concusion?

/sitting/outside at a bar never appeared so dangerous. i was sitting at a table with some friends in my exchange group. i get wacked on the head. fall out of my chair. lost almost all the blood in my head. [not a good feeling.] in bewilderment. i grab my head and look around for whatever man just beat me with a bat. see nothing. we look around. the table next to ours holds up a nice wopper-sized mango.

/mangos/are very dense. heavy. hurt when they fall 30 feet out of a tree on your head. taste incredible. 3 fell. 1st one. had no victims and i got to eat it. it was the best mango i have ever had. 2nd one. i was not so lucky. 3rd one pelted the table. we promptly left.

/naked/men were the key attraction of the play. CIEE, the study abroad program. took us to a play about racism in bahia/brazil. it was interactive with the audience. somehow. [unfortunately. i understand 3/4 of what is spoken. slash. not that much. quasi nada when they were singing.] 1 naked man comes on stage very proudly strutting his stuff. singing. speaking. a choir is formed and the men start singing - in english, ´´sucky my dicky.´´ meanwhile. the women are groaning singing.... more extreme racial and sexual things are said. 4 naked men take the stage dancing as much as possible. while. a woman sings, ´´eu sou super-legal´´ = ´´i am super-cool.´´ enough said.

/ps/celesse and i spent 4 hours planning our trip. rio to iguazu falls. visit the brazil, argentina, and paraguay sides. bus to buenos aires. arrive the 23rd for the burthday of andrew parker... yes. [see nadi and kate!] boat to montevideo in uruguay. back to brazil. porto seguro. [i hear it has a rollercoaster you can control the speed?!] florianpolis on the island of santa catarina. back to rio for indira´s bday. holla.

finally get internet.

/today/was a bit frustrating... so has been everyday i try to go to classes. finding which campus. what building. what room, what prof. what time. [in that sequence] just to walk 45 min to accounting class just to find that the professor decided to teach a stat class instead. this is all confirming my appreciation of the US´s efficiancy and how much brasil is still developing.

/music/is very present in salvador. just unfortunately i dig more techno/house/pop/alternative which is a little more scarce here. live screaming crowds who can sing-along every word [ex:ballads] are more popular here. really getting sick of axé and págode. but there was a pretty neat live music 24-hour concert for the past few saturdays and this past one was the last. coolest part: one stage was out in the bay and we, two new found canadian friends and i, tredded water and watched it from there. bit of an exercise and entertainment.

[24-hour concert in porto]

/internet/is my access to BabelFish translator when my little dictionary doesn´t have whatever word i´m in need of. youtube really is a nice break from studying or when i just wanna relax and find some new good music. and w/o the web i can´t blog or check fb/e-mails... those are somewhat important.

/new/friends, making some everyday. love to discover new things, short-cuts to class. love to be introduced to a new favorite food, coconut popsicles and beijús. love to use new found words to get my feelings more accurately across to the portuguese-speaking world. overall, loving this new life here, classes, sweat and all.

[garota carioca club featuring... axé]

/carnaval/music is still going strong everywhere. salvador is a small carnaval everyday. still cannot really believe how crazy and eventful that week+ was. not missing it. it was a neat experience though...

[carnaval with some of the many cross-dressing men fishing for some kisses]

/portuguese/class wasn´t high enough on my list today. it is just 14:18 and i have already been to 3 classes in 3 different locations today. not about to go to another. well i mean, until later when i give the acct class another shot - they better have found a professor...

and... i will be making a better effort of posting.

/starting now/so, i´m 2 months behind in posting. a lot has happened.

/são paulo/was an experience. [on some chart´s] it has the 2nd largest population for a city in the world. [a said 20 million people.] that´s saying a lot. this just translates in daily life that it takes much longer to get anywhere. you will get lost [about once a day.] buses and roads are mysteries. and everyone wants to mug you. [ok, maybe just give you the look.]


/culture-shock/didn´t hit when i was in rio, but came a couple weeks after my arrival in são paulo. #1 item: brazilian men are not shy abut letting you know they want you. meaning. making noises. telling you. touching you. and yes the hair and innopropriate ways. but what do i know. i´m a woman in a men´s playground. atleast that´s just about how i feel.


/graffitti/in são paulo is outta this world. truly. it is on another level. the entire city is just one enormous cement playground of skyscrapers. that are all being slowly covered in graffitti of incredible ingenuity. i suggest you make a trip around the city just to look at all the masterpieces.
/classes/have commenced. i have one 4-credit hours course comprised of 5-days a week of daily 4+ hours of basíco II portuguese class and a... man i´m starting to forget. maybe it was a 2-days a week brazilian culture class. btw. it was taught by the most biased professor i´ve ever had. he let us know exactly what he was and what he thinks. black. gay. marxist. very sweaty and smelly. pretty much sums him up. my portuguese professor was an awesome little spunky brazilian woman. i learned more than i thought was possible in a month from her. and our culture class was in PUC [poo-ky]. don´t remember what that´s short for.


/another/side of large-ness. são paulo has about 1,391 million museums, 15 million restaurants, and a butt-load of clubs and bars. maybe not literally. but definitely feels like it. always something great to eat. fun to do. new to see.


/as/for what i´ve been doing.´[i mean was doing in são paulo.] sleeping a lot. eating a lot. learning a lot. meeting a lot of people. a and a whole lot more. probably the best thing socially was meeting fernando de sousa pereira when i was in rio. we were staying at the same hostel for one night and became facebook friends. the rest is history. managed to get a hold of him when i got to são paulo and meet up with him and friends just about every/other night.

/psiu!/i have really discovered in salvador - the use of the word/sound. psiu! really nothing could be uglier. and it´s used for/by everything! basically meaning: look at me/shush/buy my stuff/you are sexy.