My Factory of Extravagant Marvels

Surpresa boa é ao amanhecer o dia, ver uns amigos queridos de aventuras passadas acolherem-me com um sorriso de calor, carinho, humor e esquentarem meu coração. Sei que o dia vai ser de sol!

Jon : So, we both saw the same 4 talks [on Monday], and we each came away with an impression about the opening anecdotes of a speaker. For me, it was the speech by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier: he opened his speech speaking about Rwanda's efforts at rebuilding and reconciliation, their efforts to "reconstitute" themselves, and also mentioned that Germany has been faced with the same task twice in recent history. I'm not entirely sure which two he was referring to; it may have been the rebuilding efforts after the two world wars, or was it rebuilding after WWII and re-unification? Let's just round it up to three for now. Steinmeier went on to speak about ways of promoting reason, peace, and stability in foreign countries, especially using cultural outreach. But the examples he chose in his introduction struck me because they are in fact perfect examples of two times Germany has been on the wrong side of history. In Rwanda, ...

Part of my relationship with writing is that it is intrinsic to my process of thinking . By writing, I have a chance to catch the thought and look at it. It is almost as if by writing, I could step out of my system of thinking, and enter another, second order system, that of the written text. This allows me to have a chance to shape the thought, to tender it, to water it like a plant, and observe it grow. I like this metaphor, probably because plants are such a bliss to me. They remind me of home, a home that exists only in the saudades that I feel of it, but for which there is no "real" referent... it is the beautiful idea of belonging; something that I prefer to live more a process than as a state. My thoughts are like my plants; there is much joy for me in observing them grow, in letting their cells divide and spread, more leaves, more stems, more roots. My thoughts are like a forest in formation, and I am the forest itself, the forces that bring rain, wind, cold and wa...

I'm entering my last year of PhD now. It is scary. I've shared this feeling with my friends who are in the same situation and I've learned from some of them that they also feel like this, which is a bit of consolation. But despite the butterflies in our stomachs, we have to keep on putting words down on the page, and putting them out there for people to read. That is the hardest part, of course. That part where people actually read what we write. Once they read, they can think whatever they want about it and there is nothing we can do. We have no control anymore. And that is friggin' scary! I've been worrying about publishing lately. I say worrying because that is often my modus operandi  regarding academic stuff. I don't always plan , I don't always wonder , I don't always think about it. I worry about it. It is deeply emotional. And my favorite way to sooth this worry is reading (which is also, as we all know, a wonderful procrastination technique...

Once or twice a week Jon and I play basketball in the morning at park close to home. It's a good way to jump start our sleepy brains. We often meet daycare teachers and the babies they care for in the playground beside the basketball court. This morning they got me thinking. Our relationship to the urban public space is shaped by habits we acquire very early. Right from an early age, the kids in my neighbourhood learn that it is OK to go to the park to play. The teachers take their groups of toddlers there. In fact, they usually walk there, sometimes carrying the kids on a cart, other times, the kids walk holding a line so they don't go astray. They never drive! No way this would happen in São Paulo. When I was a kid, I played in the playgrounds in the daycare yard, surrounded by tall fences with spears on top. My teachers never took the students outside the premises. Trips only started to happen when I was older, in primary school, and they usually required the parents t...

Jon and I went to have brunch this morning to recover from all the dancing last night at Queer Noises, a show that was part of Chapeau Rouge Pride Week celebrations. As we were coming back home, we coincidentally run into the Pride Parade and joined the fun for a little while. At a certain point, I climbed a little wall to see the crowd better and a gentleman beside me asked if I spoke German. All happy for the opportunity to put my (limited) skills in German to test, I answered with a sneaky smile: ein bischen... The man was confused about the event and I tried my best to explain: "Es ist eine Parade für die Rechte Homosexuell Menschen... gegen Homophobie..." "Gegen Homosexuell Menschen?" "No, no...nein! Für denen Rechte! Gegen Homophobie..." After my attempt at explaining, he didn't seem any less confused. I wonder if the problem was mein schlechtes Deutsch or if the concept of a parade in support of sexual diversity was just too much fo...

I started reading a book about editing oneself. Now that my chapter is written and in Jon's hands (he is my appointed editor) I can take a little distance from the text. That also means I write blog posts, hurray!!!! I've been extremely procrastinative* over here... I've been studying the act of writing so much that for a while it paralized me... I've been secretly afraid to put myself to the scrutiny of others, lest they do to me what I've been doing to the authors I'm studying :-D But then I realized that, what the heck? What's the point of not writing? No point, right? So better do something, and badly, than not do it. As Elizabeth Grozs said in this video, "I become according to what I do, not to what I am." So hurray for writing my blog.... badly writing it, passionately writing it, nonchalantly writing it... jokingly writing it... better to write than not to. So I made an editorial decision about this blog, and my attitude towards it. I...