My Tango debut in London

I reopen this blog by sharing a very good experience...

Tango workshop with Adrian and Amanda Costa @ Tango South London (TSL), it was really nice :-D
Adrian and Amanda teachings about musicality will linger and Claire's kindness makes TSL a school with a very warm welcome. Both to be re-expirenced as soon and frequently as possible!

Adrian&Amanda's website

Tango South London's website

Farewell to Preston

These will be my last days in Preston.

Well, I might come back sometime, but I’m definitely not staying here any more. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the city and this uni wasn’t the best choice for me.

I’ll need to leave behind some people that I really enjoyed meeting… but I’m actually glad I did get to know them :) As I’ve been saying, once I go for good I’ll be able to miss them: colleagues at uni, Portuguese friends I met here, people from the choir (which I did enjoy a lot) and my companion in this Prestonian adventure…

I’m hoping for a big turn in my life. Actually I’ve been waiting for something different for a long time and it may still not be this time that it happens, but I’m really looking forward to this next chapter.

I may be falling into a life of little sections apparently with no connection to each other… but if you can’t judge a book by its cover, maybe you can’t toss it either just because it starts by setting out the bigger picture in short distinct chapters!?

I have a positive mind and I always try to learn from my experiences good or bad. I hope that the things that have been keeping me down will dissipate and my life will start to make some sense, not only for me but for others too.

Goodbye Preston!

Christmas

Christmas is usually a happy time for me.

I don’t fall too much in that craziness of buying presents for everybody, I tend to prefer creating some little things made by myself. Because these gifts have more significance to me than something bought, maybe a bit carelessly, just to fulfill the giving frenzy which ends up in a meaningless shopping urge.
On the one hand, I’m not very good at choosing presents, because I never can remember those things I found before and thought they would be a great gift for this or that person. On the other hand, I do enjoy browsing stores and finding out appropriate tokens of my friendship.
This year because I didn’t have a lot of time and I had a little bit extra money, I didn’t do any gifts myself. For those closer to me, I think I did find the right items. Conversely, I don’t have anything for those others who aren’t so close but to whom I also would like to give a little to remember me and to express my appreciation… will I still be able to make up for that? Maybe with a little delay…

What makes us happy during Christmas is not all this “what money can buy” thing, but with who and how you spend your time in these days. So many people are saying this, but we are again and again falling for the easiest path of consuming, buying, ready-made, pseudo-almost-perfect, must-haves, must-dos…

At the end of my twentieth decade, this will be my first Christmas out of my house, away from my hometown and my friends and even my broader family. Thankfully, I won’t be away from my parents and sister, new friends and partner, but unfortunately it will also be the first time we won’t have my brother to sing some Carols to. It has been a big tradition in my family to sing Carols every night at Christmas time and my brother was the biggest fan.

Hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

(We’ll be enjoying the beautiful Lancashire landscape
that you can see in this picture.)

Helen Keller

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
Helen Keller

I didn't even want to add any comments to this quote. However, for those of you who don't know who Helen Keller is, I have to say she was a very special person. Very soon in her life she became deaf and blind and she overcame it as no one.

See this link at Helen Keller International for a very short account of her life:

http://www.hki.org/about/helenkeller.html
or read excerpts of the book "The Story of My Life" available at Google Books and from where I took the above picture of her at the age of seven:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=m84QQ-_VE5sC&dq=helen+keller&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=_J4HKLEi2L&sig=cCuGcBa9YPez6L9_kkZ-OiULvUA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA21,M1

Rain...

Rain!
British weaher sucks!
– one and a half hours delay due to a windscreen wiper breakdown in the train?
– is that possible?
– yes, I learnt it the hard way!
People wanting to go home. People losing flights, losing other trains, losing their patience.
People getting tired and stressed out right before the beginning of a new week…