Update on my work: I have completed the digitalization of Alberto de Lacerda's collection Palace. It is now a Word doc (111 pages, 7,666 words). I have also located and ordered six other collections and two books about Lacerda's work. Got a few more to find, but I'm on top of things.
Update on my blog: I officially love videos. So I made a new one today, complete with commentary. I will be the first to admit that I sound weird.
Huzzah.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Monday, June 6, 2011
My First Video
Today I took a day off of translating. My brain was happy for the chance to rest. I was going to go to the Cristo Rei statue across the Tagus, but I changed directions when I saw it was cloudy (I want to be able to see the April 25th bridge [the Golden Gate's twin] and Lisbon when I go).
All in all, my day included
All in all, my day included
- 6 hours of walking
- Two rain storms (with no jacket)
- 98 pictures
- 1 leak taken in public
- 2 offers of hard drugs on the street
- 16 oreo cookies
- This video of a lookout I stubled upon. Say "Olá" to Lisboa:
Sorry my $60 camera sucks, but a Canon Rebel T3i just isn't a good idea when you live out of a backpack. Although I didn't know I get sound...
Sunday, June 5, 2011
You Learn a New Weird Word Every Day
I've officially been in Lisbon for one week. It went by pretty fast and I got a lot of work done. I've translated Alberto de Lacerda's second poetry collection (both the second one he published and the second one I've translated) and I'm currently putting it into digital form (aka a Word doc). After that I'm not quite finished, but you get the idea.
I've also been working to find Lacerda's other books. Turns out there are a lot more than I had previously imagined. I knew there were four for sure, and I had found a few others in library catalogs, but according to my newest sources there are at least ten collections of poetry, and that's not counting collected-work anthologies or his prose. I know a few are out of print and some others are all but gone, but I think I can get my hands on a few of them.
That's a lot of writing for not having a picture. Here:
Anyways, the other thing that I've been doing is learning continental Portuguese. Let me tell you, it's an adventure. Throw in the facts that a good chunk of my new-found friends are Brazilians and the people I live with are from Cabo Verde (see previous post) and I've got all sorts of dialects bouncing around in my head.
For those of you who don't know, I learned Portuguese as a missionary in Goiás, Brazil. I was there for two years exactly (July 14, 2004 - July 14, 2006), during which time I had contact with blue-eyed English-speaking people for all of 21 weeks (out of 104). In case you were wondering...
Goiás is here:
and it looks like this:
Seriously.
I could (and just might) fill books with head-sized-spider-finding, cockroach-hockey-playing, dengue-fever-getting Brazil stories, but I digress. Let's talk about language.
My personal verdict is that continental Portuguese is prettier and more formal than Brazilian Portuguese, but it is also much harder to understand, much like the difference between Spanish Spanish and Spanish in the Americas. Here, s = sh, they stop saying a word about one third of the way through it. Plus, they don't speak as loud (they're much more introverted). But all in all I enjoy it, even when I'm a little lost, and my language skills are on the up and up (for example, I remembered the word for onion the other day). (It's cebola.)
Instead of telling you all the vocabulary that is different, I'm going to make you a non-comprehensive list of words that are different in Portugal than they are in Brazil. You're on your own for pronunciation. Here goes nothing:
English Brazilian Continental Portuguese
Cell phone Cellular Telemóvel
Refrigerator Gelador Frigorífico
Fire Fogo Lume
Bus Ônibus Autocarro
Ok, ok, it's not like I'm learning Chinese (go Sophie!), but when you've learned a vocabulary word and used it full-time for two years and part-time for five, change comes slow. But the look on people's faces when they figure out that I speak their language is still priceless. Even if they have no idea where I put the leftovers.
I've also been working to find Lacerda's other books. Turns out there are a lot more than I had previously imagined. I knew there were four for sure, and I had found a few others in library catalogs, but according to my newest sources there are at least ten collections of poetry, and that's not counting collected-work anthologies or his prose. I know a few are out of print and some others are all but gone, but I think I can get my hands on a few of them.
That's a lot of writing for not having a picture. Here:
Francisco Sá Carneiro Square
Who is Francisco Sá Carneiro, you ask? Well, apparently he founded the Social Democratic Party in Portugal in 1974 (which, interestingly, was also the year of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution...whatever that means). He was elected Prime Minister of Portugal but after less than a year he died in a plane crash. Conspiracy theories abound. All I can really say is that my favorite part is the floating head in front of the workmen statue.
The same day I took this picture I walked down the picturesque Avenida Gago Coutinho (say that five times fast). Here's proof that it's picturesque:
Anyways, the other thing that I've been doing is learning continental Portuguese. Let me tell you, it's an adventure. Throw in the facts that a good chunk of my new-found friends are Brazilians and the people I live with are from Cabo Verde (see previous post) and I've got all sorts of dialects bouncing around in my head.
For those of you who don't know, I learned Portuguese as a missionary in Goiás, Brazil. I was there for two years exactly (July 14, 2004 - July 14, 2006), during which time I had contact with blue-eyed English-speaking people for all of 21 weeks (out of 104). In case you were wondering...
Goiás is here:
and it looks like this:
Seriously.
I could (and just might) fill books with head-sized-spider-finding, cockroach-hockey-playing, dengue-fever-getting Brazil stories, but I digress. Let's talk about language.
My personal verdict is that continental Portuguese is prettier and more formal than Brazilian Portuguese, but it is also much harder to understand, much like the difference between Spanish Spanish and Spanish in the Americas. Here, s = sh, they stop saying a word about one third of the way through it. Plus, they don't speak as loud (they're much more introverted). But all in all I enjoy it, even when I'm a little lost, and my language skills are on the up and up (for example, I remembered the word for onion the other day). (It's cebola.)
Instead of telling you all the vocabulary that is different, I'm going to make you a non-comprehensive list of words that are different in Portugal than they are in Brazil. You're on your own for pronunciation. Here goes nothing:
English Brazilian Continental Portuguese
Cell phone Cellular Telemóvel
Refrigerator Gelador Frigorífico
Fire Fogo Lume
Bus Ônibus Autocarro
Ok, ok, it's not like I'm learning Chinese (go Sophie!), but when you've learned a vocabulary word and used it full-time for two years and part-time for five, change comes slow. But the look on people's faces when they figure out that I speak their language is still priceless. Even if they have no idea where I put the leftovers.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Winging It To/Through Lisbon
So...I'm here. And it took me no time at all to find an awesome monument:
I didn't write down what it's for, but it was in the Praça da Estrela (Star Square) where I took a nap on a bench while I was looking for a place to sleep. Throw in not being able to sleep on a plane and the backpack I've got with me, and I was a pretty awesome homeless-looking travelling scholar
The trip over was pretty uneventful. I spent four hours in the always-beautiful Philadelphia International Airport and seven hours later I was in Lisbon. It was 8a.m. Sunday morning. I decided to go to church. I took the airport-to-Lisbon bus as far as it would go and walked a mile or three. Inside I met William, who gave me a tour of the chapel and introduced me to Paulo, who introduced me to Cleber, who helped me look for a place to sleep after the meeting.
Cleber is pretty cool, just got a new job, is roughly my age, and helped me till we found one place. It was a crappy hostel that cost too much. The only room smelled like smoke, had no view, and was on the top floor in the far corner of an unlit hallway. Don't get me wrong: I'm no wuss (I survived undeveloped Brazil for two years), but I figured I could do better. So I let Cleber be on his way, pretending that I liked the place so he wouldn't feel bad, and set off on my own. I got to know
I didn't find anything I like, but I did find an awesome restaurant:
It was closed. So I met up with Paulo near the church and he and I bartered with an old lady named Rita. We couldn't get her down to €12/night for three weeks, so I hitched a ride to another church member's home. So I'll be sleeping in the at Francisco and Fátima Bettencourt Tavares's house for the next three or four weeks. They offered it for €40/week and I offered them €50. They accepted.
Both Francisco and Fátima are both from Cabo Verde (Cape Verde, which is an island country off the Northwest coast of Africa). He was born in Praia on the island of Santiago and she was born on the island of Fogo. Here:
I didn't write down what it's for, but it was in the Praça da Estrela (Star Square) where I took a nap on a bench while I was looking for a place to sleep. Throw in not being able to sleep on a plane and the backpack I've got with me, and I was a pretty awesome homeless-looking travelling scholar
The trip over was pretty uneventful. I spent four hours in the always-beautiful Philadelphia International Airport and seven hours later I was in Lisbon. It was 8a.m. Sunday morning. I decided to go to church. I took the airport-to-Lisbon bus as far as it would go and walked a mile or three. Inside I met William, who gave me a tour of the chapel and introduced me to Paulo, who introduced me to Cleber, who helped me look for a place to sleep after the meeting.
Cleber is pretty cool, just got a new job, is roughly my age, and helped me till we found one place. It was a crappy hostel that cost too much. The only room smelled like smoke, had no view, and was on the top floor in the far corner of an unlit hallway. Don't get me wrong: I'm no wuss (I survived undeveloped Brazil for two years), but I figured I could do better. So I let Cleber be on his way, pretending that I liked the place so he wouldn't feel bad, and set off on my own. I got to know
I didn't find anything I like, but I did find an awesome restaurant:
It was closed. So I met up with Paulo near the church and he and I bartered with an old lady named Rita. We couldn't get her down to €12/night for three weeks, so I hitched a ride to another church member's home. So I'll be sleeping in the at Francisco and Fátima Bettencourt Tavares's house for the next three or four weeks. They offered it for €40/week and I offered them €50. They accepted.
Both Francisco and Fátima are both from Cabo Verde (Cape Verde, which is an island country off the Northwest coast of Africa). He was born in Praia on the island of Santiago and she was born on the island of Fogo. Here:
The reason they speak Portuguese in Cabo Verde is because the Portuguese took over and used the country as a port while sailing around Africa. On an unrelated note, shout-out to my cousin, Kyle, who is there right now. For you to get a feel for what it's like there, the capital is Praia, which means Beach, and three islands go by the names Fire, Salt, and Angry. Pretty awesome.
She's in her late 30s, he in his early 40s (I think); they are both talkers, which is nice because I'm still getting back into thinking in the language; she works keeping house for a doctor/lawyer couple and he works at a furniture place; they've been married for about three years; they make sure to keep up on their soap operas; and, in short, they're both very accomodating and I love them already.
After walking and walking all day I was pretty beat. So I went to sleep. Woke up today at noon, still tired. I translated about 40 pages of Alberto de Lacerda's book Palace, which I brought with me, checked out options for what I'm going to do during/after Lisbon (all up in the air still, except for a certain festival in Spain the second week in July that is still very much in order), and headed out to get to know the part of the city where I live.
Oh, I live at Calçada dos Barbadinhos (Sidewalk of the Little Bearded Ones...fitting) #70. I don't know what neighborhood I'm actually in, but I'm somewhere in between Alfama and Bairro Lopes. Here's a link to a map for you:
The river you can see on the map is the Tejo. All I know is that it's really pretty and Lacerda wrote a number of poems about it. My neighborhood is pretty cool. I tried going to the Cemitério do Alto de São João, but it was closed, so I decided to walk off the map. Literally, I walked until I was off of the Lisbon map that I have. Here's what the end of my world currently looks like:
Looks like a great and spacious building to me. After walking back onto the map the only place I could find was a Chinese Restaurant whose name I won't even pretend to remember (Hun something?). I got the Massa Chinesa com Três Sabores (What three flavors you ask? I don't know. One was chicken, though). If nothing else, the setting was worth seeing:
I hope you like pandas.
Portuguese Coca-Cola. Not as good as American and definitely not as good as Mexican.
So my first un-completely-lost night in Lisbon was a success. And to top it all off, INT beat PAL 3-1 in the Italian Cup. Take that, PAL. Next time try not wearing pink jerseys.
Anyways, I leave you with two pics I took on my walk home:
Random street. Actual color (I didn't shoot it in Sepia).
Random government building.
I forgot to buy toothpaste.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Master Calvin
So, I graduated on Sunday. It was pretty awesome. I didn't feel like going to Commencement, but I did go to the English department Convocation. Pretty straight forward. Walked in, sat down, listened, crossed a stage, shook a hand, sat down, listened, ate, and left.
Only six of the Master's degree candidates walked: three of us poets (Ashley, Lisa, and Yours Truly) and three of the MA students. We got first-row seating and when we originally came into the Metcalf Auditorium Ashley (who was leading everyone) took a wrong turn for a second. It was hilarious.
So, yeah, I have a master's degree. Pretty crazy. Pics:
We did a lot of clapping.
As Lisa put it, "Mormon boy meets Jewish girl.The rest is history."
Couldn't resist.
The random man we asked to take our picture has a hard time with point-and-shoot cameras from Walmart.
An amazing, terrible, and amazingly terrible picture of me and Ross. We have hat hair. Master's hat hair.
The traditional Olsen heel-click pic. I love me some 236 Bay State Road.
Trying to figure out how to wear one's master's hood. And still don't get the danglies on the arms.
I figured it out. They don't call me Master Calvin for nothing. Harry Potter, anyone?
Monday, May 16, 2011
I Googled Me
My pet dinosaur, Morgan, in a pic you'll find by following the links I've included.
So my friend Jenne the other day said that she Googles herself from time to time. She said that she does it to make sure she doesn't need to "do any damage control."
Honestly, I have no idea what she means. But I Googled myself anyways. Not a whole lot comes up unless you know what you're looking for (which, surprisingly, I do). So I thought I'd take a second to share with the world a few places I've carved out a niche for myself on the internet.
Here's what I'll be doing in about two weeks (click on me, bottom left):
http://www.blogs.bu.edu/world/2011-global-fellows/
Here's the collaborative blog I'm part of. (You can ask what days I'm not a big fan of).
http://www.thesevenblog.com/
Here's my hilarious bio for the first poetry reading I ever gave (I'm at the bottom. Best for last):
http://www.breakwaterreadingseries.blogspot.com/2011/01/friday-january-21-brookline-booksmith.html
Here's the first poem I ever published. (Two disclaimers: (1) it sucked in the first place and has become beautiful, and (2) they screwed with my line breaks [To use an understatement, Inscape is a joke].)
http://inscape.byu.edu/fall2009/poetry/olsen_elk.php
Here's a dating blog contest I took 3rd place in. (Shoulda won. Politics.) Julia now writes full-time for the website, and I'll admit that her stuff is good.
http://www.mormontimes.com/article/2112/Blogger-Brawl-Calvin-Olsen-v-Julia-Shumway
I wonder if any of these will be around forever. Probably.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Chad is Married.
Nuff said. Pics:
Groomsmen
Yay, Aunt Tammy!
Chad and Kristy Olsen. I may never get used to saying that.
I got the pre-kiss but saved you from the actual thing.
Kristy made that dress herself. And, um, I made Chad's suit.
Baby brother hug. Kid is huge.
Lee likes to rock the party. And if none of y'all have eaten Hmong egg rolls, you haven't lived.
Sacramento LDS Temple
I can't tell you how happy we were when pictures were done.
KC, Gage, Chase, and Lee. All still single. For some reason.
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