Daily Thoughts – The Art of Latte

Rice Poem Exchange

Last week, I received an email of out of the blue from a friend at Rice. It was regarding a poem exchange where you copy and paste the email to a number of your friends such that it propagates throughout the community. The “poem”, they clarify, can really be any sort of text or verse or lyric that has been comforting in hard times. I’d like to share a few of my favorites that students sent me – some from friends, some from strangers.

The Word

by Tony Hoagland

Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word
is beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend

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Alcohol and Cancer: Skeptic to Almost-Believer

While in Hong Kong with a few exchangers from NUS, I got into a discussion on alcohol consumption over lunch one day. One of the guys mentioned off-handedly that he wanted to be healthy into old age. In response, a friend pointed out that he should probably reconsider his rate of alcohol intake if he really intends to preserve his health long-term. He began defending his alcohol habits, saying that he is “pretty normal” at his university in terms of alcohol consumption. He kept referring to the saying, “You aren’t an alcoholic until you graduate from college.” Nevermind that I’ve never heard of that and nevermind the fact I disagree with it. Another girl in the group, who studies medicine in Hong Kong, started bringing up more biologically-inspired (rather than socially inspired) points about alcohol. She led off with, “Alcohol causes cancer.”

Diagram from a UK cancer research organization. Taken from https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2016/02/09/how-does-alcohol-cause-cancer/

At first, I took her claim in the same way I take most “X causes cancer” claims. Yeahhhhh, right. I am tired of hearing about such-and-such causing cancer. The phrase is used so often it’s hard to take seriously. I even started to use it sarcastically myself a while ago, saying that “X causes cancer” if I didn’t want someone to do, drink, or eat X. It seems organizations can leverage society’s fear of cancer, in conjunction with our gullible nature, to scare people aware from, or towards, a certain product or activity. Generally, even if there is SOME link between X and cancer, the link is not causal or is so insignificant it’s not worth worrying more about than the risks taken by crossing the street. Continue reading “Alcohol and Cancer: Skeptic to Almost-Believer” →

SG First Impressions

Clean (wow very clean). Trees (lots and lots of them, lining all the roadways and in buildings and on top of buildings). Sleek (glass and shiny metal). Modern (young nation, yeah, but I didn’t know it would look this cool). Green (more trees, more grass). Expensive (this seems a little too good to be true – they must have to pay for all this nice stuff?). Efficient roadways (no honking, new cars, smart drivers). Methodist church, Buddhist temple, Hindu temple (all so close to each other).

One of the many buildings covered in green. It’s the Park Royal Hotel near Clarke Quay. I took this one on a walk there recently.

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Heading for Singapore: Expectations

I wrote down some of my thoughts before I left, highlighting what I was most excited for.

As I was packing for Singapore, I put on BBC’s Planet Earth and watched it on repeat. It’s one of the few TV shows I’ve actually watched all the way through. In the last episode of the series, BBC gives a shout-out to SG for it’s Green philosophy. It’s known as the Garden City, and has plans to become a City Within a Garden. I can’t wait to go on runs in one of the many parks and not be suffocated as I was last summer in Bangalore.

Super Trees at Gardens by the Bay, Singapore. Image: BBC’s Planet Earth II: Cities

I’m curious about how the fairly well-defined cultures interact in Singapore. The main ethnic groups are Indian (mostly southern Indians), Malay, and Chinese. How prominent are these cultures in everyday life in SG? How does language relate to these ethnic groups – if someone identifies as part of one of these groups, will they speak their mother tongue?

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Shooting Stars

This is a reflection that my friend wrote close to the end of her stay at Casa do Campus. I wish I could say I wrote it. Although the words didn’t come from me, I identify with them. They express my deepest feelings about my stay in Porto Alegre.

At first I wasn’t going to try to translate it so as not to miss any signification or nuance, but I suppose it’s worth the attempt.

As she stayed a whole semester rather than just a couple of months, it was an even more transformative experience for her.

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Portuguese Opinions

*Please note that, by “Portuguese”, I am referring to the Portuguese from my experience… The Portuguese from Porto Alegre and from the perspective of a learner. There is probably quite a bit that I’m missing out on and don’t understand*

It seems like a lot of things are expressed in the same way in Portuguese and Spanish, so the experience hasn’t been quite as eye opening as the Spain immersion experience. However, as time goes on, I have been catching some more interesting expressions that are quite different from Spanish.

“Meu” and “cara” are similar to “dude,” but are much less stigmatized. “Cara” is literally “face,” and “meu” is “my.” It is very common to throw in a “cara” at the beginning of a phrase, or a “meu” at the end. Although the average person uses them regularly, conversations at Rockhead are saturated with them. Talk around the office is informal, and is characterized by what some may call “bro talk” in English.

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Language Links, Not Barriers (pt 2)

IMMERSION

The language immersion process hasn’t been such a slap in the face as it was the first time around. After spending a year in French (/Spanish) immersion, not a lot has come unexpected in learning Portuguese. I go through the same types of realizations and epiphanies, and use the same learning strategies as in Spain. I’ve experienced the same range of emotions – it seems long at times and is frustrating in many ways, but is rewarding and eye-opening in the end.

In order to fully embrace words and phrases that I hear, I am constantly muttering to myself – I must seem truly crazy to people in public. I talk to myself in English too, though, so that doesn’t bother me. For me, repetition is the best way to practice pronunciation and improve the fluidity of phrases.

Nathalie and Allie have given me extremely weird looks because of this habit. I usually don’t realize that my utterances are even close to audible… evidently they are. This is something that didn’t happen in Spain, and I’m not quite sure why. I think it was because my host family didn’t think much of it when I was repeating their phrases, but in a more public environment it can be quite strange.

I’ve learned to appreciate the importance of fillers in making conversation natural. They are so fundamental to native speakers that they often go unnoticed. The word “like” in English is probably the most well-known example – most speakers say it often enough that they can’t remove it from their speech even when consciously making an effort to do so. Understanding these utterances in conversation is one of the most significant developments in second language fluency – not only for comprehension, but also for speech.

However, they are particularly difficult to grasp because they don’t usually carry any semantic meaning – rather they serve to connect and frame the meaning in a conversation. Compare this idea to a box built from popsicle sticks and glue – the glue holding everything together and maintaining structure, but going largely unnoticed.

In Portuguese, the realization that “tipo” (pronounced like “cheapoo” in English) is used similarly to “like” in English. It doesn’t convey any specific meaning, but is essential when pausing to think or compare ideas.

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Initial Review: Work and Living

People

Professor Carlos has a huge puggy. A very large, fat, adorable pug. He says “my puggy” with the cutest accent and brightest smile as he shows us pictures. He is our go-to person for pretty much everything. He is picking up English again after almost 30 years without speaking it. I love the way he speaks; he enunciates everything very clearly, with a lot of intonation and expression. He is the iSEED program host, and has visited Rice/Houston multiple times to set up the exchange.

Christian and Chips are my main contacts at work. Christian is the CEO of Rockhead. He is a lighthearted, stylish mid-40s guy that could be mistaken for a 25-year-old. Chips is in charge of a bunch of things at Rockhead: develepment, testing, marketing, publicity. He speaks English really well. He is the leader of the strange-noise-squad (see Work Environment below). He is very personable, going out of his way to talk about American culture; he travels to Game Development Conferences in the U.S. and Europe fairly often. He is going to be in Austin and Houston this Fall – we are planning to meet up and go to a Texans football game together.

Bruno is a student here at PUCRS, but he’s going to Rice this summer! He has taken good care of us while we’re here. I hope the Houston crew does the same for him. We’ve been out to eat with him and his girlfriend, Rosanna, on a few different occasions.

Rafael is an engineering student from PUCRS who did the Rice summer experience in engineering design with Allie and Nathalie. He is pretty busy with studies, research, and work, but he’s been a great help when we’re on campus. He loves cars, both aesthetically and from an engineering perspective (he has a 70s Volkswagen Beetle and truck and city car).

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Language Links, Not Barriers (pt 1)

Language is the window to expression.

Where does language fall, for you, among other forms of expression: music, dance, painting, clothing, sculpture, gestures, song?

Do we reflect our language(s), or do our language(s) reflect us – both on a personal and societal level?

To understand multiple languages is to understand multiple perspectives on life. When considering any two languages, many words and phrases do not have translations because every language uniquely expresses ideas, and even seemingly synonymous words don’t carry identical connotations. Every language equips its speakers to communicate and relate and convey emotions differently. Describing nuanced examples of this is difficult, sometimes impossible, because English words and constructions simply won’t explain them.

Arthur Koestler was quoted saying, “Real creativity beings where language ends.” I don’t quite agree with that; I find that a lot of creativity lies in language. It plays a role in the shaping of our overall take on the world, but it doesn’t hold our creativity and imagination back. I do think, though, that it limits interpersonal communication to some degree.

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Veggie Veg Veg

— You might skim over the About the Trip page before you start here, it’ll make more sense 😀 —

Road to Veggie

Around Thanksgiving last year, I decided to turn to a pescatarian diet (though I often referred to myself as a vegetarian). My motivation didn’t lie in the implications for animal’s rights and/or for the environment, although these were certainly benefits of the diet. I was mostly interested in how it would affect my health; I wasn’t convinced that it would “make me happier than my meat eating friends” or increase my life expectance by 3.6 years, but I wanted to try it out for myself.

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