You're disturbing my Oboe practice!*

My neigbour has been unbelievably annoying this weekend! It's funny 'cause for the past 12 years we haven't even noticed anyone there, I don't even think I've seen anyone take the elevator to that floor either. And I think it's an eldery couple, but our theory is that their grandkid moved in with them recently, because at really odd hours he just cranks the volume up on the stereo and bangs something... so loud I asumed it was the neigbour upstairs. I got to the verge of almost grabbing a broom and hitting the ceiling *Mr Heckles style...until we realised it's some jerk on the floor below ours. WEIRD!

I was browsing the web when I came across this sign... I loooove it!! I would so totally do that! Rat the brat on the elevator with a similar note! *Muahahaha*

Have a lovely Monday!!

Note via Passive agessive notes.

Le boudoir

I'm very very sleepy, and that might, in part, be the reason why I'm loving these rooms' pictures so much!! I just had to share. Wish I had a bit of time to fix up my room the way I'd love it. That way I could kiss away my trerrible sleeping habits!!

Bonne nuit!

Awesome photos via Wonder.

Addicted

I have this terrible addiction... and I'm not talking about chocolate, nor Paris, shoes or travelling. This is an addiction I can't quite seem to manage (much like chocolate).

The thing is, even if by chance I do happen to hear the 5th alarm go off on time, I always seem to take longer and longer to get ready every morning, and I wind up being unnecessarily late. Don't ask me why, it just happens that way. And "oh, I'm late again" and I hail a taxi on my way out.

Every freakin' morning by now...

And of course it's ridiculous! And I'm totally cheap on other things, but a taxi is never money wasted. There's something in being driven to work, having all that back seat space to yourself. Not having to push your way around a  busy train station. Not holding onto your purse like a life vest, riding with the train's doors one centimetre from your  face.... I know it's ridiculous, and it needs to stop now!!

Still... there's nothing like a good conversation with a nice taxi driver!



Taxi #1: Jake&Sam
Taxi #2: Silvia.R
Taxi #3: michaelsdonovan

Why?

Why, if I went to sleep an hour and a half earlier than usual, did I keep on sleeping?

Why, if I have five alarms strategicalky scheduled at different times for me to get up ontime, I heard none?

Why did I overslept on the day I had important stuff to do before going to the office?

Why did I have to leave the house in such a rush I couldn't even see the weather forecast?

Why did I, on the coldest day of the year, leave the house on ballerina flats and no socks??

And why on Earth is it snowing all over Argentina, exept in Buenos Aires?!?!



It snowed by .bella.

Culturise thyselves!!

Today I was hit in the face with reality: I'm old. No, seriously, I'm 24, but I'm already old. I needed to get to a doctor's appointment and the train wouldn't come, so I had to fly out of the train station and I hailed, what now is, the most expensive taxi ride I ever took... Why, you ask? Why did I have to get on a  taxi and not ride a bus? Because there was the most ridiculous traffic ever and I was already late.

We din't realy know why we had to come to a halt every other 10 meters....the taxi driver kept promising that past Pueyrredón Av it would be fine and we would speed up, but we never did. Why? I was wondering the exact same thing, until suddenly I vagely remembered hearing about a band that was playing at River Stadium tonight. So who was playing? JONAS BROTHERS.




Yes, readers, I amit it, I have heard the name before, as in I have heard those two words in a sentence... but I just couldn't think of a song I knew they played, or really even picture them in my mind. Judging from the isnanity vibe and screams coming in from River Stadium (2km away) there must be thousands of teenage girls who do know them. You would not believe their screams every 15 seconds or so, carried by the wind into my room.

So who are the? Are this generation's Hanson Brothers? Are they the next Back Street Boys?? I wish I had a 14 year-old reader to explain all this to me and make me feel like I'm not really that old just yet...



To hear more songs by Jonas Brothers (and realise it's not spelt "Jona's" like I thought at first) visit their Official Youtube Channel.

Petit mental schock at the cubicle...

Sorry for the absence yesterday... but I'm just now recovering from a petit mental shock that occuered yesterday morning as I checked my e-mail.

I was sitting at the office minding boring, mundane, cubicule stuff business, when I opened an invitation to a friend's wedding in the campagne française in August!!

I wanna goooooo!! I wanna go!!!!! After a turmoil of emotions ranging from utter happiness, dispair, anger at stupid responsibilities, and ambivalencies between being aboslutely certain that I can go and then thinking there's no possible way that I could, I've finally decided to spend my time in a more productive way by scheming ways to convince "the suits" that I deserve a little extra days of vacacion or payless days, and that I can actually do all my work on a laptop from France for a few days... Ah! La vie est très compliquèe!!

And now excuse me while I go and give myself a huge overdose of Paris, je t'aime, merci.

Vallée de la Bouzanne, Château de Chabenet photo by Phil'Ours

Something is very wrong here

OMG... my stress level is reaching unknown levels... I came back to the office from lunch and I realised about an hour later, when I wanted to have some chewing gum, that I didn't have my purse with me. And I couldn't tell if I had or hadn't brought it back with me... we had made a pitt-stop at Zara and I was drawing a blank. I had to go back downtown (yes, we had lunch in a more "central" spot than where we work), with my stomach in a knot and see if it was there or what.

Thank God that when I got there the waitresses had already spotted it, after a co-worker had called they went looking for it. So by some miracle my purse hung on the same chair for about an hour without anyone realising and snatching it!!

I seriously don't know what to do, I mean, this is the first time ever I forgot my bag like this, except for two weeks ago, when I left my wallet at the doctor's office... Like we say here, I'm "in the oven"!


Selfportait by Moth

Overwhelmed

Total blog abandonment this past week... really sorry about that!!

I feel completely overwhelmed, and it's starting to really get on my nerves... I've gotten to the point where I really can't tell if it's my fault and how I can fix it. I keep forgetting important things, I plan to do fun stuff and completey forget that I had other plans, I woke up waaaay too late this weekend, ergo I had no time to do stuff.

How do you get organised?? Why do I feel like I'm always running everywhere?? Argh! Totally sick of it! Hopefully this week will be a bit smoother...

Hope you had a great weekend!


Vintage Paris photos found via We Heart It.

The day is out!

What a day of crap!! ^^ This is going to be me in about an hour as I promised myself to be in bed before 12 tonight or else....

Thank gosh tomorrow is Friday!! Hope your day wasn't as bad. Catch u tomorrow!!



Photo by .local boy in the photograph.

Tae bo junkies

These are absolutely random thoughts that occured to me last night at the gym, so you know that nothing good can really come out of it... please bare with me.

But as I was jumping up un down punching the air I started thinking that I don't really mind the ridiculously buff sweaty instructor, nor the music that's so loud that stops feeling like music and starts resembling airplane noise... what really gets me is the typical gym junkie. The girl in a perfect tan, matching gym gear, make up (I mean, come on! Did you really apply three coats of mascara just to come jump up and down with all of us??), who knows the class better than the instructor, only she does everything one tempo faster, making it absolutely impossible for you on your baggy joggins and uncoordinated limbs to follow the instructor/her on the mirror. I mean, seriously!

More gym thoughts by the end of the week, as S* is making me go back there... Argh!! The gym... why must we??


Flashdance photo from here (now, if I danced like her... it would be a completely different story).

March (un)resolution...

Argh! What a night!! For the first time in like forever I managed to go to bed before 1am, in a plan to start March more organised, finally getting up at the time I'm supposed to, arriving at the train station on time and never again taking a cab to come to work. My plan was going along fine, until I woke up in the middle of the night due to one of the hardest thunder storms I'd seen in ages.

At 2.26 the skies were falling, I quickly closed the window (I can't sleep with the shutters closed) and all I could see from my pillow was the lightning stiking every five seconds or less and buckets of rain pouring against my window. I do like sleeping through a storm, but this was way bigger than anything we'd gotten lately. I eventually fell back asleep, but I slept like crap and had the weirdest series of dreams I'd rather not name.

By the time I woke up (rather late) I really meant to not take a taxi. I really did, only to turn on the news and find out the train was down, the main accesses from home were blocked by gigantic tree branches and I took the longest taxi drive ever... so much for my March resolution...



Black clouds by Jemal Y.

Let this be a reminder...

Let this be a reminder to all of you... if you have any alternate e-mail accounts (like say in HOTMAIL), remember to check in once in a while, like in the next 290 days since your last login. Otherwise, all your emails will be GONE.

So goodbye to all my High School emails. Goodbye subscription codes and user names. Goodbye old chats and e-mails from my teen years... you shall be missed.

It's a cruel, cruel summer

8am. One of the hotest days of the year. You, standing in front of your closet deciding what to wear on a day you know will reach 40°C or more, plus rain.

Argh!!!

What do you do?? I mean, you surely can't show up naked at the office, even if it's Casual Friday. And showing up in a bathing suit and rain boots is pretty much out of the question too.... And as I write this, I see out of the office windows how the entire city went from a bright sunny humid day to a black, threatening, concrete city and I'm wondering how I'll walk out of here, or if I'll leave this place at all!!

Fortunately I'm going away for the weekend to a place called Pergamino, haven't been in a while so I promise some good pictures!!

Have a great weekend!

Photo credits: Bokeh madness by Arjun Purkayastha

Yellow chrysanthemum

I was not having a good day yesterday. I can't really put down in words and on the internets all that was going on in my head. But it just wasn't my greatest. After having had dinner with the girls, I realised I had enough money for a three blocks taxi ride, so I went for a bus instead.

Waiting and waiting and waiting.

It was enough to start going through my thoughts all over again. It was dark, past midnight and I was getting a bit stressed. After 51 MINUTES of being alone with my thoughts, a guy out of nowhere comes along with a bouquet of flowers. I started getting paranoid, wishing he'd go away as he stops two feet away from me. He turns around and hands me a yellow flower. I said "thank you" two or three times, and he didn't say a word, he just smiled and left. And there I was, standing by the sidewalk in the middle of the night, and I was speechless. I couldn't hold back the tears and at that moment all of my problems and worries got solved.

So this is a big THANK YOU to that guy who last night at 12.51 was walking around the city with a bouquet of flowers. Never underestimate the kindness of strangers.

Therapy

Lately I've been feeling like I'm in a whirpool of things coming at me, and I need to slow down and get back in touch with the things I love. This blog, for example. Being out, reading a good book, feel like I don't have to run to get everywhere (like I've been running for the past 3 months). And yesterday, in the wee hours of the night, reading What Possessed Me, and A cup of Jo and all the things I've been missing out I realised that I want to start now. So here I am, back blogging, back reading the blogs I looove and thinking of all the cool, cute little details I want to start posting about.

I've got a question for you though, how bad would it be that I don't translate to Spanish any more? Send your comments, as I really want to know how you feel about that! Oh! And I loved reading at 3am last night all the encuragement comments!! Thaaaaaanx!!

I'm back, and hopefully for good.


Divano Back-to-back by Nigel Coates, via We Heart It.

Total abandonment...

I know! I've been neglecting you!! I won't try to hide it... 'cause it'd be useless. But I wanted to let you know that I've come up with a little self-inflicted punishment... I went out running today! Yes, you read right. RUNNING I tell 'ya! How is this possibe? I don't know... i just grabbed my sneakers and went out. And I run 1km... am I out of shape or am I out of shape?? Hehe, of course that's not all I did, I walked pretty fast and pretty hard for a while too... and you have to consider the elements: it had just pourded down on the city, which means I had to jump and zig-zag and down right get soaked from time to time... But I loved it! Let's see how long it lasts...

I've missed ya!


Ya sé! Las tengo re abandonadas!! No voy a negarlo... ni voy a intentarlo. Pero quería contarles que ya me autoimpuse una penitencia... hoy fui a correr! Sí, leíste bien: CORRER! Cómo es posible? No sé... agarré las zapatillas y salí. Y corrí 1km. Estoy fuera de estado o qué?? Jejej, obvio que no es todo lo que hice, caminé un montón super rápido... y hay que considerar los obstáculos a los que una se enfrenta cuando sale a correr por la ciudad: recién había llovido por ende tuve que saltar, zigzaguear y empaparme con las baldozas sueltas... Pero me encantó! Veremos cuanto me dura...

Las extrañé!


Awesome drawing by KRISATOMIC.

Photos that cheat

Sometimes as consumers we come across certain products that you just wonder how you bought them in the first place. Advertising has a big role on this, but most of the time the packaging really helps selling the product. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against this at all, I LOVE advertising, and I love the art and research and detail that go into packaging as well... as long as the photo or the advert is selling something remotely simmilar to the real product. In this case my Mum bought what looked like really nice chocolate cookies. You should have seen my face once I opened the package... It makes you wonder if they placed the wrong product in the wrong box! Someone should tell the folks at Carrefour that by selling cookies in a cardboard box instead of a plasic wrapper doesn't make the product "premium". It turns out to be a complete disappointmet, so much so that I had to take a picture of it. (PS: the taste is as bad as the real photo / Click on the photos to see the BIG difference).

A veces, como consumidores nos encontramos con ciertos productos que te hacen pensar cómo es que los terminaste comprando. La publicidad cumple un rol fundamental, pero el packagint también ayuda muchísimo a la hora de la venta. No me malinterprenten, me ENCANTA la publicidad, así como también el arte, investigación y detalle que forman parte del proceso de elaboración del packaging... siempre y cuando la foto o la publicidad vendan algo mínimamente parecido al producto real. En este caso mi mamá comrpó unas galletitas de chocolate que parecían bastante buenas. Deberían haber visto mi cara cuando abrí el paquete... Te hace pensar si no pusieron el producto equivocado en la caja equivocada! Alguien le debería decir a la gente de Carrefour que el sólo hecho de vender galletitas en una caja de cartón en vez de en un envoltorio de plástico no las convierte automáticamente en un producto "premium". Termina siendo una desilución total, tanto que le tuve que sacar una foto. (PD: la galletita es tan fea como la foto real / Hagan click en la foto para ver bien la GRAN diferencia).

Fashion emergency

Arghhhh! Someone'd better come along with me to do some serious shopping this weekend 'cause I hate coming back home empty handed!!! Seriously, make me some room during your weekend because I can't seem to find anything by myself, everything is too expensive and too blah!! What's going on?? And it's not even that I fell in love with something I can't afford. I just don't like a thing, period! Where is the style?????


Arghhhh! Más vale que alguna me acompañe este finde a comprar ropa porque estoy harta de volver a casa con las manos vacías!!! En serio, alguna se hace un ratito durante el fin de semana porque yo sola no encuentro nada, todo está muy caro y es re "blah"!! Qué pasa?? Y ni siquiera es que me enamoré de algo muy caro, directamente no me guusta nada! Dónde está la ropa con onda????


(I'm loving this look by stylist Caroline Sieber on Jak & Jil Blog) 

Modern women of yesterday

Is it THIINKING time already?? I don't know... but perhaps you'll love this little paragraph I found in my old copy of Chatlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Why did I pick this 643 pages-long book when I was barely eleven years-old and just starting to get English beats me. Even more amazing is the fact that I stumbled upon the paragraph I transcript below because I have marked it back in '96. Sometimes I am awed by the eleven-year-old me.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calmed generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrowminded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.

And to think that this book was first published in 1847!!


Ya es la hora de PENSAR denuevo?? Espero que les guste este párrafo que encontré en mi copia de Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë. Por qué elegí este libro en inglés de 643 páginas cuando apenas tenía once años y recién empezaba a entender inglés? no sé. Y más me llamó la atención cuando enconté este párrafo (que les transcribo abajo) marcado por mí en el '96. Aveces me sigue sorprendiendo mi versión de once años. .

“Es en vano decir que los seres humanos deben estar satisfechos con la tranquilidad: las personas deben tener actividades y las inventarán si no las encuentran. Millones están condenadas a una inmovilidad aún más silenciosa que la mía, y millones están en rebeldía silenciosa contra su suerte. Nadie conoce cuántas rebeliones, además de las políticas, fermentan en las numerosísimas vidas que las gentes entierran. Se supone que las mujeres generalmente son muy calmadas, pero las mujeres sienten tanto como los hombres, necesitan ejercicio para sus facultades y un terreno para encaminar sus esfuerzos tanto como sus hermanos; sufren las restricciones rígidas, el estancamiento absoluto con la misma intensidad como las sufrirían los hombres, y es estrechez mental que sus compañeros privilegiados afirmen que ellas deberían dedicarse exclusivamente a hacer pasteles y a tejer calcetines, a tocar el piano y a bordar. Es insensato condenarlas o reírse de ellas si buscan hacer más cosas o aprender más de lo que la costumbre ha señalado que es necesario para su sexo."

Y pensar que este libro se publicó por primera vez en 1847!!!

Traducción al castellano de acá.
Book cover by Richard Clifton-Dey for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Puffin Classics, 1994

No desafíes a la chocotorta!!

(Do not defy the Chocotorta!!)

Dears, I'm going to pass on some sound advice, things I learned the hard way this weekend: when doing the Chocotorta (famous Argentine cake made with Chocolinas cookies, dulce de leche and whipped cream) NEVER defy it!! Follow the rules excatly as they appear in the package. Meaning: if the recipe says it serves six and you have twelve guests, DON'T bend the rules by smuggly thinking you can just double the ingredients and have double the servings!! Big, BIG mistake!! Apparently at Bagley they teamed superior ingeneers to come up with the exact recipe, and they came to the conclusion that the only proper way is by starting the cake with 12 cookies at a time, and that's that. That doesn't mean you can just shrug and say "I have 12 people, I'll double the cookies". Unfortunately this is not like one of those math problems we had to solve in the 4th grade. Now you'll have to become an engeneer yourself and think of a way to save the cake from sliding off of itself. In my case I invented some contingency walls that worked just fine. Word has it it was delicious non the less... some even asked specialy to be served the sides, just so they could get an extra Chocolina... how about you? Did you try it??

Queridas, les voy a dar un consejo que aprendí este fin de semana cuando hice una Chocotorta: NUNCA la desafíen!! Sigan las instrucciones al pie de la letra. Esto significa que si la receta dice que es para seis porciones y vos tenés doce invitados NO trates de quebrar las reglas pensando que podés duplicar la cantidad de ingredientes y tener el doble de porciones!! Gran, GRAN error!! Aparentemente en Bagley juntaron a un grupo de ingenieros para que consiguieran la receta exacta y llegaron a la conclusión de que la única forma de realizarla es con pisos de a 12 galletitas, y sólo así. Esto no significa que puedas encojerte de hombros y decir "Tengo 12 personas, duplico las galletitas". Acá no tienen nada que ver esos problemas de matemática de 4º grado... Te vas a tener que convertir en una ingeniera y pensar en un método para salvar a la torta para que no se patine sobre sí misma. En mi caso inventé estas paredes de contingencia que funcionaron bastante bien. Los rumores afirman que estuvo bárbara igual... algunos inclusive pidieron especialmente de los bordes, para poder comer una Chocolina de más.... y vos? la probaste??


Photo credits: Me.