So, in order to find out who all my true friends are I secretly put a hit counter here to count the number of times each of you revisited waiting for me to finally stinking update. Those of you who did not check the minimum number of times will never be talked to again.
Just kidding.
But finally I have found somewhere deep within me the motivation to write in here again. Somehow I just haven't been inspired to jot down my thoughts as I was inspired in Brazil. Maybe it's because this feels more like a normal life back in the states, with school and all. Who knows.
A lot has transpired since last time (well, obviously, it's been over a month), so buckle up, grab some trail mix, and say goodbye to family and friends, 'cause this could be a long one.
I last left off right before school started, no? Classes aren't too bad. I wanted four originally but got five. We study at Universidad Pablo de Olavide (UPO), which is a really hideous looking thing. For you Pitt people, let's just say that Posvar or Hillman might win beauty queen contests for their architecture. I might cry for joy when I see the Cathedral of Learning again. The place is set up in what could be a good format, perhaps. A central, two story, covered pathway leads down the middle with buildings hanging off the sides like ugly pastel ribs. The downstairs is open to the air and is obviously used for walking to classes, whereas the upper floor features many tables and air conditioning, for studying and eating purposes (although the WiFi up there gets pretty dodgy).
Anyway, my classes aren't too bad. They should be pretty easy, all things considered. Mondays/Wednesdays are the long ones, with four classes.
Things get started with international marketing. This class is taught by a Spaniard who prefers to be called Nano, and a lot of the class involves him rambling off on strange tangents tinged by his slightly off-kilter views of the world we live in. Women, you won't have babies until you're older than forty. People my age now will live to 130. Milk kills you (but his diet of beer doesn't). Soon, 80% of the US population will fall into the dependent category (as in non income earners), saving money and planning for the future is dumb. So is being in a relationship. Basically, I think that he is secretly a bit disappointed with how his life has turned out and sneaks those bizarre "recommendations" into his rants. This makes it hard to take anything he says seriously, and I've gone through many grains of salt listening to him talk.
Next up is Español de Negocios. This class isn't too bad and seems like it may be somewhat useful. Besides learning the common business lingo in Spanish, we also talk about other subjects such as CVs, the structure of Spanish companies, etc. The professor, Jaime, is a nice guy, too, without Nano's chip off his shoulder.
Then comes the European Union with Jonathan Pass, my first British prof. I find it quite enjoyable hearing the different idioms, sayings and whatnot that he uses, along with hearing tiny bits of their humor and opinions on the world thrown in. It's kind of surprising how many students in the class secretly complain and snicker about his accent, as well as display an inability to understand the random British English word or two thrown in his sentences. I mean, you need to be pretty sheltered from life if you don't know what a "john" or a "bloke" are. Geez. Sadly, this class is the fifth class, the one tacked on, and it won't eliminate a requirement back at Pitt, just give me credits. Although Español de Negocios is the same situation.
Next in my schedule comes lunch, at three in the afternoon. I head to the aforementioned upstairs hallway to meet some friends and partake of my bocadillo (basically, sandwich). Some people get these nice little sandwiches with lettuce, cheese, meat, and perhaps even a little bit of sauce of some sort. I get a loaf as long as my elbow to fingertips, with some olive oil and one of either meat or cheese. A good day includes both. Along with that I also get an apple and orange, typically. But it is what it is.
Then comes my final class of the day, the Global Economy, again with Jonathan. The class itself isn't bad, but coming at 4pm right after I ingest an alligator-size sandwich means it can be hard to focus.
Tuesdays/Thursdays see only one class grace my schedule, La Historia del Arte de España, with Rafa, the grad-student aged prof who likes throat beards. And statues/paintings about sexo and rape (Ganymede and Zeus, anyone?). Despite his strange choices for favorite works of art, the architecture parts of the class have been interesting so far, and I have learned a few things about the design or reason behind certain styles of painting or construction. We'll see how the whole project thing goes though. And his Spanish is much tougher to follow than Jaime; Rafa's a mutterer.
So that's about all my involvement with UPO.
Lemme also try to summarize up the various trips I've done, if I can remember them all.
There have been various little excursions around the south of Spain, mainly to see a lot of the Muslim/Mudejar (Christian built, borrowing Muslim elements) architecture around here. The cathedral in Sevilla and the mosque in Córdoba are two good examples (especially the mosque) of the mixing and reuse of architecture and purpose. In both cases, the building was a mosque before its conversion into a cathedral. In Córdoba's case, the mosque was built on a Visigoth church. In turn, when Córdoba was conquered, a cathedral was built smack dab in the middle. The mosque is filled with hundreds of arches and columns, all recycled from older buildings that were in the city prior to construction. So you're walking along with these relatively low ceilings, and then BOOM! You're suddenly in a cathedral. In Sevilla, the cathedral gives you a taste of architecture changes over time, varying from Gothic to Baroque, depending when parts were constructed. We also went to Granada to see La Alhambra, typically considered the must-see architectural piece in Spain, as well as the best example of Islamic and later mudejar construction. It is quite a stunning place, with very detailed interior work and exterior features (ceilings, walls, lettering, patterns, gardens, and much more).
We also went to Lagos for a weekend, to see the nice grottos and cliff beaches. Other than that it's really a tourist town. Plus the Portuguese there sounds awful compared to what I learned in São Paulo, although Old Worlders will say otherwise...
I'm sure there are things I've forgotten, and it's only my fault since I neglected to update for so long. I'll try a little better in the future. And perhaps someday I'll get pictures up to Picassa or Flickr, so non Facebookers and everyone can see them in their full glory. Who knows.
Until next time, and sooner than last........
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Three Continents, Two Weeks
Okay, so it's time to get back in the swing of this blogging thing. Like the internal rhyme? My two weeks in the USA were a bit hectic and weird. And happy and sad. And sunny and hot. I think I mentioned in the previous post, albeit briefly, how strange it felt to be back in my house of 20 years after spending the two and a half months in Brazil. The feeling that a part of me was missing and that my sojourn in Brazil almost didn't occur. Although I am kept busy by the hustle and bustle of orientation, tours, and learning a new everything here in Spain, at times I still have that feeling. Brazil certainly has not left me, even though I left it.
But enough of that. I don't want people to get teary eyed unless it results in them sending me money. So if you are predisposed to writing random checks, email me and I'll give you a super emotional entry that will make you want to clear out your bank account for me.
So, what has transpired here in Spain so far? Let's begin, shall we?
Everything commenced with my flight out of Philly. The flight departed on time, and I was treated to seeing a 777. I don't know if it was more comfy than the Delta 767 I took to Brazil (and somehow I had to go to the bathroom like twice on a six hour flight, but never on the 10 hour flight to Brazil), but British Airways does have a nice little touch to the headrests - tiny protrusions on the sides of your head so that when you doze off you're not flopping around like a flounder on shore. And it was pretty cool hearing all the flight attendants and captain speak in their nice British accents. The two hour layover at Heathrow was mostly spent getting to the other terminal, and the flight from London to Madrid was uneventful. I was in the window seat though, so I got a decent view of the ground. It's interesting to see the stark contrast between American and Spanish development of the land. In America, things go up pretty much wherever, taking on amoeba-like forms when viewed from above. Here, clumps of buildings in squares or rectangles are surrounded by a sea of dry, Mediterranean climate earth.
Barajas airport wasn't too hard to get around, although to get to your bags one must go up and down about ten billion escalators. I'm pretty sure that some famed architect designed the place; all of the ceilings are in this wavy pattern of wood and yellow-painted steel - visually entertaining, but it makes you feel like you are inside a mega log cabin erector set type thing...I dunno. While waiting at the designated API meeting point, I met some other students from the program who would then go on to be my travel companions and tolerators of my lame jokes.
We had three nights in Madrid, and those days were filled with a lot of stuff. Taking walking tours of the city, traveling to El Escorial, wandering around at night soaking up all the tapas bars, clubs, and the feel of a city and country that operate differently than our own. Let me say that tapas bars are probably the best invention since the other invention I claimed was the best invention since sliced bread. Cheap food in small portions that allows you to try many different local flavors. All good, as well.
Being surrounded by old buildings and tiny streets and everything made of stone is quite nice, and obviously a bit different than other cities I've visited, with perhaps the exception of Quebec (not to say that Madrid and Quebec have a ton of similarities). Of course, all this rock means that when the inevitable construction is underway, jackhammers and tons of noise are mandatory. And there is work going on everywhere, goodness.
Thursday morning we visited Toledo and walked around the city. It's also very old, with many many winding little streets where cars and people try to coexist in places where two people side by side with arms extended would just fit, maybe. Toledo is home to many cathedrals, some quite fascinating to look at.
Next up was the quite long and boring 6.5 hour bus ride to Sevilla. Upon arrival, my roommate Chris and I met our host mother, a nice but soft spoken woman of about sixty. She talks enough and tells stories, but much of the time it is ridiculously hard to hear her over random ambient noises (said construction, cars, loud voices in the street, etc) or the television, which plays pretty loudly during dinner and in general when here and her daughter are in the living/dining room. We are living in Triana, one of the older neighborhoods in the city and host to many hopping spots, including various flamenco clubs. We're also a block from the river, which is kind of nice. The apartment is older and, I suppose, somewhat traditional. One AC unit in the living room, small beds with not so soft mattresses and pillows. A small washing machine on the porch off the kitchen, which sits outside in the central courtyard where all the laundry lines of the various tenants hang, waiting for clothes. Tile floors in our bedroom. Windows with no screens, but large wooden slats that are pulled down or up to help regulate heat and light. There is a Chinese restaurant below us, two floors down, on the ground level, and a flamenco joint across the street. Two other students, from William and Mary, are also staying in the house. The daughter apparently works online (although I've only witnessed her on MSN messenger and Facebook).
Yesterday we went to a beach near Cádiz. It wasn't too different from a beach somewhere in the USA, really. The water was a nicer hue than the North Atlantic, though. And I managed to avoid melting my face off, though my back did get a little burnt.
Classes begin Wednesday, after a placement exam on Monday and orientation Tuesday. I'm sure I'll have much more to comment on once a more routine schedule picks up.
But enough of that. I don't want people to get teary eyed unless it results in them sending me money. So if you are predisposed to writing random checks, email me and I'll give you a super emotional entry that will make you want to clear out your bank account for me.
So, what has transpired here in Spain so far? Let's begin, shall we?
Everything commenced with my flight out of Philly. The flight departed on time, and I was treated to seeing a 777. I don't know if it was more comfy than the Delta 767 I took to Brazil (and somehow I had to go to the bathroom like twice on a six hour flight, but never on the 10 hour flight to Brazil), but British Airways does have a nice little touch to the headrests - tiny protrusions on the sides of your head so that when you doze off you're not flopping around like a flounder on shore. And it was pretty cool hearing all the flight attendants and captain speak in their nice British accents. The two hour layover at Heathrow was mostly spent getting to the other terminal, and the flight from London to Madrid was uneventful. I was in the window seat though, so I got a decent view of the ground. It's interesting to see the stark contrast between American and Spanish development of the land. In America, things go up pretty much wherever, taking on amoeba-like forms when viewed from above. Here, clumps of buildings in squares or rectangles are surrounded by a sea of dry, Mediterranean climate earth.
Barajas airport wasn't too hard to get around, although to get to your bags one must go up and down about ten billion escalators. I'm pretty sure that some famed architect designed the place; all of the ceilings are in this wavy pattern of wood and yellow-painted steel - visually entertaining, but it makes you feel like you are inside a mega log cabin erector set type thing...I dunno. While waiting at the designated API meeting point, I met some other students from the program who would then go on to be my travel companions and tolerators of my lame jokes.
We had three nights in Madrid, and those days were filled with a lot of stuff. Taking walking tours of the city, traveling to El Escorial, wandering around at night soaking up all the tapas bars, clubs, and the feel of a city and country that operate differently than our own. Let me say that tapas bars are probably the best invention since the other invention I claimed was the best invention since sliced bread. Cheap food in small portions that allows you to try many different local flavors. All good, as well.
Being surrounded by old buildings and tiny streets and everything made of stone is quite nice, and obviously a bit different than other cities I've visited, with perhaps the exception of Quebec (not to say that Madrid and Quebec have a ton of similarities). Of course, all this rock means that when the inevitable construction is underway, jackhammers and tons of noise are mandatory. And there is work going on everywhere, goodness.
Thursday morning we visited Toledo and walked around the city. It's also very old, with many many winding little streets where cars and people try to coexist in places where two people side by side with arms extended would just fit, maybe. Toledo is home to many cathedrals, some quite fascinating to look at.
Next up was the quite long and boring 6.5 hour bus ride to Sevilla. Upon arrival, my roommate Chris and I met our host mother, a nice but soft spoken woman of about sixty. She talks enough and tells stories, but much of the time it is ridiculously hard to hear her over random ambient noises (said construction, cars, loud voices in the street, etc) or the television, which plays pretty loudly during dinner and in general when here and her daughter are in the living/dining room. We are living in Triana, one of the older neighborhoods in the city and host to many hopping spots, including various flamenco clubs. We're also a block from the river, which is kind of nice. The apartment is older and, I suppose, somewhat traditional. One AC unit in the living room, small beds with not so soft mattresses and pillows. A small washing machine on the porch off the kitchen, which sits outside in the central courtyard where all the laundry lines of the various tenants hang, waiting for clothes. Tile floors in our bedroom. Windows with no screens, but large wooden slats that are pulled down or up to help regulate heat and light. There is a Chinese restaurant below us, two floors down, on the ground level, and a flamenco joint across the street. Two other students, from William and Mary, are also staying in the house. The daughter apparently works online (although I've only witnessed her on MSN messenger and Facebook).
Yesterday we went to a beach near Cádiz. It wasn't too different from a beach somewhere in the USA, really. The water was a nicer hue than the North Atlantic, though. And I managed to avoid melting my face off, though my back did get a little burnt.
Classes begin Wednesday, after a placement exam on Monday and orientation Tuesday. I'm sure I'll have much more to comment on once a more routine schedule picks up.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Intervalo
So, if you haven't guessed, I'm back here stateside. Hence the lack of new entries, and hence the brevity of this one.
Let me just say that returning from Brazil and being back in my family's house is the weirdest feeling. It's like Brazil was some extremely vivid dream, and it seems almost impossible to believe that mere days ago I had a completely different life, of sorts, thousands of miles away.
I am eager to see everyone and catch up on the summer I didn't have here in the US, and soon the realization that I'll be in Spain in under two weeks will also hit. Yet I would return to Brazil in a heartbeat, were it possible.
Ah, well, I'll stop this sentimental stuff. I bet it through all you sarcasm-watchers off a bit, right?
This next week and a half before I fly to Spain will be busy with a trip to secure my visa and the hassles and joys of moving things into the house in Pittsburgh, all laced with packing galore.
Until the next journey...
Let me just say that returning from Brazil and being back in my family's house is the weirdest feeling. It's like Brazil was some extremely vivid dream, and it seems almost impossible to believe that mere days ago I had a completely different life, of sorts, thousands of miles away.
I am eager to see everyone and catch up on the summer I didn't have here in the US, and soon the realization that I'll be in Spain in under two weeks will also hit. Yet I would return to Brazil in a heartbeat, were it possible.
Ah, well, I'll stop this sentimental stuff. I bet it through all you sarcasm-watchers off a bit, right?
This next week and a half before I fly to Spain will be busy with a trip to secure my visa and the hassles and joys of moving things into the house in Pittsburgh, all laced with packing galore.
Until the next journey...
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Twee Twee Hee Hee Hee
Rats...Since it's been two weeks since I last thought about thinking about what you're all probably thinking should go in my blog, I'm going to have to think. Two weeks is a lot to remember. I mean, normally right after a class I purge all the content from my mind, so to recall two weeks of life is like some sort of final exam. Speaking of one final exam, recall is harder than recognition, said my cognitive psych professor. I got that question right, if I recall correctly.
Okay, enough - I'm boring even my stoic old self.
After all the events of the last entry, I resumed work at AMCHAM. Similar stuff...although it's interesting to note that my boss there was probably at some times about two hundred feet away from you Pittsburgh subscribers near campus, while I remained here. It was tempting to ask her to carry a cardboard cut-out of my head around for the paparazzi, but I resisted the urge.
One of the days that week, I visited Wittel, a telecom company with headquarters in Rio and the office I saw in São Paulo. During that day, besides meeting various departments and aurally ingesting a million facts in Portuguese, I got to sit in on two meetings. Meetings are probably the best way to illustrate differences in business practices between cultures. The first was to renegotiate a deal for the price of something-or-another when someone-or-something orders whatchamacallit. And the next was to determine terms of a five million dollar deal. They asked my opinion once, about my perception of the difference between "upgrade" and "update" (Portuguese conveniently borrows these words from English). So that's how I left my mark on a Brazilian company! Ha. Obviously, it's very hard for a foreigner to pick out a lot of details from a fast-paced conversation. It's like playing that arcade game - you know, where the light spins around and you have to hit the button at the right time. Except these little lights represent all sorts of words and slang, and in this case, when I time it just right, instead of getting a mountain of tickets to buy some sticky ball prize, I merely gain a few words with which I have to infer what the heck the other 200 meant. But all in all it's still very enlightening.
[Quick note on those sticky flame balls: according to the website, they cannot be shipped or resold to NJ or IL due to state regulations. Now that's a government protecting its citizens!] Everyone at Wittel was very nice and open, and I enjoyed the fresh experience of a different business environment.
Another day that week I bought a newspaper, in Portuguese of course, to read while I lunched alone (don't worry, I was only alone for one lunch. In fact, normally I am too busy signing autographs to eat). Of course, I suppose it might be a tad ironic that all I read was the global business section, and even then just the articles about US business. But whatever, I felt more like a proper businessman, and it probably significantly reduced the large contingent of xenophobic birds that follow me chirping "extrangeiro! extrangeiro! twee twee hee hee hee!".
That weekend, I didn't do anything. People were still away with families or whatnot because of winter break, and pigs with bursting thermometers ran all around the south of Brazil as swine flu continued to take the news.
The next week, as in, the one ending now, I spent with Tallard. How is it that all the companies I'm visiting have such un-Brazilian names? Next week: Dixie Toga. Anyway, Tallard is a vendor of technology...the middleman in the food chain. They sell various hardwares and softwares, but no silverware. Okay, bad joke.
So, on the menu for this week was visiting the various departments to get a general sense of how things work. So I saw areas like marketing, IBM sales, support, supplier research, finance, etc. The structure is very similar to the equivalent type company in the USA (here's a fact to nibble: Tallard is actually headquartered in Miami, where the office apparently speaks Spanish nearly exclusively). But, to use yet another food analogy, the meat of the company isn't the setup; it's the people. Not to imply cannibalism. This week further demonstrated the differences in business conduct. I mean, sure, the bottom line is still money, but the way there takes a different road. I attended more meetings, including Tallard's annual business review with IBM, at IBM's Brazilian headquarters. The meeting was set for 10am, and due to end at noon. So, we arrived to the room around 10:10. Again, I could understand very little, most of the time, so I'm assuming that what I type was what was said. The meetings always start with small talk - about other matters, how business is going in general, non business stuff, all that jazz. The actual topic of the meeting, in this case the Power Point presentations of current affairs, are always eased into. I wanted to use the example of easing into a chair when you have a sunburn on your back, but it's not that slow, red, or painful. And no one else on Earth is cursed with my ability to incur the wrath of the sun. Contrast this to how a review Stateside would go, where not only would a 10:10 arrive receive icy eyes of death from the host, but business would commence almost before you know the names of people in the room.
Things aren't rigidly set, either. Instead of a point by point agenda to be followed, the various topics are discussed as they flow by. Oooh - another analogy. It's that magnet-in-the-fishes'-mouths-game, like at state fairs. You've got the fishing pole with the magnet at the end - the conversation, see? And the little fishes, the topics, bobbing around in the circular flow occasionally open their mouths and you pluck them out of the water. Sometimes they fall back in and you recover them later. And at the end, hopefully everyone wins that one goldfish out of the hundred that doesn't die before you get to your car.
Another difference is that everyone can be talking at the same time, to the same person or to different people, and details aren't missed and people aren't angry. Sometimes there were three conversations going on around me, all about different things and with different people, all at full volume. Speaking of full volume, the conversations might sound heated and somewhat angry, at times, to the uninformed, but instead it's because there is much more emotion throw into the way people talk. A "no" isn't the simple monotone answer like we give in English. Instead it could be a drawn out naaaaãaaaoooo with some changing pitch thrown in. I like it - it's much more entertaining. And I needed entertainment, since at the most passionate parts of the meeting, I could only make sense of some words. "Nós concordamos asddofjdflfdpo sdkjf sdfosdf que adsfoi fvldldo sdo quanto asdf yuyu sid odl maisqu discos lodfi csasixi somate ouid dnos que ele sdfser iosduf come loçoi sdoi awoiu quanto djosdiu mais dsf ois choverá." ...So, you are in agreement...that the more disks...that he eats....the more....it will rain? What?
Other times though, it wasn't so bad. Really, I could probably write an equation to calculate my level of understanding. Something like: my knowledge of the conversation is inversely proportional to the quantity of people involved in the convo multiplied by some factorial based on their current level of interest in the subject area, taken to the power of the number of cubic centimeters of cafezinho they just drank...and so on and so on. Red, if you're reading this, I need you to work out the math bits for me.
Another great thing about this company I visited was that all the people knew each other pretty well, even if they were in different departments. This added to the overall light and fluffy atmosphere around the office. Again this all adds support to my idea that the best part about Brazil is the people.
What else to say? I mean, I could talk in more detail about my week at Tallard, but at the moment I'm not feeling any connection to my inner sarcasm, so I don't want to keep beating a dead horse unless that horse will make people laugh in its postmortem state.
Oh, Pittsburgh visited me this week. It rained for five days straight, basically. Thanks, Pittsburgh. It's not like I missed your sunny side more.
Okay, enough - I'm boring even my stoic old self.
After all the events of the last entry, I resumed work at AMCHAM. Similar stuff...although it's interesting to note that my boss there was probably at some times about two hundred feet away from you Pittsburgh subscribers near campus, while I remained here. It was tempting to ask her to carry a cardboard cut-out of my head around for the paparazzi, but I resisted the urge.
One of the days that week, I visited Wittel, a telecom company with headquarters in Rio and the office I saw in São Paulo. During that day, besides meeting various departments and aurally ingesting a million facts in Portuguese, I got to sit in on two meetings. Meetings are probably the best way to illustrate differences in business practices between cultures. The first was to renegotiate a deal for the price of something-or-another when someone-or-something orders whatchamacallit. And the next was to determine terms of a five million dollar deal. They asked my opinion once, about my perception of the difference between "upgrade" and "update" (Portuguese conveniently borrows these words from English). So that's how I left my mark on a Brazilian company! Ha. Obviously, it's very hard for a foreigner to pick out a lot of details from a fast-paced conversation. It's like playing that arcade game - you know, where the light spins around and you have to hit the button at the right time. Except these little lights represent all sorts of words and slang, and in this case, when I time it just right, instead of getting a mountain of tickets to buy some sticky ball prize, I merely gain a few words with which I have to infer what the heck the other 200 meant. But all in all it's still very enlightening.
[Quick note on those sticky flame balls: according to the website, they cannot be shipped or resold to NJ or IL due to state regulations. Now that's a government protecting its citizens!] Everyone at Wittel was very nice and open, and I enjoyed the fresh experience of a different business environment.
Another day that week I bought a newspaper, in Portuguese of course, to read while I lunched alone (don't worry, I was only alone for one lunch. In fact, normally I am too busy signing autographs to eat). Of course, I suppose it might be a tad ironic that all I read was the global business section, and even then just the articles about US business. But whatever, I felt more like a proper businessman, and it probably significantly reduced the large contingent of xenophobic birds that follow me chirping "extrangeiro! extrangeiro! twee twee hee hee hee!".
That weekend, I didn't do anything. People were still away with families or whatnot because of winter break, and pigs with bursting thermometers ran all around the south of Brazil as swine flu continued to take the news.
The next week, as in, the one ending now, I spent with Tallard. How is it that all the companies I'm visiting have such un-Brazilian names? Next week: Dixie Toga. Anyway, Tallard is a vendor of technology...the middleman in the food chain. They sell various hardwares and softwares, but no silverware. Okay, bad joke.
So, on the menu for this week was visiting the various departments to get a general sense of how things work. So I saw areas like marketing, IBM sales, support, supplier research, finance, etc. The structure is very similar to the equivalent type company in the USA (here's a fact to nibble: Tallard is actually headquartered in Miami, where the office apparently speaks Spanish nearly exclusively). But, to use yet another food analogy, the meat of the company isn't the setup; it's the people. Not to imply cannibalism. This week further demonstrated the differences in business conduct. I mean, sure, the bottom line is still money, but the way there takes a different road. I attended more meetings, including Tallard's annual business review with IBM, at IBM's Brazilian headquarters. The meeting was set for 10am, and due to end at noon. So, we arrived to the room around 10:10. Again, I could understand very little, most of the time, so I'm assuming that what I type was what was said. The meetings always start with small talk - about other matters, how business is going in general, non business stuff, all that jazz. The actual topic of the meeting, in this case the Power Point presentations of current affairs, are always eased into. I wanted to use the example of easing into a chair when you have a sunburn on your back, but it's not that slow, red, or painful. And no one else on Earth is cursed with my ability to incur the wrath of the sun. Contrast this to how a review Stateside would go, where not only would a 10:10 arrive receive icy eyes of death from the host, but business would commence almost before you know the names of people in the room.
Things aren't rigidly set, either. Instead of a point by point agenda to be followed, the various topics are discussed as they flow by. Oooh - another analogy. It's that magnet-in-the-fishes'-mouths-game, like at state fairs. You've got the fishing pole with the magnet at the end - the conversation, see? And the little fishes, the topics, bobbing around in the circular flow occasionally open their mouths and you pluck them out of the water. Sometimes they fall back in and you recover them later. And at the end, hopefully everyone wins that one goldfish out of the hundred that doesn't die before you get to your car.
Another difference is that everyone can be talking at the same time, to the same person or to different people, and details aren't missed and people aren't angry. Sometimes there were three conversations going on around me, all about different things and with different people, all at full volume. Speaking of full volume, the conversations might sound heated and somewhat angry, at times, to the uninformed, but instead it's because there is much more emotion throw into the way people talk. A "no" isn't the simple monotone answer like we give in English. Instead it could be a drawn out naaaaãaaaoooo with some changing pitch thrown in. I like it - it's much more entertaining. And I needed entertainment, since at the most passionate parts of the meeting, I could only make sense of some words. "Nós concordamos asddofjdflfdpo sdkjf sdfosdf que adsfoi fvldldo sdo quanto asdf yuyu sid odl maisqu discos lodfi csasixi somate ouid dnos que ele sdfser iosduf come loçoi sdoi awoiu quanto djosdiu mais dsf ois choverá." ...So, you are in agreement...that the more disks...that he eats....the more....it will rain? What?
Other times though, it wasn't so bad. Really, I could probably write an equation to calculate my level of understanding. Something like: my knowledge of the conversation is inversely proportional to the quantity of people involved in the convo multiplied by some factorial based on their current level of interest in the subject area, taken to the power of the number of cubic centimeters of cafezinho they just drank...and so on and so on. Red, if you're reading this, I need you to work out the math bits for me.
Another great thing about this company I visited was that all the people knew each other pretty well, even if they were in different departments. This added to the overall light and fluffy atmosphere around the office. Again this all adds support to my idea that the best part about Brazil is the people.
What else to say? I mean, I could talk in more detail about my week at Tallard, but at the moment I'm not feeling any connection to my inner sarcasm, so I don't want to keep beating a dead horse unless that horse will make people laugh in its postmortem state.
Oh, Pittsburgh visited me this week. It rained for five days straight, basically. Thanks, Pittsburgh. It's not like I missed your sunny side more.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Happy News Nonsense
Hello world. Hello sunshine. Hello happiness.
I received minute criticism, of sorts, for my apparently negative previous post. Contrary to what it might appear, everything is peachy. But let me introduce you all to something called the News Media Effect (my name): no one wants to read happy, positive news. I mean, think about it, the news networks discuss what will draw viewers, so why shouldn't I? Here, let's test out my theory with some happy stuff:
Today, I woke up after hitting snooze only three times! A record. There was sunshine on Friday. Yesterday's dinner of small, lightly-fried beef steaks was delish.
Look! You're falling asleep already! I bet my readership was just cut in half, to one. You see, I could ramble on and on about how two of the pillows on my bed are nice and soft, or how I saw a yellow, plump little woodpecker-like bird outside my window on Saturday, or how the bus driver this morning looked kind-of like Barack Obama...but no one cares. Instead, people want to read that now, instead of Michael Jackson's doctor poisoning him, aliens actually stole his soul so they could replicate the Eighties, or that I have swine flu (which I don't). Just by typing those words, those billions of little Google spiders are going to discover that content and pretty soon I'll have millions of hits to this site.
But don't worry. Things are good. Work's not bad (although I could still use a window...I mean, I've only got one month left to look out of an office window and see palm trees). But let's try a tiny bit of this happy news nonsense.
It's been cool to see my improvement over the last month and a half in speaking and understanding the language. Recall back to one of my first posts, when I mentioned that first lunch I had with the Portuguese professor and how I was as talkative as a wall. Compare that to the last day of the class before winter break, where I could talk with him and classmates rather freely. Picking out words in rapid conversations between native speakers is slowly becoming easier, too, and it's a good feeling when one has an "a-ha!"moment upon finally realizing what a certain sentence or phrase means. This, of course, does not mean I'm fluent; there are still moments when I am as effective in understanding or communicating as a five year old, but all in all I'm pleased with the progress I'm making. Of course, the real challenge will be to avoid losing the language skills once I cease using it every day. That, and my Spanish for the first week or so in Spain will be a horrendous mash-up of the two languages. I can't even think or read in Spanish without pronouncing or using a Portuguese word every other sentence. But I guess that's a good sign, because when I arrived my problem was the opposite.
Hmm. Ooh. So one night I was watching that X-Files: I Want to Believe nonsense (actually, it's not nearly as far-fetched as the TV show) at about 11 o'clock. The house is quiet, I'm slumped peacefully on the couch, with the cat Manuel laying there on the cushion. Everything is nice, peaceful, etc, save for a little wind and rain outside. Suddenly, little Manuel jolts out of his sleep and sits straight up, ears perked and eyes looking out of the TV room. Not one second later, the power goes out. He stays alert, peering out into the rest of the house, as though something is there. After about thirty seconds or so, the power comes back, but he's still looking around. About 10 minutes later, Carol, the professor's oldest daughter, comes down to ask me if my window is locked, because open windows are an invitation for burglary (which is uncommon in the housing complex, but not unheard of). Of course my window was locked, and there was no incident of any sort, but it was all a very bizarre and coincidental set of events. That, or the cable packages down here include interactive TV to enhance the movies.
Another positive - I haven't run into any more talkative janitors in the bathroom, but last week there were two guys speaking English. Ah, such foreigners...
This past weekend, I went out with some friends. Being that Morumbi is so far removed from a lot of things in the city (although, São Paulo is so big that technically every part is so far from a lot of things), I had to take a bus at 10 at night and another, to return home, at 5:30. In Pittsburgh, yeah, whatever. Easy. But here in SP everyone hypes up nighttime buses to be hotbeds of crime and death. Alright, not quite that, but I had enough people warn me to be careful in the streets and bus stops. But actually, it was quite simple and trouble free. I had nary an evil eye nor a mugging for all my cash and gold tooth fillings (of which I fortunately have none. Do people even steal those?). I place my success and safety solely on my beard, which makes me look rugged and dangerous. Kind-of like the Brawny guy if he had a beard, except instead of selling the competitor to the Quilted-Quicker-Picker-Upper, I sell iron punches and lightning-fast drop kicks. So back off. The biggest risk on the ride home was me falling asleep in the very rear middle seat, open to the aisle, and flying out of it when the bus stopped. Although walking to the bus stop the night before, I was honked at and screamed at by a little car full of guys. I'm not sure what that was about. Maybe they thought I'd give out free paper towels.
For breakfast that morning, we ate at this chain called Black Dog, which sells hot dogs (say it like hotchi doggis). Except these aren't the lame, American dogs, oh no. These dogs are manly. Or, at least my Original dog was. They take a hot dog bun bread, except larger, and wrap it around two hot dogs, mashed potatoes, cheese, corn, and onion, then put it in a press just like everyone's favorite health food, the Grilled Stuft Burrito. It was an incredible, and edible, hot dog experience.
It's nuts how many bars, cafés, and lanches (basically somewhere between a café and restaurant) are packed full of people at five in the morning.
Besides my language skills improving, so have my bus riding skills. Americans don't really have to learn this ability; maybe that's why so many of our children are out of shape and wearing über-strong eyeglasses. You see, to effectively survive a bus, one needs a combination of strength, endurance, and lightning fast eagle eyes.
My ride home starts on a relatively unfilled bus, meaning that just about every seat is taken. But okay, no worries, the aisle is open, one can still breath, etc, etc. 20 minutes later, whoah, it's another story. There are these capacity limits posted at the front of the bus, but I seriously doubt the drivers know those limits exist. By the time my bus passes Shopping Morumbi, every last inch of space is filled. It's ridiculous. So, about 10-15 minutes before my stop (the first of two stops - I catch two buses home) I have to force my way up and out of my seat, and then begin the process of moving toward the door. Obviously the strength is needed to wedge your way through the bodies, and I recommend taking calcium supplements so the ribcage can withstand extreme pressures. The eyesight comes into play as people slowly shift: you've got to be vigilant and ready to make a move at any second. When a gap opens, I quickly turn sideways and throw myself between people and then squirm out the other side. Repeat, repeat, repeat. All this while the manual bus rockets around curves and slams on the brakes before each stop. Port Authority of Allegheny County? Child's play.
That's all for now; go eat a cow (unless you're vegetarian - then you must eat whatever plant rhymes with now).
I received minute criticism, of sorts, for my apparently negative previous post. Contrary to what it might appear, everything is peachy. But let me introduce you all to something called the News Media Effect (my name): no one wants to read happy, positive news. I mean, think about it, the news networks discuss what will draw viewers, so why shouldn't I? Here, let's test out my theory with some happy stuff:
Today, I woke up after hitting snooze only three times! A record. There was sunshine on Friday. Yesterday's dinner of small, lightly-fried beef steaks was delish.
Look! You're falling asleep already! I bet my readership was just cut in half, to one. You see, I could ramble on and on about how two of the pillows on my bed are nice and soft, or how I saw a yellow, plump little woodpecker-like bird outside my window on Saturday, or how the bus driver this morning looked kind-of like Barack Obama...but no one cares. Instead, people want to read that now, instead of Michael Jackson's doctor poisoning him, aliens actually stole his soul so they could replicate the Eighties, or that I have swine flu (which I don't). Just by typing those words, those billions of little Google spiders are going to discover that content and pretty soon I'll have millions of hits to this site.
But don't worry. Things are good. Work's not bad (although I could still use a window...I mean, I've only got one month left to look out of an office window and see palm trees). But let's try a tiny bit of this happy news nonsense.
It's been cool to see my improvement over the last month and a half in speaking and understanding the language. Recall back to one of my first posts, when I mentioned that first lunch I had with the Portuguese professor and how I was as talkative as a wall. Compare that to the last day of the class before winter break, where I could talk with him and classmates rather freely. Picking out words in rapid conversations between native speakers is slowly becoming easier, too, and it's a good feeling when one has an "a-ha!"moment upon finally realizing what a certain sentence or phrase means. This, of course, does not mean I'm fluent; there are still moments when I am as effective in understanding or communicating as a five year old, but all in all I'm pleased with the progress I'm making. Of course, the real challenge will be to avoid losing the language skills once I cease using it every day. That, and my Spanish for the first week or so in Spain will be a horrendous mash-up of the two languages. I can't even think or read in Spanish without pronouncing or using a Portuguese word every other sentence. But I guess that's a good sign, because when I arrived my problem was the opposite.
Hmm. Ooh. So one night I was watching that X-Files: I Want to Believe nonsense (actually, it's not nearly as far-fetched as the TV show) at about 11 o'clock. The house is quiet, I'm slumped peacefully on the couch, with the cat Manuel laying there on the cushion. Everything is nice, peaceful, etc, save for a little wind and rain outside. Suddenly, little Manuel jolts out of his sleep and sits straight up, ears perked and eyes looking out of the TV room. Not one second later, the power goes out. He stays alert, peering out into the rest of the house, as though something is there. After about thirty seconds or so, the power comes back, but he's still looking around. About 10 minutes later, Carol, the professor's oldest daughter, comes down to ask me if my window is locked, because open windows are an invitation for burglary (which is uncommon in the housing complex, but not unheard of). Of course my window was locked, and there was no incident of any sort, but it was all a very bizarre and coincidental set of events. That, or the cable packages down here include interactive TV to enhance the movies.
Another positive - I haven't run into any more talkative janitors in the bathroom, but last week there were two guys speaking English. Ah, such foreigners...
This past weekend, I went out with some friends. Being that Morumbi is so far removed from a lot of things in the city (although, São Paulo is so big that technically every part is so far from a lot of things), I had to take a bus at 10 at night and another, to return home, at 5:30. In Pittsburgh, yeah, whatever. Easy. But here in SP everyone hypes up nighttime buses to be hotbeds of crime and death. Alright, not quite that, but I had enough people warn me to be careful in the streets and bus stops. But actually, it was quite simple and trouble free. I had nary an evil eye nor a mugging for all my cash and gold tooth fillings (of which I fortunately have none. Do people even steal those?). I place my success and safety solely on my beard, which makes me look rugged and dangerous. Kind-of like the Brawny guy if he had a beard, except instead of selling the competitor to the Quilted-Quicker-Picker-Upper, I sell iron punches and lightning-fast drop kicks. So back off. The biggest risk on the ride home was me falling asleep in the very rear middle seat, open to the aisle, and flying out of it when the bus stopped. Although walking to the bus stop the night before, I was honked at and screamed at by a little car full of guys. I'm not sure what that was about. Maybe they thought I'd give out free paper towels.
For breakfast that morning, we ate at this chain called Black Dog, which sells hot dogs (say it like hotchi doggis). Except these aren't the lame, American dogs, oh no. These dogs are manly. Or, at least my Original dog was. They take a hot dog bun bread, except larger, and wrap it around two hot dogs, mashed potatoes, cheese, corn, and onion, then put it in a press just like everyone's favorite health food, the Grilled Stuft Burrito. It was an incredible, and edible, hot dog experience.
It's nuts how many bars, cafés, and lanches (basically somewhere between a café and restaurant) are packed full of people at five in the morning.
Besides my language skills improving, so have my bus riding skills. Americans don't really have to learn this ability; maybe that's why so many of our children are out of shape and wearing über-strong eyeglasses. You see, to effectively survive a bus, one needs a combination of strength, endurance, and lightning fast eagle eyes.
My ride home starts on a relatively unfilled bus, meaning that just about every seat is taken. But okay, no worries, the aisle is open, one can still breath, etc, etc. 20 minutes later, whoah, it's another story. There are these capacity limits posted at the front of the bus, but I seriously doubt the drivers know those limits exist. By the time my bus passes Shopping Morumbi, every last inch of space is filled. It's ridiculous. So, about 10-15 minutes before my stop (the first of two stops - I catch two buses home) I have to force my way up and out of my seat, and then begin the process of moving toward the door. Obviously the strength is needed to wedge your way through the bodies, and I recommend taking calcium supplements so the ribcage can withstand extreme pressures. The eyesight comes into play as people slowly shift: you've got to be vigilant and ready to make a move at any second. When a gap opens, I quickly turn sideways and throw myself between people and then squirm out the other side. Repeat, repeat, repeat. All this while the manual bus rockets around curves and slams on the brakes before each stop. Port Authority of Allegheny County? Child's play.
That's all for now; go eat a cow (unless you're vegetarian - then you must eat whatever plant rhymes with now).
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Yes, It's Nice Weather, But Now I Must Escape
For those of you thinking that my absence from my regularly-scheduled weekly posts was due to traveling to some exotic locale where parrots deliver you coconuts to drink from (parrots, due to their greater strength and larger size than both African and European swallows, are likely quite adept at gripping coconuts by the husk. But I think they're non-migratory...), you'd be wrong. I didn't write because there wasn't much to write. Although now I figure that some blogger.com server in a warehouse in CA is getting worried about my disappearance, so I'll talk a little.
When I last left off, I was working in the equivalent of the provost's office, creating a new set of rules for how content is published to Mackenzie's website. Yeah, it's not very exciting. But on the bright side, when you're important enough to be on the 8th floor of the admin building, plates of fruit and cups of coffee get brought to your desk where you sit growing fatter because you can't burn the 30 calories to get the stuff yourself. But I don't mind - the fruits were good.
The next week (as in, last week) I was in the international office, translating stuff from Portuguese to English, among other tasks. Imagine - you struggle to speak the language and have only tried to do so for one month, yet now you are reading a 10 page report in Portuguese and are trusted to write a summary about it in Portuguese for some staff journal. I only hope they don't include my name and address with my work; the last thing I want is someone associating 5th grade grammar mistakes with a college student. In my defense, reading and writing is infinitely easier than listening and speaking, so I don't think I made a fool of myself.
This past week I began work at The University of Pittsburgh's office in the American Chamber of Commerce building (AMCHAM). I had imagined AMCHAM as a large, grandiose structure; a picture on the Pitt São Paulo webpage showed a giant entry room with chandeliers and such. Now I realize that was the picture of the inside of a Hilton. Hmph. AMCHAM is, in fact, a somewhat underwhelming building, at least when one initially imagines a chamber of commerce from the world's most powerful nation that is located in one of the world's largest cities. Just two stories with offices and conference rooms, though, is nothing special. And no one brings me coffee! I have to walk across the room to get it - the injustice!
Here, my work isn't very thrilling. Again. Right now, I look at spreadsheets of alumni, update spreadsheets of alumni, look at spreadsheets of companies, update spreadsheets of companies, and email alumni to remind them to update their information so I can update spreadsheets. So...yeah. I wish it were Excel 2007 and that the computer weren't so old. I also wish there was a window, so I could look at the happy faces of pedestrians as they enjoy sunshine and their corneas aren't scorched by rows of names, numbers, and addresses.
And every time I go to the bathroom there, I hope that it's empty. Not for any weird reasons. But this one time, I was washing my hands, and one of the janitors came in. He looked like a nice guy, mid-to-late 40s, with a beaming smile. That smile meant that he wanted to talk. Oh no. He started on about how nice today's weather was. I got about 10 of the 40 words, something about beautiful sunshine and whatnot. Okay. I smiled and nodded, added a quite sim or two, and hoped he would go about his work. No. Paragraph two. This time, I understood absolutely nothing. But after he finished, he smiled and laughed again, so I smiled and offered him a slight chuckle, hoping that would appease whatever desire he had for human contact at that moment. No. Paragraph three. Yep, may as well have been spoken in Urdu. Now I was really concocting my exit strategy. As he talked, I walked over to the paper towels and grabbed a couple. In an effort to disguise my inability to respond coherently to anything he said, I pretended I was extremely concentrated on drying my hands. You know, when someone talks to you and you want them to go away, you always start fiddling with something like if you don't the world will end. Let me say that my hands were super dry. I smiled politely at him, didn't make eye contact (I didn't want to know if he expected my response), and left the bathroom. Close call. That guys foreign-o-meter was just about to go off.
On the bright side of all this, today begins another four day weekend. I could get used to having some random holiday every couple of Thursdays, which provides a great reason not to work on Friday. Sadly, I cannot accompany my Samsung-ee friends on their travels to the beautiful northeast of Brazil, Maceió, because a round trip plane ticket would require me to drop a little over $500...which is more than my round trip from the USA cost. I am a college student, and I haven't yet received my first paycheck, so therefore I do not feel like losing two-thirds of my current bank account balance. Which is sad, because the photos look scrumptious. Also, my happiness was slightly dampened yesterday when I realized that the soles of my faithful brown casual shoes are full of cracks. Cheap rubber. Or maybe they have a self-destruct clause when crossing the Equator, to prevent patent infringement or something.
What else?
People love their dogs here, wow. Last weekend I went to a park nearby, and that place was chocked full of 'em. It was ridiculous. When walking on sidewalks near houses, one spends more time watching their feet than looking up.
Also, this week I started using a new bus route, obviously, since I'm working at a different location. It's a full-size bus...but manual. Manual! Who in their right mind would think it's a good idea to drive a manual bus? Maybe it was drawn up as a scheme for population control. It seems like it'd be exceedingly easy to die when the driver throws it around between gears, especially on a cobblestone street. Goodness. And apparently bus stops here can also be marked by a wooden pole painted two colors, nothing more. I did not know this.
Throughout this past week or two, I remembered various other random insights that I wanted to write here: sights and sounds, cultural observations, the road to El Dorado; but now I can't think of any of that. Oh well.
When I last left off, I was working in the equivalent of the provost's office, creating a new set of rules for how content is published to Mackenzie's website. Yeah, it's not very exciting. But on the bright side, when you're important enough to be on the 8th floor of the admin building, plates of fruit and cups of coffee get brought to your desk where you sit growing fatter because you can't burn the 30 calories to get the stuff yourself. But I don't mind - the fruits were good.
The next week (as in, last week) I was in the international office, translating stuff from Portuguese to English, among other tasks. Imagine - you struggle to speak the language and have only tried to do so for one month, yet now you are reading a 10 page report in Portuguese and are trusted to write a summary about it in Portuguese for some staff journal. I only hope they don't include my name and address with my work; the last thing I want is someone associating 5th grade grammar mistakes with a college student. In my defense, reading and writing is infinitely easier than listening and speaking, so I don't think I made a fool of myself.
This past week I began work at The University of Pittsburgh's office in the American Chamber of Commerce building (AMCHAM). I had imagined AMCHAM as a large, grandiose structure; a picture on the Pitt São Paulo webpage showed a giant entry room with chandeliers and such. Now I realize that was the picture of the inside of a Hilton. Hmph. AMCHAM is, in fact, a somewhat underwhelming building, at least when one initially imagines a chamber of commerce from the world's most powerful nation that is located in one of the world's largest cities. Just two stories with offices and conference rooms, though, is nothing special. And no one brings me coffee! I have to walk across the room to get it - the injustice!
Here, my work isn't very thrilling. Again. Right now, I look at spreadsheets of alumni, update spreadsheets of alumni, look at spreadsheets of companies, update spreadsheets of companies, and email alumni to remind them to update their information so I can update spreadsheets. So...yeah. I wish it were Excel 2007 and that the computer weren't so old. I also wish there was a window, so I could look at the happy faces of pedestrians as they enjoy sunshine and their corneas aren't scorched by rows of names, numbers, and addresses.
And every time I go to the bathroom there, I hope that it's empty. Not for any weird reasons. But this one time, I was washing my hands, and one of the janitors came in. He looked like a nice guy, mid-to-late 40s, with a beaming smile. That smile meant that he wanted to talk. Oh no. He started on about how nice today's weather was. I got about 10 of the 40 words, something about beautiful sunshine and whatnot. Okay. I smiled and nodded, added a quite sim or two, and hoped he would go about his work. No. Paragraph two. This time, I understood absolutely nothing. But after he finished, he smiled and laughed again, so I smiled and offered him a slight chuckle, hoping that would appease whatever desire he had for human contact at that moment. No. Paragraph three. Yep, may as well have been spoken in Urdu. Now I was really concocting my exit strategy. As he talked, I walked over to the paper towels and grabbed a couple. In an effort to disguise my inability to respond coherently to anything he said, I pretended I was extremely concentrated on drying my hands. You know, when someone talks to you and you want them to go away, you always start fiddling with something like if you don't the world will end. Let me say that my hands were super dry. I smiled politely at him, didn't make eye contact (I didn't want to know if he expected my response), and left the bathroom. Close call. That guys foreign-o-meter was just about to go off.
On the bright side of all this, today begins another four day weekend. I could get used to having some random holiday every couple of Thursdays, which provides a great reason not to work on Friday. Sadly, I cannot accompany my Samsung-ee friends on their travels to the beautiful northeast of Brazil, Maceió, because a round trip plane ticket would require me to drop a little over $500...which is more than my round trip from the USA cost. I am a college student, and I haven't yet received my first paycheck, so therefore I do not feel like losing two-thirds of my current bank account balance. Which is sad, because the photos look scrumptious. Also, my happiness was slightly dampened yesterday when I realized that the soles of my faithful brown casual shoes are full of cracks. Cheap rubber. Or maybe they have a self-destruct clause when crossing the Equator, to prevent patent infringement or something.
What else?
People love their dogs here, wow. Last weekend I went to a park nearby, and that place was chocked full of 'em. It was ridiculous. When walking on sidewalks near houses, one spends more time watching their feet than looking up.
Also, this week I started using a new bus route, obviously, since I'm working at a different location. It's a full-size bus...but manual. Manual! Who in their right mind would think it's a good idea to drive a manual bus? Maybe it was drawn up as a scheme for population control. It seems like it'd be exceedingly easy to die when the driver throws it around between gears, especially on a cobblestone street. Goodness. And apparently bus stops here can also be marked by a wooden pole painted two colors, nothing more. I did not know this.
Throughout this past week or two, I remembered various other random insights that I wanted to write here: sights and sounds, cultural observations, the road to El Dorado; but now I can't think of any of that. Oh well.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
High Five for Raw Food!
So, I will update on the events of last weekend and this past work week. I will try to keep things a little shorter, because I realize that not all of you are trying to procrastinate during homework for summer classes and may, in fact, have things to do.
Although I'm insulted you don't have time to devote your every waking minute to me. Let me know, too, if you'd rather I write longer entries like I've been doing or if I shorten it up. Also, none of the following pictures are mine – I’ll upload them to Facebook sometime when I’m not feeling lazy.
So this past Saturday I went to Praia Grande, São Vicente, and Santos with the Koreans from Samsung (quick mini lesson - if you want to say Samsung in Portuguese, say it like it were spelled Sam-soong-ee), Edumundo, Nick (Nick-ee), and Yu? (a colleague of Edmundo's visiting that week from Korea) Obviously, I don’t think Edmundo and Nick are their birth names. Anyway, we left arond 8:30 for the roughly hour and a half drive to Praia Grande. The drive there took us along Rodovia dos Imigrantes, a highway that affords passengers stunning views of the mountains. It is chocked full of large tunnels, whose ceilings must be 30 feet high, and many bridges along the mountainsides. São Paulo rests in a plateau, which keeps its temperatures more mild than the coastal cities of Santos, et al. So the views were stunning when we descended from the mountains out onto a perfectly flat coastal plain.
Praia Grande is a beach which many people here belittle for its crowds of ugly people during the summers. But, it was winter, so the beach wasn't very full. I saw nothing wrong with it - it certainly was prettier than any shoreline of the North Atlantic. So, we wondered around, with my companions taking a bazillion photos. People looked at us. I guess tourists aren't common in June. Then Edmundo suggested we try the typical Caipirinha. It was good, but 10am is not usually when I think of having a mixed drink. This made me feel extra touristy.
After that, we watched a woman have her backpack snatched off the ground in a drive-by bicycle robbery. It was impressive yet distressing at the same time. From then on, we kept a closer watch on our backpacks.
Later that morning, we drove to São Vicente, which is very close to Praia Grande. It had some nice islands and was in general very pretty. The monument where the Portuguese made landfall is here, although we drove by it when I wasn’t expecting, so I didn’t get a picture of it. We drove up a winding, narrow road and stopped for some photos of the view. It was very idyllic – palm trees and brush lining a little street that curves down the mountain, with the ocean and islands in the background. We then progressed further up the mountain, to the top where a lookout monument rests and supposedly lines up with one of the government buildings in the capital, Brasilia.
After descending the mountain, we stopped for lunch between São Vicente and Santos.
[Quick note – I suddenly realized that I lied earlier and this entry won’t be short. No apologies].
Anyway, we ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant along the beach. Fried fish, steak, and tiny little camarões were consumed. You eat those little suckers with their exoskeleton, but it’s so small it doesn’t taste nasty like those on larger shrimp. Besides the food, Nick spent much of the lunch asking me why I didn't have a girlfriend, telling me to find a girlfriend, and suggesting that when I find a girlfriend we return to São Vicente.
Then we drove to Santos, very nearby, to ascend Monte Serrat (say Mon-tee Se-haat). The building atop the mount is old and has wonderful views. It used to be a restaurant, casino, among other things before turning into a tourist stop. We took some photos, had some coffee, and then headed for Vila Belmiro - the home of Pele. We walked through the musuem that hypes up Santos FC as if it were Barcelona, Manchester United, or some other top-class club. Sure, it had it's glory days, but the write-ups on many of the displays would give you the idea that these guys are like the giant martians in Space Jam. The tour showed the facilites, like the locker room, press room, and the pitch. The locker room had a shrine to some saint, and the incense smell was so overpowering that I wanted to die. After the tour, we began the drive back to São Paulo.
For dinner that night in the city we stopped at a Korean restaurant, my first experience with one. I wonder why three Koreans would pick such a place? I'm an adventurous eater, so most of the stuff was good, albeit a little weird. There were these tiny litle dried fish covered in a hot sauce. Wasabi soaked sliced carrots and veggies. Other things. The two stand outs were a soup with big pieces of onion and other unknown vegetables and giant chunks of fish - skins and all. It didn't taste bad, but it was a surprise to see a three inch long torso floating amidst the reddish broth. The other bizarre food, and the only I didn't at least moderately enjoy, was this weird water-soup thing. Basically, it was salt water with slices of cabbage stem or something. They loved it. I thought it tasted like I fell off my boogie board while screaming.
This past work week I divided my time between Portuguese class in the mornings and working in the Rector's (hec-tor) office. A rector is basically a provost/chancellor/dean mashup in Brazilian colleges. There, I worked on writing up a new set of rules and guidelines for how things are to be posted and goverend on Mackenzie's website. I'll let you know if they ever actually change it so that you can see hints of my handywork. I won't tell you if somehow their website turns out worse, ha ha.
On quarta-feira, Wednesday, the rector's assistant suggested that first we go downtown to lunch and look at the marketplace. So we walked through the streets, first coming to the black market of São Paulo. It's basically a series of blocks filled with stores and streetside vendors selling a ton of electronic stuff illegally. I gather that police occasionally sweep through to clear the place out, but nevertheless it was packed fuller than my stomach after an all-you-can-eat buffet. I didn't buy anything, although it was tempting.
Then we arrived at lunch, a German style bar/pub. We ordered some chope and some Brazilian-style German finger foods. Like my earlier first experience with Korean food, this would be my first experience with raw meat. One or two of the dishes weren tiny slices of sandwich bread covered in raw beef and topped with chive, mustard, and mayo. It was good, and I didn't die or get sick later, so I consider that pretty successful.
After work that night, one of the guys in the office invited me to accompany him and a friend to a Japanese retaurant, rodízio style, which means that you pay one price (in this case R$50) and get to eat as much stuff as you want. Waitors come to your tables, you specify some menu items, and you gorge yourself until you want to cry. Well, okay, so I didn't take it to that level of gluttony, but I've been told that some people actually force themselves to vomit in the bathrooms so they can eat more. I don't know if you can really count that as getting your money's worth. So, after raw meat for lunch, I was now going to pack myself full of raw fish. Lots of fresh sushi and sashimi followed, most of it very good, and none of it bad. My favorite two dishes were a fried pork (who knew that was Japanese) and some dish of small mushrooms that tasted like they were sautéed in some sort of white wine sauce. Über delicious. Again, I gave myself a high five that night after I wasn't sick post-one pound of uncooked food.
The rest of the week, and this weekend, played out in uneventful fashion. In a few minutes I will support the US soccer team over the juggernaut of Brasil. May Daivd trump Goliath again.
Although I'm insulted you don't have time to devote your every waking minute to me. Let me know, too, if you'd rather I write longer entries like I've been doing or if I shorten it up. Also, none of the following pictures are mine – I’ll upload them to Facebook sometime when I’m not feeling lazy.
So this past Saturday I went to Praia Grande, São Vicente, and Santos with the Koreans from Samsung (quick mini lesson - if you want to say Samsung in Portuguese, say it like it were spelled Sam-soong-ee), Edumundo, Nick (Nick-ee), and Yu? (a colleague of Edmundo's visiting that week from Korea) Obviously, I don’t think Edmundo and Nick are their birth names. Anyway, we left arond 8:30 for the roughly hour and a half drive to Praia Grande. The drive there took us along Rodovia dos Imigrantes, a highway that affords passengers stunning views of the mountains. It is chocked full of large tunnels, whose ceilings must be 30 feet high, and many bridges along the mountainsides. São Paulo rests in a plateau, which keeps its temperatures more mild than the coastal cities of Santos, et al. So the views were stunning when we descended from the mountains out onto a perfectly flat coastal plain.
Praia Grande is a beach which many people here belittle for its crowds of ugly people during the summers. But, it was winter, so the beach wasn't very full. I saw nothing wrong with it - it certainly was prettier than any shoreline of the North Atlantic. So, we wondered around, with my companions taking a bazillion photos. People looked at us. I guess tourists aren't common in June. Then Edmundo suggested we try the typical Caipirinha. It was good, but 10am is not usually when I think of having a mixed drink. This made me feel extra touristy.
After that, we watched a woman have her backpack snatched off the ground in a drive-by bicycle robbery. It was impressive yet distressing at the same time. From then on, we kept a closer watch on our backpacks.
Later that morning, we drove to São Vicente, which is very close to Praia Grande. It had some nice islands and was in general very pretty. The monument where the Portuguese made landfall is here, although we drove by it when I wasn’t expecting, so I didn’t get a picture of it. We drove up a winding, narrow road and stopped for some photos of the view. It was very idyllic – palm trees and brush lining a little street that curves down the mountain, with the ocean and islands in the background. We then progressed further up the mountain, to the top where a lookout monument rests and supposedly lines up with one of the government buildings in the capital, Brasilia.
After descending the mountain, we stopped for lunch between São Vicente and Santos.
[Quick note – I suddenly realized that I lied earlier and this entry won’t be short. No apologies].
Anyway, we ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant along the beach. Fried fish, steak, and tiny little camarões were consumed. You eat those little suckers with their exoskeleton, but it’s so small it doesn’t taste nasty like those on larger shrimp. Besides the food, Nick spent much of the lunch asking me why I didn't have a girlfriend, telling me to find a girlfriend, and suggesting that when I find a girlfriend we return to São Vicente.
Then we drove to Santos, very nearby, to ascend Monte Serrat (say Mon-tee Se-haat). The building atop the mount is old and has wonderful views. It used to be a restaurant, casino, among other things before turning into a tourist stop. We took some photos, had some coffee, and then headed for Vila Belmiro - the home of Pele. We walked through the musuem that hypes up Santos FC as if it were Barcelona, Manchester United, or some other top-class club. Sure, it had it's glory days, but the write-ups on many of the displays would give you the idea that these guys are like the giant martians in Space Jam. The tour showed the facilites, like the locker room, press room, and the pitch. The locker room had a shrine to some saint, and the incense smell was so overpowering that I wanted to die. After the tour, we began the drive back to São Paulo.
For dinner that night in the city we stopped at a Korean restaurant, my first experience with one. I wonder why three Koreans would pick such a place? I'm an adventurous eater, so most of the stuff was good, albeit a little weird. There were these tiny litle dried fish covered in a hot sauce. Wasabi soaked sliced carrots and veggies. Other things. The two stand outs were a soup with big pieces of onion and other unknown vegetables and giant chunks of fish - skins and all. It didn't taste bad, but it was a surprise to see a three inch long torso floating amidst the reddish broth. The other bizarre food, and the only I didn't at least moderately enjoy, was this weird water-soup thing. Basically, it was salt water with slices of cabbage stem or something. They loved it. I thought it tasted like I fell off my boogie board while screaming.
This past work week I divided my time between Portuguese class in the mornings and working in the Rector's (hec-tor) office. A rector is basically a provost/chancellor/dean mashup in Brazilian colleges. There, I worked on writing up a new set of rules and guidelines for how things are to be posted and goverend on Mackenzie's website. I'll let you know if they ever actually change it so that you can see hints of my handywork. I won't tell you if somehow their website turns out worse, ha ha.
On quarta-feira, Wednesday, the rector's assistant suggested that first we go downtown to lunch and look at the marketplace. So we walked through the streets, first coming to the black market of São Paulo. It's basically a series of blocks filled with stores and streetside vendors selling a ton of electronic stuff illegally. I gather that police occasionally sweep through to clear the place out, but nevertheless it was packed fuller than my stomach after an all-you-can-eat buffet. I didn't buy anything, although it was tempting.
Then we arrived at lunch, a German style bar/pub. We ordered some chope and some Brazilian-style German finger foods. Like my earlier first experience with Korean food, this would be my first experience with raw meat. One or two of the dishes weren tiny slices of sandwich bread covered in raw beef and topped with chive, mustard, and mayo. It was good, and I didn't die or get sick later, so I consider that pretty successful.
After work that night, one of the guys in the office invited me to accompany him and a friend to a Japanese retaurant, rodízio style, which means that you pay one price (in this case R$50) and get to eat as much stuff as you want. Waitors come to your tables, you specify some menu items, and you gorge yourself until you want to cry. Well, okay, so I didn't take it to that level of gluttony, but I've been told that some people actually force themselves to vomit in the bathrooms so they can eat more. I don't know if you can really count that as getting your money's worth. So, after raw meat for lunch, I was now going to pack myself full of raw fish. Lots of fresh sushi and sashimi followed, most of it very good, and none of it bad. My favorite two dishes were a fried pork (who knew that was Japanese) and some dish of small mushrooms that tasted like they were sautéed in some sort of white wine sauce. Über delicious. Again, I gave myself a high five that night after I wasn't sick post-one pound of uncooked food.
The rest of the week, and this weekend, played out in uneventful fashion. In a few minutes I will support the US soccer team over the juggernaut of Brasil. May Daivd trump Goliath again.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Malls, Moria, and a Movie
My dear fans, followers, and fumadiddles (make it your word of the day), I must humbly apologize for not updating as often as some of you might like. Actually, I rescind that apology and instead ask you to apologize for not mailing me packages filled with Utz Gormet Variety Kettle Cooked Chips, Turkey Hill tea, and Seltzer´s double-smoked balogna.
An entire week and two days has passed since I last graced these pixels with my literary wizardry. So what has happened, other than my terrible jokes growing worse?
Well, I forget if I mentioned or not, but last week on Thursday was Corpus Christi here in Brazil. So I "worked" for three days and then rested for four. Tough life. Unfortunately, my weekend wasn´t filled with much of anything, given the sickness of family members here, and my newness (and lack of cell phone) meant that I didn´t have anyone to accompany me someplace. The highlights of those four days (aside from not waking up at 5:30) were probably buying Pert shampoo and Colgate toothpaste with little mint strips. Delicious. So you can see that my weekend, in actuality, had no highlights. I did get to see one of the shoppings here. Yes, shopping is now a Portuguese word for shopping mall. Creative. I´m not sure what language it originated in, though... It was Shopping Morumbi, I think; a cavernous maze of floors and halls with many different stores with horrifyingly overpriced goods. R$300 ($150 USD) for a pair of Nikes that I can buy at Tanger for $50? R$1600 FOR MY iPHONE? Gah! I suppose I won´t be shopping in any shoppings. Not like I´ll really have extra room in my suitcases during the home journey.
Also, at the mall I finally found a stupid ATM that takes my cards. Thank you, Banco do Brasil. I still don´t know why all the other banks ATMs, all plastered with Visa logos and many with Star debit, don´t accept my perfectly legitimate cards proudly bearing the PNC logo for the world to see.
There isn´t anything else worth noting from that weekend. I finished a Grisham book. Wow.
[Since I haven´t written in a week, there are a lot of details swirling in my head like mayflies under a ballfield light. I don´t know if these events are slotted in the right day. In fact, I´m not even going to bother mentioning a day, unless I know for sure.]
This week I will give the term "Marathon Week". The days have been long and sometimes longer. At least twice this week, I have left the house at 6:15am (like normal) and have not returned until 9:15pm. I will spare you number crunching: this is 15 hours. So all I do when I return home is eat some reheated dinner, go to my room, close the door, and cry upon realizing that even if I were to try to go to sleep immediately, I might get six hours. Therefore, my early mornings are atrocious. My phone alarm first rings at 5:10, allowing me two snoozes. Sometimes a third if I´m feeling daring. Then I claw my way out of bed and into the cold bathroom (since there are no heaters in subtropical homes, at least that I´m aware of, the house can be around 65° in the morning). Side note about my bathroom: there is always the sound of running water coming from somewhere within the walls. It´s weird. Sometimes, when all is quiet on the Western Front, the trickling sounds like voices. I don´t like it. When the lights are out and everthing is dark, I feel like I´m in the Mines of Moria. If I start to hear drums, I´ll know I´m done for. Anyway, I roll out of bed and turn on the shower, making sure to leap out of the way of the stream until the water heats up to a humane level. Then I dress myself nicely, since everybody´s crazy about a sharp dressed man. Well, at least according to the upper portion of a siamese twin last letter of the alphabet. Headache?
Okay, so I get dressed, and go downstairs for a typical breakfast. Light stuff, no eggs, bacon, and muscle-milkshakes or anything. Some slices of bread with butter or cheese spread, some cappucino mix, and a little cup of coffee. The van comes for us, and we climb in. Let me tell you how much the roads in São Paulo suck. No, let me tell you how much the roads in São Paulo suck in a vehicle whose shocks are probably made of diamonds, and you´ve only woken half an hour ago. The roads are atrocious. Speed bumps, random holes and drainage ditches abound. So for 40 minutes or so each morning, I´m treated to a spine-crushing massage and the sounds of shock absorbers squeaking and moaning in protest. I arrive at Mackenzie at seven, and have an hour to kill until class. Usually, I contemplate finding a chiropractor or back-specialist before instead opting to get a coffee and do my Portuguese homework. After lunch, I bum around Agência Junior de Comunicação Mackenzie, a group of students who run an advertising/marketing firm. Their stuff is pretty impressive, and they´re a nice group of people and have helped me practice Portuguese as well as shown me around.
I think I was spending time with them this week because I´m a marketing major, so my director here at Mackenzie thought I would assist them in activities. In reality, I can´t do much of anything, since I can hardly process every other word in a fast Portuguese conversation, and they don´t have much work to do at the end of semesters.
I finally got a cellphone with a São Paulo number this week, although the little sucker is prepaid and will proably eat through credits like nobody´s business. Plus what the heck is the iTap crap? I want my QWERTY back! I forgot how cumbersome texting is on a number pad.
What else have I done.... Ah. I went with my Portuguese class and the one professor to see Exterminador do Futuro, or Terminator 4. I wonder if moviegoers here think that the theater is a substitute for Q-Tips, because the volume melted my earwax away. You know the popular expression: it was like I was there, but in a bad way. By the end, though, I didn´t realize that the speakers were so loud that Apollo 11 could take-off next door without us knowing.
The walk to the theater was interesting, since my profesor and I opted to hike the 10 or so blocks instead of crushing ourselves in an ônibus. The walk took us across various streets and past many different stores and locales, and it afforded me a closer knowledge of the city. At six at night so much is going on. People hustle to and fro leaving their jobs, dodging other pedestrians and obstacles on the wrinkled sidewalks. The smell of grilled meet greets your nose as you walk past one of the many streetside vendors of grilled foods and shiskabobs. People are checking into hotels or removing their cars from the infinite number of parking garages and stations scattered wherever they fit. Friends chat over dinner or a drink outside a café. Traffic rolls by. You walk alternating your gaze between the potholes in the sidewalk and the storm of people and cars in your path as you cross streets. There is just so much going on.
This week I also went to MASP to see the Vik Muniz exhibit. Let me just say that I typically vacuum dirt up. But this guy decides to use every little grain of earth to make a portrait. Abandoned computer towers form continents. Trash is positioned to form images. Check out his stuff.
This trip also showed me how nuts the buses can be. When fulley packed, it can be impossible to move, and one has to begin to force his or her way towards the doors 15 minutes before the stop. Port Authority never seemed so dignified.
On the note of transit -related things, traffic before/during/after football (soccer) matches is absurd. The one night we were coming home from Mackenzie by taxi, and the tubes of São Paulo´s highways had been clogged by enormous amounts of material. Vans drove by filled with people screaming, flags and banners of their teams hanging out the windows. Crazy. Oh, and this traffic was during HALF TIME, not before the game. Who knows what the roads were like prior to kick-off.
Well, it´s late (for me, it´s 10:30 here and I woke up at 5), and I think I´ve rambled enough. Thank you for navigating my nonsense and many references to random things. I probably forgot some stuff I wanted to say, but maybe I´ll tack it on later.
Oh, and as per your request, Jen, the boys are everything you´ve every dreamed of. Just like the Backstreet Boys, or a slightly younger Brad Pitt, or Will Smith with his muscle bulk in I Am Legend. Or...they look like American guys. This isn´t something I much care about, you know.
An entire week and two days has passed since I last graced these pixels with my literary wizardry. So what has happened, other than my terrible jokes growing worse?
Well, I forget if I mentioned or not, but last week on Thursday was Corpus Christi here in Brazil. So I "worked" for three days and then rested for four. Tough life. Unfortunately, my weekend wasn´t filled with much of anything, given the sickness of family members here, and my newness (and lack of cell phone) meant that I didn´t have anyone to accompany me someplace. The highlights of those four days (aside from not waking up at 5:30) were probably buying Pert shampoo and Colgate toothpaste with little mint strips. Delicious. So you can see that my weekend, in actuality, had no highlights. I did get to see one of the shoppings here. Yes, shopping is now a Portuguese word for shopping mall. Creative. I´m not sure what language it originated in, though... It was Shopping Morumbi, I think; a cavernous maze of floors and halls with many different stores with horrifyingly overpriced goods. R$300 ($150 USD) for a pair of Nikes that I can buy at Tanger for $50? R$1600 FOR MY iPHONE? Gah! I suppose I won´t be shopping in any shoppings. Not like I´ll really have extra room in my suitcases during the home journey.
Also, at the mall I finally found a stupid ATM that takes my cards. Thank you, Banco do Brasil. I still don´t know why all the other banks ATMs, all plastered with Visa logos and many with Star debit, don´t accept my perfectly legitimate cards proudly bearing the PNC logo for the world to see.
There isn´t anything else worth noting from that weekend. I finished a Grisham book. Wow.
[Since I haven´t written in a week, there are a lot of details swirling in my head like mayflies under a ballfield light. I don´t know if these events are slotted in the right day. In fact, I´m not even going to bother mentioning a day, unless I know for sure.]
This week I will give the term "Marathon Week". The days have been long and sometimes longer. At least twice this week, I have left the house at 6:15am (like normal) and have not returned until 9:15pm. I will spare you number crunching: this is 15 hours. So all I do when I return home is eat some reheated dinner, go to my room, close the door, and cry upon realizing that even if I were to try to go to sleep immediately, I might get six hours. Therefore, my early mornings are atrocious. My phone alarm first rings at 5:10, allowing me two snoozes. Sometimes a third if I´m feeling daring. Then I claw my way out of bed and into the cold bathroom (since there are no heaters in subtropical homes, at least that I´m aware of, the house can be around 65° in the morning). Side note about my bathroom: there is always the sound of running water coming from somewhere within the walls. It´s weird. Sometimes, when all is quiet on the Western Front, the trickling sounds like voices. I don´t like it. When the lights are out and everthing is dark, I feel like I´m in the Mines of Moria. If I start to hear drums, I´ll know I´m done for. Anyway, I roll out of bed and turn on the shower, making sure to leap out of the way of the stream until the water heats up to a humane level. Then I dress myself nicely, since everybody´s crazy about a sharp dressed man. Well, at least according to the upper portion of a siamese twin last letter of the alphabet. Headache?
Okay, so I get dressed, and go downstairs for a typical breakfast. Light stuff, no eggs, bacon, and muscle-milkshakes or anything. Some slices of bread with butter or cheese spread, some cappucino mix, and a little cup of coffee. The van comes for us, and we climb in. Let me tell you how much the roads in São Paulo suck. No, let me tell you how much the roads in São Paulo suck in a vehicle whose shocks are probably made of diamonds, and you´ve only woken half an hour ago. The roads are atrocious. Speed bumps, random holes and drainage ditches abound. So for 40 minutes or so each morning, I´m treated to a spine-crushing massage and the sounds of shock absorbers squeaking and moaning in protest. I arrive at Mackenzie at seven, and have an hour to kill until class. Usually, I contemplate finding a chiropractor or back-specialist before instead opting to get a coffee and do my Portuguese homework. After lunch, I bum around Agência Junior de Comunicação Mackenzie, a group of students who run an advertising/marketing firm. Their stuff is pretty impressive, and they´re a nice group of people and have helped me practice Portuguese as well as shown me around.
I think I was spending time with them this week because I´m a marketing major, so my director here at Mackenzie thought I would assist them in activities. In reality, I can´t do much of anything, since I can hardly process every other word in a fast Portuguese conversation, and they don´t have much work to do at the end of semesters.
I finally got a cellphone with a São Paulo number this week, although the little sucker is prepaid and will proably eat through credits like nobody´s business. Plus what the heck is the iTap crap? I want my QWERTY back! I forgot how cumbersome texting is on a number pad.
What else have I done.... Ah. I went with my Portuguese class and the one professor to see Exterminador do Futuro, or Terminator 4. I wonder if moviegoers here think that the theater is a substitute for Q-Tips, because the volume melted my earwax away. You know the popular expression: it was like I was there, but in a bad way. By the end, though, I didn´t realize that the speakers were so loud that Apollo 11 could take-off next door without us knowing.
The walk to the theater was interesting, since my profesor and I opted to hike the 10 or so blocks instead of crushing ourselves in an ônibus. The walk took us across various streets and past many different stores and locales, and it afforded me a closer knowledge of the city. At six at night so much is going on. People hustle to and fro leaving their jobs, dodging other pedestrians and obstacles on the wrinkled sidewalks. The smell of grilled meet greets your nose as you walk past one of the many streetside vendors of grilled foods and shiskabobs. People are checking into hotels or removing their cars from the infinite number of parking garages and stations scattered wherever they fit. Friends chat over dinner or a drink outside a café. Traffic rolls by. You walk alternating your gaze between the potholes in the sidewalk and the storm of people and cars in your path as you cross streets. There is just so much going on.
This week I also went to MASP to see the Vik Muniz exhibit. Let me just say that I typically vacuum dirt up. But this guy decides to use every little grain of earth to make a portrait. Abandoned computer towers form continents. Trash is positioned to form images. Check out his stuff.
This trip also showed me how nuts the buses can be. When fulley packed, it can be impossible to move, and one has to begin to force his or her way towards the doors 15 minutes before the stop. Port Authority never seemed so dignified.
On the note of transit -related things, traffic before/during/after football (soccer) matches is absurd. The one night we were coming home from Mackenzie by taxi, and the tubes of São Paulo´s highways had been clogged by enormous amounts of material. Vans drove by filled with people screaming, flags and banners of their teams hanging out the windows. Crazy. Oh, and this traffic was during HALF TIME, not before the game. Who knows what the roads were like prior to kick-off.
Well, it´s late (for me, it´s 10:30 here and I woke up at 5), and I think I´ve rambled enough. Thank you for navigating my nonsense and many references to random things. I probably forgot some stuff I wanted to say, but maybe I´ll tack it on later.
Oh, and as per your request, Jen, the boys are everything you´ve every dreamed of. Just like the Backstreet Boys, or a slightly younger Brad Pitt, or Will Smith with his muscle bulk in I Am Legend. Or...they look like American guys. This isn´t something I much care about, you know.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
You Are Only 20?!
Hmmmm. Where did I leave off last time? Ah yes, before my first day of work. Excuse me while I chuckle a second. Work, ha ha. This has not been work. Read more if you dare, to learn some and be aware! [cue lame, brooding string music].
Monday I awoke around 5am, 4am in EST, and grumpily prepared myself for the first day. I had no idea what to expect, because I didn´t really have a set schedule. It was more along the lines of "eh, you go to Mackenzie, talk to students, see some classes, do things, and voilà! You have helped connect Pittsburgh and Mackenzie and have informed every student about Pitt and the city." We rise so early each morning because of the potential for extremely constipated traffic flows. Fortunately, there aren´t any in the mornings it seems. We arrive at Mackenzie around 7am. On Monday, I had nothing to do until after 10am, because the director I was supposed to meet was away in meetings until then. So, I had much of the morning to wander campus by myself, feeling like a complete outsider who didn´t belong.
Mackenzie has a nice campus; it´s enclosed by a wall due to potential security risks, I suppose. Downtown Sao Paulo isn´t where you´d choose to have a tea party at 3am, if you know what I mean. The walls, though, do make the campus feel smaller and more together. Also, there are many trees and plants around the campus, and since all of the foliage is tropical or subtropical, it looks extra special to me.
Anywho, after wandering around campus in loops for an hour and wondering if the security guards thought I was a terrorist, I left campus to try and find a bank to withdrawl money from (my Visa debit and credit cards for some reason fail to work in all ATMs). I wandered the streets, acting as if I actually had somewhere to go and wasn´t a gringo who had only been in the country for 24 hours. I tried the ATM of another bank, and it failed, of course. How dare something work like it´s supposed to. I decided then to actually enter a bank and talk with someone, even though my Portuguese accent was probably as accurate as that of a mollusk. I spotted my victim, and saw customers walking into the bank. I approached a glass rotating door, and began to enter.
CLUNK. The door was locked. But I was too dumb to realize that. I pushed again, perplexed that doors outside the USA actually did need "sesame" to open. And then I pushed again, and again. Finally, my stupidity caught the attention of a young security guard inside. He approached and began to speak to me whilst I continued, dumbfounded, trying to open the stupid door. Finally, when I could only respond to him with distressed baby babble, he said, "You don´t speak Portuguese?" Rats! I´d been had! Like a dog caught eating trash or an expensive table leg, I responded humbly, "not much." With a red face, I asked him where I could exchange money. Another man, probably a teller, told me that there was another branch but I´d need to take a bus. Part of me wanted to slap him and say, "Did you just watch me running into a locked door? Do you think I´m capable of taking a bus?" Another part of me just wanted the ground to open up so I could die. At least magma won´t judge me.
Tail between my legs, I walked back to campus, quite a bit embarrased and downhearted. The one professor told me that I could attend the remainder of a Portuguese for foreigners class. I obliged, glad that no one near me had been in the bank.
The class was two professors who seem to have enough time to devote entire mornings to teaching a couple of Korean Samsung employees how to speak. I came to the class and tried to put prior events behind me. The people were nice, but I could answer very few of the questions asked of me in Portuguese. Finally, the class ended, but one of the professors offered to go with me to a good por quilo to eat. (Intermission: por quilos are a very popular place to have lunch in Brazil. One grabs a tray and loads it with whatever foods they want from the hot and cold bars, then one can select some freshly grilled meats. At the register, the price is simply calculated by total weight, not specific contents [with the exception of grilled meats, fruit, and drinks]). Anyway, on the way there, the conversation was sparse, and it didn´t improve much during the meal, nor on the way back. The professor knows English, but the point is for me to learn Portuguese. I could say very little, and he had to repeat questions multiple times. I felt sorry for him. After lunch, I was to join a class for students learning Spanish, and later watch informal interviews for potential English language tutors.
At first I was nervous about speaking Spanish. 1) I´ve only spoken it sparingly in classes with Americans whose accents are absolutely atrocious, and 2) these people speak português, and thus they´re likely to know a thing or two about español. My fears quickly dissipated in class, however. The students, while good at Spanish, weren´t wizards. And the teacher kept commenting how bonito my accent was. After that class, I felt pretty good. Somehow the American spoke better Spanish than those who speak a romance language. I then joined the meeting/interview for English tutors. After that class, a couple of students offered to show me around campus. I was grateful to be accompanied by people in the know who also spoke English well. They promised to show me around again sometime. Another student from the tutor group offered to show me around Sao Paulo if I needed, and she wants me to talk to her boyfriend about Pitt, which he is considering attending. (Side note, Prof. Giancarlo´s oldest daughter is contemplating attending Pitt next year). Anyway, my day ended on a much better note than it started. I had almost completely forgotten what an idiot I am and instead began to see the incredible Brazilian hospiality.
Tuesday, waking early again. This time I was determined to start on the right foot. Or the left. Whichever foot allowed me to avoid locked doors at banks. 8-10am, Portuguese for foreigners. However, instead of being a complete stranger to the language, I had now had about 48 hours to adjust to its unique sound. The prof. gave me a textbook to use. I began speaking, albeit limited, with more confidence. By the end of the class, the professor was commenting to my coordinator how fast I was learning. Yay. Also, the Koreans in my class are very kind. It´s strange, somewhat, when you realize that the guy next to you in class who talks like a student, sounds like one, dresses like one, is actually a 35 year old who works in Samsung´s printer division. Samsung makes printers? Who knew. The two Korean´s and I went to the same por quilo as the day before. I actually talked in Poruguese. They understood me (mostly). It was good. Later I went to sit in on another Spanish class. This one was full of friendly people again, and afterwards a guy told me he wanted to meet sometime to practice his English and help me with Portuguese.
That evening, I went to two English for adults classes. These people are retired, in the 50s or 60s, and have chosen to learn English. The one class was for beginners, and they asked simple questions that one expects in any level one course. But the other class was more advanced. About 15 women and 1 man, and some of them were quite animated. I stood infront of the class answering questions (the same questions that I answer in every single class I visit. The age one always ends in, "No, 20? You are so young!" and then muffled whispers in Portuguese likely pertaining to my youth) And then the "Queen" entered. Self-proclaimed Queen of Scotland. She tries to crack more jokes than I do (I hope mine are wittier).
Anyway, as soon as she entered she skipped most of the warm and fuzzy get-to-know-you crap and went for the juggular: how do you like the Brazilian girls? This is a topic that many adults here seem to be interested in, does Mr. American boy like all our pretty women. Every time someone asks, I just smile and say of course, because 1) I bet it´d be rude here, too, to say "No, actually, they are hideous and I would rather kiss a rock" and 2) Brazilians are always joking in a friendly manner. But imagine if you´re a guy in a class in America, you´re standing in front of fifteen 50+ year old women that you only met ten minutes ago, and they ask you how you like the girls and if you´re single. Then they suggest that you become their boyfriend and teach them English. Then they make some probably vulgar jokes in Portuguese that you don´t understand.
They were writing stories in class based on pictures they randomly pulled from a hat, just like we do in language courses. Two of the stories involved me getting married, and in one of those I married the professor (a woman) of the class. If you missed it the first time around, people here are very open. In my Portuguese for foreigners class the prof. told us how Brazilian fathers used to buy their sons prostitutes to turn them into men. This does not seem a likely topic to discuss for a few minutes in any class at Pitt. In the end, I can´t fault the old women. They were truly excited to practice English with a native speaker, and they insisted I come back to class next week and to their end of semester party at the end of June.
Wednesday, 5:30am wake-up, class 8-10 and beyond, another por quilo lunch and then I visited a studnet run ad-agency at Mackenzie (think Pitt News but for marketing). Yet again, the incredible Brazilian hospitality was, uh, incredible. They all helped me with Portuguese, wanted to practice their English, offered their emails and phone numbers in case I needed help, and said they´d take me around Sao Paulo and show me everything.
If you have survived this light-year long post, take away at least this: Brazilians are so ridiculously kind and caring and open. Every student and professor I have meet is so friendly, offering complements, advice, and help if I need it. The students want to help me fit in and have friends. People practically adopt you. Classes reflect this open friendship (at least all of the classes I´ve been to: language classes). Professors and students joke with and tease one another, everyone is chiming in all the time and talking, there is laughter, and students and teachers digress from lesson plans for 10 minutes at a time.
It´s wonderful. And maybe the girls are good looking, too.
Monday I awoke around 5am, 4am in EST, and grumpily prepared myself for the first day. I had no idea what to expect, because I didn´t really have a set schedule. It was more along the lines of "eh, you go to Mackenzie, talk to students, see some classes, do things, and voilà! You have helped connect Pittsburgh and Mackenzie and have informed every student about Pitt and the city." We rise so early each morning because of the potential for extremely constipated traffic flows. Fortunately, there aren´t any in the mornings it seems. We arrive at Mackenzie around 7am. On Monday, I had nothing to do until after 10am, because the director I was supposed to meet was away in meetings until then. So, I had much of the morning to wander campus by myself, feeling like a complete outsider who didn´t belong.
Mackenzie has a nice campus; it´s enclosed by a wall due to potential security risks, I suppose. Downtown Sao Paulo isn´t where you´d choose to have a tea party at 3am, if you know what I mean. The walls, though, do make the campus feel smaller and more together. Also, there are many trees and plants around the campus, and since all of the foliage is tropical or subtropical, it looks extra special to me.
Anywho, after wandering around campus in loops for an hour and wondering if the security guards thought I was a terrorist, I left campus to try and find a bank to withdrawl money from (my Visa debit and credit cards for some reason fail to work in all ATMs). I wandered the streets, acting as if I actually had somewhere to go and wasn´t a gringo who had only been in the country for 24 hours. I tried the ATM of another bank, and it failed, of course. How dare something work like it´s supposed to. I decided then to actually enter a bank and talk with someone, even though my Portuguese accent was probably as accurate as that of a mollusk. I spotted my victim, and saw customers walking into the bank. I approached a glass rotating door, and began to enter.
CLUNK. The door was locked. But I was too dumb to realize that. I pushed again, perplexed that doors outside the USA actually did need "sesame" to open. And then I pushed again, and again. Finally, my stupidity caught the attention of a young security guard inside. He approached and began to speak to me whilst I continued, dumbfounded, trying to open the stupid door. Finally, when I could only respond to him with distressed baby babble, he said, "You don´t speak Portuguese?" Rats! I´d been had! Like a dog caught eating trash or an expensive table leg, I responded humbly, "not much." With a red face, I asked him where I could exchange money. Another man, probably a teller, told me that there was another branch but I´d need to take a bus. Part of me wanted to slap him and say, "Did you just watch me running into a locked door? Do you think I´m capable of taking a bus?" Another part of me just wanted the ground to open up so I could die. At least magma won´t judge me.
Tail between my legs, I walked back to campus, quite a bit embarrased and downhearted. The one professor told me that I could attend the remainder of a Portuguese for foreigners class. I obliged, glad that no one near me had been in the bank.
The class was two professors who seem to have enough time to devote entire mornings to teaching a couple of Korean Samsung employees how to speak. I came to the class and tried to put prior events behind me. The people were nice, but I could answer very few of the questions asked of me in Portuguese. Finally, the class ended, but one of the professors offered to go with me to a good por quilo to eat. (Intermission: por quilos are a very popular place to have lunch in Brazil. One grabs a tray and loads it with whatever foods they want from the hot and cold bars, then one can select some freshly grilled meats. At the register, the price is simply calculated by total weight, not specific contents [with the exception of grilled meats, fruit, and drinks]). Anyway, on the way there, the conversation was sparse, and it didn´t improve much during the meal, nor on the way back. The professor knows English, but the point is for me to learn Portuguese. I could say very little, and he had to repeat questions multiple times. I felt sorry for him. After lunch, I was to join a class for students learning Spanish, and later watch informal interviews for potential English language tutors.
At first I was nervous about speaking Spanish. 1) I´ve only spoken it sparingly in classes with Americans whose accents are absolutely atrocious, and 2) these people speak português, and thus they´re likely to know a thing or two about español. My fears quickly dissipated in class, however. The students, while good at Spanish, weren´t wizards. And the teacher kept commenting how bonito my accent was. After that class, I felt pretty good. Somehow the American spoke better Spanish than those who speak a romance language. I then joined the meeting/interview for English tutors. After that class, a couple of students offered to show me around campus. I was grateful to be accompanied by people in the know who also spoke English well. They promised to show me around again sometime. Another student from the tutor group offered to show me around Sao Paulo if I needed, and she wants me to talk to her boyfriend about Pitt, which he is considering attending. (Side note, Prof. Giancarlo´s oldest daughter is contemplating attending Pitt next year). Anyway, my day ended on a much better note than it started. I had almost completely forgotten what an idiot I am and instead began to see the incredible Brazilian hospiality.
Tuesday, waking early again. This time I was determined to start on the right foot. Or the left. Whichever foot allowed me to avoid locked doors at banks. 8-10am, Portuguese for foreigners. However, instead of being a complete stranger to the language, I had now had about 48 hours to adjust to its unique sound. The prof. gave me a textbook to use. I began speaking, albeit limited, with more confidence. By the end of the class, the professor was commenting to my coordinator how fast I was learning. Yay. Also, the Koreans in my class are very kind. It´s strange, somewhat, when you realize that the guy next to you in class who talks like a student, sounds like one, dresses like one, is actually a 35 year old who works in Samsung´s printer division. Samsung makes printers? Who knew. The two Korean´s and I went to the same por quilo as the day before. I actually talked in Poruguese. They understood me (mostly). It was good. Later I went to sit in on another Spanish class. This one was full of friendly people again, and afterwards a guy told me he wanted to meet sometime to practice his English and help me with Portuguese.
That evening, I went to two English for adults classes. These people are retired, in the 50s or 60s, and have chosen to learn English. The one class was for beginners, and they asked simple questions that one expects in any level one course. But the other class was more advanced. About 15 women and 1 man, and some of them were quite animated. I stood infront of the class answering questions (the same questions that I answer in every single class I visit. The age one always ends in, "No, 20? You are so young!" and then muffled whispers in Portuguese likely pertaining to my youth) And then the "Queen" entered. Self-proclaimed Queen of Scotland. She tries to crack more jokes than I do (I hope mine are wittier).
Anyway, as soon as she entered she skipped most of the warm and fuzzy get-to-know-you crap and went for the juggular: how do you like the Brazilian girls? This is a topic that many adults here seem to be interested in, does Mr. American boy like all our pretty women. Every time someone asks, I just smile and say of course, because 1) I bet it´d be rude here, too, to say "No, actually, they are hideous and I would rather kiss a rock" and 2) Brazilians are always joking in a friendly manner. But imagine if you´re a guy in a class in America, you´re standing in front of fifteen 50+ year old women that you only met ten minutes ago, and they ask you how you like the girls and if you´re single. Then they suggest that you become their boyfriend and teach them English. Then they make some probably vulgar jokes in Portuguese that you don´t understand.
They were writing stories in class based on pictures they randomly pulled from a hat, just like we do in language courses. Two of the stories involved me getting married, and in one of those I married the professor (a woman) of the class. If you missed it the first time around, people here are very open. In my Portuguese for foreigners class the prof. told us how Brazilian fathers used to buy their sons prostitutes to turn them into men. This does not seem a likely topic to discuss for a few minutes in any class at Pitt. In the end, I can´t fault the old women. They were truly excited to practice English with a native speaker, and they insisted I come back to class next week and to their end of semester party at the end of June.
Wednesday, 5:30am wake-up, class 8-10 and beyond, another por quilo lunch and then I visited a studnet run ad-agency at Mackenzie (think Pitt News but for marketing). Yet again, the incredible Brazilian hospitality was, uh, incredible. They all helped me with Portuguese, wanted to practice their English, offered their emails and phone numbers in case I needed help, and said they´d take me around Sao Paulo and show me everything.
If you have survived this light-year long post, take away at least this: Brazilians are so ridiculously kind and caring and open. Every student and professor I have meet is so friendly, offering complements, advice, and help if I need it. The students want to help me fit in and have friends. People practically adopt you. Classes reflect this open friendship (at least all of the classes I´ve been to: language classes). Professors and students joke with and tease one another, everyone is chiming in all the time and talking, there is laughter, and students and teachers digress from lesson plans for 10 minutes at a time.
It´s wonderful. And maybe the girls are good looking, too.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Arrival
So, after spending about a bajillion hours (like 11) sitting in the airplane (and not getting up once), it felt great to step on to land. After JFK, Guarulhos seemed rather small. Fortunately it wasn´t too busy, and I had no trouble finding Prof. Giancarlo, with whom I am staying.
The ride in his car back to his home was interesting, especially for two reasons. 1) People would get pulled over in a heartbeat in the US for driving like they do, and 2) Sao Paulo is massive. NYC on steroids massive. Death Star massive. MASSIVE massive. I think you get my point. Driving from the airport to the house took 35 minutes or so, around 45 miles perhaps, and we weren´t going from far-end to far-end of the city. Also, there was hardly traffic. I can´t imagine a busy day (although I´ll see that firsthand tomorrow).
My host family is very nice, the professor, his wife, and three girls. Although only two speak English I should be fine by mashing my limited Portuguese with Spanish, forming what I´ll call Sportuguese.
Tomorrow I begin working at Mackenzie University´s language department, bright and early.
That´s all for now, more later.
P.S. Appreciate the length of this post: all the punctuation buttons are different, the shift keys are smaller, etc, so every fourth keystroke I usually have to backtrack and delete some random characters. Tchau!
The ride in his car back to his home was interesting, especially for two reasons. 1) People would get pulled over in a heartbeat in the US for driving like they do, and 2) Sao Paulo is massive. NYC on steroids massive. Death Star massive. MASSIVE massive. I think you get my point. Driving from the airport to the house took 35 minutes or so, around 45 miles perhaps, and we weren´t going from far-end to far-end of the city. Also, there was hardly traffic. I can´t imagine a busy day (although I´ll see that firsthand tomorrow).
My host family is very nice, the professor, his wife, and three girls. Although only two speak English I should be fine by mashing my limited Portuguese with Spanish, forming what I´ll call Sportuguese.
Tomorrow I begin working at Mackenzie University´s language department, bright and early.
That´s all for now, more later.
P.S. Appreciate the length of this post: all the punctuation buttons are different, the shift keys are smaller, etc, so every fourth keystroke I usually have to backtrack and delete some random characters. Tchau!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Wow. My First Entry.
I felt like the empty space on this page needed to be covered up. On Saturday I leave for São Paulo, Brazil; it's hard to believe that in slightly under a week I'll be working in another country.
I'm not entirely sure what my duties will be when I arrive, but I do know that I will be spending roughly the month of June working at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie with the Dean and foreign language office. I think I'm working on developing an exchange program for Mackenzie undergrads to come to Pitt for a two week program.
After my work at the University, I'll move to Pitt's Executive MBA offices in the American Chamber of Commerce building. Sometime during my stay I'll also do some site visits to various Brazilian companies in different industries.
I'll be living with a Mackenzie professor and his family in the neighborhood of Morumbi.
That's all for now; I'm sure things will become a bit more interesting once I land.
I'm not entirely sure what my duties will be when I arrive, but I do know that I will be spending roughly the month of June working at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie with the Dean and foreign language office. I think I'm working on developing an exchange program for Mackenzie undergrads to come to Pitt for a two week program.
After my work at the University, I'll move to Pitt's Executive MBA offices in the American Chamber of Commerce building. Sometime during my stay I'll also do some site visits to various Brazilian companies in different industries.
I'll be living with a Mackenzie professor and his family in the neighborhood of Morumbi.
That's all for now; I'm sure things will become a bit more interesting once I land.
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