Staff Parking talk

Staff Parking: i am so happy you think jim carrey is a total ass munch too. He wasn't even really funny to start with why does he think he can be taken seriously now? because we feel sorry for his suck?

Ms Burden: I am so sorry for you now... because I don't actually think he sucks. I just thought his last movie was a total waste of money and time... that's all. I enjoyed him so much in that movie "Man on the Mon" and "Truman Show". I hated that "The Spotless Sunshine of A STUPID mind" blargh. I love Mr Carrey and especially all of his funny characters. He rulezzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

A movie review:

Twenty-three things to look for while watching The Number 23
By Josh Bell

1. Jim Carrey straining to be dark and brooding as Walter Sparrow, an animal control agent who finds a mysterious novel called The Number 23 and becomes obsessed with it, believing it to be about his life.

2. Carrey straining even harder to be menacing as Fingerling, the hard-boiled detective hero of the novel, who shows up in dramatizations of its prose.

3. Virginia Madsen as Walter's wife, Agatha, staring at Carrey in every one of their scenes like she has no idea what he's trying to do.

4. Danny Huston's 23rd performance as Smarmy Bureaucratic Guy.

5. All of the background dates, times, license plate numbers and addresses that add up to 23. Doing arithmetic helps distract you from how stupid the plot is.

6. The washed-out visuals and urban grime that, combined with the pseudo-industrial score, make the movie seem like it wants to be a Nine Inch Nails video. Jim Carrey does not belong in a Nine Inch Nails video.

7. The cameo from Bob Zmuda, longtime friend and collaborator of Andy Kaufman, whom Carrey played in the 1999 biopic Man on the Moon, as "Desk Clerk."

8. The droopy, hangdog mutt that's meant somehow to be Walter's nemesis and a harbinger of doom. His name is Ned, and he is adorable.

9. Carrey's Serious Hair, as Walter, competing with his Badass Hair, as Fingerling.

10. Madsen's horribly unconvincing jet-black wig as Fabrizia, Fingerling's femme fatale.

11. The affected, almost lispy way that Carrey delivers the narration in the noir segments, which makes it sound like he's mocking the material.

12. Every 23rd frame contains a hidden message. No, really. We swear.

13. The way that supreme hack Joel Schumacher clearly thinks he's got some serious insight into the nature of obsession, just like he did in his last incredibly silly thriller about a guy consumed by an urban legend, 8MM.

14. Carrey trying desperately to reduce his natural charm, which he's successfully brought to serious roles in films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Truman Show, and succeeding in being completely charmless.

15. A few early glimpses of Carrey's goofy ad-libs, demonstrating the very talent he's suppressing by appearing in this film.

16. The sexy and alluring Rhona Mitra, wasted in a handful of flashback sequences as a helpless victim.

17. The convoluted "twist" at the end, which takes practically 23 minutes of mind-numbing exposition to explain, and is still completely illogical.

18. The laughter from your fellow moviegoers as another "shocking" coincidence about the impact of the number 23 on history and human existence is revealed.

19. Really scary puns: The book's author is "Topsy Kretts," and a mysterious psychiatrist is named "Dr. Sirius Leary."

20. The 23rd minute. It comes right after the 22nd, and before the 24th.

21. The color red. It's on the walls, the cover of the book and a light bulb in an ominous room near the end. Perhaps it symbolizes some sort of danger.

22. Walter's son, who just goes along with his dad's insanity, thinking all this 23 business is pretty cool.

23. The end credits, so you know you can finally leave the theater.

PS: I should have read this review before renting this fucked up flick. :o(

Photos from last drive-away-to-lunch Sunday

Ginsen tea is good for the brains... I want to EAT it.

I don't post as often as I would like because I haven't had time for that. And this really pisses me off. It was a disaster having hired another teacher to help me out here at the school. It didn't work out. Just like that. My former students reported to the principal that the new teacher hadn't been lecturing well and the consequence was: they're not my former students anymore. Good grief... so now I've been working more than ever. Even though my work load has doubled, I keep on boxing and taking Chinese. These two activities are my way-out from stress. I am glad I can manage doing all these things.

On top of that, I am looking for a good book to read. These are some titles from my list: A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, Marketable Depression, by Lauren White, or Guerras do Bastardos, by Ana Paula Maia. Or I should re-read The Metamorphosis. "Dunno." I ended up going to a bookstore this Sunday to buy Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, and Dolores Clairbone, by Stephen King.

I just know that my girls' night plan didn't happen last week. It got cold, damp, crazy humid with the lowest temperatures. This winter has been way chilly. The funny thing is that it hadn't been the weather which blew up our plans. By 'our' I mean: my and my students' plans. Our ride was going to be Taísa, and, she had lost her grandfather in the previous week. Her boss got fired too. Yay! So many good reasons to celebrate, actually. But she didn't think so. Of course that I didn't say that to her. Although I wanted, I could not.

Well. Life can't be that hard in a general sense. I do crack myself up with little weird things I see people going through. I easily laugh... I laugh when I go shopping and forget the shopping list at home. I laugh when I mispronounce or switch students' names. I laugh at this... so... I "cry" when I remember this story. What I mean is that I make tea on Saturday mornings for those kids who study on that odd day. Since I started taking Chinese, I've been trying to improve in that cultural matter. And last Saturday, I made them a special mixture with APPLE, LEMON, VANILLA, CINNAMON, and CLOVES... Crazy? Not really. I thought those ingredients really matched. Everybody made fun of me because I fixed a TEA SALAD...

Later, I realized that I had forgotten to add GINSEN. The students got crazy with that comment: "What?! Were you going to add more flavor to that?". Yeah. I was. Man, you should have been in that class last week. It was way hilarious!!! At least, to me... Then, nobody knew no beans about ginsen. I explained all I knew about the thing, and, I even went to the school kitchen to grab some and show the roots to them.

While showing the GINSEN roots to my students, one of the girls, who is from Bolivia, recognized what GINSEN was and she said: "Wow... You've got that? Where did you buy it? This root tea is quite good for the brains..." Then, another student, who happens to be cucko said: "Oh I really need to EAT this tea!" No one could hold it. Everybody else in the classroom started laughing their asses off... LOL. Eating GINSEN tea? Yeah, riiiiight. She's got to do something for her brains. And today, Louis - one of my best students - asked me if I had made GINSEN tea this morning. But I hadn't. I had made CIDREIRA with VANILLA, which was very good, but with no ginsen!

"Everyone is pretty normal after meetin' you, Laila!" This is what I am reading right now on my message board at my Orkut page. This person has got concrete reasons to have written that. I am going out to dinner at a very fancy place tonight, and for that, I bought a new pair of All Stars yesterday. I did. I showed them to my students this morning. They are white, leather made and... oh well, I've looked up a photo on the web to post in this blogspot. That's the one right above. I literally got those sneakers to go to this sophisticated dinner - it is a business anniversary dinner and all -. She said that people are expected to show up wearing something more formal than ALL STARS sneakers. And I was asked if I had been going nuts. And again: "Dunno."

I'll leave my own questions to this very person: "WHO'S PAYING FOR THIS DINNER? WHO PAID FOR MY NEW ALL STARS? WHY SHOULD I CARE?"

Where's my ginsen tea?

Rome wasn't built in a day

the last two times, in my life, I went out with friends to have some fun...

Jana, Me, and Fernando`s ex-girlfriend, in Londrina, Brazil, October 2002

Dunja (Bosnia), Me, and Nadia (Morocco), in Tampa - FL, USA, Aug. 2002
These both pictures are awesome. On the first one, I am so having fun in Brazil with my Brazilian friends. And, on the second snap, in Florida, I was having a good time at a really cool disco but it was sorta hard to show appreciation since there were plenty of oldies everywhere we would go. I have got nothing against older folks, however male elderly may sometimes get kinda weird as seeing younger kids having fun. Yew. Despite those limitations, Florida will forever be in my heart. I grew and learned how to be a better person there. I got in touch with so many cultures and that makes it the nicest place to be, for sure. I miss the diversity of the USA so bad. Most of all, differences are the secret of putting diverged people together at a peaceful state. I must be really proud of myself since I got a photo taken of a Jewish girl and an Islamic one standing on my sides. This is really like LAILA's STYLE = all religions are important and they all play an important role in everyone's lives. I miss all the good friends I made in the USA. I miss them all.

And getting back to our latest days, I must get focus on happiness. Next Saturday, I will finally go out with FRIENDS, on a girls night only... I can`t wait... There will be pix, for sure!!!

I got this from Sarah

What American accent do you have? (Best version so far) Neutral You're not Northern, Southern, or Western, you're just plain -American-. Your national identity is more important than your local identity, because you don't really have a local identity. You might be from the region in that map, which is defined by this kind of accent, but you could easily not be. Or maybe you just moved around a lot growing up.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

This test wasn't really accurate because it didn't have the Brazilia/American accent options which it would more likely for me to choose from. Well, it was still fun anyway.

What was I thinkin'?

Oh dear God. A new semester has arrived, a new school season better saying. I am already busy packed with tests to correct, students' reports to fill in... and I had to raise the idea of taking Chinese and boxing this year!?!? I really don't know what I was thinking... (thousands of ellipsis there, please). Luckily I got to hire an American teacher, Sarah Cato (from Alabama) to take over some of my groups. Well, at first, I thought: "Greaaat! Now, I'll have more free time for myself!" Yeah, riiiiiight. I am sensing that this is not gonna work out this way.

At my job, I feel suffocated by supervisions and stuff. With this new teacher at our school, I feel tenser coz now I have got one person to supervise while I am still being supervised. Whatevs, my job isn't the major problem. What bugs me is that I pretty much wish I had more power to take decisions in life. I've already typed that gizillions of times in this blog. But this time, I mean it. I mean: INDEPENDENCE. By 'independence' I mean that little most precious thing in life - to do whatever I want whenever I want to. Nah... this is never gonna happen. Well, it has happened once, or twice... That maybe happened when I was a teenager, I guess. Or that may have happened when I was not married. Being married isn't so pleasing at times, especially when you see your 'independence' scattering away.

Not everything sucks though. I am very lonely here in my place and I do not complain about. Actually, I am way happier just because of that. I don't even consider having kids because it scares me the idea of having people depending on me... really, it would be too crazy for them to have Laila as their mother. But it could be nice to start my own family - making my own people - moooohahahahaha. However, to have kids requires so much hard work, and then, there is the worst: they last too long and that could bankrupt me. Seriously, what could cost more than kids taking away your 'independence' from you?

My family was poor in the past. As a matter of fact, my mother had sadly poor parents and my father's parents were once very wealthy, but only once, when my father was just a kid. Dad left home when he was 16 and started his whole life from nothing. My father is a real self-made man and I am very proud of this. Roberto and I aren't much different from that. We also started growing, raising money for setting up our business when we both were 18. Our parents did help a little but we made it mostly on our own. I can't say we are rich but according to Brazilian standards we are above the average. Don't take me wrong. We did not suffer for gettin' there. We both went to college, and, we used to do what most teenagers should do which is study, work, and party a lot. Although, not many kids have got the same lifestyle we had.

In Brazil, most teenagers are asked to work for the local industries right after they finish high school. The lousy thing is that they don't make good money, unless they are in college or have already finished undergraduate studies. But even for those who are attending college courses, there is no guarantee of better salaries or wages. Then, there is another matter which's that not many of them can afford college studies and the worst is that higher education, in this country, is only called higher for a mere convention. Depending on the major, most of our schools are not well-qualified. Big bummer!

I stress over my lifestyle. Fine. I complain about it without many real reasons. I stress over the general Brazilian colleges and universitites. Also fine. Though, this time, I've got good reasons to. But I can always run away to any other country and study there (if at least I had that kind of FREEDOM to just GO...). Now, it is time to complain over the Brazilian way of accepting their shitty conditions of survival. Are we really 'independent' people?

Drugs and crimes have been common issues in medium and large cities in Brazil since my grandparents were born. I am constantly frightened when I am outdoors. I barely take walks downtown or go for a picnic in a park coz... coz... we never know... criminals are everywhere and they can attack at any time of the day or night. The working part of the Brazilian society live in this frightening state. Therefore we gate our houses, we install alarm and surveillance cameras, we set security codes to enter apartment buildings, many stores hire security guards to stand on sidewalks to watch out for their clients... in reality, we are caged and most of us don't even realize that. And d'you know why? because when people at my age were born, things had already been this way. And people don't get to travel to other cultures to see other realities because they cannot afford that either. Brazilian people are f#cking dependent puppies lost in the wild, including me.

In short... I must copy and paste my first paragraph: "Oh dear God. A new semester has arrived, a new school season better saying. I am packed with tests to correct, students' reports to fill in... and I had to raise the idea of taking Chinese and boxing this year!?!? I really don't know what I was thinking..." Really. What was I thinking?

Ms Burden

PS: I want my "independence" back.

Wanted to keep this and check it back next year

This is Your Free Numerology Reading
This reading is based on —
Birth Name: Laila Christina de Carvalho Goncalves
Birth Date: 1/29/1976 (January 29, 1976)

Your Inner or Soul's Urge: This is spiritual and emotional expression more than physical. It is your heart-felt desires, your incentive, how you look at life. Here are your areas of personal satisfaction.

Number: 1

Usually not very emotional, you are in this life to take action.

You want to lead and direct.

You are independent at heart and desire to reach your goals by your own efforts and intelligence. You have a strong creative force with many original and interesting ideas. There is much inner strength available to you. Rarely do you shirk responsibilities.

You are proud of your abilities and seek opportunities to display your strength and usefulness.

Others will respect and help you, like a true leader deserves, so long as you acknowledge and validate the interests and desires of others as well as your own. Be kind and generous, and you can be a recognized leader.

You can display conceit and intolerance of people who are considered inferior -- boastful, egotistical, critical, impatient of trifles -- especially when you feel impeded. When you are headstrong, impulsive, or highly willful, you may appear contrary, bossy, dominating, or egotistical. You tend to be impatient with those who are resistant to change.

You can be reticent, and can lack self-confidence. Sometimes you won't take a stand for fear of hurting others. Yet, something continually keeps urging you forward.

You want your home, spouse, and family to be a credit to you.

Overall, you are loyal in friendship, fair in business, a safe leader, and work diligently. You are capable of great accomplishment.



Your Personality: This is physical expression more than spiritual or emotional; your outer self, the way you express when meeting others. It may or may not be the real you.


Number: 7

You appear dignified and poised, intellectual, and somewhat aloof. When first meeting someone, you appear hard to know, but are friendly and a good talker when better acquainted. You emit a strong sense of self-knowledge.

While discussing familiar topics, you are convincing and appear at ease. However, in unfamiliar areas you can make statements you later regret.

Your personality gains when well-dressed and groomed; good style with straight lines and touches of color and sparkle, possibly of expensive materials.



Your Quiescent Self: Stripping away all outside influences, aspirations, ambitions, "shoulds", and "shouldn'ts" -- this is you when you are alone; just you and your dreams..


Number: 7

You have a cosmic connection with spiritual wisdom. The Ancients are no stranger to you. In fact, you share their knowledge. You are known for who you are, and people seek you out to hear your words of wisdom. You live in an old, beautifully restored house; your library is full of precious and rare books and your study is adorned with classic art.

Your thoughts and pleasure are meditation on the philosophical and spiritual wisdom of the masters of old.



Your Destiny or Ultimate Goal: This is your desired lifetime accomplishment. It is a key to a useful and happy life, and to feeling fulfillment during your latter days.


Number: 8

Your destiny is accomplishment that gives you authority, money, recognition, and/or professional position. Fulfilling your destiny depends much on your determination, knowledge of life and its spiritual relationships, and financial effort. Personal satisfaction is greatest when you accomplish your goals while having the good of others in mind.

Depending on education and experience, you are comfortable with finances, an effective leader, a master on all levels of management, and an authority on business. You are most successful with big business, and you nearly always win when you keep your broad outlook and admit no limitations. People respect you and turn to you for decisions. You have great potential as an executive.

You are attractive, strong, efficient, dominant, sociable, and inclined to pomp and display.



Your Life's Path: Here are clues to what fate has in store for you. It indicates the type of encounters, events, and opportunities you are likely to experience along your physical life path.



Number: 8

Your path is along commercial activity and organization, business affairs, positions of authority, and management of people. Your goals are reached most easily by cultivating a large outlook, refusing all limitation, and using your authority and power wisely.

You are a natural leader and a natural executive. Your ability to lead is limited only by your range of education and experience. You are able to deal well with the practical and material things of life, including judicious accumulation and use of money.

Your opportunities lie with fulfilling the needs of organization, efficiency, effective handling of personnel, and expressing your executive abilities. Large corporations and organizations appeal to you.



This Year's Path: Here is what you are likely to encounter this year -- your feelings, your predominant perspective, and the type of situations, circumstances, and opportunities you tend to attract during the calendar year.


Number: 3

This is the year to express your inspiration, your imagination, your creative thought, and your deep emotional feelings. You desire to do more entertaining this year and accept more invitations. Take time off to enjoy yourself.

You can give color and warmth to all levels of living. Be artistic. Express yourself joyfully. Now is the time to follow those inspirational and imaginative ideas you are so excited about. Follow your desire for self-improvement; the year is rich with opportunities for inner growth.

It is a colorful and eventful year, with pleasure, opportunities for travel, enjoyable social activities, and entertainment coming your way.

Allow your abundance of cheer and optimism to guide you.



Next Year's Path:


Number: 22

This is a practical year; no long leisurely periods for dreaming, personal indulgence, or careless living. It is a time to build the firm and secure foundation upon which your future depends, using practical values and steady application. It is also the time to work out the details of that project you've been thinking about.

The year opens the door to a greater understanding of your soul purpose. It presents opportunities to serve on a larger scale.

This is the year to find where you stand in life, and to be practical about it -- to pay attention to details; no time for careless living. This is your chance, with hard work and specific orientation, to do something big for yourself and for the good of the world. It is the year to put your dreams to practical use.

This year demands a lot of work, not only to improve the present but also to build practical foundations for the future. Your diligence brings commensurate rewards. With good sense, you can meet all requirements and experience satisfactory gain.

Your gatherings, meetings, parties, and trips are mostly related to work or business. Read the fine print of all transactions.

As part of the practical focus of this year, attend to health matters.



Last Year's Path:



Number: 2

Harmonious associations are very important for you this year. The year's success and good results will be obtained through diplomacy, cooperation, tactfulness, and good relationships. It is a year for receiving and sharing rather than aggressively pursuing your own way.

Your intuition and emotions are enhanced this year.

It is a busy year, with endless demands on your time. It is easier to work with others rather than doing things by yourself.

Your plans and developments may experience periods of delay. No need to worry about that. Things move slower this year.

The year can revitalize your peace of mind. It is a good time to strengthen your friendships.

This is why I hate pink

What color is your soul painted? Pink Your soul is painted the color pink, which embodies the characteristics of love, friendship, compassion, femininity, relaxation, ability to overcome evil, honor, morality, general success, gratitude, appreciation, admiration, sympathy, health, and marriage. Pink falls under the element of Air, and is symbolic of gentle emotions and of emotional unions. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests