Algumas atualizações sociais
So I cannot seem to manage finishing my traffic article. I am just too busy to really get into it plus I wanted to add some pictures of the crazy traffic chaos as well but therefore I need to wake up early which I haven´t been up to lately. There is just too much on my mind (and schedule) right now and oI have too many bligations due to my internship.
So, just to keep everyone posted about what has been going on lately, another wannabe facebook post.
Churrasco
Last Saturday we hosted a churrasco. We invited over 70 people (which was way more then the maximum of ten invites each person we agreed upon in advance) but we expected only 30 to 40 people. Hence Marco, my friend from Belo Horizonte, arrived on Friday, we could do shoppings the three of us (Lívia was doing the necessary preparations at home). Doing groceries is way different from what you would expect. People can easily shop for two hours even though the supermarket is far from the size of those you will find in France for example (Supermarchés). You have to get a ticket for the butcher, at the fruit section you can get any kind of fruit and as much as you like but an employee has to do the weighing and the payment procedure at the counter takes ages as well. Every counter has two employees, one doing the *bleeping* and another one to pack everything. You can pay by check which you pay just once a month. This is actually a very common way of paying in Brazil (even at clubs and bars you just order and pay at the end of the night).Eventually about 35 people showed up and we had a great time (and way too much food). Some of the pictures are uploaded on my Flickr already. Eventually we visited Bar Marcello´s and Bar de Leão before we went to the calourada. A huge amount of people, famous bands, a nice atmosphere .. definitely something to repeat.
Futebol
Last Tuesday all the guys from the lab went to Viçosa Atlético Clube, a place where they have two and invited me to play with them. They promised me I wouldn´t be the worst player but I still doubt that´s true. However, we had fun, played for 1,5 hours and after it I was exhausted. I should really start to practice some sports again if it was only to improve my physical condition. Due to the fact I was using my All Starts the match, which we won (even though it wasn´t really a competition) left me with a huge blister which kind of makes me an attraction to look at whenever I´m passing by on foot. I´ve tried to find special bandages at one of the local drugstores but haven´t been able to find anything but tape. It does the job but I doubt it keeps it as clean as I´m supposed to. Guilherme, a classmate, just took the initiative to make a call to every drugstore and pharmacy around town to find something like a blister bandage (which I now know is called a Hydrocolloid). Price: $33,- for one 10x10 bandage. I guess I´ll manage to solve it the way every other Brazilian does. I do however appreciate him putting so much effort in trying to find them for me.Estágio
This morning I had a meeting with the professor who´s my mentor during my internship. I showed him all the interview reports I have made and we discussed the problem area analyses I made, based on those interviews. A lot of the problems federal and public companies and institutions have to deal with are due to external factors, usually created by the government. I could talk for hours about the strange regulations to make here and which things could or should be improved in so many ways. However, this is not what I am here for so we are going to pick one of the minor problems to make sure I can constitute a project which will be ready for implementation. These improvements must be fit to be implemented in several other departments as well which eventually will start a change process for every department to implement Quality Management. Not only the improvements to the different divisions and departments might lead to the will of the administration to pursue this implementation, I will also be writing a paper in a renowned magazine.Curso e classe
Yesterday I have been asked to start teaching a class of Business Administration students. The classes will be in English but he subjects vary between business, advertisement, branding and other things I have no idea about. I hope the same goes for the 22 girls, and one guy, in this class which makes it a lot more easy for me to teach them new things.During our Portuguese class I also met Neil, a guy from Ireland, who has been living in Lelystad for one year. He has a Brazilian girlfriend, who he has met in Holland, and decided to move to Brazil, probably for ever. He is also going to introduce me to a Dutch friend of his who is living in São Paulo and a Brazilian girl from Rio de Janeiro who speaks fluently Dutch. This is not all; during class I also met a guy from Belgium, who is actually living in Mexico and teaching English at the university. He, Neil, Lukasz, a guy from Poland, and I will be giving a two hour presentation next week about our home country and cultures. Anyone in for pancakes?! Today I have been in Brazil for exactly one month and just now, by coincidence, I met several native speakers, which is actually kind of a relief hence the French, Spanish, English and Portuguese are quite exhausting.
O próximo
I have a very busy schedule and will be doing all sorts of things in the next few days (I have another presentation in one hour, I have to prepare a class for the Master students here about IT Service Management, tomorrow I´ll be playing with O Bloco again, tomorrow I might join Jailton to Rio de Janeiro where he´ll be making an entrance exam for a company, I have to finish the presentation for Portuguese and prepare the classes I am going to teach) so posting new blogposts isn´t really my priority right now. However, I will try to keep writing things and posting pictures to my Flickr page. Whenever I have access to a proper internet connection I might even upload some video´s to YouTube (who guessed I would ever do that 0.o).This topic has been made possible by: Marco, Guilherme, Neil, Jailton and myself.
Oh, and by the way ... over 500 views already!
