Article #4 Final
December 3, 2020
A Foreign Friend
On the island of Câmara De Lobos, Madeira, a tall, skinny weeaboo, or weeb for short, grew up. Weeb is a common term used by the youth of today meaning a person with an obsession for Japanese culture, mostly anime. The weeb in question is Filipe Henriques; a 21-year-old Portuguese university student, who spends the majority of his free time watching anime. Even though he is considered a weeb, he says, “I’m not exactly obsessed, but it’s for sure not a healthy relationship.”
Henriques spends his free time watching anime because he doesn’t get much free time to do anything else. During the week he spends all day in class from 8 am to 6 pm at the University of Porto in the faculty of sciences department. Homework can consume him because he is working towards his masters in appliances of bio technology and synthetic biology. He already has his bachelors in bio chemistry, which took four years; now he has another few more years to go.
“Bio technology is the future. I also don’t know exactly what I want to do with my life. So, I am here, trying to still have a future but trying not to be too specific in something.” Henriques says as he details why he chose this field of study. It is a difficult study and brings about a lot of work and research, but as he says, “[It’s] something I still have quite a lot of interest in.” It doesn’t bore him; therefore, his interest pushes him to continue.
This field of study could lead him to produce vaccines for diseases of the world. He said that his colleagues and him had already discussed the vaccine that is being created for COVID-19. Although, he hasn’t made it that far in his studies and for now he will work on creating vitamin supplements.
For somebody to pursue this field of study, they have to relatively be smart because they would be considered a scientist. As Henriques’ boyfriend, Pedro Pereira says, “He’s more clever than he gives himself credit.” Pereira also describes Henriques as “smart and funny” hinting at that Henriques knows what he is doing, even though he can stress out and procrastinate a lot.
As much as Henriques loves his studies and anime, he also enjoys spending time with his boyfriend or just talking to him. COVID-19 makes it harder for each other to see one another. Pereira mentioned that he lives roughly 62 miles away from Henriques university and with COVID-19, they have travel bans. People are only allowed to travel so far before police stop them. It is hard for the two to get together, but who knows, maybe one day Filipe Henriques will get to say that he had part in the COVID-19 vaccine, so he could go visit his boyfriend.