Site Reconstruction and Explanations

ok. so, some changes have occurred in my blog. let me try to explain some of them and while i'm at it, justify some of my disorganized posting...

TITLE
the title was modified. it changed from 'Estudo num pais tropical' to 'Tempo urbano, latino e cosmopolita' because i didn't feel like the previous title had a specific relation to my time here. it was related to the lyrics of a very famous and good brazilian song - 'Pais Tropical by Jorge Ben Jor - and it was a funny joke when i thought about it. nevertheless, i did not feel like it was specific enough. My highschool Literature professor in Guatemala, Profesor Gabino, once told during class that the Title ought to be the shortest possible summary of the work it is representing.

i followed Gabino's advice. The new title is what i though best represents my semester abroad in São Paulo, Brazil - 'Urban, latin and cosmopolitan Time'

POSTING DELAYS
most of the people that follow my blog might have noticed that i have more delays than any northern hemisphere airport during the month of january. the reason why i take a long time is because sometimes i don't upload the pictures on time, or because i haven't finished writing all the details...

in addition to that, i always try to edit the ideas that i write. i don't like to say things that shouldn't be told openly since i understand that this is a public blog and i want to be as disrespectful and as authentic as i can. that is why it sometimes takes me longer to publish some of my postings, because i like to thoroughly reflect on the things i say. please note however that i edit only my ideas and not the language. i hope to be clear but many errors might slip my mind when reading this over and over again...

FINAL NOTE
One more thing, up until now, i had decided to publish my postings in chronological order but i had about 8 or 10 postings waiting. these were postings that i had already edited but had yet not published only because i had not published the entry about Carnaval...

please trust me when i say, however, that those will be entries that are worth reading or at least skimming because they have good pictures and they explain how Carnaval works.

COMING SOON...
these are some of the titles of the still to come, postings which i have not yet finalized...

• Carnaval in São Paulo
• Florianopolis - the island, beaches and the argentinean carnaval
• the final Desfile
• Reflexions on Brazilian and Guatemalan cinema
• My thoughts on other blogs
• Baladas... - nightlife in São Paulo
• some of São Paulo's pollution ironies
• Perfiles - I and II
• My very first time ... - danger in the streets
• Churrascaria time
• Violencia - random thoughts...
  
• Aula de Corrupção
  

i hope this explanation helps... and sorry to overwhelm you with my suddenly posted entries.

boa noite galera

voto facultativo...

it came to my attention today that voting is obligatory in this country. during my 'public sector economics' class, the professor mentioned the possibility of having optional voting. obviously, it generated -like almost any other topic he brings up- lots of micro-conversations within the classroom. a brazilian guy next to me, who is also keen on micro-conversations during class, began to tell me about the different things that could happen if brazilians do not vote and then proceeded to ask me how it was in Guatemala.

some of the interesting things he said were that everyone is forced to vote in order to have a job... this is the way he said it and then he explained himself. i know, i reacted just as you did. let me explain this a little better. any person who does not vote, must pay a fee as a punishment and it is somehow recorded. Voting in this country is a right and a responsibility so not doing it for a several number of times might prevent you from getting a job and this is one of the worst things you could have on your criminal record.

i thought it was interesting because i've always sort of wanted Guatemala to have that system, but it becomes complicated because i could see many problems arising... most of these problems would be caused be the fact that some of the voters would be assymetrically informed by being people who don't know how to read and write, or also because we have people with political apathy, or people who would be willing to sell their vote to corrupt politicians...

ah well, just wanted to spark some thoughts and hopefully get some responses from this...

Happiness Economics and some of what i've learned abroad...

Economia da felicidade...

while thinking about different ideas for a fellowship that i would like to apply for, i came across the idea of comparing happiness around different parts of the world somehow -it's just one of the many ideas that i have so far... not the best one, i know. this idea reminded me of a conversation that i had in one of my classes with some brazilians. we were waiting for the professor to come and they asked me if i was happy here and if i liked brazil. i said people were very nice and that it was a society that is not afraid to show happiness openly and loudly, i also thought it was a happy society overall - we can argue discuss that point of view at many levels but up until now, that's been my personal experience. one of them responded saying that even though there were many problems, they were a very happy country overall according to this happiness index. that's why i looked up this index and came across the following...

there is something called 'Happiness Economics' which attempts to create an alternative national index to the ones traditionally used, like GDP or GNP. there is a lot of controversy and many interesting findings that i though deserve some attention, especially because of two reasons... -one- i am studying economics and -two- i want to be happy and live in a happy country.

the data and the rankings vary a lot depending on the type of survey made from different researchers and universities. i found this one site called 'world database of happiness' and it contains results from different research methods and different surveys made over time in different countries.

since i have lived in four countries, i feel that i should definitely mention something about those four. i also include other countries that i find personally relevant because i have friends from there, because i am interested in them or just because i thought it was interesting to mention them...

AVERAGE HAPPINESS IN 145 NATIONS 2000-2008
How much people enjoy their life-as-a-whole on scale 0 to 10
(ranking no. COUNTRY - scale value)

top 5
1. ICELAND - 8,5
2. DENMARK - 8,4
3. COLOMBIA - 8,1
4. SWITZERLAND - 8,1
5. MEXICO - 8,0

countries i've lived in
8.-11. NORWAY - 7,7
16. BRAZIL - 7,4
27.-31. GUATEMALA 7,0
27.-31.United States of America - 7,0

honorable mentions - hehe
8.-11. SWEDEN - 7,7
13.-15. ARGENTINA - 7,5
17.-20.COSTA RICA - 7,3
21.-24. SPAIN - 7,2
21.-24. EL SALVADOR - 7,2
21.-24. GERMANY - 7,2
34.-37. CHILE - 6,8
34.-37 SINGAPORE - 6,8
69.-73.BOLIVIA - 5,9
74.-80. ECUADOR - 5,7
86.-92. PARAGUAY - 5,5
93.-97. PALESTINE - 5,4

TWO DIFFERENT WAYS TO GET TO HAPPINESS...
where to begin... let's look at the countries who would be expected to be up there in the list and then work our way down with the ones that might seem surprising.

Norway and the US are around where i would expect them to be in this ranking, from my experiences living in those countries i would have to attribute their happiness to many different values - productivity, independence, liberty, efficiency. In my eyes, people were happy in Norway because everyone had the equal basic grounding for individual development. basic needs were met and the everyday problems were not whether or not food was enough or safety issues but they were different. also, it still didn't feel like the level of happiness was the same during the entire year because of seasonal effects but they were overall a society which was good at putting the social basic needs in front of the personal ones. In the US i have noticed that if there is one thing they talk about, it is liberty. supposedly personal success reflects personal interest and work so everyone should be let alone so that they can do what they want. whether or not this liberty is real, is a different argument but it is definitely the one value that the US society discusses constantly and sometimes likes to bragg about.

moving on to countries that one wouldn't expect on the top 30s of that list...well, it's interesting to think that i come from a country that sees itself as a happy country, according to this one scale. this is something which in my opinion may be good or bad. Since guatemalans are happy with what they have, i have always perceived some level of disinterest in improvement and we often leave things for later because we are happy with how things are now... This is the typical 'mañana, mañana' attitude, which i do not like because it fosters procrastination. the reason why i dislike it so much is because it often gets into my way of doing things without me wanting to and i end up stressing - this happened often in the US where 'time is money' or in some parts of Europe where the trains arrive and leave at the exact minute written on their schedules...

Nevertheless, this attitude may also be good, because it makes the most of what we have at the moment and prevents us from living our lives stressed and worried about what we don't have, or all the troubles that our governments have caused, or the troubling past that haunts us. this 'mañana' attitude is also saying the following - i'm living today right now so leave me alone and stop talking about mañana so much. i know it doesn't sound good to live this way and i'm not suggesting to live one's entire life with this mindset because, in my view, that would just end up being unproductive. I'm suggesting to find a flexible point in between - be concerned about the future and base your actions to improve it, but don't let such concerns prevent you from enjoying the here and now. i have gradually found more and more reasons to live like this during my time in Brazil because, although it has not been as useful when adapting to life in Norway or the US, this 'mañana' attitude has been a very useful part of my culture in terms of adapting to the lifestyle here.

As time has gone by, i have noticed myself being more relaxed and flexible about details like time, plans, schedules and independence. i have noticed that many things here in Brazil, depend on others and may sometimes be things that i cannot change easily - like their attitude, punctuality, seriousness - so i might as well be aware of this in advance and not stress about things which i cannot control. This mindset has made my time here very enjoyable and relaxed.

this makes me understand better how guatemala, with all its problems, is amongst the happiest 30 countries in the world although the development indexes would prove otherwise. Brazil's case is similar in that way. it is a country full of contradictions, blessings and challenges but in the end, according to this index, it is the 16th happiest country.

all in all, i am glad to have been able to get to know those two different mentalities because it has allowed me to better adapt to the place where i am. that is one of the many many reasons why i am very grateful for having attended a UWC. Such experience allowed me to better understand those two different ways of approaching life and recognize their benefits. The results that those two mindsets bring to life are reflected in the rankings = they both bring about happiness although they bring it in different ways. Thanks to those two years in Norway, i now value both of them and this makes me confident in the way i live my experiences, both abroad and in Guatemala.

i apologize for the disorganized way in which i wrote these thoughts but i hope i can still get the message across. if not, feel free comment or ask about this...

eu canto até ficar rouco...

and ficar rouco i did... i am pony right now. 'pony = a little hoarse'

here's the context for all of you to understand. i went to my second futebol match at the Estadio Municipal to support Corinthians, the team which has become my team. the experience is undescribable but i will try my best to do this without pictures.

this is the where and when it happened...
Date - March 11th, 2009
Time - 21.50 São Paulo time
Place - Estadio Municipal Pacaembú - São Paulo, Brazil

i went to the game with my two host brothers and another friend that works with my older host brother. four men on a wednesday night that contributed to the total of 31,695 people that attended the game that night, not to mention of course the millions of corinthianos that followed it through television. just to give an interesting fact, the corinthians fan base -24 million- is larger than the entire population of Guatemala -13 million.

we got to the stadium, and waited outside for a little while. unfortunately one of Marcos's friend ended up not coming into the game and staying in the stadium because of some ticket problems. that as too bad for her because it's really an expreience. we entered and got our 'standing spaces' -seats is definitely too much of a word for those spaces- at sort of the end of the stadium, behind one of the goals and close to the corners of the field. we waited while singing for a while before the game started, which reminds me that i still need to learn the songs so that i don't stand out as the only person in the entire stadium who doesn't know the songs. during that time, we noticed people jumping the fence from their nice and comfortable area to come and cheer with the cool people -us- and actually live the emotion of pushing the team up through support. they had payed a higher price to be in that nicer area, where they actually have seats, next to our area, but they wanted ours. it was really nice to see that where everyone wants to be in the cheap area, even though they might have payed the more expensive one hehe. i love relatively cheap prices.

...and so it begun. we started losing -min 22- and contrary to my expectations, the entire stadium stood up and cheered even louder for the following five minutes. more than 20 thousand throats got together to prevent the team from falling and they achieved it. i got goosebumps and was inevitably one more 'torcedor' in the crowd. i was definitely impressed by the passion and emotion put into futebol but little did i know that there was more to come...

Minute 35 - André Santos delivered to the crowd what everyone had been asking for. from outside the box, he took an amazing left-footed shot that swooshed by the other team and shook the nets. everyone stood up and cheered in unison the good old word every torcedor likes to hear for their team. 'GOOOOOOOOOOL' for Corinthians. by this time my vocal chords were already asking me to shut up because i had been screaming far beyond my day's quota. it was truly a beautiful goal, it made everyone finish the first half happily and proud of their support.

half time- rain began to fall, so i put on a rain coat. i ended up taking it off once the second half begun because i was getting just as wet beneath the coat because of my sweaty reaction to the stadium heat. it didn't really make a difference anyway...

ultimately, things got better, still, and five minutes into the second half, after some substitutions, the highly praised and acclaimed 'fenomeno', two times world cup champion and three times FIFA's best player in the world -Ronaldo- scored an amazing goal. he received a cross from the right side, his teammate let the ball pass by and ronaldo shot the ball to the bottom right corner of the goal, making it impossible for the goalie to stop it. you can imagine how this was followed by a thundering noise that 31 thousand people created. i had seen nothing like this in my life. it convinced me even more that i will go back to a world cup and feel the passion again for the sport that i love.

here are the goals for you to watch...



tonight's game was overall a completely new experience. by the end of the game, not only was i soaked with a mix of sweat and lots of city rain, but i had also acquired a new perfume made from marihuana essence, fart concentrates and a few droplets of armpitt sweat. during the game i had close physical contact with many other men - no big deal, you know, hugged a couple of strangers and such - i also lost my voice over there and plan to go back for it. i had a great time besides learning the songs and spending some quality family time hehe

something that i should mention is that the part where i have been standing in the stadium is where the 'Gaviões da Fiel' stand. they bring their drums and play all the instruments for people to sing along with their rhythms. they decide what is being sung and when the song changes. they are very well known in all of sao paulo and parts in brazil. in fact, this torcida is so big that they also have a samba school and this year they actually won the 4th prize in Carnaval. it is amazing and here's something just for you to enjoy...



i recommend this to everyone who would like to see men express their emotions, or see men feel part of a family/team and support a cause with conviction. in a way it makes me think... who ever said futebol doesn't bring out men's emotional side to surface has definitely not gone to a futebol game in a place where it really matters. if you decide to go, however, just remember you might be coming home with that new Le'street-stink perfume.

for all of you to enjoy... this is the song that gave origin to the title of my blog entry tonight.now i can say goodnight feeling alive, rested and genuinly happy.

Aqui tem um bando de louco...
Louco por ti Corinthians,
Aqueles que acham que é pouco,
Eu vivo por ti Corinthians.

Eu canto até ficar rouco,
Eu canto pra te empurrar,
Vamos, vamos meu Timão,
Vamos meu Timão,
Não para de lutar!

-cheers to you all...

aulas e matricula...

so i have now finalized the classes that i will be taking during the semester. they seem to be pretty cool and i had the chance to shop around for two weeks before deciding whether to stay in them or not. it wasn't a long enough time and Carnaval lazyness did not help but i feel satisfied with the classes i'm in.

the program gives us two classes that we must take
1. Advanced Portuguese I
it happens twice a week. tuesday and thrusday at 12.20 hrs. it is a literature class where we will read short stories, some poems, write a lot and read a whole novel called 'Capitães da Areia,' by Jorge Amado. Apparently it is a cool book about street children in Bahia that lots of kids at school end up liking. it was written in 1937 but it still applies to brazilian reality today.

2. Brazilian Issues and Realities
once a week on wednesdays at 1400. it is a class where we have lots of readings about different social topics in Brazil. these include - carnaval, futebol/soccer, landless movement, education, economics, religion, identity, etc

the rest of my classes are the ones i chose. these are three and they are the following
3. Public Sector Economics
every tuesday and thursday nights - the class is about the role of the state in the way it spends its resources and the different economic reasons why it should intervene. lots of theory and discussion which is kind of cool. also the professor has worked in the public sector for about 15 years so it makes him a little more trustworthy. he doesn't only explain the economics behind political decisions but he explains how power, politics and personal agendas come into play and disrupt or strengthen the economics behind it.

4. Economic Interpretations of Brazil
every friday morning - the class is about different Brazilian economists who have written about the development of Brazil and how it has gone from being an exclusively agricultural country to and industrial and agricultural producer. so far it deals mostly with theories that these economists had so it is more a history/social science class than economics which is good because i've had enough economics with graphs in Macalester.

5. Videojournalism I
every thursday morning - the class is about the production of news television and maybe documentaries too. the class takes place in the TV studio, which is cool in many ways - it has AC and lots of cool equipment. the professor was changed once and the one we have now is from Chile so he was very welcoming when i told him i was guatemalan. it is a class i had always wanted to take so i'm excited about it.

observação da educação universitaria

something the people in the program tell us about classes is that people from the morning might be very different from those studying in the afternoon. many students here have to work during the day and therefore choose the night schedules. PUC has the same classes in the morning as it does during the night so that's not a problem. the difference is more in the effects that these different schedules have on the people.

matutino vs. vespertino
people in the morning, as i was told, are supposed to have more time and no need to work in order to pay for school. these people might be more energetic during class because that is what they focus most on during the week. so far, i've tried a couple of classes in the morning and it was hard to tell from the people that i met whether or not this was true. the people i met were from second year -university here takes 5 years approx. to finish- so they were relatively young and students begin to work as they acquire experience, meaning that they begin looking for jobs or internships later in their career, during their 3rd or 4th year of university.

people in the night, as i was told, are supposed to have less energy to spend during classes because they come to university directly from work, which is evident because the great majority is wearing working clothes at night. they also have less time to do homework and have more tight schedules so group works are more challenging. nevertheless, people have mentioned that their discipline and willingness to get things done might be better because they are used to working under a schedule that demands dedication and efficiency.

final thoughts...
the reason why i mention this is because it represents an entirely different reality from the one at Macalester where students are not entirely paying for their own education. it would be very challenging to have a student earn 40,000 USD in one year. it is true that the services provided by these higher education institutions are not the same, library, computer, resources, because of the difference in tuition prices but it seems like different education levels must adapt to society's earning potential regardless of the quality of education. since relatively wealthy brazilians don't earn as much as lots of relatively wealthy people do in the US, the universities have to come up with a system that adapts to the societies where they operate.

i'm also not saying that the education at PUC is cheap. 7,000 US Dollars per year isn't cheap, but it is not 20,000 per semester. what i'm trying to get to is that private education within a country will depend on its country's wealth. PUC is considered to be the best private university in the State of São Paulo and second best private school in Brazil and it is composed of entirely different systems and numbers in terms of prices, as well as the number of students, schedules and classes. this is something that i find worht mentioning because because everyone speaks of São Paulo as a cosmopolitan city. a place where prices are the same in many of the goods and services in all the other world cities. from my experience so far, and i recognize that i might be wrong, higher education is not one of those goods.

Domingo na Avenida Paulista...

Today's blog entry is simple. originally i had plans to go with Daniel Urgelles - UPenn - to the beach to meet three other guys from the group. it was scheduled a little too early for both of us so plans ended up falling through but i got many good things out of it = a nice walk on avenida paulista, a blog entry that i wrote on a notebook i always carry around, nice images, lots of reading done, first attempt at McDonald's in Brazil, book store time and meeting two very nice brazilians...

here's what i wrote as i sat in one of the benches of the park

i went to the park Trianon, located along Avenida Paulista, in front of MASP, and this is some of what i saw from 09.16 to 10.16 am...

• a photographer and his relatively 'young' girlfriend
• lots of spiderwebs
• a security guard teaching the secrets of park security gained from his experience to a younger guard
• joggers -all kinds, ages, speeds, heights, humors
• a DEPAVE - Departamento de Parques e Areas Verdes - worker with his son
• two women sitting on a bench close to mine talking about me and staring at what i did
• a statue
• lots of dogs - and the owners behind them
• chlidren running - and their parents fast-walking after them while calling their names
• tatoos
• leaves, sticks and seeds falling from above
• a guy carrying his dog around the park
• two smokers
• dog poop - some was picked up, some... not so much
• flies flying around the 'not-picked-up poop'
• 5 baby carriages
• 3 people talking on their cellphones
• 6 digital cameras in use
• a girl giving water to her dog using her hand as the container
• lots of music devices
• two houseless people
• dogs sniffing each other
• three encounters of dog-owners meeting
• futebol shirts
• a golden retriever rolling on his back
• running shorts - the very short kind... those went by a couple of times
• a security guard talking -and smiling- to a girl guard
• people stretching
• dogs that follow orders, dogs that don't, dogs that follow orders only in English, owners that follow dogs
• impacient dogs, nervous dogs, calm dogs, obedient dogs, tired dogs, playful dogs, scary dogs, playful owners...
• interviewers/poll-takers
• myself being relaxed
• another DEPAVE worker chilling with his friend

i hope you enjoyed some of my observations and i apologize for the unorganized manner in which i recorded all these things. there are also a lot of assumptions or deductions that i made which you are free to contest, and i realize i might have been wrong about them .. i know dogs are repeated but i saw lots of them and everytime i noticed something different.

gol do gordão...

it happened. i saw it live on tv...

people present

• Fabio Bononi
• Marcos Bononi
• Rudy Alejandro Herrera Marmol

context

• clasico paulista - Palmeiras vs. Corinthians
• Ronaldo -3 times FIFA's Best Player in the world and 2 times World Cup Champion- is playing his second game for the team.
• he's a little overweight... that's why they call him 'gordão'
• minuto 90+
• Corinthians was down 1-0
• last corner kick...

results from the match

• Palmeiras 1 - 1 Corinthians
• 3 sore throats in this house
• millions of people celebrating
  
• a broken fence at the stadium
  
• one of those things that mastercard would say that money can't buy...

ENJOY THE VIDEO...

oficinas de percussão

Just to let you all guys know... Daniel Urgelles and I have signed up for the free percussion workshops given by Bloco de Pedra. they are the Maracatú group i previously talked about. every saturday from 2 to 3pm we will be going there. we already went to the first one and it was pretty cool. it was basic but i am getting really excited. they will teach us the signs for each of the different beats they have and the sequence in which they are played. it's something i always wanted to learn so i'm happy i'm finally doing it.

in case you need me, i won't be back from those until after 5 because from 3 to 5 pm, i also stay for the open session of Maracatú which they hold. it's the bomb and there are lots of cool people that help you play and participate...

note
the picture was extracted from Facebook and it is an old one. it's just the funniest one i found of Danny playing...


in case you didn't read my previous entry about this...
MARACATÚ ENTRY

el retorno del fenomeno...

nothing too big on his first appearance but he did do something.

from looking at him play, you can tell he has played at a different level within the realm of futebol. his first touch showed just how quickly he can switch the game's direction and make the opposite team shake in fear. it was nice to see him play and even better to see my host brothers get excited about it.

just to clarify - after more than a year of not playing soccer, after being called fat by his own president, and after his third knee injury...Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima, also known as 'fenomeno' in Brazil, played his first couple of minutes on the team that i am supporting... Corinthians. you can imagine how happy people are here.



...i wouldn't be surprised if he does great things for the team but i don't think so much pressure can be good for him. only time will tell and let's hope it brings our team up.



who would have thought that the kid in the blue and white uniform would become the player he is now... i mean look at him hehe