You just gotta dance...

...when you hear these guys play! We went to a concert Sunday afternoon for ContraCantos-- a Brazilian musical/choral group from Recife. They were just plain awesome! The show was rather long (about 2 hours and some) but definitely worth the time. It made it even more amazing and fun due to the fact that we had met and talked with these people the Friday before at the feijoada (which was incidentally for them). One woman in particular, Anastacia, I talked with for about 45 minutes on Friday and had NO idea she was so incredibly talented. That woman can SAAANNNG. Not just sing, but SAAANNNNG. She's about as tiny as me and very soft-spoken. We had a lovely conversation (I was feelin' rather proud of my Portuguese skills) and she briefly mentioned she was a singer. On Sunday, she got up on stage and did a solo for an English song called "Old Time Religion". I was teary-eyed but the end, no lie. She has an amazing voice. It just seemed to explode out of her small body--you would never expect such a deep, powerful sound to come out of that woman. As you can tell, I'm still very much in awe. It was one of the best weekends I've had in a while. (Will add link here to a video clip of the performance soon!)

Now I'm heading into the middle of the week. I'm giving an exam tomorrow which I have to grade rapid-fire to be ready for mid-term reports on the 10th. I've also been studying like crazy for the GRE's lately. It's funny how advantageous knowing other languages is when you are trying to expand your vocabulary in your native one. "FACILE", for example means "something easy" in English and means the same thing (facil) in both Spanish and Portuguese. Only problem is I usually don't trust my instinct and over-think things--especially on standardized tests. The more I study for this, the less relevant it seems to graduate study. I mean, seriously, does it really matter if I know how to calculate the area of a sphere or the definition of "unctuous" if I want to study Latin American history? I think not. Granted, having a rich vocabulary and being articulate are important for my area of study but, using extremely rare and complicated words in academic writing only makes you look pompous and rambling. My personal opinion is that each field should have it's own diagnostic test or the writing sample that applicants submit should be composed of more examples; something like that. Even if I do well on this test, my results have no real bearing on my ability as a graduate history student so, why make me put in the time and effort? Just another rhetorical question to pitch out there into the bottom-less pit of universal experiences...