A Great Loss

Posted: February 29th, 2004 | Author: Bea | Filed under: Life, Media | 1 Comment »

Earlier today I was organizing our collection of CDs and cassettes (yes, we have those too) and I realized, with great sadness, that there are four U2 albums missing because the cassettes “died” when Patrice had the accident last year. They were in the glove compartment of the car and they got all smashed. Now, imagine how hard the accident was, the car was hit on the back and the cassettes IN FRONT got destroyed… I’m so glad my husband is ok. As for the music, I will recover from this “big loss” (ha! for those who don’t know it, U2 is my favorite group of all times) or I will just buy them again, in CD or at PureTracks.


Re-envigorate your site

Posted: February 29th, 2004 | Author: Bea | Filed under: Geeky | 1 Comment »

Re-Envigorate is a website stats service I learned about yesterday. Seems cool, it gives you everything, including referrers, so you can see what’s going on on your site with the visitors. There are no images to display (the codes gives a transparent one) and there is nothing to install on your server side. Maybe you want to try it.


School Days to Come

Posted: February 28th, 2004 | Author: Bea | Filed under: Life | Comments Off

I got tired of whining about not having a good job or the credentials to get a good job. I got worried when I got to that phase when I started regretting big time not having finished my career. Then I got pro-active and made an appointment with the Counselor at one of the local Universities here in Montreal and I met him last Thursday; I took my grades certificate from Colombia and asked him to help me figure out what to do because I really want to go back to school and get a diploma. My father didn’t spend all those years making efforts to give me a good education to see me wasting my time, and I didn’t spend all those years in school, getting good grades and making an effort to be a good student, to waste my time.

After a +1 hour talk with the guy (who by the way is REALLY nice, but this is girly talk, of course) I decided to go back and finish my “Baccalauréat en sciences biologiques” and from there start looking for a good option in Graduate Studies. He took a look at my notes, I told him one of my options was to work in a Child Care Center and he told me I was a little bit “Overqualified”, that I could go and pursue a bigger career, and that I shouldn’t be afraid of doing it. Of course he wasn’t diminishing the Child Care option, just telling me that I have a more scientific mind and that in the long run I will end wanting something more.

The deadline for admission applications is on Monday, so I came back Thursday evening, sit in front of the computer and sent an application online, still feeling very numb because of the sudden events. This was something I had to do, I don’t know if I will get accepted, but I’m hoping so! With my grades certificate I can finish my Bac. in 1-2 years and I’m really willing to do it. I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to send all the papers in time, but the lady at the “Registrariat” told me I have two weeks to have all my papers in order.

Now the other side of the story is the fact that I’m afraid after 5 years of no intellectual work (ha!) my brain has kind of frozen, but the counselor told me it is normal to feel that way and once you’re in school things start coming back to the way they were before and the brain, that is like a hard drive, starts processing the information. There’s that and also the whole school lifestyle, but I guess being married makes things different. For now I’m just crossing my fingers and praying that if this is what I have to do, then God will help me to get in.


Jewish Passion

Posted: February 27th, 2004 | Author: Bea | Filed under: Media | Comments Off

I’m working at the Happy Place again, but that’s a story that needs to be told another time. What I want to post about is what happened this morning when one of our customers, who is Jewish, came to drop breakfast for the guys: He told us he went to see “The Passion of the Christ” last night and was really impressed. He said it is an excellent production, extremely well done, although very graphic. He insisted in saying that there isn’t any scene that can make people see the movie as anti-semitic and “those who say the movie is anti-semitic should move to Siberia“. He said the movie is just the portrait of the killing of human kind by human kind, which happens today, which has happened forever and that it should be a reason for reflection before the end of our civilization comes. Interesting!

But I think I’m still NOT going to see it, especially after hearing some people calling it the most bloody and violent movie they’ve ever seen in ther life. I just can’t take it, like this woman couldn’t. :( There’s also this interesting article about the questions the movie inspires and you might want to read it: “The Passion of the Christ” is hard to watch, but it is also impossible to tear your eyes from the screen. It will deepen the faithful’s faith and inspire questions from those who never understood why this man called Jesus willingly gave up his life on the cross. Oh God… It’s like the forbidden fruit!


Restricted Access Rules

Posted: February 27th, 2004 | Author: Bea | Filed under: Geeky, Weblog | Comments Off

Just a little note for those who are requesting access for the restricted posts: Please make sure the cookie number appears in your e-mail subject. I don’t know why sometimes it doesn’t show at first, but if you try reloading the page you will be able to see it (if it doesn’t work, there’s always the Request Form).

The subject must be displayed like this:
access_for_1234567_and_12.345.67.890

Where the 124567 is the cookie number and the other one is the IP. If you don’t see the cookie number I still can add your IP address, but have in mind that if it is a dynamic IP chances are you will need to request access again, also if you delete your cookies. I’ll make sure to send you the password anyway. Thanks!