So far, this week has been awesome, and it looks like it will continue to be so. The weather these days has been kinda lame (overcast, cold, windy). But you know what? THIS WEEK IS THE WEEK OF FREE TIME. I've had tons of cancelations, so consequently I've had more Dave time lately than i have in a while. today I had my first free weekday-afternoon basically since I started working!
I started the day by waking up early, biking to a local park where I did my qi gong, which I hadn't done in weeks excluding sunday. i've been meaning to practice more, and just the practice i've done these past few doeshas been really energizing. My cousin flavia was thinking of starting tai chi classes. if she ever gets aroudn to it, i'm totally in. if not, maybe i'll teach her my qi gong...
afterwards, I had breakfast at a bakery. I usually have breakfast on the run, which means some kinda fried food i can walk with or a pão de quejio (baked ball of cheese bread).
after this glorious morning, I still had time to run crazy errands on av. paulista before class. I hadn't made it up to av. paulista in WEEKS. I used to spend all day there. lately Faria Lima has been my home base and I don't like it nearly as much. Paulista has a great bookstore, a museum, a park, all kidns of crazy buildings, cool street vendors, and metro access. all faria lima has is a mall, some restaurants and an internet cafe, but it's where all my students are at.
Paulista sorta became my stomping grounds when i got here. It felt good to be back.
I'm going to write more letters. I finally got aroudn to sending Laura chernin a postcard in nepal. we'll see when that gets there. so that just leaves like 20 billion people i need to write and send things to. i was going to write on sudnay, but i spent all day playing with my cousins (a worthy sacrifice, those kids are hilarious). maybe i'll knock some more names off that list this week.
lord knows i have the time :D
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Kol nidre
tonight was the first night of Yom kipur. We had a nice pre-fast dinner at the house with my aunt, uncle, his three kids and two grand children. Afterwards, we went to the temple. Of course, i knew no one and had crazy trouble following the service: not only were the translated portions in portuguese, but the few prayers I shoudl have known by heart were either slowed down alot or sung to a different tune, making it really really hard to keep up!
but that's not why i'm posting. I'm posting because as we were walking back to our car, some dude driving by called out the window, "JUDEUS FILHO DA PUTA!"
It was pretty clear to me who the "filho da puta" was in this situation and although i am trying to experience as much of brazil as possible, I have no intentino of geting acquainted with their prisons. My uncle on the other hand had other thingso n his mind and chased after the guy. I couldn't let my 60yo uncle get his ass kicked by some anti-semite, so I followed him.
My uncle gave the guy a good scare. When the asshole saw him coming, he almost hit a car trying to get away. David (my uncle) chucked his keys at the car since they were the only things handy, then foudn a rock and continued the chase as the car went around the corner. he never got a chance to use the rock, but luckily he didn't get hurt either.
I don't know how common this is. One of the people on the Caconde trip relataed a very similar experience that had happened a few montes prior.
I would have liked to have caught up with the car and beat the guy through the open window he shouted at us from. I would have liked to have thrown things and gotten all worked up. But would good would that have done? if he thinks badly of us, that behavior certainly wouldn't change his mind or encourage positive attitudes towards jews. If he thinks badly of us, his opinion has that much less value and shouldn't effect me. If he thinks badly of us, fuck him. It's Yom kippur, and i'm focusing on my own sins tonight. I don't need to worrya botu some other asshole's problems.
Watching my uncle chase after the guy when I had made the decision that "fuck him, he's jsut some asshole" made me wonder if i had done the right thing. As a foreigner, playing it safe makes sense. As a Jew, I believe my pacifism was the right decision as well.
Shanah Tova.
Stay safe.
Peace.
but that's not why i'm posting. I'm posting because as we were walking back to our car, some dude driving by called out the window, "JUDEUS FILHO DA PUTA!"
It was pretty clear to me who the "filho da puta" was in this situation and although i am trying to experience as much of brazil as possible, I have no intentino of geting acquainted with their prisons. My uncle on the other hand had other thingso n his mind and chased after the guy. I couldn't let my 60yo uncle get his ass kicked by some anti-semite, so I followed him.
My uncle gave the guy a good scare. When the asshole saw him coming, he almost hit a car trying to get away. David (my uncle) chucked his keys at the car since they were the only things handy, then foudn a rock and continued the chase as the car went around the corner. he never got a chance to use the rock, but luckily he didn't get hurt either.
I don't know how common this is. One of the people on the Caconde trip relataed a very similar experience that had happened a few montes prior.
I would have liked to have caught up with the car and beat the guy through the open window he shouted at us from. I would have liked to have thrown things and gotten all worked up. But would good would that have done? if he thinks badly of us, that behavior certainly wouldn't change his mind or encourage positive attitudes towards jews. If he thinks badly of us, his opinion has that much less value and shouldn't effect me. If he thinks badly of us, fuck him. It's Yom kippur, and i'm focusing on my own sins tonight. I don't need to worrya botu some other asshole's problems.
Watching my uncle chase after the guy when I had made the decision that "fuck him, he's jsut some asshole" made me wonder if i had done the right thing. As a foreigner, playing it safe makes sense. As a Jew, I believe my pacifism was the right decision as well.
Shanah Tova.
Stay safe.
Peace.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Camburi
So last thursday I called up Pablo (from the caconde trip) to see if he was down to get some beers. He said he was busy, but would hit me back on Friday. Well, on Friday he called me up asking if I wanted to go to the beach with him, his brother, and another friend.
I ended up blowing off the PUC kids again to go to the beach. It’s been at least a month since I’ve hung out with them, so I feel kinda bad about that, but the beach was sick and pablo’s little group was nothing but good people.
Saturday and Sunday we went surfing. The water was great, but the weather was so-so. Still, great time.
Coming back from Camburi, My friends surprised me when we stopped to eat at a foreign pizzeria franchise (one of only two or so in the city) where we had to wait 20 minutes for a table. They were all over the place, talking up its great food at a low price. What was the restaurant you ask? Pizza hut. Fucking pizza. Same greasy, gross pizza as the states, but the restaurant was made up to look respectable.
Really, they weren’t selling pizza, they were selling an image. They were selling a “first world” experience. It hadn’t really occurred to me how impressive that image is to people down here until driving back from Camburi, we saw a billboard for a whorehouse (really. No shit. Billboard for a whorehouse) that advertised itself as “your night in the first-world!” I laughed, no one else did.
I ended up blowing off the PUC kids again to go to the beach. It’s been at least a month since I’ve hung out with them, so I feel kinda bad about that, but the beach was sick and pablo’s little group was nothing but good people.
Saturday and Sunday we went surfing. The water was great, but the weather was so-so. Still, great time.
Coming back from Camburi, My friends surprised me when we stopped to eat at a foreign pizzeria franchise (one of only two or so in the city) where we had to wait 20 minutes for a table. They were all over the place, talking up its great food at a low price. What was the restaurant you ask? Pizza hut. Fucking pizza. Same greasy, gross pizza as the states, but the restaurant was made up to look respectable.
Really, they weren’t selling pizza, they were selling an image. They were selling a “first world” experience. It hadn’t really occurred to me how impressive that image is to people down here until driving back from Camburi, we saw a billboard for a whorehouse (really. No shit. Billboard for a whorehouse) that advertised itself as “your night in the first-world!” I laughed, no one else did.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Caconde
get ready for a long post folks. sorry. i had a really raelly good time this weekend and i've got a lot i wanna put down.
thurs evening i left for caconde. The trip was off to a shaky start: i ate fast as hell to get there on time, which i was only one of 2 people to do. waiting for the bus, the people who trickled in only got wierder and wierder until finally after about 5 people some normal folks started showing up. despite an alleged age cap of 25, i was easily the yougnest person on the trip, the oldest being 42. i bunked with 3 other guys who turned out to be pretty cool, even the the kid in the bunk next to me snored like he was sucking his dying breaths through a straw.
friday we went white water rafting. i took the front of the raft, which was a challenge since the commands were in portuguese but was fine anyway. we hit some really fun rapids; the water was fast and there were some surprising drops. as often as possible, our guide would pop us into hygros and spin us around with the raft filling up with water, sometimes working the raft to buck people out. towards the middle we stopped time walk the raft aroudn a dangerous class 4 and took a break to cliff jump into a really big rapid at the end of the series. it was high enough that I could flip off....coolness.
saturday we went "cascading:" rappeling down a 45m waterfall. the guides set up a guideline over the fall for safety which was super lame, forcing you to fly over the fun parts. i've rappeled plenty at the squad, so after one run i wasn't really down. I convinced the guide to elt me go without the guide line which was MUCH COOLER. i slipped and slide a bunch on some parts but didn't hurt myself. i got rappel right into and udner the fall, which no one else had the opportunity to. at one point, there is a negative space behind the fall, so i had to invert right under the fall. totally sick, thrilling as hell, lots of fun.
Caconde is out in the middle of nowhere. hella stars like WOAH (cali enough for ya?). thing is, it's the southern hemisphere, so i couldn't find anything i recognized besides the milky way which was GORGEOUS. a friend pointed out a few important constellations (scorpio, the southern cross), and i saw 3 shooting stars.
Being in the boonies, the locals don't stay in caconde if they can help it. this results in a phenomenon i had never before imagined: the party scene is overrun by high schoolers. friday night we hit the town and couldn't find a girl over 16 out. pretty, pretty lame.
saturday night, on the other hand, was AWESOME. for some reason there were less children around, more kids our age. a friend of a friend who lived in town set us up with his neice, juliana, who was really cool and managed to find us rides to this party we were trying all night to get to (she was so cool, she arranged rides for her friends but didn't go herself until she found a way for us to get there. cool chick, huh?).
at the party i ran into a friend of ju's i'd met earlier that night, adriana, a 21yo recently graduated nurse who wanted to work on ambulances. i spent the night hanging out with her and her friends who were all really cool. they did these silly litle dance rituals where they would all fall on the floor and kick their legs, or just tackle each other...cool locals. We ended up hooking up and my friends from the trip saw us, so the next day i'd developed a reputation as a "pegador" (loosely translated as pick-up artist, pimp, or maybe man-slut. good connotations, good connotations) which was kinda embarassing.
dri's cousin's fiancee was super drunk and generally alotta fun. she kept encouraging us to kiss, which made me feel like i was in middle school, but whatever i didn't really mind. at one point the drunk cousin caught me in the face with ehr cigarette, nearly taking out my eye. i've still got a little burn on my cheek, maybe 50mm from my eye. close call folks, close call.
dri, her cousin, and the drunk fiancee gave me a ride back in their car that night. the drunk girl had to pee really bad but was to drunk to get anything out, so we kept stopping on the way back, which was fine cause it gave us a few last make-out opportunities on the way back. we ended up beating my crew form the trip back to the motel even thoguh they left before us (they had stopepd for food). they literaly pulled up right after us, so they basically started busting my balls as soon as i got outta the car.
by teh way, folks from caconde showed me crazy hospitality. i got invited to stay at 2 people's houses and a wedding in may!
i spent the bus ride back to SP trading jokes with the guys and watching borat and episodes of south park i'd gotten from one of the nerdier guys on the trip. the jokes were sometiems really ahrd to understand/tell, but the effort taught me a bunch of new vocab, and the fact that i could appreciate brazilian humor built up my confidence in the language a little more.
all in all, an AWESOME weekend. i'll post pictures when i have em.
thurs evening i left for caconde. The trip was off to a shaky start: i ate fast as hell to get there on time, which i was only one of 2 people to do. waiting for the bus, the people who trickled in only got wierder and wierder until finally after about 5 people some normal folks started showing up. despite an alleged age cap of 25, i was easily the yougnest person on the trip, the oldest being 42. i bunked with 3 other guys who turned out to be pretty cool, even the the kid in the bunk next to me snored like he was sucking his dying breaths through a straw.
friday we went white water rafting. i took the front of the raft, which was a challenge since the commands were in portuguese but was fine anyway. we hit some really fun rapids; the water was fast and there were some surprising drops. as often as possible, our guide would pop us into hygros and spin us around with the raft filling up with water, sometimes working the raft to buck people out. towards the middle we stopped time walk the raft aroudn a dangerous class 4 and took a break to cliff jump into a really big rapid at the end of the series. it was high enough that I could flip off....coolness.
saturday we went "cascading:" rappeling down a 45m waterfall. the guides set up a guideline over the fall for safety which was super lame, forcing you to fly over the fun parts. i've rappeled plenty at the squad, so after one run i wasn't really down. I convinced the guide to elt me go without the guide line which was MUCH COOLER. i slipped and slide a bunch on some parts but didn't hurt myself. i got rappel right into and udner the fall, which no one else had the opportunity to. at one point, there is a negative space behind the fall, so i had to invert right under the fall. totally sick, thrilling as hell, lots of fun.
Caconde is out in the middle of nowhere. hella stars like WOAH (cali enough for ya?). thing is, it's the southern hemisphere, so i couldn't find anything i recognized besides the milky way which was GORGEOUS. a friend pointed out a few important constellations (scorpio, the southern cross), and i saw 3 shooting stars.
Being in the boonies, the locals don't stay in caconde if they can help it. this results in a phenomenon i had never before imagined: the party scene is overrun by high schoolers. friday night we hit the town and couldn't find a girl over 16 out. pretty, pretty lame.
saturday night, on the other hand, was AWESOME. for some reason there were less children around, more kids our age. a friend of a friend who lived in town set us up with his neice, juliana, who was really cool and managed to find us rides to this party we were trying all night to get to (she was so cool, she arranged rides for her friends but didn't go herself until she found a way for us to get there. cool chick, huh?).
at the party i ran into a friend of ju's i'd met earlier that night, adriana, a 21yo recently graduated nurse who wanted to work on ambulances. i spent the night hanging out with her and her friends who were all really cool. they did these silly litle dance rituals where they would all fall on the floor and kick their legs, or just tackle each other...cool locals. We ended up hooking up and my friends from the trip saw us, so the next day i'd developed a reputation as a "pegador" (loosely translated as pick-up artist, pimp, or maybe man-slut. good connotations, good connotations) which was kinda embarassing.
dri's cousin's fiancee was super drunk and generally alotta fun. she kept encouraging us to kiss, which made me feel like i was in middle school, but whatever i didn't really mind. at one point the drunk cousin caught me in the face with ehr cigarette, nearly taking out my eye. i've still got a little burn on my cheek, maybe 50mm from my eye. close call folks, close call.
dri, her cousin, and the drunk fiancee gave me a ride back in their car that night. the drunk girl had to pee really bad but was to drunk to get anything out, so we kept stopping on the way back, which was fine cause it gave us a few last make-out opportunities on the way back. we ended up beating my crew form the trip back to the motel even thoguh they left before us (they had stopepd for food). they literaly pulled up right after us, so they basically started busting my balls as soon as i got outta the car.
by teh way, folks from caconde showed me crazy hospitality. i got invited to stay at 2 people's houses and a wedding in may!
i spent the bus ride back to SP trading jokes with the guys and watching borat and episodes of south park i'd gotten from one of the nerdier guys on the trip. the jokes were sometiems really ahrd to understand/tell, but the effort taught me a bunch of new vocab, and the fact that i could appreciate brazilian humor built up my confidence in the language a little more.
all in all, an AWESOME weekend. i'll post pictures when i have em.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
VIVE LA REVOLUTION!!
So this friday is the brazilian independence day, Sept. 7th. consequently, it's a national holiday. i've signed up to go on a random trip to some place called Caconde through a jewish comunity club called "Hebraica." hopefully i'll meet some cool folks there, and if it sucks, at least i get to go white water rafting (they cal lit "Cascading") and maybe see some nice chunk of nature.
also, the brazilian people have been really dissatisfied with their government for along, long time now. on the 7th, there's going to be a country-wide panelação. "panela" is portuguese for pan, like pots and pans. a panelação is a very brasilian method for showing discontent: they bang pots and make noise for a couple of minutes.
i know about this demonstration because of an email my aunt recieved a few days ago. she seemed excited about it. my uncle said he'd been waiting for something like this and proceeded to show me how many books he's written or organized relating to teen violence. i have a strong feeling they got caught up in a chain mail, but we'll see what happens.
did i mention i think my english is getting worse? i spend all my time speaking english to people who speak it poorly, and i think it might be getting to me....
also, the brazilian people have been really dissatisfied with their government for along, long time now. on the 7th, there's going to be a country-wide panelação. "panela" is portuguese for pan, like pots and pans. a panelação is a very brasilian method for showing discontent: they bang pots and make noise for a couple of minutes.
i know about this demonstration because of an email my aunt recieved a few days ago. she seemed excited about it. my uncle said he'd been waiting for something like this and proceeded to show me how many books he's written or organized relating to teen violence. i have a strong feeling they got caught up in a chain mail, but we'll see what happens.
did i mention i think my english is getting worse? i spend all my time speaking english to people who speak it poorly, and i think it might be getting to me....
Monday, September 3, 2007
a moral dilemma
this will probably seem lamer than lame to anyone reading it, but this is has been bothering me all weekend.
my biggest client, Paulo, is this middle-aged dude who's the president of a lartge real estate firm here in são paulo. i don't jsut say biggest because well, the man is intimidatingly huge, but i teach him 4 times a week. i need horsu, so that's GREAT, even if our classes move frustratingly slow.
the dilemma: last friday, one of his associates came to me asking mehow much i charge. i gave him the breakdown, then remembered paulo is actually my client through this company that hands me business for a cut. in other words, if i take paulo's associate on, i make more money (double, actually), but run the risk of charging him less than paulo is charging, which would be, well, fucked up. worst case scenario: i get fired (obviously). why is this so bad? well, not only would i (might i?) lose my clients, but i'd also lose my main resource for learning material, i.e. textbooks.
i encountered this company through my cousin who is good friends with my boss, so i actually ran into my boss at that brithday part on sat. i couldn't bring myself to talk to her then. i really feel like i should talk it over with my boss instead of just jumping into this client head first. it sucks that i make chicken feed with this company, but the fact is i need their books.
i ahve other clients. maybe i shold decline the client, and not take on any more clients through this company so i ahve mroe time open for students who will pay me directly. of course, taht might make me a worse person in context....
i'm not perfect, damnit.
my biggest client, Paulo, is this middle-aged dude who's the president of a lartge real estate firm here in são paulo. i don't jsut say biggest because well, the man is intimidatingly huge, but i teach him 4 times a week. i need horsu, so that's GREAT, even if our classes move frustratingly slow.
the dilemma: last friday, one of his associates came to me asking mehow much i charge. i gave him the breakdown, then remembered paulo is actually my client through this company that hands me business for a cut. in other words, if i take paulo's associate on, i make more money (double, actually), but run the risk of charging him less than paulo is charging, which would be, well, fucked up. worst case scenario: i get fired (obviously). why is this so bad? well, not only would i (might i?) lose my clients, but i'd also lose my main resource for learning material, i.e. textbooks.
i encountered this company through my cousin who is good friends with my boss, so i actually ran into my boss at that brithday part on sat. i couldn't bring myself to talk to her then. i really feel like i should talk it over with my boss instead of just jumping into this client head first. it sucks that i make chicken feed with this company, but the fact is i need their books.
i ahve other clients. maybe i shold decline the client, and not take on any more clients through this company so i ahve mroe time open for students who will pay me directly. of course, taht might make me a worse person in context....
i'm not perfect, damnit.
birthday
The family down here has this really cool tradition they do for kids birthdays; instead of hiring entertainment, they have the kids write a play. it soudns campy and i suppose it is, but it's actually really cool. the whole family helps out in the creative process, and everyone has a role in the play.
Saturday was the first time i got to participate in one of these plays. my young cousin/neice/whatever you wanna call her Lis turned 9, and had a space themed party. her play was super cute. there was an ambiguous problem on the moon that had to be resolved in person, so she flew to the moon with a couple other astronauts (aunt, uncle, grampa), passed an american ship on the way up (me), encountered an alien (sister), ate at a cafe on the moon (mom, grandma, nanny), and in the end saved the day (the problem was smoke coming from the aliens moon-marshmallows or something...she convinced the alien to sell ehr recipe to the restaurant, and they all lived happily ever after). she even wrote a little song, and of course tehre was plenty of other childrens songs incorporated which was wierd cause you know i've never heard children's brazilian music and every one else knew the words.
but yeah, really cute birthday, and i was glad i got to participate. i'll put up a picture in the near
Saturday was the first time i got to participate in one of these plays. my young cousin/neice/whatever you wanna call her Lis turned 9, and had a space themed party. her play was super cute. there was an ambiguous problem on the moon that had to be resolved in person, so she flew to the moon with a couple other astronauts (aunt, uncle, grampa), passed an american ship on the way up (me), encountered an alien (sister), ate at a cafe on the moon (mom, grandma, nanny), and in the end saved the day (the problem was smoke coming from the aliens moon-marshmallows or something...she convinced the alien to sell ehr recipe to the restaurant, and they all lived happily ever after). she even wrote a little song, and of course tehre was plenty of other childrens songs incorporated which was wierd cause you know i've never heard children's brazilian music and every one else knew the words.
but yeah, really cute birthday, and i was glad i got to participate. i'll put up a picture in the near
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
