Single Mind

Quero um abraço especial

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:44:00 +0000

Ultimamente os abraços de consolo têm sido alguns. Hoje tive mais um, mas ainda não tive aquele que realmente eu quero.

Como só o papá é que consegue actualizar a página do bebé, aqui fica um abraço a todos os que estão connosco. Não tenho estado muito comunicativa, além do cansaço notório, também não tenho palavras para dizer.

Um abraço e um beijinho a todos,

Mamã

Preciso de ti!

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Tue, 18 May 2010 21:48:00 +0000

Olá, eu sou o Lucas.

Sou um menino muito pequenino que gosta muito do papá e da mamã.
Infelizmente, o papá e a mamã tiveram que me levar a uns senhores vestidos de branco. Não achei piada no início, mas agora reparo que todos são muito simpáticos.

Não sei porquê, mas fiquei doentinho. Fiquei numa cama nova no hospital a 18 de Fevereiro (tinha eu 10 meses de idade, nessa altura era um rapaz). Já fiz um ano, agora sou um homico. Desde então fiz 82 hemogramas, às vezes um por dia, outras 2 e 3 por dia. São tantas picas que me dão, tenho muitos doidóis.

Os enfermeiros brincam comigo, quando preciso de uma transfusão de sangue, dizem sempre que vão buscar o meu bife. Nesta história toda, hoje fiz a minha 16ª transfusão.

Eu vinha pedir aos colegas, amigos e familiares da mamã e do papá uma coisa muito dolorosa. Eu sei que dói ser-se picado, mas se forem fortes, podiam dar sangue, assim quando eu precisar tenho sempre algum de reserva.

Não sei quando vou ficar bom, só sei que tenho uma doença com um nome muito esquisito e comprido, tem a ver com anemia hemolítica auto-imune (acho eu!). Todos os dias os meus bonecos tomam o remédio, e eu também.

Mas o mais engraçado do hospital são as máquinas. São giras, têm muitos botões. E quando elas apitam, a mamã faz "chhiu" e dá-lhes uma cacetada. São bem comportadas as máquinas, elas calam-se logo.

Espero por vós (em bife claro).
Beijinhos e muitos sorrisos para todos.

Portuguese critical comments

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:31:00 +0000

If you know me, you know that I do not like most comments of Portuguese people. I'm not racist, I just don't agree with their mentality.
Click on the title/link above. Read the post related to understand the portuguese comment that I'm posting here.

Ora aqui vai um julgamento à Fafe (ou à fafense), já que falaram nele. Já a minha avó dizia "limpa à tua porta antes de criticares os outros." E ora cá vou eu limpar a m**** da frente da sua porta, sr. Funes (SENHOR ANTÓNIO CARDOSO da CONCEIÇÃO, se é que este é o seu nome verdadeiro).

1º Deveria saber transcrever o que leu. Entre um número e a unidade de medida digita-se sempre um espaço. A unidade de medida (neste caso o quilograma) é SEMPRE em letras minúsculas. Pode sempre consultar um livro sobre as normas internacionais de escrita, que o que lhe estou aqui a ensinar hoje não é nenhuma novidade para alguém que tenha no mínimo a quarta classe.

2º Caso também não saiba, escreve-se Ministério da Educação com letras maiúsculas e... Ministério leva 3 iis.

Pelo seu palavreado, que muitos comentadores ficaram hilariados com o seu discurso, o uso de palavras como tripas revoltas, rebentar os miolos e estrumeira, leva-me a crer que habita no Porto (mas isso não é novidade nenhuma), que deve pertencer ao FCP e que também deve ser um agricultor. Ora como não tenho conhecimento de nenhum latifúndio na cidade do porto, creio que deve cultivar uma pequena horta.

Caro senhor Funes, está na hora de ter mais sorte na vida, porque não se junta ao Grupo da Porto Editora para trabalhar em equipa com eles, e mostrar que sabe fazer melhor do que os matemáticos.

Subscrevo-me como matemática e revisora da revista Polymer Engineering and Science, e mais não lhe digo. Faça o juízo que quiser sobre este comentário, mas lembre-se "temos de varrer a frente da nossa porta, antes de falar dos outros".
Para terminar, como digo sempre, o Português só sabe criticar pela negativa, NUNCA tenta construir nada.

And that's all for today.

Hello People

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:21:00 +0000

Here I am. :)
I'm fine, I'm a mum as you already know, my little treasure is almost 8 months old.
I'm still a PhD student theoretically, but I do not work at UMinho anymore. The thesis defense should occur before the new year (I hope).

It's quite strange to write a post today, since I'm not writing for more than one year. Honestly I do not have time to maintain this blog active.

Anyway, I'm still around to post some (subtle) comments.

What People Should Not Say

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:13:00 +0000

This last month I’ve eared some unfortunate words. Honestly, I wonder if people have the common sense developed. Here are some words of what I can remember:

(twice from colleagues)

- Was it an accident?!

- Do you think it was an accident with 32 years old? I never had an accident before so why it could be an accident now?!

(from my boss)

- huh, I do not know if I must give you the congratulations.

- You can give them, I don’t mind.

(from a doctor)

- Yes… he can come in, he must be the father right?

I thought: no, no, it’s my neighbor.

(from a colleague)

- And how are you going?

- Fine, but worried with some incontinence when I sneeze, cough, vomit. I must carry clean pants in my purse.

- Oh, so cute.

- I do not see what is cute in this scenario.

- Oh, so it is something serious.

- Not at all, the doctor said this is usual.

(from a colleague)

- You are becoming so fat, so round…

- Thank you. By the way, I’m pregnant.

A Cat Confused

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:29:00 +0000

Usually, when I go to bed (at night or to take a nap), the cat comes with me. He lay down transversally at the bottom of the bed. When I get up, the cat opens one eye, looks at me perhaps thinking “Do not disturb me.”

Yesterday, I went to take a nap, the cat jump to the bed near to my abdomen. I said “go down baby, go down”, but he has not listened me. This time, he was trying to play with something. He put one of his hands on my abdomen, and takes off, put again, takes off. Suddenly, he tried to find something under the sheets, as if some mice could be there. I showed him that nothing was there, and again he put his hand on my abdomen kind of confused.

Today, he jumped to the desk office and began to shuffle a pile of papers near to me… cats are capable of hearing ultrasonic sounds - sounds that are beyond the range audible to humans. No wonder why his so confused, something strange is happening to him.

Desperate Husband

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 17:12:00 +0000

Today is a very bad day. I woke up with an enormous headache, took already two naps and I’m not feeling better than this morning. I’m trying to entertain myself, to forget the headache. To write a post is always an entertainment.

Last Saturday I went to a wedding celebration. But… before the celebration I should found some adequate clothes. I thought that perhaps my mum could help. Her size is usually the 46EU, so I should fit in. I’ve tried a long skirt but the button was almost 10 cm apart from the place where it should be buttoned. Another long skirt (elastic one) was great but my desperate husband was saying “what a shame!”.

Well, after one hour trying clothes, I’ve taken (short) black pants, but because they will be unbuttoned for obvious reasons, they seemed long pants. Also a large brown tunic was chosen. Well… large for my mother.

I passed all the celebration on the Saturday morning pushing up the pants. Everybody was looking at me, I wonder if they were looking to the clothes or to my belly. Anyway, it was the first time I felt bad in a ceremony. What a disgrace.

Sleeping, Eating and Sleeping

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:46:00 +0000

Last week I’ve spent my time on eating, writing and sleeping. It’s hard when you want to work; you sit in front of the computer, open the text editor and decide to take a nap. Sometimes it is irritating, because you want the work done, but your body/head don’t let you accomplish your task.

Yesterday I’ve decided that by the end of this week I will have chapter 5 and half of the chapter 6 of my thesis written. I’ve started quite well today. I woke up at 9 a.m., eaten by breakfast and 10:30 I was in bed to take a nap. I woke at 13:00 and had my lunch. Miraculously I did a banana pudding instead of tacking a nap.

Did I say tacking a nap? I went to bed to take the second nap at 14:30. Again… I woke up at 18:00 and tasted the pudding. You are wondering when I’ll finish to write the thesis. Well, I do not know. Meanwhile I’m trying to not take another nap. It would be great if I could write the first paragraph of the f***ing fifth chapter.

Online Pregnancy Test

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:56:00 +0000

Science is amazing… Unfortunately is not so amazing as the Internet.

Did you have seen the movie Junior ? Can you believe that a man can be pregnant?! For the male readers: are you sure you are not pregnant?! Take the test.

I’ve done the test twice. First with a male name… surprise, surprise…

Miguel is pregnant, and it is a boy. On the second test I’ve changed the name to Maria. Again, Maria is pregnant but this time is a baby girl.

The website can also predict the baby father! From now on, the human being does not need to buy a pregnancy test. This test is 100% garanteed, all of us are pregant. So do a very happy face because you are going to be a Mommy or Daddy, depending on your point of view.

Sportsmen for Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:07:00 +0000

From junk mail received.

Another Attempt of Robbery

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:24:00 +0000

Did you already have read something about the changes in the Proposta de Revisão dos Regulamentos de Relações Comerciais e Tarifários of ERSE? Check the documents at the bottom of the page, specially this one at page 47.

You can give your opinion until July 7th. I've just sent mine by e-mail.

Approaching a General Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 12:13:00 +0000

For those who have bougth a house these past years... beware! Life cost increases, taxes and interest rates increase and wages decrease. The overall perspective about the future does not seems to be promising.

The picture above represents the price of money since 1999 until today (Euribor 3, 6 and 12 months). Let's take a look before 1999 to understand where the increase of the interest rates can go.

My question is very simple: How many people are going to lose their houses? How many people have credits up to 20 or 30 years? And recently, the banks do credits up to 40 and 50 years, which is a crazyness. Such people will pass all their lives working to pay the house. From some calculations here is an example of what people are paying:

[Scrool page down... I can not take off this stupid blank space.] :|

100 000 Euros for # Years at 5% of interest rate
# years	10	20	30	40	50
Montly instalment	1 079.21	668.69	542.10	485.65	456.47
Total payed after # years	129 504.57	160 485.17	195 154.31	233 112.64	273 883.68
Total interest payed	29 504.58	60 485.17	95 154.31	133 112.64	173 883.68
Could buy	medium class car	high class car	small apartment	big apartment	house + terrain
At the end	You suffer, you cry, you don't have money during 10 years, but the future seems promising.	You can pay the college to your children, however this is worst than the instalment.	You are relieved so you can buy a completely brand new small car.	You are old without strength and money to make some improvements to the house.	The descendents inherit an old house which needs major repairs.

Now imagine is someone askes more than 100 thousand Euros!

Good Mixing Degree

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:37:00 +0000

I'm tired of writing... and you say "What?! She's not writing in her blog in about one month." Precisely... My current task is to write papers and the PhD thesis (at least it should be). Honestly, I have not begun writing the thesis. Anyway, I'm not concerned. It will be a compilation of 4 international papers, + introduction, + conclusions. I'll be surprised if the thesis will have more than 100 pages. That's what I call to be concise, which is a mathematician skill or something like the kiss principle.

It's quite discouraging just writing:

Paper 1 (P1) goes to the advisor (A). A returns P1 with comments. P1 goes again to A, and the supreme advisor (SA) asks for P1 and P2. The last corrections on P1 are made by suggestions of A and he asks for P2. P1 goes to SA, while a draft of P2 goes to A.

You get P1 back for modifications and also P2 to re-write, at the same time. (are you following the story?)

P1 goes to SA and P2 to A. P1 still needs some major modifications. P1 goes again to A. P2 return to you and A asks for P3. SA asks for P1.

Well, I'm lost. Basically, today I've sent P1 and P2 to SA and replied to A that P3 will be ready soon referring that "this is what I call a good mixing", i.e., to not know how my work is going on, as if my work subject isn't mixing already. I wonder if soon can be applied to after June 20th.

Also, I now have SA requesting some slides for his presentation at PPS-24. Doing all the calculations, it seems that I have no time available to make my presentation for the same conference, <ironic mode> which is always a good point. </ironic mode>

Do I seem stressed?! I just need to submit the thesis until the end of July and SA says I need 3 months to write the thesis. Fantastic!

Some time ago a colleague has asked: "In a scale of 1 to 20 which is the difficulty of getting a PhD?" I've answered: "4, the difficulty is like in any other job, but you have a lot of work. Also, either you have a lot of perseverance or you'll fail."

I'm mentally tired, exhausted.

Human Evolution

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:19:00 +0000

Negative Minds

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 16:21:00 +0000

In life, all of us have met or will meet someone who has always an opposite opinion from yours. I mean… If you say yes he/she will say no. If you agree he/she will disagree, and so on. Of course, you do not see or talk with such people everyday. But many times you can denote stubbornness on those people; they just want to be different from you and better than you. Many times those people are just “unbelievable” on invoking ridicules arguments to justify their opinions.

Now, imagine you are making a suggestion or asking something to someone and you got a reply like these ones:

Monday	I do NOT like…
Tuesday	I do NOT want…
Wednesday	I do NOT go…
Thursday	I did NOT knew…
Friday	I did NOT noticed…
Saturday	I did NOT paid attention…
Sunday	I did NOT made…
February 30th	I did NOT saw...

Try to imagine to listen those sentences everyday, even at night in your dreams (That would be a curse). And try to imagine the same person saying those sentences (That would be what?! A hell?!). Some of you are just wondering “Why do you not buy a shotgun?” Humm… what a terrific idea.

Well, a lesson must be taken from this story. We must learn to say NO too, whatever it costs. Let's try to be different and enjoy the negativism of life.

I'm an Editorial Manager

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:46:00 +0000

Many of you know who I am and what is my job. In these last 4 years I have not received any promotion neither a salary raise. To change the scenario I've decided to create my own journal. The first edition was released today... I have distributed the first free edition about 10 minutes ago. Just take a look and have fun!

If you received any specimen like this one under your door, what would be your reaction?

I'll Freeze Tonight

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 10:33:00 +0000

Traveling is always a problem. We must prepare a suitcase with everything we need during our journey. And even if the journey is only for 24 hours we must prepare it. One of the problems is... the suitcase will be 15% full of its capacity with all your cloths and possessions you want to take with you. The solution could be to put everything in a handbag but... because you have some perfume, cream and toothpaste, you must do the bag check-in. That's the reason to choose a suitcase; otherwise the handbag at the airport arrival will seem a garbage bag.
Another problem is the cloths we must wear, if the weather is completely different from our home country. The weather at this moment is fine:

However, tonight, at my arrival the weather will be not so pleasant.

I can take a coat and hat with me. Everybody at the airport will pay attention at such Eskimo. I could put the coat in the suitcase, right?! In that way I wouldn’t have any problem. But… if the airport lost my suitcase, I would be in a familiar situation: to not have at least clean underpants to change in about 36 hours.

Smoking in enclosed Spaces

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:23:00 +0000

Next time, I'll try to do the same, :p

The Perfect Imperfect

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:02:00 +0000

Do you remember this movie?! Do you recognize who’s the dancer guy?!

Or… if you prefer this scene of the most famous series in USA:

All the movie scenes can be perfect and eternal however in real life is difficult to keep something eternal. I’ve stepped on a news today… Patrick Swayze is sick. He has a pancreatic cancer. From my research, the pancreatic cancer is one of the fastest killers. From several risk factors smoking represents 75% of the danger "... and the risk persists for at least a decade after quitting."

Do you really want to keep smoking?! Just imagine all the moments you could have if your life was bigger than expected. What's the life time? I do not know, anybody can pass away from one moment to another, but we can always avoid some situations.

Give Me a Break

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:34:00 +0000

I hate lazy (and stupid) people. Only MOOers will understand this.

He pages, "como e que me teleporto para o scrabblorium?...esqueci-me do numero! :P"

'**** nao sei, vai para o relogio de sala e segue o mapa.

I believe that Biafra is right on changing/removing many of the user permissions.

Feeds

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:01:00 +0000

I’ve installed the new MSN version (8.5). I was reticent since many people says it is a worthless version. Anyway, I decided to try it. Of course the firewall had not accepted the connection, however I’ve solved the problem. I’ve installed also a mail package… I could have my personal e-mail account there and separately the work account in thunderbird. It was a nice attempt…I still can not download mails from the clix website if I do not have a clix connection.

The advantage is that I can check the feeds there. Yes… the feeds corresponding to your blogs and some other stuff to distract me. The IE was not checking the feeds (a problem that only Microsoft could solve) and Mozilla does not have such ability. So, times to times (ok, averagely one time each 2 months) I took a manual tour to the blogs. Don’t blame me, I do not have so much time as you to be always up to date. Why I’m not using Firefox?! Simple… I’m tired of having the BSOD.

If Windows Live Mail will check the feeds without problems, you can be sure to have some more comments about your writings, i.e., if (and only if) you write something significant. @:-p

Brutish Manners

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 18:32:00 +0000

Yesterday, I went to an ATM to update my bank account information. I was the second in line, the girl in front of me took her card and forced the card in the slot. She has performed the bank operation but at the end the machine did not returned the card. She looks to me and said: “The machine has eaten my card. It always happens this to me”. Yeah, I do not want to know how it would be one day, when she will force her baby to eat.

Science with Love

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:37:00 +0000

Ok, this time is better to show part of my screen. Images speak always by themselves.

I thought on hiding the sender name, but... the message above has his name. At least he has noticed that something was... wrong! From now on, many people (perhaps all the department) will call Mr. Mateus as Francisquinho. :p

Games

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:31:00 +0000

For who does not have to much work. Have fun. For me, the 28th stage was the hardest.

French Campaign Against AIDS

noreply@blogger.com (Single Mind) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:54:00 +0000

Flash version here