Vandalism there or here

Today in Brazilians news it has become fashionable to say that vandalism is stealing public money, vandalism is leaving people to die in the under-supplied and under-staffed hospitals, that vandalism is leaving public school buildings to fall apart and without minimal conditions to educate children for lack of funds.

Alright. It is all vandalism. I believe wholeheartedly that this indeed is vandalism.

But when that is used as an excuse for the people to make vandlism in the streets, burn and destroy private property, throw stones at cops, graffite city walls ... then we have a problem. One typ of vandalism can not be an excuse for the other. This is the place where u live. If th building is public it was done with your money. If it's private property, it was made ​​with the sweat of someone else.

Shouting words of order, cursing bad politics, displaying posters, and even (those who have money t afford the fruit) throwing tomatoes at politicians (except if they are coming to talk to you) is absolutely valid - freedom of speech and the right of a citizen to express his displeasure with the mess is backing up any of these actions.

But to damage and destroy? What are we? Irrational animals? Like mistreated dogs who only know how to act with hatred because of mistreatment? This is something for brutes - not for us, civilized humans.

To engage in street vandalism for me is to get down to their level.

To use the excuse that the people can not take anymore is just an excuse - it explains it, but it does not justify it. Nothing justifies violence.

That's called being a girl - and why de we need guys?

BANG!

That was the noise of the book cart I was pulling down from the school attic yesterday - going down the first step.

"Are you ok up there?" That was a guy's voice coming from downstairs.

"Me? I'm fine. Just pulling the cart down the stairs."

BANG! Went the cart again. Second step down.

The guy that talked to me came to see what on earth was making that much noise.

"I'm just pulling it down. It's just really loud. I'm almost done."

I wasn't almost done. I had to bring the thing down two flights of stairs. I just wanted him not to think I was dying and leave me alone to do my job. I needed the cart to clean up my classroom for the summer.

"Well, let me help," he said.

So he lifted the cart - LISTEN TO THAT - as if it were as light as a feather and brought it down the two flights of stairs in less than 10 seconds!

"oh! ... that easy, eh! ... well, thank you very much. You really didn't have to bother."

Then you wonder why God created man. To carry heavy stuff down the stairs, of course! Duh! 

Why not come to the World Cup?

I have asked people not to come to the World Cup in Brazil. Why? Me? Boycotting the World Cup in my own country? Unthinkable.

Growing up, I have always been a soccer fan. Like many Brazilians, this was one of two things that made me proud of my country. The one other thing - my hero Ayrton Senna. Everything else was pitifully chaotic:
- Inflation
- poverty
- corruption ...
- and that feeling that we were lesser beings bc were Brazilians ... except of course when the national team was playing. Then we were giants.

My family talked about Pelé and a time when he won us three World Cups. But every Cup of my life had been a failure played with crappy soccer.

Till 1994.

 I lost my hero on May 1 in a fatal crash in Italy's Imola. A day I will never forget. Just like you will never forget where you were on 9/11/01. No words will ever describe the pain of losing the one person that made me feel like I had any value for being born where I was born.
Then 2 months later Brazil brought home the World Cup. It seemed only fair - that in a year of such a great loss, we fought so fiercely and brought home the World.

So why today do I stand against the World Cup in Brazil?    Maybe this quote from John Adams will help explain that:

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.

John Adams
US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)

Priorities - I have always set them in my personal life. Before the movie money, came the credit card bill and the savings for that trip I wanted to take. Even the money I earned as a teenager (renting my novel to classmates) was administered like this. So shouldn't I feel the same about my country? Before being champions on soccer, I want my people leading a minimally decent life. I think the rest of the country is beginning to wake up as well...

Some argue that it is too late to boycott the Cup, that the money has already been invested, that there is no way to recoup those loses. I say, fine, let's take the loss. Right now what matters is that we are sending a message - we are not to be quiet anymore, Don't feed us your nasty bread and circus.

We should give up on soccer as our national pride for now, so that our grandchildren can have a safe and just country to enjoy their soccer games. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

#ChangeBrazil

Could it be?

In the past several days my home country has been experiencing a number of protests. The mainstream media has been giving it a skewed spin, showing the handful of troublemakers who destroy public property, and makes it seem that it is about the R$0.20 increase in the public transportation ticket.
It is not a violent movement for the most part. And it is not just about R$0.20.

A lot has been said on YouTube by people who are much more eloquent than I am. I am posting their videos below.

But i just wanted to write a couple of words about what is going on in my mind.

Twenty cents was but a last straw. The people are tired, angry and frustrated with so much neglect, excesses and irresponsibility, done daily by politicians, that jeopardize our future and that of our children.
The preparation for the World Cup (that TV has been faithfully transmittingmas if it were everything cared about, like if we were a bunch of mindless animals) has been a tasteless joke with the public money; while public services are left to rot, and the populace, as a Chico Anysio character used to say, "let them fudge themselves".
When I was in high school, I heard a sentence that I could never forget (spoken by a TV character in the mainstream media, what do you know?): "The people are just like the cattle - neither one is aware of how strong they are."
Could it be that the people are becoming aware?

I don't know what will happen from now. I don't know if all the protests will really be the beginning of something, or if they will all be remembered as this one time that the people went to the streets and then kept on living their poor sad lives.
I don't know. But I  have never seen so much mobilization, even back when I was a little girl and the teenagers went out to the streets to cry for impeachment. That was a bunch of nothing.
But this? This could be the start of something new, like the American revolution was. Could it be?

But it can't stop with street demonstrations. It has to continue with something else. With education (self-education works too, ,so that we don't depend on the precarious public school system), with the way we vote, with the way we live our daily lives (honesty in the little things, guys?), with the way we deal with the rotten bread and circus they feed us everyday.

Maybe something could happen.

Rain, rain ... and no spanking!!!!!

When we grow up we learn to dislike rain. But then we come across a photograph like this:

Then we remember what rain is all about. Absolute and irresponsible fun, not caring a bit for the fact that we WILL get home and get a spanking on our wet butt! And the threat that if we get a cold, we'll get ANOTHER spanking!

That picture made me do the craziest thing yesterday. I just parked the car in the farthest parking slot from the store and walked from the car to the store in the rain. 

All the time I was thinking:

"No Spanking when I get home. And if I do get sick, no spanking either. Heck! I'm in heaven!"

Scottsman

The weekend before last Dean and I used our rental voucher to go get a car and spend the day in the New Hampshire.are of Keene.

In Keene, we found a Scottish Import store that made Dean curious. What could be coming from Scotland other than kilts? Well, we soon found out that not much more. Kilts and other wardrobe products made in the different tartans (that what the patterns are called).

There we met the store owner, a certain, Mr.McGrath, who is a 76-year-old vegetarian, and a firm believer that all the good things we use in the world today are to be thanked to a Scottsman, Graham Bell, Alexander Flemming ... and I think, the first radio or something to do with electricity, whoever invented it wrote his thanks to a Scottsman (whose name I don't recall) for having given him the master plans.

When I mentioned I was a fan of Paul McCartney and would like to see if his clan could be traced back to Scotland, he got us a family name book, found that McCartney was related to the McKintosh can and charged, "That is why he loves Scotland so much he even wrote a most beautiful song about it."

He then proceeded to tell us stories of his youth and how he and his young wife ended up in America forty-something years ago. His stories were most amusing. Stories from a time when young people actually lived life and didn't waste it on facebook. 

This man, at age 16, left home in Edinburgh with a gang of friends, took the ferry over to Ireland, pedaled the whole perimeter of the Irish island, and took the ferry back home. That's nuts! Now that's a story to tell your grandchildren!

What is my generation going to tell our grandchildren? "I posted some cool pics on facebook."

Our future looks sad right now.

Soft hard candy

So when I was a kid, in Brazil, there was this hard candy called Soft.
Soft? Yeah. It was everything but soft. It was hard candy, for goodness sake.
Soft had the shape of a lifesaver candy, but a bit thicker, and covered with a sugary layer.
I, for one, loved Soft. Which child didn't? It was yummy! Especially the red one! Who didn't like the red one?

And, who, in their sane state of mind,  didn't love to arrive at an office or an aunt's house only to find a little crystal bowl filled with Soft?

In this case, you'd greedily take one - no, two! Nah, get three! - eagerly unwrap one of them, put it in your mouth and suck on it. You'd suck on it until it turned into a supper skinny blade-like shape that you would then break down and swallow. ...
...
Unless of course, way before you could suck it to blade-like thinness, the thing slipped past your tongue and got stuck on your throat.

In this case, my friend, despair would fill your soul.
To my personal knowledge, that thing never killed anyone. But for a few seconds (which felt like eternity), you really thought you had been scheduled an early appointment with death. Until the thing slowly slid down your throat.
And you could feel it all the way down.
And you'd swear to never touch that candy from hell again... Until you found the magic crystal bowl filled with Soft at someone else's home.

US history

US history summer class online. Big mistake. There is so much reading, so little time, and I am ADD, so can you imagine how many times I have to re-read it. Can I have a 48-hour day this summer? I WANT MY MOMMY!!!!!!

boy who wanted to die

Today I almost got out of my car to spank the bottom of a kid who was riding a bicycle in the middle of the street.

There I was, in my car, on my street, going toward the intersection with Main Street. And here came the kid crossing Main Street on his bike in the direction of my street.
You'd think the kid would see my car coming and would steer toward the sidewalk, right? But the kid is not coming my way, the plague.
When I realize that the little pest is in oblivion to the fact that he is about to enter a frontal collision with my car, I decided to move to the middle of the road to give him more space alongside the curb.
What did the kid do? Directs the bike well into the middle of the road, in the same direction that I was!
Oh, brother!
When a car gets a pest like this and kills him, who is to blame? The driver!

But this type of plague is not the only problem infesting the American traffic (or that of anywhere in the world, for that matter)
I am sure you are familiar with the phrase, "You are a special kind of stupid," aren't you?
In Brazil we say someone has entered the stupid queue twice.
This is especially common in traffic.
Last week I turned on the left-turn signal to enter my street. The car in front of me did the same.
We were both slowing down and pulling our cars to the middle of Main street, so that we could turn left.
Then, when the opposite direction cars passed, the guy in front of me turned left and entered my street. ... And, my friend, I say this with all sincerity and awe, the most preposterous thing happened. As he entered the street, he stopped the car - right there - at the corner - as soon as he made the turn.
And there he stood, blocking my entry for almost a minute, while I, in a state of complete shock, tried to understand wtf. When I realized that the creature wouldn't shit nor get off the bush, I decided to touch on my horn.
I said touch! If u consider the state I was in, consider it a miracle that I have not laid my hand on the horn with a passion.
To the sound of my beep, the car just went into motion and into the parking lot of the building on the corner!
...
Are you freaking kidding me!

Cleaning time

The best idea I have had in the pasts few weeks is to get up at 5:30 to clean the house.
Why would anyone think such an insane idea is the best idea one has ever had?
Simple, my friend, very simple - I get to have a weekend.
No more spending 3 to 4 hours of my precious Saturday doing housecleaning. It gets done bu Thursday afternoon (because I vacuum in the afternoon on Thursday.
That's it! a clean house all week long and a weekend as a bonus!

Fragile Democracy

Pakistan had their elections this week. It is the first time that one democratic elected government is transferred to another democratic elected government in that country.
That's great. But It wasn't peaceful. Democracy is not easy.
And it is silly to think that it will ever be. Democracy has never naturally emerged and it has never naturally survived anywhere where its citizens are not willing to protect it.
Think about it, America.

Crazy New England

So on last week's Saturday I wore shorts for the first time.

Then in a matter of 5 days we went from early spring to dead of summer, because on Thursday it was past 80 F. How crazy is that?

However, on Friday we went bike riding in the neighborhood and it was freezing!!!!

On Saturday we went bike riding in the bike path. I took my spring jacket just for safety and I didn't even have to put it on. I was hot.

Welcome to New England, everyone!

Shy warm weather

Yesterday I wore shorts for the first time this year.
It felt good. What didn't feel good was that , that same evening, ever I came back home from my walk to staples to get my free paper (with a rebate coupon) I realized the receipt was gone! Gone, disappeared into fine air.
I have tried everything, looking for it about 10 times, calling the store, chatting online, going to sthe store to get a copy of the receipt, nothing worked so far.

On a happier note, I stretched my shrunk sweater today, after it spent a couple of days in the water with softener. The recipe only calls for 20 minutes soaking, but with my life, do you really think I can go back to anything after 20 minutes?

dangerous people

If swords were illegal, anyone with a sword would be considered a dangerous person.

If knives were illegal, any one with a knife would be considered a dangerous person.

If bow and arrows were illegal, anyone with a bow/arrow would be considered a dangerous person.

If pressure cookers were illegal, anyone with a pressure cooker would be considered a dangerous person.

Owning guns is considered a right in this country.

I've learned that the reason for that was to keep the government in check. But also there is the right that one person has to defend himself. There is the right I have not to be defenseless before evil people. the right to protect myself and my dear ones.

Why do you make this right and turn it into something illegal? Why do you make it so that bad people can be more heavily armed than I am, because I will choose to follow the law?

checks and toys

Our new bank checks arrived yesterday. Not the ones I spent hours on Monday shopping for. The free ones from the bank. The bank sent us free checks? Yes, it's our new bank. Part of the new account deal is 50 new checks.

But the fact that the new ones I shopped for on Monday night have not arrived yet, didn't stop me from hurrying to the bedroom and getting the old bank checks left over.

317 checks that we were left from the 480 checks we purchased from checks unlimited when we opened our bank of america account.

We hardly use checks, so it makes sense that in 5 years we only used about 163 checks.

I opened the two brand new boxes filled with checks and felt like a little girl playing house. I wanted to write scribbles in all of them. Just like I used to do when I couldn't read or write and I just got paper and pen and pretended to be writing the news.

While I describe my play, you are probably sitting there wondering why we purchased so many checks. Well, because that many checks was still cheaper than 120 checks from our old bank.

Same goes for our new bank. they sent us 50 free checks, but if we want more, it's around $37 for each box of 120 checks. Well, we paid $19 for 600 with vistaprint.

I'm looking forward to receiving those. Too bad I won't be able to play with them.
And these old ones we burn. Sniff, sniff.

Freedom of speech ... well, wait

It's a little known fact, but the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, that which protects freedom of speech, does not cover people who disagree with homosexuality.
Actually, it covers no one who disagree from majority opinion or politically correct.
I will make no excuses here. People a shut off for saying or writing things that others don't consider cool, or don't consider ok for their kids to listen to.
Come on, people, let's reason. The first amendment covers everyone to express their opinion, whether you like it or not.
Do you not like my opinion? Then don't! You have the right to your own, and that opinion my differ from mine. You don't have to discuss it with me. You can, but you don't have to. You can try to learn why I think the way I think, and we can talk. You can try to change my mind, then we can talk.
However, don't try to coerce me into changing my mind by boycotting my business or my ability to get a job. Unless my business is blatantly pushing my opinion down people's throats, don't hurt an American business man or worker who simply made use of the right given to every citizen in the first amendment!
Let's show our fellow citizens we believe they too have that right! We support their right!

Do you think your kids should not listen to the things I say, or write, or show on TV? Don't let your kids listen to it or watch it. But don't hinder me from doing it! Because when the tides turn, and you're the one speaking, writing or broadcasting, and I am the one with public power to shut you down, you won't like that a bit. It's unconstitutional!

The first amendment isn't there to protect me from what you say that I don't like, it is there to protect each one of us, you and me from being shut off by those who don't like what we say.

Brazil, a country with similar laws and similar constitutional rights, is also all flustered up with the homosexual marriage question. And anyone who dares disagree that this is something beautiful and it should be legal in the country is a FILTHY HOMOPHOBE!

I am not talking theoretical or general ideas here. There is a representative in the Brazilian congress that dared voice his opinion that he disagrees with homosexual marriage. He was immediately socially crucified.

Wait, what? I don't have the right to disagree from public opinion? I don't have the right to my opinion based on a religion that has been around for thousands of years and to which millions around the world subscribe? I don't have the right to say, "I don't think this should be a right"?

No, I don't. No one does. No one who disagrees with the public opinion ever has a right to his own opinion without being public execrated.

I

gone shootin'

Yesterday we went to practice shooting.
I was really scared because of all the talk people do about the recoil (I think that is what it is called. It's that kick back that the gun does when you shoot it and it pushes your hand back.
I was a bit excited, but really afraid of that thing.

It was fun. I got to try several different types of guns and practice loading and loading them safely. It was also good spending that time with my husband. It was neat seeing the little shells on the floor. I had seen them before, on the playground of a friend's house when I was in 7th grade. But that was a bad thing. Bullet shells should not be at a big city condo playground. This was a much safer environment to look at bullet shells.

It turned out that I learned two things:
1-that pushing back thing is not really the monster I thought it was, at least not with the 22 caliber I shot. I tried a 38 too, and that one had a much stronger kick. About as strong as what I thought that shooting the 22 would be.
2-I stink at this shooting business. They make it look so easy in the cop TV shows. They aim they shoot, and they shoot a million times and they get it right everything single time. Well, I got none right!!!! Can't believe all you see on TV.

I need to go back soon for more practice. I want to get good at it.

On the other hand, I still am not allowed to carry a gun to work, so good aim or bad aim, I am still, at God's mercy, hoping no one evil will break into my school. Come on, Mr. Governor! It's about the children!

Homosexuality and marriage

On March 27th I switched my Facebook profile picture, inspired my by husband, and as a response to all the red equal signs
 people were posting.\










This was my picture:

A friend of mine posted that he admired my courage, and I replied to him what I thought to be admitting I was not being courageous, I was just stating my religious beliefs while trying to make sense of it all. This was my reply:

"I am just stating my faith. That says nothing about where I stand politically, because to be quite honest, I have no idea where I stand politically. I think there is a lot more to think about than most people seem to believe, and I'd rather not to share an opinion. Morally 

however, I stand my ground. And I am sorry if people will be offended. It disgusts me to hear all the hate speech against those who 

simply state their support for traditional marriage based on the most important thing in a person's life - his/her religious beliefs. It's a 

simple matter of civility to admit that, a Christian has the right to believe the Bible in a country founded on principles of freedom of 

religion - principles protected by the constitution. .... wow ... sorry, I was not planning on writing a sermon ..."

I have been trying to make sense of this whole homosexual marriage thing. As a Christian, can I ignore a pressing issue in my society? I should not. I should approach it with a pious mind and try to understand it and position myself as much as Jesus would have as I can possibly do it.

Is it morally right? According to the God I follow, according to his morals found in his Bible, no. But we do not live in a religious state, do we?

Our state dictates that everyone is free to follow a religion, or no religion at all. So, before the civil laws of our lay country, is homosexual marriage a right that should be granted to every citizen?

When we are talking about the laws of a country, not the laws of a church or religious body, is it right to deny two people of the same sex the right to be bond together in marriage?

A lot goes on my mind on this subject. I don't want to deprive citizens of their rights as citizens. So I must think before I make my religious statements a point of defense in civil law of a lay country.

One point that to me is a major thing to consider is -is there an ill-intentioned agenda here by one group or another? As a person who subscribes to a religion I can't help but thinking back to my experience as I talk to people who do not subscribe to my values. I look back in history and I see that secular society in general finds marriage an outdated religious institution, something people should absolutely skip over, just go live together. What's a piece of paper anyway? Who needs that? It's all about love. But this same society seems to think marriage is a sacred right to every homosexual. If they love each other then they must be allowed the right to marry. What? But I thought it was all about love! What's a piece of paper anyway? Who needs that?

So it seems to me that there is an agenda. Is is the homosexuals? Is it the liberals? Is it secular society in general? I don't know, but it seems to me that some group has an agenda. It seems that this agenda is to make a mockery out of this outdated religious institution. How? By forcing it to grant homosexuals (whose practice of homosexuality is condemned by most major religions in the world) the right to enter this outdated religious institution. Doesn't it seem that way?

How come, I ask, society didn't think marriage had any meaning anymore until homosexuals wanted it? And now it becomes a major  MAJOR step in life.

My other point however goes back to "our country's law are not dictated by religion, since our citizens have the right not to have one." If this is the case, it doesn't matter who has an agenda. Should the civil law of the country grant this right to citizens who happen to be homosexuals?

Here's what I came up with: We must answer the question "Is marriage a religious institution or a civil institution?"

If it is a religious institution, then it is up to each religion to decide whether or not their members are allowed to engage in homosexual practices and whether these practices will be legitimized by the sacred institution of marriage. In this case, the state has no business ruling over it. All the state has the right to do is recognize as valid an act that was validated by someone's religion/church, as it has done so many times before.

If on the other hand, marriage is a civil institution, then it is ruled by the state. The church's job is simply to bless it ... IF that union is according to that church's morals - after all the church is free from the state's rule as well.
If marriage is a civil institution, and it is ruled by the state, it is because it serves a purpose to the society. Which means that the next question is "What is the purpose of marriage to society? How does it serve society?"
Well, if it is about how it serves society, then it has never been about love! Unions in society have never been about love. They have been about continuation of society, usually through procreation, but also throgh the sharing sharing of property, signing of peace treaties, etc. If this is the case, I don't think there is a point to homosexual marriage. I think homosexual marriage has a stronger case if they come from the religious point of view and find enough churches who subscribe to homosexuality as something morally acceptable.


This is as far as I have come so far. Again, I am trying to be fair.
I am trying to understand that my religion doesn't dictate the rules in a state that allows people to follow or not follow a religion and its moral code.

P.S.
I understand that many people don't believe I have the right to disagree. I have to say to those people, they need to try to be as fair as I am and remember that the state we live in allows people to not follow my religion, but it allows me to follow it. I have the same right to disagree from homosexuality as anyone has a right to agree with it.
It is a discriminatory practice to diss me simply because I chose to exercise my right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion....

License to carry

March 24, 2013
It was sometime last week that I got my license to carry. I arrived home and there it was, on my kitchen counter top.
I was excited and disappointed at the same time.
Excited because, as a citizen, I am now able to exercise my right to keep and bear arms.
It was a long way to get here.
First my husband had to convince me that this whole weapons thing is an ok thing. Where I was raised only cops and bandits have guns. Normal people don't. So, since I am not a cop, owning a gun made me a bad person ... It took my husband some work to convince me it was actually not a bad thing.
Then there was the shooting at Sandy Hook. Being a first grade teacher, that really freaked me out. Those teachers and children had nothing to protect themselves with. Evil people with guns will not be stopped by the sight of children crying and teachers trying to keep them safe.
That did it to me. I was scared for my life. Everytime there is a code red in my school, my heart almost stops.
So in the last Sunday of January, with an awful fever and sore throat, I attended the training. During February break, I went to the police to apply for my license. And a little bit over a month later, it arrived in the mail.

Why am I disappointed? Because I know that this license means nothing in the place where I fear the most for my life - my work place. Schools in MA are gun free zones. I know in some states, governors have allowed teachers to carry their guns while in school. I really wish I could do that here, but our governor won't do it anytime soon.

I know that my life is in God's hands. I know that no one dies a day before (except for the Thanksgiving turkey).  I don't feel helpless, because I know my God has every thing under his control. But God's control doesn't exclude my responsibility to take care of myself. As a matter of fact, that is one way I believe God shows his care, is by enabling me to take care of myself.

I pray that God will allow MA laws to allow teachers the right to defend themselves from ill-intentioned, gun-bearing criminals.

Seasonal drinks

How to make iced tea:
1-in the winter time, leave for work late, with a travel mug of hot tea.
2-forget the mug in the car as you park at your job's parking lot and hurry into work.
3-come back to your car at the end of the work day.
4-enjoy your iced tea as you drive home.

P.S. to make hot tea, start the same process but use iced tea, and in the summer time. That's what I call seasonal drinks.