Journal @ MindSay 
blog
Usually I figure things out and help myself, and believe me I tried, for more than a year, to figure myself out. I still don't think talking to someone will help much because I know I can't change the past, and I don't know what to do no to change the future. Every choice I've made, pretty much, has been a bad one. When it startted affecting grades, I started talking to school counceler, cause my friend wanted me to. My counceler had asked me to write a mood chart. I find this hard because I find it hard to put my moods into a number from 1-10. I was never good with rating things, because I don't know what a number means. I guess 6 was ok to me, 5 was neither, like , nothing, 4 was not so good, 3 was worse, 2 was unbearable and 1 was the worst mood ever, almost suicidal. Most were under 5, she said my moods were moderate, because on the weekend if i was with my friend, were high. It makes me wonder, am I okay? Is it normal to be sad most of the time? Because if I'm not thinking about things, preoccupied, if I like what I'm doing, it goes away. But it's only temporary.. Even when I'm with my best friends, I'll sometimes think about the bad things, and be sad. In the happiest environment ever, I can find myself in tears... I love music, and I can't live without it, and if I forget to bring my discman, I am angry, but then my music makes me sad, so I don't know what's best. I know I had a great weekend, with my 2 best friends and some others. We walked to mcdonalds. The only thing i will eat there besides choc milk is their pies- and they had no pies lol. One of my best friends Andy gave me a walnut, George , my boyfriend, took it from me and gave back then jason put it in hos mouth. I still have it. heh, walnut.
Listening to the radio.. stupid christmas music. grrr if it wudnt destroy my only radio id go buy a gunand shoot at it...
Going to my dad's for xmas... ehh. I don't want to go. We're going to new brunswick with all of my dad's fiance's family... uber religious people.. I better not have to go to chruch not again. I will not. Step-brother is going, if they can convince him. It's always a big ordeal, he just will not go so they let him stay. It's not fair. I have to go, he gets to do whatever the fuck he wants...And I'm the good one that always listens.. ehh I guess I"m the same at my mom's house though ( if you don't follow, me parents are divorced, have been since I was 6months). 2 days til x mas.. yeh my family celebrates it if I didn't mention that already. Not really looking that much forward to it except to open present from my friends, and give them and see them open theirs. I use this holiday as an excuse for gifts, and its sometimes nice to have a little family time. But I'm not looking forward to this christmas much.. it isn't even my family, yet but they will be when my dad gets married. I guess some of them are alright, I just don't like people and get paranoid around them.
Good song on radio again.! " better off"- theory of a deadman.
Boyfriend called and woke me uptoday at 1:30pm... heh I had a dream. But I still say 10 hrs is too much. I'm used to getting 7 at the most.. no more school! I guess it's a good thing kind of, I mean I'm bored out of my ass... Except we're starting family studies. That's fun. I'm good at sewing and cooking.
Yeh that's it for now.. here's a poem. It's most likely all you will read, since my post is so long..heh.
untitled
you've damaged my mind
you tore it apart
scattered the pieces
pierced holes in my heart
little things you say
jab into my thoughts,
bleeding
though the memories
I can feel you
stabbing.
you want to leave your mark
but cover your track
only I can trace you
my love for you's of lack
you can't go back to erase
what you have engraved
on our last goodbye
I'll never see you wave.
Today was lectures and exercises and more lectures. We had a quiz too, but I got a 9/10 so I'm pretty happy with that. I need to get an A in this course since it's 6 credits and will serve as a fairly solid boost to my GPA. I'm at a 3.6 right now and I need to hit 3.7+ by graduation so that I can qualify for a Marshall Scholarship and get my PhD for free in the United Kingdom. It's a lofty goal, but it would be an amazing opportunity. And who knows, it might happen.
We had a lesson today about ecological footprints, a subject I find very interesting. I did two calculations and determined that my footprint in New York is much smaller than in Maryland--no surprise there. (If anyone who knows me, or knows my shoe size, is reading this, I'm sure you're thinking about how big my footprint is anywhere. Har har.) Being a vegetarian really reduces my impact on the planet; being a vegan would reduce it even further. Definitely an option I would consider, but I'd have to give up ice cream. And yogurt. And cheese. That would be rough.
The food here has continued to exceed my expectations. I've been eating yogurt, granola, and bananas for breakfast, followed by lots of vegetables (squash, beets, potatoes, zucchini, etc.) and salads for dinner. Everything smothered in hot sauce, just how I like it. And I've been drinking lots of water, tea, and coffee. I hope the water is negating the dehydrating effects of the caffeine. The only issue is that since I've been eating so many meals per day (breakfast, coffee break, lunch, coffee and cake break, dinner), I haven't been able to measure how much I've been eating. Everything is healthy and incredibly unprocessed (a welcome change from my usual diet), but I just hope that I don't get fat(ter) while I'm here.
This evening we had individual discussions with our professor and TAs to discuss our project topics. I think I'm going to scrap the idea about dogs (I just can't think of a hypothesis or experiment) and study erosion control methods instead. I'm still in the planning stages, but I'll probably spend Friday hashing out the details.
I'd like to reflect more on what I learned today, but my mind is drawing a blank. This entry seems a little vacuous, so hopefully I'll actually be able to express some thoughts tomorrow. I might go to bed soon... Julia, Kaitlyn, and I watched half of Paris, Je T'aime last night (one of my *favorite* films), so we'll probably finish it after our reading is done. The nights here have been very laid back so far, but we're having our first "social" tomorrow night, so things are bound to get a little crazy. I hope.
Today was another lovely day in paradise. I had planned on waking up early to go for a run with some of the other students, but I stayed up late writing so I decided to sleep in. After breakfast, Fernando--one of our TAs--gave a lecture about conservation biology and what goes on at IPE. He posed one question that I found particularly interesting: Why should we spend money to conserve species when there are millions of people around the world dying from starvation?
Well, our money isn't being spent on international aid to save impoverished peoples... it's being spent on this "war"! The total cost of the Iraq was is over $500 million so far: Imagine how many ecosystems could have been saved with those dollars that were used to destroy life rather than preserve it...
Fernando lectured for about an hour before we grabbed our backpacks (stocked with bug spray, windbreakers, and binoculars) and headed down the hill past the organic garden to two boats waiting on the shore. We hopped in and began our journey to Fazendinha, a resort further up the reservoir. The boat ride was absolutely lovely--I took some great pictures (I'll post them here as soon as I upload them from my camera). When we arrived at our destination, we were greeted by a few charming dogs--mostly lab mixes, but a couple of smaller breeds too. And none of them were neutered. I think I might study this topic for my individual project: Measure dog population sizes (and the population sizes of other domesticated animals); how neutering would change population numbers; what neutering services are currently available; how dogs and other domesticated animals affect the natural environment (ie. by spreading diseases); etc. Hopefully I'll be able to find some relevant research via Google.
We began our climb up a small mountain (a hill, really) soon after we docked and used the restrooms. The trek was definitely uphill, but it wound around the incline so it wasn't too strenuous. And it was absolutely breathtaking. We were surrounded by an incredibly lush canopy hung with thick twisted vines, interrupted by spatters of sunlight shining through breaks in the leaf cover. When we were about half way up, Juliana--another TA--asked us to find something interesting and show it to the rest of the group. I found several species of lichen on a tree: some green, some red, and some orange. I also noticed that on all of the surrounding trees, the lichen only covered one side because the hill prevented the other side from sun exposure. It was very pretty, although slightly reminiscent of ringworm. The hill's peak was gorgeous--a stunning view of the reservoir, some quaint houses along the shore, and plots of eucalyptus trees.
We had a delicious lunch (albeit a little late) at the Fazendinha, a more varied meal than what we've eaten here so far. I had a huge salad, some potatoes, some ambiguous fried vegetables, cous cous, and a little bit of pasta slathered in butter....I'm skipping dinner tonight. Oh, and I had a beer. Which was great. After stuffing our faces--we were all ravenous after our hike up the "mountain"--a few people hopped in the pool. Pas moi, non merci. Everyone was complaining about how cold it was, so I was not terribly enthusiastic about getting wet.
Of course, I got wet anyway: I rode in the smaller of the two boats on the way back to IPE and I was absolutely soaked through. Oh well. We had a good time and laughed while the spray drenched our hiking boots and backpacks, but everyone could see my ass through my wet pants when we walked back up the hill through the garden (where the produce that we eat here is grown).
I have a bit of homework tonight and I need to finish the reading from last night since I was occupied by my paper. The reading isn't too heavy, but we have a quiz tomorrow so I need to make sure that I understand all of the material. And I need to write a paragraph about my ideas for my project. I don't mind the work; at least I'm done with that paper. Thannnnnk God.
I arrived in Brazil yesterday, after a long flight with a four hour layover at JFK. My mum, being the lovely considerate woman that she is, ordered me a vegetarian meal for the plane. Unfortunately, the vegetarian meal also serves as the diet meal: not only did I miss out on the crackers and brownie, but my breakfast included a mini bagel while everyone else received one of more normal proportions. At least the flight was relatively smooth and the quintessential crying baby fell asleep soon after take-off.
My flight arrived in Sao Paulo at about 10am, but the SEE-U van was not scheduled to leave until 12:30, so I wandered around the airport for a while. I learned that women in Brazil (or at least in the Brazilian airport) are even more inept than American women when buying pants. Lots of muffin tops and bare ankles. Lots of whisker-wash too; I'm not sure which is more abhorrent. By 11:00 I was bored of aimlessly perusing souvenir shops and book stores full of trashy romance novels and maps in Portuguese, so I headed over to the Pizza Hut in terminal 2, the meeting place selected for our group.
There were a few girls waiting around a table; I identified them by the nearby pile of backpacks and suitcases. Oh, and the Columbia t-shirts. Everyone was very friendly and seemed interesting; we went through the standard introductions of what's your name, where are you from, what's your major, etc. Most of the participants hail from Columbia University (although I am the only Barnard student), but one attends NYU and another is from Delaware Valley College.
At 12:30 we loaded our luggage into a large van and drove for about an hour to our site. It was wonderful to step outside the airport after traveling for so long; palm trees planted on the roadside waved in a light, warm breeze, surprisingly warm since this is the Brazilian winter. The drive was beautiful, down a winding gravel road along the side of white cliff faces and through thick woods. Right after leaving GRU we passed through a residential area on the outskirts of Sao Paulo; the brightly painted concrete houses and dark-haired children sitting on the curbs reminded me of the neighborhoods of Belize City.
After driving for about an hour, we reached our destination: the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecologicas (IPE). The location is absolutely breathtaking--it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The center overlooks a deep blue reservoir; black and brown cows graze peacefully in the foreground, munching on green grass dotted with patches of wildflowers. There are some kayaks that we can rent and I would love to spend some time paddling across the water. The scenery also includes miles of tree-covered mountains stretching into the horizon. The Atlantic Forest isn't jungle-y like the Amazon, but it is amazingly lush.
We're all staying in a two-storey rectangular brick building with red shutters and external stairs; the rooms are small, containing two twin beds with only a few feet between them, but very comfortable. I was afraid we were going to be roughing it, but that's not the case. I think the mattresses may even be Tempur-pedic. (I slept very soundly last night.) There have been no hot showers as of yet, which is marginally disappointing, but it makes it easy to wake up in the morning. A brisk shower never hurt anyone and I'm sure it saves a lot of water overall.
The food has been excellent so far. For lunch yesterday we had green salad, rice, and a meat dish. I'd love to lose a few pounds while I'm here (what a great bonus). For breakfast this morning we had granola, yogurt (delicious!), crusty rolls, cheese, and lots of fruit. A great array of fruits--bananas, apples, oranges, mangoes, papayas, passion fruits, etc. All of the produce is grown in a nearby garden...I'd love to see it.
We had our first class after breakfast and went over some orientation topics: general safety and appropriate behavior, class schedules, grading criteria, etc. I'm really excited to start learning about this beautiful place; I think the educational material will be heavy but not too difficult, and I can't wait to spend time in the field. We each complete individual projects during our five week stay here, but I have no idea what topic I would like to study.
After class we went for a hike around the area, through a wide pasture, over several hills, and down a narrow path veiled by low hanging vines and thick shoots of bamboo. We saw some enormous spiders, lots of pretty flowers, and a sloth. Taking advantage of such a slow-moving organism, I took too many photos (as usual). When I upload them onto the computer I probably won't be able to decipher their subject, since the sloth was quite high up and my camera's zoom is less than ideal. He was very cute though and climbed down a bit to watch us as we watched him.
We have class again tonight until about 6:00. Afterwards, I'm hoping to finish the paper that I still have not turned in from the end of spring semester. I have about 20-pages so far and I just need to do some revision and add some more primary source references. It's by far the lowest quality writing that I've done all year, but I'm so burned out. At least it will be done soon and won't be hanging over my head. Hopefully Professor Rieder (who I hope to coerce into advising my thesis) will forgive me and won't judge my abilities too strongly based on this one assignment. He did tell me at one point during this semester that he thought I was brilliant. (I almost fainted.)
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