After a very busy week, I am kind of tired. The 7th SEPEX (“Semana de Ensino, Pesquisa e Extensão”) started on Wednesday at UFSC, and I had a lot to do. I subscribed to two courses: “A linguagem nas histórias em quadrinhos: a nona arte” and “O lúdico como ferramenta nas aulas de Língua Estrangeira”. Each course took four hours, and I had the opportunity to learn very interesting things. As last semester I wrote a paper about Dom Quixote’s adaptations to comic books, I thought that taking a course about “HQs” would be a very nice idea. Also, I enjoyed the other course, since I will be able to use many of the ideas in my volunteer work as an English teacher. After all, I am very concerned about preparing fun and enthusiastic classes – I want my students to have the desire for learning!
This week I also had the opportunity to discuss my essay with Teacher Raquel. She gave me very nice tips and ideas so that I could improve my writing. I’m so happy about “constructing my paths towards academic sophistication”!

This week officially started only on Tuesday, so I had more time to rest and specially to write my essay about “Applied Linguistics throughout time”. I really hope it is good enough! So, my week at university started with some classes about Krashen’s Monitor theory (it’s a Second Language Acquisition – ESL – theory), and it was really interesting because we had the opportunity to exchange points of view and practice our English, specially in the class we had on Thursday. We continued studying Poetry and it is really nice! Now we can identify poetry syllables, which are different from the grammar ones.I also had a review in my French class, since we are going to have a test on Tuesday! I’ll have to spend my weekend studying…
I’m so excited about the coming days – I’m going to take some very interesting courses at SEPEX. But I’ll talk about them next week…
XOXO

Poetry is in the air...

We have just had our first poetry classes. Surprisingly, I’ve been enjoying them a lot. I usually don’t like poems: I think they are confusing, unclear and not straight-to-the-point. But in just one week I’ve started to see poetry from a different point of view. Considering that we are going to have more two months to study poems, I believe my interest on them will increase.
Unfortunately, nothing is perfect. While I got very enthusiastic about my Literature Classes, I was kind of disappointed with my volunteer work as an English Teacher. This is because some students haven’t showed up in the last few weeks, and I can’t help to think that there is something wrong about me/my classes. So, I decided to talk to my students about the classes. I found out that they think my classes are nice; they just don’t have enough time to study… It’s a pity, but I totally understand. I think that I am too insecure. As I’m a perfectionist, I’m too hard on myself… But I’ve been trying to change!
This time I’ll end up with a poem I like by Lewis Carroll (the author of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, which is the book I am reading for my Literature classes):

Beautiful Soup

BEAUTIFUL Soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two
Pennyworth only of Beautiful Soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Beau--ootiful Soo-oop!
Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!

(Source: http://www.poetry-online.org/carroll_beautiful_soup.htm)

"Don't worry, be happy!"

This week was very different, but in a very good way. As we didn't have some classes, I had more time to write my Literature essays (the deadline was postponed for next week) and my week was 'over' on Thursday evening. These calm days really helped me to relax and organize everything in order to start all over. In Linguistic we continued studying Phonetics. It keeps getting more and more interesting! We learned the phonetic alphabet and we had a lot fun while practing it. In Applied Linguistics we watched a video about the Human Language. It was very interesting, since it made me think about the language from very different points of view. We discussed the video in class and also listened to a very happy song performed by Marti'nália, a Brazilian singer. I specially liked the music because it was very relaxing. It was a very good way to finish my week!

This is the song's video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QV27stMslmw

It's already the middle of the semester - there are only two months left! I can hardly believe it!
=]

"Estresse faz adoecer

Amor rejuvenescer...

(...)
Don't worry, be happy!"