October 2006

“there are only two people who were born without a father: Jesus and Anakin Skywalker”
-Daniel, a true star wars fanatic like you’ve never seen.

so i have a question: is Jesus the son of God? explain.

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i’m very sick right now. definitely not well. like, i even sat out during capoeira… so, naturally, i must be dying.

happy birthday mom!

i guess all kids go through this, but sometimes i forget that you were a person before i came. it’s also weird to think that i’ve only really known you for half of your life. there are many things i could say, but basically i love you a whole lot and i’m glad you’re my mother (but, like, really REALLY glad. remember, i wouldn’t have known about bjork if i didn’t know you, who knew james, who introduced me :D). btw, i had a dream last night that you were here… i only wish it was true.

have a wonderful birthday!

hello humans! how are we today?

so first of all, i’m interested in learning all i can about the african religions here in brazil (if you know anything, please tell me!).

i know that the place i take capoeira is called projeto mandinga, and i know that mandinga has to do with africa (and ethiopia, more specifically, i think), but i don’t know what it is. it’s not even on wikipedia!

everyday as i sit in the car on the way to capoeira, we pass the “dique do tororó”, which is a beautiful lake with statues of orixais all over. in candomblé, their god (olodumare) is distant and unconcerned with humans, so humans turn to orixais for help. i learned that santeria is basically candomblé, and the catholic saints are disguises for orixais. my brother, michael (or in capoeira: bem ti-vi), told me how candomblé is a good metafore for the gospel- it’s not that olodumare is unconcerned with us, but we have turned away and distanced ourselves from him to turn to idols (orixais). i think this is much more clever than trying to convince them that there is no such thing as olodumare and they’ve been wrong all this time. i mean, God never referred to himself as God. We started calling him that and they started calling him olodumare.

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subject number 2:

did the creators of human beings love eve more than us (girls)? i mean, this was the absolute first human being on the created/recreated (depending on how you translate pre-history) earth. he could have created any single one of us, but he chose her. the first, the perfect, the quintessence of beauty and he chose eve. well, every once in a while i’ll look into a mirror and think that maybe i have some piece of eve in me somewhere… i am related to her, after all.

when i was little(er), people told me all the time that God has no favorites. ha! this makes me laugh out loud. what about mary, the freakin’ mother of jesus? was she not favored above the other women? moses? abraham? noah?

and you know how the God of the bible is a jealous God? well, i am jealous human! i can’t believe God loves ALL the humans on this earth and i’m just one of the masses! do i only get a small piece of the corner of his heart so everyone else can have a little too? i’m just kidding people, calm down, calm down.

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capoeira is going great! i made my own berimbau and today i learn how to play it! we had to do lots of flips yesterday in the second class. (i now go twice a day on mondays and wednesdays because i’m crazy like that.) they were really easy for me because of my previous dedication to gymnastics, and the teacher was so impressed! of course, no one knows i did gymnastics, they just think i’m incredibly talented :D. the teacher would say things like, “isso andorinha!” and “isso menina!” and then he called me a monkey, but in a good way.

well, i pretty much have a million more things to say, but i’ll save ‘em for later.