First Lecture
I'm still feeling a little bit sick, but I think I am slowly getting better so that's good at least. This week went by really quickly but I also didn't really do much. Wednesday I had my conversation club. We talked about text abbreviations and then I had each of them talk for 2-3 minutes about themselves- their childhood, what they like to do, where they went to school, and/or why they are learning English. They all seemed a bit intimidated, but I went first to ease the tension a bit and they all did a great job even if some of them didn't want to have to talk. It's a conversation club after all, so I'm making them practice speaking. We then had class after and dyed Easter eggs again. However, only three students from the third year showed up and one student left after we dyed the eggs. The remaining two were good sports and finished out the class by writing and performing a dialogue. They did an amazing job, but I was a bit disappointed we only had two students come for the whole class.
Thursday we had our first lecture. We did a general overview of the United States, the different regions, and also our hometowns and states. It was a lot of fun and everyone that came asked very good questions. I really enjoyed sharing my culture and Nebraska with everyone and talking about the positive aspects of my country. That night for class, we dyed eggs with the second year students and did dialogues as well. We had nine students come, so it was a bit more fun as there were more people to talk to and listen to their dialogues. It was a very good day, but I was a little tired because I was nervous for the lecture and stressed out about it.
Friday was a weird day. I didn't have anything to do until class at 7, but Alexa and I got dinner before. We went to our classroom where we were going to teach the third year students, but no one showed up. We sat there for 20 minutes before asking our host professor what to do. I wasn't sure how long we had to stay to see if students showed up, but we were told that if they hadn't shown up by 7:30, they weren't coming. We ended up going to the teachers' lounge and waiting until the class time was over because one of our second year students had brought us some Brazilian food to try, but he was in class. During the break time in between classes, we found him and he gave us some food to try. It is called sagu (pictured above) and I think it is basically tapioca with wine, cloves, and maybe some other spices. It was very good and I was glad we got to try some more Brazilian food.
Alexa and I were invited to attend a Rotary Club meeting on Saturday. We were asked to present ourselves a little bit, our hometown, state, and University, and then we would have lunch. Our presentation lasted about half an hour and we got started about half an hour late, so lunch was around 2pm. It was a lot of fun and the food was really good. They also bring a cake once a month to celebrate anyone's birthday that happens in that month, and we were lucky to come on a cake day. It was kind of like a pineapple upside-down cake and was really good. It made me miss my mom's and grandma's baking. The people from the Rotary Club invited us to go back as often as we want, so I will probably go a few more times this year, hopefully on birthday cake days.
I planned to do a few errands on Sunday, but almost everything was closed. I was lucky that the ATMs in the bank were still available and that the grocery store by my house was open, or else I would have had to make and eat the only thing I had left in the house- rice and beans. I always forget something when I go to the grocery store, so I'll have to go get a few more things sometime today or tomorrow.
Thanks for reading; I miss you all! It's already been a month and a half though, so time is flying by for me. It's been a great experience so far and I can only imagine the great experiences yet to come.