The Beautiful Brazil

Some time had passed. Anderson and I finally found a time to meet up again and hangout. He had a huge test earlier that week and finally had a brief break from school. Fortunately, I had a brief break as well. We planned a date to meet up again. I reminded him that he promised me that he would tell me of places to go if I ever visited Brazil. He was already one step ahead of me. Whenever we met, he had a sketch of Brazil drawn with the names of some of the states on the drawing.

He told me of numerous states. The first state he talked to me about was the state of Sau Paulo. Now Sau Paulo is a large city with quite a bit of things to do. First of all, Sau Paulo is home to Anderson’s favorite soccer team, Sau Paulo F.C. He has been a die-hard fan ever since he could remember. I, myself, am a huge soccer, or futbol, fan. My team is in fact Juventes F.C. From there we progressed into discussion of our futbol teams and ours was better. I later mentioned that I used to play when I was in high school. He was intrigued by this and asked me questions such as which position I played. After that, Anderson mentioned that Ibirapuera Park was a must see if I go to Sau Paulo. He told me that when you walk into this park, you feel as if you are truly in the forest. He later progressed to the state of Santa Catarina. Now this state was one of his personal favorites. The first thing he told me about this state was that if I want to find some of the most beautiful women in the world, then I need to head on down to this state. I asked him how the whole “dating” scene worked over in Brazil. He told me that you typically ask a girl out on a date. Dates in Brazil are similar to that of the U.S. You go out to eat, watch a movie, or even go to the dance club. However, there is one difference. After the date, if the girl is still interested in dating, she will allow you to kiss her. Now it’s not a make-out session, but it is a kiss. This is so the guy knows whether or not to continue putting effort into the relationship. If she does not allow you to kiss her, then she is not interested. This somewhat clears up any confusion about the relationship that we sometimes see prevalent here in the U.S. This caught me completely off-guard. Here in the U.S. people always tell you to never kiss on the first date because that’s just bad luck. In Brazil, it is a whole different ball game.

He later discussed some of the other states briefly, but the two that he discussed more in depth were the states that I should visit. His wife soon called him asking if he was ready to go since she was outside waiting for him. Unfortunately, we had to end our conversation. We talked about possibly meeting again, but with exams and big exams happening before finals, we were not sure if we would be able to find another time to meet up again. We agreed to communicate over text to see if we could possibly meet up another time. We said goodbye and soon went our separate ways. I never thought to learn so much from Brazil like I have through Anderson. One always thinks that you can learn everything you need to through a book. However, a lot of times it seems that experiences are often times more helpful and valuable then merely a book.

Spider Dog

I’m startled by the sound of the alarm on my phone intended to wake me up from my nap. The time is 3:22. I’m definitely not making it to class on time. I slap on some clothes making me appear as if I literally just rolled out of bed (which I did). As I run to class, people turn the heads quietly judging me with their stares. “Look at this kid running to class. What a freaking dweeb,” is what they were probably thinking. I finally arrive to class and try entering in a stealthy manner until I trip as I walk in. I’m glad I could get everyone’s attention.

            Today in class Dr. Williams had a nice treat for us. It was the day of the spider dog. These videos were simply composed of a small, friendly dog wearing a spider costume. The real kicker was that this dog would chase random people during the late hours when no one was around. These videos were hilarious! The dog would literally scare the pants off of the people! My favorite part was whenever the spider dog chased an older man in the subway into a “spider web”. The man was stuck for a while frantically trying to get out of the clutches of the spider dog.

            Later on in class, Dr. Williams answered my prayers and searched for the videos with the cats versus the cucumbers. Who knew cats would be so scared of cucumbers. The little fur balls literally flew when they realized the cucumber was right next to them. It was as if this little green object was a threat to these poor, domestic cat’s lives.

            Watching these videos made class one to remember. However, they were more than just hysterical videos. These videos highlighted several themes that we have gone over in class. For instance, the video with the spider dog, elements for both superiority and relief theory were present. Watching the people pee themselves with fear was hysterical. Being that I knew before hand that this spider dog was in fact harmless, I am automatically superior to the person being scared off by this animal. Their misfortune in this case was fuel to my enjoyment. Relief theory was also present in this scenario. Seeing the random people’s misfortune of a lack of information of the situation makes one pity them a bit but in a laughing manner. This is somewhat due to the fact that nothing harmful was inflicted upon the person that was chased by this spider dog. The videos with the cats versus the cucumbers embodied more of the incongruity theory than anything. Everyone watching the video was completely caught off-guard by the reactions of the cats when they came into contact with the cucumbers. From literally running to class to experiencing the first known evidence of cats flying in households, this day was definitely one for the books. It’s crazy how laughter, which was once seen as a phenomenon to me, can somewhat be explained through different types of theories. One concern of mine was that this course would ruin the art of laughter for me through its dissection. However that proved that in fact my laughter is still in tact.

"Bueller. Bueller. Bueller. Bueller. Bueller."

Arriving to class right at 3:30 is a forte of mine. However, it comes with a cost. As I was walking into class right at 3:30, I see my normal seat being taken by Mark Alar. I was thinking to myself that this guy is now at the top of my hit list. I was forced to drag a chair and sit on the side portion of the table.

This day in class we went over our reading of “Vacation ’58” by John Hughes. I never really knew who John Hughes was until I was told about some of his work in the past. One of his more famous works was “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” which is one of my favorite movies of all time. As class progressed, we were given a worksheet over the reading. This reading was one of my favorites so far, so I was prepared to kick the class’ butt on the questions. We were given some specific questions; however we were pretty much able to answer all of the questions.

After going over the questions, we then proceeded to discussing John Hughes and some of his works. We first saw clips from the original “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” The clips were pretty funny overall. After watching these clips, we proceeded to analyze some of his other works and even a couple of videos honoring him after his death. As I mentioned before, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is one of my favorite movies of all time, so when we discussed this movie, I was ready. The whole scene where the principal tries to call Bueller’s bluff about being sick, but ends up being proven wrong is hilarious. The situational humor created in this scene literally had me on the floor laughing when I first saw it. Soon after this scene, there is a part where Bueller pretends to be the father of his girlfriend in order to get her out of school. In this scene, he picks her up and right before they leave, he asks for a kiss from his girlfriend with the principal still nearby the see. Of course the principal sees this and is still confused embarrassed about the earlier situation that he just doesn’t even know what to think about this scenario.

These scenes ran through my mind throughout class as we watched videos about John Hughes and discussed some of his works and the elements that they possess. For instance, some of the scenes that are absolutely hilarious are situational humor that causes one to feel somewhat superior to the person that is experiencing an unfortunate situation. I find a lot of John Hughes humor to satisfy the conditions of superiority theory more than anything. These elements can be seen in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, the “Home Alone” movies, and even “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

A lot of these movies that John Hughes has written have been all time favorites of mine. I never really thought about the writer or director when it came to the quality of the movie. Now I need to pay more attention to that. I might be able to find more movies now to watch on Netflix or even on HBO Go.

Teach Me How to Portuguese

I noticed it had been sometime since I had talked with Anderson, so I texted him asking if he wanted to grab a bite to eat. I’m not going to lie, I kind of missed the guy. The conversations we would have were always intriguing. We both had busy schedules that week. We would have a time and date planned, but something would come up either on my side or his. Life was just simply making it difficult for us to meet up. I either had work or school, or he would have school, work, or simply plans with his family. However, we finally found a time that we could meet up. We decided to do the usual and meet up somewhere to eat. This time I was going to make sure I was on time for once. If there was an Olympic sport for tardiness, I would be racking up gold medals for the U.S. team.

            The day came, and I did whatever I could to ensure that I was not late. I had numerous alarms set up to make sure that I would show up early and not just on time. Finally the alarm to leave my room went off. I then proceeded down the stairs and headed over to meet Anderson. As I was walking, I ran into a friend and started talking to them. We had Organic Chemistry together and had an exam not too long ago. This exam was brutal, and I wanted to make sure that he thought it was miserable as well. The class always seemed to find a way to ruin my day. As I looked at the time, I noticed that I was off schedule and would be running late if I didn’t leave now. I ended the conversation and quickly headed over to meet Anderson. Surprisingly I made it on time. Even though I was not there earlier, making it on time would suffice. We got our food and sat down and began our conversation. I was really excited that day. This was the day he was going to teach me some Portuguese!

            He taught me some of the more simple words in Portuguese such as “hello” and “how are you doing”. The language is quite similar to Spanish. This of course made it easier for me to learn the words in Portuguese. After I learned these words, we progressed to some more explicit words. He taught me some that I cannot type in this blogpost, but let me tell you, it was freaking awesome! I’m now ready to take on Brazil by the horns. A lot of the words he taught me were extremely similar if not exactly the same as the Spanish equivalent. We later progressed to discussion of the Spanish language. I taught him a couple of words in Spanish as well. He obviously picked it up rather quickly. We later talked about some pickup lines that would work in Brazil that he would bust out on the women back in the day. He mentioned the ones that worked for him and the ones that did not. Now I’m prepared to find my future wife in Brazil.

            After some time, it was time for us to go our separate lives and get back to our lives, which involved mainly studying. We talked about meeting up next week. However, we could not make any promises because life appeared to make things difficult for our meetings. We agreed to keep in contact and see if we could find a time that we were both available. He told me that the next time we met up he would tell me places that I should visit if I ever go to Brazil. I’ve always wanted to go to Brazil, so now I really wanted to meet up sometime soon, preferably the next day.