the idiot on the bus. . .

Boa Tarde!

I always seem to make a fool of myself on the bus. I stand up way too early (partly because I'm so nervous about missing my stop again) and then I end up standing at the front where everyone can see the American. The people stare and the driver keeps looking at me like "when am I stopping for you?" However, this week took the prize for idiocy.  Normally, another teacher rides with me Monday morning from Guadalajara so I never really pay attention to where I need to stand up and tell the driver to stop, etc. So I stood up a good 20 minutes too early and told the man, in my thick American accent, that my stop was the International School. Well, we passed 3 schools before my stop and at every school he would ask "here?" and I would sheepishly say no. But I made it without missing the stop!

April Fools is called Day of The Liar here and is not smiled upon so I avoided it at school but it was not so for all my American friends. For April Fools I played a little tricked and text people that I was sure things were going to work out between Fernando and I and that I was applying for my permanent visa to stay here. Well, Chris Cadwallader is the only one who fell for it. Which made my day. About time I got him. . .oh wait I do that a lot (haha sorry Chris). Anyway, incase rumors get started, there is no boy here and I have absolutely no plans to stay or come back permanently.  


Frank Penna from World Renewal (and a Barclay graduate) is here this month so he has been checking up and making sure everything is going okay. It's been nice having him. (He, however, would like me to stay and teach because Emily is leaving permanently in December but I had to let him down gently).

 


Every day this week I have come into my classroom (after getting my morning cup  of coffee) the kids have written me love notes on the board! Makes my day start great! I love my kids!

Last week for workshop we focused on the character trait of  fearlessness. After reading the story, we wrote our books about something we are afraid of. I wrote one as an example about a frog named Mike who like to jump on people's faces. It was pretty funny.

Yesterday, April 5th, was One Day Without Shoes for Toms shoes. I did a special presentation for my 7th-9th grade class about the different diseases people get from not wearing shoes and how Toms helps. The kids were really excited and wanted to take of f their shoes. We decided to petition Toms to sell or ship to this part of Brazil. Pretty successful if you ask me!



Emmanuella,
My last  5th-6th grader. I can't tell you the way I love this little girl. I'm not saying she's my favorite because I truly love each kid differently but we have a different connection and here is why. Emmanuella was born in the states and lived there and went to school there until she was in 2nd grade. This causes a problem. Her English is perfect orally but she cannot spell or read, at all. Her Portuguese is good but she is slow to respond and again she cannot spell or read. Because she is so fluent in English and the kids are jealous they make fun of her and because her Portuguese is slow kids make fun of her. She has been seriously bullied in her first semester here. So, I sought her out to make her feel loved and special and we ended up connecting really well. She's such a sweetheart. She is one of my main sticker-givers. She truly misses the states though. She is always always talking about it. She misses doughnuts, peanut butter, cereal, snow, the list goes on and on. We have her in one-on-one tutoring for reading and writing and she is improving greatly! She got a peanut butter and jelly party for doing so well. Lindsay ended up giving her the whole jar of peanut butter and she ate so much she threw up but she was still just as stoked about it. I think we are going to have her family over soon and will be making all American food (and hopefully homemade doughnuts). I love this girl and I love having her in my classes!


I came home after classes this morning to clean, do laundry, grocery shop, and do homework and now I'm thinking it's nap time :)


Eu te amo!


Love your nerdy, sweaty, neat freak girl,











 Brittney