DID I MENTION I MISS TRAVELLING?

More of my new year's travels around Itaúnas and Vitória. You can catch the first post here.

Much love,
V.

A brief history of (my) hair

At first, I had beautiful fluffy long brown hair (June 2012).

I had purple tips for like, three days in July 2013 (N. dyed them for me when I visited her in Melbourne <3), but then I was back to normal hair. I felt bored. I felt like I needed change. Actually I felt tremendously lost and didn't know where to go with my life or what kind of future I'd have, so just to feel like I could decide something I decided to bleach my hair tips and dye them salmony-pink (September 2013).

It got completely blond about a month in. So I went acqua blue (October 2013). 

That also faded away fairly quickly, leaving me with violet... (November 2013).

 

(yeah my "friend" took a photo of me out of the blue, nice guy). Then acqua again in December, then it faded  while I was at the beach for new years and I just had fugly damaged bleached hair. Thus I cut it all off on January 8th, which is actually one year after I took a plane back home after the exchange programme. COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT. Was I leaving my past behind and getting ready for a new life, letting go of that feeling that life-not-in-Paris couldn't possibly be good? Perhaps.

Or perhaps I was just tired of all the split ends and frizzy hair. We'll never know. All I know is that, even if sometimes I miss having long hair (especially to perk it up in milk braids and all), I look waaaaaaaay better with short hair, PLUS I spend less than ever with hair products. I used to think that I could never cut my long hair off because, believe it or not, I thought I was ugly and it was the only beautiful thing about me, it was kinda like a shield or a security blanket. NOW I THINK I'M BEAUTIFUL. Confidence. I haz it. You go, you. I'd like to state that I cannot stand self-deprecation. All my friends make bad comments about how they look, even when there's seriously nothing wrong with them - so I promptly cut in with compliments and rational comments to try and make them see how crazy they are for thinking "their shins are too thin" (whut).  Eventually they started doing it with each other and some peeps started calling us the "support group" <3 <3 <3 SPREAD THE LOVE, EVERYONE. YOU'RE ALL LOVELY. Oprah, where do I sign?

A pleasant evening to you,

V.

Adventures

On the early morning of January 2nd, 2014, me and my friends decided to see the sunrise over at Itaúnas dunes. It may seem like the coolest adventure ever, but we were actually scared to death of getting raped on the pitch-black road there and then we were eaten alive by mosquitoes when we got there. Then the sun came out and it was all worth it <3 These are some photos I took with a disposable camera. Good times! I miss travelling so, SO much. I wonder when my next trip will be! N. is having the time of her life roadtripping the hell outta Australia right now, I miss her so much ahaha. I hope she's having tones of adventures with her bf :))
ps: after spending the whole night out and then watching the sunrise, we got to our tents utterly tired (we were camping). I entered the tent and lay there for a whole 10 mins before my tentmate came in and spotted a GINOURMOUS SPIDER in there. We got out screaming like mad people, my hair got stuck in the tent zip, I cried, it was 6am and we woke everyone else up in the camping site, including the hippies who permanently lived there. One of them came our way asking if we needed help and we said there was a huge spider in our tent, he totes thought we were exaggerating (we were not) and picked up one of the tent sticks (you know, the ones that allow it to stand up straight in a tent shape) and went inside our tent. When he spotted the spider he yelled and started manically hitting it until it died. One of his hippie friends came by and said "you can't hurt the animals, dude" (reaaaallly slowly) and the one who helped us said "it's just sleeping!". Yeah, right.

A pleasant night to you,
V.

Movie Night #6

Am I terribly old fashioned?

A couple weeks ago I watched Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008). It's based on a 1938 book I read in 2011, with the same name. I absolutely loved reading it, it was fast paced and the story was interesting - it's about a governess, Guinevere, who can't hold down a job. She keeps getting fired, she's poor and she's homeless. She manages to steal a card from a lady who needed someone at her home from the employment office and shows up in the address saying she was sent from the employment office - and instead of kids, she finds Delysia, a young cabaret singer with tons of lovers - one whose beautiful apartment she lives in, one who's the son of a West End producer and who she's hoping will give her the main role on a musical; and her musical partner at the cabaret, Ned the Pie Maker (I used to love that show! so sad it only had one season!), who is the only one who tryuly loves her but doesn't have a penny. Guinevere is then hired as Delysia's personal manager or something, and accompanies her to various social gatherings trying to avoid that her lovers discover about each other. Guinevere ends up discovering there's a lot more to her than she thought, and although I guess it's just chick lit I do feel like it's different with two strong, feminine main characters who go after what they want and work hard for it haha. The movie changes the plot a bit but was still cool, and actually had a happier ending than the book. It was interesting reading about the military "trials" (when the army and air force practice fighting before a war? I don't know how to explain it) in London, as the book was published in 1938, a year before World War II broke out - I didn't know people knew there was gonna be a war so long before it actually started and then practiced for it!

 :(( so sad. 

Lately

Woah! sorry about disappearing. I'm sure y'all know how it is, both me and N. were going crazy with exams to study for and essays to write. Now it's all over <3 N. is travelling with her boyfriend and I miss her so much! I'm sure she's having tons of fun though, so it's ok! She worked really hard this semester and deserves the time off.
So, in the last couple weeks I spent most of the time at home studying with my cats taking naps and nibbling on my toes. Mia (that's the name of the black and white one up there) sometimes forgets to put her tongue back in her mouth, it's SO cute! Did the cat get your tongue?



On Thursday it was my last exam and, for some of my friends, their last day of being an undergrad. I still have one semester to go, it was really sad knowing that we won't have classes together anymore and will no longer see each other that often. So after our last exam, as a celebration of some sort, I bought us bem casados (a Brazilian pastry made with dulce de leche usually given away as souvenirs after weddings, it means "well married") but named them bem formados ("well graduated")! It was a hit!

On Friday I worked from home and then joined some friends at São Paulo's historical center to watch the game. Did you know that people don't have to work full hours here when there's a game where Brazil is playing in the world cup? hahah. That was actually the first world cup game I watched, I really don't care for soccer... but I must admit that just feeling the energy other people send out while watching the game was pretty cool. They get so worked up, it's hilarious!

Then on Saturday morning I participated on a ~photoshoot~ with my friends/partners with whom I'm opening an online store! The photos are gonna go on our hot site before the actual store comes out. I'm really excited about this project and I'll talk more about it soon, if I can :)) I'm really rooting for it to work out, opening firms in Brazil is so complicated and expensive :((

After seeing the fish on the way to the location, we met this cute moustachioed cat on the way back to the metro! 

On Saturday night I invited my uni friends for a slumber party at my place. We ordered pizza, had tons of wine, some beer, and talked a lot about  a lot of nonsense, and then decided to sleep all in the same bed (we were 6 people haha). That didn't go so well, but it was so cute! After they left this morning I spent some time in the backyard reading drinking some leftover beer and my cats apparently enjoyed it as well! Drunk cats <3

A pleasant beginning of the week to you,

V.

Graffiti me, graffiti you

A couple weeks ago someone told me São Paulo wanted to be the graffiti world capital and I was like "WHUT we barely have any", but then I started noticing and it's actually everywhere! I really like discovering things, along with long walks on the beach, travelling and cats, and this is totes my dating site profile. I mean, seriously though, that it's always cool finding out things about the city you live in or about people you know. (Unless it's something like, they're murderers, or something, then it's not pleasant at all). I don't particularly like graffiti, but I guess it's better than a blank wall.




Me and my friends went to Tulipa Ruiz's concert yesterday night, even though we're all swallowed in school work and probs shouldn't be going out. Tulipa is so great! She has a great great singing voice, and is really fun onstage.




After the concert we went to a bar called informally "The Priest's Ass", because it's behind a church haha. I really liked the décor, specially the little beach painting you can see on the pic above! It left us all in a very tranquil mood and less desperate about uni. Unfortunately today I'm back to my desperate state.



Anyway, we might not really be the world capital of graffiti, but some dude decorated his trash picking vehicle with graffiti (yes, no name for it - if you're reading this and it's not familiar to you, good for you, chances are you don't live in a country with great inequality like Brazil! Yay! This is a little cart people with no other means of living go around with trying to collect something from trash that's hopefully worth some bucks) along with a really scary doll sticking out its tongue. He should totes be on Pimp my Ride - Terrible Reality edition.

A pleasant week to you,
V.

How should a person be?

Hello, children. Today's book is called How Should a Person Be?, by Sheila Heti.

I first heard about this book in an interview with Lena Dunham, I think. It had been on my "to read" list ever since, but it was just non-existent in Brazil (I mean, I couldn't find it for sale anywhere). Fortunately, my new internship allows me to download almost all the books in existence bwahahah <3 Anyway, when I first saw the description, I was like, "ew, a self-help book", but then it totes wasn't. Actually, this book does not offer any answers of any kind. To be completely honest, I think I finished reading it feeling more messed up than ever. Thus, the subtitle "a novel from life" fits it quite well.

I had the pleasure of highlighting some of my favourite excerpts from the book, and I hope by reading them you'll feel a deep desire to read the book as well. I personally have never felt so connected to anyone as I did to the main character (whose name I can't remember! Go me!). Which I guess is sad. It reminds me of when my psychologist asked me to list 10 boys I'd like to date and like 7 of them were fictional (like Link from the Legend of Zelda, Goku from Dragonball Z and Kyo from a manga called Fruits Basket). "Hopeless", was what her facial expression said.

You can admire anyone for being themselves. It's hard not to, when everyone's so good at it. But when you think of them all together like that, how can you choose? How can you say, I'd rather be responsible like Misha than irresponsible like Margaux? Responsibility looks so good on Misha, and irresponsibility looks so good on Margaux. How could I know which would look best on me?


I had spent so much time trying to make the play I was writing - and my life, and my self - into an object of beauty. It was exhausting and all that I knew.

my paintings look so good when I'm wearing your special glasses. Thank you.

It has long been known to me that certain objects want you as much as you want them. These are the ones that become important, the objects you hold dear. The others fade from your life entirely. You wanted them, but they did not want you in return.

Standing alone at the bar, I wondered if I could love the boy I noticed at the end of it - the one with curly brown hair, who was like a washed-out, more neutral version of the first boy I loved. When he stepped out into the front steps, I thought, if he has gone out there to smoke, I will love him. But when I got outside, though I could see a cigarette dangling from his lips, I did not love him.

If they can just remember this - It is their everlasting switching that is the dangerous thing, not what they choose - they might discover themselves saved. The problem is the puer ever anticipates loss, disappointment, and suffering - which they foresee at the end of every experience, so they cut themselves off at the beginning, retreating almost at once in order to protect themselves. In this way, they never give themselves to life - living in constant dread of the end. Reason, in this case, has taken too much from life. They must give themselves completely to the experience! One thinks sometimes how much more alive such people would be if they suffered! If they can't be happy, let them at least be unhappy - really, really unhappy for once, and then they might truly become human.

May the Lord have mercy on me for I am a fucking idiot. But I live in a culture of fucking idiots. I cannot be saved if not everyone is saved. if everyone around me talks nothing but shit, how can I hold myself aloof? My fate is not separate from everyone's fate. if one man or woman can stand up and call themselves saved, that means we all are. And I know I'm not, so no one is. 

Recently, Margaux had been trying to reassure me that I had a good brain. My brain had not worried me when I was younger, but over the past year I had become convinced that I did no think as well as other people. No, that was putting it gently - that I didn't know how to think at all. Other people knew how to think, I thought, had opinions on things, a point of view. I did not.

Why are you all reading? I don't understand this reading business when there's so much fucking to be done.

I untangle myself from the sheets and get up and go to the mirror to start my day. I produce a haughty, superior expression to intimidate myself into thinking I'm cool, cooler than I am. I make my eyes as world-weary as possible, like a fashion model's, I think, You're a charlatan. You love everything you were ever given. 

 Hope you have a lovely week! Have you figured out how should a person be?

V.