School

School in Brazil is very different. I know I already talked about my first day and what it was like but now I will tell you about my other experiences with school. I made a lot of new friends and I feel like I am part of the class which is a really good feeling. I still don't really understand what the teachers are saying but I can understand some words. My friends like to speak to me in English because they are practicing but most of the conversations are in Portuguese.

The classes here are brutal! On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays school goes from 7am-12:30pm, which really isn't that bad. On Tuesdays and Thursdays school goes from 7am-5:30! that's like 10 hours of school!!
Because I am an exchange student, I don't really have to do anything. I'm even allowed to sleep if I want to (I don't though). Yesterday (Tuesday) I stayed for the whole day until 5:30 even though technically I didn't have to. In one day I had: Literature, English, Spanish, Geography, Math, Biology, Chemistry, Portuguese. Some were double classes. By the end of the day I was so exhausted from listening to so much Portuguese. I liked math class because it was the only one I understood. English class was funny because of the accents and the stuff they were learning but that's normal.

For lunch my friends took me to Subway! I told them that I work there in Canada. It was so different here in Brazil though! They had mostly the same things but not all so I tried one of the ones that we don't have in Canada. I had a chicken with cream cheese sub. It was actually really good. In Brazil, they don't have hot peppers to put on your sub, only chilly flakes. I loaded the chilly flakes and my friends looked at me like I was crazy because not many people like spicy food here.

I'm starting to understand more and more Portuguese which is really awesome! Every morning my father drives me to school and then picks me up after because it is about an hour to walk to school from my house. He doesn't really speak English so the whole conversation to and from school is in Portuguese. There's sometimes confusion but we can actually hold a conversation! He teaches me Portuguese and I teach him English.

The last couple days I really began to realize how easy I have it in school in Canada. We only have 4 classes a day and here it's like 8 or 9 in one day. ALSO fun fact: in schools here, you are not allowed to use a calculator.... WHAT! We were doing math, physics, chemistry, etc, without a calculator... OMG!
It was so hard. I understood the math part but trying to do stoichiometry without a calculator.. no thank you!

In October there is a huge test that everyone has to take to get into college but if they don't do well then they don't get in. That's why they study for so many hours during the day. One of my friends takes another english class outside of school so after she gets home from a 10 hour long day at school, she goes to another class and then studies at home after that. It's brutal. The funny thing is that in class, no one pays attention. Everyone talks and texts and laughs with their friends the whole time. It's quite fun but I really don't see how it is good.

Funny story though, in physics the teacher walks in and starts talking. (This was my last class of the day so I was really tired). He was talking away and it looked like everyone was kind of dozing off because everyone had either their heads down or their eyes closed. I kinda just sat there pretending I was paying attention but then everyone at once said "amen" and I realized they were saying prayers. Oops.. I didn't know so I looked like an idiot just looking around at everyone. I guess maybe they were praying that they wouldn't fail physics? Not quite sure.

Anyways, I love everyone here, they are all so nice and always asking me questions and to sit with them. It's great.

Loving Brasil so far!