I meant to make this post awhile ago, but mess outside from the pending soccer match reminded me to get my ass in gear.
so about a month or so ago i attended a soccer game between corinthians and spfc, the two são paulo teams. corinthians are traditionally "the people's team," whereas spfc is the upper class team. Corinthians where here first, and their stadium is way out on the edge of the city. SPFC is much newer, and their stadium was built in the middle of a wealthy area.
the rivalry between spfc and corinthians is probably one of the most serious in brazil. the game i attended was called a "classico." SPFC were the favorites by far, well on their way to winning the championship (which they may accomplish tonight, if not next week), whereas corinthians had been having a shitty season.
everyone i talked to, corinthian and spfc fans alike, warned me not to go sit with on the corinthian's side. apparently, i don't look corinthian enough; i look like an spfc, and that could get me lynched. I reluctantly took their advice to heart.
as the game got under way, both teams raised their respective banders: huge flags that span a chunk of the stadium. the ends get passed up the crowd, and people wave them by beating on the underside. after a minute or so, they get lowered. The corinthians raised theirs first, an eagle. then spfc raised theirs, a dragon. a tear formed in the banner, just below the dragosn head. as the banner was raised, the tension caused the tear to spread, ironically cleanly beheading the dragon. a very bad omen.
it was a dirty game. there was significant fouling on both sides. at one point a fight broke out on the corinthians side. as the police poured into the stadium to quell the small riot, the spfc fans started cheering the cops on, saying "break them!" ugly, ugly business.
there were much fewer corinthian fans than spfc at the game, probably about as many as attended on that first, cold game i saw with ben. but they were waaaaaay more into it than the spfc fans. the spfc cheers barely circulated the crowd, staying focused only in the hardcore-fans section. moreover, the cheers got super repetitive despite the vast repertoire of cheers. the corinthians, on the other hand, were on their feet, dancing and singing the whole game through.
no goals were scored. bad energy filled the stadium. finally, with about 5min left in the game, the corinthians landed one on the spfc goalie.
wow. spfc couldn't even cheer. the stadium erupted with the songs of the corinthians. i couldn't even hear the beat of my team's drums.
as the game came to a close, i decided it would be a good idea to get teh hell out of dodge. i started moving towards the exit a little before the goal was scored. as soon as the game ended, i was outta there. outside the stadium were more cops than i have seen in one place in a long, long time, forming human walls in full riot gear, dividing the corinthians from spfc as much as possible. i had to hoof it over a hill just to get to my street (which actually pops out right in front of the stadium, but the cops wouldn't let us get to it for a ways).
leaving the stadium was a racket. singing fromt he stadium, singing in the streets, people honking horns (even taxis!), flags waving out car windows, fireworks exploding all around... suffice it to say, all the spfc fans had removed their shirts before hitting the street.
at one point, while waiting for a light to change a car drove by carrying some corinthians. they taunted my group waiting at the intersection. one of the people near me responded, mumbling one of the ugliest thigns i've heard in along time: "allegria da favela." happiness of the ghetto. that's what the corinthians were to this guy, a ghetto team. many people seemed to share his sentiment.
when i got back to the house, i sat down at the computer and started messign aroudn on my email or something. i could still hear cheers and sirens and explosions outside, even though thehosue is a ways from the stadium (by outside, i mean RIGHT outside). the explosions got closer, as did the sirens. then, i started to hear scuffling in the busshes by the window. it was 2 corinthian fans, being chased by the cops for setting off fireworks and generally being unrully. the cops landed their spotlights on em pretty fast, but i mean damn, what a mess.
i found it really itneresting how the class division in the city bleeds into soccer. soccer is the lifeblood of this country. you better believe they talk about soccer pretty damn early on the news. the victory of the corinthians was a victory of the lower class defeating the upper class.
the corinthians hadn't beaten spfc in many years. it was quite an upset.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The best thing to happen to the internet since wikipedia
Ok. I'm not special. I like to go online as a diversion just as much as anyone else. But i also use the internet as a tool for self-motivated study.
today i was trying to find a material for a class i'm teaching today. One of my students is a film teacher, and i wanted to use the "Learning from Youtube" class being taught at Pitzer College, my alma mater, as a topic for discussion. sifting through blog posts, i came across the following incredible fact:
UC BERKELY IS POSTING ALL OF ITS COURSES ON YOUTUBE.
i alerady have a degree. who cares if I won't get college credit? i wanna learn. I never got to take an anatomy class, now i can! hey, if i wanna brush up on my ochem, i don't need to go to a library!
UCB, you guys are awesome. i hope otehr schools follow suit. home-schooled kids are gonna eat their hearts out.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=ucberkeley
today i was trying to find a material for a class i'm teaching today. One of my students is a film teacher, and i wanted to use the "Learning from Youtube" class being taught at Pitzer College, my alma mater, as a topic for discussion. sifting through blog posts, i came across the following incredible fact:
UC BERKELY IS POSTING ALL OF ITS COURSES ON YOUTUBE.
i alerady have a degree. who cares if I won't get college credit? i wanna learn. I never got to take an anatomy class, now i can! hey, if i wanna brush up on my ochem, i don't need to go to a library!
UCB, you guys are awesome. i hope otehr schools follow suit. home-schooled kids are gonna eat their hearts out.
http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=ucberkeley
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Psychiatry
[for context sake, it's worth noting that i'm watching garden state while i write this]
it's been a while since i've posted a good rant, so maybe this has been a long time coming. Today I came across a book review for "Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became A Mental Illness". I definitely plan to read it.
For at least a decade now, I have had issues with psychiatry (what an ironic way to phrase that). my uncle, a clinical freudian psychoanalyst--last time i checked freudian theory was...archaic?--loves to tell me that he is sure i will ebcome a psychologist. I can't blame him. my interest in philosophy of mind has me browsing through at least as many books classified as cognitive science, neurology, and psychiatry as philosophy books. also, psychology would be a fine way to blend philosophy with medicine. But i have too much against psychology as an institution to seriously consider jumping in.
"Shyness" addresses one of my many reasons for hating on psychology: the ideology of better living through chemistry. Psychiatry attempts to cure illnesses of the mind, but a large number of these "illnesses," as robert pirsig points out, often can only characterized in the context of culture. A disease in psychiatry is basically anyway someone can be "different" from some imaginary norm, usually in a way that "disrupts" their life. basically, is someone has a character trait that makes them inefficient as tools for society, they have diseased minds.
According to the Shyness, there is another way psychiatry characterizes diseases: if we can give drugs to cure it, then we should. I often like to use ADD as my exemplar anti-psychiatry disease. Sure, there exist people who's inability to concentrate is a legitimate disability. But let's be serious here. The LARGE majority of the ritalin-popping public are just poeple who think the pill helps em out.
So let's call this shit what it is. Social anxiety disorder may exist. But the vast majority of people who take paxil are jsut your average run-of-the-mill wallflowers. fuck, i'm one of em. but i don't need paxil, i jsut need the right environment. i happen to think certain parties have hostile vibes, and just don't get comfortable enough to jump in.
still. right now i'm living in a foreign country where i previously only knew family; no one my age. I go out on my own all the time and have tons of fun, and am making friends more easily than i ever have in my life. fuck paxil. not taht i've ever been on it or anything, but i think that most people don't need drugs, they need experience. most people aren't mentally ill, they're just humans.
who the fuck do psychiatrists think they are, telling people they are abnormal? almost every psych-major i knew in college was in it to figure out what was wrong with themselves. shit, freud was so fucked in the head he even managed to project his neuroses onto more than a few of his patients.
Of course, then there's always the conspiracy-of-capitalism paranoia that is often attributed to western medicine by alternative medicine types. but the author makes a pretty convincing case for this kind paranoia with respect to american psychiatry. inf act, it's sort of the focus of his book, as i understand it.
From the article:
“Every marketer's dream is to find an unidentified or unknown market and develop it. That's what we were able to do with social anxiety disorder,” a product director for the drug told Advertising Age magazine.
fucked up, right?
ugh...i just invited my uncle to talk about the article. his newest attempt to get me to become a shrink:
uncle: "you need to get psychoanalyzed! just as an experience!"
me: "you think i've never been to a psychologist?"
uncle: "not a psychologist, a psychoanalyst. it's different! you will see, you will like it. it's very
close to philosophy."
maybe i should become a philosophical counselor. it's very close to psychoanalysis!
it's been a while since i've posted a good rant, so maybe this has been a long time coming. Today I came across a book review for "Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became A Mental Illness". I definitely plan to read it.
For at least a decade now, I have had issues with psychiatry (what an ironic way to phrase that). my uncle, a clinical freudian psychoanalyst--last time i checked freudian theory was...archaic?--loves to tell me that he is sure i will ebcome a psychologist. I can't blame him. my interest in philosophy of mind has me browsing through at least as many books classified as cognitive science, neurology, and psychiatry as philosophy books. also, psychology would be a fine way to blend philosophy with medicine. But i have too much against psychology as an institution to seriously consider jumping in.
"Shyness" addresses one of my many reasons for hating on psychology: the ideology of better living through chemistry. Psychiatry attempts to cure illnesses of the mind, but a large number of these "illnesses," as robert pirsig points out, often can only characterized in the context of culture. A disease in psychiatry is basically anyway someone can be "different" from some imaginary norm, usually in a way that "disrupts" their life. basically, is someone has a character trait that makes them inefficient as tools for society, they have diseased minds.
According to the Shyness, there is another way psychiatry characterizes diseases: if we can give drugs to cure it, then we should. I often like to use ADD as my exemplar anti-psychiatry disease. Sure, there exist people who's inability to concentrate is a legitimate disability. But let's be serious here. The LARGE majority of the ritalin-popping public are just poeple who think the pill helps em out.
So let's call this shit what it is. Social anxiety disorder may exist. But the vast majority of people who take paxil are jsut your average run-of-the-mill wallflowers. fuck, i'm one of em. but i don't need paxil, i jsut need the right environment. i happen to think certain parties have hostile vibes, and just don't get comfortable enough to jump in.
still. right now i'm living in a foreign country where i previously only knew family; no one my age. I go out on my own all the time and have tons of fun, and am making friends more easily than i ever have in my life. fuck paxil. not taht i've ever been on it or anything, but i think that most people don't need drugs, they need experience. most people aren't mentally ill, they're just humans.
who the fuck do psychiatrists think they are, telling people they are abnormal? almost every psych-major i knew in college was in it to figure out what was wrong with themselves. shit, freud was so fucked in the head he even managed to project his neuroses onto more than a few of his patients.
Of course, then there's always the conspiracy-of-capitalism paranoia that is often attributed to western medicine by alternative medicine types. but the author makes a pretty convincing case for this kind paranoia with respect to american psychiatry. inf act, it's sort of the focus of his book, as i understand it.
From the article:
“Every marketer's dream is to find an unidentified or unknown market and develop it. That's what we were able to do with social anxiety disorder,” a product director for the drug told Advertising Age magazine.
fucked up, right?
ugh...i just invited my uncle to talk about the article. his newest attempt to get me to become a shrink:
uncle: "you need to get psychoanalyzed! just as an experience!"
me: "you think i've never been to a psychologist?"
uncle: "not a psychologist, a psychoanalyst. it's different! you will see, you will like it. it's very
close to philosophy."
maybe i should become a philosophical counselor. it's very close to psychoanalysis!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Rosane
So i've written bits and pieces about this kid, but i think at this point she deserves a full post, at least.i met rosane last sunday. it was really random that we met at all. i met this guy thiago at the party and he convinced me to stick around. he brought me down to this post-party at a reggae bar,
where i was perpetually on the verge of leaving.
Rosane doesn't go out much. she doesn't smoke, or drink, or even curse much. she hangs out with lots of people, but only considers three people in her life to be true friends. Sunday night she went to the beach to surf with a few classmates (note, not friends), and they convinced her to swing by olinda on their way back. she normally never even goes to olinda, less to bars.
As she walked by about 20 feet away, we saw each other. i thought she was cute, but didn't really have the balls to make a move. apparently neither did she, so instead she asked her friend to go talk to me.
we hit it off, but only got to hang out for about a half hour before she left. The next day i called her up and was blown away by the phone call. she offered to take the bus in the middle of the night to see me (not the safest idea) and suggested dropping school and work for a few days so we could get a motel to check out a local beach. needless to say, i'm not used to this kind of attention. according to shaun's friend roberta, this kind of behavior is apparently not unusual for the local girls.
according to rosane, this kind of behavior was very unusual for her. she's not accustomed to making this much effort for people she barely knows, nor does she normally open up to people she's known for so little time.
she says that she likes galegos, guys with blond hair and blue eyes. but she seems to have been especially stricken by me. she keeps asking me to stay and be her boyfriend. she offered to move to rio so we could be closer together. she cried today while we listened to a Ben Harper song - She's only happy in the sun, which turned out to be surprisingly appropriate for the moment (it was fun trying to translate for her).
it's killing me. i barely know this girl. i feel like i'd be crazy to rearrange my life for her, but we get along together really well. i like her alot and she seems to REALLY like me, which i mean is kinda unusual for me. usually when i pursue girls, i either get nothing or a good friend out of it. that's what i've got, lots of old crushes turned good friends. my list of "one's that got away" is much longer than my list of past girlfriends.
so now i'm in the midst of a conflict. she seems pretty crushed on me. i can either allow myself to crush back, or i need to be careful not to lead her on. have i been leading her on? am i leading her on? has she been leading me on? maybe she's just on the rebound. she met me 3 days after breaking up with her boyfriend of over two years (she said that in brazil when people break up, it's usually long after things go sour; only when there's nothing left. still, the guy left her a lipstick message on her mirror one morning when she was out with me. did i mention he's a cop?).
i left recife this morning. she just wrote me saying...well, all sorts of intimate things i feel would be innappropriate to post here, but among them were the phrases
I can't shake the feeling that i might be letting something really good pass by for poor reasons.
I told her i had to go back to são paulo to earn money so i could travel more.
i have a little journal in which i jot down my thoughts. i track the ideas by number, not date, to keep it from turning into a diary. one of the entries in my journal expands on a value judgement i made about myself. i used to think that having a strong relationship with a woman was the most important thing in the world to me, but in traveling i've learned that i'm just not ready to settle down right now; i cherish my freedom. after this experience with rosane though, i've learned that the freedom is a huge tradeoff, completely sacrificing any possibilty for a relationship of the kind i used to pray for.
maybe my values haven't changed as much as i'd thought.
in my journal, i called myself a traveler, which i thought sounded free. rosane called me a nomad, which i think sounds lonelier. her assessment might be closer to the mark than mine.
Friday, October 26, 2007
a busy week
wow.... i haven't posted all week. i'm gonna skip around alittle here.
wednesday night i went on a date with rosane that went super well. lesse....shaun was still sick, tom had already left...or did he leave that day? oh yeah, and i went to janga beach wed, real shithole. polluted. real fine sand, got all over me.
....ok, time to work backwards.
thursday (yesterday) i wandered around olinda, took some pictures, talked with some local artisans (one of which offerd me a room for rent during carnaval)....then i tried to hook up with Alex for dinner since he finally rolled into town last night. his cell died mid conv so i didn't know exactly where he was. my first try was the espaço ciencia where his exposition was, but that turned out to be totally closed. the next attempt was this shitty mall nearby (i tried to hitch a ride on the bus but they wouldn't have it. i mean shit, it was one stop, and all i had a was a 50!), and he wasn't there either. had chinese mall-food for dinner, went back to the hostel, then went up to Sé to here a choro. there was a rehearsal going on there that was awesome. alll young kids, i don't think anyone of em was even as old as me. they were super good, and were rehearsing two songs, farol (lighthouse, in reference to a landmark here) and dança da latinha a song i recognized and sung along to, althouh i'd never heard it sung to a choro beat before (eu quero uma latinha pra botar uma bebe...). at the rehearsal i ran into thiago for the THIRD TIME. he took me into town to a little samba bar where we hung out. from there we wandered around and randomly found ourselves at an outdoor fashion show, then headed back to the bar. on the way there, i bought a bottle of Axé da fala, a local drink taht was super sketch. i bought it from what looked like a closed bar. thiago goes up to the bar and starts calling out "THIAGO!!" the other thiago pops his head over the wall, takes the order, and passes ove ra bottle of the homemade drink. it was pretty strong stuff, apparently loaded with herbs or something. good, kinda had a mediciny after taste though. we talked it up with a group of kdis we ran into for awhile, then i went home. i needed the rest.
tuesday.
monday first. fuck, i've already blogged about monday...
allright, no excuses. tuesday. tuesday!!! tuesday was terçã negra! i got to know shaun and tom better over breakfast then helped tom hitch call the bus station to figure out when his bus was leaving.then the three of us went into the old city to kick it a little. got to play translator some more (plus tour guide), kinda fun. it was also nice seeing the old city in the light. i can't believe i forgot to bring my camera, i'll just have to jack some pics form them. tom met up with his friend from recife who showed us a great spot to watch the sunset over the city. shaun and i went back to olinda soon afterwards. while shaun took a nap (he was getting sick) i did laundry by hand for the first time. lotta work, but worked well. kinda embarassing that i had never done it before. somewhere in here tom came back. kinda late shauns girl, roberta, and her friends came by, and we all went to this local bar to warm up. there, we met roberta's friend's younger sister, 19 i think, and her like 30 year old swiss/turkish bf. wierd wierd couple: he met her a year ago during his like 4 wk vacation here, apparently they stay a couple all this time, now he's back and they're a couple again, and he plans to take her back soon to marry him in switzerland. wierd wild stuff. we caught the tail-end of terça negra, a big bloc party with "afro" music, then went to the bar zero um (01) to here some reggae. cool place, and wouldn't you know it, there was thiago. same fucking guy man! he's always at the good parties. oh yeah, i also bought somethign from a sketchy street artesan who was selling mainly smoking related art. leonardo ("not 'da vinci', 'da VIDA!' ") made this thing he called the "coco loco," it's this goofily carved coconut. i'll post a picture of it. definitely never seen anything quite like it.
allright, i'm all cuaght up, time to talk about today. today i went to the mercado riberio where i had passed through yesterday because i saw them setting up for something today. see, this famous brazilian actress XUXA was coming to town, and the city organized a big carnival-esque display for her. quite frankly, i just wanted to see the show, but everyone else wanted to see her. i waited for a long long time. i talked it up with some local SAMU folks (paramedcis), and sat on top of a very uncomfortable fence for much longer than was advisable. after like 2 hours the show finally started. it was awesome, huge walking dolls, marching maracatu band, crazy frevo dancing, dudes with spears doing another dance who1s name i forgot...very very cool. much shorter than i would've liked though, and had a bad view. As XUXA was leaving, people kinda stormed her bus, so i took that opportunity to get a better view of the real show, and in so doing almsot got stabbed by a charging spear dude. very very cool stuff, i wanna come back here for carnaval real bad. so yeah, did that, had some tapioca for lunch (i've been eating alot of it. good local food, they heat fine yuca flour to make pancakes and put cheese and meat inside), bought some local art sicne it's my last day in town then kicked it at the hostel for a little. tonight i'm meeting up with rosane again. hopefully we'll make it to this big Choro show. a popular brazilian reggae artist, Adão Negro, is also in town so maybe we'll do that. or maybe we won't get around to either, she's not coming by till late. either way, i'm sure tonight will be fun, and tomorrow we're going to porto de galinhas with her to learn how to surf. i leave in the wee hours of sunday morning, so i dunno what i'm gonna do sunday night. hopefully i won't spend it at the airport.
wednesday night i went on a date with rosane that went super well. lesse....shaun was still sick, tom had already left...or did he leave that day? oh yeah, and i went to janga beach wed, real shithole. polluted. real fine sand, got all over me.
....ok, time to work backwards.
thursday (yesterday) i wandered around olinda, took some pictures, talked with some local artisans (one of which offerd me a room for rent during carnaval)....then i tried to hook up with Alex for dinner since he finally rolled into town last night. his cell died mid conv so i didn't know exactly where he was. my first try was the espaço ciencia where his exposition was, but that turned out to be totally closed. the next attempt was this shitty mall nearby (i tried to hitch a ride on the bus but they wouldn't have it. i mean shit, it was one stop, and all i had a was a 50!), and he wasn't there either. had chinese mall-food for dinner, went back to the hostel, then went up to Sé to here a choro. there was a rehearsal going on there that was awesome. alll young kids, i don't think anyone of em was even as old as me. they were super good, and were rehearsing two songs, farol (lighthouse, in reference to a landmark here) and dança da latinha a song i recognized and sung along to, althouh i'd never heard it sung to a choro beat before (eu quero uma latinha pra botar uma bebe...). at the rehearsal i ran into thiago for the THIRD TIME. he took me into town to a little samba bar where we hung out. from there we wandered around and randomly found ourselves at an outdoor fashion show, then headed back to the bar. on the way there, i bought a bottle of Axé da fala, a local drink taht was super sketch. i bought it from what looked like a closed bar. thiago goes up to the bar and starts calling out "THIAGO!!" the other thiago pops his head over the wall, takes the order, and passes ove ra bottle of the homemade drink. it was pretty strong stuff, apparently loaded with herbs or something. good, kinda had a mediciny after taste though. we talked it up with a group of kdis we ran into for awhile, then i went home. i needed the rest.
tuesday.
monday first. fuck, i've already blogged about monday...
allright, no excuses. tuesday. tuesday!!! tuesday was terçã negra! i got to know shaun and tom better over breakfast then helped tom hitch call the bus station to figure out when his bus was leaving.then the three of us went into the old city to kick it a little. got to play translator some more (plus tour guide), kinda fun. it was also nice seeing the old city in the light. i can't believe i forgot to bring my camera, i'll just have to jack some pics form them. tom met up with his friend from recife who showed us a great spot to watch the sunset over the city. shaun and i went back to olinda soon afterwards. while shaun took a nap (he was getting sick) i did laundry by hand for the first time. lotta work, but worked well. kinda embarassing that i had never done it before. somewhere in here tom came back. kinda late shauns girl, roberta, and her friends came by, and we all went to this local bar to warm up. there, we met roberta's friend's younger sister, 19 i think, and her like 30 year old swiss/turkish bf. wierd wierd couple: he met her a year ago during his like 4 wk vacation here, apparently they stay a couple all this time, now he's back and they're a couple again, and he plans to take her back soon to marry him in switzerland. wierd wild stuff. we caught the tail-end of terça negra, a big bloc party with "afro" music, then went to the bar zero um (01) to here some reggae. cool place, and wouldn't you know it, there was thiago. same fucking guy man! he's always at the good parties. oh yeah, i also bought somethign from a sketchy street artesan who was selling mainly smoking related art. leonardo ("not 'da vinci', 'da VIDA!' ") made this thing he called the "coco loco," it's this goofily carved coconut. i'll post a picture of it. definitely never seen anything quite like it.
allright, i'm all cuaght up, time to talk about today. today i went to the mercado riberio where i had passed through yesterday because i saw them setting up for something today. see, this famous brazilian actress XUXA was coming to town, and the city organized a big carnival-esque display for her. quite frankly, i just wanted to see the show, but everyone else wanted to see her. i waited for a long long time. i talked it up with some local SAMU folks (paramedcis), and sat on top of a very uncomfortable fence for much longer than was advisable. after like 2 hours the show finally started. it was awesome, huge walking dolls, marching maracatu band, crazy frevo dancing, dudes with spears doing another dance who1s name i forgot...very very cool. much shorter than i would've liked though, and had a bad view. As XUXA was leaving, people kinda stormed her bus, so i took that opportunity to get a better view of the real show, and in so doing almsot got stabbed by a charging spear dude. very very cool stuff, i wanna come back here for carnaval real bad. so yeah, did that, had some tapioca for lunch (i've been eating alot of it. good local food, they heat fine yuca flour to make pancakes and put cheese and meat inside), bought some local art sicne it's my last day in town then kicked it at the hostel for a little. tonight i'm meeting up with rosane again. hopefully we'll make it to this big Choro show. a popular brazilian reggae artist, Adão Negro, is also in town so maybe we'll do that. or maybe we won't get around to either, she's not coming by till late. either way, i'm sure tonight will be fun, and tomorrow we're going to porto de galinhas with her to learn how to surf. i leave in the wee hours of sunday morning, so i dunno what i'm gonna do sunday night. hopefully i won't spend it at the airport.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Porto de galinhas
yesterday at the party, the two spanish girls from the hostel (ainara and sara) and I arranged to go to a very famous beach just south of recife. i woke up at 6:30 without an alarm cause i'm a freak like that, did some qi gong, then had breakfast with them. we hit the buses and, surprise surprise, it took us 3 or 4 hours just like for calhetas (we'd been told this bus was faster, even though the beach was further away). thank god we woke up early.
when we got there, we were dissapointed to find that the beach's most sought after feature, tidal pools off the coast that form ddep swimming pools, weren't going to be available to us because the tide was high. still, the beach was gorgeous and we had a great time.
we bought fresh fruit on our way to the beach. among the fruit we picked up was a "caju." now, this fruit looks pretty wierd. my mom has a wax one at home, and after years of playing with the wax version and never seeing a real one, i long ago came to the decision they didn't exist and the wax fruit was just sort of a cool idea. wrongo tanto. seeing a basket of caju for real was like seeing a unicorn walking around. i had to have one, and they taste even wierder than they look. we also bought mango, which has become the fruit-mascot of my time her ein brazil. really, i can't believe how long it took for me to try mango. the kind the guy sold us was one of the no-fiber kinds, jsut soft and tasty. mmmmmmm
on the beach we feasted on the fruit and fresh crab chowder from a cart vendor, one of many on the beach (as with all beaches in brazil). i picked up a little sunburn out of my no-sunscreen-wearing arrogance, and made a new friend in the form of a stray dog who hung out with me after i pet him for awhile, but was above eating an orange slice i tossed him (not above sitting at my feet though, little cutie). we ran into him again as we walked back to the bus, which was funny cause sara, who was on a walk when i met the dog, apparently doesn't like dogs. sucked for her, cause the mutt followed behind her much more so than he did me, little cutie.
we had pizza for dinner at the beach (deciding catching the bus wasn't worth running back as we had walked a long distance..did i mention that as the sun waas setting the tide was finally low enough for us to have hit the pools? what a jip!). i'm sure i've mentioned that i love brazilian pizza, but i'm gonna put it in print one more time for good measure. the pizza here rocks, and even though this place was mediocre for brazil, it was still quite quite tasty. the spaniards didn't see any significant difference to spanish pizza though. maybe that means brazilian pizza really is european tasting?
sadly, they're heading out tomorrow so i won't be seeing anymore of em anytime soon. good people though, so i'll definitely keep intouch.
i've been really happy with all the freinds i've been making through this hostel. i've decided hostel's are the only way to travel, an opinion which will probably get me into trouble at some point down the line.
after we got back to the hostel, i met some knew kids i hadn't seen around, a canadian named sean and an ausie named tom.....woah, that sorta rhymes! they seem like good kids, so i'm sure we'll hang out. also, i called up rosane, a cute girl i met at the party last night. for details on that call, read the end of the previous post.
in summary, this girl was so forward it made me sorta paranoid, enough so to ask sean's pernambucano friend roberta if i should be worried about a mug-setup. the short verion of her explanation is no, and the anthropological lesson i learned from her is that northern brazilians aren't just forward, they totally reverse the order of courtship we have in the US: first they get to know each other's bodies, then they decide whether or not they like the person.
makes sense to me. brazil sure is different from the US though. i think tonight i experienced real culture shock for the first time in my life. i mean, this girl wants me so bad i thought she might be trying to rob me!
NEXT POST: david gets robbed.
when we got there, we were dissapointed to find that the beach's most sought after feature, tidal pools off the coast that form ddep swimming pools, weren't going to be available to us because the tide was high. still, the beach was gorgeous and we had a great time.
we bought fresh fruit on our way to the beach. among the fruit we picked up was a "caju." now, this fruit looks pretty wierd. my mom has a wax one at home, and after years of playing with the wax version and never seeing a real one, i long ago came to the decision they didn't exist and the wax fruit was just sort of a cool idea. wrongo tanto. seeing a basket of caju for real was like seeing a unicorn walking around. i had to have one, and they taste even wierder than they look. we also bought mango, which has become the fruit-mascot of my time her ein brazil. really, i can't believe how long it took for me to try mango. the kind the guy sold us was one of the no-fiber kinds, jsut soft and tasty. mmmmmmm
on the beach we feasted on the fruit and fresh crab chowder from a cart vendor, one of many on the beach (as with all beaches in brazil). i picked up a little sunburn out of my no-sunscreen-wearing arrogance, and made a new friend in the form of a stray dog who hung out with me after i pet him for awhile, but was above eating an orange slice i tossed him (not above sitting at my feet though, little cutie). we ran into him again as we walked back to the bus, which was funny cause sara, who was on a walk when i met the dog, apparently doesn't like dogs. sucked for her, cause the mutt followed behind her much more so than he did me, little cutie.
we had pizza for dinner at the beach (deciding catching the bus wasn't worth running back as we had walked a long distance..did i mention that as the sun waas setting the tide was finally low enough for us to have hit the pools? what a jip!). i'm sure i've mentioned that i love brazilian pizza, but i'm gonna put it in print one more time for good measure. the pizza here rocks, and even though this place was mediocre for brazil, it was still quite quite tasty. the spaniards didn't see any significant difference to spanish pizza though. maybe that means brazilian pizza really is european tasting?
sadly, they're heading out tomorrow so i won't be seeing anymore of em anytime soon. good people though, so i'll definitely keep intouch.
i've been really happy with all the freinds i've been making through this hostel. i've decided hostel's are the only way to travel, an opinion which will probably get me into trouble at some point down the line.
after we got back to the hostel, i met some knew kids i hadn't seen around, a canadian named sean and an ausie named tom.....woah, that sorta rhymes! they seem like good kids, so i'm sure we'll hang out. also, i called up rosane, a cute girl i met at the party last night. for details on that call, read the end of the previous post.
in summary, this girl was so forward it made me sorta paranoid, enough so to ask sean's pernambucano friend roberta if i should be worried about a mug-setup. the short verion of her explanation is no, and the anthropological lesson i learned from her is that northern brazilians aren't just forward, they totally reverse the order of courtship we have in the US: first they get to know each other's bodies, then they decide whether or not they like the person.
makes sense to me. brazil sure is different from the US though. i think tonight i experienced real culture shock for the first time in my life. i mean, this girl wants me so bad i thought she might be trying to rob me!
NEXT POST: david gets robbed.
WAWAWEEWA!!!!
good lord, i'm having too much fun here. After boa viagem, i went to maria farinha. gorgeous, gorgeous beach. that night i went into the old city to party. the bus dropped me of alone in a relatively bad neighborhood. bad like i was offered crack by some kid waving viles at me from across the street. I asked a cab driver if he knew about a bar i'd heard about and he told me that he didn't and would i like to go find it iwth him? uh...red lights flashing in my head, i quickly realized he was just a reasonably well kept homeles guy hanging out by a cab and quickly crossed the street. luckily, i met a super cool couple after i finally found the bar: irish guy married to a brazilian. suffice it to say we drank alot and got happy as larry.
the next day i decided on a whim to go find a beach i knew nothing about besides what a guide-to-beaches told me --sought out for diving-- and what Pedro (cool kid who worked at the hostel) knew. i left at around 11, which was a mistake because i was on the bus for three hours. i had to hoof it from the bus stop to the beach, touching sand at a neighboring beach about after about 30min. finally, exactly 4 hours after i got there, i rented a mask and went snorkeling. i was not dissapointed. in the space of an hour, i saw about 25 different kinds of fish ( il ost track around 21 or 22), crabs, snails, hermit crabs, sea urchins, shrimp, tons of diferent kinds of plants and alga and corals, a sea anemonae barnackle kinda thing that receded when i touched it (i almost wrote my name in the stuff).....lotta cool life. after wards i goofed around in tidal pools and ahd a victory snack on the naighboring beach Gaibu, where i took a picture of a kid doing a weelie on the sand. he thought i was crazy. well, i couldn't havce been any crazier than the kid on the bus (by bus i mean van with 20 people in it) who insisted on taking pictures of and filming me with his knew camera phone. i'm the subject of the first film he ever made! how cool is that!
that night was wild. i was supposed to meet pedro at the hostel then hit this party up in front of catedral da Sé, but he'd left as soon as he got work (7) and i didn't find him at the party. what i did find when i got to the HUGE party (8) was two cool spanish girls who i knew from the hostel. we drank and watched capoeira, then randomly met a local poor surf intructor named tiago. he taught us how to dance coco, a really simple looking stomp kinda dance that's surprisingly hard to get the hang of. the girls went to bed so they could wake up early, and tiago and i went on to the beach bars as the party migrated. there we drank, met his friend rodrigo who introduced us to two italians he'd met. after hanging out with them for awhile we continued on to find a chess board at the bar (how cool is that?).
interlude: northern brazilians are really forward, at least in terms of sexuality. i thought it was wierd that tiago kept trying to get girls attention by touching their hair, but then 2 girls passing by in the crowd casually caressed my face and told me they thoguht i was handsome (actually, they said some dirtier shit than that. still, too bad they were ugly).
now back to the bar. waiting for a chess game to open up, i saw a cute girl in the crowd. a few minutes later, her friend came up to me to tell me she thought i was cute and would i like to meet her. we only got to hang out cause she had to leave about 30min later, but how's this for forward: over the phone tonight she offered to take a bus at 10:30 (from boa viagem, where you're not even supposed to walk the streets at night) to come by, despite having stuff to do the next day. moreover, she casually suggested ditching work and school for a few days so we could rent a room at a nearby beach for a few nights. WILD.
here's how in shock i am: i have actually been entertaining thoughts that maybe, just maybe, she wants to mug me. i mean....DAMN!! another pernambucanan i talked to assured me that she's actually displaying fairly normal behavior for the area. still, my head is SPINNING.
the next day i decided on a whim to go find a beach i knew nothing about besides what a guide-to-beaches told me --sought out for diving-- and what Pedro (cool kid who worked at the hostel) knew. i left at around 11, which was a mistake because i was on the bus for three hours. i had to hoof it from the bus stop to the beach, touching sand at a neighboring beach about after about 30min. finally, exactly 4 hours after i got there, i rented a mask and went snorkeling. i was not dissapointed. in the space of an hour, i saw about 25 different kinds of fish ( il ost track around 21 or 22), crabs, snails, hermit crabs, sea urchins, shrimp, tons of diferent kinds of plants and alga and corals, a sea anemonae barnackle kinda thing that receded when i touched it (i almost wrote my name in the stuff).....lotta cool life. after wards i goofed around in tidal pools and ahd a victory snack on the naighboring beach Gaibu, where i took a picture of a kid doing a weelie on the sand. he thought i was crazy. well, i couldn't havce been any crazier than the kid on the bus (by bus i mean van with 20 people in it) who insisted on taking pictures of and filming me with his knew camera phone. i'm the subject of the first film he ever made! how cool is that!
that night was wild. i was supposed to meet pedro at the hostel then hit this party up in front of catedral da Sé, but he'd left as soon as he got work (7) and i didn't find him at the party. what i did find when i got to the HUGE party (8) was two cool spanish girls who i knew from the hostel. we drank and watched capoeira, then randomly met a local poor surf intructor named tiago. he taught us how to dance coco, a really simple looking stomp kinda dance that's surprisingly hard to get the hang of. the girls went to bed so they could wake up early, and tiago and i went on to the beach bars as the party migrated. there we drank, met his friend rodrigo who introduced us to two italians he'd met. after hanging out with them for awhile we continued on to find a chess board at the bar (how cool is that?).
interlude: northern brazilians are really forward, at least in terms of sexuality. i thought it was wierd that tiago kept trying to get girls attention by touching their hair, but then 2 girls passing by in the crowd casually caressed my face and told me they thoguht i was handsome (actually, they said some dirtier shit than that. still, too bad they were ugly).
now back to the bar. waiting for a chess game to open up, i saw a cute girl in the crowd. a few minutes later, her friend came up to me to tell me she thought i was cute and would i like to meet her. we only got to hang out cause she had to leave about 30min later, but how's this for forward: over the phone tonight she offered to take a bus at 10:30 (from boa viagem, where you're not even supposed to walk the streets at night) to come by, despite having stuff to do the next day. moreover, she casually suggested ditching work and school for a few days so we could rent a room at a nearby beach for a few nights. WILD.
here's how in shock i am: i have actually been entertaining thoughts that maybe, just maybe, she wants to mug me. i mean....DAMN!! another pernambucanan i talked to assured me that she's actually displaying fairly normal behavior for the area. still, my head is SPINNING.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Olinda
Recife is hot as hell. I am practically on the equator, and this area of brazil doesn't get much wind (it's actually cooler further north, i.e. on the equator, cause of the wind). The sun here is more intense than any sun i've ever been exposed to. You look up into the clear sk y, block the sun with your finger, and you can still see those incredible halo around it. when clouds pass under it, they almost always make sundogs. I hit the beach yesterday and it was almost unbearable. thank god for the free beach umbrellas set up and the easy access to beer.
i moved out of the hotel to a youth hostel in ol inda. it's much cooler here. the people staying here are awesome, the place ahs a hammocks and a kitchen, olinda is safe enough to walk around...much more my style. little further from the beaches though.
last night i went out with a good group of kids who are also tstaying here; in town for some kind of pharmaceutical conventions. we played this game that's like a cross between indian poker and 20 questions: everyone gets a four-letter word and puts the paper on their head. they ask the group questions to try to figure out their word. we played for like at least 2 hours.
oh man, we laughed so hard at the dumbest shit. at one point, one girl' word was her own name (rafa). she learned that her word is generally at her house, but not right now, was very close to her at the time...i almost died when she guessed the word as "you" (voce). so close, and yet so far. her word before that was "two " (dois), a word i'd given her, and she spent the first hour just trying to figure out what class her word belonged to.
another girl got the word "alive/live" (vivo). right off the bat i thought it was real hard, so i jokingly whispered to the girl who gave her the word "what happens when she asks 'is it alive?' " oh man, she overheard the question and was like, "Ok, it's alive!" and then started asking a bunch of different animals and shit...it was so bad. then someone told her it was a verb conjugated to the first person singular, and her train just jumped the tracks. she just let out a string of four le tter verbs. it was so sad.
another kid got laugh, and was told that it was a part of him, and his was big, but it's not part of your body.
...clearly , i had a lot of fun with these kids. we went out to a nearby bar afterwards and drank and ate and listened to music...real goo dbunch, i think they're leaving today or tomorrow. too bad, too bad.
i was getting bummed out about travelling alone, but i like the hostel situation. did i mention it's also super cheap here?
allright, i'mn gonna go shower. fucking heat man....
i moved out of the hotel to a youth hostel in ol inda. it's much cooler here. the people staying here are awesome, the place ahs a hammocks and a kitchen, olinda is safe enough to walk around...much more my style. little further from the beaches though.
last night i went out with a good group of kids who are also tstaying here; in town for some kind of pharmaceutical conventions. we played this game that's like a cross between indian poker and 20 questions: everyone gets a four-letter word and puts the paper on their head. they ask the group questions to try to figure out their word. we played for like at least 2 hours.
oh man, we laughed so hard at the dumbest shit. at one point, one girl' word was her own name (rafa). she learned that her word is generally at her house, but not right now, was very close to her at the time...i almost died when she guessed the word as "you" (voce). so close, and yet so far. her word before that was "two " (dois), a word i'd given her, and she spent the first hour just trying to figure out what class her word belonged to.
another girl got the word "alive/live" (vivo). right off the bat i thought it was real hard, so i jokingly whispered to the girl who gave her the word "what happens when she asks 'is it alive?' " oh man, she overheard the question and was like, "Ok, it's alive!" and then started asking a bunch of different animals and shit...it was so bad. then someone told her it was a verb conjugated to the first person singular, and her train just jumped the tracks. she just let out a string of four le tter verbs. it was so sad.
another kid got laugh, and was told that it was a part of him, and his was big, but it's not part of your body.
...clearly , i had a lot of fun with these kids. we went out to a nearby bar afterwards and drank and ate and listened to music...real goo dbunch, i think they're leaving today or tomorrow. too bad, too bad.
i was getting bummed out about travelling alone, but i like the hostel situation. did i mention it's also super cheap here?
allright, i'mn gonna go shower. fucking heat man....
Thursday, October 18, 2007
RECIFE
So i'm finally spending some of that money i've earned!
i'm in recife right now, way up north. i'm in my hotel instead of enjoying the nightlife cause the food is really heavy and it's apparently not safe to walk the streets anywhere.
right after i got here, i asked the front desk wher ei could get a nice meal cheap nearby, and they recommended a restaurant 3 blocks away, then arranged a ride for me. in fact, they insisted. the hotel made it sound like they were protecting me form the prostitutes. to their credit, the hoes are EVERYWHERE.
still, not being able to walk outside at night is pretty lame. i only picked this overp riced hotel cause the cabbie said it was in a safer enighborhood than the other one i was thinking of. what's the point of being in a safer neighborhood if you can't walk outside?
i'm in recife right now, way up north. i'm in my hotel instead of enjoying the nightlife cause the food is really heavy and it's apparently not safe to walk the streets anywhere.
right after i got here, i asked the front desk wher ei could get a nice meal cheap nearby, and they recommended a restaurant 3 blocks away, then arranged a ride for me. in fact, they insisted. the hotel made it sound like they were protecting me form the prostitutes. to their credit, the hoes are EVERYWHERE.
still, not being able to walk outside at night is pretty lame. i only picked this overp riced hotel cause the cabbie said it was in a safer enighborhood than the other one i was thinking of. what's the point of being in a safer neighborhood if you can't walk outside?
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Nina quer mais paginas en portugues na internet
e chato que não tem muitas coisas en portugues na internet, por que eu não sei ler ingles!!
quero aprender a ler ingles, não so para ler a internet. Eu gostaria de entrar en um escola de ingles, so quando eu ficar mais velha.
she didn't realy want to write any of this, i had to force it all out of her. but hey, now my nine year old cousin is published.
quero aprender a ler ingles, não so para ler a internet. Eu gostaria de entrar en um escola de ingles, so quando eu ficar mais velha.
she didn't realy want to write any of this, i had to force it all out of her. but hey, now my nine year old cousin is published.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
I am the greatest english teacher ever.
yesterday, i taught an english lesson to an advanced student using the following materials:
1) a page long essay summarizing Kuhns "Theory of Scientific Revolutions" using excerpts form the wikipedia article on the book
2) johnny cash - boy named sue
3) Kirpal - "you kicked my dog!" prank phone call
-->i brought the kuhn in as a response to a discussion we had last week about 'Heroes" where i started bashing the science of the show, particularly how they present evolution. we started talking about heroes again, and tangentially she started talking about indian accents. so, i showed her a good strong pakistani accent. she udnerstood the whole thing the first time around and laughed the whole way through.
With these materials and a hw review, the lesson lasted about 2 hours.
Also I'm reading John Krakuer's "Into the wild" with another student. After our little 'book club' lesson, we tag-teamed a piece about Pélé on the uncycloopedia (the browser froze so we lsot it before he posted)
I am like the best english teacher the world has ever seen. Fullbright scholars, kneel before me and my greatness!!
1) a page long essay summarizing Kuhns "Theory of Scientific Revolutions" using excerpts form the wikipedia article on the book
2) johnny cash - boy named sue
3) Kirpal - "you kicked my dog!" prank phone call
-->i brought the kuhn in as a response to a discussion we had last week about 'Heroes" where i started bashing the science of the show, particularly how they present evolution. we started talking about heroes again, and tangentially she started talking about indian accents. so, i showed her a good strong pakistani accent. she udnerstood the whole thing the first time around and laughed the whole way through.
With these materials and a hw review, the lesson lasted about 2 hours.
Also I'm reading John Krakuer's "Into the wild" with another student. After our little 'book club' lesson, we tag-teamed a piece about Pélé on the uncycloopedia (the browser froze so we lsot it before he posted)
I am like the best english teacher the world has ever seen. Fullbright scholars, kneel before me and my greatness!!
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Opus? Dei be Ridikulus!
This past weekend was a national holiday so i hit the beach with my family. they own a house on a small private beach directly between to very popular beach communities: Ubatuba and Caraguatatuba (awesome names, right?). the house is a part of a small, gated community composed entirely of houses. no resorts, no hotels, not tourists, no crime. just beach property.
On either side of the beach is a large hill. at the top of the northern hill is a huge church that was allegedly built by Ops Dei on the vatican's orders.
Immediately upon completion, the church was sold to an american company called "Sunrise Homes," that will turn it into a resort-hotel.
There are many, many reasons why this is fucked up, and I will outlien a few of them here. First, and most obvious, is that the property was built illegal (this whole diatribe is based on rumor by the way, but the story adds up). Builing resort properties on this beach is illegal according to local zoning. The first attempt to build the church did not pass, hence the papal orders. Brazil is a roman catholic country, so they do what rome tells em to and allowed the church.
moving right along, building a church means they don't have to pay taxes. in my opinion, if you build a dog house and then put a cat inside the day you finish, you didn't build a dog house. similarly, opus dei did not build a church, since no mass will ever be held inside (unless a rich couple decides to get married there). in my humble opinion, this constitutes tax evasion.
now here's the real kicker. Who funded this little operation? sure, the curch may line its pockets with similar enterprises, in which case old ivnestments just built up a new one, but think about this. A cathedral was being built in a poor, catholic, beach community. The build recieved the support of the people, who gave what meager donations they could to support the church, which is now being sold.
I feel that this is really fucked up. I plan to write a leter to the vatican, but shit, i've barely goten around to writing letters to my friends.
besides, when I sign the letter "MARX," they might disregard my opinion as a heathen.
On either side of the beach is a large hill. at the top of the northern hill is a huge church that was allegedly built by Ops Dei on the vatican's orders.
Immediately upon completion, the church was sold to an american company called "Sunrise Homes," that will turn it into a resort-hotel.
There are many, many reasons why this is fucked up, and I will outlien a few of them here. First, and most obvious, is that the property was built illegal (this whole diatribe is based on rumor by the way, but the story adds up). Builing resort properties on this beach is illegal according to local zoning. The first attempt to build the church did not pass, hence the papal orders. Brazil is a roman catholic country, so they do what rome tells em to and allowed the church.
moving right along, building a church means they don't have to pay taxes. in my opinion, if you build a dog house and then put a cat inside the day you finish, you didn't build a dog house. similarly, opus dei did not build a church, since no mass will ever be held inside (unless a rich couple decides to get married there). in my humble opinion, this constitutes tax evasion.
now here's the real kicker. Who funded this little operation? sure, the curch may line its pockets with similar enterprises, in which case old ivnestments just built up a new one, but think about this. A cathedral was being built in a poor, catholic, beach community. The build recieved the support of the people, who gave what meager donations they could to support the church, which is now being sold.
I feel that this is really fucked up. I plan to write a leter to the vatican, but shit, i've barely goten around to writing letters to my friends.
besides, when I sign the letter "MARX," they might disregard my opinion as a heathen.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Throw transportation down the well
if the sudden surge in posts isn't telling enough, i've had alot on my mind lately. i've also had more time on my hands. maybe the two are related.
i need to start working out my future a little bit. I just got out of a talk with ruth and david that started with me wondering with how i shold tender my earnings, and led inevitably to how long i plan to stick around, when and where i'm travelling, where i plan to go when i'm done here, and of course fillign me in on their travel plans so i can try and make mine coincide.
david causally pointed something out that is very important to consider. he told me that he was afraid for me (with respect to my travelling) because he recognized taht i am kind of spontaneous and like to act in the short term, whereas many of the things i wanna do really require liong term planning. at the time we weer talking about going to carnival in rio. i don't just need to figure out travel plans and junk, but i need to hook up with a samba school. before any of this hapens, i need to see if i can exchange my return ticket. if that happens, i need to put in for a leave extension from the rescue squad.
see, this is exactly whty i don't like making plans.
i asked david about a road trip we had done about 10 years ago (man time flies!). he mentinoed to me that the road we took wouldn't be a bad one for me to check out again, if i could rent a car. i started talkign about how road trips were my style and began to wax reminiscent about my x-coutnry trips in the US and sleeping in cars when david immediately jumped on me and said "if you sleep in your car, you WILL get mugged." i started laughing because his certainty was nuts. i wasn't laughing becuase i didn't believe him, but because this country is just so wierd like that.
anythign and everything you do, you are at a high risk of getting mugged in one form or another. jstu about all of my students, friends and family have been "assaultado" at one point or another, or even multiple times in a mroe than a few cases. one of my students told me about a time a biker snatched his glasses right off his face.
brazilians like to remind me how "violent" their coutnry is. as bad as the country is, unless michale moore lied to us, the US is MUCH more violent than brazil. here, sure, you are more likely to get mugged. big whoop. my glasses mysteriously disappeared on the bus, i got conned in rio, and some cops fucked with me. big whoop.
You want violent? let's talk to ex-DC mayor Marion Barry for a second: "Outside of the killings, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." nough said.
still, i don't udnerstand how sleeping in your car can be more dangerous than camping. locked doors oughta win the security contest over tent flaps, right? oh wait, no guns win.
i need to start working out my future a little bit. I just got out of a talk with ruth and david that started with me wondering with how i shold tender my earnings, and led inevitably to how long i plan to stick around, when and where i'm travelling, where i plan to go when i'm done here, and of course fillign me in on their travel plans so i can try and make mine coincide.
david causally pointed something out that is very important to consider. he told me that he was afraid for me (with respect to my travelling) because he recognized taht i am kind of spontaneous and like to act in the short term, whereas many of the things i wanna do really require liong term planning. at the time we weer talking about going to carnival in rio. i don't just need to figure out travel plans and junk, but i need to hook up with a samba school. before any of this hapens, i need to see if i can exchange my return ticket. if that happens, i need to put in for a leave extension from the rescue squad.
see, this is exactly whty i don't like making plans.
i asked david about a road trip we had done about 10 years ago (man time flies!). he mentinoed to me that the road we took wouldn't be a bad one for me to check out again, if i could rent a car. i started talkign about how road trips were my style and began to wax reminiscent about my x-coutnry trips in the US and sleeping in cars when david immediately jumped on me and said "if you sleep in your car, you WILL get mugged." i started laughing because his certainty was nuts. i wasn't laughing becuase i didn't believe him, but because this country is just so wierd like that.
anythign and everything you do, you are at a high risk of getting mugged in one form or another. jstu about all of my students, friends and family have been "assaultado" at one point or another, or even multiple times in a mroe than a few cases. one of my students told me about a time a biker snatched his glasses right off his face.
brazilians like to remind me how "violent" their coutnry is. as bad as the country is, unless michale moore lied to us, the US is MUCH more violent than brazil. here, sure, you are more likely to get mugged. big whoop. my glasses mysteriously disappeared on the bus, i got conned in rio, and some cops fucked with me. big whoop.
You want violent? let's talk to ex-DC mayor Marion Barry for a second: "Outside of the killings, DC has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." nough said.
still, i don't udnerstand how sleeping in your car can be more dangerous than camping. locked doors oughta win the security contest over tent flaps, right? oh wait, no guns win.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Latest steven spielberg travesty
Crimes against culture commited by Steven spielberg:
1) he "remastered" the star wars movies. once art is produced, leave it alone. Or for fucks sake, at least leave the original available. CG looks like crap next to the scenes with models and miniatures. Artists are never satisfied with their work...
2) he ruined A.I. by conitinuing the movie way after it should have ended. Cheap shot against Kubrick if you ask me: dude was dead and couldn't stop it.
3) he shot the star wars prequels. enough said. at least the third one satisfied what we ahd been waiting for. Too many new characters and politics and cg and general retardation in the first two...in general in fact. and he totally fucked up yoda.
Spielberg has performed yet anotehr sacriledge: to be released in 2008, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be the latest edition to the indiana jones TRILOGY. guess we can't call it that anymore. I mean, what the fuck is this, rocky? Indiana can't be old. it doesn't make sense. I thought harrison ford new better than to sell his soul like this.
I met spielbergs son max when i was at pitzer (kid goes to pomona). seemed nice enough. too bad his dad is a douche. I kinda pray someone kidnaps the kid and demands spielberg never sit behind an editing computer or within 200 yards of a respected actor as ransom. no offense max, but we have to save society from your dad.
if it HAS to be done, we should at least just let the raiders guys do it:
1) he "remastered" the star wars movies. once art is produced, leave it alone. Or for fucks sake, at least leave the original available. CG looks like crap next to the scenes with models and miniatures. Artists are never satisfied with their work...
2) he ruined A.I. by conitinuing the movie way after it should have ended. Cheap shot against Kubrick if you ask me: dude was dead and couldn't stop it.
3) he shot the star wars prequels. enough said. at least the third one satisfied what we ahd been waiting for. Too many new characters and politics and cg and general retardation in the first two...in general in fact. and he totally fucked up yoda.
Spielberg has performed yet anotehr sacriledge: to be released in 2008, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be the latest edition to the indiana jones TRILOGY. guess we can't call it that anymore. I mean, what the fuck is this, rocky? Indiana can't be old. it doesn't make sense. I thought harrison ford new better than to sell his soul like this.
I met spielbergs son max when i was at pitzer (kid goes to pomona). seemed nice enough. too bad his dad is a douche. I kinda pray someone kidnaps the kid and demands spielberg never sit behind an editing computer or within 200 yards of a respected actor as ransom. no offense max, but we have to save society from your dad.
if it HAS to be done, we should at least just let the raiders guys do it:
The State of the Union
Friends, Friends of friends, strangers who pass by my blog, distinguished readers. we meet here today by law and custom to consider the state of Dave's trip.
I am currently at something of a halway point. The original plan called for a five month trip, and we have recently reached the 2.5 month mark. Looking back on this trip, some of my intentions have been fulfilled, as have some of my fears.
I have spent lots of time with my family. I usual do not get to spend much time with my brazilian family, or even see them more than once every few years. this trip has provided me with an opportuntiy to get to know my family better, and even meet a few new members.
I have traveled. I have been to a variety of local beaches, a farm city in the interior and of course rio de janeiro. yet I have not traveled as often or nearly as far as I had originally planned.
I have worked. My recent pay days have resulted in a deficit of R$1152 from my agency and R$420 from one of my clients, with another R$640 expected form other clients. this equates to jsut over US$1000 spending money, rounding down deductions for food bus and cell (which has been a pretty shitty investment thus far). Hopefully, the bulk of this money will go to future travel, as that was the idea to begin with. I have recently learned that travel is more expensive than i thought, and most of the things i wanna do i should give more time to than i had planned, especailly for the price.
I have partied. I have met many cool people. but my party average has been stable at approximately one outing of note per week, far below the revelery originally planned for the trip, likewise the precedent set while Ben was in town. this problem at least can be easily remedied, and shall.
One of the fears I expressed early on was an uncertainty in my capacity to meet people without contacts my age, without taking classes, without co-workers. In the above described parties, I have met many cool locals, as planned. yet, my loneliness persists. I ahve always been comfortable in my own skin and have no problem entertaining myself on my own, but a few friends would be nice. The friends i've made seem like really cool people, but i haven't had the opportunity to hang out with anyone more than a handful of times which has been a dissapointment.
Clearly, this situation is complciated and will take some thought. there may be no solution readily available, short of befriending the homeless who do not have jobs or school to get in the way of hanging out. Not good drinking buddies though.
I am currently at something of a halway point. The original plan called for a five month trip, and we have recently reached the 2.5 month mark. Looking back on this trip, some of my intentions have been fulfilled, as have some of my fears.
I have spent lots of time with my family. I usual do not get to spend much time with my brazilian family, or even see them more than once every few years. this trip has provided me with an opportuntiy to get to know my family better, and even meet a few new members.
I have traveled. I have been to a variety of local beaches, a farm city in the interior and of course rio de janeiro. yet I have not traveled as often or nearly as far as I had originally planned.
I have worked. My recent pay days have resulted in a deficit of R$1152 from my agency and R$420 from one of my clients, with another R$640 expected form other clients. this equates to jsut over US$1000 spending money, rounding down deductions for food bus and cell (which has been a pretty shitty investment thus far). Hopefully, the bulk of this money will go to future travel, as that was the idea to begin with. I have recently learned that travel is more expensive than i thought, and most of the things i wanna do i should give more time to than i had planned, especailly for the price.
I have partied. I have met many cool people. but my party average has been stable at approximately one outing of note per week, far below the revelery originally planned for the trip, likewise the precedent set while Ben was in town. this problem at least can be easily remedied, and shall.
One of the fears I expressed early on was an uncertainty in my capacity to meet people without contacts my age, without taking classes, without co-workers. In the above described parties, I have met many cool locals, as planned. yet, my loneliness persists. I ahve always been comfortable in my own skin and have no problem entertaining myself on my own, but a few friends would be nice. The friends i've made seem like really cool people, but i haven't had the opportunity to hang out with anyone more than a handful of times which has been a dissapointment.
Clearly, this situation is complciated and will take some thought. there may be no solution readily available, short of befriending the homeless who do not have jobs or school to get in the way of hanging out. Not good drinking buddies though.
Mainly, what needs to be considered is the duration of the trip. The big question is, am i erally at a halfway point? i want to build stronger relationships. i want more money for travel. I want to travel more. I could do all of these thigns if i commit more time to this adventure.
the more time i spend in brazil though, the less time i ahve to spend elsewhere. Will i travel the world? will I travel latin america with ben?
Moreover, will i continue my education?
that's probably the biggest question of all. Med school has always been on the horizon, then i started thinking about grad school in philosophy. lately i've been entertaining thoughts about fidning a neurology program that would allow me to do philosophy of mind. the logner i wait, the harder it will be: my MCAT will expire.
i came down here largely to find myself, and the process has begun, but certainly has a way to go still. i need to start thinking about my next moves. i hate to think about the future in general, but at this point in my life/trip some planning is clearly necessary.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Entertaining myself
So this weeknd David and Ruth went to Ubatuba. I had already arranged with Paulo to have class on saturday to make up for one he missed; athis week had been busy for him, and he'd actually missed a few. normally, i wouldn't give classes on saturday, less in the morning, but he's my most loyal fan, so i bent for him. well, he canceleld on me at the last minute, no surprise, meaning i cuold sleep in! still, to late to go to ubatuba, whcih would've been cool.
i'm glad i didn't go though. i had a good weekend.
i sorta wasted my friday. i kept telling myself i was bored and that i would go out. well, 11pm rolled aroudn pretty fast and i spent all night in front of the tv. But that whole laziness jsut made me more stoked on saturday, cause I HAD to make up for my lost friday.
saturday i met up with nayara and some of her friends at an art exhibit in the city center. I got there n hour late cause i waited for a bus that never came. waiting for the bus i ran into a friend of Falvia's (my cousin), so i got on the bus with her and went to a neaqrby metro. the art exhibit wasn't my style (old religious carvings from the center of brazil), but i got there so late that we practically left right after i got there anyway. nayara's friends all bailed, so nayara and i wandered the city a little.
we checked out this beautfiul cathedral called Sé, where there jsut happened to be a police wedding going on, so it was kinda fun seeing the honor gaurd and hearing the police band. the cathedral had a huge organ that spanned the back of the cathedral, apparently only one of 4 or so of its kidn in the world!
afterwards we grabbed a quick bite to eat, then lazed towards the buses. on the way there, we passed a mall that was featuring a really really good beatles cover band, so we checked it out. a few weeks ago a local cover band (recognized as one of the best beatle cover badns in the world) set a world record playing throuhg the entire beatles repertoire front to back in one set; i think this was them. they even had the voices down, i was super impressed. still, i couldn't et over the fans. these people realy loved the beatles. it was wierd seeign so many people singing along in english, and it was great hearing heavy accents on certain words.
after a few songs, nayara had to get on her way so i walked her back to the buses. i decided to hit up a few friends and see if anyone could hang, so i called up basically everyone i could who wasn't family, only to find no one could hang out. everyone was either working or sick or had plans....it was crazy. so, i continued my little adventure. i went back to the beatles jam, heard em out till the end, then wandered the city center.
the city center is kind of...a shit hole. it's touristy during the day, but at night it's all goths, tramps and cheap porn vendors. don't ask me why, but there are tons of goth kids in são paulo. you'd think being a goth was hard enough with the alienation and teen angst and all that, but i mean, FUCK, these kids must be nuts to rock the black, heavy clothing and long hair in brazil. whatever. it's hot enough for me, anyway.
there wasn't anythign to do after the beatles quit, so after i'd satisfied myself wandering around, i jumped on the metro hoping to find a new bar to hang out at in villa madalena. i got off a metro stop early since my last experience at the villa madalena stop sucked (ben and i couldn't find any cool bars then got hassled byt he cops at gun point). i got some bad advice about a road to check out by the metro guy, so i kept on going and ended up back at the Ó Do Borogodo, a samba joint and realy enjoeyd a few weeks ago.
i got there about 2 hours before the music started, so i bought a beer, and started warming up, which was kinda lame cause i was there alone and they give you HUGE beers, meant to be worked at with groups of people. so i decided to invite myself over to a table occupied by two girls. When i asked if i could sit down, the cuter girl answered me "Disculpay, No fahla pour-two -gase." no fucking way. last time i was here, i met Georgiana and spent the whole night speaking english. saturday night, the first table i sit down at jsut happens to be the only english speakers in the joint.
One girl was from miami, the other form finland. they were nokia workers on a night out. not the most interesting conversationalists, but it was nice talking to another american who had been in the country about as long as me (of course, i speak portuguese and she don't, mwuahahaha). When ricardo arrived, i ditched em to say high.
I mentioned ricardo in passing a few posts back. I met ricardo at a feijoada Alex (flavias bf/fiancee/husband) brought me to a while ago. Ricardo, a professional musician, was the birthday girls bf. they're no longer together, but that's neither here nor there. Ricardo told me at that party that, yeah, he'd be totally down to trade english lessons for samba lessons, and we traded info. well, i never got back to the kid, and i wasn't going to let this chance slip by. I got his info, and we are def gonna do it.
ricardo plays the pandeiro (a kind of tamborine), and he plays a MEAN pandeiro. i was skeptical when i first saw thing, kind of wondering why he was the only percussive element in a badn with 3 string instruments and a flute/sax player. all i can say is that i am ready to leard from this guy; it sounded like he was playing 3 drums at the same time.
but yeah, the ó was fun as usual. met 2 cute jewish girls, Talita and her friend Ligia (super rare to meet jews outside of hebraica, i've been finding), and their friend Fernando. Talita was super cool, a psych major at PUC and a kidnergarten teacher at hebraica. def wana see her again. her friend was cool and really outclassed me as a dancer. i asked her for a lesson and she jsut kept giving me advice about trying to feel th usic...damn theater kids. their friend fernando was a good guy too, spent some time in canada an dpicked up a taste for football and hockey while there (i foudn someone to watch the super bowl with!!!!).
leaving the ó, i entered the twilight zone. Not only did the cab driver recognize me, he rememebred i was an english teacher, and the street i lived on. woah der. i hadn't been to the ó in at elast 2 weeks, maybe mroe; last time i visited was the ngith before i left for caconde, which was before rosh hashanah.....i mean, damn!
one of the worst parts about going out on my own is that i have no backup, no one to help me piece things together from the cryptic artifacts occasionally unearthed when seeding through the nights wreckage the morning after. sunday morning i was thumbing through my notebook and found what i thought was an email address for "fernanda - canada." WHO THE FUCK WAS FERNANDA?!?! I DON'T REMEMBER ANY FERNANDA??" i beat my head against the wall for about two hours before i put canada and hockey together, realized the 'a' was an 'o' and remembered who it was. super frustrating, not the first time, and far from the last. Hopefully i'll pull a system together to keep this sorta thing from happening, like taking notes wheni get emails or something.
whatever, i think i've been doing pretty well for myself on my own. there hasn't been a single night i've gone out on my own and found myself unable to meet a few new really cool people.
so sunday i slept in and decided to go check out a fair in liberdade, the asian district. the fair was cool and i wandered aroudn there basically all afternoon, and picked up some books that were on reserve for me at the bookstore.
I had bought a dvd of Child's play a few days before cause it was super cheap (packaged with the amityville horror, the two of them were less than $7!! and this was in a legitimate store!). i was decided from the hangover and all the walking, so i decided to just kick it with a beer and a pizza with the movie that night. well, the pizza took for ever and turned out to be a poorly choiced order, and i couldn't figure out how to get the dvd player to work, so that plan kidna went to hell, but it was nice vegging out in front of the tv anyway.
David and Ruth got back to find me half asleep on the couch, painfully trying to stay awake to watch the man in the iron mask (which was a dissapointment).
I slept alot, danced alot, met some new people, and even caught a few new sites. I'd say it was a pretty successful weekend.
i'm glad i didn't go though. i had a good weekend.
i sorta wasted my friday. i kept telling myself i was bored and that i would go out. well, 11pm rolled aroudn pretty fast and i spent all night in front of the tv. But that whole laziness jsut made me more stoked on saturday, cause I HAD to make up for my lost friday.
saturday i met up with nayara and some of her friends at an art exhibit in the city center. I got there n hour late cause i waited for a bus that never came. waiting for the bus i ran into a friend of Falvia's (my cousin), so i got on the bus with her and went to a neaqrby metro. the art exhibit wasn't my style (old religious carvings from the center of brazil), but i got there so late that we practically left right after i got there anyway. nayara's friends all bailed, so nayara and i wandered the city a little.
we checked out this beautfiul cathedral called Sé, where there jsut happened to be a police wedding going on, so it was kinda fun seeing the honor gaurd and hearing the police band. the cathedral had a huge organ that spanned the back of the cathedral, apparently only one of 4 or so of its kidn in the world!
afterwards we grabbed a quick bite to eat, then lazed towards the buses. on the way there, we passed a mall that was featuring a really really good beatles cover band, so we checked it out. a few weeks ago a local cover band (recognized as one of the best beatle cover badns in the world) set a world record playing throuhg the entire beatles repertoire front to back in one set; i think this was them. they even had the voices down, i was super impressed. still, i couldn't et over the fans. these people realy loved the beatles. it was wierd seeign so many people singing along in english, and it was great hearing heavy accents on certain words.
after a few songs, nayara had to get on her way so i walked her back to the buses. i decided to hit up a few friends and see if anyone could hang, so i called up basically everyone i could who wasn't family, only to find no one could hang out. everyone was either working or sick or had plans....it was crazy. so, i continued my little adventure. i went back to the beatles jam, heard em out till the end, then wandered the city center.
the city center is kind of...a shit hole. it's touristy during the day, but at night it's all goths, tramps and cheap porn vendors. don't ask me why, but there are tons of goth kids in são paulo. you'd think being a goth was hard enough with the alienation and teen angst and all that, but i mean, FUCK, these kids must be nuts to rock the black, heavy clothing and long hair in brazil. whatever. it's hot enough for me, anyway.
there wasn't anythign to do after the beatles quit, so after i'd satisfied myself wandering around, i jumped on the metro hoping to find a new bar to hang out at in villa madalena. i got off a metro stop early since my last experience at the villa madalena stop sucked (ben and i couldn't find any cool bars then got hassled byt he cops at gun point). i got some bad advice about a road to check out by the metro guy, so i kept on going and ended up back at the Ó Do Borogodo, a samba joint and realy enjoeyd a few weeks ago.
i got there about 2 hours before the music started, so i bought a beer, and started warming up, which was kinda lame cause i was there alone and they give you HUGE beers, meant to be worked at with groups of people. so i decided to invite myself over to a table occupied by two girls. When i asked if i could sit down, the cuter girl answered me "Disculpay, No fahla pour-two -gase." no fucking way. last time i was here, i met Georgiana and spent the whole night speaking english. saturday night, the first table i sit down at jsut happens to be the only english speakers in the joint.
One girl was from miami, the other form finland. they were nokia workers on a night out. not the most interesting conversationalists, but it was nice talking to another american who had been in the country about as long as me (of course, i speak portuguese and she don't, mwuahahaha). When ricardo arrived, i ditched em to say high.
I mentioned ricardo in passing a few posts back. I met ricardo at a feijoada Alex (flavias bf/fiancee/husband) brought me to a while ago. Ricardo, a professional musician, was the birthday girls bf. they're no longer together, but that's neither here nor there. Ricardo told me at that party that, yeah, he'd be totally down to trade english lessons for samba lessons, and we traded info. well, i never got back to the kid, and i wasn't going to let this chance slip by. I got his info, and we are def gonna do it.
ricardo plays the pandeiro (a kind of tamborine), and he plays a MEAN pandeiro. i was skeptical when i first saw thing, kind of wondering why he was the only percussive element in a badn with 3 string instruments and a flute/sax player. all i can say is that i am ready to leard from this guy; it sounded like he was playing 3 drums at the same time.
but yeah, the ó was fun as usual. met 2 cute jewish girls, Talita and her friend Ligia (super rare to meet jews outside of hebraica, i've been finding), and their friend Fernando. Talita was super cool, a psych major at PUC and a kidnergarten teacher at hebraica. def wana see her again. her friend was cool and really outclassed me as a dancer. i asked her for a lesson and she jsut kept giving me advice about trying to feel th usic...damn theater kids. their friend fernando was a good guy too, spent some time in canada an dpicked up a taste for football and hockey while there (i foudn someone to watch the super bowl with!!!!).
leaving the ó, i entered the twilight zone. Not only did the cab driver recognize me, he rememebred i was an english teacher, and the street i lived on. woah der. i hadn't been to the ó in at elast 2 weeks, maybe mroe; last time i visited was the ngith before i left for caconde, which was before rosh hashanah.....i mean, damn!
one of the worst parts about going out on my own is that i have no backup, no one to help me piece things together from the cryptic artifacts occasionally unearthed when seeding through the nights wreckage the morning after. sunday morning i was thumbing through my notebook and found what i thought was an email address for "fernanda - canada." WHO THE FUCK WAS FERNANDA?!?! I DON'T REMEMBER ANY FERNANDA??" i beat my head against the wall for about two hours before i put canada and hockey together, realized the 'a' was an 'o' and remembered who it was. super frustrating, not the first time, and far from the last. Hopefully i'll pull a system together to keep this sorta thing from happening, like taking notes wheni get emails or something.
whatever, i think i've been doing pretty well for myself on my own. there hasn't been a single night i've gone out on my own and found myself unable to meet a few new really cool people.
so sunday i slept in and decided to go check out a fair in liberdade, the asian district. the fair was cool and i wandered aroudn there basically all afternoon, and picked up some books that were on reserve for me at the bookstore.
I had bought a dvd of Child's play a few days before cause it was super cheap (packaged with the amityville horror, the two of them were less than $7!! and this was in a legitimate store!). i was decided from the hangover and all the walking, so i decided to just kick it with a beer and a pizza with the movie that night. well, the pizza took for ever and turned out to be a poorly choiced order, and i couldn't figure out how to get the dvd player to work, so that plan kidna went to hell, but it was nice vegging out in front of the tv anyway.
David and Ruth got back to find me half asleep on the couch, painfully trying to stay awake to watch the man in the iron mask (which was a dissapointment).
I slept alot, danced alot, met some new people, and even caught a few new sites. I'd say it was a pretty successful weekend.
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