What we've done in Project Week

On Saturday 19-00, we arrived so late so we went to bed.

To Sunday morning, we agreed to live Jan's house at 6:30. We walked in the city and afterwards we went to church. Was beautiful, had such a spiritual atmosphere. We return to his house with his mom and had lunch with his family. They sang beautifully. I tried the most famous Czech beer: Pilsner Urquell. Liked slightly... Actually, I liked Czech beer progressively. Every day I was liking more and more it. 

In the afternoon, we rested while in the night we went to play billiard. Was cool.

On Monday, we went in afternoon to the museum DOC that we could learn about Cuba, Capitalism and consumerism in China. Super! In the night, we meet Cesar and Sophia PW and we went to a pub all together. Was the first time that I meet Flávio.

On Tuesday, we did a cultural lunch in the morning and after we went in the afternoon to the Education Museum in Prague that described how the education evolved in Czech Republic. We went successively to a cafe; to an American restaurant and then to an exotic non-business driven pub in a mysterious place in Prague. We met Flávio again and we had nice talks together. (Obs: this day we eat a lot because we realize that we had 26 euros each and had to spend this money somehow)

May and Dominik left in the night of Tuesday to Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, we went running. Beautiful place. Wisdom went to the bus station. In the afternoon we rested. In the end of afternoon/beginning of night we meet Flávio and went to this 'green pub'. I thought was a sustainable kind of pub, I swear haha... Afterwards they told me that was a kind of pub people consume weed. I was kind chocked. The pub was very amazing, regardless of this. Was kind punk and had loud music. Was mysterious and filled with ''tattoo and piercing humankind''. At this place, we had very interesting political conversations. Flávio and I had quite different points of view towards the candidate Marina Silva, for instance. We end up discussing about military schools and how the education system (yey! Project aim was restored in the small details \o/) was. I said to Flávio that at my military school time I was very much into graduation and ''showing off'' and that I was proud of those things... In addition, even before UWC when I got scholarship in Farias Brito I was so proud of having good grades and having my pictures being published in the newspapers...

But since I came to UWC things had changed drastically. I got bad grades; however, I got education, while before in my life everything was ''grade driven''. Now thanks to UWC I've changed my mind to be ''educational driven''.

Was even worst the situation I was in... Because if you are completely lost in the drugs, at least you know about you condition of being helpless towards yourself and towards the society. However, the worst kind of self-lost in the one that gives you an impression of having a ‘’true ground’’. Imagine yourself having a perfect education, perfect grades, being successful and having a great job. Then you keep yourself in this ground of safety, but the only person that you concern is about yourself. Since it protects your social reputation, it is fine. That is the worst kind of looseness... The idea that we are good citizens... The conformity with your own self-centered kind.

I still thought that we should have school structures and that what triggers me now... How would those structures work? Because is important to have a referential, someone to look up to improve. Nevertheless, the question now is how to achieve the frame in which we can walk seeking for education rather than grades, considering that education is such a personalized process.

We had many other debates and conversations that I expect to write later.

:)

for now that is it

pergunta conceitual 23/03/2016

Se Niilismo é conectado com existencialismo, e existencialismo é conectado com realismo mágico, como pode o realismo mágico ser desconectado de niilismo?

Question about capitalism 03/03/2016

1) How can capitalism be bad, if the concentration of power in the hands of one business necessarily balances itself with the accessibility of others? What I mean is that would be stupid if the business would have so much power that would raise the prices so much in a way that no one would afford it anyways.

So, of course will be necessary a balance! So, why is power concentrated in the hands of business is bad?

2) How can business be bad for the environment, if the tendency is that the consumer market is demanding more environmentally friendly products anyways?

Those moments when we stuck in a anthropology book with thoughtfulness 02-03-2016

We do not refer to driving an automobile
or playing football or taking an examination as rituals, even though theyinvolve highly formal, rule-bound behavior—we only call activities rituals when
the means they employ and the ends to which they are directed do not match
up, when they do not correspond to our criteria of rationality, or better yet, of effi
cacy. It is precisely the assumed ineffectiveness of certain kinds of actions that
make us regard them as rituals in the fi rst place. That is why, for most scholars
of ritual, the intellectual task consists in trying to fi nd out rituals’ hidden logic,
their deeper meaning—which must be other than that reported by the natives,
since it strikes us as irrational

God of Justice by Willian Sax

Questions about sustainability 01/03/2016- Ask Tobi or someone else

1) Why is it morally wrong that US is buying carbon taxes from other countries? If the other small countries are benefiting when they are buying from USA products and they could even be even more unsustainable if they would try do it by themselves?

2) How can we still stipulate an average of justified CO2 emission considering that the human race already reached the level in which we consume much more than what the planet allow us to produce?

:)

deep talk about racism I had today 27/02/2016

Today I had one of the most meaningfull conversations in the campus. Basically one year ''gathering'' as an ''engrafted plant'' in the middle of an ''african group''. The ''latina with african friends''. The ''wanna be african''. An ''african-latina'', that is what I thought and playfully would always say.
I stil need to digest all the things that I have talked with K and with J.
Everything started with this email that connected a group of a bunch of western; white death dude in order to be create a group called SMARTIE.

As in IB English A literature we do not study those names a lot already;
even worst: as the only way to be ''smartie'' was throughout by white death dude from western countries.

I listened to Joy. She was the first one to send that email saying how she felt offended. And she got good reasons for that. She is from Cameroon and studied in UK for 2 years of her life. This year English A course is finally offering Chimamanda -an Nigerian author- as one of the books. Besides that, IB is filled with white classical death dude men. She was correct in the idea that she got offended by what they said! Because that is her perspective. How frustranting can that be to live in an African country and expend her whole life without read the local books? How can people in the world change anything about africa, if they do not read their books? If they do not get into their world and try to understand them?

VERY FAIR POINT.

Another factor was the playing with words: ''the white death dude''.

I discuss that with K. I asked her why the responses were mainly from ''back people''? And instantaneously I assumed that they should take it easy and mock at those things as well in terms of overcoming this.

She firstly pointed out that I would never understand her condition. Because she is black and it has an overly historical exploration behind it. People see her in small details not as her, K, but firstly according to her color. It is emotionally attaching. Especially when this people are innocently accused for being robbers in the USA just because of their color. Because of the fact that they were persecuted and over explored in the past. The fact that people still think -even in UWC- that everyone who is black is from africa.

K starts to point my own prejudice saying that she did not go as a ''black offended person'', but as a literature student, but the fact that racism is so present and were just ''black people taking'', she was targed into the ''black group''.

-What I think personally was quite unfair that she thought I was racist! It had not to do with racism. Whereas, if someone play with ''whitness'', is natural to think that people who are not white will react to that. It just points the color of the person, because of the joke that was about color as well. However, I do not ignore the fact that being black has conotations in it, indeed.

She talked about how I would never understand her fully, because even thought I come from a latino country that was widely explored, I still reast under some privilege compared to African continent.
And I have no right to tell her what should she feel offended for or not. Because who am I to do so, while I am here sitting on my throne of privilege? Who am I to say anything if my identity is not immediately attached to the instinct to point me out as black, because I am?
She said that accept and insult silently is the same as a men who is raping a women and she keeps silent accepting the oppresion.

I said her that use of jokes and mocking was important since its aims was actually to empower people, because those events are so ridiculous, that laughing at them can actually overcome them...
She said that yes! Seeing by a broader perspective, it is easy to laugh. What an absurd to see a 40 years old men raping a 3 years old child? Fine! Laugh at it, because it is ridiculous indeed.
But the point is that people can not just laugh of those things and do anything about it.

The pain is there and just who is in those shoes will understand how it feels.

I am honesty frustrated that I can not understand this ''black universe'', but I am trying. I am really trying to do so.

Does human nature lead us to be capitalists? -question 26/02/2016

To ask a question another question: do we even have something such as ''human nature''?

Today I had a very interesting conversation in the mensa with Nikola about human nature... Actually we talked about a bunch of things together, what was super interesting. He is such a smart guy.

Well... we were talking about biology and how the we ,humans, in the beginning of the homosapiens existence in order to establish ourselves as the strong predator, basically, we had to kill other strong animals, as mamutes, and therefore they got extinct etc.

But my question then layed in the fact that... Can we actually point something as human nature? Is the human nature that builds our sistem as it is now? Do we have something as human nature that make us ''naturally capitalists''?

And then he argued that not. That the notion of capital started when we had to exchange our commodities, because we had over productions during the time of the agricultural revolution. This perception of power was human builded concept -therefore can be deconstructed as well- and has not to do with nature.

-''But still... Power is based on competition... and even in a very non-complex society -in the beginning of sedentarism and settlement of men to produce his and her own agriculture- human showed that they needed to be the strongest, therefore they need to compete, therefore they want power. How what they did in the past can be different from what is nowadays?''

He argued firstly, we can not see that the motivation of the humans at this time were merely seeking for power, but perhaps the killed the strongest ones because they were seeking for protection!

I thought that was fair enough.

Another question came to my mind.

Considering hypothetically that TODAY we reach the level of small communities and everyone lives in self-sufficient small communities again. If the man started capitalism after the agricultural revolution, due a over production that exceed in what they needed for self-sufficiency: which guarantee do I have that men will not do seek for power again in the new context of small independent groups? Especially now that everything floats in terms of market. Even time is a commodity. ''Time is money'', they said.
If there is something such as human nature -which is endorsed by the mindset that we have right now- how realist would be to have the basis of the ideological essence of communism happening in practice?

He said that could have happened anything in the past. Was one minimum possibility that leaded the agricultural revolution turned to be the cradle of capitalism. (what I disagree and think that were very highly possibilities instead).

I am still not convinced about whether there is such a thing as human nature. Because if there is such a thing, it will explain loads to me...