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quarta-feira, 31 de agosto de 2016

The city where only I am missing

Caro leitor,
Não sei muito bem sobre o que esrcever, mas sinto vontade de publicar algo. Não é que eu não tenha nada novo para contar, pelo contrário, muitas coisas aconteceram desde a última vez que escrevi aqui. A questão é que tenho pensado em muitas coisas. Muitas memórias, sonhos e objetivos, ansiedade, decepções, conquistas.. surgindo ao mesmo tempo e se mesclando.  


Daily post

During the last few weeks, a lot of important things happened. I could write about them, pointing out and describing how they can change things in my life. Indeed, it would be an easy way to keep the regularity of Rex Aurum's posts, but I do not want to do it. 

Right now, I am listening to some anime songs that made me remember the old days when I was just a teenager. At that time, I believe so much in the idea of a good world in which people could achieve their best just by exercising their kindness. Poor young Vitor that did not now how complex people are.

I miss the life routine and expectations of that time. You see, I believed that everything was possible, no matter how grandiose it was, as long as you fought for it and did your best. So naive. Now, I see so many fascinating people struggling despite their effort.  

I miss my friends. Some I miss as I miss my mug when going to have lunch: It is a shame that I do not have it with me, but anyway I will have lunch, probably with a muzzy plastic cup. By the other hand, I miss some friends so deeply that I can feel my chest tearing every time I think of them.

I should not be so nostalgic, especially because  I have a lot of important things happening in my life right now so that I will have bunch of new things to think of for months, maybe years.

Post Scriptum

Terminando essa postagem pensando que tenho uma memória muito ruim, porque sempre preciso checar alguma postagem antiga para relembrar a estrutura da postagem e a denominação dos subtítulos. A propósito, ontem eu dei um passo importante para realizar um dos meus maiores sonhos e espero que um dia ao reler esse texto eu pense que esse foi um passo chave que viabilizou tudo. Outra coisa, recentemente esse exercício de escrever em inglês se provou muito valioso, vou continuar. Enfim, postando ao som de Re:Re:, interpretado por AmaLee, canção de abertura do anime 僕 だけ が いない 街 ('Erased' no ocidente). Uma música bonita (e triste) especialmente se você conhece o contexto do anime.
  

quarta-feira, 22 de junho de 2016

22nd Fest Comix

Caro leitor,
já inicio texto esclarecendo que a redução da taxa de postagem ocorreu em função do aumento de minhas obrigações acadêmicas nas últimas semanas. Na realidade, ainda estou em um período relativamente atribulado - inclusive nesse exato momento estou discutindo com um colega sobre metodologias estatísticas não paramétricas - mas consegui arrumar um tempinho e tomei fôlego pra escrever um pouco aqui.

Daily post

Well, in the last weeks I had exhausting days. I would not say my academic life is in the best moment right now. I am too worried about a lot of things concerning my Ph.D., project funds and the future research scenario in Brazil. But I do not want to talk about these boring things today.

In the last weekend, I went to the 22nd Fest Comix, which is an event mainly focused on the sale of comic books. In my city, São Paulo, there is a big store called Comix Book Shop that organizes this event every year. The idea is to gather all the stuff and promote a grand sale with good discounts. However, the event started to have a lot of attention with the rising of geek/nerd fad. Now besides comic sales, it is possible to see cosplayers, action figures exhibition, independent artists alley, speech with professionals, and a sort of other related things. Maybe we can say it is a mini Comic-Con.


Every year I go to Fest Comix and in 2016 is was not different. This time, I could buy some pretty nice comics, as the Brazilian manga Holy Avenger and the Marvel's Miracleman. But I wanna say some words about two indie comics I bought there:

Angela della Morte - volume 1

Created by an Argentine artist called Salvador. It is about a futuristic society that discovered a way to manipulate soul to free it from the material body and cheat death. The story made us think about what is the meaning of life and how people can be consumed by the idea of supreme power and immortality. The art is pretty beautiful and detailed capturing the essence of the story. Unfortunately only the first volume was printed in Brazil.

Entre umas e outrasDrinking at the Movies (or "Entre umas e outras" in Brazil)

This comic is the autobiography of Julia Wertz, an indie artist that moved from California to New York trying to get success. The comic tells exactly this story showing how hard the transition to the 'adult' life can be. One could expect to see Julia overcoming each challenge and being successful, but that's not what it is about. Julia is a human being with a lot of faults, and inclined to make bad decisions! It is funny to go along with her, but depressing at the same time.

Post Scriptum

Bom, por hoje é isso. Espero conseguir publicar a próxima postagem mais rapidamente. Postando ao som de Brambles Symphony (uma bela homenagem à trilha de Donkey Kong Country!) e pensando até terça que vem ainda preciso terminar de preparar uma aula, terminar um trabalho, revisar a matéria de estatística e ainda terminar de corrigir um manuscrito que pretendo publicar como artigo científico um dia..

segunda-feira, 16 de maio de 2016

What about The Inheritance Cycle?

Voltando a postar depois de algumas semanas conturbadas por conta do fechamento de duas disciplinas do doutorado. Com uma sequência intensa de entregas de trabalhos, relatórios e provas, acabei não conseguindo reservar muito tempo para escrever algo aqui. Mas fechei as duas disciplinas (ao que tudo indica com bons conceitos) e enfim conseguirei postar algo novamente. 

Um fato sobre minha rotina diária que interessa à postagem de hoje: para chegar até cidade universitária, onde tenho a maioria das minhas aulas, praticamente preciso atravessar a cidade. Isso significa que eu passo uma parte considerável do meu dia no interior de um metrô/trêm. Quando possível, tento aproveitar esse tempo para ler. E nas idas e vindas das últimas semanas, enfim terminei de ler uma série de livros que eu vim lendo há pelo menos 2 anos: O Ciclo da Herança (os livros do Eragon), e é sobre essa série que decidi escrever hoje.

Affonso Solano: The Charcoal Swordsman

To talk about The Inheritance Cycle, firstly, I would like to talk about another series of books written by a Brazillian, Afonso Solano, called: O Espadachim de Carvão (free translation: The Charcoal Swordsman).  

Affonso Solano
Affonso Solano is an illustrator, comic books artist, podcaster, games collum writer and more recently book writer. In fact, The Charcoal Swordsman (TCS) is his first book, published in 2013. Solano is a very known web celebrity in the field of' "nerd/geek culture". His books are clearly influenced by this.
Well, in the TCS Solano created an entire fantasy world, including its own genesis chapter (similar to the first chapter of The Silmarillion). It is easy to realize that this universe is very inspired by other classic fantasy publications, but the combination of all elements already seen in other sources creates a kind of original material. In Kurgala, you will know various races (some very intriguing), places and characters.

The most important thing I wanna say is that by looking at all this universe Solano created, you might think he tried to write a grand story, to be side by side with other classics. But no, that is the interesting thing here. Apparently, Solano tried not to be so ambitious in his first attempt in the literary market, once he would probably fail because of his inexperience writing books. That said, TCS has a simple story, but a very well constructed one, with good rhythm, nice characters and interesting situations. Until now, there are two books in this series with light and good stories. Maybe, with Solano's maturing, we can see his stories getting more complex and gorgeous in following books.

The Charcoal Swordsman
The Charcoal Swordsman

Christopher Paolini: The Inheritance Cycle

And what about The Inheritance Cycle (TIC)? Well, it is completely the opposite of  TCS. I don't know very well the history of Christopher Paolini (the author of TIC). All I know is that he started writing the first book of TIC very young (15 years old). This fact seems to be determinating to the outcome of the series.

Well, I won't brief the story of the book. You can read it here, so let's stick right to the point.

Christopher Paolini
The TIC universe is very based in other fantasy classics, mainly Tolkien's material . Differently than Affonso Solano, here we almost can not see originality. The elements are virtually the same as already seen in other franchises. Elves are a superior wise race, a bit arrogant, and then reclusive. Dwarfs are rough, practical and strength people. Humans are weak, less wise, but capable of accomplishing great things together. Well, basically The Lord of The rings stuff. Dragons are a little bit interesting, but nothing really original. To be fair, the magic thing related to an ancient language that has the pure meaning/descriptions of the words is interesting and well applied in the story.

So, this is the biggest problem of this series. Paolini tried to build a grand world based on the nerd culture that he growth with, but he could not achieve to create something of his own. So, everything that follows seems to be the duplication of other stories. 

The second problem is the Paolini's ambition regarding the story. Do you know when you like a book or a movie very much and start to think how spectacular would be if you could add some elements to the story? You get so excited that start creating a whole story that is intriguing, complex and wonderful. But when you tell your friends about your ideas nobody seems to share the same exciting. Well, that is what happens with TIC.

Paulini, probably, started his story just as a teenager fascinated about Tolkien or George Lucas franchises and thought he could create something in the same patamar. I can not see his ambitious purely as something bad, but Paulini apparently was not prepared for such a big task at that time. Thats why the modest story of Solano offers more fun hours than Paulini's. 
All four books of The Inheritance Cycle
The last point: the forth book of the Paulini's series in hard to read. The characters and situations are not that bad, but the text tries so hard to make the story grandiose creating numerous situations to develop the characters that it totally breaks the rhythm and become boring and difficult to read. It is almost like the Tolkiens way of describing everything, but with far less meaning. 

Conclusion

So, if you are a newbie fantasy reader you may enjoy Paulini's world. If you have some baggage, brace yourself because it probably will be a long and not so rewarding journey.  In the last case, if you just want to enjoy some good hours reading fantasy, I recommend Solano's series, but don't expect to read the book of your life. If none of this interests you and you want a more complex, original and well-constructed story, the old fashion fantasy for mature readers, I  suggest The Witcher series.. but that's a story for another post!


Post Scriptum

Dessa vez optei por escrever sobre algo que li. Todas as vezes que eu ler/assistir/jogar/escutar algo tentarei escrever algo aqui. Postando ao som de Fairy Tale do Shaman e pensando que essa semana vai ser empolgante pois terei tempo para trabalhar no meu protótipo de célula a combustível! 

domingo, 17 de abril de 2016

Let's talk about science!

Hoje decidi fazer um texto mais elaborado sobre o papel do scientista na produção de conhecimento e os desafios que o modelo atual apresentam para a redação científica. 

Subjectivity of science VS Scientific writing

Scientific knowledge is built on an empirical basis. This arises from the objectivity of the data generated by scientific methodology, which fosters trust in this empirical basis. However, although objective, that data may not be completely self-explanatory, so that conclusions can only be achieved through interpretation of the scientist.

This reveals the importance of the scientist's role in the construction of knowledge. So there are two main points related to scientific writing: i) the quality and relevance of the conclusions, which leads to scientific advancement, is related to the subjective interpretation of a human being; ii) there is an immense responsibility of the scientific community forward the acceptance or rejection of the conclusions of a scientist.

Considering the first point, it is clear that the preparation of the scientist to interpret the data is critical. In this sense, the viewing and interpretation of the data from an experiment by a newbie researcher will possibly be more superficial when compared to the conclusions of a researcher who have years of experience in the specific area of study. However, this leads to an important question that is the biased view at the empirical basis, since the interpretations of the scientist are strongly linked to their previous experiences.

Examples of revolutions in the laws of science that originated from different interpretations of the same empirical basis already known previously are not rare. Therefore, the interdisciplinary scientific study is part of an interesting way to build knowledge from different points of view, often complementary.

Many of Scientific Revolutions cited above did not occur quickly after the formulation of the conclusions of the researchers in question. On the contrary, often the conclusions that pointed to a different direction than usual for researchers in the field have suffered strong resistance to being accepted, if not rejected. This leads to the second point stated above: the responsibility of the scientific community towards conclusions of a research.

The importance of this for the scientific writing is evident. When you write an article based on data produced by an experiment, one must pay attention to the innovation that will lead to knowledge building in the area, however, the argument deriving from the experimental results should be very precise and strongly based on the existing knowledge, so that innovative conclusions can be accepted by the scientific community and contribute to the development of science.

So the scientific writing is complex and challenging since the organization and originality of the results and discussion of the text produced by the scientist are valued, but at the same time, it required a strong argumentative power based on the knowledge produced in the area in question.


Post Scriptum

Eu gosto muito da carreira acadêmica. Sempre sinto muito orgulho quando coloco meu avental/jaleco e vou para bancada conduzir algum experimento. Me empolga, ler, escrever e discutir sobre esse mundo tão divertido e importante que é o da ciência. Possivelmente voltarei a escrever mais sobre isso por aqui.
Postando ao som de A Proper Story e sentindo que superei muitos desafios acadêmicos na última semana, mas que ainda preciso dar conta de muitos outros nos próximos dias.


terça-feira, 12 de abril de 2016

The Great Zhadonland

Quatro postagens em menos de um mês. Faz muito tempo (anos!) desde a última vez que o presente blog apresentou tal taxa de publicação. Claro que é bem mais simples escerver sobre o dia a dia em comparação com o desenvolvimento elaborado de um tema específico. Mas atualmente esse é o espírito, então vamos lá!

Daily post

First of all, I am tired. I am exhausted. I can't say exactly why, but my routine seems much more tiring than ever. And last week I started a new class (I will talk more about it bellow) on Friday morning at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science, thus, I have more activities now. Unfortunately, right now it is very difficult to develop the bench work at the laboratory. :/

But I also have a good thing to say. I received the grade of one test I did some weeks ago and it was pretty satisfactory! The new class that I started is also very cool: How to write scientific papers. In the first day, we discussed the responsibility of the scientist regarding the production of knowledge. I left the class very motivated. :)

In the last weekend, I went with my girlfriend to the Sesc Belenzinho (after skating). That place is oddly calm and relaxing, I like it very much. We had a yogurt ice cream covered with grape syrup and pieces of peach. Delicious and refreshing!  

Other good things

I am watching 黒子のバスケ (Kuroko no Basuke), that is an anime about basketball teams in the high school. It is very exciting! I want to play basketball back again! haha

A few days ago, I finished watching the first season of the anime Mobile Suit Gundam Iron-Blood Orphans. It is nice, but the Gundam Seed is yet my favorite one. 

I started to play Terraria again, that is a game in which you have to collect materials and are free to construct whatever you want to survive in a wild planet. I play it to relax when I am too stressed. My objective is to build The Great Zhadonland! See what I have already constructed:


Post Scriptum

Bom, é isso aí, preciso urgentemente ir descansar um pouco, pois amanhã será um dia bem atarefado. Postando ao som de Kouji Wada (que infelizmente faleceu na semana passada), pensando que amanhã preciso revisar minha aula de Psicologia da Educação / Políticas Ambientais, responder a questões sobre o papel do scientista na produção de conhecimento e preparar minha mini apresentação sobre minhas pretenções de paper para a disciplina de sexta. E animado, pensando que quinta feira vou encontrar amigos queridos. 

segunda-feira, 4 de abril de 2016

Nostalgia

Um texto curto para hoje.

Daily post

On Saturday, I went to Belém Park to skate. For years, I tried to implement any physical activity in my routine, seeking a healthy way of life. Most of the times I tried to play Basketball, but for many reasons it never worked for much time. Since September 2015, I have been inline skating. I really like it (as much as basketball). I feel free with my rollers. :) On Sunday I decided to clean the roller and in this morning I finished the maintenance (see the figure 1).
Figure 1 - roller about to be cleaned
Today morning I also cleaned a very old folder containing some drawings, school report cards, photos and poems I wrote a long time ago. Well, I decided to throw away things that I don't need to think about anymore. The folder is much lighter and organized now. I became happy when I saw some old photos (even some photos of Rex, Ruffos and Cristal!) and my drawings (an example in figure 2). I miss drawing, maybe I should start doing it again.

Figure 2 - A very old drawing

Post Scriptum

Nostalgicamente escrevendo ao som de Barenaked Ladies, esperando o horário de pico passar para voltar para casa, aliviado por ter dado tudo certo nas provas da semana passada, leve por sentir que as coisas vão melhorar e pensando em como montar uma aula de psicologia da educação relacionando com psicologia ambiental.

terça-feira, 29 de março de 2016

Brave hearts

Bom, para manter alguma regularidade nas publicações do blog, vou continuar postando sobre meu dia a dia (em inglês).

***

Daily post

In the last post, I wrote about how the week was going bad, with a lot of bad news. Well, so I am officially promoting March as the bad news month!

There are a couple of things that are making me feel sad in the last days. One of the main things is the fact that I am having a lot of trouble to publish an article based on part of my master thesis and probably I will have to quit this specific quest. At least, I have another set of data that is more consistent and thus has more chance of being published. This may seem something quite stupid, but in my career, spreading the results of your work on scientific periodic is the main goal and it is very frustrating to not achieve it. Seems like my work is incomplete.

Well, I must admit that all these bad things happening put me down. But, today, when I was waiting for the electrochemistry class to start I realized that I also have a lot of good things happening in my life. I achieved a lot of things and gave a bunch of steps closer to my dreams. Then, giving in now would be really stupid.

So, when I arrived at home I decided to rethink, reorganize and update my plans. I also worked on my whiteboard that was forgotten in my bedroom. You can see a quotation I wrote in it:

(Sorry for not showing all the board. I also updated some information regarding my Ph.D project that I would not like to spread yet)
The quotation "Life is never kind. Kind hearts don't make a new story. Kind hearts don't grab any glory" is from a silly song that I used to listen when I was a teenager (the song is at the end of the text). At that time, I used to think that "kind" meant only goodness, but now I see this phrase in a completely different way. Living is not an easy task and it requires from us a lot of energy to escape from the flux and make things to happen in the manner and direction we wish. A peaceful (or kind) heart may not have the ability to change its own life..

Well maybe nobody can change its own destiny, but, at least, brave hearts can try.

As promised, here is the song:

***

Post scriptum

Quinta-feira tenho duas provas. E, talvez, as vezes não seja bom ficar filosofando demais..

Até mais.

segunda-feira, 21 de março de 2016

Fatigue

Eu estava aqui pensando.. não queria abandonar o blog, mas atualmente tenho muita dificuldade de dedicar tempo para redigir qualquer coisa aqui. Eu tenho tantos artigos para ler (e escrever) e material de estudo para as disciplinas, que acaba ficando muito difícil separar tempo para cuidar do blog.

No entanto, tive uma ideia para que eu possa dedicar algum tempo ao blog e ao mesmo tempo tornar torná-lo útil para minhas tarefas do doutorado. Desde que comecei a primeira IC (vide post anterior), eu tenho o hábito de ler textos em inglês - normalmente artigos científicos técnicos - mas nesse tempo eu pratiquei muito pouco a redação nesse idioma. 

Assim, a ideia que eu tive foi a de escrever textos em inglês. Dessa forma eu mantenho o blog vivo e vou aprimorando minha escrita em inglês, o que certamente será útil na minha carreira acadêmica. Para tentar manter uma regularidade, decidi escrever coisas simples, sobre meu dia a dia, como em um diário mesmo. Não espero que alguém vá ler (e acho que nem desejo ter muitos leitores hehe), mas acho que será divertido.

***

Daily blog

So, let's try it out! Well, the last week was a particularly hard one. I had a bunch of bad news that put me down. Regarding the research life, I had a manuscript rejected even after working hard on it. I also started the week very insecure about my knowledge of electrochemistry, but, at least, I got some self-confidence about this subject after the class on Thursday. I never loved the chemistry, but I think now I am understanding a lot of things that in the past  used to make me feel confused.

Another problem was that I started the week considerably tired and just accumulated more fatigue until Friday. I have a lot of things to do regarding my prototype construction, so I decided to stay in the university until night late on Wednesday and Friday (until 11 p.m.). On Saturday, I was really tired. 

Although the fatigue, I went to inline skate on Saturday morning. That was cool. I always feel better after skating! I also watched the 2nd season of Daredevil series on Netflix. I like the way they expose the characters and the situations. I think it is the best superhero series nowadays.

One last thing: After many years I am excited to study Japanese again. I decided to study it since the beginning, and I expect to finally memorize the katakana (hiragana still fine)!  

ポケモンを読みたい!xD


Post Scriptum

Posting while thinking about the classes of tomorrow and that I need to sleep. Listening to:

terça-feira, 8 de março de 2016

Eu quero ser cientista!

Aos 10 anos eu dizia que queria ser cientista, pois o caminho do conhecimento sempre me pareceu o mais fascinante. Hoje, aos 26 anos, mestre em ciências e lutando por um título de doutor, continuo achando fascinante, mas agora sei o quão assustadora a carreira acadêmica pode ser.

Como tudo começou..

Quando comecei o curso de Bacharelado em Gestão Ambiental pela USP, em 2007, eu não sabia bem o que esperar dessa carreira, tudo o que eu queria era me direcionar de alguma forma para a pesquisa. Vendo que a Iniciação Científica* (IC) poderia ser minha grande oportunidade de me iniciar na carreira acadêmica, ao final do meu primeiro ano de graduação me inscrevi em um programa de IC da USP. No início de 2008, fui selecionado pelo programa para receber uma bolsa (na época, R$ 300, atualmente R$ 400) e em contrapartida desenvolver um projeto.

O fato de, com a IC, eu estar aprendendo cada dia mais, em contato com a carreira que eu queria tanto seguir, fez com que eu me apaixonasse e alcançasse bons resultados. Assim, meu orientador me convidou a renovar a bolsa por mais um ano. No final do segundo ano, submeti, junto ao meu orientador, um projeto à FAPESP, solicitando uma bolsa de IC. A bolsa de IC foi aprovada (R$ 430,00) e ainda recebemos cerca de R$ 10.000,00 reais da USP para montar o experimentos com reatores biológicos! Isso foi no meu último ano de graduação.

*Para os que não sabem, iniciação científica (ou IC para os íntimos) é uma modalidade de pesquisa no qual um aluno de graduação desenvolve um projeto sendo orientado por um professor. Para fins práticos, pode-se entender como uma monografia fortemente ancorada nos métodos científicos.


E a coisa fica séria...

Após colar grau, durante um ano, participei de projetos de pesquisa no grupo de pesquisa que eu fazia parte. Ao final desse ano, me inscrevi no processo seletivo e em 2012 iniciei o mestrado na área de saúde ambiental, ainda no tema de tratamento biológico de águas residuárias inserido em um projeto de uma rede com mais de 10 universidades brasileiras.

Bom, foi a partir desse ponto que eu realmente comecei a ver tudo o que a ciência poderia oferecer e, ao mesmo tempo, o preço que ela cobra.

Muitas, muitas, muitas (muitas mesmo!) horas preocupado com o projeto, estudando para as disciplinas, lendo artigos científicos, trabalhando no laboratório. Em geral, finais de semana eram dedicados a leituras, exceto quando era necessário algum ensaio no laboratório. Descanso e lazer: segundo plano sempre. A pressão para que tudo saísse bem era intensa. O tempo curtíssimo. Os imprevistos constantes. Isso tudo elevava o nível de estresse a patamares jamais vistos antes. 

Mas nem tudo era horrível. Por meio de congressos, cursos, treinamentos e reuniões científicas, pude conhecer (só puxando pela memória): Belo Horizonte, Vitória/Vila Velha, Florianópolis, Curitiba, Guadalajara. Além de passar uma temporada de dois meses no México. Sendo que todas me renderam experiências pessoais e profissionais extremamente valiosas.

No final deu tudo certo: defendi minha dissertação, senti muito orgulho do meu trabalho e fui convidado a realizar o doutorado.

Os próximos passos...

Hoje, no doutorado na área de sustentabilidade, sinto que tenho muito mais maturidade para lidar com as dificuldades que tive ao longo do mestrado. Agora os níveis de cobrança (principalmente autocobrança) são muito maiores e as responsabilidades e pressão por inovação e divulgação científica através de publicação de artigos científicos são sempre presentes.

Sigo batalhando para me tornar um cientista. No último semestre passei com conceito máximo em uma disciplina de engenharia bioquímica, algo que eu jamais pensaria ser possível quando estava na graduação. Acho que se "meu eu de 10 anos" me visse hoje, sentiria orgulho e empolgação. Eu só evitaria contar certas coisas, pra não desencorajar. ;)

Há muitas outras coisas que eu poderia falar sobre minhas experiências acadêmicas, mas vou deixar para uma outra oportunidade. Enfim, esse foi um breve relato sobre minha trajetória acadêmica até o momento. Daqui uns 3 anos eu espero atualizar essa postagem dizendo como foi obter o título de doutorado, mas, por enquanto, o jeito é estudar, e muito!

*** 

Post script

Há alguns dias me dei conta de que eu não publiquei nada no blog durante todo o ano passado. :/ Então decidi postar algo pra evitar ocorrer o mesmo esse ano. Seguindo a lógica da postagem anterior, meu blog é um pedaço de mim muito importante, que me acompanha há mais de 10 anos. Vou tentar cuidar melhor dele.

Postando ao som de um monte de canções no Spotify, descansando um pouco após um dia cheio, com aulas de bioestatística pela manhã e eletroquímica/termodinâmica pela tarde.