After a failed first attempt, yesterday was concert day. Tokio Hotel played (this time for real) in Pavilhão Atlântico for a two hours show. The crowd, composed almost only by teenage girls, went completely crazy during the entire time.
My expectations for the event were so low that, in the end, they were largely exceeded. The only real problem had to do with the pitch. No, not the sound quality or any other technical problem. The major problem was the pitch of the voices screaming all around me for more than two hours. Most of then won’t be able to speak for weeks after singing so much loud during every music of the concert.
I choose the word singing, but I could’ve used a more simple concept: screaming… I think most of them were simply screaming , and at least one of then (yes, the one sitting - or should I say standing - just behind me) was producing more of a grunt.
After an evening like that, I just want to say “I Want My Hearing Back”. I’m almost certain I still hear ringing…
Let me start by saying “I need a vacation”.
That being said, today’s thought goes to my obvious lack of concentration. I suspect that not being on vacation for six months in a row is the major cause of sensing some difficulty in concentrating. And worst of all, this is becoming evident for the people around me. This week, several events have brought that to my attention. Dramatically…
I’ve never considered myself stupid, but this week:
- I was unable to find a word in a book index (of course the word was there)
- I forgot the hours of scheduled meetings (4 out of 5)
- I was unable to find an evident option in one of the applications I use regularly
- and… I forgot the forth event… I know, depressing…
I need to go on Vacation, soon…
Remember The Milk is a very nice online tool to manage your personal task list. It enables you to manage your tasks from wherever you are at the moment, keeping them always updated.
For those how use Firefox, the RememberTheMilk tool developers have developed an add-on which integrates the tool into your Gmail interface. A task list is created in a new sidebar which is added to right side of gmail’s message list.
A add-on to integrate the task list into Thunderbird is also available here (the installation procedures are here). This allows the user to integrate the task list into the calendar Lightning add-on.
When you enjoy what you do for a living, your job can be the main motive for getting out of bed in the morning. Not considering other factors, such as family, this is fine and can be the right way to get the personal gratification everyone needs.
As we should all know, in a work environment, dealing with tight schedules is difficult. An even greater problem arises when work becomes an obsession (persons with such an obsession are known as ‘workaholics’). The compulsion can drive a person to start working at home in order to try and finish the assigned tasks, or to stay late in the office.
Such an environment doesn’t help the worker that can let himself into depression. Depression can arise due to the permanent delay of gratification associated with the termination of a task. This state is known as burnout. Here’s some articles on the subject [1] [2] [3] [4].
One of the factor that affects personal relationships is the level of assertiveness.
Assertiveness is a communication skill that can be defined by:
- the ability to clearly identify and express thoughts and ideias
- the ability to defend ideas by supporting then in valid arguments
- doing the previous while respecting the limits of the self and the others
One should be able to improve their assertiveness by always communicating open and honestly, about every aspects of work or life. This kind of communication is based on a balance between the time you are speaking and the time you are listening.
Yesterday, the UEFA Euro 2008 began for Portugal with a victory over Turkey. If until now my expectations for this team were low, after yesterday’s game they when up. The team showed that it is capable of playing very good football.
For those who are not considering going to Austria or Switzerland to support their team, the ‘official’ Euro 2008 site should deserve the regular daily visit. Google can also help you to follow the championship more closely. Here is a map of the places where everything is happening, including up-to-date information on results, fixture and lots of other news.
I was updating my blog. The expression update is used in the sense that my attention was focussed on design of the information provided by each click, not actually creating new posts. The basic result of design changes is always the same. Everything gets messed up and then follows a bug correction phase.
The latest problem was that my “Previous Entries” link wasn’t working. This was the first symptom, but the link was actually there and pointing to the correct location. My problem was that the selection of posts was always the last five entries.
Each page generated by Wordpress has an associated query that filters pages or posts based on the url you’re requesting. The problem was that by inserting a new “Recent Entries” section I’ve changed that default query to create the list of recent entries.
The solution was to create a personalized query to use in The Loop:
<?php $my_query = new WP_Query('showposts=10'); ?>
<?php while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
<!-- Generate the required list... -->
<?php endwhile; ?>
