A Birthday in Brasil

When thinking about past birthdays, the one thing that has always stood out in my mind was the issue of never being able to celebrate it when school is in session. As a grade schooler, I was always jealous of the students who were able to celebrate their birthdays during the school year. As the years passed, and moving through middle and high school the idea of a birthday during school didn't really matter much to me. But thinking of memorable birthdays, I graduated high school on my 18th birthday, which made up for all of the bitter envy that ran through my pre-adolescent veins.

Since then, I really haven't cared too much for my birthday, which always hits my mother in the worst way possible every now and then (this also has gone for graduation parties, and the like). Granted, I love going to others birthday parties, and even throwing parties for others, as some of you know. But, having the "center of attention" be around me, doesn't excite me that much. I'd rather be doing work, or just going about my regular activities. This years birthday was quite different though, due to the fact that I had no choice but to acknowledge it in Brasil.

The day started like any other day in Brasil since I've gotten here. Got up, went to breakfast, and depending on the day either went to the university or if a weekend went back to the room to relax. While at breakfast, the waitress gave me a note that said "Hoje Aniversário", which means "Birthday Today". This was a very nice gesture. After breakfast, everyone just seemed different, and me thinking nothing of it and just going on with the day. After doing some work and watching a movie, my roommate and I decided to go to lunch. Which was delicious: Brasilian steak, mashed potatoes, rice and an amazing gravy sauce. After lunch we went back to the room to relax a bit more. After a couple hours passed another student came to our room and asked us if we wanted to go get some beverages and talk, then get some dinner. The drinks were quite refreshing, and dinner was good, as always.

While at dinner, our waitress (who we have come to get know) asked if I wanted a hug. Of course I said yes, after the apparent lack of communication due to me not knowing Portuguese very well. Then again, who wouldn't want a hug? Especially from a sweet Brasilian girl? After ordering, the waitress came back with a note saying "Happy Anniversary" (which they say instead of happy birthday). Notes, handshakes and hugs were enough for me; just the notion that people acknowledged it made me happy. After we finish our dinners, we kept on with the conversation (which are always a treat for me, intellectual conversations = happy me [hint hint ladies;)]). Towards the end of dinner, the waitresses brought out a dessert for us, which was a complete surprise to all of us at dinner (looked something like this...but much more elaborate). Needless to say it was delicious, and at this point I'm about to explode with the amount of drinks, foods and desserts in me; remember: not complaining.

After we finished dinner, we had a leisure stroll back to the hotel discussing our plans for the night: work, a movie, relaxing, talking with our families from back home. When we got back to the hotel, everyone from the program, along with the owners of the hotel were walking around the lobby area of the hotel, so we decided to stay downstairs and watch a movie that was on the television. Let's just say, The Punisher in Portuguese is quite funny. So we watched about 20 minutes of the movie, and more people from the program start coming down into the lobby, and disappearing into the kitchen area. Well, I bet you've guessed it by now, they asked for me to go back into the kitchen area and to my surprise, there was a cake and everyone from the program wishing me a happy birthday. I was quite excited, and honored that everyone took the time out of their day to wish me a happy birthday. I was very very very very grateful. Oh and the owners little boy had a lot of fun, because I let him help me blow the candles out. This made his night, and he loved the fact that we were having cake. You have to stop and love the spirit of kids every now and then, makes me think that their innocence is what drives us to be kind.

You could imagine at this point, that when I saw the cake I felt like this kid. But, the cake was so delicious, and in reality is looked more like this. This was also something that the hotel owners did not have to do for me (since they got the cake for all of us), so I was even more grateful that they are willing to open (the equivalent of) their home up to us to celebrate a birthday. Couldn't ask for better hosts, which also goes for everybody we've met so far in Brasil.

Needless to say, I was very fortunate to have such a nice group of people from the program to think about someone else. Feels just like a family, and I'm very excited to be here with this group of people. The gracious attitude of Brasilians, and the group of students from the States who are here, make me feel right at home. No words could (even though I wrote a lot here) express how much I am happy to have friends who did this for me.

Oh, and I cannot forget to thank two students from the program who got me a present! I will post a picture soon, either here or on Facebook. A very nice gesture from two very nice ladies.

Thank you everyone --

- a hero within

One Step Backward

When thinking about what to write, I forgot about a very important event that occurred last weekend. First, meeting new people on campus makes it much easier to figure out where to do things around Joao Pessoa. It's even better when people on campus are willing to bring us to these places, and let us play tourists for a day. Second, surprises are not really my favorite things, but last weekend a couple new friends decided to bring us out to eat, as well as surprise us with something after eating. Needless to say, I was quite anxious and excited to find out what the surprise was (even though they told us about where we were going, the destination was still a surprise to me, yes, I know, ignorant American).

Last Saturday the very very nice people decided to bring us to a restaurant names Mangai. It was like Disneyworld, which a few of us muttered to each other when we walked into the restaurant. The food was delicious and for a person like me was enough of an adventure, and quite happy from just this experience. As many of you might know, I love food, so this was a very happy moment for me during the day. Before I go on, I have to discuss how buffet style restaurants work here in Joao Pessoa. Instead of paying a flat rate, all you can eat style buffet, like in the States, here in Joao Pessoa most places are self-service pay for the weight of your plate. There are places like this in the States, but to all of my friends from Oswego where this is not the case; a little getting use to. But the money was well spent on the food.

After we finished lunch, we started to drive towards the eastern shore. Since we've been here, some of us have been discussing what was at the corner of where we go to the beach. Well, this was the direction we were heading in, and it was where we ended up going. Driving up to the gate, I noticed a sign that said Hard Forro. Me, thinking it meant "Hard Rock" (due to the typography and colors), thought it was a Hard Rock Cafe. Nope. It was just a sign that looked identical to the Hard Rock Cafe sign; many laughs happened, ending with me laughing at the situation too.

After this, we entered the Estação Cabo Branco. This is the equivalent of a science museum in the States, but was cooler and way more interactive. When we were in the actual museum part, my camera died, so I was quite sad and irritated. So I wasn't able to get as many pictures from this experience that I wanted. :( What lightened my mood were the "giant toys". Where, we all got to learn some physics while having fun at the same time, which made for a good laugh from time to time. One part that stood out in my mind, was when myself and another student were asked to talk to each other using just two concave shells that were about 20 feet away from each other. The idea was that we could hear each other, but no one else could hear us. But the part that made me more confused than anything was when the girl giving us the tour, who was obviously speaking in Portuguese, started talking in perfect English to me. I had to take a step back for a second, but then realized she was probably a student at the university, which is more or less the case for many at the university. Still confusing for a second though.

Finally, we got to see the Cabo Branco Lighthouse, which was quite an interesting site to see. Oh, and here's a picture of me next to the lighthouse.

Until next time...

- a hero within

The Raining Power Outage

One thing that no one warned me about, and an almost ignorant thing on my behalf, was the rain in Brasil. We are on the equator, so not thinking to bring a raincoat was no so smart on my behalf. But, a hat and an extra shirt in my bag work just as good as an umbrella in some respects. But as much as it has rain here in the past few days, it's still more attainable rain than that of upstate New York. That is, the rain comes straight down here in Brasil, not sideways with a 50mph wind at one's front and back. Oh, and there is hardly ever any thunder or lightning here too, which makes it that much more different than upstate, where when you see rain you hear and see thunder and lightning. A little rain never hurt anyone though, so it's not that bad.

The one thing that does hurt productivity is a power outage. On Monday there was a “normal” power outage that lasted the entire morning, which in the end yielded us to pack up at around 11AM to head back to the hotel to try and get actual work done. The nice thing about the power outage (other than the day off) were the people we got to meet while waiting for the power to come back on. We met a student who was very willing to talk to us about Joao Pessoa and what to do and what to stay away from. He warned us of certain vendors to stay away from because when they see tourists their prices skyrocket to sometimes 500% of the goods actual value. He also showed us that he carries around two cell phones, a nice one and a not-so nice one. He stated that he does this in case he does get robbed, so he can give the not-so nice phone over instead of his nice one. Smart thinking. Good thing that I don't carry my phone around with me here, since it doesn't work. Oh, did I mention that Virgin Mobile'a pay as you go plan doesn't work here in Brasil? It doesn't. Kidding aside, not having the need of always worrying about expensive technology on my person is a relief, as much as my mother probably dislikes it very much. But the less you have on the streets, the better, as least that's the going trend of what locals are telling us.

As for what's to come, this weekend is a festival celebrating the corn, and it is apparently a really big deal in this part of Brasil. It includes lots of parties, dancing and good times by everyone here in northern Brasil, and of course the 24^th annual reckoning of yours truly. Updates to follow after this weekend passes, as well as other topics on school and the university are to come. Lots of things are happening that the weekly blogs might turn into every few days or so. As for now, back to coming up with evaluation methods for applications in the lab!

- a hero within

A Sense of Self

Week two for me in Brasil is coming to a close and much has happened. Major happenings of the week include: starting research at UFPB, learning (a rather small amount of) Portuguese, making new friends, beliefs and monkeys. Each are "major" because they come with different cultural and life meanings to me, where by living in one country place for my entire life has not permitted me from experiencing.

To start, the research that I'm doing at UFPB seems fitting. We actually were able to go to the university last week and meet the people we are working with this summer, but Monday was the real first day in my mind. I was able to go into the lab and collect my thoughts on the four projects that I have been assigned to do research on. The overall jist of the research is to conduct user testing evaluating different interfaces that the lab I'm working in has made. Each project is different, so each must have their own methodology set up for it. This meant taking Monday and Tuesday to do a heavy amount of reading, in order to write a literature review (which happened Wednesday, Thursday and Friday). Overall the literature review came to ten pages, which I thought to be quite substantial for the first week of a research project.

This week I also tried to assimilate a little more by trying to learn some Portuguese. The language is not that far off from Spanish, but some people get upset if you accidentally speak Spanish instead of Portuguese to them. But being a human, this is bound to happen. Mostly though, people have been very supportive of me using (messing up more like it) the language which is very grateful. Take for example the hotel owner where we are all staying. He will try his best to talk in English to us, but expects us to at least try to use a little Portuguese from time to time. This is very helpful in that we have all been able to help him with his English, and he helps us with our Portuguese. But most of the time I feel as though I'm caught in Searle's Chinese room, just regurgitating the last said Portuguese out again. Some friends have made fun of my because I'm so eager to try the language, and almost embracing it too much (yelling a room number, when yelling it is not needed). Oh, and the language gap also makes dining out fun. Sometimes, you never know what you're going to get!

When discussing making new friends, compared to the other students that came with me, I feel like it has been easier due to the size of my research lab. The other students' labs that they were placed in, have an average of about five people. Whereas the lab myself and another student were placed in have around forty students. This alone allows for more interaction with more people due to a default of being in a big lab. Also, the people in my lab are willing to both help with anything I need help with (such as discuss a project that they are working on) and converse on an intellectual level with me. Take for instance a conversation I had with two students from the lab at UFPB. They were talking about how once they get into college, and take a placement exam, they must go through with the major. Whereas in the USA, people switch majors from brushing their teeth in the morning to getting cereal five minutes later. They said that this makes it hard to gain a breadth of knowledge, but rather gain a depth of knowledge. I found this interesting because I never thought about it like this. They also brought up the fact that with the breadth that someone like myself is able to attain, a depth can occur when it comes to specialization (such as HCI from Cognitive Science). I also found out that there are very few interdisciplinary majors in Brasil compared to those in the US. A very interesting talk with some very smart people was refreshing. But as for other friends that were made, two went to SUNY Oswego last year. Which was very surprising because but also welcoming at the same time. As for being 6000 miles away from home, meeting two people who were able to relate to things that I've experienced and know people I know was comforting, which in turn made the friendship that much easier.

As for new friends, one person that I was able to meet this past week was in a post-graduate computer science program at UFPB. Post-graduate is considered graduate in Brasil, and graduate is considered undergraduate in Brasil. Interesting, but an easy adaption to make. Regardless, the student I was able to meet talked about his family (which he loves very much) and his belief system. His family, especially his wife, is very important to him. But, he forgot about Valentines Day (which was Tuesday of this past week, crazy in of itself). He was laughing and telling me about how he always "forgets" each year, but then does something for her the following weekend. A man after my own heart, no pun intended. Through this, he asked me if I practice a religion and proceeded to tell him my views. He then expressed to me that he practices what is called Spiritism. I'll let you read more if you want to read more. But long story short, he asked me if I have ever had a spirit talk to me, which I, at first, found somewhat amusing, but then was able to see past it and notice that it was his own belief. He is a very interesting person, and I'm glad we were able to discuss personal matters and not just work.

To sum up this post, it's fitting to talk about the monkeys. A few weeks before I left for Brasil, I was informed that there were monkeys at the university. I GOT SO EXCITED. I never usually get excited for things such as this, but the fact that monkeys are at the place where I am working made me very happy. Oh and on Friday of this past week, I was able to see them. I wasn't able to get that many good pictures, but there is one picture that is worth seeing. So I will leave you with the picture. :)

- a hero within

A First Week in a Foreign Land

With the first week of being in Brasil coming to a close, many different events have occurred. Some better than others, but all in all the week went by rather smoothly. Showcasing different aspects of the hectic week is best when describing the whirlwind that was week one.

First, the plane rides were a success. Everyone was able to meet each other over the course of the twenty hour expedition that it ended up being. First, we traveled from New York's JFK International Airport to São Paulo's airport, then to Joao Pessoa's airport in Paraiba. Needless to say it was exhausting (and at times anxious due to never traveling internationally before), but the end result was indeed a good one.

We get to Joao Pessoa's airport and a fellow student, plus our teaching mentor are there waiting for us. From here we proceeded to find a taxi to our hotel, with hopes of a shower and a nap in the near future. When we get to the taxi cab counter, one of the drivers took my bag and loaded it into a different car than everyone else. In my mind I was thinking "Okay, someone else is bound to ride with me to the hotel." This did not occur. So, it was me my luggage, another students luggage and the Brasilian taxi driver. We take off, and my taxi driver decides to take the lead. Mind you, I have no idea where or how to get to the hotel, and he knows as much English as I know Portuguese (not very much). Somehow we talk about sports, music, food and women while navigating to the hotel. As nerve-racking as the situation should have been, it turned out to be fine in the end. Even though there were thoughts of us getting lost and not knowing how to get to the hotel.

After we arrived at the hotel, our professor (who attended school at the same university we are working at) decides to take us on a walk around Joao Pessoa. Being as tired as we were, we all went on the fun excursion. We ended up seeing the beautiful Atlantic Ocean (which is no more than three blocks away from our hotel) and had dinner on the beach. We at what are called tapioca, which are very delicious. After dinner, we were able to go back to our hotel rooms and scout out the living situation (since we are going to be here for two months).

The hotel rooms are much the same as a hotel room in the states. Minus two things, a plethora of outlets and hot shower water (which the hot water aspect is just our hotel room). But as the week progressed, these "first world problems" as we have been calling them have fell to the wayside. An even distribution of power from roommate to roommate has been working, and the cold water is quite refreshing after a day of 85 degree heat and 90% humidity. Which, in this weather (knowing it's the equator) air conditioning a blessing (did I say that our AC leaked on the first day too? Oh, because it did). The fact that this current blog post is being written from the hotel room, is saying something about how accommodating the hotel actually is. As much as we snickered and sneered the first day, the rooms have grown on all of us here.

After the initial day, Monday and Tuesday of the first week were quite hectic. Reason being was that we all needed to go through immigration at the police station in Joao Pessoa. Good thing that our professor was helpful in getting us to and from places to prepare for the immigration proceedings. Also on Monday we were able to visit the university that we will be working at for the next two months, Universidade Federal da Paraíba (UFPB). But before we got to the university, we got to go on a roller coaster (literally) of a bus ride. That including one of the students almost falling off the bus (because as soon as the last person in on the bus, the bus speeds away from the stop) and our professor laughing and having a good time watching us all bounce around the cabin of the bus. More on this later, as I prepare to take video of one of the rides. But getting back to the university, both the students and professors were very welcoming, and seeing the projects that were going on excited the academic side in me greatly.

 Once Wednesday came, five of us ventured to the university for our first day of work. I was placed in a digital video lab called LAViD working with a very enthusiastic encouraging professor, who after receiving introductions and a presentation on their projects, put me to work. She also encourages student to student work groups to figure problems out. Within 45 minutes of being in the lab, I was helping evaluate an interface for a program that they made on the web, something that has never actually happened state side to me on such an informal level. I was very excited, and was able to give some minor suggestions to help them out. But as for what I will be doing this summer, user-interface evaluation will be my main "job." Figuring out what the user needs to make the program more efficient is key, and running the tests to see the user actually use the program is what I will be doing.

After the first session of the day, we had a lunch break (which lasts two hours in Brasil). Surprisingly, a student at the university decided to take us back to her house for lunch. The experience seemed natural from the onset, as the student was very open about her personal life. She made us lunch, and showed us around her house and property, which was the equivalent of a mansion. Below is a picture of what we got to walk through:

After the amazing lunch and house tour (which lasted an hour more than expected), we headed back to the university. Once the day ended, we were lucky enough to get a ride back to the hotel by one of the people in LAViD due to the torrential downpour that was happening at the time we decided to leave. The day was a success, and from there we had the next four days off.

Both Thursday and Friday and most of Saturday we used as resting days, and got to meet another student from SUNY who joined the group (which bumped the number of students in the groups to eight). Saturday night we did venture out into the city to see the nightlife, and it ended up being very fun. Dinner at a rock 'n roll bar, ice cream at the equivalent of Bevs in Oswego, a Tapioca from our (already) favorite Tapioca restaurant, and a few beverages at the RockPub behind our hotel.

By the end of the week, I felt refreshed and ready to take on the projects ahead of me. With a presentation tomorrow, and some interface evaluation to conduct, this week ahead will be very worked filled, but rewarding.

Week one in Brasil - a huge success.

-a hero within