Short Post

It's about time I updated this blog.

I'm currently blasting music through my headphones in an attempt to drown out any thoughts in my head, but I'll push through that to write something cohesive for you.

Before I even left LA, I made a promise to myself that I would have fun this semester, no matter what. And guess what? I am! But fun comes with a price. A lot of prices, actually. I'm constantly, tired, sore, and feeling physically sick and heart broken... not to mention the actual monetary cost.  There were a few things I wasn't expecting to happen on this trip, and a few surprises from myself - both good and bad. I have and am changed in a lot of ways. I'm thinking of ways to get myself back on the right track.

Vacation starts tomorrow, and I'll be on a flight to Rio in less than 12 hours. And boy, do we need a vacation. You should have seen the class today. Everyone just looked so downtrodden. One of my classmates even said that we all looked as though our cats had died. We have a reason to be glum.... we all are getting terrible grades and none of us really know why. We just got our first grades back today, and.... wow. For the amount of work I put into this, I don't think I deserved a D. Okay, I read the comments the teacher wrote and I get why they downgraded me, but I also feel like the expectation may have been a bit too high, especially now at the beginning... or maybe I'm just being whiny.

Right now, I don't have the energy to write any beautiful prose for you. I have a lot on my mind, but I don't really feel like sharing it with the internet. I lost the handkerchief my dad gave me. Last month. I was sad about that. I liked it. I hate sentimental things. I usually avoid them to the best of my ability because they end up making me feel soulless or empty. But I liked that one.

What else can I tell you...? Sorry this post came at a bad time. If I'd updated this a couple of days ago, it would have been more upbeat. Last night was crazy. Then today, an unexpected person put my situation into perspective for me, and made me realize that I just might be soulless. Sigh... Oh yeah, and today was the last day we had class in São Paulo. Now Rio... then off to South Africa.

I'm tired so... here's a picture of a place that's relevant to my independent project. Which I'm currently getting a D on. It's a stream through a favela, that sewage is dumped into. See the small pipes leading from the houses to the stream? That's called informal infrastructure. But... to me it also shows the strength of the community, since they all help each other out to install the pipes. It gives a certain uniformity to an otherwise varied environment.

Boa noite,
Emily

Nou, Não Now

Well hey there…

Let me start by saying that if you like a cappella music and you haven’t heard E.T. by Pentatonix, then you are missing out on a real treat! I’m listening to it now on repeat as I write.

Secondly, see the title? It's a little bit above this... yeah, there it is. All those words are in different languages, they all mean different things, but they all sound the same. Dutch, Portuguese, English. It's funny to me, because if you understand all of them, then you can say "Well, not now" using the same sound! But maybe I'm the only one who gets a kick out of that..... yeah, that's probably safe to say. Anyway...

So today I was the POD, which stands for person of the day. That means that I was in charge of making sure that everything that had to get done got done smoothly and on time. It switches every day on rotation. It’s fun. This is what I had to do today:

- Make sure everyone was there since we had a free morning and met in the afternoon.

- Explain that the schedule had changed a lot and give the new order of events.

- Get appreciated (everyone goes around the room and says a nice word about the POD)

- Read from the love bag (we have a Ziploc bag called the “love bag” where people write nice anonymous notes to others and the POD pulls a few each day and reads them aloud. As you can tell, we care about making each other feel good.)

- Then we had a Politics and Development class

- During break I had to make a chart on the board so people could sign up for what they wanted to do tomorrow, since we’re splitting up into different groups

- Introduce our guest speakers, talking about urban planning and housing

- Interrupt to tell them to wrap up the lecture since we were going over time a little (the class loved me for this, because we often can go over an hour late due to such shenanigans)

- Then we went to the rooftop of an apartment complex to do some community building sessions, so I had to introduce the discussion topics, lead one of the discussion groups, then explain the game we were going to play and facilitate that a little bit too.

That was our day today. Everyone gave me a lot of compliments on being a good POD, hooray!

I have to say that I don’t really like having my computer here… because I’m realizing lately that it’s more of a detriment than an asset. If I just had my iPhone, that would be great because I could check email, Facebook, listen to music and FaceTime my mom, use Google Translate, and play Tetris, which is all I really need to do… But since I kinda have to have my computer to do the readings and write essays, it’s really easy to get distracted and watch music videos for an hour… or 6. Oops. Time I could have spent with my host family or being productive or somethinggggg. Well, gotta get some self control! (The real thing, not the app… hahahah).

Guess what! I’m going to need a haircut in South Africa!

I actually smile and laugh so much here. I love my group, they are so awesome and fun!

I feel really behind on my independent project, seeing as we really only have one more week here (eek!) and I haven’t done any interviews yet (aah!). But then I stop to think about it and I’m really far ahead of a lot of people (phew…! But I’m still totally floundering).

So last weekend I went to an island with three friends. It took us 12 hours to get there (yuck) but it was beautiful! And we lived with the nicest family who shared all their food with us and took us to the beach with them. I would show you pictures, but my friends haven’t put them up yet. So watch for them soon…

I’m going to Rio de Janeiro for our vacation week – should be sweeeeet.

So, since my lack of Portuguese skillz has been a real obstacle thus far, I’ve decided that I should start learning Vietnamese now. I’ll be fine in South Africa with English, and my Dutch will also come in handy, so I’m not worried at all. But Vietnam…. The only problem is that all my favorite free language learning websites don’t offer Vietnamese, so I’m thinking about investing in the Pimsleur approach, but it’s a little expensive. I’ve read reviews and listened to half the free trial lesson, and I think it sounds pretty fine so far, especially since I need to be able to HEAR the language (it’s tonal, so reading it will only get me about a stone’s throw in progress). Thoughts? Let me know, because if I’m going to buy it, it’ll be like, in the next 2 days, haha.

Alright, if I’m being honest with you then I’ll say that it’s 12:20 am and I’m procrastinating on proofreading my anthropology essay and doing the readings for my Urban Planning/Sustainable Environments class tomorrow.

And another thing, I refuse to proofread this post before putting it on the internet for all to see HAHAHAHAHA

…. Okay, so it’s not just me that’s going crazy, I promise. A lot of people have been feeling weirdly crazed or childish or constantly jazzed. There’s always so much going on and I think we’re all in this state of getting used to very little sleep, always being excited to see each other, making plans all the time, being stressed about schoolwork and partying hard whenever we get the chance.

In an attempt to add some stability and peace to my life I’ve been trying to find some quotes or just look inside myself and come up with my own mantra that I can say to myself each morning to remind myself how to live in the best way possible. I like the quotes I’ve found, but you know, they’re by like, different people, not me. So… how could that be my mantra? The answer is – well, they could if I weren’t cReaTivE. But, I still haven’t made up my mind on my own quote yet. Something about living life to make myself and others happy, being modest in all things, and appreciating little things and beauty.

I have to admit that I really like Ralph Waldo Emmerson’s quote: “A great man is always willing to be little”.  

I also like what Buddha said, “Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it” (but he’s kind of cheating because he was locked in a castle until he was an adult, so he’s literally talking about the world).

And who could forget Gandhi? “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”

This one has been one of my favorites for a while: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” - Plato

That last one is one that I really take into account… especially if I see someone who looks a little down, I try to cheer them up, because… well, feeling bad feels really bad! And people should feel good! (Not a direct quote, but something my dad says a lot – that people should feel good.)

Argh, now its 12:36 am and I still have to do those thangz, soooo off to the land of work (sad).

If you haven’t noticed, this blog is very different from my others. I say things like “thangz”. It’s because I don’t really feel the need to be reflexive for some reason – as my friend Terese pointed out. Oh well. Hopefully it’s still good enough.

Até logo,

Emily

PS: Here is a picture of some food. It's called feijoada. It's traditional. This particular plate includes, rice, cassava powder, salsa, greens, an orange slice, and a piece of fried meat that was so hard I couldn't eat it. And in the bowl is black bean stew with pork, sausage, and beef. You eat it by putting the stew on top of the rice and then the cassava powder on top of that and kinda mix it together. Yum yum yum, lekker lekker, delicioso! (Is it sad that I had to Google Translate that last word? Yes it is. This is why I'm investing in Vietnamese lessons.) Ok, bye for real now ^^
PPS: I have to admit to proofreading this. I couldn't resist.

What I've Been Learning

Olá,

I wrote a blog post and then I deleted all of it because I realized it sucked. So here’s my second attempt. I’m keeping the blurbs short.

Been here about 2 weeks. Getting really used to it, and liking São Paulo a lot so far. Had an acai bowl, caiperinhas, faejoada, passion fruit, pao de quejo, brigadero…  haven’t had Brazilian coffee yet, but I will. I’m pretty sure I ate some chicken hearts, but I’m honestly not sure…

The buses here are all stick-shift. Hold on tight!

Not being able to speak Portuguese is very confining and isolating.

Been hittin’ up the clubs, they’re pretty fun! But also makes me tired the next day.

So the other day we went on a site visit to what we were told would be a “squatter settlement” but after going there, I’m not sure I would describe it that way. In Brazil, people usually don’t like to renovate buildings – they prefer to just build a new one somewhere else. So there are many vacant buildings around São Paulo – over 1,000, in fact. And in many cases, it’s illegal to knock down a building in order to preserve its historical significance. Well, people who don’t have anywhere to live just move into these buildings and create their homes there. This makes the owners of these buildings pretty mad, but even if they bring a case to court, it’s hard for them to kick the people out. In 1988, a new Brazilian constitution was written, and it said that every building had to serve a social function. While there seems to be no punishment for leaving buildings vacant, the squatters are giving a social function to the building. Plus, if the government kicked them out, they would have to provide them with some other form of housing. Both these factors together make it likely that the squatters can stay.

But this place was truly amazing – so well organized, and everyone had to help out to maintain the building itself and to do chores like cook and clean. There was a daycare center for the residents and a doorman to make sure no criminals got in. A mailman even dropped off letters to the building, like any other house or apartment. There was an organization that was in charge of 6 buildings in the area that all housed people with nowhere else to go, and they really had their act together for something that would seem to be so informal.

On another site visit, we got a tour from one of the most famous pixadores in Brazil. A pixadore is basically a “tagger”, someone who writes on buildings with spray paint. It’s different from graffiti, because graffiti is considered to be beautiful and people will pay graffiti artists, where as tagging is viewed as ugly and vandalism. The man we went with is the most avid advocator of tagging and has been on news channels like CNN and in newspapers. He even holds Brazil’s record for highest building climbed and tagged – 30 stories high! We’ve learned a lot about it, but in summary, tagging is a way for those who feel excluded from society to ‘make their mark’ on buildings all over the city, giving some unity what would otherwise be a very physically separated society (for instance, tagging a wall that is meant to keep criminals out). The greater the risk a person takes to tag a place, the higher the respect he receives from other taggers. It's like a competition between groups. 

Also, there have been a lot of protests lately about the public transportation system. Not too long ago, a man named Lula was the president, and he decided that his people needed to be able to get around. He gave everyone who couldn’t afford a car money to buy one. Since then, the traffic in São Paulo has been horrendous. It can take you 1 hour to drive 2 miles. So people started using subways and buses more often, but the problem still existed, and the public transit systems are completely congested, too… I had to wait in line for 10 minutes just to enter the subway station once. So anyway, recently the government wanted to hike the price up another R$0.20 … and that was so not cool with anyone. There was a series of 7 protests and I’m pretty sure some smaller ones along the way. Some people say there is a real problem and others say that young people are just trying to exercise their right to protest. Still others say that there have been too many problems for too long a time, and the people are just now letting out their pent up anger. Well, whatever it is, I know that I haven’t been charged the extra R$0.20 yet.

Oh, and I forgot to mention… happy birthday to me! 21 years old hollaaa!! My host sisters bought me some really cute Havainna slip on shoes. So nice of them :)

Alright, picture time: 

This picture was taken from a new apartment/shopping mall complex. It’s soooo fancy in there, and expensive too. Like, Chanel, Louis Vitton status. And the apartments are huge. But the view shows you that slums rest right up against high rise business buildings, so the inequality is distinct and very visible in the city.

Surprisingly I haven’t taken any pictures of tagging, but here’s a good example I got off of http://www.ekosystem.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2380

Okay, I think that’s all for now and I really don’t feel like proofreading this, so sorry if there are typos, Dad.

Bye bye for now…

Emily

Can’t deal with taglines right now. 

I'm baaaaack

Ok, so I know I haven't been good at posting thus far, so here's trying to make up for it...

My first 2 weeks in New Orleans were really busy all the time, with orientations and being social in a big group of people... so it was hard to find alone time. I'm used to having a lot of alone time so it was something I had to learn to do without. I started having more one-on-one conversations which helped, and by this point I feel totally comfortable with everyone in the group, so I'm good in groups now. That's why I was not writing before, but I feel more at ease now.

New Orleans is amazing, not sure if I expressed that enough yet. The people are relaxed and it's easy to find your way around the city after a couple of days. We rode the ferry back and forth which was pretty fun, although I'm not sure we had to do it twice. We went on site visits and had lectures and learned about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So, now I'm in São Paulo! I live in a really nice apartment with a great host family - a mom and two twin girls aged 12, plus another girl from my program. I love living with a host family because it gives me a bit of peace after the school day - unlike when we were in the hostel with 6-8 in a room. They all speak good English, in fact, my host mom actually studied at UCLA! Small world. I, on the other hand, speak no Portuguese. This makes ordering in restaurants quite interesting - but I have a master plan - point to something on the menu and hope someone brings me some food. Works every time.

São Paulo is huge!!!! Like, the 5th largest city in the world. It's a giant sprawl of highr-rise buildings and not so much green space from what I've seen so far. So... I get lost. I can't even get to school from my house without my wonderful roommate to help me. It's pretty much a straight shot, but I just get all turned around... In fact, right now different groups of people from our program are out having fun on this fine Friday night, but I'm way to scared to leave my house without my roommate (who is currently in bed with a migraine) because I know I won't be able to find my way back home. But it's okay, because I have to get up early tomorrow morning to spend a weekend at a country house. It will be all of us, plus another 2 girls and their host family, who, surprisingly, also have 12-year-old twin girls. So it should be relaxing and fun.

And boy do we need to relax! Our program keeps us really busy. We usually have class from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Today we even had class from 9-7. How am I supposed to experience the city on this kind of schedule? We have so many obligations... site visits, papers, projects, lectures, readings, spending time with host families, trying to find a spare minute to go out, calling parents back home... It's a lot to keep on top of. But we're managing. Somehow. I'll get a head start on next week's homework so that I can walk around a bit after class. That way I might get to know the city well enough to be out on my own in the evenings (or just at all, in case I'm ever alone during the day). It's safe here, especially on our street. And it's really fun taking the public transportation, and so crowded! My friend from Beijing said he felt nostalgic riding the subway, because we were all packed in so we couldn't move.

This experience is teaching me a lot more about how to be observant in a city in a way that I'd never thought about before. Like, why is there graffiti? Where is it? Who made it? What do the neighbors think? Is it art or is it vandalism? Does it show that people are more integrated or more separated from society? There can be many different answers.

Hmm, what else do you want to know? Well, we each have to do an independent project that compares all of the cities we'll be going to. A pretty tough assignment! I'm doing mine on public restrooms. I know, I know, people feel uncomfortable with the subject, but I think it's really important. The kinds of questions I'm looking at are...
1. Where are public restrooms located?
2. Does it cost money to use them?
3. Is there a stigma surrounding their use?
4. Do the people who clean them feel appreciated and well-paid?
5. What is the design? Why is it like this?

etc., etc,. etc., I won't go into too much detail about this here right now.

Ok, well I kind of have a cold and I have to get up early tomorrow so I think I'll sign off for now. I promise to keep writing good posts from now on!

(As for the tag line situation, I'll just have to choose a different one from each country. So....)

Tudo bem (means, "everything's ok")
Emily

PS: I really super promise to post tons of pictures next time!!