JOHN C. VIEIRA

Semester at Sea: Embarking the MV Explorer For The First Time

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:34:07 -0400

Semester at Sea: Embarking the MV Explorer For The First Time:

Second post. Our photographer Rafael Aguilera shot a nice photo essay about the students’ first few hours on the ship and I wrote a delightful introduction.

Semester at Sea: The Short Term 2012 Voyage By The Numbers

Wed, 23 May 2012 13:30:35 -0400

Semester at Sea: The Short Term 2012 Voyage By The Numbers:

I wrote our first post yesterday. That was the easy part, the hard part was where I played graphic designer for a day and made that infographic.

Semester at Sea: The Short Term 2012 Voyage By The Numbers

It's a concept I'm only vaguely familiar with.

Mon, 21 May 2012 18:02:50 -0400

Our 259 college students arrived at the ship today, fresh faced and and oddly mostly dressed in athletic gear. The main thing I learned is that sometime in my four or so years as an alleged real grown-up, college students have started looking like babies to me.

My recollection of myself as a college student was that I was super cool and confident and put together but I can practically smell the anxiety in the air around these kids. It’s a concept that I’m only vaguely familiar with, but this sentiment of mine may be called maturity.

I’ve fallen in with the student life team, resident directors and such. They’re a team in every aspect of the word, so much so that I’m touched they’ve adopted me as their own. And I’m really glad to have made friends.

I’m busy beyond anything I could have anticipated. My bag sits unpacked and neglected in my cabin. A blight on an otherwise wildly productive few days punctuated by nights of revelry. I’ll take it.

And this is where things became the stuff of adventure.

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:20:13 -0400

I have almost no sense of Costa Rica. It’s a country I’ve spent in busses wondering what it is about Spanish greetings that causes people to reply like they wouldn’t to the same greeting in their own language and hotel casinos winning and losing hands of blackjack and breakfast at a corner table, leering at my new colleagues, suspicious of anyone so lively before at least two cups of coffee before focusing on my eggs and the sheer joy of eating a meal you didn’t make yourself. I was starting to think I could get used to this, tropics these and a life lived at the pace of a snail but that changed last night. In between rainstorms and after meetings I grabbed a colleague and shambled down the gangway before we found ourselves watching soccer in a bar full of Costa Ricans and lit mostly by the television and the streetlights. I had no allegiance to either team but logic dictated we fall in easily with what we perceived to be the team of favor.

It was a moment lived content in the smallness of my existence but also just kind of enjoying my company and being a gringo in a bar with an intriguingly beautiful woman watching a sport I would absolutely not be watching had I been back home. We drank some sort of off-brand Costa Rican rum and ice and I wondered vaguely about the medical implications of the slowly melting ice in my drinks before deciding that the alcohol would likely neutralize any bacteria that could cause chaos in my digestive tract.

And this is where things became the stuff of adventure. As we walked back along the beach we decided to take a swim in the almost impossibly and unbelievably warm Pacific Ocean. And so we dove in. No moon, no stars and no romance, just the black Pacific, as welcoming in it’s warmth as it is ominous in its appearance.

I guess this is where I need to give context.

I’m on this ship in this country with these people going on this fucking incredible adventure because I am the communications coordinator for the Short Term 2012 voyage of Semester at Sea. Semester at Sea is a college study abroad program that takes students around the world on a ship. They’re in class while they are on the ship and free to roam when in port. In this case, it’s a quick jaunt through Central and South America in between semesters.

There are moments in your life that feel like a sea change. Sometimes they come in reeling, kicking and screaming. Knocking things down and making themselves known. Sometimes they creep and step quietly and impart themselves before you know it.

This is the latter. You finish college and flail around for awhile before finding a comfortable job with reasonable upward mobility and benefits. You start to feel ok but you’re also still young. Your youth lurks inside of you and dies in tiny painful increments every day. It’s the adventures you should be taking while you still can—a nagging voice remind you that in a few years your handsome days will be behind you and the thought of a taking a ship through the south of Central America and the north of South America will be laughably irresponsible and possibly even morally questionable.

So here I am, a chance at personal advancement as I head a team that serves as the dual chance to embrace my youthful tendencies towards adventure.

I’m about to travel around Central and South America, on a ship. I’m in charge of a team who is in charge of writing a blog and making various other social media outlets lively for Semester at Sea.

I like to think that my big decisions in the coming month will be things like whether or not I can pull off a traditional Panamanian hat, but more likely it will be the small things inherent with managing and inspiring talented creative people (and myself). I hope our team meshes and finds that rare form of chemistry and that they’ll speak about us in hushed tones in abandoned hallways as the god damn gold standard of voyage documentation excellence, especially punctuated by the writer at the head of it all who did things in travel writing that nobody realized was even possible but that he did because he is a fucking champ.

I ordered a sandwich and it came with the wrong pieces.

Sat, 19 May 2012 00:09:06 -0400

I’m here. San Jose, Costa Rica. After flying all night I took an unintentional nap and woke up four hours later feeling disoriented, feverish and strangely eager. The air in my room feels impossibly still and stagnant and the condensation is thicker than anything we have stateside. I’m undeniably in a foreign land. I understand most of what I hear but can only communicate in broken, stuttering Spanish. I can get my point across but sure as shit not in an eloquent manner suitable to a gentleman like myself. I ordered a sandwich and it came with the wrong pieces and I’m concerned I could get into an accidental fistfight. The locals must worry for my mental state, the barbaric way I’m communicating. But I’m here. Costa Rica.

I attended my welcome meeting, shook several hands belonging to several of my new short-term colleagues, before spending several hours gambling alone at the hotel casino. I came out ahead and was able to cover drinks and my dinner. I’d be in the seedy underbelly of San Jose by now but I’m not a heathen and I’ve got to get breakfast and a jog in before an 8 AM meeting tomorrow morning. Sleep almost doesn’t matter after the night I had, but I’m starting slow and alert and ready for action.

Precisely one half inch too tall.

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:49:00 -0400

Four hours into the eight hours I will spend on a plane today and I’m breaking to eat at the type of food court food that is only ever seen or found in Southern states. It’s 6 AM and there is a line at the Pappadeaux Seafood Express. I’m drinking coffee and watching it move from an uneven metal table that keeps causing my camera to tip over. Airports are for walking around with music in your earbuds and looking at everyone and wondering where they’re going and, even though you hope you know, kind of wondering where you’re going too.

An airplane ticket is a good way to spend a lot of money to be uncomfortable for several hours. Your knees ache and your feet swell and no matter who sits next to you, you hate them.

At 6 feet and one half inch tall, I am precisely one half inch too tall to sit comfortably in coach. That half inch makes a world of difference. My knees press against the seat in front of me and my elbows hang in the aisle and the seat next to me. Half sized drinks from the rare visit by the beverage cart offer only quarter sized relief.

Two hours into a nearly four hour flight from Portland to Houston I took my glasses off. I feel vulnerable without vision correction. I looked at the rows of TVs playing a movie starring John Krazinksi and Drew Barrymore. They offered no information to my confused eyes, just perfectly synched amorphous colors.

A baby started crying and I wondered if I stared at it hard enough I could make it stop.

Southern states make me deeply self conscious about my manners. Everything is ma’am or sir, words I never say. I imagine I’m perceived as some sort of northern barbarian. Perhaps I remind people of a viking in a vneck.

Normal commodities, wi-fi and power outlets become rare earth gems in an airport. Stake your pillar, sit on the ground and pay for your 24 hour access to Boingo. This may be your last chance to watch Netflix for an entire month.

Seven out of ten.

Fri, 18 May 2012 01:16:21 -0400

I’m standing in line to get felt up by TSA and I’m already angry because seven out of ten people in line are wearing shorts and slippers for their plane rides and I’m happy to let things like that bother me because I get to feel superior. So, good start, sincerely. Context soon, but adventures ahead.

Old Mac of the Month: Beige PowerMac G3

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 23:54:56 -0400

Old Mac of the Month: Beige PowerMac G3:

I wrote this month’s Old Mac of the Month for 512pixels.net. If nothing else, read it to see how I worked the phrase “whether or not they were under duress when they entered this agreement, nobody could say,” into a column about an old Apple computer.

Based in equal parts on his experiences with Professor Lupin and Teen Wolf

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:44:16 -0400

As recently as several hours ago, he was completely oblivious to the fact that a blog post of his from four years prior had been plagiarized and directly copied and pasted as a chapter of the latest sexy monster teen romance novel currently being digested by literally millions of intellectually blossoming teenage girls. Moreso than outrage over the blatant stealing, he felt an unmistakable pride over the fact that his original lycanthrope protocol, based in equal parts on his experiences with Professor Lupin and Teen Wolf, had become canon for the way the world understands werewolves, even eclipsing (pun intended) Stephanie Meyer’s Native American parallel translation of the beasts. To celebrate, he wrote a short story about fucking, or not fucking, what he believed would be the next and possibly final frontier in fetishized monsters, sexy Frankensteins.

Girls, Season 1 Episode 1

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:47:00 -0400

Last night I watched the pilot of Lena Dunham’s HBO show, Girls. Literally every publication in the United States has written about Girls in the run up to the show’s premier. Literally every writer seems to think Dunham is the voice of my generation. And since we all know I’m supposed to be the voice of my generation, I had to watch it and have an opinion.

Girls does an awesome job portraying the spoiled Gen Y that the more pessimistic columnists seem to write about often. Many of us are spoiled and able to manipulate our parents who just want to see us do well in life. Since Dunham seems committed to making Girl vaguely autobiographical, she bases her show in this Gen Y trope. It’s the type of background she comes from and her portrayal is very on the nose—lightly jabbing without condemning because of an inherent realization that it’s just her upbringing and why should she be ashamed? Her woodworking/musician boyfriend’s completely shame-free admission to receiving $800 a month from his grandmother was funny in it’s sincere obtusity. In the same breath he bragged about how he would never take money from his parents, but his grandmother gives him $800 a month which is good because it means he doesn’t have to be a slave to anyone and that nobody should ever be a slave to anyone.

Dunham’s two polar opposite friends, the one that flits around Europe and encourages Dunham to not sacrifice for her artistry and the other one that is fiercely forward progress oriented, hit really close to two women that were close to me in college. As it probably did for all of us my age, and it’s that and many other senses—the awkward sex, the confusing methods of communication and the incessant talk about the economy, for instance—where we all see ourselves in Dunham’s character.

To paraphrase and bend an oft quoted line that her character says, Dunham probably isn’t the voice of our generation, but she’s definitely a strong voice of our generation. She’s entirely authentic in showing certain things about being in your mid-twenties, a lot of it very specific to being in your mid-twenties after being born in the mid-eighties. Many people not a part of this demographic could probably write this stuff reasonably well. But Dunham’s work stands out because she wraps the entire thing in a layer of sincerity and self-deprecating humor that holds it all together. We can all laugh at our shared shittiness. She doesn’t hide the worse parts (which all also seem like she might have really experienced) so the hopeful aspects of the show stand out as truly, intoxicatingly, hopefully positive. And that really is a hallmark of our generation.

Couched statements.

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 00:06:56 -0400

Couched statements.

Caitlin's Small, Stylish San Francisco Home House Tour | Apartment Therapy

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:32:00 -0400

Caitlin's Small, Stylish San Francisco Home House Tour | Apartment Therapy:

The home of my friends Caitlin and Eric is featured on Apartment Therapy today. I’ve slept on the floor there, it’s totally legit.

Caitlin also runs the excellent interior design blog Sacramento Street.

I will not write about Star Wars Kinect.

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:14:47 -0400

I had planned to write several thousand words about the tragedy of Kinect Star Wars for Xbox 360. I was going to articulate the discomfort I have with Han Solo, Lando and golden bikini-clad Leia being placed into a mini dance-game where each air humps to top 40 pop songs remixed to include Star Wars lyrics. I intended to tactically express how my childhood, my adolescence and my early and current adulthood have all been ruined by this betrayal of the Star Wars that I care about and hold dear. I was going to hold up both the first and second installment of the Force Unleashed as false hope that Star Wars had found itself back on a path that doesn’t lead towards Watto outfits for toddlers. A path that would finally make that Rebel Alliance crest a cool tattoo for me to get on my left forearm. One that would make women swoon when they saw me with such a tattoo as I stood rail thin, unkempt and smoking a cigarette outside of an almost certainly dangerous dive bar. It was my intention to make charts and graphs that proved beyond a shadow of doubt that one could draw a straight line from the Ewok pajama jam at the end of Jedi to fucking Jar Jar Binks to Jake Lloyd and Pod Racing and younglings right through LEGO Star Wars and that novel about an Ewok fighter pilot directly to Han Solo shaking his tailfeather to a song called “I Ain’t No Hologram Girl”.

That was my plan, but I decided not to write about such things.

Truth.

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 22:20:21 -0400

Truth.

His defining achievement was a tumblr post

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:17:05 -0400

At this point in his life, his defining achievement was a tumblr post that received over one thousand (1,000) notes. Most of those were reblogs, which he was especially proud of as he values those much more than likes. It wasn’t until several decades later that this accomplishment would be replaced as his defining accomplishment by another ambiguous measure of popularity on an entirely different social network.

Sometimes life presents you with an impossible choice.

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:43:05 -0500

Sometimes life presents you with an impossible choice.

Sunday afternoon pre All Star game creation. Inspired by...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 19:31:47 -0500

Sunday afternoon pre All Star game creation. Inspired by nostalgia for all those house parties at the 995, this by my buddy Amin and of course Neil Young.

Sure. Thank you Wikipedia. Very helpful!

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:02:02 -0500

Sure. Thank you Wikipedia. Very helpful!

Just a totally normal day at work.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:53:40 -0500

Just a totally normal day at work.

Sunday afternoon creation.

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:19:00 -0500

Sunday afternoon creation.