Morning Rant

My interest and love for Brasil is legendary. Even when I was in Nepal, I found myself encouraging the Nepali students to focus less on the United States as a model for development and on Brasil. I sometimes think I am like the Richard Dreyfus character in Close Encounters… slowly getting weirder and weirder, drawn as if by a magnet to Devil’s Tower, to eventually be allowed to board the spaceship. That pretty much is me.

Folks in os states pretty much yawn and roll their eyes now (“whatever…”), my student’s wonder why I talk about it… incessantly. Most of my family range from ignoring me, to not giving a damn.

I guess we all need to be needed. Here, I feel that my work matters, that people know (or are at very least polite enough) what I am talking about. Here people are interested in talking about good ideas and really want to do something, anything to better the situation. I do know that if the government threatened to furlough faculty and take 9.5% reduction to salary, and increase tuition by 20%, they wouldn’t be passive. I do know that any reitor (president of the university) is elected by all faculty, staff and students for no more than two consecutive terms of 4 years each. That they are not paid huge salaries, house allowances and $1000.00 a month to drive their own car to work. I no longer understand my colleagues’ passivity, administrators and politicians who can’t lead but have no problem with giving themselves perks in a crisis, or a student body that is as weirdly passive as an old dog that just rolls over and takes it.

It’s far from perfect here, but things are definitely on the up, so I awoke early preparing to climb the hill and spend the day at the university and thinking… how lucky this former kid from the sticks is to have this opportunity.

It’s good here. Time to go build wierd things from mashed potatoes...