end of the semester

The semester is over!

I finished all of my classes this week. I am still having nightmares about secret projects no one told me about and I am now failing, but I am completely neurotic, so this is to be expected. My photography class put together an exhibition at a restaurant/import store in Higienopolis and we had the opening party last night. I walked into class this week and my teacher informed me that they wanted me to talk about Brazilian art and Latin identity while they filmed me, and they'd make a DVD of it and play it on loop during the opening. She's putting it in the PUC video archive afterward, I guess, which Brandon said means it'll be randomly on TVs at PUC that kids watch between classes. Terrifying!
Here are the photos I took that were selected for the show:




I really enjoyed all my classes. I had some trouble with CIEE in the beginning of the semester and ended up failing the Brazilian culture course because I was taking this photo course instead. I regret nothing. The course was awesome, I'm really proud of what I made, and I found a new hobby to mess around with. I gave Mom and Dad pictures from Canada last year for Christmas. You know what everyone is getting this year. Poetry gave me a better grasp on “high” Portuguese and “low” Portuguese, and also told me that poetry is neat but I should stick to prose for my first year of a language. I have no idea what I was thinking. We didn't do a thing with Concretismo, which was the point of the course for me, but I had fun anyway and I think I did well. The professor told me that I can go back to the US and say I'm a daughter of Brazilian literature! Welp. Ok. Arte e Tecnologia was fun, and Rosangela was a great teacher and a good person to know. It ended up being super valuable because we learned basic semiotic theory in the last month, and I have never done anything with semiotics before. Semiotics is hard enough on its own, so it was hell trying to figure it out in Portuguese, but Paulo helped me a lot and I eventually turned out a paper that I think was pretty ok. We didn't get far enough in the course to really talk about contemporary use of technology in art, which was disappointing. Artes do Corpo was bizarre through and through. I had a good time, though, and I think I understand a little more about performance art and the creative process behind it. It was really interesting to see the relationship between what people did in class as part of an activity and what they did as a performance.

The semester was nowhere near as academically rigorous as the CIEE site promised, but I think that was definitely for the best. If I had actually needed to concentrate all of my energy on school, I wouldn't have learned as much or, um, survived. I think I learned more with Paulo and Claus than I did in school, and Brandon feels the same way about the friends he's made. So there you go, CIEE. You got me here, you gave me basic Portuguese, but you did pretty much nothing else for me. I wrote that on the evaluation we had to do. I wouldn't recommend the program to anyone else unless they have no other way of getting here. It's basically worth any price to get here, though. The country and the people are all amazing.

I never, ever was made to feel uncomfortable as a foreigner here. I mean, I felt like a foreigner and was really, really, really uncomfortable in one way or another for six months (which is the idea, right?), but no one was doing it on purpose. I came across some hatred of America and more resentment, no bad feelings toward me as an individual. Mostly people were just curious and asked a lot of basic geography questions. I think that might be due in part to my own personality. I'm not fond of Bush, I try to be knowledgeable of the US's role in history, I try to be sympathetic, and I know how to shut up. There were some kids in CIEE who I know would have had problems in some of the situations I was put in, like when my poetry teacher was wearing the huge pin with a swastika and Bush wearing a Hitler 'stache. I generally just assume I know nothing about anything and try to be open minded, but these last six months I really, honestly knew nothing about anything and being open minded really paid off, I think. Not just because I avoided conflict, but because I made some really good friends and learned a hell of a lot. People really appreciate it when you show that you honestly want to learn about their culture. That's one of my favorite things about Brazilians; they're all so eager to show you their country and to explain how awesome, and not awesome, it can be. And they'll personally show you everything if you let them. I joke about how Paulo and Claus are my native guides, but really, they volunteered for the position and are constantly coming up with things I need to see or do.

I talk about Paulo and Claus all the time, but I did make some other friends. I adore Tokuda. Milton and Simone from my photo class asked me to e-mail them when I get back and send pictures of Milwaukee and my dogs and all. There are a couple people who Claus introduced me to that I'd like to keep in contact with, like Tais and Celso and that gang. I was really happy to get to know them. There's also obviously Luis and Ricardo, who are going to get a giant shipment of Terry Pratchett books when I get back. As I was packing up my apartment in December I started kicking myself for buying so many books (not that I changed a damn thing—I still have a pile of books waiting for me to buy them at the Livraria Cultura, and I already have an entire suitcase full here), so now I have a good idea of what to do with them. I still wish I could introduce Luis and Ricardo to Lee. Maybe I will someday, although it's hard to get a visa to the US (I can't imagine dragging Lee here, although I would like to) and most Brazilians I've spoken with would rather go to Canada. I can't blame them. I'd rather live in Toronto or Vancouver, too.

Francisca was difficult because I knew she wanted me to be like Laura and Rachel, her previous students, who are very social and chatty and easier to get along with. I'm just not. I'm quiet and do my own thing. I think we would get along better if I were staying a full year like they did, though. I just finally got to the point where I speak Portuguese well enough to have some confidence and stop being so shy around her and her friends. It's my last day here, though. This weekend I'm going to Tais's house in the country and then straight to Barretos on Sunday. Barretos is a tiny town in the interior where Paulo has a lot of family. After, we're staying with his dad or his brother. So I made a big copy of the banana picture that was in the show and put it in a frame to give to Francisca. I hope she understands.

Speaking of Paulo's dad, he's been taking us out to dinner a lot. His name is Marcelo and he looks just like Paulo except older and more facial hair (if that's possible). Here he is with Paulo at a German restaurant a couple weeks ago:

Adorable! And here's what they're eating:

Delicious with applesauce.

Marcelo took us out for Bahian two weeks ago, and I ate so much I prayed for death. Here is what it looks like. Spoilers: yellow.

Farofa, or “crazy Brazilian dust.” You put it on meat.

My plate! Various types of seafood mashed together with oil.

A guy serving us from a pot!

He won't be taking us out to dinner next weekend because he's going to be in Mozambique. That's in Africa. He had to get more vaccinations to go there than I had to come here. I'm impressed!

Also two weeks ago was São Paulo's Gay Pride parade. I took a couple shots as Claus and I walked down Paulista (and he told me over and over again how much he really likes women), but I didn't get any good pictures of the sheer insanity right outside his building. You literally could not move, there were so many people. There's a Bob's (a Brazilian burger chain) about a block and a half from his house, and once we finally got to his place and met his friend Sandra, it took us at least half an hour to get there. Probably more. Anyway, it was crazy and there were lots of people, and here's what it looked like way down at the end of Paulista near Consolação.




The cleanup afterward was awesome. Paulista was basically completely trashed after a day of people wandering up and down and eating things and making balloons out of condoms. There was a small army of orange-uniformed cleaning guys that swept the streets, with big lines of police (military, I think) before and after.




A couple other small things: There are three big Saint's days in June, Santo Antonio, São João, and São Pedro. Each Saint gets a party, called a festa junina. They serve traditional foods and play bingo and drink a lot, as far as I can tell. And there are colored banners all over the place, see Volpi. We went to one for Antonio, I think, earlier in the month. I was crabby and sick so I didn't take any pictures, but Claus took one of me posing with a bull a couple blocks from the church.

The bull isn't part of the festivities, I think. It's part of another São Paulo tradition of making big plaster bulls, decorating them, and putting them in random parts of the city. I don't remember what it's called or why it's done. That's Brazil for you.

One night we went to meet Claus, Sandra, some of her friends, and Claus's cousin and wife at a bar. It turned out to be the bar that the Council took us to on our first night here! It's a really nice place. This is Claus's cousin, whose name I forgot, but who is really funny and whose wife is having a baby. Also pictured are some plastic animals of the type we all used to play with when we were kids. Tokuda found them and gave them to Paulo, who can't stop messing around with them.


I've seen a hell of a lot of movies here. Claus likes to go to the cinema when we have nothing better to do and randomly choose a movie. One time we went to a Brazilian film called O Cheiro do Ralo, which was well filmed, acted, and composed, but entirely bizarre. The title translated is basically “The Smell from the Drain,” and it's about a guy who goes nuts, basically. I liked it after I thought about it for a couple months. Anyway, I saw this graffiti at PUC the other day and laughed pretty hard.

“Do you smell that? It's from the drain,” one of the things the main character says a lot.

This is Paulo's old school, next to the Blu Cafe. He was upset to see it being demolished and reminisced that he probably used every one of the toilets we could see through the door. Thanks, Paulo. That was touching.


I think I've mentioned that Paulo is obnoxiously good at everything he puts his hands on, artistically speaking. Here's a bunch of wooden jewelry he's made for me. All made of Brazilian trees whose names I can't and probably will never remember! Sorry Paulo.

He also made me a wooden box to keep them in, but I already packed it.

It's just about time for me to go! I'm going to give Francisca her present and then it's off to the country for me. I'll try to update one more time before I leave with pictures of Barretos, but we'll see if that happens or not.