Chris Jordan pictures some shocking stats | Video on TED.com

Chris Jordan pictures some shocking stats | Video on TED.com

I had to post this to my blog because it is just too mindblowing for me to not let as many people as I can watch this video and let it affect them like it did me. Here's the description from TED:

Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics -- like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day.

Damian Marley - It Was Written (Dubstep Remix)

From then til' now

Since I have gone almost a year without posting on my long-lost-but-never-forgotten blog, I should probably explain shortly what it is that I have been doing since my last post. As was posted a long time ago, I was in Vladivostok, Russia for approx. 10 months. My thoughts since then have matured, my brain has since then matured, and therefore so has my character. I must also say that going to Russia(and to really stretch it going to Brazil) was the best decision of my life. Studying abroad and going to these countries showed me things, people, and languages that will never leave my mind. I can still picture perfectly looking up the street onto T-63 in Goiania and just as clearly remember the frozen rivers of Kamchatka. To be able to even see both of those places in one lifetime is truly remarkable and not every person on Earth can say he/she has or will have these experiences. I wish I could talk to every person that reads this in person because a text truly can only capture some of the emotion I have attached to this topic. But anyways, on to explaining what I did!

I remember one of the first weeks in Russia, I talked to my dear Australian friend, Elissa Pollock. We actually met while we were both on exchange to Brazil, but kept in touch over the years. When I talked to her, I was complaining(just like I was on my blog), telling her all the bad things that happened to me, and how I was just hating it. I also think(but am not too sure), she was one of the people whom I was telling that I was going to leave early. Thankfully, that never happened. But while we were talking, she told me about how her first month in Brazil sucked but the best thing about it is that if it starts bad, it can only get better and will. I knew she was right, and she was. After my first month, things were on an incline and I would say after the New Year things really started to come together. The week and a half or so in Kamchatka was the biggest turning point though. In the month of February, I started dating my Russian girlfriend who I am still dating to this day(wish me luck), and I also got to see some of the most beautiful nature in my life. I got to go dogsledding, and sledding, and see what I would really call a winter wonderland. For anyone who doesn't know, Kamchatka has approximately 9 months of winter, and LOTS of snow. It is actually the peninsula that is across from Alaska. So I was probably closer to home than Moscow. By the end of April, it was finally about 0 degrees Celcius, and my Russian studies were finally coming to fruition. I was starting to be able to hold conversations and get my points across in a clear way. The grammar was finally stuck in my mind and it was free sailing from there. The relationships I built all came to show me a lot about Russian life, and I definitely got to live well there. It was also in the spring(from maybe March to June), I made 4 tracks with some friends of mine(Andrei and Max). I don't even want to start on the host families, I will make a whole new post for that one. But to summarize the whole experience, my year abroad was important not only for learning about another culture, but learning about life and what it means to you. Like I've said many times, it was the best decision of my life.

Son & T-Payne - Ghetto

A great video I made in Russia

I also wanted to post a link to a rap song turned music video that features me with my friend Max, called Ghetto. I am really trying to spread it so please support it! It's got a pretty tight beat to it :) Here's the link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-rd8hxvOEQ

It's time to start it back up!

I have returned from Russia, and already started college in Portland. I am on an endeavor to start learning Chinese, Urdu, and Arabic this year. I am also taking an Advanced Russian class but it is only 2 days a week and only a semester long. I am back on the grind and trying to get a whole lot of things done this year. I hope I can find some supporters and really lend help to a lot of people with what I do. Deuces.

Update: Oct. 22, 2009

It is Thursday Night in Vladivostok, and the temperature is currently around 45 degrees Fahrenheit. This has by far been a much better month than September, especially since that I now have a good group of friends and I can move around the city as I please. Classes at the University are going well, even though I need to do something about being in so many English classes. I'm meeting lots and lots of people now, and starting to use more Russian and less English(even though I definitely need to polish it a lot before I can brag). I am not experiencing any homesickness whatsoever, and in fact the only thing I miss is the love of my life Tiffany Svoboda, but that topic would take another few hours to elaborate on(I love you :) ). Anyways, I am starting on a Russian book that I got at the bookstore and even though I am only on the first page(I got it a few days ago and have had no time to really dig into it), I plan on gradually working my way through the whole book with the help of one of my English teachers. The book, that I currently can't think the name of, is a classical book so obviously there are lots of vocabulary problems, but I believe after I learn more it will get easier and easier. Next weekend, the exchange students are planning on going to Khabarovsk for Halloween, but depending on a lot of things it might happen or it might not. I am currently really enjoying Vladivostok so I have no problem with going or staying. I must go, but I will leave a more informative post soon. 1~

Finally, an update

After about a month in Russia, things are finally starting to become normal. In the first month, way too much seemed to be going on. My Rotary Guarantee Forms had the wrong address, wrong names, phone number, and everything for my host family. The person who was supposed to be my Counselor turned out to be a random Russian woman who had no idea who I was, I was having problems with my host brother, and I was stuck in an apartment with just him, and the kitchen had no food or water so some days I had to buy all my own food and drink which started to be too pricy. I was given the wrong directions from my university trying to get home and got taken to a bus station in a place I had never been, had to get off the bus, ran out of credits on my cell phone, and then was unable to receive calls on my cell phone because my SIM card was acting up. I was almost chased by dogs, found out I had much less money than I expected, and then had someone buy a ticket for me to Irkutsk that costs about $400 even though I told her I didn't think I could afford it. So, to put it simply, I had a very rough month. With all of that plus troubles back home, I really am suprised I was able to stay somewhat positive through all of it. Things are finally working themselves out and I am still with my host family and my host brother and I get along pretty well now.

Even though I end up using lots of English each day because of the fact that I am surrounded by students and people eager to practice with a native speaker, I have been picking the language up much sooner than I expected. The Russian language seemed very complex when I first began studying, but soon I realized that is just another language. It is a language that expresses itself differently and because of that it forces you to have to think differently as well, which is something I was really excited about because I've always wanted to learn a language that would force me to think differently when I express myself, if that makes any sense. What I mean is, Romance languages like Portuguese, French, Spanish, etc., are very easy to learn for an English speaker because all you have to learn is conjugations, a few pronouns, and from there just plug in nouns and you are almost done. But with Russian, you have to learn about all of that but also declensions, aspect, and even after that it is another thing to speak it and sound naturally because Russian speakers tend to use their words in a variety of different orders instead of the simple Subject-Verb-Object. I won't get too nerdy on the language, but I am really enjoying this more than anything else.

When it comes to Russian culture and just living in a Russian city, the one world I can use to describe it all is "wow." My city is more diverse then probably most Russian cities, but the diversity is still small. The city is obviously mainly white, with a small Oriental population and, I am not joking at all when I say this, 3 black people. I make the fourth. So, you can imagine that every single day I come out, I get crazy looks from people and get asked for my photo every single day. After about a week or so I adjusted and now I just have fun with it. The people here do not smile at all when they walk the streets, and at first I felt very uncomfortable and didn't know whether I would be safe here, but I realized that it's just the way people carry themselves here. The people are very friendly, and actually treat me very nicely. When people see me they usually get really excited and act very funny. I also must add that the Russian girls have bad Jungle Fever...

So, that is a quick summary of my first month here. I leave for Irkutsk Monday night and I will be putting on photos on my Facebook soon. So keep reading and stay posted. If you haven't added me on Facebook yet, just search for Torrey Payne from Charlottesville, VA and you should find me!

After a long break...I post again. In Russia!

I last posted on my blog, it was January and I was preparing to embark on a new journey- to Russia. Now that it is Sept. 15th(the day after my birthday!), I am one week into my year-long stay in Russia. Currently, I am in Vladivostok, in the Far East of Russia. I am about a boatride from Japan, Korea, or China. I am currently staying with a roughly middle-class family, and I stay in an apartment about 20 ft. from the main apartment where the family stays, and my host brother will be moving in with me this week. My first week was spent at a school camp for 3 days, then a 4-day stay in a town called Nakhodka, 4 hours away by car from Vladivostok. There, I and 3 other exchange students had a meeting with the local Rotary club and got a chance to meet some Rotary people from the Far East. While there, we also got to try out a lot of authentic Chinese cuisine, Russian cuisine, and cuisine from the Caucasus region, all extremely good. Now that I am back, have to start class tomorrow, and will be going to one of the universities in the area. Hopefully things will go well and I will have time to get into more detail and put up photos. Until then, stay tuned haha!

Quick Update

Decided to make a quick update:

I have been on the internet looking over various resources I could use to help with Russian. I started off my learning by learning the alphabet through a fun little game. After mastering that, I have begun learning a little bit of vocabulary here and there, reading up on cases, and learning basic sentences. At the rate I'm going(which is actually pretty slow), I think I will be getting the hang of the cases by the end of the month. I am setting myself up so that I can understand the base of the language(grammar, cases, pronunciation, etc.) so that I can quickly start doing reading with a dictionary and possibly start chatting a little bit with Russians online. I think once I get to a very basic conversational level, enough so to just conversate a little bit, my Russian will take off. I'll come back soon and re-update.

December 4th, 2008

It has been 7 months since I made my last post on this blog. In these 7 months, I have done a lot. I fulfilled my dream of studying abroad, going to Brazil for 2 months(Mid-June to Mid-August) and I loved it. The country had great people, good food, and I was basically in bliss for my whole time there, only amplified by speaking in Portuguese as well(made it that much better). I have kept in touch with my host family, and I actually need to get in touch with them again soon, but I hope to go there again sometime soon. But I am already making plans to study abroad again next year. After realizing that high school in America sucks, and that I am tired of it, I decided it would be best if I took a year off and went to another country to study for a year as well as learn an additional foreign language. My top choices right now? #1. Russia. #2. Turkey. #3. France Even though I am not exactly final on that list, I definitely want to go to Russia. So, in preparation of going there, I have decided to start studying the language. I officially plan to start Monday, after deciding on a good "program" to use, which will probably involve some type of text to follow with English translation, a good dictionary(online probably), and tapes to use and get a basic grasp of the language with. I have already learned the alphabet so I just need to dig in and get some self-motivation that I always can find in myself.

Post-RTK1 Era

It's been a while since I finished Remembering The Kanji I, and I have moved on to the other 2 writing systems, the Hiragana and Katakana. I am tackling the Hiragana first, just because its the order the book I'm using goes in(Remembering the Kana, also by James Heisig), and the Hiragana are also a little more important. I've only done about 23 of the 46 characters, but I should be done by the end of the week and on to the Katakana if I can find some 30 minute pockets of time to fit Japanese in during the week. I've also made significant improvement in my Portuguese listening skills, much due to playing some type of Brazilian music everyday or listening to the radio(I download UOL podcasts everyday on iTunes). Now it's only about a month and a half before I get the whole summer to have fun with all the books around the house and resources online. Até Próximo.

Banned Commercials - Learn English

A funny video by a German company that teaches English.

I FINISHED REMEMBERING THE KANJI!!

Today marks the happiest I have been with my language learning in a while. I unbelievably finished RTK last night. It was hardest thing I have had to consistently do for a long period of time ever(even though I'm sure I'll find something else to complain about later in life). I have gone through 2042 Japanese Kanji characters. I started in late July, and finished March 23, so that spans about 7 months. I believe I could have finished sooner if the burden of school and junior year hadn't come and complicated things. But regardless, I worked and worked and worked, and I am sure some of the few readers of this article may think I am really bragging and pumping myself up right now, but I feel like if there was ever an excuse, it would be this. Kanji was a HUGE stepping stone for me, and now that I've finished, I can finally move on to actually reading, writing, and listening to Japanese and work on language skills, with a the other 2 writing systems(Katakana and Hiragana) a very small stepping stone to get over(each writing system is only 50 characters or so). This will also free up time to work on my Portuguese and maybe start with another language I have been dying to work on.

SPRING BREAK!

It is now spring break, which means a few things:

1. A week of rest and relaxation without having to worry about the ton of work I've been getting.

2. Plenty of time to work on my languages.

I've been slacking on the kanji, I should have finished by now, but at least I've got less than 200 now, and I expect to finish by the end of Spring Break(I hope I'm not jynxing myself like last time). I am glad because I can finally move on to the other 2 writing systems(which should only take a few hours to learn), and then I will move on to Japanese In Mangaland as well as Assimil(Did not like Assimil first go around, but I am hoping this time will be better). As with Portuguese, I'm planning on spending a lot more time working on my listening, because it is really slacking in my opinion. Also, I am going to try and work on Afrikaans. I've only gotten through the pronunciation, and I am really ready to move on to reading and writing. From what I've seen, the language looks a little bit like English, and there are some words that the 2 languages share. The site I am using is GREAT, it is a good place to go if you want to start learning Afrikaans. I will post the link on the side. Anywyas, as for Spring Break? I am looking forward to it, and hopefully will enjoy it. Até Mais!

City of God Original Brazilian Trailer

This movie is about a kid who likes doing photography growing up in Rio de Janeiro, a city that has a lot of crime. The main character(Don't remember his name, I don't think he said it in the trailer), grows up around this crime, and almost gets twisted up in it. I am not good at desribing movies, but I will say this one of the best movies I have EVER seen, and really shows how good brazilian film is. If you want a better description of the movie than mine, just check out the whole thing here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_God_(film) if you watch the movie, let me know how you liked it!

It's been a long time...

I haven't posted on here in over a month, due to me entering the hardest semester of school I have ever had in my life. After bombing basically every exam I took in January, I decided I really need to step it up and start doing some work, even if it includes me slowing down with my language learning or lifting weights after school. The workload has been tremendous, and everything is moving so fast it's crazy. But I decided I could still make a little time to make another post since it doesn't really take too long.

I am disappointed in myself because I never got to finish my kanji. I am still doing it everyday, but I should be done with it and starting to work on the actual language(writing, reading, speaking) and I am really tired of just doing kanji, even though I know it is essential for me to do them. But there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to do that. I am about 300 kanji away from finishing the book, so I guess I will just finish it no matter what some time soon. As for my other languages, my Portuguese has really improved, and I feel like I am almost as good at it as I am in French(which I have been taking at school for over 3 years now). My Chinese is going nowhere, but I am going to try and finish the year out strong because my grades aren't so good. The funny thing is, even though I have all this stuff, I really want to start learning Afrikaans. I think I will try to make time for it on the weekends, since I plan on being in the house more from now until Spring Break, which should give me a whole lot of time to work on my languages. I am going to post some more useful links and hopefully get some more readers!

Fear and Trembling (Stupeur et tremblements) Trailer

Wanted to show this trailer, a movie I watched, it has 2 languages I am studying(French and Japanese), and a decent plot.

Long time no post

It has been a long time since my last post, I believe I last posted a couple days after Christmas. I hope people are enjoying 2008 so far, I know I am, it is going great so far, even though my headaches aren't getting any better. I am going to be doing a lot more so I am not sure how often I will be updating my blog but I WILL DO IT!! I am going to post and post and post and make it more interesting. Let me know what I should talk about and I'll bring it. Enjoy January.

Immortal Technique -- The Poverty of Philosophy

I also wanted to wish Merry Christmas to everyone, but I ran across this video by a rapper me and my friends listen to a lot, and he really has a LOT to say and listen to what he has to say, he really has a point, watch this. Happy Holidays.