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Bossa Nova:
By definition, Bossa Nova is a music genre, and a style of Samba created in the 50’s. To me, it’s much more: it gives me the same feeling I get when I’m looking at a sunset or the stars. It’s a sort of melancholic ecstasy that makes me realize how small we really all are. Through its poetry, it captures the beauty of existence, which is not only found in the good moments but also in the bad ones.

Besides, the combination of piano and the saxophone in many Bossa Nova’s songs are outstanding, to say the least. Because they are either pure happiness or pure sadness, for me, this music genre represents a light in a world of pain and confusion and never fails in touching my soul.

In my opinion, the most romantic language for love songs is Portuguese, the way the singers caress the words as well as the combination with the pulsing harmonies makes all the difference from other languages to me.

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Joao Gilberto & Stan Getz - (1963 - Full Album)

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Mother:
My mother had me at the age of 2O years old. The exact age I am today. She is the strongest woman I’ve ever met and a real inspiration to me. She is a fighter and has never stopped fighting for me and my happiness. She is the only person that I know for sure that will never give up on me. She is a part of who I am, just because she has always been both a mother and father to me, while still being a friend. This year she graduated from a professional course she decided to take from home, while being a mother of 3 children (one of 2 years old, another of 10 years old and myself) and having her own job at the same time. I find her strength truly inspiring, and the bond I have with her is stronger than any other bond I have with any other person in my life.

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A reproduction of Niki de Saint Phalles' Nanas painted by my friends and I.

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Photography:
My aunt is a designer and a photographer. I’ve always looked up to her until I eventually developed a fondness for photography myself.

My most favorite type of photography nowadays is analogue photography. In my opinion everything is much prettier through the eye of a vintage camera.

Through this presentation you can see some of the photos that I took, which are my favourites.

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Quelita:
For this letter I chose the word Quelita, which is the diminutive for Raquel, my name. It is of great importance to me because it expresses the affection people felt for me when I was young.

I was the only child in the family for 3 years so I was everybody’s sweetheart as well as the center of attention. In that perspective I was a lucky one. Nowadays some of my family-members still call me that way, but of course, not as often as before. Quelita is a diminutive and I’m not small anymore. I’m one of the tallest people in my family, and I’m certainly not as adorable as before. Which is understandable. Nevertheless, I still carry a lot of affinity for this word, since it is a source of such nostalgic memories.

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Saudade, which is my favorite word.

(Piano by Lyvia Santerre, my roommate.)

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U is for umbilical…

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​​…the cord that tried to kill me before I was even born.

V is for vegetarian:

As I said previously when talking about the letter E that stands for Environment, I’ve recently become a vegetarian. Ever since I did so, I’ve become very fond of cooking tasty meals. Indeed it gives me a great feeling of satisfaction to know that I can eat perfectly complete meals without having to add meat to them. I stopped eating meat during the first quarantine, and since then, I’ve felt much healthier, and fallen sick way less often.

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W is for Water

While I was doing this work I poured water on my computer, so I am currently continuing it on my phone because my computer is not working anymore.

This is just a good example of how clumsy and “head in the clouds” I can be whenever I’m too concentrated in something.

update: After all, it took 3 weeks for my computer to get repaired. This event was not the best thing that could have happened to me during quarantine, but at least I have it back before the exams of January.

X is dedicated to all the people I once loved. (Aka my exes).

Y is for the pronunciation of the word “why”, which is a question I ask myself a lot.

Z is for the end of the alphabet.

​Everything is faced with the fatality that it will end at some point. I still struggle to accept it sometimes.