11 mar 2010
life is almost back to normal in the office on the avenue campus. i provide the explanation: we spent about a month in PGR study room 1 because ours (room 4) was being refurbished. it is finished now and we are all back in our desks. well, not quite. we had so many changes that the office looks totally renewed in terms of people as well, actually. loads of students who were not there before are now part of it. and some who belonged there were then allocated other desks spread out in the archaeology building, in the cottage, or in one of the other study rooms right here along the corridor.
this week was the time of our kitchen to be made available for us to use it again as its refurbishment was completed just last week. not it looks - and is, indeed - brand new, with new everything, and the seats located not acroos from it anymore but on its corner, with makes the area less noisy.
i had lunch with fatimah, my saudi friend, there today. as always, we chatted a lot about life and she told many interesting things about her culture. - in saudi arabia men are allowed to have four women at a time! this is the synthesis of our conversation of the day, i mean, the highlight, because we talked a great about our researches as well. we commented on how nervous we become when we have to make presentations and other sorts of things. fatimah is a great chat. susana, the big spanish woman came by the kitchen and we three we ended up talking about how new and nice the kitchen looks now and also that we should make all effort to keet it nice. the idea of collecting some money for washing up and tea bags and sugar and sweetener was considered. spanish woman left.
a few minutes later there comes christen, the american girl from atlanta. she is very nice, and this year she has a key position amongst us as a researcher, so she is the right person to head to movement for the tea and the whole 'research community' thing, as she named it. i spoke with her and she said the idea is great. she'll email eleanor and see what can be done for our shared kitchen and for us as a research community. cheers to christen!
some time later i went down the stairs with christen, towards the cafe. she went to meet with her friend for a chat. she pointed out that our study room - she is one of the new people there - is very quiet and that people over there don't make much noise at all. she said it is really a 'studious place'. she stayed forever in the the south corridor downstairs with her friend but they two eventually came back up to the office.
i stayed kinda late in the office today. hee came back to speak a little about her research. by the time we finished the chat, there comes christen and her friend back. hee and i were talking normally, no whispers needed because we were alone in the office. i went back to my desk and asked them (christen, friend, and hee): 'is it a problem if i sing?' in normal voice tone. all of them responded smiling: 'no'. i did not sing. instead i packed my stuff and got ready to leave. when i said 'bye, girls' they all asked about the promised singing, 'but you didn't sing'. oh that was cute!!! i laughed and explained to them they should not rush and allow me the singing. i told them about my life in florida, when i worked as a cleaner in a hotel in st.petersburg. it was a fantastic experience and i have nice memories of it. we went to the apartaments (it was a sort of apart hotel) in groups of four or five people. everytime i entered any room or started working - my cleaning area was the bedroom - i also started singing. it was soooo much fun because i couldn't help it. singing while slaving is a cultural thing in brazil. the point is everytime i started singing and the boss, this italian woman called carmela, was around she would say 'don't quit your daytime job'. she meant i sang so badly i would not be able to survive from my singing performance. what a cruelty!!! the girls laughed and then i sang a little of 'fly me to the moon', just to please them and keep up with my promise of the day.
this is this singing soul of mine.
