Amazing!

If there is something that has always amazed me is how the media or/and a small group of bums are able to influence people in general. I, of course, work like everybody else and do follow a bunch of people on twitter, which includes a couple of sci-fi fan base. I came across to this one here: http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/10/14/is-steve-jobs-more-popular-than-jesus/

If you analyze carefully what’s written in this article you can clearly how a bunch of underage, underminded (if this word exists.. neologisms are cool, come on!!) people guide people’s opinion. Please, do not mind jesus (whether you believe in the guy or not this is not the actual trend topic here) but to say that Steve Jobs is “cooler”  than jesus is a bit too pushy. I am against religion, and really do not believe in anything but still believe that we should not either follow or accept things we read in any give thing/magazine/paper/website.. etc etc etc, we should use our brain cells a bit. Really, sometimes I am so tired of this easy access to information we have right now…..

An American dream

Most titles end up having nothing to do with the actual post, and this is no different from previous versions of stuff that is totally disconnected from titles in general. My post has nothing to do with any American, even less to any American dream, it sums up to a dream.

Have you ever dreamed about a book? Today I dreamed I was buying this book with my dead grandmother…

This is the book cover!

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestsellers-2008/86-5.jpg

Bored to death

It is always great when you realize you are not the only one way too bored on a Sunday evening. There is not need to say that it is 12:28am right now, and I have nothing fun to do. Let’s recollect what I have spent my day doing, shall we?

I woke up fairly early for a Sunday, for starters because I needed to finish up a paper that I have to present next Thursday, needless to say that I did not finish it. I remembered that I am going away on Tuesday and since I would not be in Rio for a whole say long I had to prepare every single class I had to until Wednesday (which I did not because I realized it was not that many things and I could read on the bus ). That goes to show how boring my day was. I really wanted to go to the movies to see Angels and demons… I am off the movies forever, no Wolverine, no Star trek, that is, NOTHING! If my life keeps on being so exciting I think I’ll have to close my blog. I’ll have nothing to write, but to bash about stuff I do and feel compelled to do otherwise. I think this is when you certainly know you’re a grown up. Resposibility comes first, fun, oh well, never comes.

But at least I have something to wait for…

God forsaken phd!

I think I am getting less and less creative lately. I could come up with many difference reasons why I haven’t had anything interesting to write about. A lot of people are already doing that, and that is, filling up the web space with crap. I have nothing to say about this insane economic problem the world is going under now, it worries me already without having to talk about it, but one thing does not go out of my mind: if Bush didn’t have that wonderful idea of invading Iraq and spending trillions of dollars in a neverending/no-purpose/no logic war, this crisis would be way less frightening right now. (I still think the problem would still happen, the war is not the sole reason why) Which brings me to think of something else as sad as the crisis… how a single country can affect so many others. It makes you wonder.

I have been spending my days deluged in books and xerox copies of funky and complicated texts, but what strikes me now is not the fact that they are hard, but how badly translated they are. I have spent hours in the last days trying to keep up with my phd reading assignment and came to realize right now that even though Hegel is a very heavy reading it would not be as bad if the translation was better. Run-on sentences, wrong verb agreement, horrible word choices…  I am curious to get ahold of this Hegel book on Tuesday just to see from which language the text was translated…. go figure!

And it goes on…

I thought it was only in Brazil, but apparently, it is not… This is sad, very sad.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7930380.stm

Only in Brazil

I thought nothing would frighten me this much but I have to admit that when I heard on TV that the Catholic church was suing the state to hinder a 9-year-old girl from having an abortion because she was raped by her foster father, I swear I thought I was hearing too much. But, apparently I wasn’t. I have just read on online Brazilian press that this is real. I am not really talking about the rape since it is fairly normal (even though absurd) all over the world, but what strikes me as bizarre is what comes from an institution which zeals (or is supposed to) for people. But is that so? I have been trying to make sense right now… I know it is important to add that abortion is prohibited in Brazil, however, there are certain exceptions to the rule, and this girl’s case would be one of them.

Now let’s ponder…

1. It’s a highly risky pregnancy since she’s 9 and her body isn’t fully formed;

2. She’s a child (I can’t see how she’s going to be able to raise another child);

3. She was raped by her own step father (whose ass also raped her older sister);

4. She was RAPED, for god sake!

I have always had problems understanding the church as an institution since it never does what it is supposed to do. Let’s say I believed in god and I’m a catholic. What do we know about the catholic god? Isn’t it an all forgiven god? Basic logic: if it’s all forgiven, it’s good. But, how mean is it to make a child carry 2 babies who will remind her, for the rest of her life, that she was raped by someone she trusted? Is she the one who should be punished? Or the  unborn fetuses, for the matter? What is wrong with the church in this country? (what is not wrong, I think should be the question…) If anyone has a logic explanantion, please, post a reply!

For fun:

http://www.catholic.com/library/Abortion.asp

Hopefully a new era has begun

Many have been talking about how hopeful they are about this new change in government, I am not different from this many. However, what other many are lacking in realizing is that Rome was definitely not build in a day. America’s economy (to say the least) is doing very poorly right now, and we all know that in order to take them out of its own misery a lot of hard work will need to be done. Obama’s election, even though, a great step towards greatness and a beakon of hope, is a means to serious hard word in a country where hard work is taken to the next level. Patience and hard work, I’d say. S, we have all been celebrating the fact that Obama is the first afro-american decent in government and that it goes to show how great lenghts Americans had stridden, however, a tiny comment may show that when a nation is based on values other than unity, it is difficult not to stray from there. I don’t know how many of you actually paid attention to the first minister’s speech and how he tried to remind the people Obama was not white. If this nation had actually realized that when they highlight a person is afro, chino, japanese, indian, or whatever, it is only showing how little they think, thus, they are. I do not see how this can be seen as respect when what you’re doing is segregating, they simply should say “american”, this says it all. It actually does not matter whether you’re blue or green, what should matter, is whether you can perform your job the best way possible, contrary to what has been done in American in the past eight year with a less than incipient government which not only showed how not to govern, but also showed the entire world that if you do not know how to use the power you have, you’d better not to touch it. Power is a very dangerous thing, especially in the hands of someone who (or many someones) who are not fit to have it. Power is a coercive tool, a weapon, a dangerous weapon, which should be handled carefully. I, for one, hope that this new administration is wise enough to handle it carefully.

Another interesting thing about Obama’s iauguration day yesterday was his speech and how strong he was when he reminded the people how weak and badly handled was the previous administration, right in front of Bush. I must add that I had the time of my life by simply looking at Bush’s face. Well, I am adding this up so that we all can see it time and time again:

A new day has almost come

New year’s eve, well, one of the few wide world traditions (ok, I know some peoples have different new year’s day, like, the Jewish, for instance), but we all have to agree that December 31th is a date celebrated all over the world. And people celebrate for many different reasons, but, mostly, people celebrate is as a date of closure, a day when we leave the not so pleasurable things behind and open the doors to new and adventurous ideas. People usually make those huge resolutions lists, in which they promisse to eat less, drink more water, stop smoking, eat healthier, go to the gym more often, have more fun, waste less time, go back to school and many other possibilities. The thing is nobody keeps them, it would be great to think that people keep, at least, one or two, but they actually don’t. Therefore, I am avoiding to make a list this year. There is one special item that I always say I am not going to do anymore, but I know I will, so, why trying to delude myself? I keep on making the same mistake, so I decided that I am not going to try to be flawless anymore, and simply go with the flow. Maybe I’ll have more fun this year.

2008 count:

1. Studied a lot,

2. Worked a lot,

3. Finished my master’s. Passed to the Phd program I wanted,

4. Ranked, even though, unjustly, for the scholarship,

5. Made some serious money,

6. Had some fun,

7. Fell thru the cracks again,

8. Got fired from the job I hated the most (my perfect X-mas present).

Good count, isn’t it?

To 2009: I just wish I won’t fall thru the cracks… But, if I have to do so, let it be like Alice in Wonderland.

Happy New Year everyone!

And no I didn’t

I was just reading S’s blog about not only the picture I posted on my orkut, but also about the things we refrain from doing since we live in a such controlling society, and I ended up thinking about the fact that I do the same. One cannot deny that we do wear masks 24/7 because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to live with people who are different from us…. ok, this is true, so it is a matter of adaptation. We end up having to adapt to whatever kind of society we live in in order to deal with people, but do we really want to do that, or do we do it just because we are conditioned this way? I tend to believe we are. I have been brought up in a catholic family in which taboos are still in. Tiny discussions amount to very difficult issues to resolve. The fact that I am an atheist doesn’t help me much, especially when I hear things like god speed or god bless you. God, which god? There is no god, and that is a fact, it’s just an illusion, or another way of controlling people through fear, god is dead, definitely.

However, like S stated we end up downplaying ourselves since everything we say turns out to be blasphemies. Blasphemies? What is a blasmephy afterall other than another pre-concept of something that I tend to disagree with? And what is the actual problem in disagreeing? I see none, I am a firm believer that it is out of conflits that the best things arise. Overall, most of this talk comes from something that, for me, is quite sad, and it’s called ignorance. The fact that we, as human brings, cannot respect someone else’s opinions says a lot about us, there is no understanding, no kindness, and this has nothing to do with spiritual beliefs. I could be wrong, but, now, I really doubt anyone will tell me wrong.

There is no utopia, merely this shitty world we live in inhabited with underdeveloped people. Be afraid, be very afraid because the future is dark my friend….. (no pun intended! )

Really, what’s wrong with this image?

Phd, Stanley Jordan, and zombies…

When I say we live in a mad world I say it with property. I have never doubted the ability mankind has to screw up, but what I doubted was how people do stuff to others and act like if he/she have never done anything. I must say that today was one of those days. The zombie day! You see zombies are “people” who raise from the dead, screw up with everything around them, shoot their own feet and are quite sure they rock, when the truth is, they suck.  But sucking is something that only a few have the endless ability to do so well…

After two and a half weeks of sheer suffering my phd tests finally came out yesterday. It was supposed to be out at 2pm, but in reality it was out at 11am. A friend called me with the great news that I had taken a very high mark which also qualified me to ask for a scholarship, which is great since I do need that money. My actual classes won’t start until next year so, until then, I will finally have some very deserved vaca since I feel like I’ve been dying lately… really, I’m well alive.

I have just come back from the most amazig concert ever! I went to see Stanley Jordan at a local bar in Rio and I must say I am speechless! This was the most fantastic concert I have ever been to!