Scott's Blog

Brazil has a strange relationship with electricity. Something like 95% of the electricity in Brazil comes from hydroelectric, yet they charge an arm and a leg for it. A few years ago we had the "Apagão" (big-unplug or big-turn-off) where you had to halve your electricity consumption from the same time last year. This was because it hadn't rained enough and the water was getting too low behind the dams to make electricity. The real problem, of course, is that the government hasn't been investing in new electric generation plants. Worse was, that after the emergency, everyone had learned how to use less electricity (by buying compact fluorescent lights (at twice the normal price), for example) and was being more energy efficient, so the hydro company increased the prices. Why? Because they weren't making enough revenue! At my home they charge R$0.5684/kWh which is about USD$ 0.3072/kWh. That's 204% more than the New York region ($0.1508/kWh) or 217% more expe...

Puxe (pronounced "push") - means pull no - means "in" or "at", "no happy hour" would be "at 'happy hour'" sex - means "Fri" or sexta feira. Sexo would be sex. uai (pronounce "why") - it's an expression similar to "look", "well".

There are some words in Portuguese that are odd to my English ears. puxe (pronounced "push"), means pull confuses the hell out of me when it's written on the door. pretende in means intend in English. entender means to understand . sex means Fri or sexta-feira. Every Friday it seems the elevator wants to have sex as it shows the date at the top. no means in or at . So the other day I saw " 1/2 preço no happy-hour " and it made me sad that there's no happy hour. meia means half, socks , and six . Apparently, the six comes from "half" a dozen. de 30 em 30 dias means every 30 days but to my mathematical mind 30/30 = 1, it should be every day. legal means legal and cool . But I would think that only lawyers think legal is cool. direito means right , but direto means straight ahead . Very confusing when someones giving instructions while driving. jóia means jewelry and great . Actually, this one does kinda make sense. If it meant B...

On the way to and from work, I pass three English, one Japanese and one Mandarin Chinese school. If I drive one block off my regular route I can also pass infront of Portuguese, French, German, Spanish and Italian schools (although some do double duty). These little schools are more common in Brazil than Starbucks are in the US. It reminded me when I was working at my previous job, there was this new guy who started working next to me. He wanted to learn 4 languages. I didn't know what to say. I mentioned that I speak four languages, but it never really helped me get a job. Even in Brazil where knowing English can really be an asset (and thus all the English schools), I hardly ever had a chance to speak it at work. For a while, I was even working for an American company in São Paulo (Convergys) and the only time I got to speak English was when I went out to a bar with the Americans. I just didn't have the heart to tell him that he should really learn another computer langua...