2015-03-27
To say that my bicycle is problematic is an understatement. Its shortcomings made themselves evident early on, when the chain started falling off every half kilometer like clockwork. That was before I started working on a farm an hour’s bike ride away. Last week, the chain exploded. That’s probably not the most accurate verb choice,...
Read More2015-02-20
I IÛªve been learning the names of the parts of the body in yoga class. When I walked in my first day, I hadn’t given much thought to the potential issues caused by the reality that the class would be conducted in Portuguese, or that my understanding of Portuguese was limited. I figured I would...
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2014-12-17
I’ve been wanting to write about the challenges I’ve been facing here for some time, but I haven’t known where to begin. These three months in Brazil have not matched up with anything I could have imagined back in August, even after sitting through training seminars, reading countless blog posts, and listening to incredibly intelligent...
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2014-10-21
The little library where I work is one of the biggest worlds I know. To know any space — to know where the floorboards creak and the sofa sinks, or which drawer holds the whisk, the paperclips — surely fulfills some innate human desire. But to know a library… This week, I’ve read A Brief...
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2014-09-10
The other night, as I was getting ready to go to sleep, I heard a familiar sound from outside my bedroom door — “Luiza, não ande descalça!” (“Luiza, don’t walk around barefoot!”) It was my host mom, Luciana, telling her daughter to put socks on. It’s nearing the end of winter here in Brazil, and...
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2014-08-31
While we were in the Redwoods, Abby Falik, the founder and CEO of Global Citizen Year, said something during her presentation that really stuck with me. Well, she said a lot of really cool things, but one thing in particular resonated with me that got me a little concerned. She said, “Some of you may...
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2014-07-30
I believe that one of the greatest skills an artist possesses is his or her ability to make a flat surface look three-dimensional. It’s incredible, really. Right now, my knowledge of the world is largely two-dimensional. A lot of the time, I feel ignorant, shut-off, naive. Like I’ve grown up inside a box. A box...
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