Fulbright'in it up

Please excuse the formatting on this post... I tried to fix a weird little thing that was bugging me and now I can't figure out what happened haha.  But the important parts are still here! :P

I've had a few people ask me lately what I'm doing in Brazil.  I think that's probably a sign I don't communicate well or frequently enough, but that's beside the point. ;) 

So, here you go: 

I am here in Brazil as an English teaching assistant (ETA) with the Fulbright program. 

(If you wanted the short story, that's it.  You can stop reading. ;) 


In 2012, I did a study abroad in Brazil, and ended up living/making friends with my two best friends (Kaitlyn and Lisa), as well as five other students from universities in the US.  Fast-forward to fall of 2013, and my friend Jonathan (one of the aforementioned Americans) posted on facebook that he was applying to go back to Brazil to teach English.  It sounded intriguing, so I decided to apply.


Unfortunately, the application window was only about two weeks away, and the application is rather involved (several recommendations from professors, etc; language evaluation of my Portuguese skills; plus several essays/statements that I had to do).  But with the help of the fabulous Carolyn Tu'itupou, my wonderful professor Vanessa Fitzgibbon, and Susie McPhilomy, I pulled together my application.  Whew.

And then I waited...a lot. 

The selection process takes forever, because you have to basically pass at every step.  BYU looks at the applications and decides whether to submit them.  Then you're evaluated by the Fulbright committee in the US.  The selected applicants are then sent to the Fulbright offices in the host countries for the final selection.

I found out pretty immediately from BYU that my application was being submitted...then in January I found out I had been selected for the final round.  Then in April, (six months after I applied!) I finally got the email that said:

"Congratulations!  I am delighted to inform you that you have been selected for a 2014-2015 Fulbright U.S. Student Award to Brazil. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program of the United States.  You will represent the country as a cultural ambassador while you are overseas, helping to enhance mutual understanding between Americans and the people in Brazil. You will join over 100,000 Fulbright U.S. Student Program alumni who have undertaken grants since the program began in 1948."

It was a very exciting email to read. :) 

Although..,it basically just led to more waiting, since the official start date of my grant was for a year after I got accepted haha.

Anyway, now here I am!  18 months after that impulsive application, I'm living in Brazil, teaching English!  :)  We're only supposed to work 20-25 hours/week at the university, and that's usually divided between the language/tutoring lab in the library, class visits, and events that we put on for any interested students (typically workshops about language or cultural topics, or less-formal conversation classes).

Besides the teaching responsibilities, they want us to learn Portuguese and participate in a "side project". (It's basically a fancy way of saying do anything productive you want; they said it can be "anything related to personal, academic, or career goals"....the real thing is that they want us using our downtime from the university to do something more constructive than watching everything that's ever been posted on Netflix.)

Teaching so far has been really good.  There are definitely some hard aspects of it, and I have gained *so* much respect for full-time teachers.  I have no idea how they can plan lessons and teach them with as little time and resources as they typically have.  Shout out to all the teachers ever. :)

Oh.  The other advantage to our setup here is that we have a lot of control over our schedules, which makes it pretty easy to put activities when we want them, and leave convenient breaks for trips and holidays :)  It's great!  The downside is that it turns out I don't really like planning and traveling by myself anyway, so I'm mostly kicking around Vitória and saving the really fun trips for when I have friends visiting from the states. :) 

I think that more or less covers "what exactly [I'm] doing in Brazil" :)