More Interview Stuff

We just made a call to the school to confirm the interview. It is postponed again (until Monday the 6th at 10 AM my time), but this is not all bad. I got some more information on the whole game-plan here, and thought I would share that with you as well.

The person I spoke with on the phone said that they are not able to hire new teachers as such, but they can hire students to be teachers. This would be part of an extension program, and I would be teaching advanced English students. I really don't know much more than that, as the conversation was very short. Further, I may have to correct these statements later, as they could be all wrong!

It does not sound very "full time," but that is another thing that is not very certain.

As far as the emotions I was feeling last week this time; I am much more relaxed. I think actually talking with someone there, as well as getting a feel for the direction they are thinking of going has helped enormously.

Other things that have been going on: We watched part of the Rolling Stones concert in Rio on TV, and all of the U2 concert on TV in the space of three days. Both were really good, but Mick Jagger's Portuguese is better (he has a son here, born of a Brazilian) than Bono's. We counted the guitars The Edge used in that concert, and it was more than 20: One for each song.

Carnaval was this past weekend. The samba schools compete to see who is the best. I did not care to watch much. There were some really cool floats, but mostly just thousands of people dressed in strange costumes shakin' it. (By the way, the "Super Bowl Wardrobe Malfunction" would not have been an issue at all here in Brazil.)

The carnaval here in Teresina was also televised, postponed the first time due to rain. The second try it rained again, but they (sort of) went ahead with it.

Along with the above, Nadya had Monday, and Tuesday off, as well as Wednesday morning. She enjoys cooking, and made some incredible food during that time. We also tried to go catch a movie, but one mall was closed entirely, and the other's movie theater was under construction. So we window shopped, which is quite fun with the right person.

With the prospect of possibly living here, I have switched in mentality from teaching Nadya English to learning Portuguese, while still teaching. I am picking it up rather quickly, and have some degree of fluency (though not much). I find that I often have to say I don't understand a sentence, or a paragraph only because of a word or two that I have not heard before. This is frustrating to the speaker as well as to me, as we both know that I understand a good deal of what was just said.

Just to clarify, I have not been resisting learning Portuguese. In fact, I want to learn it, but learning and teaching at the same time can be confusing and frustrating. Hence, I have focused more energy on teaching my wife English, and less on learning Portuguese until recently.

To sum up: We are both doing quite well, and very much looking forward to what God has for us in the coming months. We recently crossed the six month mark of being married as well, which is probably a bigger deal to us than to anyone else.

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