2011 in booze

Since many of us may be getting ready to pop up our champagne bottles to celebrate the new year, I thought it would be appropriate to post about the second most popular article of The Economist of 2011: Drinking habits.

A map of world alcohol consumptionTHE world drank the equivalent of 6.1 litres of pure alcohol per person in 2005, according to a report from the World Health Organisation published on February 11th. The biggest boozers are mostly found in Europe and in the former Soviet states. Moldovans are the most bibulous, getting through 18.2 litres each, nearly 2 litres more than the Czechs in second place. Over 10 litres of a Moldovan's annual intake is reckoned to be 'unrecorded' home-brewed liquor, making it particularly harmful to health. Such moonshine accounts for almost 30% of the world's drinking. The WHO estimates that alcohol results in 2.5m deaths a year, more than AIDS or tuberculosis. In Russia and its former satellite states one in five male deaths is caused by drink.

I am curious to read the recipe for that "home-made" brewed Moldovan alcohol... :-)

Recipes: Miso-ginger marinated salmon

Serious Eats has a section for popular recipes of 2011. They are all meant to be quick, easy and tasteful recipes. Like!

The miso-ginger marinated salmon caught my eye. It looks delicious and super easy. My choice may have been influenced by the fact that today I read an article about the benefits of omega 3 (it may be linked to greater brain volume in senior people) and I thought of how little fish I eat on a regular basis. I will try to pull off a similar recipe and share if it tastes any good. If you do try this one, please share your comments!

Ingredients

yield: 4 servings, active time 20 minutes, total time 50 minutes

• 1/4 cup white miso
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 2 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons minced green onions
• 1 1/2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 4 salmon fillets, 6 to 8 ounces each
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Procedures

1. 1
   In a small bowl, whisk together the first 7 ingredients until smooth. In a small baking dish, cover the salmon fillets with the marinade and turn a few times to coat. Cover and marinate for 30 minutes, turning occasionally.
2. 2
   Remove the fillets from the marinade and season with salt and pepper. Preheat a grill (or broiler). If using a grill, grill the salmon skin-side down until the skin is golden and crisp, about 3-4 minutes, then turn over and grill an additional 3-4 minutes. If using a broiler, broil skin-side down without flipping, until the salmon is cooked through and well-caramelized on the top, 4-5 minutes. Serve with rice.

A couple of videos

Always nice to remember the wonderful world we live in:

... and talking about videos, I could watch this a thousand times. Call me corny. It's just unbearably cute!!



(first video via swissmiss)

Christmas Holidays in NYC

Hello! I know I haven't been active for a while. I got caught up in the holidays' activities and I haven't sit down much at the computer except for checking e-mail and news (ok, ok... and facebook as well).

What have I been up to? Instead of my usual winter migration, this year F and I decided to stay in NYC for the Christmas holidays. While we have taken the chance to sleep like grisly bears (especially me) and eat like we were about to hibernate, we have gone around the city a bit trying to do the typical Christmas stuff. First observation to make: it's exhausting. The weather hasn't been too cold (it has been well above 0°C, except for today - the wind factor has made it feel like -3°C or so), but it is the crowds. It's no secret that tourism has been increasing significantly in the big apple for the past few years. NYMag recently published an article about it and just few days ago Bloomberg said that about 50.2 million tourists will have visited NYC in 2011.

You can imagine what it is to walk around midtown. I wanted a picture with the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. I balked. Twice. I think we would have to go there at 3am to have a decent shot. I took this picture from across 5th Ave. Can you see the heads of all the people passing by? There are policemen on the corners controlling the flow of pedestrians to prevent them from blocking the streets. Traffic is terrible.



And walking along 5th Ave is still worth it. From what I had read from other blogs and doing a bit of browsing, I made a list of the "not-to-miss" spots and we went one by one. Some were cooler than others, but in general it was a nice experience. You bounce onto tourists that suddenly decide to stop in the middle of the street for no reason, the local smiles at you when you want to take a picture of something that is too much of daily life for them, you get pushed, you learn how to push, and then you miss the crowd when it gets colder.

I made a map that illustrates our main stops. Sorry for not mapping the places to some sort of enumeration system, but I hope it suffices to say that we went from North to South and places are listed in the order we stopped by.

1. Barney's - home to Lady Gaga's workshop. It is fun to see, but the windows are the best (and the craziest). Do not miss all-hair-made Gaga's boudoir (!!!).

2. Bergdorf Goodman - windows full of animals + mannequins with fancy dresses. Our favourite: the moose in the "all white" window.

3.  Tiffany & Co. - A bit lame I would say, but a classic nevertheless and pretty jewels.

4. Henri Bendel - mah. Funny mannequin dressed as lady liberty. Going in may be fun. We didn't.

5. Fendi - shiny belts! (there is also Tommy Hilfiger next to it with a huge ribbon)

6. Rockefeller Center - Christmas tree

7. Saks 5th Ave - Just across the street, has a nice set up of a girl that supposedly went into a magical part of the store where she discovers all these wonderfully designed dresses. Alexander McQueen and Ralph Lauren caught my eye. Oh, and also the doll moving around in a mono-cycle.

8. The NYPL doesn't have any particular Christmas decoration, but it had been a very long time since I didn't see it at night.

9. Lord and Taylor - They have a model of Santa with kids, a house with a cooking mom, more kids, a dog. It is prettier than what I can describe here. The moving models are surrounded by drawings of kids that were asked to paint something representative of Christmas. There are some that are very funny (like a zombie-looking gingerbread cookie by a 6 -year old :-) ).

We started our tour around 5pm and it must have taken us about 2 hours. Going when it is dark seemed to us the best time to appreciate the ornaments. A classic NYC thing to do that I am happy to check off my list :-). Here are some pictures of the whole tour. Not super pro, but it gives you an idea.

This may be my last post of the year (yikes!), so Happy 2012 everyone!! I hope it brings us good things for us all. See you next week!


----
Saciamorbos/More curious stats:

According to NYC Go, the top 10 sources of international visitors in 2010 came from the following countries:

1. United Kingdom 1,055,000
2. Canada 977,000
3. France 596,000
4. Brazil 589,000
5. Germany 528,000
6. Australia 479,000
7. Italy 469,000
8. All Middle East 406,000
9. Spain 388,0000
10. Mexico 384,000

I haven't read an updated list, but I know that UK is still in first place. 

In Love and Football Everything is Valid

Football as in soccer, for any American reader :-).

I just read that Nike designed special shoes for Cristiano Ronaldo to confuse his oponents.

From FutureSport:

Ronaldo's new Nike CR Mercurial Vapor Superfly III creates the illusion that Ronaldo is about to turn in one direction, when actually his feet are about to move a different way.

Pretty crazy, no?

Chicken or egg question: was Ronaldo losing his touch that much that they had to create this special shoes for him? or, did they design this cool shoes and just picked a popular handsome (i.e. marketable) guy to use them? The answer might be found in this paragraph from the same article:

Ronaldo was heavily involved in the process and Caine flew to Madrid on three separate occasions with different prototypes for his examination. Despite the player’s reputation as a fashion icon, his primary concern was not about pure looks, but about how the shoe could positively impact his game.

Anything to try to reach Messi as the best player of the year (again).

(via kottke.org)

(Awesome) Ideas to make your life easier

To save today's post, I come to you with a link that I stumbled upon few minutes ago, before going to sleep (I am trying to do before 1am today!):

25 ideas to make life easier.

These are really easy, eco-friendly, practical things to do. Just what we need these days! It was a bit hard to choose, but these are my favorite ideas:

1. Store your bedlinen sets inside one of the pillowcases.

Not sure how to fold the mattress cover so neatly= There is a nice illustration for that in the same post.

(Can't wait to go to California and so some serious folding!)

2. Re-use a wet-wipes container to store plastic bags.

I had first thought it would be good for the plastic bags that we keep from the supermarket, but to have the nice "tissue" effect of pulling one and having the next one ready, you would need the bags to be linked somehow... Don't know how to solve that, BUT I will definitely use it for the big trashcan bags. The ones that come in a roll are usually cheaper.

3.Use bread tags to label cables.

I am in love with this idea. And to think that I wanted to buy cable organizers! I am glad I didn't.

4. Use a shower cap to pack your shoes.

I usually use plastic bags (that's what my mom taught us), but this is definitely useful for when you forget to bring a spare plastic bag for dirty clothes ;-).
It also looks cuter, and if you are using those bendable flats, you might even use this to carry them in your tote once or twice!

5. Adorable!

I usually keep the rubber bands that they give you in the supermarket when you buy blueberries or takeaway sushi. They always come in handy!















Which are your favorites?

(via Say YES! to Hoboken -- I love that blog. They are having a Crate n Barrel giveaway this weekend, btw. But don't click. I want to have higher chances to win ;-) )

A.A. - Waba waba

Mi prima con su hija de 3 años:

"Mi amor, Waba Waba (su mono de Archibaldo en plaza sésamo) es un monstruo lindo" le digo a mi hija. Ella me contesta muy elocuentemente: "Mamá, noooo!!! Waba Waba es un Waba Waba de los Waba wabas del mundo que son taaaan Waba wabas y hacen cosas de Waba wabas y como todos los Waba wabas."

Y seguro ella juró que su argumento no pudo ser más claro... :-)



Translation


My cousin with her 3-year old daughter:

"Love, Waba Waba is a cute momster." I tell my girl..She replies elocuently: "Mom, noooo!!! Waba Waba is a Waba Waba of the Waba wabas of the world that are soooo Waba wabas and do Waba wabas' things, just like all the other Waba wabas."

I'm sure she thought she was being crystal clear... :-)

2011 in Lego

As the year comes to an end, we get to see "the most this-and-that" of 2011. I here present you with 2011 in Lego!

Here's a sample of what you see if you follow the link:

Maybe a model with the royal kiss would've been cuter (will I ever stop being a girl?) :-P

I love their angry faces... 

In the real picture, though, they looked more worried to me.

Anyway, I thought it was pretty original... Now I want to go to London just to check out that Christmas tree!

Have a good one!

Christmas spending and wealth

A fun daily chart from The Economist: correlation between expected gift spending during the Christmas season and a countries' wealth (in purchasing-power parity terms) .

I want a Luxembourgish friend! :-P

Graffiti

Last week we had our oral presentations at my Italian class. They were only 5 minutes, but when you have to do it in a foreign language you are not used to speak, 5 min can be pretty long. Anyway, there was one presentation that I really liked. A girl from my class did voluntary work with a group (within the university, if I remember correctly) that went to a school and helped painting the girls' restroom with some kind of positive message (two thumbs up!). The whole point was to do some kind of positive graffiti in the bathroom.

As part of the project, they also visited a couple of places with graffiti in NYC. This is where I raised my ears, as we would say in Spanish. They visited a place called 5 Pointz in Long Island City (illustrated above) and they also saw a painting by Os Gemeos downtown Manhattan (illustrated below, left).

As if I my list of to-do-things in NYC was not long enough, I am excited to make this addition. 5 Pointz may be a bit too far away, but I am very attracted to the Twins' work. Did you see how small the cars look next to the building? This thing must be HUGE! And even so, I am sure it's easy to miss out if you are walking only looking ahead, to the floor or to your cellphone... As it turns out, there are graffiti tours of the city, but that's a bit over the top for me. Just do a quick google search and you will get more options than you can even consider.

Do you like graffiti? I am not particularly attracted to it, but there is something about this kind of street art that brings a city to life, don't you think? It also reminds me to the stickman robots that you can find painted in the middle of the city's crosswalks, or the tile-made packman ghosts that are here and there (that one above on the right, I saw in Williamsburg).

Any other pieces of street art in New York City that I should not miss? I might as well organize my own tour :-P

(wall "decoration" you see when you wait to get in to Colbert Nation's show)

Do you believe in Santa?

Do you know what SantaCon is? Apparently, every year there is a mass gathering of people dressed as Santa Claus in the cities of San Francisco, New York, and London. I just learned that this year it was today. It looks like fun! I have to say that New York inspires me to do these kind of "crazy public" things. I wonder what the psychological/social factors are. I am sure that if I still lived in Mexico City, I wouldn't even consider it. If I move to Frisco next  year, I will do my best to go... at least with the Santa hat! (provided I remember, of course).

Would you do it? If you have done it already, what do you like/dislike the most from these events?

Photos are from  here.

Yogi chances

Assuming the multiplier is greater than 1, let's go grab'em! :)

More on Google Search: Graph Calculator!

You can now graph functions within Google Search! You just have to write "Graph for " and your favorite function. The interactive graph will appear at the top of the search results. You can zoom in and out, look at specific values of the plot in the plane, and move the graphic around, pretty much like you do with google maps. As you can see in the figure below, you can also plot several functions at a time. You just need to separate them with commas.

It's really cool, except that it doesn't work on the cellphone... They should release a graph calculator app! That would be like a slap in the face to Texas Instruments : P.

Here is the official Google link that announced it.

NYT: Reach of Mexico's drug cartels

Mexican drug trafficking cartels “represent the greatest organized crime threat to the United States,” according to a recent Justice Department report. The cartels have waged increasingly violent battles with one another, as well as with the Mexican government, which began an aggressive crackdown in 2006. 

The NYT presents, once again, a very instructive interactive map of the main drug cartels, their main areas of control in Mexico (see figure below), and where they are present in the United States. The latter is very impressive. They have at least 3 identified trading points in Hawaii and even 1 in Alaska!! An example of multinational supply chain management...

There is also a related article that goes about analyzing the role of undercover agents that work in Mexico to try to find leads to the cartels' kingpins. 

A perfect cartoon

Here is why Robert Mankoff considers this to be the perfect New Yorker's cartoon. Totally rad.

(via my friend Majo on facebook :-) )

- f + b

Librerías Gandhi is a famous chain of bookstores in Mexico... sort of like our Barns'n'Noble. They are also well known for their witty marketing campaigns. They are easy to replicate, so there are a few going around that are fake, but always very funny. Me triple like :-). Here are a couple that I found on facebook today (ironic! ja!). English translations will be provided at the bottom if possible/appropriate. 

(less face and more book)

(if your kids don't ask you for books, give them away)

(Reading index)

You can see a full photo album of their most recent adds on their facebook page.

Proper Google Searching

We've all been there before: you want to do a more specific search in Google and sometimes you wish you could just do it from the search box without having to click the dreary "Advanced Search" button.

Behold! I stumbled upon this infographic about how to do more specific Google searches. I knew some of the tricks, but definitely not all of them. Looking forward to trying them out. Have a great weekend!

(via lifehack.org)

A.A. - Estoy vieja II (Being old II)

Mi sobrina de 3 años con su mamá:

subiendo las escaleras me dice mi pequeña de tres años: "Aaay mamá cárgame" y yo le pregunto "Porqué? No puedes caminar?" "No", responde ella en voz de quejido. "Porqué no puedes caminar?", pregunto yo, y ella me responde "Por que ya estoy VIEJA!!!" jajajajajajajajajaa

Esta niña está aprendiendo demasiado bien de lo que oye de los adultos!

Translation:

Climbing the stair my 3-year old girl tells me: "Aaay mom, carry me". I ask her "Why? You can't walk?" "No", she moans. "Why can't you walk?", I ask. She replies "Because I am OLD!!!" 

I feel like this girl is learning too much from what she hears from adults!

A.A. - jugando a ser Marthelo II (playing Marthelo II)

Mi sobrina de 3 años con su mamá:

Mamá jugamos a que eres Marthelo? "Aaayy Marthelo eres taaan precioso y me ayudas a lograr tantas cosas!!!" (Como qué cosas le ayudará Marthelo a lograr????? Hacer btortillitas de plastilina? A pintar huellitas con pinturita dactilar???? O quéeee!!!!) Esta chamaca es INTENSAAAA!!!

Qué miedo... (!!!)

My 3-year old niece tells her mom:

"Mom, do we play that you are Marthelo?: 'Aaayy Marthelo you are soooo cute and you help me reach so many goals!!!" (Point at which I wonder which things Marthelo helps her do ??? play-dough little balls or colored fingerprints drawings???? Or what!!!!) this kiddo is INTENSEEE!!! 

Scary... (!!!) 

Have a good week!

 

I really liked this "message today". Again, very appropriate for job hunting season. 

I didn't get to try the tea; it was meant for someone else... who didn't seem to like it much :-)

Revolución de las conciencias (no translation, sorry!)

Sheridan habla en su última columna sobre los nuevos andares del honorable candidato presidencial Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Resulta que ahora trae como principal objeto de inspiración "La Cartilla Moral". Escrita por Alfonso Reyes, es (cito) " un breve texto escrito en 1944 a solicitud de Jaime Torres Bodet, titular de la SEP, para acompañar la campaña alfabetizadora de [...] Manuel Ávila Camacho, un presidente muy interesado en la moral de la patria."

El texto pretende resumir las opiniones más importantes al respecto, como aquéllas de los griegos clásicos (para los que fueron al ITAM, si uno la empieza a leer, inmediatamente vienen recuerdos de las clases de Ideas I). Y si uno busca en google un poquito más, parece que han llamado al texto "la versión mexicana de la cultura universal." No encuentro la fuente. Pero volvamos a AMLO.

Sheridan piensa que el párrafo favorito del candidato es "aquel en el que Reyes dice que "la satisfacción  de obrar bien es la felicidad más firme y verdadera. Por eso habla del 'sueño del justo'. El que tiene la conciencia tranquila duerme bien." Para "obrar bien" y dormir bien es menester "educarse para el bien", alcanzar la "moral de los pueblos civilizados (que) está toda contenida en el Cristianismo".

"Obrar bien" - "Obrador bien". Comienzo a imaginarme un buen slogan... De entre todas las personas, ¿Con qué autoridad moral llegan los políticos con estos discursos? La realidad supera cualquier telenovela de Televisa. Pero esperen. Debo ser buena y no pensar mal de las personas de primera instancia. Esto es lo que AMLO le contestó a Aristegui cuando le preguntaron qué le inspira la "Cartilla Moral" (cito también de la columna de Sheridan):

"Tolstoi escribió muchísimo sobre esto. Hay mucha filosofía sobre esto. Martí hablaba mucho de esto, de la importancia del amor y de la felicidad, de no apostarlo todo a lo material y, en efecto, Alfonso Reyes escribió esta cartilla moral. No recuerdo, Carmen..., el título es 'Cartilla Moral', pero sí sé que es un decálogo, es lo recuerdo bien, he leído el documento y lo vamos a difundir porque es interesante. Él habla en ese documento de que es una especie de constitutición moral, fíjate qué interesante: es una constitutición, no como la nuestra, pero es una constitución que tiene que ver con la moral."

Sheridan termina con broche de oro:

Bien dicho, con franqueza y sin vanidad (que no sea un decálogo, carece de relieve).  Es una de las lecciones de la 'Cartilla Moral' que mejor leyó el candidato es la que avisa del peligro de tomarnos 'con demasiada solemnidad, porque ello esteriliza el espíritu, comienza por hacernos vanidosos y termina por volvernos locos."

Para los que tengan curiosidad del documento original, la pueden encontrar aquí.

"The Promised Land"

I am indulging on the newest New Yorker's cover. By Christoph Niemann. 

Here is an extract from some comments he made to the Huff Post:

"The debate should be about how can a country benefit from immigration. America depends on immigration. The discussion will be more valuable if it is focused on benefits". 

"I draw a parallel between current immigrants and early settlers -- the hope is that it will provide context, to help keep things in perspective." 

Also The Economist had an article last week about the benefits of diasporas: usually immigrants are very hard workers, with high aspirations, and create good support networks that help boost economic growth. Not only they send money back home, but they also get more educated abroad and bring back that knowledge to their countries of origin. I quite like the closing paragraph of the article

As for the old world, its desire to close its borders is understandable but dangerous. Migration brings youth to ageing countries, and allows ideas to circulate in millions of mobile minds. That is good both for those who arrive with suitcases and dreams and for those who should welcome them.

Also from The Economist, here is a nice chart that shows where are the Chinese and the Indians outside their own countries. There are "more Chinese leaving outside mainland China than French people living in France." And only about 22million Indians live away from home.

A.A. - ¿le dices? (do you tell him?)

Mi sobrina de 3 años y su mamá:

Confesiones de "chicas" en el baño: "Ay Mamá, Marthelo es taaan lindo!" (me dice mi pequeña de 3 años) Y yo le pregunto: Y se lo dices? Y ella me contesta: "Claaro!!!" A lo que yo un poco intrigada le pregunto: Y él qué te dice? "AAyyy Anna Aurora eres taaan elegante!"

¡La nueva generación de chamacos!

My 3 year-old niece and her mom:

Girl talk in the bathroom: "Oh mom, Marthelo is sooooo cute!" (my 3-year old tells me) I ask her: "Do you tell him so?" She says: "Of courseee!!!" A bit curious I ask: "And what does he say?" "Ooooh Anna Aurora, you are soooo elegant!"

This new generation!

Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving season in America, and everybody is thinking of turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce... I am taking the rest of the week off in California, so you can expect less posts this week as well (sorry!).

While all the newspapers are stuffed with both classic and innovative recipes, I leave you with a video that I received from the Columbia University staff about the Dangers of frying turkey. State Farm is an insurance company; it's in their best interest to minimize the number of claims for burned down garages due to frying turkey accidents. Only in the U.S. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

A.A. - ¡Paleta! (lolly pop!)

Anécdota de mi sobrina de 3 años contada por su mamá:

Mi hija: mamá quiero una paleta por favor. YO: toma. ELLA: esa no quiero, quiero con vainilla y fresa, no pura fresa. YO: es la única que tengo, la quieres? ELLA: NO!!!! Quiero un paleta. YO: esa es la única que hay. -ELLA: esa no quiero! Paleta por favor!!! YO: no hay otra! ELLA: paleta con vainilla !!!!... y después de 15 minutos de la misma alegata se hace un silencio de tres segundos seguido por "qué complicada eres, Mamá".... Jajajajajajaja

Y tenía que ser niña... :)

An anecdote from my 3-year old niece, as told by her mom:

My daughter: "mom, I want a lolly pop, please." ME: "here". HER: "I don't want that one. I want with strawberry and vanilla, not only strawberry". ME: "It's the only one I have. Do you want it?" HER  "NO!!!! I want a lolly pop". ME: "This is the only one there is". -HER: "I don't want it! Lolly pop, please!!!" ME: "There's no other!" HER: "lolly pop with vanilla!!!!"... After 15 min of tantrum there is a 3-second silence followed by "you are so complicated, mom".... hahahaha

She had to be a girl!

A.A. - un abrazo (a hug)

Anécdota de mi sobrina de tres años contada por su mamá:

Estoy Absorta en mi lectura y derrepente escucho la vocecita de mi nena que me dice "mamita necesito un abrazo"... Me derretí...

Quién no se derrite ante tal comentario...

Anecdote from my 3-year old niece, told by her mom:

I am engrossed in my reading when suddenly I hear my daughter's little voice that tells me: "mommy, I need a hug"...

*Sigh*


The last sentence in Spanish means, literally, "I melted", although I am not sure that would be the appropriate expression in English (?). In any case, who wouldn't melt after hearing those words?

A chart of money

Check out this graph by xkcd about the different dimensions of money. Be sure to zoom in to appreciate all the details. You may have to use the link to the website to be able to do it.

Capitán America (Captain America)

(via montt)

English translation: 


Today in: Superheroes with denomination of origin issues.


"Oh, yeah? Well, let me tell you that I am Captain America around here."




This comic is particularly meaningful to me because using America to call the U.S., or Americans for gringos just didn't seem right. I mean, if I was born in the American continent, I am also an American, right? I know, I know... how would we call them otherwise? Gringos is definitely not politically correct. BBC used to have a nice way to fix this ambiguity of terms. They used to* split their News sections into continents, calling The Americas what in Spanish we are taught as America. I am sticking to that one, and I will not mind calling Americans, Americans.

*Currently the subdivided the Americas into US & Canada and Latin America. 

La Liste

Lately I have been enjoying listening to songs both in French and Italian. I am afraid that if I study Italian too much I will forget what's left of my old French... or even English! I can't seem to conjugate verbs properly these days.  Anyway, so I naively listen to Carla Bruni hoping it won't fade away so fast from my brain... I guess there is only so much space in my spongy brain for new stuff :-).

But hey! Carla Bruni is so 2002. So here's a song (from 2009 I think) that grooveshark kindly recommended me with their "radio" function. I like it a lot:

Many of the items in the list of the song are actually in my list of to-do-things... :-) Happy Sunday!

Losers' song

Sorry that I have been so delayed with my posts. I am still feeling pretty tired after coming back from the conference and there is a lot to do before the Thanksgiving break (which I am taking off, of course! yeay!!).

What I have for today is somehow funny. It all comes from this link. It is very well known that Columbia University literally sucks in sports. I have only been to a basketball game and it was pretty shameful. (American) Football is no exception and here are some irrefutable stats: they lost to Cornell for 62 points, 37-0 to Dartmouth, and 44-21 to Albany, among others.

It turns out last weekend at Cornell we were losing again when the music band that is meant to cheer for the team at each game (tough job!!) came up with the following lyrics to the traditional "Roar, Lion, Roar" song:

We always lose lose loseby a lot and sometimes by a littlewe all were winners at the start,but four years has taught us all the value ofjust giving up, cause we really suckwhy are we even trying?we always lose lose losebut we take solace in our booze.

As a result the band is now banned from marching the finale (!). I agree that this is definitely not the best sports spirit, but I still found the lyrics funny and creative.  What do you think?

Picture from source of news.

How do you treat yourself in times of stress?

It's almost midnight and I am in Charlotte, North Carolina at this major conference. I slept 2 hours yesterday and even though I am super tired, I can't sleep. Too many things going on.

How do you treat yourself in times of stress? I exercise regularly (my yoga lessons are sacred), but sometimes I need an extra punch. I recently discovered one that does wonders. I look for sources of laughter. Not just giggles, but real laughter... best if I cry. So if something makes me laugh, I just let myself go into the feeling... it kinda spreads all over the body. Nice feeling to counteract against stress!

The other day watching a couple of episodes of The Daily Show and Colbert Nation did the trick. I LOOOOVE them. But now, in this conference (and also last week) the best has been to be with my good friend, Rouba. We shared office during the PhD for 3 years and we became really close. She's always very funny and positive. I love that we can be so open with each other and laugh at pretty much anything. This is definitely the best way I have found to treat myself. Thank you, habibteh!!

How do you treat yourself?

(image via Rum For Tva)

A.A. - jugando a ser Marthelo (playing at being Marthelo)

Mi sobrina de 3 años con su mamá (contado por mi prima):

Mi hija: Mamá, jugamos a que tú eres Marthelo? (su "esposo")Yo: okMi hija: Marthelo, mira yo soy tu princesa porque traigo mi pijama azul y mi boca pintada y yo te quiero, por eso eres mi príncipe, eh Marthelo?Yo: ok (cortándole las uñas y sin voltear a verla)Mi hija: Mira Marthelo mi amor, tengo un moco (diciéndolo con un tono tan romántico)Yo: jajajajajajajjajaaj plop!!!!!!!

 Imagínense salir con algo así en una cita. Lo máximo. Me recordó a una anécdota que leí en uno de los n blogs que leo,  A Cup of Jo. La chava contó que una vez estaba en una cita con un chavo con el que estaba saliendo y de repente, así de la nada, el cuate salió con que "tenía un bigote muy lindo." Jajajajaja. La pobre se traumó y cuando llegó a su casa se lo razuró!!

Aprovecho para avisar que me voy de conferencia mañana. Espero estar de vuelta en el blog para el 20 de Noviembre. Igual después a lo mejor baja un poco la frecuencia de los posts porque el trabajo va a aumentar mucho de aquí a... no sé... mucho tiempo... ¡Espero estén disfrutando su fin de semana!


My 3 year old niece with her mom (told by my cousin):

My daughter: Mom, do you want to play at being Marthelo (her "husband")?Me: okMy daughter: Marthelo, I am your princess because I am wearing my blue pj and I am wearing lipstick and I love you. That's why you are my prince, eh Marthelo?Me: ok (this I say while cutting her nails without even looking at her)My daughter (in a very romantic tone of voice): Look Marthelo, love, I have a snot!Me: hahahaha plop!!!!!!!

This sounds like a perfect dating deal breaker, doesn't it? It reminded me of one that I read on A Cup of Jo, one of the (many) blogs I follow. When she was younger she was dating a guy who, completely out of the blue, told her "you have cutest little moustache". Hahahahaha. Joanna was so shocked, she shaved it when she got back home!!

Anyway, I will be gone for a conference next week, during which I will be super busy... Hope to be back to regular posting by Nov 20th. It's all steep uphill from now until... umm... I don't want to think about it. I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Occupy Academia

Utterly. Awesome.

Curiously enough, I don't quite like Cecilia's blog (pun very much intended).

In your (jelly beanie) arms

Have you seen this video? It's cute and very creative, isn't it?

What I had not watched was the video of the making of the video. I thought it would be cool to see how they did to put so many jelly beans (288,000 of them) into nice frames one after the other. I assumed Kina Grannis was filmed with a green screen behind separately and then they had put everything together. But oh, no! She was actually there, with the jelly beans. Every. Single. Frame. (2,460 of them). Take a look:

The production of the video took more than 2 years, the shooting of it more than 1. Did you see how the creative producer gives her instructions on how to pose? I would have not lasted for more than 3 days... and that's a maybe. I like her. I like seeing passion for a project. And I also love her make up :-).

Lifecycle video - Life is short. Live your dream

The video doesn't really say anything new. It's about things that we need to be reminded of every so often. It's easy to get carried away with the flow, and stop paying attention to what really makes _you__ happy.

It's ironic how hard it is to live up to our own and independent expectations instead of everyone else's. I am trying to do it as a daily exercise: do more things that make __me__ happy. Only then I am able to make other people happier.