The Human Way of Life

Human life is a Pandora’s Box. There were inside of it a lot of good and bad things, like the origins of well and evil in that box, which gives freedom to both, spreading it around the world. At the same moment, we got the benefits and the impairments, becoming life in a double way street.
The earth was harmoniously peaceful, the men lived together, hunting and, sometimes, killing without fear of God’s judge. It happened because there was no sin, no evil in human heart. Nowadays, men continue to hunt, to kill, to make the same things that the ancestors from caves made. The difference is that the current society hunts its own men, it is a mutual hunting justified by fights based on the most terrible human character: the desire for power.
It is really a fact that the evolution brings many ways to improve life quality. The medicine is everyday getting progress in many areas. The fight against illness like Cancer and HIV is giving hope to the sufferers. Some ills that not long ago made a lot of hostages, for example tuberculosis, plagues, smallpox and many others are almost finished. Industry, computers, automobiles, airplanes, all technology brings comfort to people. But comfort brings separations. The life time is increasing day by day, but everyday everybody is standing far from friends, other people and their own family, sometimes, it is no more than a screen paper on your office computer screen. The thirst to money, to get power, is spending all resources of natural human life.
Would you ask yourself now: why does my computer influences my family life? What did I do to turn the world in a lost land, which has money as its God, and everything that everybody does is with the final aim to get more and more power?
Maybe you did nothing.Which is the problem. Doing nothing is the most dangerous thing that we can do. Opening the newspaper, turning on the television, what is showed? Death, corruption, hedonism, talk shows exploring naked women, accelerating the growing of children, and a lot of human tragedies, all that you can watch is rules being broken.
What rules? Are there rules today?
Yes, there are rules. I can rate the most important of those.
Beauty overall, it is the first. If you are a good looking person, grade a charge on job is easier. It is no important to be efficient, the truth is to be beauty. Having an influential godfather, and to be in the right places at the right moment is important to make your career reach the sky.
Being a woman, forgive the studies to advance your professional life. Be a fancy girl, sleep with your boss and ok, you will get ahead.
No, I am not skeptic. I am just looking at the social context, that beauty is overall. To men, beauty is as important as for women. Being handsome, you can sell more and your subordinate will see you with more respect.
However, the serious and efficient people cannot lose hope. Somewhere out there there is a boss that will look at your work. As far as I´m concerned, you cannot sell yourself and your values for a promotion. Sometime your proficiency will be the winner. Meanwhile, do your job and try to be happy, despite the human way of life.

This down-to-earth piece was written by our great friend Leandro Azevedo Thereza, PET2 student and Writing Club member.

If You Don’t Look At Me… How Can I See Myself ?

Walking, going out, even staying home we are always selling an image, or giving it for free. We don't have the permission to mean nothing. Nothing necessarily means something in our world that keeps itself as the, so mentioned by Plato, “world of appearances”.
We are symbols of many things, it depending on what we want to mean, what we mean and on our audience. Everyone has and is an audience and we are, most of the time, not just living but for sure, linking or not, or maybe role playing. Always! And since it is as good as it looks, we become what we show and what other people’s eyes say about us. Those are the real mirrors. We just survive for the reason that other people are thinking about our actions and it’s not just about gossiping stuff. It’s human to think about other people. Only around other people we are what we are. They are our limits, screaming every time we are not them; we are us, only us. Is the prettiest goal worthwhile without any audience? On these days, the answer is no. We just feel alive with a place in the world after having gone through other people’s judgment. “Hell is other people” Sartre said, but they are also our heaven, we say! We need them, we dress up for them, we tidy up our rooms for them, we paint our houses and we buy things to wear, to show, to be one of them, different, unique just like them, just like everybody is. So besides selling and giving our image, we buy it.
The tickets to a rock concert, for example, are the prices to be there, to have the chance to be seen there and what it leaves us is just the waiting for anyone who wants buy our images, otherwise we might go out for hunting. And whereas we are always in that kind of place, our outlook starts being known by the other visitors and if we miss it for one night our absences are felt. Even staying home, we are selling ourselves! On the streets we are recognized by the clothes we wear, by our hairdo. That’s the first, and a lot of times the main, impression. We are like dolls of ourselves. We are always making up our faces, our way, our speech.
It’s a hard work to be authentic in our world of appearances; it’s hard to say something new but we are just like this. And this is our worst or best, without the slightest doubt, the only hope to feel like a real thing, even with an everlasting gaze over us.

This fantastic piece was written by the outstanding Adrian Lincoln, our Writing Club member and dear friend.

THE REASON WHY

Once upon a time (probably around 1897) there was a little boy called Adolf Hitler. You know, the dude who killed 6 million people - which by the way, it´s not much, coz Nicolau 2 killed much more, but anyways... His dad was a bit of a drunk, and his mom had this little jewish "friend", who was always buying Adolf (or Adolfinho) candies, but under one condition: that he would go to the farest place to get it. So while Adolfinho was at a candyshop across the city, the jewish fella, that we are going to Trebônio (coz I want to), would have sexual intercourse with Adolfinho´s mom.

The problem in this pic was that Adolf, obviously, couldn´t even begin to imagine that that kinda stuff was actually going on, naive he was.

And one day, he decided no to go the candyshop, he decided to stick around, and what he saw was blinding, if you may.

But he really loved his mother, so what he did was that he decided to transfer all the anger he would feel towards her to the jewish fella Trebônio.

The rest is, as we all know, history.

And now you know why the heck he hated jewish people that bad. I would too.

This elucidating piece was written by the wiz kid of the hour, Amanda Pertinhes, Conversation Class student and Writing Club member.

The Ultimate Guide on How to Become an Ecosexual

-You hafta be social and environmentally conscious;

You hafta protect the animals: whales, chickens, cows, monkeys, elephants, don’t eat and try to keep people from eating them;

You hafta be an ethical-eater crap and avoid all kinds of meat and animal related food such as dairy, and then you start to avoid wearing and buying organic items. So then you can consider yourself a hardcore die-hard vegan;

You hafta drive a hybrid car, if you can afford one;

You hafta exchange tofu recipes and look for “sexy-conservationists” people on the internet;

You hafta avoid going to circus, cuz they have animals. Or go there just to protest.
And of course, you have to protest. Annoy the society against everything. These things that keep you awake all night long such as cows and chickens being brutally murdered in millions everyday;

You have to avoid drugs and sympathize with yoga and meditation baloney;

You hafta to recycle stuff;

You hafta be that alternative kind of person, with cool hair, cool trainers, yada-yada;

You hafta be cool, cool and smug;

You hafta be a nice person with everybody;

You hafta wear unusual kinds of piercing in unexpected places, such as broader-piercing;

You hafta smell your own farts cause you’re better than everyone else and you think they actually smell kinda good;

You hafta think about living in a cave for some years, or at least you should;

You hafta belong to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, a group of people dedicated to phasing out the human race in the interest of the health of the Earth.

This hilarious piece was written by the great Luam Gabriel, a writing club member, conversation pal and great duderino.

THE WORST FRIEND IN THE WORLD IS SOMEONE WHO ...

IS ALWAYS AFTER MONEY

Johnny is so kind. He tries to borrow money from me even when we run into each other at funerals.


DOESN´T RESPECT YOUR SPACE

Claudia really understands the definition of the word space. She keeps asking if Thiago kisses in a good way.


IS ALWAYS IN TROUBLE

Raphaela is the kind of friend who´s permanently in trouble. When I try to tell her about my problems she says I don´t have any and I should stop making a big deal out of minor things.


HAS A WEIRD HAIRDO

Sometimes I lose the keys of my house in Leandro´s hair.


DOESN´T SHOWER

Sandro is such a good company. You always know he´s coming over. The stink of rotten meat announces him.


DOESN´T LISTEN TO YOU

Lucia follows my advices. But only after listening to 100 people who tell her exactly the same thing I did, but in a different way. And then she goes: "You know, Pedro´s so smart!"


IS A DOWNER

"Did I tell ya my kid´s already reading and writing?"
"Really? But how´s his handwriting?"


This one came from the always-willing-to-write Helena Flávia de Mello Pistune, FCE 2 student.

TIPS ON HOW TO DEAL WITH ...

1-Phony People

Phony people usually pretend they are your friends when in front of you and then, when you leave, they laugh at your face. Well, we must assume that, if they do that they are not your real friends. The best thing to do is actually to laugh at them too!

2-Vain People

Vain people are materialistic. They think the world is all about clothes and shoes and cars and parties... In general, they have nothing to say on real issues or social problems. Normally they hang in groups, cuz is too difficult to put up with them. But you shouldn´t worry about vain people. They in fact have no brain to plot something against you.

3-Liars

There are many sorts of liars. People that lie a little and people that lie a lot. This last group tends to believe in their own lies. In that case you have two options: you can either demoralize them in front of many people or you pretend you believe them and later, at home, laugh a lot.

4-Braggers

Braggers are disgusting. Ignore them.

5-Selfish People

Selfish people think the world turns around their navel. It´s quite difficult to get along with them. You should never argue with this kind of people because they will always overestimate what they think and won´t hear your point of view, so it´s a waste of time and energy. The best solution is to agree with everything they say. You know that you are smarter than all these people put together.

This killer piece was written by Sárila Ferronato. PET 2 student.

7 REASONS WHY INTELLECTUALS STILL BELIEVE AND LIVE IN BRAZIL

1- Because they know that if they don´t do that, no one will...
2- Because they know they are the only chance for the poor people, knowing that nobody likes poor folks, only intelectuals.
3- Because they want to be remembered as someone who has changed their country.
4- Because maybe they were rejected in some university abroad, and decided to show how relevant they actually are and that they can change their country from inside out. They really would prefer to do that from far away, but since they can´t ...
5- As most intelectuals know how to make money, they discovered Brazil is one of the best countries to live, since you really make the money here ...
5- Because they have found a reason to LOVE it...
6- Or cuz they found someone to love IN it...
7- Maybe they feel good among people in a country where almost everybody is completely stupid. Even not being their fault, that´s the way they where brought up ...

This dripping-irony piece was written by the amazing and always clever Natasha Bosch, Advanced Gold 1 student. Cheers, Nastácia!

7 REASONS TO WATCH SIMPSONS

1- It tells the story of a typical blue-collar american family.

2- It´s funny cuz it shows us regular things that happen with everybody but in a very hilarious way.

3- It has amazing characters. From the leading ones to the minor ones, they are all equally to crack up.

4- Stupidity ends up being funny almost all the time.

5- The stories always have some sort of reference to bands or movies.

6- It´s cutting edge.

7- It has been on for such a long time, they have almost 400 episodes, and let´s not forget this is cartoon.

This Hornby-like list was written by Laura, Valesca and Nader, Connexion One students.

11 REASONS TO LOVE SETH COHEN

1-He´s hot.

2-He´s hot and sarcastic.

3-He´s rich.

4-His hair is curly.

5-His favorite bands are Death Cab and Bright Eyes.

6-He wears cool T-shirts.

7-He has his own comic book / graphic novel.

8-He´s a geek, and geeks are the new hips.

9-He makes fun of tragic stuff, like his grandma´s death.

10-His bedroom is cool.

11-He´s romantic (a little gay, but again, he´s hot!).

This sugarcoated list was written by Amanda G. Pertinhes, a current Conversation Class student.