Inglês - Dia 50

"She came ashore playing a role, even though she played it unconsciously. The rich beautiful society bride on her honeymoon. She turned, with a little smile and a light remark, to the tall man by her side. He answered, and the sound of his voice seemed to interest Hercule Poirot. His eyes lit up and he drew his browns together."
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

"Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can." Vince Lombardi

Word of the day:
Pavonine - (adjective) of or like a peacock. Resembling the feathers of a peacock, as in coloring.

* In her hands the curtains rustle; she hangs silks purchased this morning on Princess Road, color stirring pavonine in the lamplight of her bedroom.
Kate Moses, Wintering: A Novel of Sylvia Plath, 2003

* The sky was deep pavonine blue and cloudless, and there was a full moon.
Barbara Taylor Bradford, Angel, 1993

Imaginary Place of the day:
Abaton - Thought not inaccessible, no one has ever reached it and visitors headed for Abaton have been known to wander for many years without even catching a glimpse of the town. (...)
Sir Thomas Bulfinch, My Heart's in the Highlands, Edinburgh, 1892

Inglês - Dia 49

"In his office down town Mr. Andrew Pennington was opening his personal mail. Suddenly his fist clenched itself and came down on his desk with a bang; his face crimsoned and two big veins stood out on his forehead. He pressed a buzzer on his desk and a smart-looking stenographer appeared with commendable promptitude."
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

"Happiness is not achieved by his conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities." - Aldous Huxley

Word of the day:
Cryptesthesia - (noun) Psychology. Allegedly paranormal perception, as clairvoyance or clairaudience.

* Some experts attribute the jerking of the rod to cryptesthesia, some to divine or devilish inspiration, others to unconscious muscular activity, "sympathy", they call it, between the diviner and the object.
Michael Knight, Divining Rod, 2010

* ... Rector Boirac's metagnomical presentation of cryptesthesia during the First Universal Congress was, by his own admission, an example of group trance...
Joseph Skibell, A Curable Romantic, 2011.

Inglês - Dia 48

"Cornelia departed. Her mother said: 'My dear Marie, I'm really most grateful to you! You know I think Cornelia suffers a lot from not being a social success. It makes her feel kind of mortified. If I could afford to take her to places - but you know how it's been since Ned died."
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Con't complain." - Maya Angelou

Word of the day:
Baleful - (adjective) full of menacing or malign influences; pernicious. Obsolete. Wretched; miserable.

* A few looked up to shoot quick baleful glances at Padillo.
Ross Thomas, Twilight at Mac's Place, 1990

* Even the figures of the baleful group were there, though dimly seen as through a veil - a shadowy veil.
Bram Stoker, The Lair of the White Worm, 1911

Dieta - Dia 61

Nessa última semana tive uma grande surpresa quando fui me pesar. Perdi 1,3 Kg. É um curto espaço de tempo para perder tanto peso, mas levando em conta que me pesei na mesma balança de sempre e com as mesmas roupas, parece que é isso mesmo. Não tenho ideia de como será a próxima pesagem. Na verdade estou com um pouco de medo de não perder nada essa semana, mas vamos esperar pra ver. De qualquer forma, faltam apenas 0.5 Kgs para atingir minha meta inicial, depois de dois meses de dieta.

Aparentemente minha avó decidiu que já emagreci o suficiente e começou a fazer e comprar milhares de coisas que eu gosto e "esquecer" em cima da mesa. Um dia é bolo de cenoura com chocolate, no outro torta de frango, depois esfihas e então pastel. O jeito que encontrei para me livrar das tentações foi tentando incorporar o que dava na dieta, substituindo uma refeição, e comendo apenas 1/4 de porção do que era calórico demais pra isso. Tem dado certo.

Ontem decidi usar uma calça jeans para ir ao trabalho e me dei conta de que nada serve perfeitamente. Algumas ficam largas demais, caindo, e outras são tão baixas que só terei coragem de usar quando emagrecer mais. Acabei escolhendo uma larga mesmo, e claro que minha colega notou assim que cheguei. É complicado ficar "sem roupas", mas ao mesmo tempo rola uma sensação de vitória.

Agora, uma coisa impressionante é que, mesmo depois de ter emagrecido tanto, não noto mais a diferença. Notei bastante nas primeiras semanas, mas ultimamente, quando me olho no espelho, pareço a mesma, com o mesmo corpo de 2 kgs a mais. Enfim! Espero que seja temporário. No mais, estou bastante feliz e ansiosa para alcançar a meta.

Inglês - Dia 47

"Mrs. Allerton strove to make her voice sound casual and ordinary. The friendship between her son and his second cousin, Joanna Southwood, always irritated her. Not, as she put it to herself, that there was 'anything in it'. She was quite sure there wasn't. Tim had never manifested a sentimental interest in Joanna, nor she in him. Their mutual attraction seemed to be founded on gossip and the possession of a large number of friends and acquaintances in common. They both liked people and discussing people. Joanna had an amusing if caustic tongue."
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence." Helen Keller

Word of the day:
Chthonian - (adjective) Classical Mythology. of or pertaining to deities, spirits, and other beings dwelling under the earth.

* Perhaps the smell of blood, dark and chthonian, at the precise moment that the bird screamed, awakened something deep and intrinsic in what remained of Pan's counciousness.

Tom Robbins, Jitterburg Perfume, 1984

* Meanwhile, the obstinate insistence of the chthonian voices did not let up, as if the threatening presence of enemies, of the powerful who persecuted the people of the Lord, remained unresolved.

Umberto Eco, Translated by Richard Dixon, The Name of the Rose, 2014.

Inglês - Dia 46

"His glance softened as it rested on one particular couple. A well-matched pair - tall broad-shouldered man, slender delicate girl. Two bodies that moved in perfect rhythm of happiness. Happiness in the place, the hour, and in each other."
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

"If you can't fly the run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward." Martin Luther King

Word of the day:
Poltergeist - (noun) a ghost or spirit supposed to manifest its presence by noises, knockings, etc.

* "Do you know what a poltergeist is, Mr. Arkwright?" Mr. Arkwright allows a scornful interval to pass, while he slowly mops the counter. His silence does not connote hesitation. "Yes, sir".
Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea, 1978.

* I didn't want to foresee death or slide backwards in time or even do something so mundane as trigger poltergeist activity.
Susan Howatch, The Wonder Worker, 1997.

Inglês - Dia 45

"How amazingly suitable the whole thing was! It was certainly advisable that he should marry money, but not such a matter of necessity that he could regard himself as forced to put his own feelings on one side. And he loved Linnet. He would have wanted to marry her even if she had been practically penniless, instead of one of the richest girls in England. Only, fortunately, she was one of the richest girls in England..."
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." John Lennon

Word of the day:
Odontoid - (adjective) of or resembling a tooth; toothlike.

* In most cases, the radiological examination of the cervical spine in sports injuries starts with plain radiographs, including frontal, lateral and odontoid projections.
Edited by F.M. Vanhoenacker; M. Maas and J.L. Gielen, "The Spine in Sports Injuries", Imaginf of Orthopedic Sports Injuries, 2007.

* In young patients, a significant force is required to cause a fracture of the odontoid.
Edited by Andrea Donovan and Mark E. Schweitzer, Imaging Musculoskeletal trauma, 2012.

Inglês - Dia 44

"I think, myself, that the book is one of the best of my 'foreign travel' ones, and if detective stories are 'escape literature' (and why shouldn't they be!) the reader can escape to sunny skies and blue water as well as to crime in the confines or an armchair."
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie

"Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to mantain the temperature required for sustaining life." Wislawa Szymborska

Word of the day:
Quickhatch - a wolverine. Carnivorous North American mammal.

* Thereafter the rich American sent swiftly by cable for a beast wich he called a quickhatch, and whose name the trappers of the Rocky Mountains use when they want to call anyone by a worse name then devil.
F. St. Mars, On Nature's trail, 1912

* Sabine, who replied in his usual sententious manner - "A Scotchman would call it a 'quickhatch', an Indian an 'okelcoo hawgew', and a Canadian a 'carcajou'". "And what do you call it?" "A wolverene, ma'am", returned Sabine...
Jules Verne, translated by N. D'Anvers, The Fur Country, 1873

Inglês - Dia 43

"Late in the afternoon, the helicopters flew slowly over the red dunes of Wahiba. To the east and to the west they flew, following the lines on their maps. Eyes searched the red-gold sand until they hurt, looking ofr anything like a plane. Somewhere in the great sandy sea of Wahiba was a small plane and two people with it. They had to find them before the sun went down."
The Man from Nowhere - Bernard Smith

"It's not necessary to fear the prospect of failure but to be determined not to fail." Jimmy Carter

Word of the day:
Cygnet - a young swan.

*...I'll believe in your relationship when the crow's egg is hatched into a cygnet.
Sir Walter Scott, Kenilworth, 1821

* How to turn from a cygnet into a swan on their dreadful food, all meat pies and sausages! 
Anna Maxted, Rich Again, 2009

Inglês - Dia 42

"A day went by and still the man did not move or open his eyes. The nurse by the man's bed on the second morning was from the Philippines. Her name was Imelda. She sat and watched the sleeping man. Sometimes he moved his legs or arms a little, sometimes he made a low sound. She thought perhaps he would soon wake up, and watched him carefully."
The Man from Nowhere - Bernard Smith

"We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master." Ernest Hemingway

Word of the day:
Cloister - (verb) to confine in retirement, seclude; to confine in a monastery or convent; to furnish with a cloister or covered walk; to convert into a monastery or convent. (noun) A covered walk, especially in a religious institution, having an open arcade or colonnade usually opening onto a courtyard; a place of religious seclusion, as a monastery or convent; any quiet, secluded place.

* That's when I began to cloister myself, when I saw her strenght, her determination to pull me out of my brooding. 
Manil Suri, The City of Devi, 2013

* Was it right to cloister himself on this mountain?
Tami Hoag, Dark Paradise, 1994

Inglês - Dia 41

"The sands of Wahiba are empty and quiet. There is no sound. Nothing bigger than a lizard can live in the great sea of soft, red-gold sand; nothing bigger than marram grass can grow there. You hear nothing but the blood in your ears, and the hot dry air going in and out of your mouth."
The Man from Nowhere - Bernard Smith

"The right man is the one who seizes the moment." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Word of the day:
Exiguous - scanty; meager; small; slender.

* His exiguous nautical pension  is hardly enough to pay for the one cockroach infested room which he inhabits in the slum area behind Tatwig Street...
Lawrence Durrel, Justine, 1957

* There is an exiguous anthropological plot, concerning some papers improperly filched from a dying missionary, and an even more exiguous adulterous plot.
A.S. Byatt, "Barbara Pym", Passions of the Mind, 1991.

Inglês - Dia 40

"Weather is the most powerful force we know. Whoever controls it can disrupt world economies with perpetual rainstorms or tornadoes; wipe out crops in a drought; cause earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis; close world airports; and cause devastation on enemy battlefields."
Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Sidney Sheldon

"Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?" George Bernard Shaw

Inglês - Dia 39

"And as Tanner said it, the sky suddenly began to darken and tremble with loud peals of thunder. The huge plane started to bounce up and down. Tanner was looking out the window, puzzled by what was happening. The rain began to turn into large hailstones."
Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Sidney Sheldon

"A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." Confucius

Dieta - Dia 53

Depois de quase dois meses, continuo firme e forte com a minha dieta. Já perdi mais de 5,5 kg e estou bem próxima de atingir minha meta inicial. Raramente sinto fome e já consigo incluir em minha alimentação diversas coisas que eu gosto, sempre com moderação, sem ultrapassar as 1.000 cal diárias. Como imaginei que aconteceria, depois do primeiro mês o ritmo de emagrecimento diminuiu um pouco. Se antes perdia 1 kg por semana, agora perco 500g. Mas o que realmente importa é que estou em um progresso continuo.

As pessoas já notaram o quanto emagreci e venho recebendo elogios. Curioso que isso tenha acontecido só agora, quando já não percebo mais tanta diferença. Estou feliz e ansiosa para observar as reações quando enfim perder os 2 kg restantes. Aliás, já ando até pensando em minha nova meta! Mas vou deixar para decidir isso mais tarde.

Domingo fui ao shopping para assistir "Annabelle" e, como preciso de roupas baratinhas para trabalhar, acabei passando na Besni. Encontrei muita coisa bonita por um preço inacreditável! Infelizmente, não dispunha de muito tempo, então peguei algumas blusinhas e corri para o provador. Fiquei super feliz quando experimentei e percebi que fiquei bem com a maioria delas. Comprei quatro e paguei só R$ 70,00! Ainda pretendo passar lá de novo para ver se acho alguma novidade.

O blog tem me ajudado bastante a alcançar alguns dos meus objetivos! Já estava querendo emagrecer há mais de dois anos e uma das coisas que tem me mantido firme agora é a responsabilidade de postar os resultados, mesmo que apenas para eu ler. Se continuar assim, vou passar o verão com o corpo que eu queria.

Inglês - Dia 38

"Kelly was the first to open her eyes. She was lying on her back, naked, on the bare floor of a concrete basement, her hands handcuffed to eight-inch chains fastened to the wall, just above the floor. There was a small, barred window at the far end of the room, and a heavy door leading into the room."
Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Sidney Sheldon

"If you're walking the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress." Barack Obama

Inglês - Dia 37

"Pauline watched as Tanner pressed the ring hard into the recess, and the door began to open. The room was enormous, filled with huge computers and television screens. At a far wall were generators and eletronics, all linked together with a control panel in the center."
Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Sidney Sheldon

"No question is so difficult to answer as that to wich the answer is obvious." George Bernard Shaw

Inglês - Dia 36

"After almost two hours the Town Car finally drove up to a large limestone mansion with a slate roof and tall, slender chimneys, in the style of eighteenth-century England. There were extensive, manicured grounds, and they could see a separate house for the servant quarters and garage."
Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Sidney Sheldon

"If you don't see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner." Zig Ziglar

Inglês - Dia 35

"The two women took the stairs to the third floor, stepped into the corridor, and waited until the nurse was on the telephone. Her back was turned to them. They quickly started down the hall and entered room 391."
Are You Afraid of the Dark? - Sidney Sheldon

"If you can't convince them; confuse them." Harry S. Truman