pei-tien's blog

Finally! Some time to blog and update :)

Re: Food

Brazilians are proud of their cuisine!! They also eat rice with beans at least once a day. Some things I appreciate eating in Brasil include chicken hearts and cow stomachs. Mm Mmm! But of course there are other dishes which I haven´t had a chance to try yet or wasn´t aware of. The problem with not knowing how to speak the language is that you never know what you are ordering or what you are eating. I was invited to a churrasco, a Brazilian BBQ where people just eat, drink and dance for hours, but it was cancelled :´(

Re: Work

Before I started work at Colégio Engenheiro Juarez Wanderley, I went in for a meeting at Instituto Embraer de Educação e Pesquisa. The institute is a division of Embraer, Brazil´s largest aircraft manufacturing company, and it plans and invests in all of the company´s social projects including the colégio. They had really high security at the institute, and the place was very formal. We had to go through many personnels before we meet with the director, who explained the objectives and progresses of the colégio to us.

My job is A LOT more different than I expected because I actually work in a high school. My first initial thought about working with teenagers is YIKES! But as it turns out, I absolutely love working with the students at the school as they are such great students and I have a lot of fun hanging out with them!! We have lots in common ;) My job tasks vary and currently the job is super flexible. Some things I do include conversing with students, translating materials to English, facilitating various workshops in culture, politics, and economics, helping students in their school´s sustainable alternatives project and participating in school events such as Capoeira, Afro-Brazilian martial arts dance, and other student performances :)

Work has been keeping me very busy during the weekdays. I´m at the school 9 hours a day and travelling to and from the school is almost another hour. Very tiring!

Re: Travels

The places I have travelled to outside of São José dos Campos include:

-Ubatuba. It is a place with many beautiful beaches. We went there 2 weekends ago for @ITA´s TREMN conference.
-Taubaté. It is near where I work and I went there to go to a nightclub called Unica. I was told by many students that it is a `farm´because it is very small compared to São José.
-São Paulo city. The city is the biggest city of all in Brazil, larger than Rio de Janeiro. I went on Sunday with Juliana and met her father and grandmother. First we went to a market which was held every Sunday near Liberdade, the Asian district of São Paulo. with many Japanese and Chinese shops and restaurants. For lunch we went to a Japanese restaurant (yum!!) then afterwards we went to Parque do Ibirapuera. It is a large park with many museums and attractions.

Re: Pictures

I think I have taken about 10 pictures since I have arrived :( I am just too lazy to take out the camera and snap away. But good news is that I can always (yah right) get pictures taken by other people, and the bad news is that the computer I use at my place totally sucks and doesn´t have a USB drive. Hmm... I will try to somehow upload some pictures.

ISSO!