5: Classes Begin

02/11/2011


My dad recently told me that while he loved my blog, "the one thing that I believe would make your Blog better would be more positive news."  I was a total Debbie Downer in my last post, so let me say earnestly that I'm here today liven up the mood.


After my last post, I was obviously very distraught and uninspired.  But after I got back to my room and calmed down a bit, things definitely began to look up.  Basically I figured that if the classes were too easy, I would be able to test out after the first week, and if they were appropriate, I would stick with it and be able to review the bits of the language that I wasn't 100% on.  Ana Paula told me that I could definitely attend the Portuguese History class, which is one of the culture classes that is offered only in Intermediate, which was basically the only reason I wasn't able to get into the Intermediate level in the first place.  Plus, today I met a student who had studied at Coimbra last semester as well, and she was still in Beginner but spoke very well.  So, who knows how they separate these levels.  After experiencing my classes these last two days, I would be content with staying in my level or moving up.  We'll see how next week goes.


Anyway, after the test and the breakdown, we returned to the dorm and I watched the new How I Met Your Mother episode (ah, the miracle of the Internet).  We got in touch with the West Point students and, while the girls were planning on making dinner that night, Dan was all for coming out with us to find a restaurant close by.  But despite the copious amounts of banks, dentists, and clothing stores near our dorm, there are no real restaurants... even most of the cafes were closed.  The only place open for dinner was a Chinese restaurant...  But, Portuguese-Chinese food?  Well, there is a first time for everything.


It was strange trying to order Chinese food in a Portuguese restaurant, and thankfully the menu came in both Portuguese and English.  There was something strange though: while other places on the menu definitely included the word "cogumelos," or mushrooms, there were some dishes that were described as coming with "fungo chinês," or, well, Chinese fungus.  Curiosity almost got the better of me but in the end, I didn't order any fungo chinês... Next time, Kang Le.


There was no one in the restaurant when we arrived (this common trope is starting to convince me that Portuguese people don't eat anything except for pastries after 2 PM), and only a few parties showed up before we left, so the waiters were practically at our shoulders the entire time we were there.  They even took our plates away before asking us whether we were indeed finished or not, though thankfully we had devoured most of the food by then.  We then escaped the hovering waiters and returned to Polo III, where Ashleigh and Barbara were just finishing up dinner.  It was a party though: a few other people on their floor had also chipped in and they had all made a massive meal.  We stayed around and offered our quarts of ice cream to anyone to might like some and met Marta (Portuguese), Felipe (Dan's Brazilian roommate), and Otavio (Brazilian as well).  We were with them for quite a long time, speaking back and forth in English and Brazilian.  Felipe is a complete character, and he was excited to know that I was also a theater person, as he used to do modern dance.  Tatiana, Amy, and I were a little jealous that the West Point students had been roomed with Portuguese-speaking students, but hopefully we will be able to join a few of their dinner parties and befriend them as well.


Thursday morning marked the beginning of classes, and while I was planning on attending both the Intermediate and Elementary level of Portuguese, the classes were all at the same time so I stuck with my preassigned Elementary.  My first class Língua Portuguesa, in which we will do a lot of work with grammar and such.  The professor passed out a few magazine articles to read, and while I was a little frustrated with my partners, who basically refused to speak more than a sentence to me, but overall the class went very well.  


I also recognized someone in the class who I had not expect to be there: Ruben is from Germany and his speaking skills sounded fantastic when I met him on the day of the placement exam.  I thought he would definitely get into the Superior Level or at least Intermediate, but he was in class with me.  He recognized me as well and we realized that the our weaknesses were the other's strengths: he could speak and comprehend but wasn't very good at grammar and conjugation, and I can't form a coherent sentence in less than a minute but I could tell you the present subjunctive of "ver" in a moment (its veja, vejas, veja, vejamos, vejam, in case you didn't believe me).  We decided to be study buddies and try to move into Intermediate together.  We were both in Turmo 3, the highest level of Elementary, so we also had our Laboratório class together later in the afternoon.  Many of the foreign students drop this class because it doesn't count for any credits, but I think I'm going to stick with it.  It's basically its a classroom environment for practicing Portuguese and overcoming your own personal deficiencies with the language: we had the ability to practice speaking, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary... all in this first class.  I was glad to have some background with phonetics because the second half of the class was spelling out common sounds, and in the process I found out that I was saying the verb ending -am incorrectly, so that's good. 


During this class, however, we did an exercise where we wrote down our nationality, interests, qualities about our personality, etc. and then passed the papers around.  From the random new paper, you had to pick out its original owner, but this took forever because half the class is Chinese!  All these students are from Macau, where Portuguese and Chinese are the two official languages, and it was basically impossible to figure out who our person was when all it says is, "Sou chinesa.  Gosta de ler e comprar roupas."  There are also two Japanese students, German Ruben, myself and another older American woman, and a student from Bulgaria, Turkey, and Belgium, and Spain respectively.  Obviously we were all easily identified.  


After class, Ruben and I went to the bar/cafe in the Faculdade de Letras (Yes, their Humanities building has its own bar... Reasons why Portugal has a terrible economy but remains awesome #478) and "studied."  I put it in quotes not to denote an opposite or inappropriate meaning, but because our version of studying was basically just speaking in Portuguese together.  He would ask me questions about random things and I would have to respond with different verb tenses, vocabulary, etc.  Another boy in our level, Japanese Yugi (this spelling is guesstimated, but it sounds a lot like "Eugene" when he says it), invited himself into the study session, and while I can't understand a word he says with his very heavy Japanese accent, I'm sure he needed the practice just as much as I did.  After about an hour, we switched and I showed Ruben how to conjugate the present subjunctive and quizzed him on the irregular forms.  Hopefully we'll be able to study like this more often.  I felt much better about my speaking and pronunciation after that hour and a half.


After I took the bus back home, I realized how completely exhausted I was.  Amy had been sick earlier in the week, and despite my effort I realized I must be coming down with the same thing.  I was so disappointed because Tatiana and I were supposed to accompany the West Point students on a night on the town guided by Felipe, who was going to show them the popular bars and clubs in the area.  But after Tatiana and I made dinner (the stoves, again, proved to make things difficult, but our pasta came out delicious regardless), we realized that going out that night was not an option.  So we sent our apologies to Dan, put our pajamas on, and watched "Guess Who" before passing out earlier than usual.  That night, we also made our first attempt at doing laundry, though clothes are currently hanging all over the room since the drier takes almost two hours.  At least Tatiana finally has socks now! :)


Today was another day of classes, though my first and only class, Conversação, wasn't until 2 PM.  I slept in, got dressed, and then promptly got on the wrong bus.  The bus system in Coimbra doesn't have a northbound/southbound type of system like the ones in DC, but are simply a circuit.  There are places where the buses cross paths but are traveling the opposite way on the circuit, and I happened to catch the 29 on the same such route.  What is usually a seven-minute bus ride became about 40 minutes, but I arrived at the Praça da República just in time for lunch at one of the university's many cantinas with Tatiana, Dan, Felipe, Amy, and her boyfriend James, who is visiting for the weekend.  At least lunch was only 2.45 €!  


Now class is over and the weekend is just beginning.  However, most of the students go home on the weekends, so the city is pretty dead.  I'm hoping that Ruben and some other students abroad will be around this weekend, as the West Point students will be spending the next two days in Porto.  As for tonight, we are hoping to go to a cafe which has both free wifi and fadistas (performers of fado, the traditional music of Portugal).  This post has been rather devoid of pictures, so I hope I'll get some good ones tonight and this weekend.  


Isn't content Alex so much better to read?

4: Frustration and (Initial) Failure

02/7/2011

Today was the official beginning of our enrollment at the Universidade de Coimbra.  We met with our adviser Ana Paula Arnaut, who was surprisingly cool.  She told us happily that, “Portuguese people are very politically incorrect.  We laugh at all people: black people, yellow people, brown people, Jewish people, Catholic people.  Everyone.  So don’t be shocked when you hear someone say something.  That’s just how Portugal is.”  Now I know why Brown does not have a program to Portugal. 

After all the paperwork, we again took up residence at McDonalds and stayed there for four hours.  I took a break during that time and walked around the Praça da República, taking pictures and people watching.  Today, a lot of students were wearing their traditional uniforms (I guess in preparation for the beginning of classes), and a few of them were walking around the plaza with their capes.  We saw the uniforms all over the city and found a store that sells them but… unfortunately they are 200 Euros.  I guess we’ll just have to come back for our post-grad so it’s worth the money.

Later, as we were getting some other permits and red tape necessities done, we stopped in a little hole-in-the-wall camera shop because I needed more passport photos. The man reminded me very much of my grandfather in the way he spoke, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t understand him.  I was also confused because there was no place in the store to take passport photos, yet the service was clearly advertised.  But I understood him very well, and he lead me, Amy, and Tatiana to his “studio,” which was located up a back staircase and into what I figured was his actual home.  We took the pictures in this tiny room, where a little Polaroid mirror hung on the wall and a well-used hairbrush was available just in case.  I bought 12, as the second set of 6 only bumped the price from 6 Euros to 8 Euros, and every department in Coimbra seems to need my photo.  The pictures are ridiculous.  I was wearing a white scarf and a leather jacket, and I look like an old-time aviator.  I just need the googles.

Tonight we attempted to make dinner.  We bought a pan from this tiny little home goods store, then made a list and bought groceries at Pingo Doce, our local supermercado.  It took quite a long time to get the pan, the utensils, the food, and so by the time we finally got back to our dorm it was about 8:30 PM and we just could not figure out the gas stove.  We had almost given up and settled for just our salad and bread rolls with cheese when Amy’s roommate, who is an young Iranian woman studying for her masters in Mathematics, helped us get the stove going.  Our buddy Nasif also stopped by, but didn’t stay long.  Honestly, we probably didn’t need the distraction.  In the end, we had delicious chicken, rice and beans, and spinach salad.  It was a pretty late dinner, but definitely worth it.  We had a lot left over, so we definitely have at least lunch for tomorrow all set.  Saving money is nice.

02/9/2011

The last two days have been really rough.  Yesterday, Tuesday, I basically spent the entire day in a state of language frustration.  Almost immediately after I woke up, my cousin Joana texted me concerning her arriving in Coimbra to visit friends.  The previous times we had spoken, I had understood her pretty well.  That morning, however, she must have been using some sort of text speak or using colloquial phrases because I had to look up most of the messages in my dictionary.  I found out that she would be arriving around 3:30 PM.  I spent the day running errands around the city, and ended up having to pay quite a lot for my dormitory.  My bank account is seriously hurting right now.  So, broke and frustrated, I sat once again in McDonalds to check my email and wait for my cousin.  She showed up around 4 PM, and we ended up speaking to one another for an hour in broken Portuguese.  I felt so completely inadequate speaking to her.  I certainly wouldn’t blame it on her: I was frustrated and I cannot listen to the Portuguese language at all, and my limited ability plus the noise of McDonalds and the natural speed of Portuguese speakers made me feel like a completely idiot. She was so helpful and patient with me and was so friendly and nice, but when we finally left McDonalds, I was so upset and frustrated with myself that I was glad to be going back to the dorms.  I hope that, should I see her again at the end of the semester, I will be able to have a proper conversation in proper Portuguese.

Afterward the frustration continued as we started to study for our placement exam.  I felt like I knew nothing and kept beating myself up.  When we finally decided to go to bed that night, sleep was impossible: the room next door must have had five people in it laughing and screaming in Chinese all night.  I tried knocking on the wall a few times, but they would only be quiet for a minute or so and then the volume would escalate.  I finally fell asleep around 2 AM and woke up around 8 AM for our 9:30 language placement exam.  Apparently the Chinese students had been up really early that morning too, banging around in the kitchen and speaking right outside our dorm room.  When did they go to bed and how early did they get up?  Another day of frustration had begun.

A escada monumental.  Good.

We ended up taking the bus that morning, climbed up the escada monumental and getting to the Faculdade de Letras about half an hour early, studied outside, and then took the written portion of the exam.  After the exam, we went in search of the a bar inside the building to get breakfast and… lo!  There we other American undergraduate students there!   Three students from West Point were sitting a table away, and finally one of them came over to ask if we were American as well.  There is one guy, Dan, and two girls, Barbara and Ashley, who were very friendly and fun.  We exchanged numbers and hung around the bar until it was 11 AM and we had to go back for our spoken portion.  I was getting more and more nervous, and when Tatiana and I went in to speak to the instructors, we had already been waiting for half an hour.  Tatiana did fine, but my speaking and comprehension was horrible.  I was so nervous and they were so aggressive that I could actually feel my skill dipping back into freshman year POBS0100.  At the end, they were very straight-forward and told me that Tatiana was better than I was and that I should be in the Elementary Level.

I took the schedule of classes, walked out, and immediately began to cry in front of Amy, Tatiana, and our new friends from a MILITARY ACADEMY.  I felt so embarrassed but couldn’t stop, and they all tried to comfort me.  But the truth was: they were all in Intermediate, and I was the only American in Elementary.  I tried speaking to the women who tested me about moving up, but they not only laughed at my struggling with the language and request but also said that I would have to attend the first week as an Elementary student and then, after the first week, get my professors' approval to move up.  We went in search of Ana Paula, our advisor, and she recommended the same thing, plus attending the Intermediate classes at the same time and seeing how I did.  She then added up my hours and credits and the total was less than was necessary for both Brown and UWM and… I cried in front of my adviser as well.  I was so extremely frustrated and, again, completely embarrassed.  Nothing was going as planned, I had failed to get into Intermediate after five semesters of Portuguese, and my classes weren’t enough to transfer as an entire semester.  I just hope that I will be able to move up into Intermediate, where the classes include enough credits and hours.  This means that this weekend, I’m going to have to work really hard on my speaking and listening abilities. 

No more speaking in English.  I will do all I can to be in Intermediate classes by this time next week.  Wish me luck!  I’m going to really need it.