Sunday - Sean and I usually sleep in, do laundry and go grocery shopping. Sunday is actually a big night to go out for students so sometimes we join them at one of the nearby river bars.
Monday - I do a lot of lesson and workshop planning for the week in the morning. I also send out mentee emails for the week and catch up on some reading and homework for the graduate class I am auditing. In the afternoon my Portuguese professor comes to my house and I have a two-hour lesson. In the evening I help out with a freshmen class called "How to learn how to learn a foreign language."
Tuesday - I get to the university early and usually have appointments to meet with ISF (Ingles Sem Fronteiras/English Without Borders) students who want individual help or language advising. I spend a lot of time advertising for our English/Culture events either by emailing, visiting classes, hanging up flyers, posting on Facebook etc. Sometimes I get together with other graduate students to finish group work for our afternoon class. After lunch I have a linguistics graduate class from 2-6pm called "Special Topics in Linguistics: Complexity Theory in Applied Linguistics." The class is in Portuguese and it is not only a challenge to follow a long and contribute but to understand the topic as well. Sometimes I help with an English class in the morning or in the evening after class.
Wednesday - Today is my busiest day. I get to the university early and set up the teaching webinar that the embassy offers to English teachers. The webinar is from 9:00-10:30 and a lot of current and future English teachers attend. I usually help with an English class in the morning and then have a meeting with the other ETAs and my coordinator before lunch. From 1:30-3:00 I do an English/Portuguese language exchange with a professor. From 3:00-5:00 I meet with a research group studying language advising. From 5:00-6:00 I have my English conversation club. I usually help with English classes in the evening until 8:30.
Thursday - I don't go to the university today. I spend the day catching up on paperwork, grant reports and lesson and presentation planning. I use this day to go to places that are only open on weekdays like the bank and post office. I have a Portuguese class at home again from 3:00-5:00.
Friday - I either give a teaching workshop from 8:30-10:30 or I attend a language advising meeting (a pilot program that the university is researching and testing). The meeting and/or workshop happen on alternate weeks. Then myself, along with the other two ETAs, Stevie and Anna, give two workshops about some aspect of American culture from 11:30-1:00 and 2:00-3:30. I usually help with some Friday afternoon English classes after that. Friday nights are when we usually go out with the other American ETAs in Belém or hang out with students.
Saturday - Sometimes I have to go to the university to help with the weekend English classes (offered to students who study or work full-time and don't have time to take English during the week). Then Sean and I go to our Brazilian dance class from 5:00-7:00.
It's usually a busy week and I don't feel like I have a lot of free time especially since going anywhere takes awhile because of the traffic and the bus commute. Most days it takes me about 40 minutes to get to the university but sometimes if it is raining really hard and at rush hour it takes more than 2 hours. The semester ends in the beginning of July so my schedule will change drastically for the month of vacation and then things start all over in August for the second semester. I really enjoy what I'm doing here and I am so glad that I was given the chance to come back to Brazil for one more year.
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