Bruce Lee life philosophy

“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile]. So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.” I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-”if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?” He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”

—Bruce Lee

Aliens vs Human Intelligence DNA

Sjokolademousse – Chocolate Mousse

I decided to try a classic and simple desert. Fortunately, it came right the first time. Here are the ingredients:

- 200g of chocolate with at least 70% cocoa (dark chocolate is preferable);
- 6 eggs;
- 6 table spoons of sugar (one per each egg);
- 50g of butter;
- 4 tablespoons of Whisky (optional).

Instructions:

1st: Separate the egg whites from the yolks. 

2nd: Whip the egg whites in a large bowl.

3rd: In another bowl, mix the egg yolks and sugar together.

4th: Break the chocolate in small pieces and put it together with the butter in the microwave for a couple of minutes at 800W (the point is that the chocolate must be melted at the end, so adjust the time as needed and be careful not to burn yourself; if possible, use one of those microwave plastic lids);

5th: Mix the melted chocolate with the eggs and whisky using a whisk.

6th: Poor the chocolate mixture into the whipped egg whites. Slowly mix everything (you can use the whisk) until you get the typical chocolate mousse look. Place the chocolate mousse in the fridge and after a couple of hours it is ready to serve. Enjoy!

Stopping cancer with food

An educational video about fighting cancer and obesity by eating smart.

Colors of Spring

Flowers are blooming outside the house, and the sight is beautiful. Bellow are the photos i took to some of these flowers (by the way,  everything is real, no Photoshop effects or color correction).

  

Searching for engineering jobs in Norway

Searching for an engineering job in Norway can be quite a challenge. At first, I thought it would be easy because I got the idea that Norway needed engineers very badly, so this could be a quick process. After 2 months of job searching and dozens of CVs sent, I have learned a little bit about Norway’s job market and its needs. One of the things that surprised me was the possibility of importing your CV from another company’s database. So, instead of filling out forms with the same information over and over again, if you already filled a CV form, depending on the company careers website, you can import this information in a very user friendly way.

When it comes solely to engineering, there is a noticeable need for engineers for the oil and gas business (e.g. mining, ocean structures, hydraulics, etc.). I was surprised to see so many job ads requesting a lot of “senior engineers” and experienced workers. Portugal has the exact same kind of demands for employees (in the job ads). It is not uncommon to find ads requesting the candidate to have 5 years experience this and that, sometimes in a very long list of demands that are almost impossible to fully satisfy. Once, I found a job offering in my University where the “recently graduate candidate” should have at least 5 years of experience in a list of activities to perform that occupied the whole page. In these cases I believe it is important to remember ourselves that experience is not something that we can buy at the store by the kilo. Although it is understandable that an experienced worker has a lower learning curve that an inexperienced one, you eventually learn everything, or complement what you already know, to get the job done. So, if you see a list of required expertise in a job ad of which you have only a few, send your CV anyways because there is a chance of the target company have some realistic people working in their human resources department, and they just might like your motivation.

If possible, learn Norwegian in advance because some companies require the candidate to speak both Norwegian and English fluently. You can also respond to a job ad in Norwegian although I have seen at least a company who specifically mentioned that if the ad was not in English, than it was meant to Norwegians only.

If you are an Engineer, I will give you a list of four sites you can use to try your luck in the lands of the North:

NAV
AKER SOLUTIONS
STATOIL
JOBBNORGE

Above all never forget, job searching sometimes may not be easy (a friend of mine spent 6 months sending CVs before she was hired to work in England) but if you keep your spirits high and have some perseverance you might just find your dream job.

As for me, I was hired as a researcher in a portuguese University where I will work while continuing to send CVs to Norway. I will take this opportunity to continue to learn Norwegian and blog some more (and perhaps post some more portuguese cuisine recipies ;) ).

Lykke til! (“Good luck”)

Engineering for dummies

The Portuguese newspaper “PÚBLICO” stated that in the early nineties, a certain “engineer” was fired from the technical department for private projects belonging to the City Hall of Guarda, after being warned several times by the lack of quality and supervision of his own projects. The projects that were signed by this “engineer” did not even had the location of the construction site. In one of the projects even the roof was badly designed and impossible to construct. Source here. 

This “engineer” is the current prime minister of Portugal.