No Complaints, But. . .

This week hasn't exactly been grand. Monday seemed like a nice day; relaxing at the pool, reading Harry Potter #4 (in Portuguese!), eating some watermelon. However, the only problem was when I fell asleep alongside the pool without sufficient sunscreen. Now I look like what I ate; aka, red watermelon, white stripes, and much pain. But Tuesday, the first day I thought I had classes, could have gone much better.

First, there was the problem of going to the police station to finish some documents. After receiving our visas we were told to go to the federal police station within 30 days of arriving in Brazil to get fingerprinted and our foreigner ID card. What the consulate failed to mention was all the extra documentation and taxes that need to be filled out and paid in advance in Brazil. EAB (Marshall's school) was the only place telling us about this, and they offered to drive us there with the other teachers and students that needed to go, but being Brazilian they couldn't plan even a day, or a few hours, in advance. I had been planning to go collecting again Tuesday morning, but EAB people said it was probably going to happen then. So I emailed Guarino, the lab prof, to ask him to forward my email to the other students so they wouldn't wait too long for me, and I thought maybe things would work out.

As it turned out, Tuesday morning around 6:30am, Marshall checked his email only to find out the school went on Monday afternoon. A bit perturbing, but the human relations guy thought he could take us still because he had to go back to pick up paperwork from the day before. Things looked like they were going to work out okay, except they were just going to leave us at the airport (where the police are) when he was done. Fortunately for us, his papers took just as long to get so we made it back in time for me to make it to my classes.

So I left Marshall for UnB, met up with Tina, then went looking for my class. After waiting 30 minutes at the classroom, I started looking around some more and discovered a sign further down the hallway saying the translation class wouldn't start to next week. Okay, so I headed to the herp lab and was able to work for about an hour there, before I had my next class. However, the door was locked to the classroom, which worried me, so I waited a bit for more students, asked some people, then went to the Biology secretary. She prints my schedule out and shows me the class changed days and started Monday, and is now Monday and Wednesday, which is when I have another class at the same time. Problem. . . And I already missed the first class.

So I visited the library for some 'happy' reading materials, and checked my email--- Marshall found out that our free housing may be unavailable due to an illness in the teacher's family. And to top the day off, after our hour and some bus ride home, a huge knife fell from the shelf in the kitchen and fortunately only nicked the pants I was wearing; but it was more than nerve-wracking for all parties involved.

Today wasn't so bad, I was just 20 minutes late for my first class because the classroom written on the schedule is not correct. . . I have no idea why. A few girls were waiting with me when the class was supposed to start, then they started leaving, so I asked where they were going and followed. Which was a good idea, because they found the class, Fire Ecology in the Cerrado. It was really interesting, though lots of dates and homework assignments were mentioned rapidly at the beginning. . . But the prof was nice and is very willing to help me!

Now off to lunch, then more adventures (aka challenges).