First Week of Classes

Here's the thing about classes in Brazil - the homework that's assigned is, oddly enough, in Portuguese! Who woulda thunk? I haven't blogged in so long because I've been terribly busy reading about anthropology and modernism and pre-modern authors (not all for the same class). It's going OK but I read slowly in Portuguese, and I have to look up at least three words in every paragraph because it's really technical stuff. My favorite is when I look up a word, like for example "fantasmagoria", and I get "phantasmagory". Glad I understand that one now! To remedy that sort of thing, I bought a Portuguese dictionary, and that's actually been really helpful in these kind of situations.

Aside from the slow-going homework, I like all my classes a lot, and Fafich, the building where almost all my classes are, feels like home. It's the philosophy, psychology, communication, history, and social sciences building, and the students look like they've been lifted right out of Santa Cruz - a lot of people have dreads, only a couple of the men have short hair, people wear a lot of earth tones, there are cats everywhere - it's a little hippie haven, and I love it. I've already made some acquaintances, there are people that I have a lot of classes with who I see frequently and I've started getting to know some of them. There's also at least one other foreigner in every single one of my classes, which is nice because I don't feel like the professors are trying to talk slowly just for me. Speaking of professors, a few of them are really easy to understand and I don't feel like I miss very much at all, and some of them I leave class feeling like perhaps they were speaking Russian or something for all I understood, but overall it's a good learning experience and I trust that my comprehension will continue to improve.

The university atmosphere is different in Brazil than at USF - I have not had a class start on time yet, and on Wednesday one of my professors never showed up, without any explanation at all. I guess the first couple of weeks of school are a little scattered, and some classes don't even meet the first week, so maybe this will change later on, or maybe it's just another manifestation of the cultural norm that is lateness.

Another difference is that a lot of students have a lot to say - usually in classes at USF, the professor will introduce the class on the first day and then say something like, "Does anyone have any comments or suggestions of other things you'd like to incorporate?" and no one says anything and class is over. Here, though, students respond to that question in great detail, which took me by surprise every time it happened, which was in every class I've been to. Students seem to be really well read, there were suggestions of additional reading supplied by students in all of my classes, which the professors agreed to try to incorporate into the class.

Here's another thing - only one out of the 5 classes I've been to handed out a syllabus. I think/hope I'll be getting them for the other classes, but maybe the professors didn't pass anything official out yet because they were anticipating incorporating students' input. Also, you don't buy textbooks here, you go the Xerox room and they print the readings for you. It's a really easy and affordable system, I like it a lot better than toting books, and the pages are double sided so it's environmentally friendly too!

Like I said before, there are random cats all over campus - some are big, some are little, all are skinny and shy, but I've seen students dumping the remnants of their lunch into the plants, which are then attacked by the cats, so I guess they know that they'll get fed there.

Here's another difference - the buildings themselves. Everything is very open - the only enclosed spaces are the actual classrooms, all the corridors and the snack bar are open to the elements. I'll take pictures, I'm not a very good explainer, but it's very different from the rectangular, enclosed buildings I'm used to at USF. I guess because it doesn't get cold here they don't need to heat the buildings, and there's usually a breeze, which, since it travels freely throughout the building, is a good cooling system on hot days.

There are some things that are the same, of course - my classes give a lot of reading, the professors are really nice and seem to care about whether or not I'm understanding them and are helpful when I don't, and the on-campus food is pretty good. All of my classes so far have between 25 and 35 students, so that's only a little bigger than my classes at USF, and I really don't feel like I'm at a school with 35,000 undergrads (which I am) because I just hang out in Fafich with the hippies and I see the same people all the time, it's not like I have to run from one side of campus to the other to get to classes.

On Friday night, most of the international students and Bea and Salamão went to Boteca, which is a bar/concert/dance party that's held in the Biology building every Friday night. Yeah, you read that right, IN th Biology building, on campus. Odd. It was really fun though, there were a ton of people there, and Bea said she usually goes there on Fridays if there isn't something else going on.

Well, I've got to go, we're having a chocolate chip cookie baking party, but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's helped me get here - Jack and Andrea at USF, Jim Hayes and the Santa Cruz Rotary and Elk's Lodge and Native Daughters and FCC Santa Cruz who've given me scholarships, and my family and friends for all their help and support - studying abroad in Brazil is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I'm really thankful to have it, and even though there are hard parts and odd cultural differences (like eating chicken hearts!), I'm having a great time. So thanks!