On the effect of the flu on the ability to communicate

You Communicate With Your Ears

You love conversations, both as a listener and a talker.What people say is important to you, and you're often most affected by words, not actions.You love to hear complements from others. And when you're upset, you often talk to yourself.Music is very important to you. It's difficult to find you without your iPod.

How Do You Communicate?

Another lazy day in sunny Groningen. Sunny? Yes, you heard me. However, enjoying the Dutch light is not for me!! I'm at home, enjoying another kind of light, the one you see at the end of the tunnel after you've taken enough paracetamol and Actifed to make your brain go "--.--mipmip--.--". And wandering through the internet I found this test on Correio Verde's blog, and couldn't resist to take it.

I communicate through the ears. This is mostly true, especially because right now I have no voice and no sense of smell and taste. So ears is all I've got. But it got me thinking. This is dangerous, i know. It got me thinking about what is most important to us. Lately I've been feeling words shouldn't be as important to me as they have been so far. I mean, it's nice to lose yourself in them once in a while, but I'm now feeling inclined to take people more for their deeds than for their sayings. I mean, everyone can come up with a good punchline. But not everyone can take a good punch. See? There you have it.
And this was today's moment of philosophy. Blame it on the paracetamol.

The return of the Dutch

Yes, here I am, back to the cozy (gezellige) city of Groningen, north of Holland. Elected this year as the best inner city of the Netherlands. Hmmm. Definetely it is a lively, interesting city, and I am happy to be back. I’m reacquainting myself with my old habits – riding the bike everywhere, that was the first, of course. I missed my city bike so much in Houston, and the ease with which bikes flow here, when comparing to the nerve-wrecking adventure that is riding a bike in Houston. I’ve been to the University already, to have a meeting with my supervisors… God, how I missed fruitful conversations without the fear of committing a mistake… I re-encountered all my friends here, had nice long chats with most of them, listened to all the gossips, and slowly, but steadily, I start to feel at home once more. I even went to the sneak again, and had the pleasure of watching a Thai martial arts movie about a guy looking for his two elephants in Sidney, Australia. Mostly spoken in Thai, I didn’t get a word, but still, I liked it. It brought me back to childhood, when I saw this Portuguese TV show called “Duarte e Cia.” (totally unrelated to me, I swear). The sound of breaking bones, kicks and punches was THAT fake.

But… something seems to be missing… Is it my impression or is the sun not shining enough? Is it just me or does everyone speak Dutch, instead of… say… English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Italian, Hindu, Japanese? And why did people suddenly stop apologizing (“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie!”) when they block my way or step on my foot? Yep. I miss Houston.

Or is it just like Antonio Variacoes said: “So estou bem aonde nao estou, porque eu so quero ir aonde nao vou…” – I only feel fine where I am not, because I just want to go where I don’t go…

Hoje foi assim

Palavras para que? O homem alem de lindo ainda nao me desapontou. CASA COMIGO CRISTIANO!!!!!!!!!!

Hem hem. O jogo foi um bom jogo, improprio para cardiacos, e eu estive a beira das lagrimas quando fomos a penalties. Agora eh bola pra frente, e acreditar! Afinal, eh so um jogo, mas la que move coracoes, move.
Ja agora partilho com vcs um piqueno aparte. Eh a primeira vez que vejo futebol rodeada de gente que sabe menos do que eu! E nao eh que dei comigo a explicar o que eh um fora de jogo, e porque eh que eles nao substituem todo e qualquer jogador que se aleije no dedo mindinho do pe (doi, pois doi). La fiz entender ao americano que me perguntou isso que eles tem um numero limitado de substituicoes, e a tactica ai eh mto importante, e tal. Ele percebeu. Ha gente que nem sabe o que eh um cartao vermelho. Ha gente que nem sabe que dois amarelos equivalem a um vermelho. Credo, estou nos USA. Depois ainda tive que aturar uma americana a torcer aguerridamente pela Inglaterra, ainda por cima convencida de que sabia de futebol. A gaja nao faz ideia do perigo que correu. So me deu vontade de lhe enfiar a t-shirt da seleccao inglesa num sitio onde nao faz sol. Contive-me.

English summary:
- I'm in love with Cristiano Ronaldo.
- Americans don't get soccer, or how we (soccer fans) love it. They just don't.
Really, this was pretty much all I said.