Little thoughts of North Americans...

Since the second weekend we had some lectures on many kind of areas, like linguistics, anthropology, psychology. The lecturers are showing us how the North American life is. There were two of these meetings that specially caught my attention: American Cultural Vallues and Gender Issues & Sexual Harassement.

Professor Patty Delayne. Saint Mike's Profile:
 http://www.smcvt.edu/Pages/Get-to-Know-Us/Faculty/Delaney-Patricia.aspx?
category=Faculty&Subcategory=
{0083BA67-DBCC-4F2A-B5DF-0B271C3CACA1}

The lecturer Patty Delaney, associate professor of anthropology and gender issues of Saint Michael's College, told us about the american culture, and spent more time discussing the "cultural shock". When we move to a new country, we submerge ourselves in a new way of life, that includes new culture, new thoughts, expressions, language, food, education system; it is an entire new world. Despite all the excitement, there is a peculiar pattern of foreigners known as "cultural shock". Leaving behind all your culture for enter in a new one can cause some symptoms, such as, depression, excessive sleep, homesick.
For me, the most interesting part, was discover that this pattern is as largely known as predictable. Morever, the causes are social, but the symptoms are physiological! This kind of knowledge is so amazing!

Professor Dave Lenders. Saint Mike's Profile:
http://www.smcvt.edu/Pages/Get-to-Know-Us/Faculty/
Landers-David.aspx?category=Faculty&Subcategory=
{0083BA67-DBCC-4F2A-B5DF-0B271C3CACA1}

In turn, the lecturer Dave Lenders, professor of psychology and gender issues, talked with us about gender issues, as well as sexual diversity. North Americans have a long history of civil rights, like racial, women and gay rights. Because of this history, most of the North mericans are really ok accepting sexual diversity. For some countries where homossexuality is not a good thing, or is even prohibited, accept this issues can be very hard. I need to take a position here and say that do not accept the difference just cause angry and violence.



Anyway, change your routine and dive in a new culture is somehow hard for everybody - more or less for each one. However, all of us that accept this adventure can learn a lot with the difference and discover many things about ourselves.

An efficiAnt post!

I was thinking about my second post, and I just discovered that I am missing to talk about my job! So, since this blog is a tool for us to get to know each other, I decided to write about my work and achieve two goals with one unique post! That's why I am efficient!

As I told in the last post, I was working as a trainee researcher at the Insect Ecology Lab (UFMG). Our lab has a lot of graduate and undergraduate students, and is Led by Professor Frederico Neves. We have people working with butterflies, bettles, trees' herbivores, termites and, finally, ants - the group that I belong. And we have more than the ants' beautiful to choose work with them.

Sometimes ants can carry seeds, and help them to germinate!
(from: http://www.alexanderwild.com/keyword/ant%20carrying%20seed/
1708508918_5m4FBpJ#!i=1752449576&k=Cz2G3tq&lb=1&s=A

A really interesting thing is that they are widespread, that means they are in the whole world! It makes our job easier when we compared the work of a scientist that want to study the galapagos' caterpillars - who obviously are found just in Galapagos, just when the butterflies reproduce. If we are talking about a widespread group of animals, we need to expect a diverse group too, whereas they need to handle with all kinds of environmentals. Diversity can be a problem for the identification of the species, but we are really lucky! We have a lot of ways to identify ants! Moreover, the species number is proportional to their roles. For example, they can (re)cycling the organic matter, defending some plants from their enemies, dispersing seeds and aerating the soil. And c'mon! They are so cute! But there is one more important thing to tell here: they can be bioindicators! And this is exactly what I was doing in my group!

Yeah! They can carry thousands of leaves!
(from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Atta_(genus))

Don't be fool! Ladybugs are vouracious aphids predators! 

And ants help the aphids avoinding these horrible enemies!

 (from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14043356) 

One amazing approach of using ants as bioindicators, is use them to indicate climate changes. Since they are everywhere, and they are adapted for their habitats, they have a pattern of occurance! So, think about it: if we know that the species A, B and C lives in regions with 20ºC, and the species D, E and F in regions with 35ºC, we can say that if the first region get warm, species D, E and F will move to there! It isn't that easy, but it's just a general idea. That is what we are doing in Brazil. We are trying to understand how the ants respond to the climates variations. For do this, we use a moutain! A mountain is a environment that naturally changes its variations - you just need to climb and then the climate changes.

A image of our area of work: the amazing Serra do Cipó!

A part of the group!! The efficiAnts!

I hope you enjoyed the post! Cause I liked to wrote all of this!! Now, I am very eager to know the Vermont's ants! Let's catch them!

Finally, everything have started. There was a lot of expectation, and anxiety, and cry and fear, but now here I am! In my Intensive English Program!
However, before talking about my new life here, I am going to introduce myself talking about a little bit of my life in Bazil.
I lived in the Minas Gerais state, in the city of Belo Horizonte, that is the capital. It is not a really big city, but also is not that small. I was studying in the same city, in the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), a public university of my country. Actually, I was in my last year of a biology undegraduate program. Although I could just finish my undergraduate sutdies in december, I couldn`t loose the opportunity of studying abroad!
Moreover, I was working in Laboratory of Insect Ecology at UFMG as a training reasercher. I intended apply for a Master`s degree next year, but plans changeded, if you know what I mean.
And now, I am in Colchester, Vermont! Studying at Saint Michael`s College! The adventure starts now, and this blog will be the journal this experience!
Hope we can share experiences and learn together!
See you!

And bellow, just few images from Belo Horizonte! Hope you enjoy!



A general sight of BH (from: http://brasilimperdivel.tur.br/brasil-imperdivel/belo-horizonte/bh-noite-vista/).

 
 


A big avenue from BH (from: http://www.turismonaweb.com.br/pontos-turisticos/B/belo-horizonte.htm).