The Glamorous Life

My deepest apologies for not updating for so long. The truth is, I haven't had much to write about. It's possible that I am becoming so comfortable here and used to this routine that nothing seems worthy of updating. But I will do my best to think of a few things...

Gwen didn't go into the office all week because she needed to catch up on some accounting things at home. I had some things to do, thankfully, because we were making some invitations for an event at the church next Saturday. These involved lots of hearts, glitter, and cutting card stock with fancy patterned scissors. 400 times. So, I had a lot of slow, no-pressure mornings. After such mornings, I went to my Portuguese classes, which are still going very well.

WEBB, the language school, is going to be without one of their English teachers for the month of October, and they've asked me to help with at least some of the higher level conversation classes. It's up to me, and would be good because they could discount some of my lessons, but I'm still deciding on that. Especially because it takes me an hour and 1/2 round trip to commute there and back on the bus, I'm a little overwhelmed with the prospect of going there twice a day. Currently, I'm thinking about taking on a Tuesday and Thursday morning class of higher level students, so it would be more conversational. But we'll see.

I'm also just a little worried about teaching English. Believe me, I am no teacher. I have had no training in anything like TESOL, nothing. I'm going to be teaching the adolescents at the church too, starting tomorrow, but that should be a little easier and less pressure because they're not paying for my knowledge and expertise. Still, it's all very out of my league and comfort zone.

Today I have my second "situations" class at home. Last week, I was a little unsure of how things would go with this teacher. She's very sweet, but seemed the least prepared and also speaks the least English. So there would be times when I would ask what a word meant in English, and she didn't know either. Now, I'm not really sure how that is supposed to help, but thank goodness for dictionaries. The situations class is supposed to involve walking, shopping, talking with people, getting into situations. For example, yesterday in my grammer class, I had to go talk to the secretary at WEBB and ask her questions using interrogative pronouns like "who, what, when, where" etc. Well that was slightly embarrassing, but thankfully Bruna is very nice. I also now know where she is, how old she is and where she's from. So today maybe Denise and I can go buy a piece of fruit or something. SOMETHING.

To tell the truth, I'm doing very well on my own. Yesterday, to assist my craft habit, I needed to go buy some more red glittery glue. So I walked a couple blocks to a paper store, went in and found some puffpaint-y looking things. Then someone asked me if I needed help, and I asked her if she had red glittery glue. She found it for me, asked me if I wanted anything else, I said no, and she rang me up. Simple, but I don't take those sorts of conversations for granted anymore. I'm glad that I can handle myself in a store, unless I needed to ask some terribly complicated question. But let's be honest, I don't ask salespeople complicated questions in English, so why would I in Portuguese?

All in all, this was a calm and nice week. However, it will be followed by a busy weekend. Tomorrow is the anniversary of another missionary church in Londrina, the daughter church of the one I attend, so everyone is going to this party there at 8pm, and I have "English class" at 4:30, then there is a lunch on Sunday at my apartment for the leaders of the camp a couple weeks ago, and church on Sunday night. Thankfully though, next week will be equally as tranquil, and the weekend to follow will be faaaaaabulous.