Day in the Life

02.09.23

The format of this post mimics the way that you speak a list in Portuguese (notice the placement of “or”). In English we say, “I could go to the grocery store or I could go to the gas station.” In Portuguese you say, “I could go or to the grocery store or to the gas station.” Portuguese adds an “or” before the list starts. -------

I wake up at

or

5:30AM - 5:45AM during the period when my neighbour’s alarm goes off and he (I assigned him this pronoun, but I actually have no idea who it is) subsequently ignores it for 15 minutes and wakes me up with him. I slam in my ear plugs that I normally use during drum practice and try to think about non-violence to lull myself back to sleep.

or

6:50 The first sounding of the São José church bells that ring exactly 10 minutes before 7AM, 8AM, 9AM, 4PM, 5PM, and 6PM. I am deeply puzzled by why they don’t ring on the hour, but at long last I have come to peace.

or

7:30 My most common wake up time is precedented by the 6:50 wake up, but if I’m tired enough I will muster an additional 40 minutes of sleep.

or

9:55 This happens when I had a really good, long, late night...

- or - out drinking lots of beer on the street

- or - going hard at soccer

- or - not being able to sleep because I woke up profoundly concerned with the state of my future and proccupied
how to create new methods of organizing the innate differences inherent in our humanity.

- or - I spent all day the day before (not night) drinking lots of beer on the street.

After I wake up, I

or

wash the dishes so that I can perform the extremely satisfying activity of squeegeeing the counter

or

take my clean clothes off the ceiling drying rack

or

eat a cucumber and feel healthy about myself only to then eat lots of bread and cheese that my roommate’s boyfriend buys for every morning which then fills my heart and belly with love.

or

If it’s Thursday, I will sit in front of an A3 piece of paper and map out my emotions from the past week to prepare for therapy. My life revolves around: relationships, career, family, love and the constant challenge of cohabitating with my demons. I am learning how to accept myself, to articulate myself to myself, to recognize my own humanity and the humanity of others, and how to differentiate between who I am an the two cultures I am waddling between. This round of therapy has been one of the best, most healing things I have ever done for myself.

or

If it’s Sunday, I’ll go to drum practice aka church aka feminism 101

or

If it’s Monday, I’ll teach English to Luiz from architecture school at my dining room table.

When the morning is in full swing, I

or

twiddle my thumbs

or

bound myself to the desk chair and force myself to apply to jobs, during which I feel, for every 1 ounce of excitement, 20 lbs of despair, defeat, exhaustion, and boredom. I have so much energy to consolidate everything I’ve learned in life into my next job and rock the world with rad shit but I’m learning how to play the long game and be patient and release the pressure valves that connect my identity to my job.

or

go to the Israeli Union to workout and swim and talk about Greece. There is one lady there that loves Greece and when I told her that I am “Greek” she has not been able to get over the novelty. Today we talked about how blue the sky is there in my “homeland”.

or

Go to the architecture school, pull up a hotspot on my phone because the wifi doesn’t work because Bolsonaro and work on my research project and then feel really proud and productive and capable and nauseous from looking at the screen lol

Time for lunch! I

or

Meet up with Natalia on the veranda of Maletta to dine on cold self service at Feijão and gossip

or

eat 7 pães de queijo and stay in the wifi-less library at the architecture school and run into someone I like and sit outside talking for 3 hours instead of doing anything I planned on doing and then validating my decisions by thinking that all that’s really important is relationships and urban planning is built off relationships and then shaking my head at my capitalist-north american-individualistic-workaholic mindset that rationalizes everything I do in the value it will give to my future career and THEN validate myself AGAIN thinking about how much I care about humans and believe in us and use urban planning as an outlet to express this care. phew - all this started with cheese bread!

or

come home and feed myself oatmeal or beans or tapioca or pasta

or

If it’s Saturday, I’m at soccer when I subsequently camp TF out at the adjacent bar with 20 of my teammates and drink beer for 3 hours while talking about extremely niche historical facts about the local soccer team, Atletico.

or

If it’s Sunday, I’m walking with friends to another party in the street to drink more beer in the rain. If it’s Sunday and I’m doing this, I’m probably really happy and simultaneously really exhausted and fighting to keep my eyes from crossing over themselves by 2PM.

Late afternoon is upon us! I’m probably

or

napping with previously mentioned earplugs jammed in my ears to drown out the 19 construction projects that happen outside my window.

or

eating

or

sleeping

or

racked with sadness, loneliness, trepidation about the future because I have surpassed my social limit and am not sleeping.

or

drawing a building explode while listening to

- or - a podcast about architects who turn down commissions

- or - pandeiro music

or

If God is Good, having a job interview during which I truly feel like one eyeball is in America and one is in Brazil and my body is split down the middle as I navigate both cultures. Professionalism culture feels soooo strong in the US and when I am in these interviews I feel it viscerally in a way I didn’t pick up on before. There isn’t even a word for unprofessional in Portuguese. If I’m doing a job interview it is likely precedented by an herbal bath that my friend “prescribed” me that helps open my energy pathways and reminds me how good it feels to connect with my spirit and body before subsequently leaving my body for a job interview.

By the time darkness falls, I’m

or

walking to drumming practice and then drumming

or

taking the bus to soccer and then playing soccer

or

sleeping

Time to go to bed! (11PM). I’m

or

not going to bed and out at

- or - a samba at Armazem do Campo

- or - drumming in the street after drumming practice

- or - at a bar on the corner

- or - talking at the dining room table with the many guests and friends that pass through our apartment

- or - facetiming my sister and remarking on the remarkable-ness of our lives

or

GOING TO BED!

Friday 1PM Getting my haircut by my bff Lara

Thursday 11PM Journaling about my feelings on my floor

Saturday 3PM Eating lunch at my friend’s outdoor kitchen

Thursday 5PM Rushhour/Golden hour 3 blocks from my house

Sunday 10AM Visit to a spiritual center with a group of architecture students that is studying the role of the Candomblé religion in Belo Horizonte neighborhoods