A Normal Week of Skewl

Tuesday evening I entered my first class of International Business (in Portuguese) with jeans and a T-shirt on. The teacher started class on the hour, at 9:00 pm. Everyone else in the class was dressed very nice, business suits with expensive briefcases, notepads, and pens. About a year ago I have been noticing notepads and pens. My first meeting with PRI I came with a bright green notebook with a black Dragon sticker on it and I used a black bic pen to write on it. I felt too noticed then as I did in class on Tuesday.

Among the Brazilian executives I listened carefully to the teacher so I wouldn’t miss anything. Fortunately a lot of business ideas and words are in English so I didn’t miss out on too many foreign business words. The teacher assigned a group project for groups of 4. I had made friends with the guy at my right so we gathered up a group. Two other members of our group had jeans on as well. I am excited to have this class to get a good perspective on international business and further my Portuguese.

Wednesday evening I came to basketball practice on time. Nothing here starts on time. I give the reason for this phenomenon to the culture as well as the traffic. Honestly, it is hard to judge how a long a bus will take sometimes. So to save headaches they give you about a half an hour. Another school was on the other side of the court warming up with jerseys on. We eventually had about 11 players show up and dominated the other team. Julian, a German, and I are the only exchange students on the team.

Last week we went out to a Rodizio pizza place. It is exactly like Rodizio's but with really good pizza of all varieties instead. I ate about 12 slices of pizza including chocolate coconut pizza, ice cream pizza with banana slices, strawberry pizza, and the classic pizzas. I highly recommend this restaurant on Faria Lima for a good feast for about 20 reais with a drink.

This week we went to a Institute dance. I learned forro! It is a simple dance that is closest to bachata. Anieli, a gal from our first ward in Caixangi, was kind enough to show me the basic dance moves to the popular Brazilian dance. Young adults from four different stakes filled the dance floor and enjoyed the dance and food. The young adults here have been really nice so far and really like to spend time doing fun things. The energy and little sleep they get sometimes amazes me. They are very active people.