September 6th 2012
School has been passing by with a fairly recurring theme.
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| Portuguese Teacher - Maurico |
Tuesdays - Wake up at 6:50, shower, dress, walk to school, teach students, meet more people, coach girls basketball, walk home, do some work, and go to bed about 1am or so.
Wednesdays - Wake up at 6:50, shower, dress, walk to school, teach students, meet more people, attend Portuguese Class, walk home, do some work, and go to bed about 1am or so.
Fridays - Wake up at 6:50, shower, dress, walk to school, teach students, meet more people,stay at work for some reason, walk to Libanhaus, walk home, read, and go to bed about 1am or so sometimes later since it's Friday.
Saturday - Wake up at 8, shower, dress, coach basketball, go to Aguas Claras with Vanessa or go to Taguatinga with Clayton and his family (friends via friends), get dropped off at home, read or go out at night, head to bed at 2 or so.
Sunday - try to find a place to go to church (I've gone a few times with Danielle - another newbie this year, or with Vanessa) so far it's been in Portuguese each time. I'll keep trying. I might spend the day with Vanessa or the Santos'. Then is it super hard to get to bed anytime before midnight as I have stayed up later each night before.
Repeat and refresh....
Back to what's going on. Thursday September 6th, EAB celebrated Brasil's Independence from Portugal (which is Sept 7th). The school day was a regular day for the Upper School (6th - 12th) until the last hour. We escorted the entire school to the auditorium and watched our students present on Brasil and how and why they gained their independence. Much of the ceremony was in Portuguese, so I was only able to glean a few parts but it was a very cool ceremony and all the grades were involved.
Students were dismissed from the auditorium and the campus was soon deserted as we did not attend school the next day. Many teachers were leaving right from school to begin their three day weekend.
I went to basketball practice until 6:30, after practice I worked a little in my classroom and then about 7:30 or so headed to the American Embassy for their Brasilian Independence Day Party.
Since I was at basketball practice, I assumed some teachers had gone over earlier. I asked our security staff to call a cab for me. When the taxi arrived, I let the driver know I wanted to go to the embaixada dos Estados Unidos. Thankfully, he knew where it was and I did not need to attempt the address in Portuguese.
Once I found the party inside the embassy campus, I couldn't find another teacher from EAB. Ok, time to make some new friends. I wandered around and said hi to random people and everyone was very nice.
Eventually I made it over to the bar area - I had been avoiding it as many had warned students could be around and I didn't want to be drinking in front of them.
When I got to the bar, I found some people that I knew. Last week, I had gone to an Internations event and met some other international people living in Brasilia. It was cool to connect.
Tamam had been at the Internations event. His son actually attends 1st grade at my school. We spoke for a little while and he introduced me to his colleagues.
I finally decided it would be ok if I ordered a beer. I began imbibing from the refreshingly cold Stella Artois and heard, "Ms. Burns?" I mean come on really. Didn't I just know this was exactly what was going to happen. One of my 8th grade students said hello and we began talking about the cool events at the party and he introduced me to his parents. I had to switch beer hands to shake hands and began explaining how long I had been living in Brasilia. They extracted themselves from the conversation after also admitting to only being in the country a few months.
I returned to the adult group and they laughed as I had only just moments ago explained my nervousness of having a student see me drinking.
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| Sue, Katie, and Jessica at August Internations Event |
The DJ was playing mainly Brasilian music but everyonce in awhile would play an English song. We were dancing for awhile and "Sexy and I know it" by LMFAO came on. While I was dancing to this fairly cool song, I was tapped on the shoulder and there was yet another student. I said hi, we hugged, and then I left the dance floor. It just seemed wrong to be dancing to that song while 17 year old student was grinding on her boyfriend next to me - AWKWARD.
Jessica and I went to get more drinks and then found another place on the dance floor. We danced until after 11, but I really needed to get home. So we called a cab and then headed out. Since Jessica was going in the opposite direction it did not make sense to take the same cab. When the first one arrived, I hopped in. I told the driver my quadre and 2 guys also waiting overheard me. They let us know they were going there as well and asked if they could just share. I said sure. We headed out and began talking. They were both French and worked at the French Embassy. They had been in Brasilia for about 6 months and were enjoying it.
We made it to my bloco and they wouldn't let me pay. Cool. Even though we live in the same quadre, I haven't seen them since.
I got upstairs, packed for my trip to Pirenopolis tomorrow and crashed.
Boa Noite!
