Where is your title, Pedro?

I root for São Paulo Futebol Clube. My hole family roots for SPFC, in both sides ( my father´s side and my mother´s) and I have been really influenced by them. Now, I just have to thank them for this influence.  Besides of the influence, I started really rooting for SPFC by the time Raí came back , from 1998 to 2000, when I was about 8 years old and when Julio Baptista and kaká started to play for the professionals. From that time until now, my passion for the club has just increased and so did the number of SPFC´s titles. Its hallmarks are the biggest stadium of São Paulo´s state, which is Cícero Pompeu de Toledo, the Morumbi, the best organization of all clubs in America, the seriosity of SPFC´s business man and the new player´s formation center, the CT in Cotia.

Rick: Excellent reasons for you to become São Paulino, man. Thank God your family was wise enough to choose the right team. (laughters)

Fantastic stupid soap operas

Recently I’ve been watching As Três Irmãs, and I think the soap opera sucks somtimes. The main story is kind of good, but there are some scenes that look like a science fiction movie, with all the martial arts and special effects. Maybe, if the soap operas were more similar to real life, people would like tham better, and they would really pay atention to what’s happening on the show. The scripts don’t need to be exactly like real life, some things that are unusual could happen, but when they try too much to make it sensasionalistic, the whole appearence of the soap opera turns into a joke! Like on that episode when Kaique Brito was kidnaped and the “ninja” girl came flying from the roof… That scene made me laugh so hard! If they want a ninja on the story, then they should have made the whole story about ninjas, and not having put a ninja in a distant beach from Rio de Janeiro.

What I really think is that a soap opera can be good and funny without tripping too much to try to make it interesting. Basic, everyday stories can be catching and entretaining too! We don’t need ninjas flowing off the window…

Rick: I  have the same sensation about soaps here in Brazil as well. Movies also take the same steps. Movies made in Brazil are always showing the misery (Abril Despedaçado) and the violence (Cidade de Deus) to the rest of the world. I wish Brazilian directors started thinking a bit more about creating movies and soaps that would reflect realistic stories about our daily lives, like the Argentinean movie, O Filho da Noiva. That’s one of the biggest reasons why I would love to write soap operas for Rede Globo. Maybe I would be able to improve the quality of its programming

Playing Sports

I think that sports are very important to a persons life. When a person is doing sports he became more mature and more responsabile. He has to be very discipleneated to became a good player. I think that playing sports can help to higher the self-steem too because if your life (related to school or relathionships) are not going well, you can compensate for playnig hard and reaching your goals in sports. In Brazil the sports are not very value like in the United States. There are many people who travel to there to play sport because it is better and they have a lot of beneficies. For example, not paying the university. If they do this in Brazil it would have less people wasting their time noodling around and would help to decrease the crimes because people would care more about doing well their sports.

Rick: Bruna, I think you are absolutely right. But the problem is that I am afraid of money laundering in case this investment is not done the correct way. Also, we need to educate the Brazilian population of the importance of sports in our society. Maybe people still hold the belief that if a person is dedicating his or her life to sports only, he or she is lazy and will not be able to succeed in life later on in a job that is not related to sports. What do you think?

Implementation of a student-based curriculum

I am in favor the implementation of a student-based curriculum in all junior high shools in Brazil, because I think people should choose what they wanted to do and what they wanted to learn, choosing just the subjects they are interest in, learning only the subjects that will be important for their futures. I think learning things that you won’t use in your futures and you are not interesting in is useless, because you won’t pay atention, you won’t dedicate it for that subject. And I think you can’t force people to like and to study subjects they don’t want, so I’m in favor that the students should choose the subjcts they want to learn in high-schools.

Rick: But then, if this idea is implemented in Brazil, will these students be ready to take FUVEST? I believe that for Brazil to be able to make these changes, we would have to rethink the role of FUVEST in our educational system and start coming up with a different way to assess our students before they get into the university. What do you think?

Self-defense women

Nowdays crime is rising and the possibility of getting robbed in the city center for example is very big. I really don’t think that self-defense women will solve the problems here in Brazil. I belive that they must pay attention to the places where they go and the fact that the robbers are much stronger than them must be considered. The probabilities of a woman avoid a crime is not big considering that a lot of crimes is made by more than one person. Besides that one of the caracteristics of a woman in our society is to be harmful( I am not saing that they must just let be robbed ). It’s very strange for us, mens, to see a woman fighting and being strong so that they look like a men.

Rick: Does the fact that a woman can be physically stronger than you bother you to the point of saying that women should not engage in martial arts at all? Are you in favor of the traditional view that women should be defenseless and that we men should be protecting them?

Extra Material for the rest of the course

inter-teen-2-2008

Guys,

Please print this material for our next class meeting.

Rick

Journal Entry #2 – Manuela

Honestly I can’t cook a stew…

But I do consider myself a good cook. I can do great sandwiches, I can cook pasta (not only boil it, but accutualy make it), and also I can cook “bem-casados”.

I took me some cooking classes, but it turned out to realy good.

Rick: Why did you decide to take cooking classes? Were you forced to do it? And also, do you believe that even kids like you should have some notions of cooking to be able to survive in today’s society?

Journal Entry # 2 – Marcela

Some Americans consider Brazilians disrespectful of people’s space, because Latin people tend to lean and grab on one another when interacting. Americans defend that they have their own bubble and nobody should cross the distance of two arms. I think this is an exageration because you can’t even touch someone that you know, if you are not so close to the person.

Rick: Marcela, of course you can touch people you are close with. Americans hug and slap each other’s butts and touch their shoulders etc if they are close to each other. However, among classmates, for instance it would be weird for them to do so because in that culture it would be considered an invasion of their privacy. That is all.

Marcela: It is diferent cultures so everybody should respect.

Journal Entry # 2- Bruna

I don’t think that women should quit their job. We have studied all life willing to pass in the university and find a good job, and when all thing is going right we will have to quit. Why you and not your husband?

Rick: What about maternal instinct?

Bruna: I don’t think that my husband should quit his job, just if he wants, but I don’t have the obligattion to quit too.

Rick: Who is going to take care of the kids then?

Bruna: In the majority there is a way to juggle job ank kids. For example, you can work during the mornig and then you can take care of your kids, and if you husband can’t stop working you could hire a nanny to take care of them during the morning. It is the best way to enjoy your life doing what you want and having a good family.

Rick: But what happens to days when neither the father nor the mother are able to take care of the children?

Journal Entry #2 – Arnoldo

6- Having a body contact in Brazil, is not really impolite. I think that if you hug or shake hands with a friend is very common and means that you like him. I don’t know why americans think this is disrespecful, since you are not hurting or having a huge body contact with the person. I think it is pretty gentle for you to give it a

Rick: Arnoldo, of course you are hurting them. Not in the physical sense and you may think, but psychologically you are. It is big invasion to have someone who you do not have so much intimacy with touch you. Touching is supposed to be something very intimate between two individuals and not something so trivial as it is in the Brazilian culture.