the writings / escritos
Aventuras Diárias são aquelas coisas que te acontecem e que depois que a situação passa você fica achando que sonhou. Uma parte sua fica achando que imaginou tudo.
Aquelas experiências um pouco estranhas, com algo fora do comum, ou que simplesmente não pertencem ao ambiente em que ocorrem.
[No filme The Matrix seriam as falhas na matrix]
Simplesmente Gerva is my second self-published book at Amazon in Portuguese from Brasil. It is a fictional romance which was created in a very interesting way. I met another Brazilian writer and we decided, almost as a joke, to write a book in collaboration. The idea was that I would write a part and send to my co-author, then he would continue the story as he saw fit and send it back to me.
It took us months, I spent time in Brazil, then he moved to Perth, then he went to Brazil, I came back, and we kept writing.
We never knew what was going to happen, we had no plan for the story, what moved us forward was the character, Gerva. The end result was quite difficult to polish because of this structure but the writing was a great pleasure.
Unfortunately, it is not translatable, there are so many cultural references that it would become very strange if attempted in another Language.
Gerva is a typical Brazilian guy, with his forró dancing, his sensuality and flexibility in life. He meets a Brazilian muse and an Australian girl and with them lives many adventures.
I am in the process of writing the second book of the series, a continuation of this first story. Although my co-author lost interest in the project I am committed to the same process as observed in the first book: writing without knowing where the character will take me.
If you read Portuguese, note that you have to buy the book from the market where your Amazon account is registered:
This was a failure. My friend and I created a Minute Meditation app, except it never worked… Recently I started working at an app creating company and one of the super-smart-expert-in-creating-apps-guys told me: it is not possible to make it work. Because I have tried so hard at the time and exchanged a lot of communications with the contracted app developers, I actually understood why. Cannot explain though, it has to do with the way notifications and alarms work on iPhones.
It was the simplest of apps, basically not much fancier than an alarm. We spent months with back and forwards emails, screen-shots, and broken communication with people who clearly, like us, were not first-language English speakers. Except that they had a lot of difficulty in understanding and communicating the issues.
They failed to alert us that technically there was a limitation to the project.
At the time it seemed like the most brilliant idea ever, especially because I have ideas for other exciting apps and this one seemed like a good starting point.
‘I’m going on a meditation retreat’ my friend said to me.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah, I’ll send you the details in case I go missing!’
She didn’t go missing. In fact it was great. As I have this habit of learning from other’s experiences, I ended up partnering up with her and attempting to create this app. The idea was to create the chance to stop for a minute per hour to breathe and meditate, something designed for busy people.
Accepting failures is a big challenge for me, and being able to laugh at this maybe means I have learnt and moved on.
This is my record of the attempt, a record of the creation even if it didn’t work. Because risks are taken with the possibility of failure and forgetting the failures might make you forget the teachings from it.
With the experience, I have learnt that hiring cheap, overseas, freelancer developers is not worth it.I understand much better now the need to think deeply about the requirements of projects. Extrapolating to everything: unless you have the resources to create a proper product, paying high quality contractors, you better not do it. It is a waste of effort, energy and money.
This is what I wrote for the app:
What is One Minute Meditation?
It is the opportunity to stop, for one minute per hour, to meditate. Meditating may seem hard, but doing it for one minute at a time makes it easy. By doing so, you will tap into a new resource to change your quality of life. Get connected with yourself as a soul, as an infinite being of light.
One Minute Meditation is taking responsibility for your well-being.
See the settings to choose how many times you would like to do it per day.
How to Meditate?
Make your world hush for a minute. Breathe, just breathe. Inhale the energy, exhale what doesn’t serve you.
Look at the meditation screen and feel all your senses: see, smell, listen, taste and touch.
Be present, in the present, for the present alone. The next minute doesn’t exist yet. The previous minute is an illusion, as it is gone. There is only NOW and YOU. For one minute.
By practicing the Minute Meditation one or more times a day, you will train your brain to feel the present. You will expand your tranquillity and awareness – bringing new magic to your life. Problems and limits may disappear.
You will see new possibilities, feel energised and be opened to new levels of achievement. Our intuition loves meditation. Enjoy!
Fio da Meada is the first book I have published. It was the first time I got over the fear of putting my writing out there and self-published at Amazon in Portuguese from Brasil, my mother language.
The stories are about a ghost who finds himself following a woman in the Manly Ferry, in Sydney. This fiction is based on the stories I have collected from my grandfather’s real-life. He was unique, with many funny tales, he was someone who enriched his life — before mobile phones and even telephones — with pranks and imagination.
The strongest image I have of him is this handsome older man, poorly dressed, with shorts my grandmother had been begging to be thrown out for years; with the softest shirt with a couple of wholes. We are seated in the small fishing pier in front of our ranch, for hours in silence. I can smell fish scales and worms. He is like a statue looking at the tip of the fishing rod. When he gets tired he gets up, find a large rock and throw it in the water creating a large splash. He ruins the fishing for me and the others, father, sister, cousins; then he walks away laughing out loud while we scream at him.
If you read Portuguese, note that you have to buy the book from the market where your Amazon account is registered:
Fio da Meada é minha primeira publicação, um livro eletrônico disponível na Amazon.
A principal personagem desse livro é um fantasma. Um homem que viveu e morreu e se encontra em uma nova existência pós-morte. Me disseram que ele é muito interessante, com suas lembranças de velhas traquinagens, e que consegui contar sua história num livro gostoso de ler, leve e divertido.
A aventura de escrever se torna mais intensa a cada dia, com meus pequenos passinhos vou galgando essa escadaria de realizar meus sonhos.
A decisão de publicar eletronicamente veio por ser a maneira mais moderna e eficiente que encontrei. Apesar de ser uma auto-publicação me dediquei para produzir um livro de qualidade. A revisão e a capa foram feitas por profissionais e passei um mês pesquisando intensamente para fazer a melhor formatação do arquivo especialmente para Kindle, o software da Amazon.
O Kindle pode ser obtido gratuitamente na Amazon para que se possa ler livros no computador, no telefone, ou no tablet. Há uma opção de baixar uma amostra do livro, as primeiras páginas para o leitor ver se gosta. Existe também o aparelho Kindle que é um leitor de livros eletrônicos muito leve e interessante.
Estive numa série de palestras no festival de escritores de Sydney e me diverti com o comentário de uma editora: “ler não é tão importante quanto comprar os livros, comprem livros! E, melhor ainda, se vocês não gostarem, eu lhes dou minha permissão para parar a leitura no meio!”
Portanto: comprem meu livro! Se gostarem, coloquem um comentário lá na Amazon.
Amazon do Brasil: www.amazon.com.br/dp/B007XAJOFM
Amazon da Australia: www.amazon.com.au/dp/B007XAJOFM
Simplesmente Gerva é o primeiro de uma série de livros que pretendo escrever e publicar com o personagem Roberto Gervázio Cidinha de Moraes, o Gerva.
Gerva é um personagem com características que eu também possuo, como a escrita, mas em certos aspectos é meu completo oposto. O fato de que foi criado em conjunto com outro escritor não faz Gerva menos meu, e a pergunta permanece: de onde ele, ou a inspiração dele, vem? Independentemente de sua origem ou inspiração, ele me faz rir e traz satisfação. Apesar de ser um tanto safado, um bocado imaturo, boca suja e impulsivo, Gerva tem um bom coração e seu jeito sincero me diverte.
Mesmo as aventuras que eu mesma escrevi, (não meu co-autor) parece que foram criadas pelo próprio Gerva e não por mim.
“Simplesmente Gerva” é o primeiro livro da série, onde o leitor acompanha Gerva em sua pequena cidade Lagoinha, suas viagens, as mulheres que ele conhece e seu gato o Geremias.
O gato é interessante por ser tão tipicamente gato e, da mesma maneira, Gerva é tão tipicamente brasileiro que se torna atraente. Sua interação com outras culturas começa nesse livro quando ele conhece a australiana Jane, até então ele nem pensava no mundão lá fora.
Para saber quem é o Gerva e a Australiana Jane, leia o livro:
Simplesmente Gerva: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00M5NICLY
Amazon do Brasil: http://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B00M5NICLY
Amazon da Australia: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00M5NICLY
The Sydney Salsa Congress is a place so special the guests feel free and inspired to do great things on stage.
Kim, Alex, Jaime, Zoe & Dave backstage at the Sydney Salsa Congress 2009
Alex & Kim, Dave & Zoe felt inspired to improvise a show together. I thought the seriousness of performing was suddenly lifted from stage and we were seeing things that were not quite possible.
It was a game, with each couple showing off to the other, exchanging partners midair, each of the guys carrying both ladies over their shoulders as if they weighted nothing. You could see the show was more an improvisation than something rehearsed over and over and even though the tricks were ridiculously incredible, I got the feeling as if I was dreaming.
After the shows I heard Alex saying to Jaime that it was so good, that it was great that the congress gave them the chance to have that much fun on stage, for them to meet as they would never get to meet anywhere else.
You see Dave and Zoe are not Salsa dancers and Alex and Kim are, normally they wouldn’t know about each others’ existence and here they were, showing us what “amazing” really is.
Johnny Vasquez is always a party just by himself.
It’s a bit of a hazard to give him the Microphone, he looooves to talk. But he does well and from his hello to his singing and dancing you smile and laugh the whole time. He sang and danced on Saturday and Sunday and on the closing of the congress he made us sing my favourite salsa song, Baila Rumbero, it was the first time I saw the artists applauding the crowd.
Then he and Ramon Morales danced for a few bars with each other, and those moments are branded in my memory.
The words that came to my mind seeing them dancing were: “Puro Sangue” as in “Pure Blood” not trying to offend anyone that is not a born Latino, it’s just that those two were probably dancing in the womb.
Their genes must have been turning around each other in spins not spirals!
The sperm that made each of them was swimming and singing:
‘baila, baila, one, two, three; five, six, seven… Now on2!’ As they were swimming up towards the egg.
We have even drawn some famous TV figures to the crowd; that is because we have them on stage…
Luda Kroitor was performing with Oliver Pineda, five times Salsa World Champions so her TV partner and winner, Luke Jacobz, from Dancing With the Stars, (reality TV Show) came to watch her shine at The Sydney Salsa Congress.
Charlie Delaney was also watching her Dancing with the Stars partner, Csaba Szirmai who was performing with Vali Damaskou. They were very graceful and smiling guests.
19 Orble Votes
The other day my friend saved my life when she compared my job with a partnered dance.
‘Imagine your boss is your dance partner, and for the time being he is the leader. While the music is playing your best chance of enjoyment is relaxing into that leadership and following.’
It is very easy to follow a great leader.
But if the guy is a bad dancer, you may be in for a challenge.
You may have to step with him rather than with the rhythm of the music, endure his silly pa‐pa‐pa singing completely out of tune with the song; stop when you should move, turn to the other side, be kind to yourself when you make many mistakes and step on other peoples’ feet and, most of all, understand you will have your limits and sometimes you will say ‘NO, I won’t dip as you want because I feel that I am going to fall’.
Sometimes working is exactly like that. The best thing to do is relax as much as you can, follow the leader while the music is on, or until you reach your limit, find something to enjoy about that moment, and try not to get stuck in the sense that you should be doing something else (like sticking to the rhythm of the music).
Thinking about this, I have come to the realisation that this advice is valid for life in general.
You won’t have amazing dance partners every day, actually most of the time you will be thrown into the strange dances of the day to day life, with the girl who is preparing your coffee, the life partner, the children, the employers and the employees, and if you relax into the leadership of fate or reality, you will have a better time than resisting the movements of life.
When you resist the bad dancer, you end up in a war… it’s not worth it.
18 Orble Votes
Em 2008 eu criei um blog no site Orble ao qual dei o nome de Delírios Australianos no qual escrevia artigos sobre diferenças culturais e assuntos de interesse.
O website desapareceu subitamente levando com ele anos de textos e conteúdo sem aviso.
Resolvi republicar os textos aqui no WordPress.
Eu consegui transferir os textos e achei as imagens, o mais próximo que encontrei das originais, tomei nota dos votos que acumulei no Orble, e mantive a data original de publicação. Quis manter os dados históricos o mais próximo possível do original.
Estou mantendo o arquivo aqui no meu site, na nova categoria “Delírios Australianos”.
Aqui está o registro da estatística de fechamento do site original do Orble logo antes dele desaparecer:
17 Posts + 9 Comments +. 1,931 Votes
It has been a while, since I danced and even longer since I posted a Dancing Bug piece.
I’m excited about both. I’m here at City Tattersals waiting for the Bachata Month to start.
With the first party to mark the official countdown to the Sydney International Bachata Festival.
The deliciously tacky bachata music is one-two-three-fouring louder and louder.
“Te aaaamooo” sings the song.
The first couples are venturing onto the dance floor and I’m on the sideline typing as quickly as I too, can be free to Bachata the night away.
There is some excitement, the feeling that reminds me of a time when I was starting to venture into the Latin dancing world. Finding my dancing feet, my heels’ balance, recovering my life’s passion for dancing. And for the first time learning that dance can encompass sensuality too. Discovering the perfection of moving in unison with a partner…
I hope this is a special night. I’ll will pray to the Goddess of Dance & Fun that a lot of guys ask me to dance, and at least one dance tonight is one of those that go into my own personal hall of fame, those that fill your mind and you keep dancing for years hoping for another one like that.
27 Orble Votes
taniacreations.com 