Muitos Churrascos (Many Barbecues)

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Just another week here in Apucarana. Nothing really special happened but I always manage to stay busy. My sleep schedule has gotten way off because I stay up really late and sleep in since I don't have classes or anything until the evening. I also attended a few barbecues this week, but that comes later.

On Monday, I just had my conversation club. I'm always nervous for the conversation clubs because I have to come up with my own lesson plan every time and I'm never sure if everyone is going to like what I have planned for the day. However, it is easier because I have just been using the old lesson plans from past conversation clubs and using them for the club that just started two weeks ago. We realized that there was a much higher demand for the clubs so we ended up adding one on later and that is why I have two clubs in different spots in my lesson plans.

On Tuesday, I got to talk to Frankie for a while and then I made a Brazilian lunch for myself. I made rice and beans and a salad with onions and tomatoes. We usually have a similar combination of food every time we have lunch at the house or I go to a churrasco (barbecue). Around 4, we went to a friend's house for coffee and desserts. They made me try three different kinds of cornbread and savory cake along with a baguette and some jellies. I was stuffed when we left. I also got to talk to my parents and grandparents, which was nice. It's weird to me that summer is about to start in the US because I am looking forward to it getting a bit cooler here for winter. So my seasons and sleep schedule are going to be mixed up for a while when I get back.

One of the teachers we work with at the school who has been very helpful asked us to help her with a project. So, on Wednesday we went to a meeting to talk more about the project. The teacher, Raquel, had told us about it a little bit before, but I was excited for the meeting to clarify some things. The project is a teacher professional development course for English teachers in Apucarana and the surrounding area. Once a month, Alexa and I will be leading the teachers in different activities to expand their English skills and activities to use in the classroom. I was very nervous for this as I don't feel qualified to be leading a professional development for teachers because I don't have a lot of experience myself. However, I was very excited at the meeting when Raquel pulled out a break down of each week's lesson plan. She decided that each lesson would focus on something different like listening, speaking, pronunciation, etc. I felt better having a focus because I can make a lesson plan to reach a goal, but when I have to completely create my own curriculum, sometimes I get overwhelmed. But, I will talk more about the professional development project as the monthly courses come up.

After the meeting, I had my conversation club and then got home and called Claire and Zach. It's always nice to catch up with everyone back home as I feel a bit out of touch sometimes with what's going on with everyone.

On Thursday, I had my class with the second year students and Lauro, the professor. He had the students do an online activity where they had to choose articles to put into a newspaper and try to make the readers and the government both happy. I thought it was fun, but even as a native English speaker, I thought the activity went too fast because it was timed and some of the students felt really overwhelmed. But, it was still a good class and I think everyone had fun. For this section of the class, we are focusing on video games and role-playing, so it's been hard to come up with activities to do in class that fit the topic.

On Friday, I went to my Spanish class again. This coming week is the last class, so we are supposed to bring food and have a little goodbye party. This class has been fun but also hard because sometimes everyone only speak Portuguese and I don't know what's going on. But the teacher speaks very fast Spanish and drops off the ends of words so she is very hard to understand as well. But it has still been fun and a good learning experience.

I also had class with the professor Fernando and fourth year students on Friday. In this class, we are working on debates and literature. Two weeks ago, each student got a book that they had to read and decide how they would teach it in their own classroom. They presented their books this week and I had a lot of fun listening to their ideas. After class, I had planned on just chilling at home before bed, but Alexa and I got invited to go to a barbecue. Eventually, we got picked up, bought some beers, and went to the house for the churrasco. It was a lot of fun, but I was really tired by 3am when they took us back home. Alexa had to go to Londrina for a 5am flight, so she left in a taxi soon after we got home.

Saturday was a bit of a mess. I got to sleep in, but then I tried to do some cooking. I had really been wanting to try to make orange chicken, but hunting down all of the ingredients took a while as the grocery store I go to doesn't have brown sugar and they ran out of ginger for a while. I decided to skip the brown sugar and just use the regular sugar I already had. Cornstarch also took me ages to find, but I finally found it. Anyway, the chicken did not turn out well. The sauce hardened and stuck to the pot and spoons and it ended up being way too sweet. Cleaning everything after was terrible. And I made soooo much chicken. It also took me four hours with cooking, waiting for the chicken to chill in the fridge after putting it in the batter, and then frying everything. I was so mad that it didn't turn out. It's edible but not very good, so I'm thinking about just throwing it out and never trying to make orange chicken again. And that's literally all I did on Saturday because it took forever.

I went to another barbecue on Sunday at the same house. One of the cousins had her birthday party there, so they did a barbecue for her. There were so many sweets like cake, jelly beans, gum drops, sagu, sweet cornbread cake, and poudin. Everything was so good, but one of the aunts kept telling me I should try everything and I ended up eating too much because she kept asking if I'd tried everything and if I hadn't, some would end up on my plate. Then she told me I didn't eat very much and seemed confused. Later on, I left with a friend at the barbecue to hang out with some of his other friends who also are my students. They are all in first year together. We walked around the mall for a while and then went to my student/friend Ricardo's house. He made me teach them some drinking games, but they seemed to get bored quickly so we stopped after one game, which was fine with me. Around 11pm, we ended back up at the barbecue. I was already tired, but I knew the family would be mad if I didn't come back so we went and ate some more. One of the girls tried to teach me how to dance, but coordination is needed for dancing and I don't have much. It was still fun and I had a good night though.

I didn't have class on Monday. Tuesday is a holiday, so they also get Monday off as well from classes. And if a holiday falls on a Thursday, then we don't have classes on Friday either. But Monday I slept a lot and did some lesson planning. I'm going to lead classes on Thursday and Friday, which should be a lot of fun. I also left Frankie a present for him to open on our two year anniversary. Our anniversary is May 1st, but I let him open it a day early. The present is a jar filled with notes about memories together for him to read every day I'm gone. It was fun watching him open it.

As I said, today is a holiday so everything is closed. However, I need to pay off my SIM card today, so I'm about to go see if the store is open. I also need to work on lesson planning more tonight, but that's all I have planned for today.

Thanks for reading and feel free to call me anytime!