What should you add to a miserable rainy day? A bit of rudeness, of course…

I’m getting to “perfect storm” moment the next couple of days, when we’ll have the second taping of video classes and also the first part of English assessments at the company. We’ll have some very busy days ahead of us and I hope I can meet the deadlines. Well, after never being able to meet my deadlines, why bother? The company keeps renewing the contract, even though there is this annoying issue. I try to compensate by delivering the best possible product, and apparently it’s paid off so far.

So, my colleague and I rehearsed the lines in a table-read style — we had hoped to do it with a teleprompter but unfortunately we weren’t able to — and afterwards off we went to meet the third party of our future enterprise. We like to meet at Vida & Saúde, a restaurant near Mauá which is kind of vegetarian, but it actually isn’t. Great variety of vegetables but there’s still the grilled chicken and fish. We really like the place, food is great, it’s always packed. But yesterday something unfortunate happened.

It was pouring with rain and we got to the restaurant soaking wet, carrying half-functioning umbrellas, when the restaurant’s doorman, who was in charge of assisting people by providing them with plastic bags to be wrapped around the umbrellas so the floor wouldn’t get wet — very environmentally unfriendly, but that’s not the point — ferociously yelled at my colleague because she couldn’t put the umbrella in the bag, even though the guy was there to supposedly help customers. We couldn’t believe it, and we acknowledged the attitude, which made him be even more rude. There were maybe some ten people around us watching everything, but obviously not stepping up, since nobody ever gets involved in situations like that, part of the culture. So it was really embarrassing.

We talked to a woman at the cash register, not sure if she was the manager, and we only got a “I’ll speak with him later” from her, not the answer we wanted to hear. At that point, even though the food is great, there was no way we would eat there.

You see, in any other civilised place this would call for  a law suit, we wouldn’t even think about not taking action. But here… totally different thing. We’ve been conditioned to accept every single piece of bullshit passively, we need to put up with all types of outrageous situations because, in the end, “that’s the way it is.” This is what we’ve heard all our lives, “nothing works,” “that’s the way it is,” “just leave it at that,” and those sons of bitches get away with anything. It’s frustrating and sad.

We all discussed the incident afterwards and she might do something about it, out of principal, unfortunately expecting nothing out of this.

—

We feel fine: “I feel this really happened and all these places really existed” — from somebody in Imlay City, 4 hour ago

Work, problems and threats

When you think things can’t get any worse, there’s always something bad waiting to hit you in the face.

Last Friday, all I wanted to do was to get home, have drinks and chill. The week had been busy, deadlines had been missed, many classes had been taught and I was physically and mentally exhausted. My last assignment of the week was to tutor one of my students until 6pm and that was it. My classes with this guy are pretty fun. He’s very communicative and it’s very easy to engage in conversation as opposed to struggling to make students say anything in English. Usually time flies and that’s a sign of an interesting class. Again, all I wanted was to get home and unwind but the moment I got to my flat door I realised it wouldn’t be possible.

Somebody had slid a threat note under my door and left a scratch on it.

I know I might not be the most graceful, friendliest, nicest person on the planet. I know I have my ways and am stubborn. I sometimes fail to see the big picture and have made bad decisions in life. I might have hurt a few people, but many more have screwed this fucker up. I just never thought I could be a target for threats, you know?

What worries me is that this person put it under my door, not the mailbox outside the building, so it’s either a tenant or somebody with access to the building. Well, I’m obviously scared but I’m not entirely surprised about it because I see so many people in this building and I’m not sure who really lives here or not. People might be handing out keys to anybody, not to mention that the two entrance doors are constantly left open.

I just feel that there should be a limit. Should we agree on rules for the building? But would that be useful if 50% of people who live here don’t even bother attending the meetings? We spoke with a couple of people in the building about what had happened and they said the most outrageous things about what they see happening here. I think the biggest mistake is not communicating the landlords about the decisions made during the meetings. What the real estate company responsible for the building does is to print a piece of paper with the decisions and put it in the mailboxes. That simply doesn’t work!

And what about the scratch on my door? Who’s paying to get that thing fixed? I know I’m not!

So, just one more thing to ruin my day.

—

We Feel Fine: “I had any serious mood symptoms nothing really bar the occasional mild depression but even that only lasts a few days and is usually just feeling on the low side of normal” (2 hours ago from somebody)

Ding dong, the bitch’s gone…

Chandler Bing’s line in Friends. He talks about a psycho that moves in, I talk about the bitch that is no longer a problem… What a strange day was Wednesday… And how things can turn around overnight. What goes around comes around.

I’ve mentioned before the problems I had with a woman who was the head of the corporate department. She was a slacker, unbearable, annoying, an embarrassment for the school and I honestly don’t know how she got a job there. She did her job very poorly and somehow got away with that. A couple of months ago I was moved to “her” office. HER office. In her mind, me being there was just a favour, you know? I’m less of an employee and should feel honoured to share the room with Her Majesty.

A series of minor events happened: she invading my space, me trying to get some more space… But yesterday was the last drop. After two weeks without showing up at the school, she made a come back, full of herself, sat at her desk, banged some drawers, answered some phone calls and then turned on the radio… She didn’t ask if I wanted to listen to music — especially the horrendous axe music she was listening to — she didn’t ask if I would mind, she didn’t even bother looking at my direction. She just turned it on as if I didn’t exist. Well, not putting up with shit anymore, bitch…

I politely asked her to turn off the radio and told her to listen to an mp3 player if she wanted to listen to some music. Well, if pissing her off was my goal, mission accomplished… She started yelling at me, saying that she didn’t have an mp3 player and that she didn’t believe I was saying that. She said that I was taking up a lot of her space, that I was inconvenient, that if she had to list all the reasons why she didn’t like me we wouldn’t be able to stay in the same room. Oh, really? Are you sure? Do you really think that? Think about what say, think carefully about what you say before making a mistake.

She didn’t… In fact, she would have a meeting with her boss — my former boss, who hired me almost three years ago — and she informed him via e-mail that she would include sharing the room with me in the agenda. I wasn’t at all scared, she could threaten me all she wanted because my former boss wouldn’t do anything before talking to me. But just in case, I immediately wrote MY boss about the whole situation and the response I got was:

“Don’t worry, this will be over soon. Thanks for letting me know.”

OK. I might be getting a new room. She might move permanently to Moinhos branch. Well, I got the answer in the afternoon.

I was by myself at the office, just doing my stuff, when in comes my former boss followed by her. Wow, I thought, the meeting must have been ugly and they’re now here to talk this through. But then I see her getting her stuff and returning the keys to the office… She had been sacked…

No, I wasn’t because of me. Us having a huge fight was just a coincidence. She was  fired for lying to her boss, my former boss, about some stuff that she was supposed to have done. Actually, they didn’t even talk about my situation because, well, sharing the room with me would no longer be a problem…

But I guess it must have been really painful to her having to do that in front of me. I was petrified, actually. They were talking about the current situation of  her clients and all I could do was stare at the screen and try to focus on preparing the upcoming Immersion’s schedule. What goes around comes around…

I gotta tell you something, though. I truly feel sorry for her. Even though she’s an incredibly annoying person, and at many times mean to her co-workers, she has a family, a little daughter, people who truly like her. I do hope she’s learned something from all this and I honestly hope she will become, or at least try to become a better person.

Well, time to turn the page now.

—

We Feel Fine: “I face frustration and use it to fuel my dedication that I feel myself moving forwards” (3 days ago)

I missed Stewart

Federal judge blocked some parts in the Arizona immigration law. The sad thing is that this case will go on and on and on and divide people even more. AC360 showed that policemen go through training on how to do the job which includes a video basically saying the do’s and don’t’s. The thing is that some three weeks ago Jon Stewart showed the same thing. Three weeks ago! The video is “old” but it’s a must see. The judge Napolitano part is fantastic. Agenda breach! Agenda breach! Latino 911.

I’m just glad Stewart’s back… And I really like the new look!

—

What a crappy day. Every single thing to be done took me hours. Expected responses not e-mailed, exercises not finished, meetings not carried out, projects not finished. Loud, annoying people around me. Endless telephone and Skype interviews. Irritatingly slow Internet. The longest bus ride home ever. Crowded bus. People bumping into each other. Traffic jam, stopping at every traffic light.

I have been so tired and seen things piling up and no perspective of working on them. College deadlines approaching. Trip to Santa Cruz on Friday very early in the morning, so early that people should be in the middle of counting sheep at the scheduled time. And if you think that after the trip I’ll get to binge drink to forget this awful week, well, think again. My stupid attempt to be a good person and help out at the school on a fucking Saturday morning turned out to be even worse than I thought. The teenagers didn’t show up, instead only a girl who had learned about the workshop the day before, has huge pronunciation problems, isn’t loud and is expected to record a podcast.

I need to get some sleep but I’m at the stage of tiredness that can’t close my eyes. I wish I could pass out and wake up 10 hours later…

—

We Feel Fine: “I also learned that my weaknesses include: I get discouraged if I feel I am not being appreciated I lose interest if I no longer control my projects and I become exhausted from competition” (4 days ago)

Back to busy

Back to busy, indeed. Assessment interviews started yesterday and it was a looooong day, I tell ya…

The whole thing started the day before. I went to work and focused on preparing the first draft of the proposal in order to show the guys in Santa Cruz what we have in mind for the distance classes. The irony of it all is that after quitting Journalism school, I’ll have to write scripts and produce content if the project becomes reality… Needless to say that I’m feeling a little nervous about it all.

I had already written down the main idea but I had now to be careful with the details. I must have read the whole thing over 20 times just to make sure everything was OK, but decided to give a last look at it at home just in case. I had cancelled the class with my students because I knew I would have to work on that a little more. So, I did my thing and turned in early because I would catch the first bus to Santa Cruz. That meant missing AC360… OK, I can live without it for a day, right? But I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep because it was too fucking early and because I kept thinking about the time I would have to wake up and I was afraid of not listening to the alarm clock in the morning and missing the bus… I couldn’t sleep because I thought I wouldn’t get up the next day. I know, I have issues…

After staring at the ceiling for half an hour, I looked at the watch and saw that the show had just started five minutes ago, so I thought, ‘Maybe the for 15 minutes only…’ I turned on the TV to see Billy Nungesser, James Carville and AC discussing about BP not being transparent and that the company didn’t think the number of barrels gushing out in the ocean wasn’t important and that BP had estimated 1,000 barrels at first but now the number is much higher and then I thought, ‘Is this a rerun?’ I know that AC has been anchoring from the Gulf the longest and his show is basically about the oil spill and it’s important to hold the BP accountable and report on what’s being done and what’s not, but can’t they dig up some other stuff? I mean, I had seen that same discussion at least 10 times before and I don’t thing it would make much difference if they placed life-sized cut-outs and rolled an audio from a show aired three weeks ago. So, after 15 seconds, I turned the TV off and went to bed.

4:30am, a very appropriate time to get up… if you are a morning show host! My bus to Santa Cruz was at 5:30am and I had a two-and-a-half-hour ride ahead of me. The only good thing is that at this time the bus is great, comfortable and empty, as opposed to the ones that operate at 6pm — the time I came back home — which are full, not enough legroom and stop at every single bus station along the way. And not only bus stations, the bus actually stops in the middle of nowhere and people get off. But I wonder where these people go, because there’s nothing around, nothing! So they get off the bus, some even carrying  luggage, and what do they do? Do they wander in the fields? Do they evaporate? Does the mothership come to pick them up?

I interviewed people all day long, 24 in total and no breaks. It didn’t feel so bad, only at the end I felt like I was going to faint. I had a great surprise in terms of the employees’ level, all of them seemed to have made progress. And I got to eat some of the delicious cakes they make in the city! Even brought some home…

Well, now I’m really gonna be busy. Assessments, proposal, winter workshops, college… I just hope I can manage.

—

Very disappointed in the English team. Really disappointed. They were my biggest hope and what about now? Well, I’m rooting for the underdog, if either Paraguay or Ghana win I’ll be very happy! (Neither will…)

—

We Feel Fine: “I can say that I think I wanted to feel some of these things but I’m not terribly sure I really did At the end of this post I talk about holding my feelings and allude to the idea that I think it’s what’s best” (2 hours ago)

Outcome: chaos

So, what’s the best thing to do on a Saturday night? Go out? Catch a movie? Dance? Wow… everything sounds very appealing, but I guess I would have to go with documentaries on Discovery Channel about the world being destroyed by major catastrophes…

I guess this is the “Catastrophe Weekend” on Discovery Channel, you know? Sometimes we see “Shark Week”, “Africa Special”, “Mafia Marathon”, “Tornado 360º”, “Airport 24 hours: Sao Paulo”.

Since last year — and I guess it will only increase until the fateful date — we’ve been bombarded by 2012 specials. What will happen on 21 December, 2012? And what we see is the possible outcome. One of the things we hear could happen is that Earth’s magnetic poles could be inverted. I thought this meant that the Earth would turn upside down but this is obviously not the case. What happens is that every some 10,000 years there are big solar magnetic storms, really big ones, and when they occur, radiation can easily penetrate the thinner parts of the ozone layers and through the holes that already exist. The way it can affect Earth is that it could generate dozens of magnetic poles scattered around the globe and, having no specific magnetic north, animals could migrate to the wrong regions in the winter, huge amounts would die and consequently the food chain would be affected. Outcome: chaos.

Another theory presented was that a planet — not only meteors or asteroids — but a whole planet could be coming towards our galaxy. And the thing is that it doesn’t even have to collide with the Earth. By only passing through the galaxy, it would immediately change the orbit of the planets. Outcome: chaos. (Before the commercial break, one scientist said it would be impossible for this to happen within the coming millions of years because if there was really a planet approaching the galaxy, they would have spotted it already.)

Needless to say that every new scenario they painted made me become more frightened. It was raining at the time and every time a bolt of lightning struck, it made me occupy less and less space on the sofa (I don’t know how that was physically possible, but it did happen).

I guess the most impressive one — because it’s the most realistic — was the supervolcanoes. Scientists say there are dozens of active supervolcanoes around the world and one example is Yellowstone. The park sits on an active supervolcano that erupts every 600,000 to 800,000 years. They said the last eruption happened 640, 000 years ago, which means that it’s already in the “red zone”. With the super explosion (couldn’t expect less from a supervolcano…) the ashes would take over the atmosphere all the way to New Zealand, literally covering all the surface of the planet and leading us to what they call a “volcanic winter”: cold and no sun light. This could last years and would cause the death of animals, plants and crops. Outcome: chaos. (Well, we all know what happened a couple of months ago with the Icelandic Eijjalgbcocksuckergjjlt volcano…)

I changed the channel to Nat Geo and the “Saturday Marathon” was on: Aftermath!, a series of “what if” programmes basically showing the worst possible imaginable scenarios happening to the Earth. I watched the programme about the Earth’s population doubling overnight to 14 billion people. What would lead to catastrophe is the lack of water. Los Angeles would build desalination plants but would discover this to be extremely expensive to maintain, so the plants would be shut down. New York City would have to build skyscrapers in Central Park to accommodate all the people living there. Farmers would abandon the countryside because the rivers wouldn’t have enough water for irrigation of crops and diseases would spread. People would start migrating to colder regions and even try to bring ice  from polar ice caps to supply the cities with drinkable water. Outcome: chaos. (After about 40 years, the population would slump to only 4 billion.)

The other shows were “What if oil disappeared overnight?” and “What if the Earth stopped turning?” but I thought I’d had my share of catastrophe for the day, so I decided to turn in. I wanted to read some news and logged on to The New York Times. Editorial: Another Bad Idea From Arizona. Now, what the guys in that state want to do is to make the children born in the US to illegal immigrants also be illegal, going against the 14th Amendment (read here).  Outcome: chaos. (Where’s Glenn Beck to defend the Constitution now?)

I finished reviewing this TEDTalk by Enric Sala, translated by Luis Eduardo Cerquinho Cajueiro. It’s another talk about the situation of the oceans and Enric proposes ways to try to preserve what we have before it’s too late.

We Feel Fine: “I ever doubt myself and what I can do All I have to do is call my dad and by the end of our conversation he will have me feeling reassured that I can do hard things”

Cheer up, Keanu!

When I read this in Time magazine I just couldn’t believe it. Yesterday was the official Cheer Up Keanu Day after this picture of him was taken recently. He does look pretty miserable…

Obviously, the thing went viral and we can now see him together with:

Forrest Gump

'My name is Forrest, Forrest Gump.' 'Who cares, dude?'

Construction workers in 1930’s NYC

'10 more hours to go...'

Bear

'No, it's my sandwich!'

The Thinker

'It stinks here...'

the Lost crowd

but this one has got to be my favourite…

'Please say yes...'

Well, I can give Keanu a few reasons to cheer up:

1. He doesn’t make the shitty money I do;

2. He doesn’t have my bosses;

3. He doesn’t have a prick mother fucker living down the hall;

4. He doesn’t live out of his overdraft limit;

5. He doesn’t know what ‘CALA BOCA GALVAO’ means.

So, Keanu, baby, cheer the fuck up already!!!

I was able to get up pretty early this morning, which means that inevitably I’ll turn on the TV on Fox & Friends and see if I can have a couple of laughs before going to work since Fox & Friends is, you know, a comedy show, right? Anyway, as I expected, they were talking about the Obama’s Oval Office address last night and, when interviewing Newt Gingrich, Gretchen Carlson asks if “some people” might think that President Obama’s remarks were disingenuous because he doesn’t go to church on a regular basis (Obama asked the nation to pray for the country during his address, Media Matters explains).  Now, these folks have got to be kidding (I told you it was a comedy show…). One day I’d like to see them actually disclosing who ‘some people’ are. Who are “some people”? Where do “some people” hide? How can “some people” give interviews overnight and have so specific things to say about the president and have all their views “reported” on a 6am show?

Two TEDTalk translations available in Portuguese. The first, translated by Fernando Marinheiro and reviewed by yours truly, is the absolutely amazing talk by Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action. He explains that almost all of us — companies or individuals — know exactly what we do but not so many know why we do it, and believing in the why is the key point if you want to be successful. Simply great, riveting talk. The second one, translated by me and reviewed by Francisco Dubiela, shows politician Omar Ahmad saying that the best way to get through to someone in office is not by writing thousands of e-mails or trying to contact them by phone. You might get a chance of being heard if you go old-fashion: by writing a letter.

We Feel Fine: “I sincerely hope you make the decision to ask for help There is no shame in asking for help if you honestly feel that you can’t do it on your own” (18 min ago)

What does it take to be a complete asshole?

Well, if you are the guy that lives down the hall, don’t go any further: you’re already a complete asshole.

I’m a person that unfortunately holds grudges, but I’m trying really hard, REALLY hard to become a better person and avoid cancer down the road. I’ve been putting up with a lot of shit for some time now and been trying to abstract the negativity and see the positive side of things, which isn’t an easy task at all. There’s only so much shit you can take before exploding, and I guess I’m on the verge here.

This guy that lives down the hall is a complete asshole, douchebag, fucker that doesn’t do anything with his life, ANYTHING, besides going to school and being supported by his parents, and his lack of productivity — meaning that he hangs out with his dumbfuck buddies a lot in his flat — is getting on my nerves big time. Big time.

After having a very busy and tiring day — students in the morning, putting out a lot of fires at the school and more students at night — I just wanted to sit back and wait for AC360º. So, as the girls were leaving my flat after the class and I was closing the door to take them downstairs, a group of the dumbfucks almost ran over us along the way, one of the guys actually bumping into me. The girls were appalled and went ‘did that guy just bump into you and kept walking?’ I said, ‘Yeah…’ The girls made a few comments about the incident but I wasn’t paying attention because the whole thing just shocked me. I was attacked by them!

I don’t have a We Feel Fine moment today. I do not feel fine at all!!!!!

P.S.: I’m not a person with a vast wardrobe, but couldn’t AC360º change his shirt, or at least alternate the days?

Am I supposed to be excited about the World Cup?

It’s been a tough week. First part of assessment is taking place and the employees do an online placement test before moving on to the written task. With the whole changing of system thing, we’ve been experiencing a few bugs along the way and the frustrating part is that I have no control over it whatsoever. Any change that needs to be made I have to contact the guy that developed the thing and he doesn’t work at the school, it was an outsourcing kind of thing. The real problem is that when I do contact the guy he doesn’t even bother responding the fucking e-mail with a ‘I’ll get back to you.’ If it’s something urgent and I depend on that to keep my job, well, I better check out the job ads because I won’t get a response within at least five days.

People seem to be excited about the World Cup. I’m not. I gotta say that I am watching Argentina vs. Nigeria right now because there’s nothing better to watch on TV. What surprises me is that I’ve never been like that before. During the last World Cup I was living in London and I remember not giving a shit about my work because I wanted to watch the matches, especially Brazil. I would make deals with my manager to be able to leave earlier to get together with friends and watch the games. We even almost missed a Roger Waters gig in Hyde Park because I wanted to watch Brazil vs. France — and thank God we didn’t miss the show because as everyone knows Brazil was sent home on that day. Obviously I would like my country to win, but at the same time I think they shouldn’t get to the finals, you know, there’s much more to the world than stupid football matches.

And I think what irritates me the most about this is that I inevitably have to go broadcast if I want to watch the games and during half time they insist on showing those ridiculous takes from wherever in Brazil with a bunch of people rooting for the teams that are playing. And the questions are the best: ‘How do you feel?’ ‘Are you excited about the game?’ ‘Do you think they’ll win?’ NO, YOU MORON! I’m watching the game because want my team to lose!!!! I think that’s almost insulting… You know what? I’ll tell you honestly that I’m rooting for England. The boys should win a second Cup, shouldn’t they?

I came across this hilarious piece of news on The New Republic website. I guess it doesn’t need further explanation if you take a look.

A lot of TEDTalks were finalized but for some reason they haven’t been published yet. There is one talk, tough, translated by Daniel Sollero and reviewed by me that is available and totally worth watching! Steven Levitt analyses the economics of crack and proves that, different from what many might think, it doesn’t pay off being a drug dealer!!! Very funny and interesting talk to watch!

We Feel Fine’s randomly selected piece of story of the day: “I’ve gotten to see my best friends a little more often Life is pretty laid back and I think I’m loosening up quite a bit more from the rigor of the semester so my life is feeling quite a bit more laid back which is definitely nice”

What the…

So, I got home earlier today because at precisely 8am I was at the school doing an assessment with one of the employees from Santa Cruz who’s going on vacation next week, therefore he won’t be at the company for the big line-up of interviews — 20 something people whom I need to speak with for 15 minutes and decide which level they’ll be placed. Fantastic…

My students cancelled the class tonight, so I had some time to go online and check the news, and I came across this article from CNN’s Hala Gorani about how writing letters has become almost obsolete. I totally agree with the fact that we’ve been losing the ability to focus, at least it happens to me: e-mail, tweets, podcasts, IMs, all happening at the same time and all of a sudden you forget why you went online to begin with. I do like having the possibility of contacting people fast or accessing information with a few key strokes, but I do miss the time when there wasn’t anything technological at all around us and we would have to wait until the next day for news coverage in the paper or check the mail box for cards and letters — not only bills!

But anyway, I had a few things to do around the house so I went on to organise some stuff, and the TV was on Beck’s programme — you know, I need the reminder! — and I heard him talking about Robin Hood and…. no, sorry, Robin MAO Hood, saying that he was the guy taking from the rich and giving to the poor, a true socialist. He was taking from the elites and giving to the people that had nothing. And he went on to say that folks should tell the story to their kids… What the… I didn’t really get if Beck was okaying the story, which would sound odd because of the MAO thing, or if he was scolding the guy or scolding the elites… Bottom line is: there’s so much nonsense coming out of that person that I don’t think I’ll ever waste my time trying to pay attention to what he says. I’ll let Jon Stewart do the dirty work for me!!! Welcome back, man!!!!

I have another TEDTalk translation published, with a little help from my friend Volvey Faustini, who reviewed the work. Nathan Myhrvold and his group of smart people spend most of the time inventing, not only for fun and profit, but also to help people around the world. They present a series of inventions that could really lend a hand when it comes to reducing preventable diseases in developing countries. And the malaria mosquito is the main target of their studies — literally! Fascinating talk!

We Feel Fine’s randomly selected piece of story of the day: “I flourish in that God has assigned to me I feel I am truly following his will” (2 hours ago)