bagels!

A while back a friend posted an article about what things are learned when living in a foreign place. And amazingly enough, I found it again! It was a list, of about ten things or so, all of them were pertinent, but some more so that others. My favorites were: you learn how to ask for help, and you learn to cook. In my case, well, I'm still working on both of those. But as I ramp up to go to the states next week I find myself mainly thinking about all the foods I want to eat while I'm there. I know it sounds silly, but there's a reason we call it "comfort food". On my list is tex-mex and starbucks chai and oysters and margaritas and well... a whole lot of things. But also bagels! I was remembering the article's point about cooking as I finally gave in to a bagel craving the other day and looked up recipes. For some reason, despite the fact that I make bread, I always thought bagels would be really difficult or complicated. It turns out they're not all that complicated, and the work is not that substantial and is well worth it for the moment when I get to sit down with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a bagel :) A rough day is always made better by PB&J on a bagel.

us v. us

Unfortunately, this New York Times opinion section piece seems to miss the point. Or possibly it was just aiming for a very different point than one that is representative of my life as an ex-pat. The piece by José Itzigsohn addressed the fact that migration is not an immediate process, whereas the majority of the other pieces seemed to employ a combination of quotes from the oath of citizenship and the turn of the century to present a very "us against them" viewpoint. The points made in the comments were much more diverse, submitted by people who do or do not have dual citizenship for a wide variety of reasons; Those who are "American&" and those who are "&American". I'd be interested to see the numbers, is any particular situation "normal"?

For me, the questions of acquiring Brazilian citizenship and denouncing American citizenship are not one and the same. Nor does it seem that for most people they address these two disparate ideas together, except when forced. Very little of the reasoning is ideological, and an unfortunately large amount of it is financial and legal. Despite being a fairly conscientious citizen and resident, I am no expert in international tax law or international treaties in general. One of my goals for this year: find an expert.

Peevish pronunciation

So one of my pet-peeves is the point 30 seconds into any conversation with a new person where they ask where I'm from. This is obviously not something that is meant to be offensive in any way, and is usually asked with genuine kindness and curiosity. Cuiabá is not filled with foreigners (nor actually people born here), and most people I meet are curious as to how I like Cuiabá, how I can stand the heat, and how I ended up here.

Never-the-less, I would very much like to be able to make it past 30 seconds without it being obvious that I'm not from here. Partly, I think, due to the distinct 'outsider' feeling I get when this is the first question asked. It would likely be easier to accept that I am an outsider than to perfect my portuguese grammar and pronunciation. Who knows which is healthier in the long term, but the latter is easier to be proactive about. So I picked up the third level Rosetta Stone, and have spent a couple of weekends being haunted by diphthongs and nasalized sounds. Thankfully, Rosetta Stone is actually pretty entertaining. As is my husband when he looks up from his reports to shout out corrections.