The early holiday season

It already started. Without warning, I found the apartment filled with Christmas ornaments and, most notably, a Christmas tree, or seasonal monochromatic ornamented cone-shaped display, if you prefer to call it that.

It was put up on Sunday morning by my mother and my sister. As in previous years, I missed the chance to help out, this time because I slept in, something that will continue to happen until January (at least).

Comparing the current tree with the one from last year, little seems to have changed. Once again, it is placed in the balcony so the dogs won’t get to it and see it as a colorful toilet. The presents will probably be placed in my nephew’s playpen, just like the last time.

Unlike last year, where I settled for a full shot of the tree, I’ve got close-ups!

To “decorate” the base of it, the strange-eyed bunch returns, arranged in a slightly different way, so as to not bore the camera.

In other news, I’ve continued to delete things from the computer’s hard drive. In one week, I got rid of nearly 10 GB of various things, most of which are animated short films and Blender-related videos that I’ve downloaded over the years. They’re all nice to watch, but they have no use just sitting on the hard drive gathering e-dust.

As much as I like watching Chris Landreth’s Oscar-winning short, Ryan (about Ryan Larkin’s short-lived success as an animator), student work from Gobelins and Supinfocom and old Blender Conference videos, among various other things, the space can be better used, and I’d like to hoard as little as possible, both in the computer and outside of it. I’m watching them all before pressing Delete, in case I learn something new or become inspired. The latter hasn’t happened yet, but here’s hoping …

Aside from the above, nothing much is going on. I cleaned up a bit more last week, asked a classmate to let me know of any free (or cheap) conference or talk that might give me a few of the remaining hours for college, and I’ve taken up drinking a mug of green tea every day, to see if that does anything for my lousy health. There seems to be a bit of improvement from last week, but I don’t know whether it’s the tea or not.

Outside my personal life, this country isn’t getting any better. Changes have been made in the Constitution to benefit those with deep pockets at the expense of those with no pockets, women still have no say on whether they want to keep an unwanted pregnancy –while those who voted to keep this can afford to get abortions performed elsewhere–, the definition of marriage was changed to a union strictly between a man and a woman, destroying the possibility of marriage equality in the near future. Too much influence from the church. To top all that, public access to rivers and beaches might become restricted. Something about the right of private property.

People have been protesting the changes (especially that last one about the beaches), and the motto Esa no es mi Constitución (lit. “That’s not my Constitution”) has been turning up everywhere, from graffiti to stickers. The protesting has died down in the last couple of weeks, though, and the popular news of the week is the murder of Miky Bretón, creator and producer of what was possibly the only drama show currently on Dominican television, Relatos (“Tales”), and probably one of the longest-running. It didn’t follow a set storyline, but instead presented various short stories about crime, rape, drug abuse and things like that, taking place here. Sure, I didn’t watch it, but the man was trying. Bleak future for scripted television here, when the ones who make it happen get, you know … murdered.

Yikes, this post became depressing. The above two paragraphs are nothing like the ones before. I better stop now, before it turns into something that’s just as sad as the local headline news. I should stop bothering to read those.

To end this on a better note, uh … Santa says hi.

Pieces of October

Text goes here.

Nah, I should really throw a quick something to go with the images.

I put a stop to the whole “condensation” series because I no longer had to catch up. Only took me four posts and fifty-five photos to tell all that’s happened since the end of July and until the end of September. I hope I don’t lose track again, or at least not two months’ worth of track.

As is usual with the world, the Christmas ads came early. Not as early as July, as I think has been the case in the past, but starting this current month. October 31st is yet another day for us, as things such as Halloween and Samhain are generally not observed here, so all businesses go straight for the December holiday offers.

My nephew started school yesterday (Tuesday). Well, pre-school. Not sure what level he might fall into, as he is just one year of age. The point is that, with his being at that place for most of the day, not as many schedule adjustments are required in order to take care of him, and I get a bit more alone time, which is good. It’s good because it’s only when I’m alone that I feel like cleaning up (which I did the Sunday before last) or doing a bit of work and I’ll be able to do some things until college starts up again.

Speaking of college, it seems as though I just have to assume that my monograph request will be accepted and I’ll only be informed of anything if there’s something wrong with the request. I was told last month that I should call to check the status of my request and they said that they were still getting those and had not yet begun going through them. At the bottom of the form I had to fill, it says that a list of accepted requests will be published on the web site, so I’m checking it almost every day.

What else goes here … okay. To save me a bit of time, I’ve added most of the web sites that I check every day into Google Reader. I only had a handful of those before but, now that they’re all there and that I can see the number of unread articles, I realize how much time I wasted by visiting them separately, even when there was nothing new. Serious waste.

As I mentioned before, I cleaned up a bit. I was alone in the apartment, and my brother had organized his side of the closet (yeah, we share the room), so I decided to do my part and tidy up my site of the bookshelf. My mother came home as soon as I was about to start, so I gave up on it. She had brought this iced coffee thing that I hadn’t tried before and, besides being incredibly delicious (Droopy liked it, too), it seemed to have given me enough energy and motivation to clean up … one quarter of my side of the bookshelf. Surprisingly, that’s all it took to fill up that huge garbage bag. It was so full of old college work –drawings, paintings, illustrations, even old notebooks that I had recycled from school– that I had no use for that I couldn’t even tie it closed.

In addition to that, I’ve also begun deleting things from the computer’s hard drive. Not random things, because I’ve not gone crazy (yet), but I’m getting rid of things I’ve downloaded over the years and are just gathering digital dust. It’s surprising how much unnecessary junk has accumulated without me caring much, and how I don’t miss them once they’re gone (since I didn’t notice them much, anyway). One can never have enough free hard drive space, and …

Wait, I said I would write a quick something. How little do I know about the “quick somethings” that I write, after more than a hundred posts.

Here are some photographic highlights of my October.

That’s the end of October’s posts, I think, and it also happens to be the end of my photo folder, as that last image is also the newest one worth showing.

I don’t expect much else to happen for the remainder of the month, so I decided to publish this now and continue to sleep through what’s left of it.

Perhaps November will bring along something interesting …

All about Christmas Eve

That’s done and … that’s done. We had dinner a few hours ago, had a couple of guests over. I needed something to do, so I grabbed the camera and began taking pictures of everything. While I got many photos of my family and the guests (who are also family), I won’t put them here. Instead, I’ll just show everything else.

Like I had mentioned and, as you can see in that second photo, there were lots of presents. It’s a tradition here to open the presents right after dinner.

Dinner was good, and there was plenty of it (not picture above are the two hams and dessert). I stuffed my face ate a plate and a half of it, unlike the rest of the people who didn’t seem excited about the eating part of it. By the way, remind me later to yell at my sister for making me read a Christmas prayer out loud. An actual religious person would’ve been better suited!

After dinner, there was the usual delivery of dinner plates to various neighbors. One of them lives in a fourth floor … a bit of post-dinner cardio for me (on the other hand, she likes to return the favor, and her cooking is a hidden gem of this world). Both for the sake of generosity and because there were enough leftovers to feed a small country.

We also got calls from our relatives in New Jersey. I got to speak to some uncles of mine whom I hadn’t talked with in years. That was nice. Afterwards, we all sat down for the opening of the presents. It’s become a tradition here to respond to every present announcement (to x person, from x person, etc.) with a collective Aww! I got nine boxes/bags of presents from various people. As it was expected, my nephew got the most presents. Plenty of baby clothing and noisy toys that are bound to keep us annoyed (should’ve wished for earplugs!).

Now, my eyes have a life of their own and are threatening to shut down for an extended period of time. Yet another reason why it is a good thing that we open the presents after dinner.

I leave you, reader(s), with yet another happy holiday wish, and a photo of that delicious cake we had for dessert. Well, half of it.

Hair (or the holiday post)

Yesterday, I went to my hairdresser barber to get a long-overdue haircut. And by long overdue, I mean really, really long overdue.

I didn’t feel as bad going out as I usually do. In fact, I felt very good and happy and everything. As I sat there, while Noly (my barber) was cutting my hair, I felt like making some small talk. I have been going to that place for the longest time (fifteen years or so), and I know so little about it. I learned that the place started in 1975, with the hotel that it’s attached to, and that Noly, Cheo (my previous barber, who now works at his home) and Cheo’s brother had been there from the beginning. Now, he’s the only one of those three who still works there.

I remember when I first started going there. My father would take us (my brother and I), and the place was very small and crowded, all painted in blue-green. I didn’t even notice that it was part of a hotel, because there was no indication of it. In the mid-90s, the hotel was remodeled, and that included the barbershop. New tiles were layed, the place was painted in white, and the open-air space between the hotel and the barbershop was turned into a lobby, with a tinted glass roof and air conditioning.

A few years after the turn of the century/millenium, Cheo retired from the place and started working from home, in a quiet neighborhood, to spend more time with his wife. My father continued to take us (mostly just me) to him. While it was nice to be there, the place was much farther away from home, and getting to the hotel was easier, so I decided to go back to the barbershop. Noly’s style is very similar to Cheo’s (they worked together for a very long time, after all), so there isn’t much difference. I’ll probably continue to go there for a very long time.

Anyway, after the much-needed haircut, my steps felt somewhat lighter, and I walked at a fast pace, occasionally jumping some holes and obstacles. I decided against using the public transport at the start of the avenue and walked a longer distance. As I walked, the weather seemed to go from sunny to cloudy at times. It poured a little, but the sun was still out. As I got on the public car (literal translation), I commented about this to the driver, saying that the weather didn’t make up its mind.

The rest of the day went faster than usual, which brings me to this day, the 24th. I’m laying on my bed, typing this on my brother’s laptop, just a few hours past noon, and the smell of the two large hams in the oven seems to fill the whole apartment. My nephew’s playpen, in the living room, is filled with presents (we can’t place them on the ground, because of the dogs). The tree, in the balcony (also because of the dogs), remains lit throughout the night this week.

I’m out of things to type for now. The day is far from over, and the fun part of it is many hours away. All I can do for now is to wish you, reader(s), a merry Christmas, a happy Winter Solstice, Kwanzaa, Yule or whatever holiday festivity you celebrate. Happy everything. Go away, now.

Even today, the weather remains indecisive.

Those strange eyes

Okay, what is wrong with this picture?

Apart from it being a religious image in an otherwise non-religious blog, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong here, right? Just the usual nativity scene. Well, what happens when you use macro mode and get a close-up on their faces? Result:

Is it just me, or is there something not quite right with the eyes? Some of the expressions are actually scary (and the camera has an excellent macro lens, but that’s another issue). Every time my sister sees them, she tries to guess what each one is thinking. What could they really be thinking? Care to provide a guess?

So, as long as you don’t look at them from up close, nothing will haunt you in your sleep. Sadly, I’ve looked at them many times already, and … oh, wait. If you’re reading this post, you saw them, too! Sorry about that, reader(s).

Anyway, that was that for the nativity scene thing I’ve been wanting to post for a while. To make this post longer, I’ll just say what the rest of the day was like.

I spent most of the evening reading, and will probably keep on reading once I’m done here. During the entire day, I’d been having a craving some for delivery food. My mother, using her telepathic abilities, walked up to me as I was reading and suggested we order some sushi. I didn’t hesitate to say yes!, as you might expect.

Since it was just the two of us at home, there was plenty of the Japanese dish to go around. The photo on the right does little good in showing how good it was. After all, presentation is a great part of sushi’s appeal, and I pretty much ruined it by putting in on a plate with little care (not like it’s going to taste any different).

Afterwards, I continued to do some more reading. Even though it was a short chapter, it was a big pile of scientific stuff (anatomy, science, what is life?, among other things) that required slower reading. The following chapter, where I left off, seems to be twice as long but, thankfully, drops the science stuff and has some actual dialogue.

And here I am now, posting this. While you wait for the next post, enjoy this photo of Droopy, who likes to squeeze himself in between the cushion and the couch arm. It’s almost a loldog picture, without the caption.

Anyway, enjoy (and just go away!).