Some Shots

I just had a fun session with my friend and Portuguese tutor Fernanda. She’s a friend of a friend of the partner of a colleague at work. So the connections go. I am realizing that I can do fine with the Portuguese if I just speak more. I have got the idea and my pronunciation is not bad. Luckily, Fernanda is very outgoing and a therapist by profession, so I am sure she can draw it out of me. Tomorrow we go bikini shopping!

I have some snap shots from recent days that I want to throw up. (more cultural contemplation later…)

I have been sitting in on law classes at Fundação Getulio Vargas.

I know it doesn’t look exciting, but it is a good immersion experience. I was invited to sit in on the classes by Livia, who was recommended to me for tutoring. She teaches undergraduate law classes at FGV and will be headed to Harvard law school in the fall. She has also taken the Human Rights and Media course that I will be in come a week and a half. Since she doesn’t have time to do one-on-one tutoring sessions with me, I just sit in on her law classes. I get between 30% and 60% of what goes on.

Then I get to hang out with Livia and her friends at lunch and catch as much slang as I can.

The other night, I had the pleasure of going up to St. Teresa with Suzana, a close friend of Pedro Linger Gasiglia who I know from New York. Suzana is a psychologist who is now focusing on Chinese Medicine. She took me to her bookstore Largo das Letras in St.Teresa, a neighborhood perched on a beautiful hill in Rio that is know for its arts scene. At her bookstore, there was a birthday party of the three year old girl who was adopted by a friend of Suzana.

We then went to Ipanema to have diner with her daughter Joana, who was in town from São Paulo. Joana’s friends started trickling in. It was quite a fun, creative crowd. Joana has a film production company, PR!MO FILMES.