June 16, 2003
Late. Dusk palms.
It was a lazy Monday. I think this might be my first non-huge post of the summer. First of all, I'm happy to report that my new guitar has already served its purpose: I've used it to transcribe Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River" to a simple acoustic guitar song. It was surprisingly simple (I had planned to spend a lot of the summer on it), but the real challenge lies in modifying the melody so that I can actually sing it. I don't have Justin's range or anything like it, so we'll see if I can find a cheap voice coach down here...
So yeah, today was lazy, no demarches or anything like that. I didn't do much, other than boost my productivity a bit. I'm burning out less quickly as I'm starting to grasp the routines and general feel of things. The fact is that I've enrolled myself in a crash course in Brazilian government, Portuguese, and US diplomacy. It's hard to grasp all at once, but that's OK. I'm trying not to be impatient with myself, and like I said, I'm not wearing my brain out as much as I did last week.
One funny task I got to carry out today: one of my superiors wanted to know how old Brazilian VP José Alencar is. Brazil's federal government happens to have a vast presence on the world wide internet, replete with fun facts about everyone who is anyone in Brazilian politics. But alas! I couldn't find anything about the VP's birthday. In an effort to do whatever it takes, I decided to call his office. I bucked up and asked the secretary in my weak Portuguese that I was calling from the embassy and that I would like to know how old the vice president was. She told me to wait, and I heard her discuss the matter with another woman in the office before she told me that he is 72 years old. Thanks. Click. Done! Now the info is on the internet: as of June 16th 2003, Brazilian vice president José Alencar is 72 years old. Got that? Good, don't ever ask me again.
To the amazement of our two dogs, I jumped rope in the backyard after work (I took a little break to take the photo that I've included in this post). Bella got tagged by the rope as she tried to come smell what I was doing and I'm afraid that I have given her a perpetual fear of the jump rope. She'd hang around as I took breaks, but would skulk away in fear every time I resumed my jumping. Dogs are great things. The one's that I live with are particularly loving...almost needy, but it's nice to be able to make something so happy by simply petting it. Oh yeah, I almost injured Bella by pinning her head to the ground with my shoulder. Allow me to defend myself, I was doing pushups and in her zeal to lick my face, she shoved her way underneath me just as I descended. Stupid dog. She's a keeper.
I went to Friday's again for dinner with a bunch of kids from the embassy after watching a hilarious episode of The Family Guy that Ivan downloaded off of Kazaa (who would have thought we'd be downloading cancelled American sit-coms in Brasília?!). So much for my anti-Fridays policy. Tonight's visit furthered my aversion to the place, thanks to a waiter who was so flaired-out that I almost punched myself in the stomach. He had little Pikachu figurines sticking off of his suspenders. Terrible! I'm going to start a charity fund to put an end to this nonsense. Ugh!
And that was it.
music listened to while writing: Coldcut's phenomenal Journeys by DJ mix