Small Victories

August 20th marks one month in Brazil and two weeks of middle school under my belt.  This is, in actuality, an enormous victory...but that isn't what this post is about.  Huge victories don't just happen; they are composed of many smaller ones.  Let's celebrate...a little:

• A seventh grader informed me that he told his grandmother that "my science teacher is punk."  (Why this conversation was going down with his old bitty and not some other relative was moot.)  That's all it takes these days: a wrist tattoo and an out of control faux-hawked do.   I'll take it.

• I gave my sixth graders serrated knives on the their first lab activity.  Hashtag: callmecrazy Hashtag: raisingthebar Hashtag: everyoneleftwithtenfingers

• The Korean kids at my school often speak to each other in their native tongue.  Which is why every time I hear them say "hello," I involuntarily laugh a little and half expect this guy (pictured) to show up. (If you have never seen "Arrested Development," never mind.  Also, go watch it.)  It seriously never gets old.

• My sixth grade math-teaching colleague informed me that some of the boys were attempting to spike their hair in class, asking each other, "Do I look like Mr. Stetson?"  Also, thats what they call me.  (Between us, I need a haircut badly; its getting a little out of control up there.  Glad someone's impressed!)

• On the Portuguese-language front, the proper nouns, prepositions, and pronunciations make me bang my head on the table but at least I'm killing the verb conjugations (present and past tenses)!

• Bought wall paint for my apartment, joined a gym, and replaced my watch battery all without using any English!  Full disclosure: there was no Portuguese used either; thank you, español!

And this is why they're called "small victories."

Out of My Element

I taught some of my students the "awkward turtle" today.  I felt, after three days, it was time.
It has nothing to do with science and everything to do with me surviving a year teaching the younger end of middle school.

For the uninitiated, you put both of your hands out in front of you, one in front of the other, fingers together, thumbs outstretched to the sides and wriggling.  (Some prefer their "turtles" upside down.  Others like turkeys, but now we're getting ahead of ourselves.)

I did this after a 7th grade girl, looking for a way to convey "things in general" used the portuguese word bainha.  In Spanish this slang would be translated as vaina and is pronounced "vye-nah."  The portuguese pronunciation keeps the starting v sound, but adds a syllable, then simaltaneously emphasizes and changes the i into a long e.  Let's just say that I wasn't the only one in class who thought this 13-year-old was suddenly speaking of female genitalia.

Enter the awkward turtle.  I'm going to need it.

6th and 7th grade has to be the strangest time of life.  "Hormones with legs," an ex-colleague of mine once said.  "Fly them all to the moon and bring them back when they hit high school" was the way my mother put it.  Both are accurate.

Somehow this school year I've got to teach them the generals of the life sciences.  Appropriately enough I have to introduce chemistry; I've already got a giant periodic table hanging in the front of the classroom.  I'm going to need to review a bit, but even I know that hormones are far to complex to appear anywhere on there.

(There are also the two health classes but I'm going to pretend they don't exist at the moment.  I may lay awake all night if I think about those too much.)

Nevertheless, overall it has been a good first week.  While my career up to this point has been breaking ninth graders of middle school habits, I see some bright spots ahead:

• Sixth graders ask an impossible number of questions - no, it doesn't matter if you buy the 100 page versus the 120 page notebook - but they are still enthusiastic about participating and I have never had this many hands raised at one time before, even if I had been asking something painfully obvious like "who has a head?"
• Seventh graders are weird.  They look weird.  They act weird.  They laugh at weird things.  They have no idea why they are laughing at those weird things yet know on some level their laugh has to be more over-the-top than the person who laughed before them, even though they both seem to be aware that both laughs are contrived and yet they don't know why or how to stop.  At the very least, my dumbest jokes are hysterical.
• Both groups are still terrified of the beast known as "tardy."  Yesterday I had nearly the entirety of my first period class in their seats...with fifteen minutes yet for the bell would ring.  This is in direct opposition to the seniors whose lockers are located outside my classroom.  The visual juxtaposition of the seasoned veterans cooly strolling from here to there, internalized clocks set to arrive at their destination just as the bell chimes, with the scurrying rookies, overloaded with giant backpacks, papers haphazardly flying away, weaving in and out of the upper-classmen as if they were mere traffic cones in an obstacle course, kills me on a daily basis.

Regardless, pending all day with this age group is surreal; it's both familiar and foreign.  Like going to your regular grocery store at two o'clock in the afternoon on a random Tuesday.  It's the same store, just that now it is also doubling as some sort of senior citizen social club and there are significantly more stockers and less cashiers.  And is it brighter too?  It seems brighter.

I was more nervous beginning this school year than I was my first year teaching.  Or student teaching, actually.  My principal came into my room within the first five minutes of the first period on the first day.  And then he sat down and watched.  The worst.  

But I'll survive.  I've got my awkward turtle.  

Hostage Situation

"He's at lunch," said the woman holding my shipment of possessions from Colombia, "I'm sure he'll be done soon."

Rewind.

After landing in São Paulo, successfully navigating customs and retrieving all parcels of luggage, a member of the school welcoming committee took me over to the cargo and shipping building in an attempt to at least locate and confirm that somewhere within the facilities country was the other half of my belongings. 

The last memory I had of them was watching as a slatted pick-up truck drove away, swerving to avoid the plethora of potholes multiplying on my quiet street in barrio Limonar.

A visit to the "holding office;" a stop at the Copa Airlines office (after having temporary security photo-ID badges made up at the information kiosk); photocopies of my passport, visa, plane tickets from Minnesota all the way to São Paulo, and the itinerary that at one point in time I flew from Cali to Minnesota, and a few signatures later, we ended back at the "holding office" to be encouraged to "go have a coffee" and come back while they sort out the paperwork.

While the rest of the new import staff and my luggage headed off to Campinas, my director and I stayed to finish the job of freeing my boxes from their forklift-guarded incarceration.  Once the paperwork was filed - and our coffee break over - we then had to pay a small ransom processing fee at the bank.  

It should be noted that there were several banks on location.  At the shipping building.  Which is well-separated from the airport and near nothing else.  That may not be fair; the loading dock workers probably appreciate all the financial counseling opportunities afforded them right on the job site!  

After making bail the payment, the "holding office" said it would be another 30 minutes to an hour to locate the boxes and then pass customs.  While I was thrilled they had made good use of their time during the hour we were running around signing, copying, and depositing things, not to mention the week it had been sitting in the warehouse after arriving from a foreign country, I was just happy to be almost reunited.  

I was so close!

Enter the previously quoted woman.  She is the "gate-keeper," if you will.  Seated delicately at her wheely-chair with a look of more authority than anyone behind a press board desk should ever have, this lady and her gun-metal grey scanner determine which packages can be legally liberated from the warehouse.  After pulling the car to the loading dock exit, my director and I watched, impressed, as the forklift drivers whipped around the vast shiny concrete floor, easily maneuvering around stacks of boxes, people with a death-wish on foot, and each other much like dragonflies over a pond of newly hatched mosquitoes.

The trance brought on by the dance of the fork-lift drivers was broken when the woman notified us that the driver was coming with the boxes momentarily.  Sure enough, they emerged from around the corned!  My director left to open the car as the driver stopped and unceremoniously put my plastic bins on the ground behind the gate keeper's desk and drove away.  

So. Close.

Turns out the code that someone we met sometime during the previous gincana was supposed to enter, wasn't.  And now he is lunching.  And because this is Latin America still and no one else can do anyone else's job, we must wait. 

As all lunch breaks eventually do, this one too, ended.  My things were freed and we began the drive to my new home where I would eventually unpack and consider, whilst unpacking and remembering certain items, whether it was worth the wait.  And weight.  

Brazil: The Prequel

In Colombia people often say "es complicado" when things are difficult or challenging.  Acquiring my Colombian work visa in the summer of 2007 felt like a dizzying process.  Lots of apostilled documents and a trip to Chicago to visit the consulate - with an inconvenient stroll to the bank across Michigan Avenue - seemed like a lot of work.

Colombia: take note.  You don't know "complicado."

I began the process of receiving my Brazilian work visa back in early February when I sent off a letter of employment from my then-current employer in Cali to the Brazilian consulate in Bogotá - the consular seat for that geographic jurisdiction - to be "legalized."  A short time later I sent off a university transcript to Chicago - by way of a friend who then handed it off to a future colleague - for the same treatment at the consulate in the windy city.  

Congratulations, Chicago, you win!  Legalized transcripts were successfully sent off to Brazil with no issues.

Over the next month, my unfortunate letter of employment was translated into three languages twice, stamped, sealed, signed, and notarized by the minister of education for Colombia in Bogotá (on two separate occasions) and the secretary of education for Cali (once).  Three months later the good folks at the Bogotá consulate were satisfied enough to give it the all clear and away it too was sent to Brazil to finally meet up with its long lost brother documents.

Now, it seems that Brazil is very thorough (or slow) in processing these types of things so "45 to 50 days plus five business days" later, I was notified that my visa application was ready in Chicago.  Application.  As in, "not finished yet."  Side note, I leave for Brazil in three days.  Further side note: I need to come in person and the consulate needs to keep my passport for the duration of the time it takes to put a sticker on a page.  Consulate website states four days to two weeks.  (gasp!)  

Enter Tuesday - the hottest, meltingest day in the history of Chicago - where I fly in and out from Minneapolis in one day in hopes that the Brazilians on Michigan Avenue take pity of my situation caused by the glacial pace their compatriots in Bogotá moved back in February, March, April and some of May.

Now, let's skip to the anticipated ending: Tomorrow, Thursday, I am getting on a plane in Minneapolis to land at O'Hare, with all my luggage for life in Campinas.  I am doing this without a passport, something that may prove to be a detriment upon arrival at the check-in counter.  In Chicago I will leave the airport and head downtown to be at the limited visa office hours of the Brazilian consulate between 12 and 1pm where some nice and efficient lady will return my passport, complete with work visa, to me and I will cruise back to the airport to catch a late-afternoon flight to Dallas.  In Dallas I will have approximately 50 minutes to meet up with some future new colleagues at the departure gate and we will all merrily make our way into the southern hemisphere waking up to the São Paulo sunrise.  (exhale...)

Colombia turned out to be amazing and I thought that was hoop jumping.  

If this goes well, Brazil might just be epic.

Oh, don't ask me about luggage logistics.  I'm on a mission.  

Es complicado.