​Below, using a perhaps not so heart wrenching font, you'll find the contents of an old thread of mine, originally published on January 8th. This is as far back as I'll go, though it is true I also have other stuff you can find if you look for it, this blog will only include content from 2015 onward.

https://soundcloud.com/tiago-varela-3/thanks

I would hope you listened to it first, but you don't have to. This is actually all a hoax.

I just found a text online that I really, really loved, and decided to share it with people.

If you don't want to put up with me reading it, here's the actual link:

http://paris.gymmuenchenstein.ch/stalder/texts/christmas/thanks.htm

As later requested, and for comparison with my normal accent, here's a couple of other recordings of me, this time in my own language:

"A reflection about Garbage"

https://soundcloud.com/tiago-varela-3/reflect-upon-your-garbage

Original:

http://visao.sapo.pt/uma-reflexao-acerca-de-lixo=f501880

Rough Translation:

A certain day, when I worked in JL, I was charged with interviewing a writer named Adília Lopes. The first question I asked her was about a poem of hers that I very much enjoyed and enjoy. It's called "Summary Autobiography" and it only has three verses:

"My cats / like playing / with my cockroaches." [There's no miss translation, that's literally what it says, no rhymes or anything]

My objective was to impress the author with my excellent interpretation of the poem. I told her that those verses were also the summary of my life. My cats, that is, that which in me is feline, shrewd, critic ("It isn't by chance", I said, "that Fialho de Almeida compiled his critics into a volume named "The Cats"), that which in me is perspicacious - and even cruel - likes to play with my cockroaches, that is, that which in me was disgusting, dark, creepy, vile. And that poetical operation [literal translation] - which is, equally, a humorous operation - mocking oneself was so familiar to me I could describe myself in such a competent way like the poem's author.

Adília Lopes' eyes became wet. Be it when was the solitary night she wrote the poem, she was far from imagining that, so long afterwards, her soul mate would present itself before here, understanding her so deeply. It was then that Adília Lopes talked. She said the following: "Right. Well, with me, what happens is that I've got cats. And I've also got cockroaches, in the kitchen. And the cats like going there to play with them." And then exemplified, with her hands, the gesture which the cats did with their paws.

It was on that day, reader my friend, that I stopped being a smartarse. I had quoted Fialho de Almeida, I had used the expression "Poetic Operation", and I had seen myself where there were only cats and cockroaches. Adílias Lopes' eyes were wet, probably, from the effort the eyes' owner did not to laugh. It wasn't just those bastards the cats that ridiculed me: Adília Lopes, too. And, since that day, I have found that the entire world, in general, scoffs at me [slang is used here, hence the following comment] (those who appreciate a well polished sentence, will do well in registering, in a small, appropriate, notebook, the elegant construction "scoff at me").

Various philosophers have reflected about the trash, above all about the way our society treats its trash. I am hurt by the way our society treats my trans in particular. I don't care the treatment society gives its trash: the way it treats mine is humiliating. Adília Lopes' trash generates life and poems. My trash not only doesn't generate a thing, as it has a lack of personality that belittles him almost as much as it belittles me. It's very frequent that I find myself in the situation of having trash in my hand and, when confronted with the labels that nowadays designate the various sections in the rubbish bins (cardboard, paper, packaging, glass), verifying that the trash in my possession will fit, invariably, in the category of undifferentiated. Almost all my trash is characterized by a lac of character only I can transmit it. Be it, then, my summary autobiography:

"My trash / is as uninteresting / as I."

"News"

https://soundcloud.com/tiago-varela-3/news

Original:

http://www.dn.pt/inicio/ciencia/interior.aspx?content_id=4327689

Rough Translation:

The year of 2015 will be slighlty bigger than last year: at June 30th, at 00 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds, 2015 will gain an extra second. It is called "interchangeable second" [that's the leap second] and it's introduction to the clock was announced yesterday by the International Earth Rotation Service (IERS).

The service claimed it to be necessary the introduction of this leap year to coordinate the International Atomic Time scale with planet Earth's rotation, explains a note from Lisbon's Astronomical Observatory, the entity responsible for keeping the Legal Hour in Portugal. That is, the leap second will permit our watches not to get ahead in relation to the planet's rotation.

This is because the duration of the leap second in the Atomic Time scale is constant and currently is shorter than that of a "second" in Earth's rotation, given that a complete rotation of Earth lasts longer and longer - it is slowing down very very slowly, at a rhythm of two milliseconds of a second per century.

In practice, instead of jumping from 00:59.59 to 1:00:00 in the morning, a second will be added at 00:59.60. But the change can cause some problems. When an extra second was added in 2012, various software companies had problems, like Mozilla and LinkedIn, since they weren't prepared to include additional seconds. This way, OAL offers extra clarifications in the page "How to set?" to discover how to keep the right time on the computer, for users and site creators.

The first leap second was added in 1972.

Source: A "Thank You" message to celebrate the end of Christmas Season

Now then, if I can be excused...