first week of school

Monday was the first day of classes at PUC. The first week of the new semester is called the "Semana dos Calouros," or Freshman Week. The freshmen don't have classes yet and spend the week doing cultural activities and getting to know the school. The other three years of students skip class all week and haze the freshman. The professors shrug and cancel class. A lot of the CIEE students I've talked to haven't had a single class yet.

I had a slight mishap on Monday trying to find my 4:15 class, Art and Technology. After I'd angrily stormed home, one of the CIEE reps called and told me she'd found my class. I don't know what time it was at or in what room (or planet). I'll try again next week.

I had one of my two literature courses at 10:15 yesterday, Brazilian Literature. The focus of the class is later Brazilian modernist poetry, ie concretism and realism. It focuses on "the generation of '45." I showed up and so did the rest of the class and the professor. We went over the syllabus for a bit and then walked over to the theatre building to attend a guest lecture by a Peruvian professor. He wrote a paper on Octavio Paz and Orientalism in Latin American poetry. It was really interesting. I knew there was a strong link in the visual arts between Latin America and Asia, but I hadn't heard much about it outside the colonial era and nothing at all in literature. Next week I'm going to ask my professor for the visitor's name so I can look him up.

Today I had the Language of Fotography at 1:30. Once I found the room I ran into three other kids and one older woman. Two of the kids were just accompanying the other, and the older woman was the professor. She gave me a quick tour of the photography labs and described the basics of the course. Then she told me she didn't expect anyone to show up today and that I could leave, which was good because I had to anyway. CIEE had us scheduled to register with the Federal Police at 2.

Registration took about 3.5 hours, most of which was spent waiting in a grid of chairs that reminded me of O'Hare's waiting areas. Finally, after checking over all my passport information and visa application, they took fingerprints of every finger of each hand (twice!) and let us go. I think the Brazilian government knows more about me than the US does.

Tomorrow I've got my second literature course, Portuguese Literature, from 7 to 9 at night. This one is also about Brazilian modernist writing, but focuses more broadly on different types of literature and has a wider time frame. I signed up for both to see which one I'd like better and drop the other one. Before class I think Brandon and I are going to go to a wacky mall he visited earlier. The nicer stores there require that you purchase 6 or 12 items; you can't just get one thing. I'm curious and confused. We'll see how that goes.

Friday is the Autobiographical Subject at 4:15, which is about performance art. We study a bunch of other people and Joseph Beuys. I interpret that to mean that we can make random stuff up about Tartars.

This weekend I didn't do much. I loafed around a lot. On Friday I loafed around at Brandon's place with him and Graham. He lives on the 16th floor and has an incredible view.

Sao Paulo at night:


I loafed around most of the day Saturday and finally dragged myself out of bed to go explore Rua 25 de Marco again, but it was mostly closing by the time I got there. I decided to use the Se metro station because although it's a really busy transfer point, I'd never been above ground to see the cathedral I'd heard was there. There was most definitely a cathedral. I believe it's named after a saint, but I don't know; Everyone just calls it Catedral Se. There's a big plaza right in front of it.
From below, in the metro station:



Right next to the metro exit:



The cathedral was on my right as I exited the metro. Here's the view to my left:



And right in front of that, behind me to my left:

Oh, Brazil.

Closeup of the big rose window:


A small distance away is the first building in Sao Paulo and the monument with the bird sitting on it that I'd taken a picture of earlier.
Here are two weirdly crooked pictures of the full monument with the first building in the BG; it's the white one with the blue trim:



And just the monument:


And to my right: