What can we do? This is a recurrent question in the European countries in the last days. The tsunami killed thousands, affected millions and seven countries need help rebuilding. As Kofi Annan said today “we have to help the poor that lost everything”, there are more than 2 million people without clean water to drink. Help is needed and now. People in UK have already donated around £25m, I don't know the value in Portugal but it's lower for sure. I donated €15. If each of us donates this small amount the global total will be enough to help everybody, but if we're all counting on the neighbour to donate for us… then I'm afraid no one will get the help they need.

Friendship.

Solitude is one of the greatest problems on the actual society. Some people stop meeting new people at their early 20s and during their life, lose all their previous friendships. There are some reasons for this, but the main one is the routine that rules their lives. They get up early, go to work and came back in the evening. Their job doesn't involve contacting with other people. Their spare time is spent watching TV and they don't have any other activity, and as they don't have friends and don't go out, they end up lonely without interacting with other people.

All this could be different if we kept more of our childhood.

Yesterday I was in a shopping mole and there wore two young kids that obviously didn't know each other. After 5 minutes in the same shop one of them was begging their mother to invite the other over for tee. In five minutes she had made a new friend, without needing excuses to talk to her, without needing a middle kid tbhat would introduce them to each other.

I think I can say that my Christmas wish is that we learn how to meet knew people with children, so that next year there less grownups living monotones, lonely lives.

Four American soldiers died today in Iraq .

http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/

Note: For those that didn't understood, in Iraq wore killed since the begining of war more or less 1500 soldiers and 15000 civilians.

Note: This blog has been offline

Not even five moths in front of the government and the Portuguese prime minister achieved the unthinkable. He was today “dismissed” by the Portuguese president. He will stay in front of the government until February when new elections will be held. What drove to this was a four month government that when you thought that they couldn't do worse, they would do some nonsense that was proper of a Hollywood film. It starts with the nomination of this government. Instead of being elected they wore nominated. It was an ambiguous decision, because the Portuguese Constitution wasn't clear about what to do when the prime minister got out, but wasn't fired. Jose Barroso was the Portuguese primer minister he went away for the presidency of the European Union. The Portuguese President preferred the nomination of the president of the party that was most voted in the last election.

This government was accused of everything… unfortunately most of it was true. They wore accused of pressing the media; a commission was appointed and conclude that the pressures existed. They wore accused of lack of coordination… it wasn't needed any commission to verify that… on the same day the Portuguese primer said that taxes wore going down and the finance minister said that it was impossible to get the taxes down.

They wore accused of lack of preparation on some deals; one week later the EU failed a deal that would get together Gas and Electricity. The “drop of water” that made the glass full was the resignation of a minister that was re-nominated 4 days ago, and his reason was lack of confidence… this minister was seen as one of the closest to the prime minister.

The big issue (at least for me) is that the main figure in the opposition, the one that could also be prime minister is almost like a twin of the one dismissed today. So they will continue to have my blank vote, and my hopes that in near future competent persons will be part of a competent government. Last elections (for the European parliament) 9% of the Portuguese that voted, voted in blank… I'm curious to see how many will vote in the beginning of the next year.

I'm one of those idealistic persons that believe that each and every one of us has a soul mate. I don't believe that our soul mate fits perfectly in us, but I do believe that after we meet her, we need to battle for her, I believe that that soul mate won't come running for us instantly after our eyes meet for the first time. And the real problem is when we believe that another person is our soul mate, but that person does not think the same. It's probably one of the most ancient problems in the world, but the answer for it remains as obscure as it was in the beginning. When it comes to heart reasons (or is it brain reasons?), there's not a simple, plane answer and the answer is never the same. So many different endings with the same story, we only need to change the characters, and sometimes not even the characters need changing to change the ending. In the end all we have is a big question mark of what would have happened if we did things differently (and a big certain of what happened if we did things as we did).

My physics teacher believes that we cannot travel trough time, that we cannot experiment two things in the same environment to see which one is the best and then travel a third time to use the best one. And as the only way of experiment in human relationships twice is time travel, we will never know what would be the reaction if the action was different. So here we are with a moral dilemma of knowing that after doing something we cannot “re-do it” but without knowing what will happen if we do something… Complicated? Human relations always are.

OK… Bush won, more than 50% of American voters wanted him to win, and who am I to say otherwise. But I hope that he changes his policies about foreign countries. The world can't live with a super power that ignores the rest of the world. USA can't continue to invade countries just because they want, can't continue without having any real plan to avoid exaggerated consume of petrol, can't continue to believe that they're right in everything, and the rest of the world is wrong. They can't say that a country is with them in the war against terror or that country is a terrorist country (and I can speak with no problem because Portugal was part of the meting of “Lages” that started the war in Iraq .

If Bush changes some of these things, then maybe USA can be seen in the rest of the world as an example of what to do in the foreign policy instead of an example of what no to do.

Well… the scenario is on favour of Bush. The one that wins Ohio wins the election and Bush as an advantage on the votes already counted… there are 2794346 for Bush and 2658125 for Kerry, it would take a huge turnover in the next hours for Kerry to win. This result shows that USA would need another NY for Kerry to win. Bush is very close of wining but as we say in Portugal : Hope is the last one to die. Let hope that turnover.

So the big news is that there is no news. The states that wore Bush on 2000 are Bush on 2004 ( New Hampshire isn't decided), and the states that wore Al Gore are now Kerry. The states that will decide who will win are not going the be known until the last vote is counted, and we won't have a President of the USA tomorrow, but probably only during next week. Bush will win more states than Kerry, but probably Kerry will have more votes than Bush.

During this election night I used various means to stay informed:

Websites: CBSNews , CNN and Polysigh Blog

TV stations: CNN, RTP1 ( Portugal ), Sky News and RNN (funny station that I found in the Internet).

Tomorrow we'll probably have a better idea of who will win this election.

Yesterday morning ( 8:00am GMT ) I bought Portuguese daily “O Publico” that is the reference paper in Portugal . The title is: America Votes, The World Waits. And it's true, this is not an American Election, it's a world election in witch only Americans can vote. And the doubt is there. If it was a worldwide election Kerry would win, only because he's running against Bush. If the election was only on Europe , Bush wouldn't dare to go to elections… for example, a Portuguese TV channel made an inquirer to find out in whom Portuguese would vote. Kerry won with 80% of the votes.

The advantage of Kerry winning is (for non-American people) the changing of American relationships with other countries. Even Blair would welcome a change… He has elections coming in the begging of 2005, and he would have a more easy election if Bush is out.

But if Bush wins the US war machine will continue operating and all the jobs in US that have direct or indirect connection with war will be assured in the next two or three years.

I hope Kerry wins, and finds other solutions to all the unemployed people in US. War cannot be a solution for anything.

One of the main problems of the Portuguese education system isn't the lack of quality of schools, teachers or anything else. The main problem is the lack of interest of the students. A Portuguese student usually doesn't mind if he has bad marks. The main concern is to get a positive mark… one that allows him to pass the class, and if he doesn't pass the class, it won't be a great shame, it won't be a big deal and he won't be seen as a failure.

It's true that nobody likes to fail, but it's also true that everyone has a different perspective of failure, and that for the majority of the Portuguese students the definition of failure isn't the bad marks or the losing one year in school, but the lack of social acceptance. Unfortunately the social acceptance isn't achieved (at least in Portugal) by having great marks, but for having a great mobile, a cool outfit, or being able to drink large quantities of alcohol in a very short period of time.

The problem is more obvious during the adolescence, but the beginning of the problem comes from childhood. The Portuguese public schools don't have the level of demand that they should have, and parents are also not free of guilt. There are two great problems on primary school. The first one is the lack of knowledge / availability of parents to accompany their children studies and the second is the low demand of schools with their students.

I'm not defending a military kind of school for Portugal , but there is a middle term between what happens in a military school and what happens in a Portuguese public school.

There should also be a more effective accompany of students, with support classes if their teachers saw that they wore staying behind.

I don't know how to achieve all this… but I know one thing, if the education system doesn't change, we'll continue to stay on the “tail of Europe ”.

Last week I had to go to the ER in a hospital of Lisbon because I twisted my big toe during a karate practice. As I was entering I was thinking to myself that maybe all the bad things I've heard all my life about the Portuguese Health System wore exaggerated, and that my passage through the hospital would be brief… I couldn't have thought something more distant of reality.

As I entered, I realized that I would have to pay €6.90 just to be admitted… Ok, I know that it isn't too much money, but there are two huge problems… the first one: In Portugal there is almost 1 million people that have pensions that don't reach €250. The second: the Portuguese constitution says the health system should be free.

Let's proceed… I just had a twisted toe, but 1 minute after I entered, enters a guy that was saying that he was having a beginning of a CVA (cardio-vascular accident). Instead of being assisted immediately, he was instructed to go and pay his admission. He entered the queue I was in and if I didn't let him have my place he would had to stay behind me, and as I wasn't the only one in the queue, a women that was also at the queue refused to let him pass, and he had to wait until it reached is turn. There was a moment when we wore about seven on the queue… and there was just one guy attending us.

After paying I had to go to triage, so I could be given a colour that would define my waiting time. I was given green (that should be the colour that would wait more), and an old lady behind me was given orange (there was yellow between us). We both went to the X-ray witting room… my name was called first (after an hour and thirty minutes), I took the X-ray and then was asked to wait in the same waiting room until a doctor had time to see me. As I found myself a place on the wall to stand (there wore no available chairs), I looked around and the old lady was still there waiting to be called to the X-ray room.

I was called to a doctor about 40 minutes after my X-ray was taken. He asked to show my foot, and looked at it 10 seconds... than said my foot was ok, but I should do some physiotherapy because all the ligaments of the toe wore affected. I asked if I could do it in a public clinic, and he replied that there isn't such a thing… According to him, there wore only two ways… I had to pay for it or I had insurance… as I didn't have insurance…

When I left his office I got lost on my way out, as there wore no signs indicating exit. I found myself again in the waiting room of the x-rays and as I was asking a nurse the way out, I heard a name being called to the x-ray room and saw the old lady that entered the same time I did going in the room (Yes she had ORANGE … and I had Green). The nurse said to me that before I leave I had to pay for the x-rays.

I went to the balcony and I was presented a bill of almost 10€ of x-rays. I looked at the price table and there it was… each x-ray €1.70… I looked again at the bill and there was x-rays on the foot (2), to the arm (2) and to the wrist (2)… I complained and after 30 minutes I had a bill of just two X-rays (unfortunately 30% of the Portuguese population is analphabetic, and would have paid almost €10).

So I walked out after 3 hours and 10 minutes… with no solution presented by the public heath system for my problem, and with €10 less in the wallet…

Yesterday as I was getting ready to sleep, something drove me to my bookcase and I'm still trying to understand if it was me that pulled that book out of the bookshelf or was it the book that pulled me out of bed.

The book I'm talking about is “The silence of the sea” or in it's original name “Le silence de la mer”, the author is Vercors. It's supposed to be a book of the French resistence that was written during the II world war, but fortunately for all, Vercors missed the target and wrote one of my all time favourite novels. It's a very simple history about the relations between persons, and if I may say so, in a very strong way.

Yesterday I read the book again, and although it has a very hard ending (I'm not being a spoiler, everybody know how the war ended), it gives the reader the ability of feeling everything a bit more grey… a little less black and white.

And I'm glad I re-read it… I sure needed to feel things a little more grey!!!

When I entered 7th grade I became the best student in the class. That happened only because I came from one of the top schools in Lisbon , were the level was much higher.

With that new status, I became convinced that I was much better then any other kid in class. Fortunately I had great teachers that realized and made me bring my feet back to the ground.

On the end of the year, I missed a test, but as I was a good student, the teacher dismissed me from doing it. One week latter he turned the tests and there was a girl that got 100%, I replied immediately that the test was too easy and anyone could do that… my teacher heard and challenged me to do it, in the next class. I accepted! I studied a lot during three days, always with the illusion that I would have 100%. When he gave me the test, I thought to myself: “This is really easy!”.

The test was the same that all other kids had done two weeks early. I done it, and I didn't achieved 100% (fortunately :D ). My teacher called me apart when he gave me the test, and said: “See??? No one is better then anyone in this class… all you have is better background, and on this test you had a little bad luck. But you are not more or less intelligent that any of your colleges.”

Thanks to him, I learned not to think I'm better (or worse) than others. If I always try my best, then I'll have no need to feel ashamed not to achieve something, and if my best wasn't enough, there's always something (probably someone) that will help me to achieve my goals.

PS: Wouldn't the world be a better place if there wore more teachers like my 7 th grade math teacher

I love music. It makes me feel good with myself. It makes me feel alive. When the sound enters my body, my soul…I feel the need to move my body, to melt with the sound that's entering my body, to jump, to scream… to be just another pone that's being controlled by the rhythm…

And when you look around you see that everybody has entered that state… everybody is leaving there body being controlled by the music... they're moving without thinking, performing without having rehearsed… just letting flow the music through there body's.

When dancing, people tend to be more sincere, more humble, more human… it doesn't matter if your rich, pour, black, white, fat, thin… your just dancing... your just another pone on the dance flour… nothing more, nothing less… and I love that felling!!

Long season of exams... Just ended!!! Will spend most of the time at the beach!!!
Hopefully I'll write here more too.
:D

When I first started my blog, I wanted it to be something different, I wanted to write only what I thought, only what I dream, only what I saw, with no influence of people around me. I didn't want to find myself wondering about what someone would think while reading what I was writing. I believe the three first entries accomplished that goal.

I found myself today, completely unfocused of my goal. During the last months I didn't wrote very much because every time I started to write something I would start thinking of what the others would think of what I was writing, and how could I write what I wanted without being jugged by all the people I know… In the majority of times I would not write anything…

Today, while reading something I realized that I was starting to avoid writing and coming up with all sorts of excuses, so I wouldn't write what was on my mind.

I believe this is the first entry in a long time where I'm writing exactly what I want, and I hope I'll be able to maintain that…

Important things are always little things. A cliché sentence… that is so true!

How can somebody make such a thing?
How can someone plan that coward act and sleep at night?
Why are there so many cruel people in the world capable of such a thing?
Why aren’t we able to stop them?
I’m obviously talking about the terrorist act in Madrid today. I have no words to describe what’s in my soul, what I’m feeling. It’s so cruel, for all those persons that wore just trying to reach their jobs, trying to go on with their lives. Those people had the right to life, the ones that plan the attack are the ones that should be dead. It’s incredible how the world is unfair…
I haven’t got words to express the anger I feel… and it was so close from my city, so close from me. Today I believe every Portuguese, was for a while a little bit Spanish.
I’m wrecked out, without doing nothing, the simple thought that this could happen to anyone, is just for it self, terrifying

To possess the ability to write, to express what you feel is a precious gift, it’s something everyone should have, but few really possess. Unfortunately I believe I belong to the enormous group of the ones that don’t have that capability. It would be great to be able to express what I feel without making it look banal, because it’s not banal anything you feel, it’s always unique, because it’s always yours.
That ability of printing in a paper what you feel… something only the lucky ones are able, but that everybody that reads it is able to recognize while reading that printing, is what I pursuit, in everything I write I try to create a unique text, that is worth the time someone spends reading it, unfortunately I only achieve that propose very few times.
It’s so easy to understand a text when that text is wrote by a good writer, someone that really means what the text says, that feels what he was writing. It must be great to be able to express what you fell without having to say a word, just with a pen (or a laptop).
I know a few that are able of this type of writing. I’m not talking about writers, I’m talking about people I really know, friends of mine that have this incredible “power” of expressing their self’s on a piece of paper. Unfortunately some of them don’t know, yet, they have this ability and don’t use it… I write unfortunately, because whenever I read a text wrote by one of them, I truly like it and I wish I could read more.

When I write something here, it’s never because I want someone to read it… it’s not for anyone in specific. I write here because I want to know that what I wrote is available for anyone that’s willing to read it, for anyone that wants to read it.
What’s the definition of blog? Well for some it’s a place where you can expose your ideas, for others it’s a place to publish their diary, for me it’s a place to write what’s in my mind… if I want to write about my day, I will, if I want to comment some law that was approved I will and if it’s just a thought that passed trough my mind that I want to share, I will probably share it here.
I have difficulties in expressing myself when it comes to write just what’s in my mind, I tend to think it so many times that in the end what I write has nothing to do with what I thought. I should be more spontaneous.

NOTE: To think I wanted to write about creativity… I really should learn to focuses my writings in the subject I want.

It’s a topic that nobody in Portugal was able to pass by, the death of a 24 year old football player on the field… live on TV.
It’s something that makes you think…all the problems, all the adversities, all that is so insignificant, and at the same time it’s what gives life a meaning, it’s because of details that my life is different of any other’s life, it’s because of details that I’m different of everybody… that I unique.
And in the end, those details don’t mean a thing, when we are dead, all that we’ve done is forgotten, and only the closest ones will remember us. In 200 years nobody will remember the same details that made us unique.
Life is such an ephemeral thing, it’s so fragile that it frightens me… but I won’t be more careful with it, I refuse to stop living just because someone is dead, just because someone’s death made me realise the fragilness of life it doesn’t mean that I have to die to.
But it made me think… on one second he is smiling, on the next, a body without life is falling forwards the grass… sudden death they called it, I don’t know what is it…but I got even more chocked when they said they didn’t found nothing on the autopsy… He’s body was OK, no dysfunction, no cardiac problem, nothing, he just died.
After a week thinking of it, I’ve decided to let it go, thinking or not death is everyday closest of everybody, let’s just hope that it takes a long time to get to us.

Humankind what a foolish kind…
We invented the photography so we could keep forever moments that in the next instant would vanish. But we rarely use it, we usually use it to keep invented moments, pretended moments and staged moments. Don’t 90% of your photography’s have been taken the instant after you hear something like: smile; say cheese; say whisky or other thing that would make you appear in the photo with a huge smile? Why can’t we have photos of us crying? Or during a row? Or a when we are with the blues… Why do we always have to appear with that stupid fake smile? Aren’t you able to choose from all the photos you have, the ones that wore taken when you wore really smiling? Can’t you see? Can’t everybody see? Is it so difficult to distinguish the fake smiles from the true ones?
I don’t believe it is… even in photos.
But everybody is free of taking photos of whatever they want… just don’t annoy me every time you see a photo taken by me where the person that is caught in the photo is not smiling.

I once read that “the human mind is infinite … and genial”. And after reading this I stopped to think about the genial things the human mind has done… well the list is also infinite but it’s not all good. We have the fire, the well, the vaccines and many other things in many different times. We also have atomic bomb, pollution, war, CFC and many other things that are product of brilliant minds, but… aren’t at all brilliant for the humankind…
After this short reflection I read the sentence again and it said: “The human creativity is infinite, perverse, maquiavellian, its genial”. Looks like the author of this sentence was right and that I read it very bad.

Reading has always been one of my favourite hobbies… but unfortunately I have lost the habit of reading… I read, of course but I was a compulsive reader, and I lost that compulsivity… it’s a pity... but I still like to read, and I still read a lot, unfortunately (again) the majority of the books I read aren’t about computers… and my course is about computers…

In the 9th grade I took a skill/aptitude test, it said that I should be in something to do with literature, history or geography… it was then clear to me that I would go to science… I believe that nobody has the knowledge to say to you what to do with your life… I also believe that you should hear all the advices that are given to you, but advices are not laws… and you’re not obliged to obey them… They exist to help you decide, when you have doubts and when you trust the person that gives you the advice… but I know a lot of people that take advices like laws, this same persons follow fashions as they haven’t got any taste of their own, and take the opinion of the authors they read as if it was their own… I don’t understand why somebody should do such a thing, it looks has if they didn’t mind not having their own opinion... It’s obvious that when a new fashion is out, you have the tendency of following something’s of it, the things you like, not everything, when you read an article and you agree, you may use some of the ideas read on a future conversation, but it should always have your identity, your fingerprint. We all should try to by authentic.