KIND KARENS

I can finally report that, if I do say so myself, I have made some seriously impressive improvements in my Portuguese.  I can casually have conversations now with everyone and can finally explain about my day and talk relatively comfortably and carry on conversations.  Daniel’s sister and I talk all the time about our day, and plans, and art, and family and anything.  (Of course I can understand her more than anyone else, I think because we think similarly so when she uses hand gestures somehow we know exactly what we are talking about.  She did the same gestures to her husband and he had no idea what she was saying haha.)  I only know present and simple past, and even the simple past I don’t really know the irregular verbs.  But considering I’m teaching myself this language, I’m feeling pretty good about where I’m at right now. 

My vocabulary is pretty damn good, for only six weeks studying that is.  I’ve memorized over 1000 words and really just need to focus on verb conjugations, prepositions (which are always a pain in the butt) and sentence formation.  With my vocabulary people can certainly understand me which is good, but they understand me with really awful grammar. 

So starting this Tuesday, Karen, my closest friend thus far, and I are going to exchange language classes twice a week.  We will do half an hour English class and half hour Portuguese. This way I can be sure to keep improving my Portuguese at a quick rate. 

Karen and I in her parents pool for her birthday

Karen is Daniel’s brother in law’s brother’s wife. She become my closest friend here and is a deeply kind person.  Weeks ago when I was having a hard time adjusting and broke down crying Karen came over and made me feel better, listening to me and even insisted on taking me out to dinner to a nice Arabic restaurant (which by the way is so common here they have ‘fast food’ Arabic food...random.)

The next night she had invited me to her house to watch a movie with her and her friend Danielle. Danielle's accent in English reminds me exactly of a Swiss exchange student, Sanja, we hosted at my mom’s house years ago.  I really liked Sanja, and there is something about Danielle that has a very similar vibe, her energy and smile.  It made me feel comfortable with her.

Danielle has never been on a plane, and she said she doesn’t think she would ever be able to live in another country, that she would ever have the guts.  But I told her I never thought I would either.  Growing up I never traveled, my family never went on a trip to Hawaii, or even to Los Angeles.  We didn’t have any money for it, and yet here I am.  You never know where life will take you, or better yet where you will take it.  If someone had told 16 year old me that in 6 years I would be living in Brazil speaking Portuguese and painting (which by the way my 16 year old self didn't know how to do) with my Brazilian boyfriend...I would have been in awe just with the possibility.

That night the three of us, Karen, Danielle and I bought four kinds of popcorn; regular, pizza, bacon, and chocolate flavored (I really like popcorn), and ate all of it watching HUGO; in English with Portuguese subtitles.  I realized that night, how, although things had been tough here I am really lucky that I come from an English speaking country. 

Churrasco!

If I were from Germany for example, or any non English speaking country, I wouldn’t even be able to HAVE a friend until I learned Portuguese, I wouldn’t be able to vent about my day to Karen, at least not at that point, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to watch a movie.  So putting it all into perspective, I was feeling a lot better about things.   

Since then Karen and I have hung out a lot, and last weekend she invited me to her parent’s house in Campinas to celebrate her birthday.  We spent the day eating churrasco (which is basically barbeque but with an unbelievable variety of meat and way better flavor) and swimming in their pool.  It’s really nice to finally have a good friend here. 

Aside from my new friendship and Portuguese improvements, work has also been going really great.  I like my job here even more the two my jobs I had in California, and I really liked those.  I’ve been teaching and tutoring for different schools and companies over the last five years, and I consistently like teaching more the older my students are, regardless of the subject matter.  Until now the oldest I had taught was when tutoring a 16 year old girl in AP Art History.  Here I get to teach adults, in their 30’s and 40’s, which is even more exciting and fulfilling. 

It isn’t just the age of students I love, it’s the method of teaching. At the other school that hired me, the method was very strict and you had to follow a specific set of rules, only repeating one conversation over and over, a conversation that would be written out for me.  It would have been so boring for me, but with the Callan method I’m allowed so much freedom. 

Basically I am given 5-7 vocabulary words per lesson, and sometimes one or two grammar rules and my job is to explain what the words mean.  But the fun part is that there is no translation allowed.  So I need to explain in English what each word means, using descriptions, synonyms, hand gestures, examples, and drawing. 

I’ve always loved games like Taboo (which I’m excellent at by the way) and Outburst and Cranium and Charades, and that’s basically what I do for teaching.  We laugh and joke a lot in class about my drawings or the examples I come up with.  And then after they understand the vocabulary words, we get to talk about whatever we want, as long as we somehow include the vocabulary in the lesson and I correct their grammar and pronunciation.  So I am getting paid to talk (which I love) and play (which I love).  And the best part is that I can really see the improvement in their English and how much fun they are having in my class.  

Kind of unrelated, but a grocery store opened
up last week and it was quite the event, there
was free cotton candy, popcorn, people on
stilts and the place was so crowded at one
point Daniel was even throwing food over
the aisle into our cart.

I really feel so lucky to have met my boss, whose name, confusingly, is also Karen.  The universe really helped me out this time putting her in my life.  Without her I would be lost here. She has opened all doors for me.  She has given me a room at the school to use as my studio, which I have already started painting in which is great! It has a sink and it’s own entrance and gave me the key.  It’s really my own space and I love it.  She also has taken me out comparing prices and helping me get the right art supplies.  Which is something that doing by myself, without a car, getting directions and attempting to explain materials and sizes in Portuguese would have been very exhausting for me to do alone.  She has done everything here to make things easier for me and I am really grateful for it. 

Speaking of opening doors, I start my art class this Tuesday.  Which I am so nervous excited about.  I really never had the intension of being an entrepreneur, but somehow my life seems to be going in that direction. I have either 7 or 8 kids enrolled for this week.  The first week is a free trial week so I really have to get the kids and parents excited about my class to enroll for the rest of the month.  It’s kind of a lot of pressure, but good. 

Julia, Daniel's niece on the store's opening day

The only thing is that I need to juggle between making it good for the kids as well as the parents, whom biologically have very different ideas of a worth while time.  I need to create an atmosphere first and foremost that the kids have fun, and secondly I need to really try to make some kind of product that they parents can see at the end of the month, both in art and in English, since the parents are paying for their kids to take art classes IN English for full emersion. They are only ages 3-5 so the artwork can’t be expected to have a great outcome.  At this age art is really about the process, so I told Karen she needs to really push that idea onto the parents so they don’t have the wrong expectations. 

We decided on having a different theme each month.  The first month’s theme is “shapes and colors”, and I think this week will JUST be circles.  I have a lot of different art projects with circles and looked up some very simple rhymes and songs that we can sing about circles.  So IDEALLY at the end of the week, the kids maybe will be able to actually say the word “circle” in English and have some circle artwork to take home….this is the IDEA, but since I’ve never really done this before it will really be an experiment for me as well… But its exciting experiment at that.

Detail from my, in progress, wall art for the classroom.

Speaking of exciting experiments, Karen has let me completely take over the class room.  She said I could do anything I wanted with it including painting the walls. In only a few hours I completely covered one wall with a jungle scene for kids including the names in English of the animals and scenery.  It was way easier than I thought, and fun.  Karen and I realized that I could probably start my own business here painting baby rooms.

I really couldn’t have found a better person to meet up with here.  And it isn’t just the opportunities, its that she is my friend as well, and I am really happy and lucky to have her.