On Vacation, 2013

It’s that time of the month again!

That’s right, when quinzena meets quinzena! The MBS Post for December 2013!

****************************

That’s right, it is time for vacation. But before I get to my vacation plans, let me tell you what has happened since my last post.

This past Saturday saw the official end of my semester of teaching English both privately and at a school building. In the month leading up to the final tests and lessons, I was surprised by the reactions of my students: they bought me gifts.

In Brazil, as in many countries abroad, giving a gift to your “professor” / “teacher”  is a gesture of thanks and honor. From my various classes, I received hazelnut chocolate cake, an assortment of high-quality chocolates, compliments and, most happily of all, sincere thanks.

The gifts were great. But this was better:

Thank you, Sir. You are a really good teacher.

I learned a lot with you as my teacher.

Grammar is annoying, but you helped us get through each lesson.

Talk about encouraging reactions!

In other news (BIG news), there was also a big clash between fans of Vasco da Gama and Atletico-PR in Joinville, Santa Catarina.

For those who don’t know, Atletico-PR is a soccer team in my state of residence (“Paraná Athletics” could be the translation). This team is also the rival of Coritiba, which is the team I root for (both teams are in CURitiba, but CORitiba is my team’s name).  To prove that I’m not EXTREMELY biased, I will also mention that there was a similarly humiliating occurrence with my team as well a few years back.

Coritiba’s Club Logo

I do have to admit that the reports say the fans of Vasco da Gama were the ones to provoke Atletico. Whatever the case, I think it is representative of the frustration that many Brazilians feel about the World Cup in 2014. Instead of directing resources into educating people, resources are spent building stadiums and making city renovations; such chaos in soccer is partly result of this misplacement of money since most of this money is widely believed to go into bigwigs’ pockets or straight to FIFA, never to help Brazilians past the temporary boost in tourism it will stimulate, especially considering the “broken window fallacy” in regard to the money that could have been spent on the people instead of soccer.

All that said…

Vacation is looking really good right about now.

The above photo is from Florianópolis, the city-island capital of Santa Catarina state, about a 5 hour drive from my current location. And I’m going there for a good three days. Psyched.

I will be traveling with some friends who let me in on their plans to head to the coast. I have been wanting to go to this part of Brazil for a while now, so I am pretty humbled that God made a way for me to go. Not to mention the awesome company I will have!

To whet your appetite, this is where I will finish this post. However, you can be assured that more pictures (and a post) will come before New Year’s. I have to let you how my vacation goes, don’t I? And of course, Christmas.

Feliz Navidad. (Feliz Natal)

Kyle

P.S. One of my readers tried out the avocado face mask featured in a previous post minus the egg and honey. She said that the results (for both hair and skin!) are “amazing.” Let’s hear it for natural oils!