**DISCLAIMER** If you don't do deep thoughts and feelings: look away! You've been warned!!! ;)
Right, so before you begin watching I'd like to say that this is allllllllll personal! Your experience may be different from mine! Four of us from my uni have been to Floripa now and two have loved it!! I'm just the first one to document this in a blog.
Secondly, I have never lied on this blog. I dodged around the fact that I was feeling rubbish underneath for a long time. I hate lying! I'm one of those people who says so if they don't like something. It's a blessing and a curse! xD
Also, I am a positive person but can be a bit of a people pleaser, so if I go off on a tangent it's probably because I'm trying to cover up the fact that I've not been 100% happy, and want to make it sound like life here is all roses and fluffy bunnies. (What the fudge cake?!)
Summed up, my experience will not be the same as yours, but you should be aware that it can happen to you. You can be the most confident and out-going person, but you won't love every country you go to. In my case, you can just grow. And that is absolutely, positively, 100% ok!!!!!!!! If one country was for everyone, I think we'd be in trouble. xD But a year abroad in Brazil is not easy, it will have rough patches, and others have said this. If you haven't lived abroad for an extensive amount of time before, you will have hard times, but you make of it what you will. I've made it a life lesson, something to take from and turn tiny bits of my life around. Nothing dramatic, just personal attitude and such like ;)
(See below for my analysis of life here after one semester).
Right, so before you begin watching I'd like to say that this is allllllllll personal! Your experience may be different from mine! Four of us from my uni have been to Floripa now and two have loved it!! I'm just the first one to document this in a blog.
Secondly, I have never lied on this blog. I dodged around the fact that I was feeling rubbish underneath for a long time. I hate lying! I'm one of those people who says so if they don't like something. It's a blessing and a curse! xD
Also, I am a positive person but can be a bit of a people pleaser, so if I go off on a tangent it's probably because I'm trying to cover up the fact that I've not been 100% happy, and want to make it sound like life here is all roses and fluffy bunnies. (What the fudge cake?!)
Summed up, my experience will not be the same as yours, but you should be aware that it can happen to you. You can be the most confident and out-going person, but you won't love every country you go to. In my case, you can just grow. And that is absolutely, positively, 100% ok!!!!!!!! If one country was for everyone, I think we'd be in trouble. xD But a year abroad in Brazil is not easy, it will have rough patches, and others have said this. If you haven't lived abroad for an extensive amount of time before, you will have hard times, but you make of it what you will. I've made it a life lesson, something to take from and turn tiny bits of my life around. Nothing dramatic, just personal attitude and such like ;)
(See below for my analysis of life here after one semester).
So life after one semester?? Well, it's different! Deadlines aren't always stuck to, you can be in class for as long as four hours and with only one break, if you're from England: you are going to have to adjust a bit. However, classes are a lot more relaxed, I think of my lecturers as teachers rather than "lecturers", I'm not actually sure why... If you're given a semester outline in Week 1, don't expect it to be stuck to. If a paper's in for three weeks time, you can guarantee someone will push it to four, and it can be for something as simple as: "I don't understand the topic". Classes can run any time between 7:30am and 10pm: it's normal, deal with it! But you can leave the class at any time to get food/water, although you have to consume them outside. Canteen food is almost as good as restaurant food, as long as you get there fairly early. It's also *a lot* cheaper than restaurant food, but you have to queue up for the meal tickets first; paying cash inside the canteen: "ain't nobody got time for that!"
FRESHERS @ UFSC
Count your blessings you are not a first year! "Semana de integracao" is the equivalent of an 'initiation week', or the Freshers Challenge(s) as we called it. It's compulsory for all first years and nothing (repeat) NO-THING like our Freshers Week! Ours was enjoyable! They get soaked in paint, food leftovers and other muck and then have to walk around outside the university doing challenges. Stinking and in the heat, it cannot be comfortable!! They then have to answer a series of questions which are either impossible or never likely to get (because the older years won't let them and what's better than torturing first years?) to which they then have further challenges and disgusting consequences. It's horrific!! The theatre students in my class were talking about it and thinking of ideas for next years and it all sounded horrendous!! I'm so happy we don't have it - unless you're in a sports team.
FRESHERS @ UFSC
Count your blessings you are not a first year! "Semana de integracao" is the equivalent of an 'initiation week', or the Freshers Challenge(s) as we called it. It's compulsory for all first years and nothing (repeat) NO-THING like our Freshers Week! Ours was enjoyable! They get soaked in paint, food leftovers and other muck and then have to walk around outside the university doing challenges. Stinking and in the heat, it cannot be comfortable!! They then have to answer a series of questions which are either impossible or never likely to get (because the older years won't let them and what's better than torturing first years?) to which they then have further challenges and disgusting consequences. It's horrific!! The theatre students in my class were talking about it and thinking of ideas for next years and it all sounded horrendous!! I'm so happy we don't have it - unless you're in a sports team.