Medievalesque

The good thing about taking a blog hiatus, I believe, is that you always end up with a backlog of photos of somewhat interesting-looking events to write about. Today's post will be one of those attempts at catching up, and I hope you will forgive my somewhat clunky writing - but my verbal skills are very much finite, and at the moment, I'm directing them all towards finishing a short story. It's part western part steampunk part creature feature, and I may or may not be able to finish it before the deadline. Check back in October. The plot thickens!

Anyway. Back in July, I went to a medieval fair with a small army of friends. It'd been years since I'd gone to one, and it was a pretty fun experience. We set off on Monday morning, spent the day around the fair (and because my comrades were in costume, people kept stopping us to ask questions, thinking we were part of the staff...), attended the tournament after dinner (cue in screaming for our favorite knight on our side... and for the lady knight on the enemy side), camped overnight, had breakfast on Tuesday in a nearly empty café while the city still slept (at 10am... I don't know either), enjoyed the rest of the day, and finished our stay with a fancy foot bath and a cup of mint tea in the middle of nowhere.

I am 99% sure we will rinse and repeat next year. More photos after the non-existent jump, and man, I really need to get rid of my 18-55mm lens, it pales in comparison to the 55-250mm.


















Thank you for reading, and apologies for my sporadic posting... guess I'm still getting used to this whole new university-less schedule. I think I will aim for one post a week for the time being, until I get everything figured out.

Have a wonderful week!
xx

I'm Back!

I told you I'd come back to see you once university was over, and... indeed, here I am, and there it is. It's a little weird to think of myself as a Criminology graduate now, but hey, if I take it one step at a time, I'm pretty sure I'll get there eventually.

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a image-HEAVY post of the months we spent apart.


We begin with this stag beetle, found dead under a tree. I didn't really know the proper way to pin it, but I knew I wanted to show off the wing, so I improvised.


Back then I was still locked inside, studying for my final exams.


My mother grew up in France, so while she does have a huge collection of (now vintage) records... they're all french singers. Ah well!


New jars I got for a few cents each, and my little box of baby teeth on top.


I don't think you've been formally introduced to my tiny little bird skeleton? First attempt at cleaning bones last summer... it could have gone better, but I was really proud of myself back then.



And finally, first attempts at butterfly lockets. The second one, I've been using pretty much non-stop. I love it.



Then the supermoon happened.


Bo was a really photogenic dog, as usual...



...and we took him, along with Crude, for the first serious walk of the season. The puppy couldn't quite contain his enthusiasm. (remember him at six weeks? look how much he's grown!)


Crude also enjoys long swims in the creek that separates our property from the neighbour's. He comes out filthy every single time, but really, so do we when we walk in there.


With Bo, in the midst of cleaning the aforementioned creek. This dog doesn't really get along with summer, so he spends most of his time standing in the water, very still, just cooling down. I've done that too, it's really effective.



Random sunset shots.


Random shot of a vertebra my sister and I found, I think, as we were picking strawberries. It looked pretty clean, but still I decided to macerate it in a jar... the water turned light pink after a few days, and it's currently dark orange.


Also, there was this tiny tiny grasshopper, and while I was struggling to get the focus right, it turned right towards me. It was the cutest.


My grandfather rescued a couple of baby doves, and we had them in the apartment for the first few days, back when they still couldn't eat on their own. Right now, they're fully grown, and have their own little (right, little... I'll show you one of these days) home in the country house.


I'm not too fond of ice cream (this one was actually my dad's), but I had to snap it just for the looks of it.


This photo chronicles the beginning of the slow, slow decline of my camera's auto-focus feature. I don't wear my glasses at the beach (so, you know, I can't actually SEE what I'm shooting) and it's not like I can use manual focus and the screen either (glare, loads of it)... so without auto-focus, yeah, no beach pictures for me.


But fear not, because we found an antique fair right by the boardwalk, with plenty of secondhand books to keep me entertained.


No, really, my auto-focus is dead.


Though this one kind of got away.


The end of August took me right back to my university town, to pack up and say goodbye (more like see you later) to the sights and sounds of these past four years.


I discovered a type of ice cream I actually did love.


Aaaaaaand I shot the last sunset from my university apartment. We returned the key a few days ago, so I guess those walls will be seeing a new tennant very soon. I hope they enjoy the place as much as I did.

So what about you, readers, friends, family, etc? How was your summer, and what are your plans for fall?
xx

Please Hold While I Graduate

Ah well. I guess I should have seen it coming? So instead of performing a disappearing act on you all, I decided to drop by and tell you, right here right now, that next time I talk to you, it’s going to be as a Criminology graduate. (you can still ilegally download music in my presence, it's okay) This four-year journey is coming to an end, and to be completely honest, I can’t wait to put it behind me. Expect a post, somewhere around July, about all the amazing things university taught me. I never stop learning – just this past week, I learnt that one should never, ever, leave the nail polish remover near the facial tonic, under risk of mixing up the two and attempting to apply the first where the second should go. Of course this did not actually happen. Of course not. And then today I learnt that one should never, ever, leave the nail polish remover near the alcohol, under risk of mixing up the two and attempting to disinfect a scratch with... that’s right. Fortunately, I caught the mistake on time. I guess the cautionary tale is, leave the nail polish remover where it belongs. Next to the killing jars and the shadow boxes and the butterfly specimens. Though I’ve heard some people use it to, go figure, remove nail polish.

Anyway.

I guess this proves that there is no graceful way to graduate. There really isn’t. My desk is littered with trash right now – from candy wrappers to water bottles to a now-empty box of chocolate. My asthma has been kicking my ass, getting me to wake up at dawn, barely able to breathe. My shoulder has been acting up from too much time on the computer. I’ve been wearing nothing but pajamas, or, alternatively, black tights and my big university hoodie. I rotate between dubstep and folk music to stay awake (and entertained!) as I work on my papers. And sometimes I get up to stretch and pretend I'm a ballerina. Like I said - no gracefulness for the wicked seniors.

So I guess in the meantime, feel free not to watch this space. I’ll leave you with a picture I took of a strange, unknown creature (Google tells me it's a Dusky Moorhen) on my Lisbon daytrip. It popped our of nowhere as I was observing a little dead duckling, and proceeded to mourn (read also: poke at) it.

Cautionary tale: nature is weird.
xx

365 Days Ago: May '12

Unlike April, May is usually a busy month. This is what I did last year:









I took a lot of photos of my little shoebox of an apartment. It was a good day, I was tending to my plants, and the weather looked beautiful. I will not be telling you what happened to the plants in the long run, though...



This photo happened. I think I took it one day after class, at lunch time... I was home, my hair looked nice, and I felt like freezing the moment for posterity. I'm glad I did, because it's been a year, and this is still my Facebook profile picture... even though it looks nothing like... well, like my current appearance.










I spent a nice hour or so wandering around the quintessential antique bookshop. If there's one thing I can say about this town, is that it's just... littered with them. I keep finding new ones, I swear it's like they pop up overnight. Unfortunately, tourists simply come, drop by Lello, take a picture or two hundred, walk a couple of doors over to buy a bar of expensive but exquisitely packaged portuguese soap, and leave. I won't blame anyone for any of the aforementioned actions, since I too have bought expensive but exquisitely packaged portuguese soap, but... there's plenty of fish and the sea and plenty of bookshops in Porto. It saddens me a little that one is always crowded and the others are always empty. Ah well. Jo from The Paper And Ink has compiled a list (with pictures!) of some of the prettiest antique bookshops around. Do as the lady (and I, too!) says and visit them.

But back to the bookshop above. Around a month after these pictures were taken, I went back to buy a book I couldn't get out of my mind. An annual activity report from the sanatoriums in Caramulo, dated 1951. I am a little obsessed with that place. A mountain range, in the middle of nowhere, with more abandoned sanatoriums than you can shake a camera at, and the looming thought that not so long ago, that was the place to go if you wanted to cure your tuberculosis. And how was TB treatment in the 40s, 50s, you ask? Lots of rest, good food, and fresh air. Or, as this patient's diary puts it: "Absolute and utter rest of mind and body—no bath, no movement except to toilet once a day, no sitting up except propped by pillows and semi-reclining, no deep breath. Lead the life of a log, in fact. Don't try, therefore, to sew, knit, or write, except as occasional relief from reading and sleeping." This is fascinating, to me. To think that this was considered treatment. To think that we had a whole mountain devoted to buildings where people would go to lie down. It sounds kind of dreamy and contemplative and melancholic. Better yet, to think that one family was in charge of this whole scheme - to think that one man was responsible for creating that town, and to think that someone in my extended family worked right up there in the sanatoriums for so many years. It feels real, and close to home. I can stand outside a barred door and put names and stories to the ruins. I guess, in the end, that's why I bought the report.

We could have skipped the wall o' text, though.



And last but not least, this photo. I took it on my way back from the bookshop... I'd say it looks kind of impressive, until you figure out the trick.

But enough of May. June's right around the corner.
Summer plans, anyone?
xx