We are all Newbies several times over in life. Think about the first time you:

• tried ice skating
• had a child
• assembled an IKEA furniture
• had driving lessons

🤷 It is no different when you move to another country. Once you are a newcomer in a foreign land you will probably experience multiple new beginnings while getting familiar with the language, social codes, supporting networks, and so on.

🍀 Luckily, if you are coming to Scandinavia, there is The Newbie Guide to Sweden, a digital platform that aims to inform and empower people who are going through new life experiences…

Eutony is a self-development method created in Germany by Danish-born Gerda Alexander in the 1980s. It is a technique that helps people to achieve physical and mental balance by regulating their muscle tone.

Some years ago, when I was a Journalism student, I documented some eutony classes offered by Uai Q Dança (Uberlândia, Brazil).

At that time, I had a simple camera and little practice with it. …

How local narratives can help us to reach the promise of cosmopolitanism

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) “includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons” (WHO, 2017). In the communities where it is practiced, FGM is often considered a necessary part of raising a girl, and a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage. …

Today I got this earache. This is the kind of thing that happens when you are a complete amateur living in a cold country. I showered and went to the street right away. Wet hair, wet face. Earache.

We sat on the bank of a metro station and I lay my head on his shoulder. He came softly in the direction of my cheek. I thought I would get a kiss — but I gained more. He brought his mouth to my ear and began to gently blow something like a warm air in it.

There we remained silent, close…

I’ve always been too hard on myself. Maybe because I’ve been dancing classical ballet since I was born. Everything had to be perfect, everything in the right place, at the right time. So I would work hard to be a beautiful ballerina, a successful student, an awesome friend, and so on. Of course, as time went by this kind of attitude proved not to be healthy at all.

I had the need to prove myself at every moment so, in my mind, anything I did was ever enough, I was never enough. But then I began to understand the value…

Dialogue as resistance

You have probably noticed that Brazil is not in the international news only for the Olympics. Last week, President Dilma Rousseff was removed from her post and now she faces the final path of a long-troubled process for her impeachment. Meanwhile, Michel Temer (Rousseff’s vice-president) is her replacement. The whole thing has been dividing opinions among Brazilian people for months and, naturally, social media has been on fire since then.

Besides the political debate itself, something caught my attention, and it is called hate speech/fascism. A few examples from Facebook interactions…

• I’ve read posts of friends who…

And find out what it can tell us about feminism

Let me ask you a question. We all know that the world we live in (still) expects certain things from people, such as professional success, financial stability, perfect marriages, beautiful Instagram profiles, and so on. We all talk about it, we all blog about it, we all feel sick about it, but the question is… Would you leave all of it behind?

Well, Brazilian artist Eduardo Marinho would - and he did. Just like the American Christopher McCandless, whose life inspired the movie Into the Wild, Eduardo left everything behind…