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.