An international life well spent

It’s Monday morning as I arrive at Kenan 314 for Portuguese class. The class’ professor, Dr. Diviney, gently ambles into the room and greets me with a pleasant “Bom dia” (good morning), leading into a few minutes of random conversation before the lesson starts at 9:00. He is known affectionately by many as “Dr. Div”, and is naturally welcoming by his mellow demeanor. He is also one of the most interesting professors at Flagler. What we have in common is a wonderful past country of residence: Brazil. But prior to my junior year, the only thing I knew about Dr. Diviney was that he was head of the Spanish department. Now, two Portuguese classes and a Mesoamerican civilizations class later, I know a lot more about him based on the fascinating facts about Latin America and personal stories he shares during class. Having experienced Brazil myself as a middle and high-school student, it’s extremely refreshing to hear about Dr. Div’s first impressions of this beautiful country as a 19-year-old missionary in the 1960s. This is where his Brazilian adventure started.

Dr. Diviney went on his mission for the Mormon Church from September 1965-September 1967. He went to Caixas do Sul in Rio Grande do Sul, Curitiba and Apucarana in Paraná, and then back to Rio Grande for the cities of Santa Maria and Canôas. He recounts Brazil with eyes different from my own, from a time when Brazilians and Americans were more curious about each other’s culture, and from the eyes of a young man avoiding temptation while on his mission in an exotic land full of breathtaking landscapes and some of the friendliest people in the world. Brazil could have very well fostered Dr. Div’s laid-back attitude. One time, he was on a packed bus when a pretty young lady was trying to move down the aisle. When the bus hit a bump and sent her flying right into his lap, all she could say was a startled, “Com licença!,” (a polite ‘excuse me’), instead of “Perdão” (I beg your pardon) which would have been more appropriate. He was simply amused and replied, “Pois não?” the English equivalent of a combination between ‘of course’ and ‘why not.’

Dr. Diviney expresses his interest in culture and history as well as language by collecting interesting historical artifacts, including many from the 1800s. One time he made friends with a vendor in Brazil who couldn’t afford a family member’s important operation and gave the man the fairly large sum of money he needed. The vendor was so grateful, he later insisted Dr. Div take an antique gun he was going to sell as a present. This 1800s gun was completely unique, Dr. Div took it back with him and several years later found out it was worth several thousand dollars.

Brazilian student and Portuguese tutor Rafaela Faria agrees that Dr. Diviney is an admirable professor for introducing not only Portuguese, but also French and Italian as elementary studies at Flagler. Before this year, Spanish and American Sign Language were the only languages offered to study. “It opens up a whole new perspective to Flagler students,” says Rafa. “And Dr. Diviney is a great Portuguese teacher.” With regard to the new languages offered courtesy of Dr. Diviney, President Abare was shocked at how popular they were. Last semester and immediately this semester during registration, the language classes completely filled up as fast as they could. New classes the faculty thought were against the odds Dr. Diviney knew would be successful. I’m only one of many students who are very grateful for the now multiple-language opportunity he presented to our college.

He lived in Brazil one more time, for a year and a half from 1981-1982 in Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro may be Brazil’s most signature city, with good and bad extremes: crystal blue beaches, lush forests and a lovely climate, and some of the most concentrated crime in Brazil. There he went to the Brazilian Army Command and General Staff College, and learned an array of new things. Among them, how to deal with all kinds of weaponry and how to shoot well from extremely far distances. Dr. Diviney’s impressive weaponry knowledge is juxtaposed nicely with his signature calm disposition. He told me and fellow classmates that he used to go hunting, but stopped several years ago after he shot a deer, took a look into it’s big brown eyes afterwards and thought, “I shot Bambi!” Naturally, we responded with an “Awww!”

Dr. Diviney’s last visit to Brazil was in December 2000 for the 1^st Encounter of Latin American Amazonian Poetry Conference. In the United States, he graduated from Brigham Young University in 1971 with a BA in Portuguese and Latin American Studies. He started his MA in Portuguese, but didn’t finish because that was when he entered the U.S. Army. Dr. Diviney came to Flagler in September of 2001 and he’s stayed ever since, this is how we’re fortunate enough to have him introduce such brand new-yet-popular classes and teach us all he knows (which is a lot).

The reason I personally appreciate Dr. Diviney is that he’s taught me so many things I didn’t already know yet I can identify with him about subjects we both know well. He is completely well read and knowledgeable on the lifestyles of most Mesoamerican civilizations, as I found out after taking his LAS 315 class. He is the only Flagler professor who’s experienced Brazil by living there, and if my lifestyle has taught me anything it’s that living in a country is a completely different experience than just visiting. We share as saudades- deep-rooted Lusophone nostalgia that Brazilians claim only true nationals of the country can feel and understand for their home. There is no known equivalent in Spanish or other Latin languages. I realize I’m fortunate to have landed in St. Augustine while Dr. Diviney is here too. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday he brings Brazil back into my life from five years ago and empathizes the saudades with me, as well as celebrates a few years of the Brazilian experience that I highly recommend to anyone.

Word Count: 1,026

Information/quotes from:

Dr. John Diviney

Rafaela Faria

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

One of the best modern films encompassing a dark, fantastic story, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is artfully done. It is wrought with metaphors and magic realism. The film is about the strange life of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a reclusive man born with an extraordinary sense of smell. Set in 18^th century France, the film adaptation of Perfume strives just as hard as the fiction novel to relay a theme central to the plot. Using the techniques of lighting, camera angles and distances, director Tom Tykwer explores the theme of Grenouille’s remarkable talent rendering him an angel among humans, who cannot know human love.

This film tells an unusual story that is fresh and different. It draws attention through well-executed techniques to the power of untainted love. The protagonist’s yearning for love he’ll never know is pessimistic yet enlightening. The devices of lighting, camera angles and distances show that he is a stranger to love through reclusiveness; lots of darkness and loose framing surround Grenouille most of the time. Perfume was done very well and is fascinating due to the help of lighting and camera techniques that are more exaggerated than those of many films. It is as mysterious as its main character, leaving audiences in awe. This film presents a deep message about social acceptance and rejection at the cost of divine talent.

Being Positive is being Progressive

Only on one occasion have I had the pleasure of running into Carrie Johnson. But based on that one meet-cute in the local Lil’ Champ, Johnson buying her lotto tickets, something drew me to her. The 75-year-old had several friends among the other Lil’ Champ customers, and she greeted them warmly while recounting her most recent escapades to the cashier. All this was about two weeks ago, and I remember being in a slightly stressed mood earlier that day. But the elderly yet energetic lady who stood in front of me in line took my mind off the stress, if only for the moment, and it’s the little moments of endearment that help us keep our sanity when life gets hectic.

Earlier that day, I was thinking that looking at the bright side of life isn’t always easy. Little did I know that Johnson, who was boisterous and frankly very happy, had been dealt a difficult hand in life and made the most of it. In fact, she knows all about progressively shaping what she was dealt into a vibrant life filled with a loving family and whole community full of admirers. Abandoned by her mother at birth and raised by her stepmother and inattentive father, Johnson faced a difficult life as soon as she came into the world. She had her first child out of wedlock, married another man and brought five more children into the world. Johnson left her husband for his infidelity but continued to be a solid support for her children.

It’s no secret that Johnson has the power to hold her own, as well as a certain mystique about what keeps her going. What is clear about Johnson is that her contagious optimism does nothing short of contribute to that power to bring more positivity into her life. It’s clear that helping others and telling her stories makes Johnson happy, and most of St. Augustine is happy to hear them. Recognized collectively as “The Voice of Lincolnville,” Johnson’s recent birthday on the 20^th of February was celebrated at the Willie Galimore Community Center, where she requested guests to, “’Give honour to those who went before by dressing up like your ancestors. Reflect your culture and heritage’” (Mulkey). Thinking of Johnson’s attire request makes me smile because of her affinity for history. Understanding the richness of the past does help anyone prepare more for the future, and seeing how different things were in another time and place is beneficial to seeing how far we’ve come and where we’re going.

This is much like understanding the richness of Johnson’s past; she could have ended up in an unhappier place but continually decided to be progressive throughout her life and focus on her blessings. Fellow Flagler student Jill Houser talked with Johnson and summed up her values in the following manner: “If [Johnson] is not helping one of her 17 grandchildren or 11 great-grandchildren, then she is riding around on her bike hoping to get the chance to tell someone about her two loves: history and Jesus.” Although the memories of Johnson’s father and his drinking cause her to look back on him without fondness, telling Houser “He was a brute,” they’re clearly far from the opinion her descendents have of her. She is known not only as “The Voice of Lincolnville” but also as the “World’s Greatest Grandma,” as a little plaque on the front of her lavender tricycle proudly declares.

Johnson has so many local friends that when her old tricycle was stolen, there was apparently a communal effort to track down the culprit and bring it back to her. Before the thief was found, her tricycle had already been replaced with the bright, new lavender one as a present from the St. Augustine Police Department. Rumour has it that some of Johnson’s loyal followers are still keeping their eyes open for whoever stole the original. Clearly, I am only one of many in St. Augustine who have been fortunate enough to meet Carrie Johnson. Because she is so giving, positivity comes back to her from the community and she remains an example of how optimism in action creates progress, something pertinent for everyone to remember.

Word Count: 700

Works Cited:

Mulkey, Holly. “Carrie Johnson celebrates her birthday,” 2010.

Houser, Jill. “Always smiling, the lady on the lavender bike,” 2010.

How Rich Youth are portrayed on TV

When television shows depict many teenagers, it is in a fashion that the following adjectives come to mind for the audience: wild, emotional, dramatic, rebellious, fun loving, substance abusing, and angst-driven. If producers are to successfully portray teenagers in this manner, they will have created an undoubtedly fascinating story that provokes a desire to follow the ups and downs in the lives of what may or may not be realistically portrayed characters.

Upper class youth represented in the medium of various television shows have much more in common than not. Looking at three shows that thoroughly present the most common image of “rich kids”, a trend appears notwithstanding the span of twenty years between the first and third. Beverly Hills 90210 ran from 1990-2000 (ten seasons), The O.C. from 2003-2007 (four seasons), and finally Gossip Girl, a show that aired in 2007. The trend includes reckless behaviour, lavish living, ridiculous spending, a taste for glamour, and most of all, a sense of being able to get away with much more than the average citizen could, due to family wealth.

The representation of upper class on television seems to mostly include the struggle of an individual; one who realizes that material riches are overrated and resists conforming to what society expects of that social status.

The Path to leave a Comfort Zone includes stares

Life is full of mundane choices. Or, choices that are at least fairly ordinary, leading to something desired because it is safe. Much more often than anyone realizes, we have opportunities to take unconventional paths that don’t follow the status quo. But day after day, restless individuals don’t notice the chances presented before them and go about their ordinary lives making the safer choices. Knowing from personal experience that riskier choices are sought more by college students than most other demographics for the purpose of adding colour to one’s life, the idea of themed parties made perfect sense. One of these very parties was a chance I took to live unconventionally for its few-hours duration, however brief that was. It was an ABC (anything but clothes) party.

What an ABC party entails is that all participants take the risk of actually going out in public without clothing, although not naked. How is this possible? Guests, getting to stimulate their creativity, use non-clothing objects to “wear” or cover themselves with to how they see fit. Upon getting invited to the ABC party and accepting, I was excited but nervous on more than one level. “What would I choose to wear? How would I assemble it and what would hold it together to guarantee it doesn’t fall off? Damn I would die if it fell off!” As these thoughts occupied my mind I suck it up, reminding myself that I’d wanted to go to an ABC party since freshman year. A little careful planning and safe selection would help me, so all in all I looked forward to seeing the creativity of many other unclothed people donning their outfits and taking pictures.

Fast forward to the ABC party night. Having spent a good half hour at least on the aesthetics of my outfit, I was ready. Six large leaves from the tree in my neighbor’s front yard covered me, along with blue suede boots and a jacket I wore for how bitterly cold the outside was. I felt tentative upon seeing that my friend picking me up and her ride were wearing clothes and not participating in the dress code. This was when they amusedly informed me that most people on the guest list were complaining about having to create an outfit, so the hostess sent out an email saying the dress code was now optional. An email that I’d failed to see. “Uh oh,” I thought getting into the car. But surely, there must be other people like me at the party who participated in the original idea.

At the party there were three other people who were also following the original dress code- a guy in a trash bag who was wearing clothes underneath and two girls in towels. None were as exposed as I was, however. As soon as I walked into that party, getting lots of stares and usually positive comments, my face turned pink and I at first rethought my choice to take the slightly dangerous path of attire for the night. Clothes are a great thing and the best way to make sure their wearers are not exposed, literally and figuratively naked. They are one of the most simple yet pertinent of the “safe” choices we make everyday and necessarily so. Yet through my embarrassment at my lone exposure, there was something enthralling about wearing those leaves laced up with brown woven string that were covering me up. If it’s possible to feel embarrassed yet strangely confident at the same time, I did that night. And not just because it lead to the most male attention I’d ever gotten in a single night at Flagler. The thrill of having taken an unconventional path, however small it was in the long run, rang through my head. Life had presented me a challenge, dared me to take it, and I did. And taking that little dare with so much exposure will probably help me make even more daring decisions in life, like when choosing careers or my next place of residence. So when someone tells me he or she is feeling the urge to mix up his daily life and step out of his comfort zone, I’d give him the recommendation of throwing an ABC party.

Word Count: 708

The Mad Hatter Ponders "To Be Or Not To Be?"

I have always been an avid fan of Alice in Wonderland, having read it along with its sequel, Through the Looking Glass over and over as a child. So to celebrate Tim Burton’s new take on the classic story, I uncovered this emulation of Hamlet’s “To Be or Not To Be” speech that I wrote in high school AP English for the Mad Hatter. Enjoy!

To drink, or not to drink: that is the riddle indeed!

Whether one should suffer of boredom

Wasting 364 perfectly good days on ONE birthday party per year?!

Or take matters into his own gloves

And have UNbirthday parties! To sleep

Like the dormouse, ending

His dread as

The cheshire cat’s prey

Having wished to dwell within the teapot. To sleep, to dream

(But of a complex wonderland) where life may come

When you have left your

State of Alice (into a state of mercury)

Must make you ponder. There’s the respect

For the Queen that makes the playing cards tremble;

For who else would designate the death sentences of time?

The Jabberwock’s oppression is wrong,

The Queen despises love

(Upsetting the law).

Alice the unworthy

Might make herself shy

With a bare hedgehog to the croquet, who Aces bare

Under the rule of hearts in a dark life.

But there is the dread of what comes after the execution,

The undiscovered Wonderland, more and even more curiouser,

From where neither they nor Alice will ever return. It puzzles her

And encourages us all to bear what madness we possess,

Rather than to fly with the civilized flamingos we do not know.

The forest path of conscience makes us desperate,

And thus the blue waters of the dodo

Are overturned in a weak storm cast with curious thoughts,

Intoxicating biscuits and a moment

Where the ocean’s currents turn away.

Then you will have lost your course for following the white rabbit down his hole.

Come join the tea party now! The Alice of logic, sweet in your dreams,

May our lack of all reason be remembered.

The Wrath of the Mona Lisa Postcards

Hanging out with one of my closest friends in college always inspires me. I have known her since the beginning of freshman year, and when we’re in a comfortable environment especially, our discussions might as well belong in a philosophy or psychology class. Our political views are at opposite ends of the spectrum, our lives before college and outside it are quite different, and she is very religious whereas I identify more with spirituality. But our hours-long discussions frequently lead to some sort of revelation about society, the media, the world or even the universe.

Last week we were in her dorm and had just watched New York, I Love You. We started discussing different types of insecurities based on characters in the movie, and how perpetuating those insecurities through the media could be detrimental to a greater collective.

To illustrate what my friend thought of as a personal attack, she took out the February 2010 edition of “Cosmopolitan” magazine. At first I was skeptical, aware that many magazines have taken a hit by media critics, or anyone really, for being too superficial and/or of low quality. “Cosmopolitan” is no exception to criticism, and sometimes it’s warranted in my opinion. But I mostly disagree with these critics as “Cosmo” is my favourite magazine, and one I find to be interesting as well as the least shallow among a slew of publications featuring wardrobes that cost thousands of dollars and models with toothpick silhouettes. In my opinion, “Cosmopolitan” is above all of that.

But when my friend turned to the offending pages, I read and found myself becoming one of my favourite magazine’s critics. My friend is very beautiful inside and out, but since she was a little girl she’s been insecure about her nose. The article on pages 86 and 88 seemed innocent at first glance, being all about makeup tricks women can use to enhance and reduce the appearance of certain facial features. The headlines for each segment read “You want:” followed by the words “Bigger, sexier eyes,” “Plush, pillow-y lips,” “Perfect looking skin,” “Killer cheekbones,” “Uniform brows” (what did that mean, anyway?), “A tinier forehead,” and “A slimmer nose.” Each of these headlines preceded makeup tricks to aid “Cosmo” readers with their desired facial appearance, which apparently involved features of these descriptions.

Whether “Cosmo” realized it or not, they published an article which may insult many women who have an issue with these facial features. Critics frequently point out that unhealthy body images are the standard for almost all magazines today, but what about facial features? Promoting the image of a specific face that everyone wants not only casts the beauty of diversity aside, it is a scary notion. It conjures images of the clones under totalitarian rule in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

A face is the physical manifestation of identity, inspiring such quotes as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s. He said, “A man finds room in the few square inches of his face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.” Sir Thomas Browne said, “There are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A, B, C may read our natures.” Both quotes imply that the face (and body for that matter) that someone was born with is beautiful because it is uniquely his or hers. And it saddens me to see that in today’s plastic surgery-crazed world, people are losing sight of this. Thinking of plastic surgery actually angers and disgusts me more than saddens me. Sure, people should have the freedom to do what they want to their bodies, but how could anyone not be simply incredulous to the multiple procedures that take away someone’s physical identity? My reasoning can be explained with an analogy.

Of all the paintings in the whole world, the Mona Lisa may be the most famous. It is popular, everyone from anywhere wants to see it, and it is arguably the star of the Louvre in Paris. Surely many replicas of it have been made, and in Paris you can find post cards with the Mona Lisa on them. The front of one such postcard boasts the appearance of a famous work of art, but it’s not a work of art itself. It is a copy, simply printed and reprinted over and over with thousands of other postcards that are exactly the same. The postcard has been made in an image of beauty, but this cannot make it art. A completely different painting however, is true art in its diversity and individuality. No one would ever go to a museum to look at walls filled with nothing but Mona Lisa postcards. The idea is absurd. Original works of art are always different from each other and evoke different thoughts and feelings, but this is precisely what makes them art. As humans we are works of art too. We have depth of emotion and sharpness of thought; our behaviour is in different shades and our personality takes different shapes. Why would we want to wash the paint from our canvas and try to print on the Mona Lisa instead of wearing our true colours?

Word Count: 874

Works Cited:

“Cosmopolitan.” February 2010 ed. Pgs. 86 and 88.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Conduct of Life,” 1860.

Browne, Sir Thomas. 1605-1682.