Felipe Nunez

Livejournal, I need your help!
 
Where should I go to college? After being accepted to all the schools to which I applied except for one (Rice!), I have narrowed my choices down to the following 3:
1) UT Austin- it's an excellent school and, not to mention, it's cheap (I got a $12,000 scholarship!). I just don't know if I want to stay in Texas for another four years.
2) New York University- I'm not going to lie, NYU has been my dream school since I was in 7th grade. It's an amazing opportunity for me considering I want to major in international relations and work at the United Nations (internship opportunities = around the corner... literally, the UN is like a block away). But goodness fucking gracious is it expensive! I don't want to have to sell my limbs just to go to school.
3) Reed College- pretty much everything I want in a college (quaint setting, gorgeous architecture, a quintessential "elite liberal arts college" experience), except for it's high prices and intense INTENSE!!! workload. It's not so much that I'm lazy, it's just that I enjoy having my free time and harboring an active social life.

So, which do I choose?? Do I go for money, opportunity, perfection minus a few major things...???

"It's alright, there's still 2010. We'll do better at the next Cup." 
These words came from the mouth of my dad, eternal optimist and man who is immune to any kind of deception. I find it hard to be so forgiving and forward-looking. 

So yeah, the Brazilian soccer team suffered an ugly defeat at the effeminate hands of the French. It was an awful and embrassaing 1 to 0 loss. It was enough to lose to France at the finals in 1998, but it's much more of a shame to lose at the fucking quarter final, the game that was nicknamed around the country as the "revenge match." I want to bitch slap a few mofos, mostly Ronaldo, who twice came within a few feet of the goal and fell flat on his gradually fattening face.  Fuck you! I feel like locking myself in an empty room and exploding, violently tearing apart a few walls, shattering windows into vitreous shards that are unsafe for walking on, all that good stuff. And I'm not the only one. The enitre nation is in mourning as if some great national hero passed away. It can be heard at any corner of any street taking the form of a melancholy whisper or an angered yell, but either way it's the same, "I can't believe it's over for us. How could this happen?"

Relatedly, I've recently decided that it is in my best interest to become a vegetarian. Seriously, yall, it's about my health. If I don't lose some major weight in the very near future, all I'll be able to do is bitch! bitch! bitch! about how massive fatness has taken over my  body. Did I mention that this is all coming from the man who wears a size 2 in women's jeans? Okay, so in verity I decided to become a vegetarian for the sake of spite.  Initially it was to spite my dad because, apart from being a raging carnivore, he also invariably forces ever meal I eat to contain some form of farm-animal's flesh. It's annoying as god damn hell. After realizing how trite a reason to completely change my eating habits that was, I decided that I would become a vegetarian to spite the Brazilian soccer team. This is because I was a witness to their shameful loss at a big Brazilian-style barbecue- a churrasco.  I was practically inhaling a deliciously, mouth wateringly juicy steak sandwhich when I saw the French forward head the ball into the net. Now and forever there shall remain in my head that association between eating meat and losing the World Cup in 2006. It's something I refuse to bear, so I'm not going to eat any meat until Brazil wins the Cup in 2010 (during which I plan to be eating a steak sandwhich so my association can be reversed). I'm on a strike that I'm sure to break within one week's time!

So here's to impulsive, empty promises. May your brevity continue to disapoint. 

Today at one o'clock in the afternoon, the nation will come to a complete stop. For two hours, every street of every city in the country will become vacant and silent. Stores and restaurants will close at noon and public transportation will work at a minimum, not that there will be anyone to transport in the first place. The only people who will work through this hiatus are doctors, policemen, and firefighters, and even they will take time to find out how things are going. At one o'clock today, Brazil will play its second game in the 2006 World Cup, held in Germany, and every Brazilian around the globe will be keenly watching how this game progresses. 

Certainty is a luxury that Brazil is not afforded this time around, as it has been other years. Today's game will be against Australia and no one can predict how it will end. Brazil's first game was last Tuesday and it was against Croatia, a nation that definitely deserves respect for its soccer skills. Even though the game ended in a win for us, our team played a mediocre game at best. Ronaldo, one of the most world renowned forwards in the Cup, practically failed every time he came into contact with the ball. He made no goals, which is an oddity in most games, and he lost the ball clumsily far too many times. Ronaldinho, who is considered to be the greatest soccer player of all time, didn't make those gorgeous moves that he is known for. There was a grave lack of passion in the game. In fact, if it wasn't for our goalie Dida's impeding every ball that game speeding towards the net, I honestly don't know how that game would have ended. But it was Kaka, the excellent midfielder and one of the newest members of our elite soccer family, who saved out victory, not to mention our respect. At 40 minutes in the first time, he made his way fluidly through mid-field, hauled ass, and powerfully smashed the ball into the goal. It was amazing and beautiful, a "golasso" as it's called here.  
 
Even though we won the game and that's really what counts, our 1 to 0 victory is hardly sufficient for a five-time World Champ. I believe that Brazil needs to work on its speed, something that many fans thought was the team's weakest point. Unless our game is seriously stepped up, Australia could come and bite us in the ass. Their first game was against Japan and in the last 15 minutes of the second time, when they were loosing  1 to 0, the team came back and made 3 goals. 3! In 15 minutes! Holy shit! And it's not as if Japan isn't a tough competitor. However, Australia does have a nasty habit of making dirty moves, and that could work against them. They break fucking legs, man. They are a relatively new team to the whole World Cup experience, but what they lack in experience could be made up by their mettle and aggressiveness. 

All we can to do now, as we wait for this game to begin and end, is have faith in the Brazilian team, because that's all they need at this point. Faith. They've exercised to their physical limits and they've trained as much as they can. So right now, they only thing that we, as spectators, can do to help is root for them. The game is starting right as I'm typing this. I have to go. Wish us luck!

"So, tell me, how did it feel to have this view outside of your window for three days?"

"It felt pretty damn good, pretty damn good..."

In case you haven't found out, which is highly unlikely as I've been boasting about it for the past ever, I'm going to stay in Brazil until mid-July. I've been in my hometown of Riberão Preto for the past week and a half, eating all the scrumptious food and absorbing all the World Cup enthusiasm the city has to offer, the second of which the city has quite a supply. I was also pretty stoked to come to the realization that my Portuguese is as up-to-snuff as ever, and is not the unintelligible jargon I had assumed it to be. I did spend three days in the oasis from ugliness that is Rio de Janeiro and I took an endless supply of pictures which I promise to post. However, the pictures are at the moment unreachable and plus, I have a much more pressing matter to address.

So, last Saturday, on a complete whim, I went to this rock show with an old friend of mine and her boyfriend. The show was a conglomeration of 6 Brazilian artists and bands, some of which are extremely famous, namely Rita Lee, who is known as "the Queen of Brazilian Rock." Honestly, I thought that most of the music was shitty and far too esoteric for my taste- it was much more suited to hardcore punks than Elliott-Smith-loving me. But notwithstanding my dislike of the folks on stage, I still had a rockin' blast. My friend Dora (the explora!) and her boyfriend Wagner introduced me to loads of people, most of whom I will eventually forget. One did stand out, though.

As an important side note in the understanding of the following observation, you must know that for a Brazilian, my fashion sense is a little whack. In fact, "a little" is a overt understatement. My assortment of tight little pants are what mostly draw the attention of the curious eyes of passer-byers. They have been the subject of much interrogation ("Where did you get them, how much did they cost, are they comfortable?") and have recieved various complements. Being the rarity they are in these parts, they never cease to fascinate, both in good ways and bad. I remember when I first arrived in Riberao Preto, I went to the mall on a crowded day and it felt as though all eyes where on me, well, on my leg area, that is. I felt so self consious, so awkward. But then I believe word got out around the city about a giant, whack bitch wearing skin-tight jeans that had been seen roaming the streets, and after awhile, no one seemed to stare or take special notice anymore.

So, back to the point. I went to this show that had its own fair share of emotionally unstable 13-year-old girls wearing desecrated knee-high converse, gothic style mascara, too many obscenely colored wrist bands with polka-dots and stripes on each arm, thongs creeping out from their school girl skirts, and expensive leather jackets with roses and guns and what nots embroidered into the leather. On the other hand, I was wearing what I though were my loosest pair of tight pants. As the show went on (quite loudly), I was introduced to many people, one of whom affronted me in Portuguese exclaiming, "Dude, were you not born with a penis? Your pants are so tight!" Initially, I was completely dumbstruck, as I've never before been the target of such an absurd and ridiculous assertion. Did this intoxicated little chap really just ask me if I was born without a penis? Is he really that much of an idiot or is he just a blunt asshole? And are my pants really that egregiously tight? It was obvious that he was rather drunk, but still, I was extremely tempted to answer with, "Yeah, dude, I was like, born without a penis. And the when I got older I was like, dude, what better way to flaunt my envied dicklessness than by wearing my most modest pair of tight pants, yo!" But, I realized that he was probably a nice guy who just let alcohol get the best of him and I would have been letting rude sarcasm get the best of me.

Dear Livejournal,
I'm terribly sorry but I will not be able to spend much time with you for a while. I've got an impressive load of ironing to catch up on. That was a lie. The truth is I'm in Brazil, sucka, and I've got many a thing to do before I'll have the opportunity to write a thorough entry.  
Yours Truly,
Felipe