2007 Natal Summer Bahá'í Youth Conference - VÍDEOS INÉDITOS!

The 2007 summer youth conference for northeastern Brazil was held from 25-28 January in the lovely city of Natal. Unfortunately, recovering from our US trip and preparing for the move, we were unable to attend. However, due to the wonders of modern digital cameras and YouTube, we have available several music and dance presentations from the conference. The various native Brazilian dances were performed by a group from the small town of Serrambi, about 1 1/2 hours south of Recife. There are some problems with the lighting on some of these, but I found the dances to be so interesting I decided to post them anyway. I hope you enjoy them!

Moving Daze

I'm fully convinced that the only reason people ever move is because they have forgotten just how bad an experience moving is. There must be something built in to the human psyche that allows us to say, when contemplating a move, "oh, it can't be as bad as all that," only to find that it is, in fact, much worse than all that. It's a terrible, dislocating experience. If you're saying to yourself right now, "but moving really isn't that bad," well, that just proves that you've forgotten how bad it really is. This must be the case, because I've somehow managed to move six times in the past 11 years - after each move I swear I'll never put myself through that again, yet somehow I keep forgetting and putting myself through it again!

Anyway, I'm sure once everything gets settled, the spackle and paint dries, the new wiring finally gets installed, and everything is 75% in its place, then things won't look so bleak. The new apartment really is nice (and fully paid for!) But, please, remind me of this post if you ever see me contemplating another move within, oh, let's say the next 10 years.

World's longest Master's thesis complete at last!

No, not the longest in number of pages, longest in terms of completion time! For any of you out there contemplating a Master's degree in your near future, my helpful advice would be to avoid doing any of the following until your degree is completed:

• Working 40-50 hours a week
• Getting married
• Moving to another hemisphere
• Having a baby
• Learning another language

These seemed to delay the process ever so slightly.... Anyway, after [cough] seven [cough] years, it is finally over. Free at last, thank God almighty, I'm free at last.