift stores, or neighborhood libraries for granted!

When I lived in Houston I was about 90-95% vegan. It got to a point where it was pretty much effortless, and I didn't feel like I was missing out. Now it's a totally different story. Claudio and his mom fill the kitchen with all sorts of tempting foods. There is no vegan ice cream, no boxed Indian food for when I'm too lazy/tired to cook, not even premade tomato soup! I guess I should suck it up and put more effort into it, but ugh, effort.



( The return of 10 things I should do )

I barely write in here anymore, I twitter quite a bit though. Twitter is a better format for people with no lives...

I worked another 2 days, hollaaa. I don't know what I'll do with this money, save it I guess. I'm such an adult now. I read this article in Scientific American Mind (even the magazines I read are adult! [not porn, worse]) about how people get less adventurous when they get older; I can already feel it happening to me. I don't want that, I'm too young to be in a rut. I was going to wait til 30/the burden of a child to be in a rut.
Then again, I guess winter makes me less adventurous. I have enough trouble just getting out of bed to sit on a freezing toilet seat.

I tried going clothes shopping today and, ugh, I got turned off by those "I'm GREEN!" type stupid shirts. They reminded me how un-green it is to buy new clothing.

Written several days ago, whoops:

I had written about Brazil losing its magic with me, but shortly after I wrote that things changed for the better. The skies cleared up, I made new friends and had good times with old ones, and ate at Grill Inn soo many times (but not enough to get tired of it.) I'm really anxious to go back to South America, but I'm probably going to wait 2 years. I LOVE going to the beach with friends, I feel like a little kid when I run into the waves. Granted, I'll never see or hear from those friends again but ah well, I have the memories. Next time I want to visit Bolivia, I'll try to synchronize my trip with one of Jennelle's. Also, I didn't go to Mundo Da Xuxa, but all the more reason to go back to Brazil :)

Now I'm back in Vigo, my sunburned skin finished peeling off for the most part, I am constantly cold. I'm really glad I took this extended trip. I want to say vacation, but from what? Actually I got really lucky and scored a 2-day job with Claudio the week I got back. We had to walk around 10 hours a day and write down license plate numbers. It was a little tiring but hell, I haven't had income in a while (er, aside from ebay) and this job paid really well.

I celebrated by buying myself a children's electric guitar. IT IS SO CUTE. I had a regular electric guitar in Houston but it was really heavy and big; this one is Guitar Hero size. Now I want a drum set (and of course a piano). Maybe if I get a real job, instead of these 2-day luckiness gigs. In the meantime I will contentedly pluck at this little guitar.

PS: Abba songs were haunting me on my entire South American trip, it was weird.

PPS: Jessica, I made a twitter (because Tina Fey has one!), you should update more. I'm nerd4live on it.


(Pic taken on overcast day, duh)

No one´s waiting for the computer now so it´s time for another entry. I´m actually glad I took this trip alone, I´ve met some interesting people and I´ve had a lot of time to myself, waiting in bus stations and stuff, trapt in my thoughts. My duck diary is filling up. I thought I was just rambling in it to kill time but I reread my past few entries and they were really insightful and kind of funny.

I´m in Rio again, I realized I don´t really like Brazil that much. It´s like every time I come here I like it less and less, it´s losing its magic or maybe I´m just changing. No but it sucks cuz its surprisingly a little cold and very overcast, my plans for laying out on the beach for 4 days are shot.

Iguaçu falls was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, see third photo:



A few more photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nerd4live/

I´m in Buenos Aires, home of the bizarre novelas (like that one me and Clau sometimes watch with cartoon characters mixed with real actors even though I´m pretty sure it´s not just for kids.) I´m leaving in a few hours for Iguazu falls even though I never got a confirmation email aand I lost the paper where I wrote down my confirmation number. I had fun on my own yesterday. I still think I would have more fun with a friend (aka Sandra) but ah well. I went to a vegetarian restaurant and befriended a middle aged woman who I´m pretty sure was drunk. We were both eating alone hehe. She was nice and kind of funny, she invited me to see her act in the theatre on Wednesday but I´m not going to be here. Then there were 4 South African guys in my hostel room, they were all friendly which was cool because sometimes you get stuck up people in these hostels.
This city is immense, and very polluted despite the name. The music playing everywhere is awesome. I´m excited about the waterfalls, I hope nothing goes wrong. 17 hour bus ride I´m not so excited about...
PS: I just showered and I still feel grimy. Another downside of travelling Latin America (esp in the summer)

I have 8 minutes left at this free computer/internet booth at the Dallas airport, what better time for an LJ entry?

I had a good time in Houston, I'm sad to leave but I guess I did everything I set out to do (see friends and family, buy video games and the GnR CD for Clau, hit up thrift stores, eat amazing food). Now I'm on my way to Argentina. I'm not that excited anymore, I hope this feeling wanes cuz I want something to be excited about. I'm sad Sandra couldn't come with me, I was more excited about this trip when we were both planning on going.
My really awesome cell phone broke Sunday night (technology fails me at really bad moments) soo I had to buy a digital camera for my trip. I have no income just expenses! At least these flights were like 90% free.

My time's running out, I guess I'll write in my real diary, the one with a duck on it haha.

I'm in Houston, yay.

I'm having a really good time so far, I'm going to my dad's later today and I'm gonna stay there a week, so hopefully no drama will ensue. I hate that it got cold a day after I landed; places have a funny way of getting cold fronts as soon as I get there.

I hung out with my aunt my first 2 days here, hit up those marvelous Katy thrift stores and went for a late night walk which was really pleasant. Yesterday I went to the Renaissance Festival with Wylie and some of his friends, it was kind of funny/embarrassing to see Wylie drunk on mead and hitting on old women. Mostly embarrassing. I got to whack him with a sack on a log, though. Today me and Michael are going to the park if I don't get bad cramps.

I really miss Claudio... I know this sounds lame but I don't know if I want to take trips without him anymore, or if I do they should probably just be 1 week or 2 weeks tops. But apparently I got really lucky with my flight here, Air France pilots went on strike the day after I left Spain and I was REALLY close to missing my connecting flight to Houston. Me and Andres's (Claudio's friend) mom were both on the same plane to Paris and were hauling ass through the airport to make our 10:15 flights, it was good times. I'm glad I'm here and not stuck in Paris with le rudeness all around.

7/23 - Computer died, lost a lot of files, but luckily had backed up most things 2 weeks prior
7/24 - Discovered the other laptop I was about to sell on ebay got water damage from the flood, some of the keys don't work
8/19 - Lost camera and many many photos from recent traveling
9/14 - Discovered my YouTube account was deleted for copyright violation. There go my videos that weren't backed up
10/6 - Discovered my MP3 player died, which included a few non-song files I hadn't backed up

What the fuck? And I had a dream the other day that my computer died AGAIN, which it just may do. Do I lose at technology or does technology lose... at me?

The good news is I have an excuse to dish out money for a cellphone with a decent camera and mp3 player. The other bad news is that I have to dish out money for a cellphone with a decent camera and mp3 player.

I've been having a good time since I got here. I've managed to talk Claudio into taking some posters off of the wall, getting rid of a few things he doesn't use or want (most of which is on ebay hehe), and we've totally revamped his closet to take advantage of vertical space. Then Friday Mila and I cleaned the hallway closet and it looks soo nice now. We both got up at night to look at it again, haha.
Organizing is so much fun! I don't care if I sound dorky/middle-aged-womanly, I love to clean. Plus you find all sorts of useful or nostalgic stuff in the process, which is an added bonus.

Last weekend Claudio and I went to a nearby island called San Simon. It used to be sorts of sordid things: a jail, concentration camp, holding place for people with contagious diseases. But now it's just a tranquil touristy island with museum exhibits inside the abandoned buildings. We were totally the only young people there, aside from the kids whose grandparents dragged them along. The ferry ride was free, but I'd like to go back next year on a canoe :)

I've noticed that my circle of friends is diminishing. There's only a handful of people I really care about or keep in touch with. That's normal though, right? Whatevs, I tried my best and I'm at a point in my life where I stopped caring about a lot of stuff.

After a 5-hour flight with a bratty retarded boy in front of me, I landed in Philadelphia. Philly is a beautiful city, the train ride from the airport passed by forests and abandoned warehouses. I walked from the train stop to my hostel, which normally would have taken 15 minutes but since I had so much crap with me it took considerably longer. I got in late so I just had vegan Chinese food for dinner and walked around some. The next morning I stopped by Benjamin Franklin's house (didn't see much, I actually just needed to go to the post office that's inside part of his house) on the way to the Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities. Unfortunately no photos are allowed, but that documentary on the History Channel or whatever pretty much covered everything. It was sooo cool, I love medical oddities and seeing them up close is indescribable. I spent over an hour and a half there, even though the museum is fairly small. I saw some kids that looked like they were kind of bored, but when I went downstairs I saw a group of 3 kids and one girl clearly had been to the museum a bunch of times because she knew everything. The conversations were like the other 2 kids being wowed by something and she would be unphased like "Oh yeah, that's a pig fetus". It was cute. (The pig fetus was weird because its snout was elongated and was above its eyes like a horn).
Then I walked to Eastern State Penitentiary. I went on the audio tour narrated by Steve Buscemi (lol), and it was actually really tastefully done. I was disappointed that they didn't talk about the tortures that went on in the 19th century, and that a portion of the jail was reserved for private tours, but it was still all very interesting. What a freaky place that is, I liked how they kept it in a state of disrepair. I went off wandering by myself and this window slammed itself shut as I was approaching it. I would *love* to go back at night, the only night-time tours are Wednesdays in the summer but I'd like to go to one some time in the future.
I walked halfway to the hostel and then took a bus because I was tired from being on my feet all day. After eating leftovers I headed to New York City via Boltbus (which was only $13 and supposedly has free Wifi but I was too busy sleeping to test it out). I stayed in Harlem, in a new hostel that had just opened the day before and was pretty fancy. Unfortunately they had no hot water (and I really needed to shower...), but they gave me a 40% discount so I couldn't complain. I spent a bunch of time planning things I didn't even wind up doing because I overslept the next day :(
But I did go to the Tenement Museum. You get a hour-long guided tour of a few old apartments in a building that had been untouched for over 50 years, and there aren't many people in the tour group. They have a few units set up to look like how they did nearly 100 years ago; it's really as if you're stepping back in time. And it's not hoaky at all, like many of these types of tours tend to be.
There really wasn't anything else I wanted to see in NYC, I just wished I hadn't overslept so I would have had time to eat at a vegan place close to my hostel. Instead I had to settle for gross pizza at the airport, wah.

[insert cool spooky photo of red execution chair at E.S.P. here]

I'm kind of bored, and I'm sick of not being able to sleep at night and being tired during the day.

I've had some fun since I got here nearly 2 weeks ago. I played tennis with Clau and 2 of his friends, and I went to a water park in Portugal with him and his cousin that one day it was warmer than 80 degrees. I want to play tennis again, but the courts here get reserved at least a day in advance and they're pretty far away.

I hate being surrounded by all this stuff that isn't mine and not being able to do anything about it (like get rid of it...) My condo looked pretty minimalist, but when it came time to move I had 3 50 lb suitcases, 6 small to medium boxes of media mail, 2 carry-ons, and I STILL left a lot behind. I left 2 suitcases and the boxes with my mom, as well as 2 suitcases from the time I visited last year. So, if I had that much stuff I can only imagine how much is in this place.
I really shouldn't complain since I'm living here for free, but still, this is bad Feng Shui and it may be impacting my livelihood.

Oh, and I beat "Cloud Master" and "Tazmania" this past week!

I'm pretty sure my camera is lost and gone forever :(

Ok so the train trip didn't happen, I need to learn to stop writing my plans in here or telling people about them because they never come true if I do. Just the same, I think it worked out for the best this way, I did the things I really wanted to do and I had an amazing time. I surprisingly got along great with my mom the 2 weeks I was in Seattle, except for 1 day when she wanted to go back to a casino we had already been to the day before (she's a bit of an addict).

The first weekend up there my mom and I went to the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver. I had to convince her to come because she was scared from the pictures in the brochures, but she wound up liking it as much as I did if not more. That following weekend we went to Portland for a day, she took a free shuttle to a casino by the beach and I hung out with Jennelle which was soo much fun. Jennelle is one of my better friends, I wish we lived closer. Portland is famous for its array of vegan food, so we checked out Proper Eats; aside from the nasty berry lemonade drink everything was delicious. "Look at these chairs... it's like they don't even try. All vegan places are like this" - Jennelle lol
I ate two desserts even though I was stuffed. Then we went on a tram overlooking downtown that normally would be like $35, but since its public transportation and connects two hospitals it was only $4! After that, we scrambled to get Jennelle nice clothes and makeup at a discount/free because we were gonna go to some dance show (she got free tickets from work and her co-workers were gonna be there). We practically ran to the place only to find out the show was cancelled, so we went to "The Bite of Oregon" festival which kind of sucked but there was good live music and yummy asparagus meals.

I had a lot of fun with my mom those 2 weeks, I think the fact that she got into it with her boyfriend helped us bond (apparently he got mad about all the time and money he was spending on me taking me out to eat EVEN THOUGH he kept offering and my meals were never more than $7).

Now I'm in Vigo, I keep waking up at 4am and sleeping during the afternoon. In my next entry I'll write about my time in Philadelphia and New York :)

EDIT: omfg I can't find my camera anywhere I think I lost it!! This SUCKS, I hadn't uploaded pics since Vancouver. I had REALLY cool photos of Eastern State Penitentiary fuckfuckfuck