On Extended Leaves of Absence

Because my classes start in March and because of my general antipathy to structured studying environments, instead preferring to soak up lots of information and study quite a lot on my own, I have profited from having a yet further-extended break. What this is elaborately worded text for is to say that I've had plenty of time to party, be a tourist, and generally act like a philistine live out all of the moments that are less befitting of my academic character than otherwise. It's not so much that I've made poor judgments or anything, but I may or may not have accidentally walked into a pole on the street. Twice. Nor am I wasting away the time completely, studying Portuguese a little bit every day and continuing to read, albeit at a reduced pace from before. Before the break started though, because I would be lying right to your face if I laid claim to reading even a full book during my break before coming here.

Everything feels sort of like life blew up and confetti has come down in its place, nothing particularly organized and everything scattered about just waiting for me to clean it all up, piece by piece, one thing at a time. I went almost immediately from living a stable domestic life, spending more time than not with a partner doing things like tending home and seeing movies, getting breakfast with my mother on Sundays, and other things that are terribly boring except for those living and accustomed to doing them on a routine basis to partying perhaps a little too hard the night I got here, becoming a tourist, and fumbling my way through a language my brain only understands well half the time. Studying in the very concentrated and intensive way that I had been doing all through the last semester would be an exercise in futility at this point, and it was not on accident that I chose my courses so that I could start later and put more effort into them when I am better equipped to do so. I can only handle so much at one time – even my room took two weeks to get completely organized. My spirit is still confused.

I feel stagnant at times and overwhelmed by things to do at others, and sometimes I have days where I step back and take a breather and things seem just fine. Mostly I pinch myself just to make sure I'm actually experiencing all of these things, because sometimes it feels like I'm watching it on a movie screen. I'll leave you with a panorama from one of the days I finally got to breathe for a moment.

Aiming High, or Welcome to Poor Southern Europe

Top 35! Aiming high! On the bright side, at least we're not in Poland.

I had to throw that photo in, just in case anyone didn't believe me from the last post. They are so proud.

It turns out that my classes are pretty much all graduate level classes, which Ana ...Sofia? Maria? Bela? Catholic name something or other... advised were probably not as difficult as undergraduate classes, not the least of which being because there are some that are actually offered in English. Taking classes in Portuguese here is fine too, but we have to get special accommodations for tests and the like, so I'm trying to keep it to a minimum. The upside to this means that I may not start classes of substance until March, the downside of this is that I will probably be taking Portuguese anyway, negating that gain entirely. Not too bad, though. I should probably keep up with the português as much as possible.

 Which brings me to my main point(s), summarized in my favorite format:

• Portuguese people are generally very cosmopolitan and have an excellent grasp of English.

• Of the dozens of people I've managed to meet in the span of just one week, people ranging from a DJ to a former vice president of Northwestern University and beyond, everyone has the same concerns with the economy and desire for their country to correct itself. They all hate Merkel/Merkozy.

• Portuguese people insist they are worlds different from the Spanish and are vaguely offended by the notion of people thinking they're similar, which is truer than not.

• Portuguese people are rather short and rather skinny.

• People are laid back and will talk about anything with you in any of the numerous instances you may find yourself seated at a table with them, drinking a coffee or listening to a cat being strangled to death the worst fado performer on earth.

• People tend to be educated, but it's not actually necessary for a job here the way it is in the rest of the developed world. Many people have never gone to college but have typical middle class jobs that don't pay nearly enough akin to the rest of the world, because if you have a job here you're fine, the problem in the economy is with those who don't.

• Portugal isn't really as inefficient as many of its south European kin, at least according to them, they just have a little problem of embezzlement and corruption in the government.

I don't have much more to write because I'm too busy doing the things I'll write about later. Ciao!

Midnight Observations and Other Miscellany

• Portugal is kind of strange because every time I feel like it's not an inefficient southern European country, something happens to reaffirm that we are still Mediterranean in character if not in physical location, as well as the reverse happening whenever I start to get irritated by the fact that I willingly chose to live among lazy southern Europeans.

• Portuguese is precisely as easy as I thought it was, and I have somehow managed not to make a bumbling idiot out of myself using it more than a respectable number of times. Dealing with Brazilians, on the other hand, skews the distribution.

• Our wonderful host university, supposedly the highest ranked in all of Portugal, and most certainly with the greatest prestige, can not seem to get its shit together. I went in a few days after getting here to talk to the person who is supposed to be in his office all week on a regular schedule to get set up as a student at the university but instead left empty-handed with no one knowing when or if he might come into the office at any point during the week.

• The soldes phenomenon of government-regulated (read: mandated) sales in pretty much all stores exists outside of France, as it turns out, and I happened to arrive right in the middle of them. Hello, Zara.

• My apartment has no climate control whatsoever like a true, typical cheap apartment building constructed in the '90s, but the location is as good as they get and the rent is low to compensate. Can't have everything I suppose.

• Given the previous, my apartment is less of an apartment and more of an igloo. Wearing layers in the house almost doesn't work between the hours of sundown to midday and taking a shower is an exercise in something resembling idiocy, futility, and extreme lack of sex appeal.

• The hills of Portugal are stunningly beautiful and great for your ass.

• The city is kind of grungy and ...well lived-in, but it's got a character second to none. As well as views. Holy crap, the views.

Até já!