Learning Portuguese is proving a lot more difficult than expected....but now I can officially sing two (and a half) songs in Portuguese wooo. Yes one of them is Happy Birthday, and the half is just ooooohhhhhhhhhhhh casa. But the other one is an actual song. Ok well it is by Xuxa (pronounced Shoesha which makes me laugh) who is called "The Queen of the Children" and it is a song about the alphabet...but I am still impressed with my hard core learning skills haha.
My lack of language is meaning it is difficult to teach in the classroom, but I am forming excellent mime skills and have pretty much made up my own version of portuguese when I dont know a word. The most difficult thing I have had to deal with so far cropped up this week...the time. WOW it is tricky to explain. You would think easy peasy....but not so much. Especially as I think a few of my kids struggle to tell the time even in Portuguese but am trying to get through to them, and a few of the brighter students have already got the “quarter past” thing totally down. Also teaching about music so lots of singing and dancing in the classroom this week which made the lessons a bit more fun, especially after a long half hour explaining possessives. This teaching lark is more difficult than it looks! But a lot of fun too and very rewarding.
Taught Shakespeare classes at New York School as well, which I think I enjoyed more than the students but I hope they learnt something from! Loving my private and graduate classes there as well, a great platform for discussing issues and learning a lot about other people and another culture. Also it was Friends Week at New York School which meant I was introduced to hundreds more students and their friends and made to speak Portuguese to them which was highly embarrassing!!! Looks like more people now know about my blog as well, the secretary of the public school I work at stopped me today and said she loves it…aggghhhhh the hassles of being a celebrity! Haha.
Talking of which, was treated like one all of last weekend when we went out! Thursday night we were queuing like the regular punters when I heard a “Charlotte…over here” and entered through the VIP door! Denise (my boss) had sorted something out with a friend of a friend of a friend etc and got us free entry to a bar with lots of pool tables and amazing life music. Had a fantastic night! (Though I REALLY need to work on my pool skills…when playing with the manager I think I somewhat embarrassed myself haha). Oh also it is interesting how much girls dress up here…This place was a chilled out pub-like venue and yet everyone wears heels and dresses. No-one in England makes that much effort everyday! And I certainly was rocking my grungy, chilled out, jeans and t-shirt look all weekend and stood out like a sore thumb!!!!!!!!
Friday was Murray’s (and Graham’s) birthday so I thought I should party if only out of respect to them ;). Also managed to get a good skype in with Murray which made me even happier if that is at all possible! Anyways I met some really cool people on Friday and Saturday at a house party and then a trip to “Mr John” the newest bar in town. It plays traditional Brazilian music, and like every club here the music is 100% live all the time. Danced and laughed the night away, managing to communicate in Portuguese when asking for a glass of tap water even though the waiter glared at me like I was insane (apparently tap water is just not the done thing here!). Was out until about 5.30am….and after getting some food on the way back fell into bed totally exhausted.
But not for long because Sunday was mothers day (big shout out to Mumma Barker back in the UK) so I skyped Mum 4 hours after I had gone to bed! Agghh. But was so nice to see home and hear everything that was going on so I enjoyed it. The rest of Sunday was pretty much sleeping and recovering from the jam packed weekend!
So far this week has been awesome also with some great classes (as described at the top!) and lots of fun with my new friends. Last Monday there was a proper full-on Brazil storm and Monica, Carlos and I danced and ran about in the rain like crazy things that was so much fun! Hung out with Ale on Monday night and we cooked dinner…which her family hated but we loved! Haha. Also been baking a lot of cakes with Gabi…including one which was green!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got so excited by this haha.
Also today is mine and Murray's one year anniversary....so I love you Murray and I have never been happier. Can't wait to be back in your arms where I belong :)
Got another great weekend planned and totally in love with everything in Brazil. Email me x
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