portuguese

so here is my new list of favorite Portuguese wordage (not necessarily my favorite meanings, these are just the words I enjoy saying the most): (complete with translations and pronounciations)
ciúmes - jealousy (pron. see-OO-mees)
valeu - slang for 'thank you' (obrigado), literally the past tense of the verb 'valer' (to value, to be worth it): 'it was valued' in the literal sense (pron. vawl-EH-oo)
merece - he/she/it/you (informal) (ele/ela/você) form of 'merecer' (to deserve) (pron. mair-ES-ee)
relaxe - ele/ela/você form of 'relaxar' (to relax) (pron. hey-LASCH-ee)
beijão - literally, 'big kiss' (used at the end of messages... usually people just write 'bjs' - short for 'beijos). I love this word because it has the 'ij' thing in it along with the unique Portuguese 'ão' sound. (pron. bay-jão)
cascável - rattlesnake, literally 'peelable' ('casca' is the outside layer of something, like a banana peel or a orange rind..and 'ável' is the Portuguese 'able' - like in 'understandable') (pron. cas-CA-vel)
simbora - a slang term that mixes the words 'sim' and 'embora' ('yes' and roughly 'let's go'). it's existence is due mostly to the song 'Beber, Cair e Levantar' (Drink, Fall Down and Get back Up) the lyrics of which go 'vamos embora, pra um bar, beber, cair e levantar' (let's go to the bar, to drink, fall down and get back up), but the words 'vamos embora' sometimes get slurred together and make 'simbora'. Brazilians say just 'bora' sometimes like a slangy 'come on, let's go'. (pron. seem-bore-a)
além - other than, out of which, outside, beyond (além disso = other than that, vai além = go beyond, além can be used to refer to something previously unreachable) (pron. all-aim)
cachaça - intense famous Brazilian alcohol, there is a song here that literally sings just 'CACHAÇA'

O amor me pegou puro e verdadeiro Love got me, pure and true

Pra durar, vai durar, pra lá de fevereiro To last, it will last, until February (Carnaval)
Para quando chegar a festa junina For when I arrive at the party
Você vai se lembrar da gente na Ondina You will remember the people of Ondina
CACHAÇA CACHAÇA

(pron. ka-sha-sah)

parabenizar - to congratulate (parabéns = congratulations) (pron. pahr-uh-ben-ee-zar)
cujo - whose (like '...Mary, whose puppies were for sale' = '...Mary, cujos filhotes eram sendo vendidos') I like it because it looks like and sounds like 'Cujo' the name of that Stephen King novel (pron. coo-joe)
maçã - apple, I love this word because it has my two favorite accents in it. also did I mention I love words that end with 'ã' because of the funky pronunciation it makes? I can't recreate it in english... (pron. mahs-ah) for example...
mã/itapuã/fã/clã - magnet/name of a beach in Salvador/fan - as in fan club/clan. I love short words with that sound they are so fun to say! (sorry I can't really recreate the pronounciation... go take a portuguese class and find out!)
oxente - this is a great piece of Bahian slang, it's really just translated as like 'whoa!' or 'holy shit!' but it's funny because sometimes they don't say the whole word, they just say 'oxe-' which sounds like 'o-shee-' which kind of sounds like they're about to say 'oh shit!' and it had me confused for my first month or so. good word though! (pron. oh-SHEN-chee)
piriguete - slang for 'girl that kisses every one'. it comes from a song by the same name. (pron. pee-ree-gay-ch)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1x-y4-CFBI (video of the song - I think it is at least, the computer won't let me look at it)

Quando ela me vê, ela mexe When she sees me, she moves
Piri-pi-piri-piri-piriguete! Piri-pi-piri-piri-piriguete!
Rebola devegar She circles slowly
Depois desce And then goes down
Piri-pi-piri-piri-piriguete! Piri-pi-piri-piri-piriguete!

amendoim - peanut (pron. ah-men-dough-eem)
cabrito - goat (pron. ka-bree-two)

also my favorite Brazilian bands are:
Jammil (the one that sings 'Tchau I Have to Go Now')
Pitty (Brazilian rock)
Pato Fu (not really sure how to classify this... kind of light music)
Mallu Magalhães (she does a song called 'Back to Denmark')
Os Mutantes ('The Mutants' - Brazilian hard rock)
Vanguart (they may not be Brazilian I'm not sure)
Adão Negro (Brazilian reggae)
Banda Eva (just classic Salvador music)
Nando Reis (he kind of looks like my dad haha)
and Legião Urbana (fun to listen to when trying to learn more Portuguese)

bem...

My computer broke so I lost all my pictures that weren't on here, orkut, facebook or my camera... so that's sad, but he's some pictures to keep the blog from dying completely (sorry mom and dad and whoever else is checking this semi-occasionally)...

Macall (Nova Scotia) and Sofie (Denmark) doing capoeira. that would be our master to the left, Mestre Washington. he's such a cool guy.

Washington helping us stretch and showing how unflexible Macall is

Pretty much the only thing I do with Macall and Sofie, other than watch movies, do capoeira and argue, is make pancakes. SO MANY PANCAKES. we loves us some panquecas, oh yes.

what did I say? we used like six different pans we couldn't find the right one. (we put beer in these pancakes to make them crunchy)

Macall sucks at making pancakes, and thus we wound up with scrambled dough-in-a-pan, Canadian specialty.

me and Sofie at Zara, this European store improbably placed into the Iguatemi mall in Salvador

oh yea and a little thing happened in February called Carnaval...lots of people

...more people...

....hey whaddayaknow, more people...

... people wearing the same clothes as the people next to them...

View from the Camarote in Ondina. Apparently it goes on like this for several kilometers. 2 million people a day for six days.

So many people I can't even fit the concept in my head...

...hey this is getting kind of redundant, no?...

traffic cone man and friend

there's no way to turn it, but that's IVETE SANGALO

and so's this. of course she sang the most obnoxious Salvador Carnaval song, Cadê Dalilah? (Where is Dalilah?). it's sickeningly annoying.

big puddle because of course it rained on Carnaval...

random street performance in Pelourrinho, the touristy old part of Salvador

I don't know who they were or why they were doing this, but I think they were singing in Italian. though I could have been way off.

gotta love Pelô. and masks. and guitars and accordions.

cool day

more performers, doing what Sherise (the Florida girl) seemed to think was a rain dance around the praça, quite close to the 'masked Italian accordionists'.

bright setting sun. that's the Elevador Lacerda on the right (one of the symbols of Salvador and Bahia)... look it up. it costs 5 centavos (which is about 2 American cents) to ride it up and down from the 'Cidade Alta' to the 'Cidade Baixa' or vice versa (High City to Low City... there are two parts of Salvador, didn't you know that?)

more capoeira, Macall and Sofie

yea I do capoeira too, I'm usually the one taking pictures though... the master is the one in the blue pants (I have new red pants now haha!) and Capri is the one who has no capoeira pants yet. (she's from Bermuda)

my first naive attempt at starting dreads didn't work

Yeah, we're Rotary Youth Exchange students. Yeah that means we're better than you. (Capri freaking out, Macall on the phone/pretending to be emo/Me awkwardly trying to be part of the picture... it's one big happy family down here, youbetchaya)

tchau tchau

até mais

---m

Dear Rotary

I'm taking this entry off at Sara's advice, because she made a lot of good points. I'm just being pissed and incoherent, I'm sorry for inflicting it on everyone.

Specifically, I am frustrated with D4550. D5110 is a great district, I really love all the Rotarians there. It's just who's in charge here that's grinding my gears. I'm not really expecting anything to change based on this message, and I'm sorry to the exchange students that wanted to come to Bahia but didn't go because of my complaints.

Honestly, this is a great year so far. I have met some amazing new people, I'm just thinking I shouldn't have to work AROUND the Rotary system to make this year what I want it to be...

So I'm sorry if I offended anyone, but this really has no continuing effects. I'm not planning on writing an official complaint or anything, I'm just going to go home and be glad to be rid of people who are in charge of youth and do not know how to deal with them.

More pictures soon!
:)
bjs
--m

being in trouble aka. the nature of vieira

it's 8H in the morning and I've already been in trouble twice today...

the first time was when I got to school 15 minutes late (like I always do now; I live an hour and a half away, and I have two host siblings who get dropped off at their school before me, so I'm always late nowadays)... being late isn't usually a problem, and today it wasn't either. the problem today was my not exactly strict adherence to the uniform policy; I was wearing brown jean-like pants instead of actual blue jeans. Now, I'm not badmouthing the uniform system (farda in portuguese) but I really don't believe in it. I understand the motivation and the benefits, but I hate how everyone looks just the same (sometimes I can't even find my friends because people look so alike). so I got a talking-to about that (plus I'm working on my braid pre-dreads right now, so I'm wearing a bandanna around to keep the itchy bastards out of my face - which apparently isn't allowed either).

the second time was coming up here to type this on the computer (I just took a Biology test which I probably bombed because I can't remember anything about eukaryotic cells or chromatin - sorry Shindledecker but it just didn't sink in).

so wish me luck. hopefully I won't get in trouble again today.
--m