Daniel goes to school!

So today was the first day of school!

Since there was no one here to do it for me, I took a first-day-of-school picture (complete with uncomfortable smile):

(Picture taken in the most cluttered part of my room 'cause I love noticing all the little background things in other peoples' pictures. Like my deodorant "with extract of wasabi" [weird - but the best-working deodorant I've ever used] and the 2 boxes of juice I slayed in about a day)

Oh wait- except this was actually from yesterday. Because in typical Brazilian style, they neglected to mention that although yesterday (Monday) was the first day of the "semester," today (Tuesday) was the first day of actual classes. So I had a fun bus trip to school and back.

Now here are some pictures from the REAL first day of school (today). This is what it looked like when I got up for school:


Beautiful, eh?

That's because it was DAWN. Because I have class at 7 in the MORNING. I have NEVER had class that early in my life! We'll see if I keep that class... although unfortunately it's kind of the most logical class to keep.

So today was interesting...
I was shocked at how well I was able to understand what was going on in class! Especially at 7 am!
It's funny how incredibly upper-class PUC is (especially compared to Cal). Everyone is white and clearly expensively dressed, and has a bourgeois air about them. It's more than a little disturbing! It's like USC but only worse...
PUC also feels more like highschool than a university. I kid you not, when I walked into one of my classes, everyone was chattering away greeting each other in that "OMG! How was your summer??? You are SOOOOO tan! I'm so glad we KIT [I guess that's the same in past tense as future, right?] over summer!" It was ridiculous. Everyone knew EVERYONE! I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that, but combine that with the fact that all Brazilians look several years younger than they are and it reeeeeally felt disturbingly like highschool. Even the teacher in that class seemed like a highschool teacher. At the beginning of this class (an International Relations class), before the professor showed up, the whole class even went downstairs to go to the freshman IR class to ask them embarrassing questions and generally haze them. Like a Brazilian college version of Dazed and Confused. Minus the paddles (I think).
In keeping with the theme of lousy information-dispensation, I didn't find out until today (when I asked) that apparently I can't take PE classes for more than 0.5 units for UC! Thus beginneth the great class-dance. The only class I'm certain of right now is Portuguese. Other than that, here are my fun decisions to make (I need 2 more classes):

1. drop 2 of the following: Brazilian History, US in International Relations, International Organizations (an IR class)
2. pick up: Intro to Observational Drawing (1 of 2 times depending on which of the above classes I drop), a graduate class on violence in Rio (I think this is probably a bad idea, but it'd be great for forcing me to do research and I heard it's not too hard), or keep a second of the above 3 (and have 2 classes going towards satisfying Poli Sci requirements).
3. still keep my PE classes? Why not? Although if I dropped them I could only have 2 days of class a week....
   

fun fun fun! I hate beginnings-of-semesters. Even in Brazil!

On a real up-side, every professor I talked to was very reassuring about a foreigner taking their class. I and most of them complemented me on my Portuguese! Especially the Argentinian professor of the US in IR class who was definitely also not the most proficient speaker. (yes, an Argentinian teaching an international relations class on the US in Brazil... how much more international can you get?)

So that was that. And the cat just jumped in my lap, so I think that's my cue...

tchau!

Graffiti in Rio

Rio has, by far, some of the most impressive/beautiful graffiti I've seen. A lot of the murals are clearly several-hour projects... not just the work of someone hastily attacking a wall with spray-paint (however there' s also a LOT of tagging that's clearly just territory-marking). I've been semi-intentionally collecting pictures of the tagging I like, and have set up an album where I'll be uploading them to:

Graffiti

I plan on continuing to add to this album, so check back!

Up and running

Alright, so I finally got all my pictures uploaded using Picasa, and am emailing out the link to this blog.
As of now I'm just going to put links to the albums. I might go back and write up more stories at some point in the future, but for now this will have to suffice!

Everyday Life

People, Places, Things - Random

Futebol

Helicopter Rescue

City Tour

Boat Trip to Ilha Cagarras

Portela Samba School Practice

Imperio Serrano Practice at Sambodromo

Fatboy Slim

I'm going to be going back through these an adding captions, I think, so check back if you desire. And feel free to comment!

Things I Miss From Home

I thought this would be another fun list to continually update as I live life here. It'll be interesting/amusing to look back on, and will hopefully make me more appreciative of what I have at home:

1. PEANUT BUTTER (somehow despite the prevalence of peanuts, Brazilians have no desire to make the leap to Butter)
2. Mexican food - at least California style (oh Chunky's...)
3. Bike racks on buses. I hate having to choose either bus or bike.
4. Being cold
5. Sleeping without sweating
6. The note on our refrigerator in my apartment that tells me when I can get fresh apple fritters
7. Having a conversation without needing to think really really hard
8. Big breakfasts (hmm, seems to be a preponderance of food-related things here...)
9. Zip-lock bags
10. Sitting on my bed (if in Berkeley) or on the couch (if at the parents' house), reading a book and listening to jazz while it rains outside (if in Berkeley) or while it's sunny and nice outside and the doors to the backyard are open (if at the parents' house).
11. Sleeping well
12. ok, fine: my friends and family (this list is not in any particular order... except for peanut butter being number 1. Suckers!)
13. Paper towels that do not disintegrate immediately upon touching wet hands
14. Non-laptop speakers.
15. The variety of food available in the Bay Area
16. Beer with flavor.
17. Buses with automatic transmissions... and less pot-holed streets
18. Haas avocados (that's what they're called, right?)
19. George Foreman grill (that is, easy cooking that isn't frying)
20. My brown thrift store slip-on wingtips... actually, having more variety of clothing in general (I made it a point to pack very light to come here - it'll be like Christmas when I come home and remember all the stuff I have!)
21. All of my clothing NOT reeking of smoke after I go out ANYWHERE
22. Efficiency
    

Fun/Interesting Cultural Tidbits

I plan on using this space to note interesting little cultural differences I note in my time here.
To begin:

1. Trash cans rarely exceed a diameter of 8 inches and a height of 12. Where does all the trash go?
2. Apparently, the average Brazilian takes 2.3 showers a day. The scary part is that I've been pretty close to that average...!
3. "I don't need a bag" does not translate. A usual grocery-store interaction goes something like (in Portuguese):
1. Daniel: "That's ok, I dont need a bag"
2. Checker: "What?"
3. Daniel (pointing to empty backpack): "I don't need a bag, I have one already!"
4. Checker (nodding): "Ok."
5. Checker then proceeds to triple-bag the item and hand it to me, at which point I just sigh, take my bag(s) and walk away feeling defeated.
4. The "Thumbs-Up" gesture is by far the Carioca's (Carioca = a person from Rio - a label of pride!) preferred gesture. Peace sign:Japanese::Thumbs-Up:Carioca. It's hard to get over feeling cheesy constantly flashing the thumbs-up! [Edit: I have since learned that the really cool way to do the thumbs-up is with a lazy pinky. It's somewhere in the no-man's land between a traditional thumbs-up and a hang-ten.]
5. The Cachorro Quente - The Brazilian-style hot dog. This delicacy is most often seen served out of the back of a converted minivan parked somewhere with lots of late-night foot-traffic. Cost usually ranges from R$2.00 ($1US) to R$3.00 ($1.50US). In addition to the bun and hot dog (which has been cooked in some sort of interesting tomato-y, salsa-y sauce), the cachorro quente is accompanied by (covered with) some permutation of the following items: ketchup, mustard, mayonaise, some of the sauce it was cooked in, little mini french-fries, parmesean cheese, peas, corn, an olive and/or a hard-boiled quail's egg. I think the most delightful part of getting a cachorro quente is the excitement of seeing what's going to be on it THIS time! Oh wait, no, the best part is eating it.
6. The X-Tudo - essentially the same situation as the cachorro quente except with a hamburger pattie. The accoutrement follow the same general idea: ketchup, mustard, mayonaise, little mini french-fries, parmesean cheese, peas, corn and/or an olive; but with a couple different options: melted cheese, ham, a fried egg and/or bacon.
   *An interesting sidenote on the origination of the x-tudo name (or, at least, where I think it came from): some Brazilian discovers the American hamburger, he starts making it in his restaurant as a "hamburger." Next, he discovers the existence of the American cheeseburger and agrees that that's definitely something also worth making in his restaurant, so he starts selling "cheeseburgers" as well. Then he thinks "Dang, this is good... but it would be way better with some bacon! But what should I call it? Well... a burger's a burger. When it's got something more on it [cheese], it's a 'cheeseburger,' so I guess if I want to put bacon on it, it would become a cheesebacon! Ah-HAH!" However, how we pronounce the word "cheese" in English is almost the exact same as how the letter X is pronounced in Portuguese. Thus, when our friend goes ahead and puts the "cheesebacon" on his menu, he naturally writes it as X-Bacon [frequently, one will also see "cheesburger" written as X-burger]. "Tudo" in Portuguese means "everything," so a X-tudo is a "cheese-everything"... or an everything burger.
   It's great... burgers seem so much more extreme (and thus delicious) when they have an "X" in front of them!
7. It's surprising to me how often Brazilians complain about (or at least comment on) the heat... you think having grown up here they'd be used to it! Often times people will even make comments about it when I don't even think it's that bad. Straaaange.
8. Many Brazilians' have crazy-long names. Frequently their actually "last" name is buried somewhere in the middle of their names... which is confusing. Therefore, for simplicity sake, when something here is done alphabetically by name, it's done by first name, rather than last. (Yes, forgetting this has gotten me thoroughly mixed up a couple times)
   

Pre-flight

First off - thank you, Matt, for giving me a camera with the explicit instructions to be brave with it and have no fear about it getting stolen!















9:30AM, Friday January, 12th - The Adventure Begins
5 hours before my flight takes off, leaning under my desk plugging in my ipod. Sit up quickly and intimately introduce the top of my head to the corner of my desk. Head - desk. Desk - head.
At the time, it was a pretty impressively perfect Y-shaped (got to love right-angled corners) gash.
The medical-professional parents agreed it was a 6-stitch job, but in the context of a flight to Brazil leaving in 5 hours, a deep cleaning and big bandaid would suffice. This picture is actually from about 20 hours later, when I removed the bandaid in my hotel room in Rio to clean it. Well done, Daniel!
I am the official king of head-trauma.