bad blogger...good brazilian

So, I know that I haven't blogged in a while (which I imagine is just devastating for my 4-7 regular readers), but I think I have a good excuse -- I have been busy living life :)

I started Portuguese classes on Monday, and things really have been going great for me since then.

I am enjoying my classes so much. I am learning and getting in a ton of practice -- I have even found that I really enjoy it and I have been seeking out as many opportunities as possible to practice speaking with people! The only problem I have is that I think my class is a little too easy (i know, who would have thought...) so I asked the director if I can move up to a more challenging class. I have also been hanging out a lot with some people from the school - they are all foreigners, too, and we can practice speaking with each other all the time. We eat lunch together every day, and go out to bars some nights. Today we spent the whole day together at the beach, and tomorrow we plan to hit up the botanical gardens here in Rio.

We had a really big event for our work on Thursday as part of the "Digital Inclusion Week." It was at a huge venue here and was really fun - they had all of this different entertainment. The most interesting was the rap battle. Some kids from one of our schools in a favella came and did a rap battle around the topic of digital inclusion. I thought it was extremely strange, and from what I understand they made some pretty disgusting sexual innuendos...so as it turns out I not only don't understand rap in English, it is a universal thing. After the event I went out to celebrate with some people from work, and it was a really fun time. I was sitting between 2 people who speak no English, and I managed hours of conversation (with only an occasional interpretation) with them. My growth in the language has allowed for the people I work with to get to know me better and I am enjoying that.

More to come soon, I promise!