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).
Monday, July 20, 2009
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.
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