(PUC-Rio entrance)
That being said, higher education in Brazil is considerably more, well, Brazilian than in the U.S. Duh. What I mean is this: my experiences with every structural level of Brazilian society, from the federal bureaucracy to the line at the grocery store has shown me that efficiency is not a high priority in this country, and PUC (Pooky) is no exception. Instead, Brazilians value pleasure and leisure in a way that even a perpetually spaced-out, laid-back American like myself often fails to understand. I don't mean to say that Brazilians are a bunch of lazy pleasure-seekers who don't know how to get anything done; rather, they go about their daily interactions in a style that is different, not better or worse, just different, from Americans and, it seems, most other societies around the world. If your professor comes to class half an hour late or just doesn't show up at all (which has happened to me three times in the past week), you assume that your instructor had a decent excuse, which could range from breaking his or her ankle to simply indulging in an extension on a lovely weekend. Instead of getting annoyed or complaining, you get coffee with a friend or take a nap on the beach for two hours. If you end up spending quite a lot of time walking around campus to get signatures from various departments just to confirm the classes you already signed up for four months ago, you walk slowly and notice the tiny monkeys jumping around in the forest that runs through the campus. It's a beautiful way of life, and Brazilians do it well.
(Yes... this is my school. Jealous?)
Anyways, my classes are going quite well. Seeing as my program requires me to take only classes taught in Portuguese and I didn't want to completely screw myself over, I decided to limit my academic classes to three: Portuguese III (a continuation of the intensive language course from waaaay back in January), Latin American International Relations, and Brazilian Culture. I've been pleasantly surprised to find that I understand just about everything in my classes (save for the one class I ended up dropping after the first day - the professor resembled a ball in that he was about as wide as he was tall. He also seemed to have the public speaking and enunciation skills of a ball, meaning that his voice sounded like blllllaaaargh bluugh glub glub glub. I don't even think most of the Brazilian students could understand him). The readings so far are long and take a long time to get through because I have to look up definitions every page or so, but luckily academic writing in Portuguese contains an awful lot of cognates, so it's not too bad. I'm a little nervous for the tests and papers that await in the coming weeks, but I'm trying to approach these with a Brazilian attitude, i.e., not stressing.
(These little houses are actually the department buildings)
I'm also taking yoga, which may be one of the best decisions I've made recently. I've always kind of resisted when every single person I know has recommended it to me, adopting the "I'm not stretchy and I never will be" attitude, but a bunch of my friends here are taking it and convinced me to go to a class. I'm kind of in love with the teacher; she is an adorable little bendy Brazilian hippie lady who loves to give spirituality spiels. The other day there were only four of us in class, so we did a special exercise in which she instructed us how to give massages to a partner, not to mention the best techniques for feeling someone's energy and getting to know their soul by touch, or something. I'm not feeling noticeably more elastic or in touch with the energy of others yet, but give me a few weeks and I may be looking like this.
Before I left for Brazil, other American students who had gone my program had warned me that PUC students were not the friendliest, but I'd been refusing to believe this until I could find out for myself. After almost three weeks of school, I still don't know exactly what to think. No one has been particularly rude or unpleasant to me, but I think I can count on one hand the number of Brazilian students who have started a conversation with me that didn't have to do with the time, tomorrow's reading, or the fact that I was standing in their way. The majority of Brazilians who have approached me at PUC have been dorky freshman boys with glasses who very earnestly ask me how I'm liking Brazil and what I think about American foreign policy. One such darling showed me his reading, a chapter about the Bush administration, for an International Relations class and asked me what I thought of it. The chapter was called "Um Deus do Nosso Lado" - With God On Our Side. "Você está de acordo com isso, né?" he asked. I started chuckling without meaning to, not knowing where to begin... did I think God was on our/George Bush's side? This was not a question anyone had ever actually not known my answer to before asking. "Não, cara... por tantos razões." He seemed a little surprised, and I really wanted to start this conversation but by that time it was finally his turn to use the copy machine and I needed to get a signature from the IR department before it closed. Next time I see young Thiago, though, it's on.
(Kennedy Building, where most of my classes are held)
In addition to taking classes in Rio, I'm about to try out a new role: teaching. I've got a volunteer position lined up teaching English in a favela near my homestay called Vidigal, and I start on Monday (I was originally supposed to start this week, but the first day of classes got pushed back because the community wasn't informed of the class times in time... oh, Brazil). I'm volunteering through Educari, an NGO with an elementary school that offers language, music, and art classes to students whose parents want more for them than the regular grade-school curriculum. I'll be teaching intermediate English to 12-to-14-year olds (tweens... oh joy) two days a week with one other person, another girl from my program from California. I'm going to hold off on saying anything else about teaching for now because I just have no idea what to expect. Later installments will surely have much to say about this exciting opportunity...
Well, that's The Rio Deal for now, folks. Hoping all you gringos back at home are beginning to get a taste of spring... I assure you, it's pretty nice. Teehee.
