Jesse Ross | jesseross.com

Two things are on my mind right now as I’m getting ready for bed.

First of all, I really need to not be sick. I was sick, and then I got better, and then, literally a day later, I started feeling like crap again. Fricken winter and it’s dry air. I thought I was done, I thought my winter cold was complete… but no. I hope this ends soon, because I feel it moving into my ears and I do not want to spend the next week in a congested fog.

Secondly, I have a book sitting on my shelf, just begging to be finished. I stole Tanya’s copy of As Aventuras de Ngunga, because it was little and in Portuguese and I really need to practice reading real Portuguese sentences. I’m halfway through, and even though it’s small, I’m proud of the fact that I burned through the first half in such a short amount of time, because IT’S NOT IN ENGLISH. Granted, I looked up every 10th word in the dictionary, but I still consider that an achievement. Only 80 pages left… just waiting for me to read them. I need to get on that.

It’s been a while since I posted, and as I’m really tired right now but can’t seem to sleep, I’ll give just the quick overview of my world as of late:

• Work’s been really busy, but I have our Open House to look forward to on the 3rd. Check out our promo for the party!
• Freelance has been equally busy, but I should have a nice new piece to put up on my website when I’m done (in the next couple of days, probably).
• We’ve got some nice stuff happening with the new Étoilé site… but that won’t launch until early next year. But still, I’m really happy with the new direction.
• I’ve taken a hiatus from learning Chinese for a while, instead focusing my language-learning endeavors on Portuguese. I don’t know what it is about Portuguese, because even though Spanish makes much more sense for me to immerse myself in here, I just keep getting drawn to Brazil and it’s beautiful sounds.
• On the theme of Brazil, I’ve started taking samba lessons. It was stepping out of my comfort zone, but it’s going really well so far.
• I just discovered Alan Watts, and he’s awesome.
• I really dig the new CW show, Reaper. It’s damn hilarious… check it out if you find yourself home on a Tuesday night with nothing better to do than watch ridiculous television.

They say the best way to learn a foreign language, short of dating a native speaker, is to watch TV in the language you’re trying to learn. Since I’m in the process of learning Portuguese (only 25 days until I’m in Brazil!), I managed to track down the webcast, Brazilian version of MTV.

I’m on my second day of programming, and I’ve already learned the following words: domingo, segunda, terça, quarta, quinta, sexta, sábado (the days of the week — I then also learned that the weekdays are actually followed by -feira), bunda (ass), maratona (marathon), assine e ganhe (sign in/subscribe and win), quebra-galho (literally “twig breaker” — it seems to mean a resourceful penny-pincher with connections, but I’m not completely sure), lei (law), aborto (abortion), corno (seems to mean a stupid, slutty guy who cheats on his girlfriend/wife), batalha (battle), modelo (model). I’m sure there are a bunch more that I’ve subconsciously taken in as well.

Also, there have been a few really, really good web resources for helping me out with Portuguese stuff:

Online Verb Conjugator
Portuguese Wikipedia
Portuguese Dictionary

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