School and Vestibular

My classes will begin this monday. Gaaaah D:

Students in Brazil have got two major times of “vacations”: Summer vacations and Winter vacations. Summer vacations are those big ones, that ranges from November/December to February/March (it depends from the region in you live and the school you study in). Winter vacations can last one month in some places to one week in other ones (I normally have two weeks of winter vacations).

The school year is usually divided in three “trimestres” or in four “bimestres” (periods of three and two months), although I believe the first system is pretty much more common.

The educational system can be divided in Ensino Fundamental (Fundamental School) and Ensino Médio (High School). Fundamental School goes from grade 1 to grade 9, and High School goes from year 1 to year 3.

The subject of "Sciences" (Ciências) is splitted up in Biology, Chemistry and Physics in High School. Click the image to see its source.

 Well, I’m going to start the 3rd year of High School this monday. Maybe in some countries it’s great: “No more school”! But here, it means that something even worse is coming: the vestibular.

The vestibular is a bunch of tests that every single university must apply so that a student can study in it. Although the Federal Government is trying to apply a single test to the whole country (the Enem – Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio [High School National Exam] – I’ll talk about it someday), today every single university can apply its own (specially the most important ones), with its own characteristics. Everybody wants to study in a public university, considering that the public ones are the best ones and, of course, because it’s free.

 

UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) entrance. UFRGS is one of the best universities of the country, based in Porto Alegre. It’s famous specially for the schools of Psichology and Law. Click the image to see its source.

 The vestibular consists of every single obligatory subject during High School. They are: Portuguese Language, Foreign Language (you can choose one: English and Spanish are obligatory to exist in any “vestibular”), Literature, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography and History. So even if you want to study History and become a History teacher, you will have to study hard every single subject (although in most universities every course has a different “subject value”, so you’ll have to study History harder than Biology if you want to be a History teacher). Also, it envolves everything you’ve learned in School, not just what you learn in the 3rd year.

I’m thinking about Architecture and Urbanism (it’s the same course). I really enjoy this “urbanism thing”, hehe. Wish me luck!

Back to life

Ok, so I was traveling for some time. I visit some relatives and some pretty places. I didn’t know how to write here about my “off period”, so I decided to just create a post like this one.

Now back to blogging.

The Brazilian airport concession auctions and a look at the Brazilian aerial transport system

Brazil has got the second largest number of airports in the world (number one is, of course, the United States of America). There are more than 4000 airports in the country. But does it means that it’s easy or fast to fly in Brazil? (By airplane, obviously. I don’t believe birds have this kind of problem.)

We can say that the whole transport system in Brazil is the proof that quantity is not quality. Although we have more than 1,500,000 kilometres of roads (the Equator Line’s circumference is a little longer than 40,000 kilometres, just to have an idea), less than 100,000 of them are paved. Also, the size of the railway system, which a lot of people believe that would be the best for the country, is almost of the same size today than it was during the times of the Empire. (Yeah, Brazil is the only modern country in the Americas that had a monarchy, like most european countries. I’ll talk about this period of our History one day.)

TAM's airplane. TAM is the largest airline in Brazil and Latin America. Click the image to see its source.

 But this entry is not about “how good/bad is the transport system of Brazil today”. I’m writing this to inform you about the airport concession auctions.

The economic boom of Brazil in the latest years and the birth of low-cost companies (such as Gol, Webjet and Azul) made possible to millions of brazilians to fly for the first time. But, as usual, the government didn’t enlarge the airports nor made them better. Guess what happened?

Computer-generated image of Flight 1907 and N600XL about to collide. Click the image to see its source.

On September 29, 2006, a Boeing 737-800 from the company Gol collided with an Embraer Legacy 600 private jet. 154 people died in the accident, making it the deadliest air disaster in Brazilian history at that time. The whole country was shocked, and the media made public the poor situation of the Brazilian aviation’s infrastructure.

The public knowledge of the situation led to strikes (again?) of flight controllers. You might remember what I told about what happened when the police went on strike. Guess what happened when the flight controllers did the same?

Complete chaos. I googled about the situation and discovered a big article in English Wikipedia about the issue (it’s rare to see such big articles about Brazil in English Wikipedia, so imagine how chaotic the situation was!) . The worst period of the Aerial Blackout (in a reference to the energy crisis Brazil faced in 2001 and 2002) was in December 2006, the period of Christmas and New Year. The aerial transport system simply stopped. Airplanes of the Brazilian Air Force were used to help transporting passengers, showing how bad was the situation.

Airport in São Paulo during the "Aerial Crisis". Click the image to see its source.

 The situation is not even near as tragic as it was in 2006-2007, but we can’t say it’s already good. We are very worried about what will happen during the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics (although the World Cup is a more tragic issue, as it’s going to happen in two years instead of four and it’s going to be nationwide, not just in one city).

This week, some airport concessions were auctioned. Three, in fact: Guarulhos (the most important [and chaotic] airport of the country, also known as “Cumbica” and “International Airport of São Paulo), Brasília and Viracopos (the airport of Campinas, metropolitan area of São Paulo. It’s growing because the important airports of the region, Congonhas and Guarulhos, are already “full of airlines and flights”). These are probably the first important airports that were administrated by the government (in fact, Infraero, the state company that administrates airports) that are now “owned” by private companies. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil and criticised by the today’s president’s party, PT (and also Lula‘s party), for “privatizing” state companies, thinks it’s kind of ironic what the government is doing now.

Guarulhos airport at dawn. Click the image to see its source.

Is the privatization of the airports something important? Brazil is known for being slow in doing structural reforms (we have the expression “a passo de tartaruga“, which means “at the step of a turtle”, to say that something is very slow). I particularly think it’s good to have private companies to take care of our airports, specially in the condition they are now and the events Brazil will host in a very short period of time.

What do you think? Please comment!

Police Strikes

It’s been a long time since my last post. Shame on me.

It’s not that I forgot about the blog – in fact, I remembered it every single day. I just didn’t know what to write about.

All the posts I wrote were somehow related with my life, from things that affect me directly to news I watch or read about the country. I just… couldn’t feel inspired.

But there are things happening in Brazil, obviously. One of the latest “shocking moments” in the country were the Police Strikes. Happily, they weren’t nationwide: They happened first in the state of Ceará in January, but “a coisa ficou russa” (“the thing has got russian”. It means something like “shit just got serious”, hehe. I don’t know about the origins of this expression, but I believe it comes from the anti-communist position of Brazil during Cold War and Dictatorship times) in the state of Bahia. 

"Militar Police of Bahia under strike". Click on the image to see its source.

 Strikes in Brazil (and, I believe, in any other country) happens mostly because of one reason: people want more money. Nationwide strikes in the Post, for example, are frequent. The educational (teachers) system is also known for its regular strikes.

Of course, every single category deserves good payment. (“Category” is very common here to describe the whole of the people who have a job in common.) But “strike” means “this category won’t work for a while”. In the case of the Post, people who ordered something won’t receive it (if it was sent via the Brazilian Post, obviously). In the case of teachers, it means that students will not have classes for a while. But… what exactly does a police strike means?

Bahia showed us: Chaos. Brazil is not known for being a safe country, but more than 150 homicides were commited in the Salvador Metropolitan Area since the strike begun. Shops were closed and the touristic points of the city, one of the most visited by brazilian and foreign tourists, were empty. I talked to a friend that lives in Salvador and she said her university was closed (of course, she was happy that there were no classes, hehe).

National Army at the region of the Barra's Lighthouse (Farol da Barra), Salvador. Click the image to see its source.

I can conclude from what I read and watched that the strike is ending. Another one started in Rio de Janeiro but, thanks to fate, is (until now) not even near as “powerful” as the one in Bahia. Imagine how it would be for a state that is known exactly for not being safe…

There has been some discussion in the media about the constitucionality of the police strikes. There is a part of the Constitution that states that “no weaponed services can enter on strike” (I’m almost 100% sure it’s not as simple as how I wrote, but it can give you an idea). So, is it correct to the police to just stop working? I’m glad I’m not an “opinion-maker”, because I have got no concrete opinion in this case. I do believe that every single category deserves to fight for their rights, but I don’t think it’s fair with the citizens that just want to live their own lifes.

What do you think? Tell your opinion in the comments.

Wando: Ray, Star and Moonlight

It’s funny (well, I’m not laughing.. I hope you can understand me) that I just started this blog and a brazilian icon died.

Well, Wando wasn’t what we would call “popular” these days. But I believe almost every single person in this country knows how to sing the famous part from “Fogo e Paixão” (Fire and Passion) : “Você é luz / É raio, estrela e luar / Manhã de Sol / Meu iaiá, meu ioiô” (You are light / Ray, star and moonlight / Sunny morning / My darling, my yoyo”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxdcPMCJb3w

He was born in a small town in Minas Gerais (his body will be buried in Belo Horizonte).

Wando’s fans were famous for throwing lingeries at him.

Click to see the image's source.

 Brega is a very peculiar rythm from Brazil. It even “evolved” to the Tecnobrega (this one represented by Banda Calypso, a band that revolutioned the phonographic market of Brazil (although most people just can’t see this, as they think they are “way too smart for that”). I find it very funny. I’ll write more about it one day.

“Deal of the day” websites in Brazil: Peixe Urbano

I normally have lunch in a restaurant near my house. It’s kind of good, not so expensive and I really enjoy the treatment.

So I went to the restaurant today and I there was a sign saying something like: “Clients with Peixe Urbano tickets must weight their plates”. All I could think was “fuuu-”.

Click to visit the website.

Peixe Urbano (Urban Fish) is a very popular “deal of the day” website – in fact, the most popular website of this kind in Brazil. It’s available in a lot of cities all around the country. It works as any other website of this kind.

The problem about these websites is that they make the quality of the services a lot worse. To make their offers for such small prices, they need A LOT of people to buy the service (in this case, I searched for it and more than two thousand tickets were sold), and it means that a lot of people will visit that place…

Happily, when I decided to search for it, I discovered that it’s an offer just valid from 16h to 20h. It means that my lunch is saved!

Brazilian Time Zones and Summer Time

Let’s say that I kind of suffered having to “choose” a timezone for my blog.

I saw a lot of cities in that list. I’m aware my city, Porto Alegre, might not be “important enough” to appear there, but I looked for it anyways. I didn’t find it, of course. Then I decided to put it as Brasília, the capital city of Brazil and the “official time of the country” (for example, if a national exam is going to happen at 13 o’clock, you must check how it’s going to be in your time zone if you don’t live in the same time zone Brasília is in). It wasn’t there. At least São Paulo, the biggest city in Latin America, was there. Rio de Janeiro wasn’t either. I was surprised that a city called “Santa Isabel” (I wikipedia’d it and discovered it is a 50 thousand inhabitants town 50 kilometres away from São Paulo) was there but no other important city in this time zone was.

For me, it's bizarre that Santa Isabel is in that list and Rio, Brasília, Porto Alegre, Curitiba and/or Belo Horizonte aren't.

 Brazil has got basically three time zones: one for the atlantic islands (such as Fernando de Noronha), another one for Brasília (with it meaning “most of the country”) and another one for four amazonic states. GMT-2 (meaning that it’s two hours less than the time in London), GMT-3 and GMT-4, respectively.

During summer time (winter, in the north hemisphere), South, Southeast, Goiás, Bahia, and the Federal District (Brasília) move their clocks one hour ahead, making it GMT-2. Part of the state of Mato Grosso and the whole state of Mato Grosso do Sul (South Mato Grosso. Pretty creative, uh?) do the same, making it GMT -3.

Brazil during Summer Time. Blue zones are GMT-2, green zones are GMT-3 and yellow zones are GMT-4.

Well, that’s why I didn’t put just “GMT-3″, but had to choose a city. I want to be on time after summer time!