Oscar Night

I used to watch the Oscars religiously when I was at Uni. A couple of my friends were movie buffs which made the whole thing more interesting (because they thought they knew what they were talking about and sometimes they couldn’t be more wrong)

Staying up on a Sunday night/Monday morning wasn’t an issue for me. Back then I could pretty much do as I wanted and missing a lesson here or there wasn’t a problem at all (ahhhh… how miss those days of detachment from the MAN…)

So, having only seen two or three of the nominated films to the Oscars this year, my predictions are more like guesses than anything else. And here are the main categories:

Best Picture: The King’s Speech

Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth

Actor in a Supporting Role: (I want to say Geoffrey Rush, but I’ll bet you it will be) Christian Bale

Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman

Actress in a Supporting Role: Helena Bonham Carter

Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3

Original Screenplay: Inception

Adapted Screenplay: Toy Story 3

And I really don’t know anything about the technicalities like Sound mixing, editing, visual effects, etc, so I won’t comment on that. I’ve got a feeling that The King’s Speech will be the big winner and 127 Hours the big loser…

We’ll see how my “predictions” compare to the actual winners tomorrow morning!

33

I have wondered many times why the Smashing Pumpkins decided to call one of their best songs in Mellon Collie as 33.. There’s nothing in the lyrics that imply a number, age, location or anything that you associate with numbers. I came to the conclusion that the number must be random, something like it was the song number that Corgan ever wrote, or it was number 33 in his very long list of possible options for Mellon Collie…

I really like that song.. My favourite line, the line that really hooked me into the song is: “for a moment i lose myself wrapped up in the pleasures of the world“.. because it was a different time in my life when I used to listen to it. It was the time when I HAD time to spare time to listen to music, and lose myself…

Another of my favourite bands also have a song titled 33: Coheed and Cambria. It’s from my favourite album, The Second Stage Turbine Blade, however it is not my favourite song in the album. Hold on, now that I think about it, this is not my favourite album by C&C.. In Keeping Secrets of Planet Earth is, but Time Consumer IS my favourite song ever by C&C and it is on the first album… (Can you have a favourite album, but your favourite song by than band not be on that album?)

Well, I digress..

The point of this rather pointless blog entry is that I turned 33 just the other day.

I am not going to make a big fuss about it because I am taking it very well this year. I only felt a bit down for a couple of hours before the actual day and completely forgot about it a while later.

Getting older is losing momentum in my life as years go past…

As a belated birthday present to myself, here’s Time Consumer: my favourite Coheed and Cambria song (and no, I don’t like it just because it says “Maria, my star”, lol)

Secondary home

No, I haven’t bought another house (if only I had the money to do so!)

I have just created a separate blog for my crafting musings.

From now on, all my cards and crafting projects can be found here:

www.craftsbymarialachica.com

Hope to see you there!

Early birthday present!

So, still a week and a bit until my birthday, but I have already received my present!

It’s the Making Memories Slice Elite Machine! yuhuuu!

They only had it available in pink, but I don’t mind… I matches my dressing gown

For those of you who have no idea what this is (I had no idea what it was until only a few weeks ago), it’s a die-cutting machine used for scrapbooking and card-making. There are tons and tons of pictures out there on the web, so have a go with google and you’ll be amazed.

So, after spending a little fortune at Hobbycraft (both Jon and myself), I arrived home and opened my present despite my husband’s dismay who thought I would wait until my actual birthday to open it. If only….. Nah, I couldn’t wait I am afraid, so that same afternoon, I made three cards, two of them using the slice machine.

I must say that it was a tiny bit trickier to use than I thought it would be. Especially because I think I still have to learn a bit more about the amounts of glue to use on the glass mat and how often to reapply it. But I suppose it’s just a matter of practice and I will get better with time.

These are the two cards I made with the slice machine:

This is not Jon’s Valentine’s Card…                     For some friend’s new born baby

There are still a few accessories that I need to get to be able to produce stunning cards all the time. I reckon that if I tried to make a business out of this, it would take me roughly one year of making cards full time to get a return on the investment But as Jon says, I will make cards for my own recreation, I don’t necessarily have to try to make money out of them (but if I did, then… result!)

Perspective

The word engineer is grossly overused and misused in the UK.

You can go to University for 3-4 years, obtain an Engineering degree and then go out into the world and find work as an engineer. Probably something like “systems engineer”, “electrical engineer”, “M&E engineer”, and so on, depending on what you’ve studied. You will be paid decently as a graduate and from there you can only go up in the job ladder.

You could also not go to University, and get a job as a carpet fitter or as a plasterer after you finish school. If you get bored of that job or if you have higher expectations in life, you can always do a week-long course on how to repair washing machines and then you can call yourself a Washing Machine Engineer.

Those two people will use the word engineer to refer to their field of work, however, they couldn’t be more different in knowledge and experience. They use the word under their own perspective and no one will ever question them about it.

For the last 3 and a half years my title has been “Engineering support”. This in English could mean two things:

1) I give support to the engineers / engineering team.

2) I give support of an engineering substance.

Of course, the way I have always described my role is with the description number 1. I am not an engineer, and it is very hard for me to consider myself one when my bosses say that I am. But am I? In Spain it would be unthinkable that someone without an engineering degree could call themselves that (I have even been openly accused on the net of pretending to be something that I am not). However, I have been carrying out engineering tasks for the last three years, so a lot of people do believe that I have acquired the knowledge and should have the word engineer in my title.

From my own perspective, I just don’t want people to get the wrong impression. From next month onwards, my title will change from Engineering Support to Project Engineer: Coordination and Planning (or something similar, it is still not set in stone). Will people automatically assume that I can answer questions that are obvious enough but escape my scope? Will I disappoint customers when I reply to their questions with “I am sorry, I will have to check that and come back to you tomorrow”

I don’t doubt myself. I know my skills and my limitations. I just don’t want to disappoint anyone.

Me, at work, a couple of years ago…