Its Time To Re-Evaluate My Decision Making Paradigm

In one of my favorite movies of all time, (Sahara), the main characters are having a conversation about all the goobers of the past that they use to know and how they were all destined to fail at life. They are having this dicussion because it has become clear that they might also be members of this goober crew, and despite having great educations and once limitless potential, life has dealt them a curveball. So instead of making millions and running for president, they are riding camels in the middle of the African Desert looking for an old civil war ship that was rumored to have wrecked there. That is when the side-kick says to the main character Dont you think it is time to re-evaluate our decision making paradigm?

I am very blessed to be where I am and doing what I am doing. Today was the beginning of my second week of work tutoring two american kids in math. For me it is the perfect job. It combines all the things I like to do.....work with children, teach math, and speak english. But in class this morning I had one of those moments that gave me reason to pause and question my decision making paradigm. It happened when I was trying to explain basic fractions using the classic slice the picture in half example. The conversation happened a few hours ago, so there is a chance that all of the words recorded here did not actually occur but because I rely so heavily on my memory (which is like relying heavily on winning the lottery this week so that you can pay for last weeks expenses which include, but are not limited to, electric bill, cell phone bill, and the last failed attempt to win the lottery bill), it is the only window into the past that we can look through.

Me: Using your pencil, please draw a line and cut the picture of the muffin into halves.

My Student: You mean the cupcake?

Me: Sure, we can call it a cupcake if you want. Now cut it into halves so you can share it with someone else

My Student: I really like cupcakes and dont want to share.

Me: Well it really isnt a cupcake, it is clearly a muffin and nobody likes muffins so it shouldnt be a problem for you to cut it into halves.

My Student: I hate muffins and dont even want to eat half.

Me: You might be missing the point here. The goal is not to discuss the food items we like and dislike, but rather we are just suppose to be cutting things in half.

My Student: Can we cut class time in half?

It is important to note that one side of my brain graduated from an accredited university with a degree in mechanical engineering, can have legit conversations in 4 languages, and once defeated my own 2nd grade math teacher in a timed test over a variety of addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems. But for whatever reason, I choose to live using the other half of my brain. Its the half that is looking forward to tonights episode of Duas Caras, my favorite Brazilian soap opera, not because I can understand anything they say (because I cant) but because one of the characters looks like Paul Sr. from American Choppers. Its also the half that wakes up at 7am to ride a bus for 2 hours and have quasi-arguments with 8 year olds about the differences between muffins and cupcakes.
Maybe I should re-evaluate my decision making paradigm, but frankly I am having too much fun to be bothered with that.

Some stuff

This is the busy street corner near where I live. I walk past here everyday to get to the bus. The big building is a shopping mall that is orinarily loaded with people inside and out. This picture was taken on a monday morning so this is about as few of people as you might see around here. On the weekend it is packed.




This is Fisk, an English and Spanish school that I occasionally give a conversation class at. I really like the teachers that work there, and we have become good friends over the last month or so. Its a good situation for us both because they can speak with a native english speaker and learn new things, and I can get relief from being in the Portuguese world all day.





This is the church office where I spend some time hanging out with the missionaries and other people that come in during the day. The woman in the picture with the black shirt, is my Brazilian mom. I live at her house. Her name is Aurea and she is also the church receptionist.






This is from the same soccer game I went to a few weeks ago. Lately there haven't been any games that I was that interested in going to. I am waiting until the culmination of the tournament they are playing now because I want to go to the championship game if a Brazilian team is in it. It should be madness

Trip to The Big Island

About 6 weeks ago I went with some of the missionary families here to a place called Ila Grande, which means the Big Island. We had to drive a couple of hours out of Rio to get on the boat pictured here and then we rode on the boat for another hour and a half out to the island.

As you ride the boat, there are many beautiful sights to see. I took this picture just as we were leaving the port area and there were alot of other boats around. Once you get out and away from the dock, its just you and the water and the mountains.

Once we arrived at the island, we began hiking over several small mountains to get to a beach. This is the view from the top of the largest mountain we climbed. You can see the direction from which we came and also some small boats that are down near the dock.

The people on the island live about as genuine of a secluded life as you can get. Sure there are boats that go back and forth from the mainland every day, but I imagine the local people don't go that often. Their small community was really cool and it seemed like everyone had a boat. I guess if you live on an island that is a bit more important than a car.

Some Pictures....Finally

This is me at the most recent soccer game I went to. We got there late so we had to sit close to the field. Brazilians prefer the high seats, so if you are late then you get to sit close.

This is my bedroom. It is about big enough for my bed and me to stand next to my bed. Its perfect.

This is a shot of the camp that I attended recently in the mountains outside of Sao Paulo. It was a Church of Christ mens conference and we had our main meetings inside that tent. The weather was real nice, and it was good to get away from the chaos of the streets of Rio and into a surreal place like this.

This is my Brazilian brother Pedro. He is 18 and preparing to go into the military. In this picture, we are on the train on our way to the soccer stadium. He is a real nice guy and always wakes up early and goes with me on the bus to places that I dont know how to get to. Then he turns around a goes home. The only thing bigger than his belly is his heart.

Of the many shots I took at Maracana Stadium, this was my favorite. We arrived and the game had just begun. The fans were going crazy, but it was a realitively low attendance night, only 55000. The stadium use to be the biggest soccer stadium in the world, holding 200,000 people, but then FIFA made some new regulations about how close fans could be to the field so they had to cut back on the number of seats. Now its the biggest soccer stadium in the world, but only holding a mere 140,000 people.

Everybody....PUSH!

Oh man did I make an incredible cultural discovery today! I went out for lunch with one of the missionary families from the church and after we finished they wanted to take me back to their apartment to pick a few things up before heading back for evening service. On the ground floor of their apartment complex there is a parking garage for tenants. A buzzer was used to open the gated door and we drove in to look for a place to park since there are no reserved spots. The garage was much smaller than I expected and after I took a closer look at the layout, I noticed there were quite a few spots that were completely blocked by another spot right in front of it. In other words, if you parked your car in the back spot against the wall, and someone else came and parked in the front spot, you were totally stuck.

My first reaction was, surely they rent those spots out to the same tenant that has two cars so there would never be a situation in which one car would be blocked from getting out by a car that belonged to someone else.
Wrong!
The understood rule is, if you park in one of the spots blocking another car (which we did) you must leave your car in neutral (regardless of whether it is an automatic or manual) and make sure you do not put the parking brake on. You have to do all of this because if the owner of the blocked car comes down and wants to leave before you do, he has to push your car out of his way!
Now stop and think about all of this for just a moment. What if the parking garage is not level? What if cars periodically slide around? What if when you return to get your car but you cant find it because gravity or another motorist has moved it? The possibilities are many and funny.
So remember, when you return to your car in Brazil and you see a few lads pushing a car around, lend a hand because they just want to leave too!

A Field Day For Science

No matter what you have going on your schedule, you will definitely want to make time to attend my funeral. I am not exactly sure how it will go, but my hope is that spliced in with the stories about my life and the nice comments, someone will find time to tell the audience what science discovered during the autopsy. The reason you are going to want to hear that report is because there is a good chance the man delivering the speech is going to be baffled that I made it as long as I did. And lets be honest, everyone likes to watch the public speaker squirm every now and again.
I suspect that one highlight of the autopsy will be the amount of Guarana Soda that they found. Guarana is a popular soda in Brazil that is sometimes tough to find in the United States. It is for this reason that I decided to move to Brazil and start this blog in honor of the great soda.
Many of you are asking, What does it taste like, and How can I get some for myself? The answers to those two inquiries are: come visit Brazil, and words can not even describe the taste, disrespectively.
So stay tuned to the blog where I will tell you all about my experiences in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil complete with pictures and the relaying of funny stuff that happens to me. If nothing funny happens, I will just pick something normal and puff it up real good.
Until next time, bite, claw, scratch, and gnaw....do whatever you have to do, to get your hands on some Guarana.