A College Canvas

"Fun for all that children call their favorite time of the year"

As I'm sitting here typing this, I'm munching on a linguiça calzone and watching the snow slowly drift  down. I'm home, finally. Luckily my flight did not get delayed and got out just in time before the storm, but the lines were crazy. It was a nice adventure, but I'm just glad to be nice and warm, or at least kind of warm, in my house.

 Honestly, we didn't get a ton of snow, which i really hoped for. We got around 6 inches maybe, and it's fluffy snow. FLUFFY SNOW. That's the worst kind, because then you can't make snowmen, have snowball fights, or make snow angels. Plus, you can't walk anywhere because you just get pelted by it. Oh well. Hopefully there will be another nice storm later and I get snowed in with wet snow, that way I can make a snowman, haha.

But seriously, I'm just glad to be done with my finals, away from Hopkins, and  around my family and friends. As much as I love Hopkins, I need a break every once in a while. I loved my classes by the end of the semester (with the exception of DiffEq), and part of me wanted them to last forever. But it was nice for them to come to an end, and for me to find something that I was really interested in.

Other than all that I spent last night at a Secret Santa with my friends (7th annual? wow), and it was a lot of fun. And then today I went to go visit my high school (bad idea, since the secretaries did not like my hair and wouldn't let me in), and then after went to go see all the christmas lights. Hopefully I can get a video sometime for all you guys, because it's excessive. OVERLY TACKY.

Did I mention these people are italian?

"Here here here, the best time of the year"

Once again, Happy Holidays! Oh, and here's my animation project

Intro to Animation Fall 09 - Final Project from Peter Costa on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

"And even though I can't explain it, I already know how great it is"

Well, normally I alternate between written and video blogs, but I don't have the time to really film myself and then edit the video, so I just decided to write a blog. About what? Well, mainly being able to continue your hobbies while at school!

Now, I've never taken a class or anything, and that's probably really apparent when you see my photos, but I'm a sucker for photography. I really hate how point and shoot cameras (you know, a typical digital camera, where you "point" it at a subject and then "shoot") often wash out the subject and don't capture the beauty. My solution?

 Film.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Why go backwards when there's such things as DSLRs on the market? Well, to be frank, I don't have the money to afford a GOOD DSLR. If I did I would get one, but honestly, you learn to value photos more with a film camera. You're not able to see the photos right away, so you have to hope they come out well. And say you have this epic picture, but then you realize you got it all wrong because of exposure, aperture, and all that jazz. Well, then you learn from your mistakes and improve on your own abilities. People have become too reliant on technology, and although it has vastly helped, it has also hindered human growth. But that's a whole different story altogether.

But yeah, even though I'm bogged down with classes (it's the end of the semester and courses are wrapping up), I still manage to find time to snap a photo on my way to class or on my way to a meeting. Granted, I don't have as much time as I'd like, but beggars can't be choosers. Anyway, I've managed to somehow squeeze this hobby into my life here at school, and hope to continue it for a while

Ok, well I should go work on my animation final, so until next time, tchao!

"Bem-te-vi vôou, vôou, Bem-te-vi vôou, vôou"

First off the title of this blog means "Good to see, fly fly, good to see, fly fly." Bem-te-vi is actually a  bird found in northern Brasil, and it's called that simply because it is beautiful, and good to see. This is just one example of the type of songs that we use in Capoeira, a brazilian dance and martial arts form. Most of the songs relate to some aspect of life in Brasil, however this one is my personal favorite, along with "Tava no quilombo foram me chamar."

I guess I should give you guys a brief history of Capoeira. Like I already said, Capoeira is a combination of martial arts, dance, and music. It was developed by slaves in Brazil brought there under the Portuguese empire from what is now Angola. It was a way of slaves learning how to fight against their slave masters, however they couldn't simply just fight in public, so they disguised it as a dance. It aquired the name Capoeira (lit. chicken coop), because it looked as if they were watching chicken fights. After multiple centuries, Capoeira finally made it to the United States in the 1970's and has remained since. Capoeira itself has been on the JHU Campus for 9 years so far and has gained popularity every year.

 So, how's I get involved with Capoeira? Well, last semester when I was taking Portuguese Elements, students from Capoeira came in to give a presentation. Mainly, I was blown away. They had us sing and clap along, and it was a lot of fun. So, I meant to join that semester, but I kept on putting it off, and decided to just wait until this semester. So at the Student Activities Fair, I signed up, and then went to the practices. To put it short, I love Capoeira. It's not only fun and energetic, but it's also a full body workout. I'm sore in places I didn't even know existed. Also, my flexibility has pretty  much increased tenfold since the beginning of the semester, and I have lost weight (woo!).

Of course, like I mentioned, it is a martial art. We're doing kicks and flips, but it's all meant for show. We're not really trying to hit the opponent; we're aiming for inches away from them. That way it's still a dance, but if we were closer, it could and would be very lethal. So that's also a plus since now I have better self defense. Haha.

I'm mentioning this all actually because we just performed in Culture Show last weekend, which is a showcase of different performing groups on campus. It was actually my first time performing in front of a group of people since seventh grade. Back then I used to play the violin (I was horrible at it), I was in  my school's orchestra. I think the last piece we played was something from Harry Potter. Anyway, the thrill of performing was amazing, and the rush was phenomenal, I can't wait to perform again.

Anyway, I want to leave you off with something to listen to, so here's the song "La Laue" where the lyrics in the title are from:

"It's affinity to serendipity"

For some reason it's poor quality, sorry about that guys.

"You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one"

Ok, so, while I'm waiting for my laundry and procrastinating doing homework, I figured that I should at least post a blog or something. Might as well, right? Haha. Now, I wanted to talk about an event that happened a while ago (a few weeks, I believe). On Oct 11th, there was a rally head in DC as part of the National Equality March.

The National Equality March, organized by the Human Rights Campaign, was a march in D.C. in order to show the importance of equal rights to the LGBT community. Honestly, I think the current state of these rights is appalling. So, with a few friends, we drove down to D.C. and participated in the march.JHU Cate also came too! Mainly, we marched around 1-2 miles and then stood in front of the capitol building for a few hours and heard speakers talk. It was very motivational to be very honest. I felt like doing something right then and there. But honestly you can't. You can't just *poof* change something. You need to consistently put in effort. It was nice seeing the amount of enthusiasm  on this issue, and how everyone really wants this to change. I'm just glad that Obama has promised to get rid of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, since it's one step towards a brighter future.

Anyway, I think pictures speak louder than words, so I'm just going to include some pictures from my friends camera, including one where we got within about ~150 feet of Lady Gaga. Yes, she is that amazing. If you want to see her speech, click here to watch it.

Anyway, it's time for me to get to my homework, as well as finish my laundry. So until later, tchão!

P.S. for more information on the Human Rights Campaign, click here.

"Why they could percolate the ocean in Brazil"

Other than the fact that it took me 5 minutes to realize why Brazil wasn't spelled Brasil (it's with an s in Portuguese), I found this song that actually fits my mood perfectly. Oh Frank Sinatra...

"And she fights for her life as she puts on her coat"

Hey guys! So I actually meant to do this post about capoeira, but then I got lazy and figured that I should talk about it later. Why? Our group got into culture show, and I shall be performing! Woo! I'm excited. Last time I did a show or something on stage in front of people was in 7th grade when I still played the violin. Needless to say I'm a bit nervous, but I know it's going to be a lot of fun, so it's ok.

Also, the weather has started to cool down a bit here, finally. I'm all for nice hot weather, especially after my super rainy summer back home, but seriously, I do not mix well with 80+ degree weather. Luckily it's supposed to rain tonight so it should cool down. Plus, I love the rain. I'm one of those people that wishes they could just sit outside in the rain, not get soaked and just listen to the stillness. It's one of the only times in nature when you can actually see how quiet life really is and how  much change we cause. Honestly, I love the rain.

On that note, one of my good friends from back home posted this to her blog, and then a poem she wrote (seriously, her poetry is amazing, I wish she would make it more public).

"the other night i was in the common room trying to study. it's a corner room, and a huge section of two of the walls is a glass window. so i was studying (diligently, i assure you) and all of a sudden there's this great loud noise, and when i turned around it was pouring outside. just like that! i stood by the window and watched the rain falling and the mist hovering over the dark city. it was beautiful."

Window

Peering out windows,
Listless, unthinking,
Watching as your sense drops down.
You gaze to the edge of the town,
Humming today into the ground.
Letting it pound, pound, pound.
Twisting your fingers
In shirt sleeves and skin,
Letting your fingers dig in, dig in.
Head to the glass,
How fragile and thin,
Look down, look around, give in.

Anyway, I should go get around to being productive, haha. So, until next time!

"Just put your trust in me"

Here you go guys, sorry for the poor quality.
I had issues and just wanted to get this done, haha.

"Tape holds things that cannot stick"

Hey guys! Welcome to my new blog!

For those of you who don't know, my name's Peter, and I'm a sophomore at Johns Hopkins University studying Mechanical Engineering. I'm also trying to get an Arts Certificate, which is like a minor. And that's how I came up with the title of my blog, A College Canvas. Ironically, I'm really bad at painting, haha. Anyway, let's move on.

So far, sophomore year has been going well. I ended up dropping one of my courses (Portuguese), but only because I was feeling overwhelmed with 5 classes total (and Portuguese had daily homework) So instead I'm trying something new related to that. Capoeira! I'll talk about that sometime later, but for now I'd like to keep this brief. Mainly, I learned that I was spreading myself too thin trying to learn a new language when in reality I know I'm really bad at that, haha. However, it was very inspirational and I'm glad that I tried for an entire year. And, it actually helped at home when I was working in a restaurant as I picked up words in Spanish. The two languages are actually very different, but you still pick up a lot of words.

So yeah, now I'm sitting here drawing when I should be doing my DiffEQ problem set. Whoops. Time to get to work!