Adventures of Living Abroad

I know I'm in my 8th year of teaching but I was still feeling nervous about the parent teacher conferences. I think it was mostly because I am new and the format of the conferences are different. They have 3-way conferences in which the students attend the conferences and share pieces of their work with their parents. It's nice because it takes the pressure off of me, because the students talk and share what they are doing well and what they can improve upon. The language barrier was a little difficult at times because although my assistant and even the students themselves helped to translate, it felt more distant since I wasn't communicating directly with the parents. Conferences went very well today! We had conferences from 1-6pm today and then from 8am-12pm tomorrow. Yes, on a Saturday...yuck! The kids did a great job sharing their 4 pieces of work the chose yesterday and the parents were very pleased with how things were going so far! One of the conferences brought ...

So although I'm really tired, I feel I need to blog about this small moment before it passes me by. It happened in samba class tonight. I was busy practicing my samba steps, listening to the instructor speak in Portuguese and watch her steps to figure out what to do...then suddenly a small table was brought into the room with many delicious treats...candles were lit....it was time to celebrate a birthday! (These Brazilians love to celebrate birthdays!) So we stopped dancing, turned the music on and sang happy birthday to her. We all clapped and cheered as she blew out the candles. Then the music changed and one of the dance instructors led her to the middle of the room. We all made a circle around them and they began to samba....each guy in the room then took a turn dancing with her....I looked around the room thinking...wow...that's right...I LIVE in BRAZIL! I couldn't stop smiling and thinking I love this place and all these friendly people. :) I wanted to be a complete g...

So each new teacher at my school was given an adoptive family to make you feel more at home here in Brazil. They are families of students at the school. My adoptive family actually lived in Philadelphia for a year while studying dentistry from 2003-2004! It is amazing to have that connection with them! They truly understand me when I say I miss a Philly cheesesteak and I love how they compare parts of Porto Alegre to Philly, like the Reading Terminal Market and Penns Landing. Today they took me out on their boat onto the Guaíba Lake. The weather was perfect for boating...a hot spring day! It took us about 15 to drive from my apartment to the area of the shore where the boat is stored. They pay to keep their boat in a storage area where people clean the boat and cover it for winter. They even have people use a tractor to pull the boat from the stall and puts it into the river for you. So convenient! After cruising down the river for awhile, we stopped for lunch and as a typical Braz...

Since I arrived here, I've been trying to figure out where to go to exercise. I'm not much of a gym person so I was looking for a pilates place. There are tons of pilates places around but I was just never motivated to go and inquire. Two weeks ago I had decided enough is enough and that walking around the city and working out a little in my apartment was just not cutting it. So I decided to find a dance studio where I could learn to samba which is the popular style of dance here in Brazil. A co-worker helped me find a studio near my apartment and off I went! Luckily one of the instructors spoke some English so she could help me get started, but when I entered the class it was almost all Portuguese. Last week I took the beginner class, but this week I tried the intermediate class because the beginner class was really really slow. I loved it! I was learning how to samba while everyone was speaking Portuguese around me! They tried to translate some things, but I told th...

So I decided it was finally time to act like a Brazilian and get my legs waxed. The first time I got this done back in August, a few weeks after arriving here, my friend informed me that "it wasn't bad" Ha...liar...that f***ing hurt! So this time around I tried to play it smart. I took motrin about an hour began going. They do not use strips but rather this gooey brownish hot stuff that they lather on your legs, wait a few seconds for it to harden and then pull it off. This was all very interesting to me as I have never had anything waxed prior to moving to Brazil. I got my legs and bikini area waxed and I'm not sure that motrin did anything to dull the pain. But after a few tears and about $20 later, the hair was gone and I felt like a new woman! This beats shaving hands down! :)

Soooo I am finally getting motivated to blog again. Things have been quite busy the past few weeks and any down time I had, I felt tired and unmotivated to write. I finally have a relaxing night to myself so here goes... I'm learning that everything in Brazil truly takes much longer and is more complicated than life back home. Paying your cell phone bill is simple and easy, right? Wrong! It took me about two weeks to finally figure it out...the language barrier was definitely NOT helping things. More than a month after we arrived in Brazil I finally got my cell phone activated with a plan from a company down here. About 3 weeks after that I started thinking...hmmm it's been almost a month, shouldn't I have to pay my bill soon? Being adventurous, I create an account online and attempted to translate the webpage myself...when that failed I used the fabulous translate button on google! I could see my bill and knew when it was due but I wasn't able to pay it online. I a...