athenasowl

I love music of (almost) all kinds. I'm very proud of my portuguese heritage, and I love fado, the most portuguese music (especially A Naifa, Cristina Branco, Mariza, Camané, Ana Moura and the newest Deolinda). Besides fado, I have other favorite portuguese singers and bands: Ornatos Violeta, Jorge Palma, Clã, Sérgio Godinho and Blasted Mechanism. My fondness for soundtracks has made me become acquainted with the music of Emir Kusturika & The No Smoking Orchestra, and also Goran Bregovic. I love 60s music, especially Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. Finally, I'm very very fond of these: Tori Amos, Johnny Cash, Lila Downs, Bob Dylan, Travis, Cansei de Ser Sexy.

I prefer talking about authors, because I'm generally very loyal to my favorite. In Portuguese, my favorite novelists are João Aguiar and Eça de Queiroz. I love poetry, and mostly portuguese poets (if you haven't read any portuguese poetry, I strongly recommend it, and not just because I'm portuguese :-P). My favorite poets are Fernando Pessoa, Luis de Camões, Jorge de Sousa Braga, Sophia de Mello Breyner and António Gedeão. Outside Portugal, I love love love love Pablo Neruda (I recommend his odes) and Shakespeare. I'm very fond of some Brittish novelists, like Oscar Wilde, R. L. Stevenson and Mary Shelley, and as for americans, I love the works of Toni Morrison and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. I love whodunnits. I'm very fond of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (mostly because I read almost every tale of his when I was younger), but I prefer Agatha Christie, because she has a more psychological approach. Finally, when I was younger, I really liked fantasy and science fiction books. The only authors I still read in the genre are J. K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams.

Against all odds, I don't like portuguese movies. They're too noir, spooky and boring, I suppose. OK, I love one, Dot.com. Now, I'm also very loyal to certain directors. One of them is Woody Allen, and I love Manhattan. I love Emir Kusturika's movies, especially Underground and Black cat white cat. Tim Burton is another of my favorite directors, especially with The Nightmare Before Christmas and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I also like Francis Ford Copolla, and my favorite of his movies are One From the Heart and Dracula. Finally, I love Roberto Benigni's La Tigre e la Neve (one of the most beautiful movies ever made) and Il Mostro (very funny, although not very well known). I like to see french movies, and I fell in love with Le fabuleaux déstin de Amélie and Belleville Rendez-Vous. I love musicals. Chicago is probably my favorite. I love Star Wars' first trilogy, but I'm not too crazy about the most recent one. Last but not least, I love Mulholland Drive (but David Lynch is waaaaay too scary), The good the bad and the ugly, The Royal Tenenbaums (getting acquainted with Wes Anderson) and Little Miss Sunshine. Ah, and Disney movies :o)

My favorite animals are cats, owls, camels and elephants.

My favorite colors are black and brown. I also love sunny colors like orange and yellow, and I like most shades of blue and green. I'm a little picky with shades of pink and red, although I absoloutely love the dark shades of both. My room is being slowly decorated in shades of orange and yellow.

I love crafts and I am willing to try basically anything. For the last two years, I've been addicted to felting, crochet, beading, knitting, iris folding, polymer clay and sewing in general, although I can honestly say that the craft I don't really enjoy is cross-stitching. My current addiction is origami, and it seems to be here to last. This means that any origami kit or origami book would be definitely in my wishlist.

In the past decade, my tendecy to keep useless small things - inherited, in fact, by my family, especially my father - has suceeded in my several collections: pins, postcards, key chains, shells and bookmarks (which I adore and cannot help but getting as much as possible).

I love stationary, especially funny pens and pencils, notebooks, paper... Loooove chocolate, any type, although I'm not too crazy over licor or raisins in the middle of it :-P. I also like chewing gum (and it's amazing how people send me these great flavors you CAN'T find here and then I'm addicted and I can't chew more), but I'm a bit suspicious about other types of candy. I'll let you in on a little secret: I'm on a diet. So "technically" I'm not supposed to eat candy or chocolate. But of course, if you want to send me some, hey!, it's not like I'm going to let all that good stuff be wasted :-P

I wear crocs. I don't know how croc acceptance is in your country, but here, it is still a bit rare to see someone wearing crocs. In fact, I HATED the darn shoes when I first saw them. Then, I tried them on. Well, now I'm the happy owner of a pair of chocolate brown Mary Janes and black Primas. So, if you want to send me croc pins, they're welcome.

I am a literature student living near Porto, the second biggest city in Portugal (which still makes it very small). Being a literature student and all means I love to read, though I don't read as much as I should. Besides books, I also love cinema, music, photography and crafts. I love to learn languages.

Note: In postcard swaps, please please please send me the postcard inside an envelope. This is because my father collects postage stamps and he always gets this glow in his eyes when he sees beautiful foreign stamps in my postcards. Thanks!

Note 2: I always send my swaps, and when I'm going to be late, I let you know. If I haven't met the deadline and you still haven't heard anything from me, I'm probably very busy or my internet connection is down, and I'll try to make it up to you in the package I send. If you haven't received anything from me yet and it's been a while (but bear in mind that packages from here to the USA, for instance, can take up to two weeks or more to arrive), message me, and I'll try to send you another package, if possible equal to the first.

If you're confused, or still out of ideas for what to send me, here's a little help:

• bookmarks
• books (probably too big for far away swaps, I agree)
• croc pins
• things with cats
• things with owls (!)
• things with camels (hard to find, I know)
• things with elephants
• beads
• beautiful (origami?) paper
• beautiful / funny notebooks
• funky pens / pencils
• used stamps
• beautiful fabric
• postcards
• necklaces
• earrings
• softies
• homemade things
• pouches
• scarves
• nice boxes