Samba in São Paulo + percussion classes + university

I've begun returning to work now. My work in the archives has begun, and I have recently also been put to help with the organisation of the scores. When I first applied for this exchange I thought most of my work was going to with music and social projects, as was advertised. After being here for half a year I have realized that this isn't really that accurate. Instead it feels like, based on both my experiences and what I hear from all my alumni, that we're mostly just here to do different jobs that they can't bother paying anyone else to do. On the bright side it's only 20h/week of it with the rest of the time going to classes and more music-related work - though the latter also has a bitter side-taste of "yeah we didn't feel like hiring someone else for this job". My approach of "work is what I do for bread, my exchange is what I do in my free time" is helping me deal with this though it's not perfect - especially not after hearing how different the day-to-day life is in the other countries that are part of this project.

To get a break from this (and from my frankly speaking boring ass town), I decided to go join my girlfriend for a weekend in São Paulo, which was just about the best decision I could have made. We went to a club called Dois-Dois and saw a group called Galocanto play samba, a well needed break from my life here in Tatuí and also a break from all the horrible certanejo and pagode that all the bars here love to play. It was great to get to spend a night just dancing, singing, and clapping in such a big crowd again. It's times like these that make me really understand why Paal Nilssen-Love once told me that he has a goal to never go a full year without being in Brazil.

I've also tried to find more things to fill my days with. To try and cope more with the "well what the hell do i do then"-feeling, I've signed up for some classes at my university in Norway again. For the moment it's just two, but I'm thinking of signing up for a third as well. I already feel excited about this given that both curriculums touch something really interesting to me - how our lives are shaped by digital spaces (especially social media and now AI), and just general programming. It'll both help me fill my time and help me have things to be excited about.

Lastly I've also started percussion classes just yesterday. My professor helped me clean up some parts of my pandeiro-technique and gave me things to practice that are more targeted than my typical "listen to the music and just copy what you hear". Since I only get one semester with percussion here we decided that we'll just try to go through all the basics of all the instruments and main rhythms to give me a solid groundwork to further study when I get back to Norway. If I went one year back in time and told myself that I'd be studying percussion in Brazil at this time, I would have freaked :)

It's nice to look back at things like this some times. Maybe I'll do so a little more when I get back home today. For now though, it's time to head to my escola de samba-class.

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