Affects and Effects/ Metro Stories

Effect: "consequence: a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon" -wiki-

Affect: "feeling or emotion;to act on; produce an effect or change in" -dictionary.com-

For the longest time I didn't know the exact difference between the two words. Its one of those English word things that didn't quite get in Mrs. Binder's English class my first two years in high school. Then figured that I would learn the difference eventually in my life, and now that time has come.

The act of me deciding to come to Brasil for a year has had a deep effect on my way of thinking and how I see my "privileged" way of life at home, GWS/Boulder Colorado. It has affected me in the sense that almost every time I ride the metrô I see something beautiful and irritating.

Example 1: An older man commenting/complimenting on a friend's height. Then proceeding making a correlation between tall and intelligence, and therefore referring to shorter people as less intelligent people. WHAT?

Example 2: A middle aged black man sitting next to me on the metrô and holding Obama's book. Correction not "holding" but "caressing," before actually beginning to read his book again. (I only know this because he gently reopened the book to the bookmarked page). Yet before actually opening it he ever so kindly gazed at the cover with a sort of admiration for the man , with of course Obama's face on it. I could of sworn I almost saw a tear, maybe I am crazy but this was real to me.

So these examples are kind of annoyingly cheesy, yet true stories. With the Obama admirer I felt a kind rage and saw a beauty. This is weird to explain but I just got to thinking how much of an affect can people who live thousands of miles away can have an impact on one random person on the Red Line on the Metrô in São Paulo, Brasil. Come on now, I see a little anger in this because of the fact that there is sooooo much influence that comes out of the USA but not very many people realize it until they go abroad, and I see that as a sad thing as well because a lot of people do see this for granted. Beauty comes into play when I see how deeply this affected a person's life and how this could be a potentially positive impact on a life outside of the ordinary US citizen.

The negative effect reflected off of the older height complimenter got me thinking of random elitist that exist in a place were most of the population is: MALE- 169.0 cm (5' 6.5"); FEMALE: 158.0 cm (5' 2.2"). Is this supposed to be considered sexist as well? Either way it isn't something to be taken personal by any means (I'm 5'3.5").

The more and more I observe people here, yes I do enjoy my fair share of people watching, the more I see the little similarities and differences between culture; so I guess I am getting my money's worth. YES!