Today's picture

 

At home on this lovely Saturday morning.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Holidays still holidays

With still nine days of holidays remaining I am trying to make the most of the free days I have. I spent some time on the beach and got some nice pictures to share. :)

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

An excellent day at the beach

It is Saturday afternoon and I am writing this right after lunch. The weather here has been quite hot lately. There's no denial it is beautiful outside but it can also be dangerous if you are not fully equipped to face the sun responsibly. It went to the beach with an old friend of mine three times last week. It was a good catch-up.

As you can see the weather was beautiful. Although this beach is relatively close to where I live I had never visited it before. It was an okay beach, though.

This is a very good restaurant with great service and excellent food.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Relationships

Having contact with people is a fascinating thing for sure. Grief, psychological problems, failing relationships, masqueraded evil behaviors are all things I see on a daily basis. All these problems directly affect people's performance and development and as a professional, I have been given the challenge to best guide these people in order to accomplish my task and help them at the same time. Surely, not an easy thing.

Last term I met a 36 year-old woman and on the first day I noticed she had higher chances of quitting the course than the rest of the group. I don't know whether or not it was her voice tone, the way she expressed herself in public which showed for the trained ones a maze of fragile thoughts just as if deep inside she was in pain and needing help. It didn't take long before her fragility became more and more apparent. Finally, a month later what I had foreseen became reality and she quit the course.

Before she left the course she sent me an e-mail explaining she would have to quit the course and she also thanked me for being so open and to patiently have listened to her. I didn't notice that listening to her meant so much and yet it was something I did naturally, effortlessly.

Obstacles, difficulties and personal problems are intrinsic to life, of course. However not everyone deals with problems the same way and that has captured my attention since I first talked to this woman. Last year's meeting we all agreed to hired a profession to better support students deal with personal problems in order to make them continue perusing their dreams. The results are yet to be published but I feel very positive about it.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Saturday Evening

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

What is it like to live in a country where education has never been prioritized?

Well, I can honestly say that it is definitely frustrating. Most people do not understand the size of the problems we face here in Brazil. Education has never been in the government's top 3 priorities and it never will be. Knowing education is the foundation of pretty much everything you may slightly know how in trouble the country is. To confirm all that we see bad teaching training, bad structures in public schools lack of security for teachers, bad salary for teachers and professors and of course an irresponsible government whose urgent priority right now is to stop the bleeding caused by the recent corruption accusations in the country's biggest state-run oil company Petrobrás.

For the average citizen nothing has changed. Corruption is in the news every single day and what really worries me right now is exactly what is happening. The population is used to seeing corruption cases on the news on a daily basis. Because it is routine, no significant protest has broken out so we are powerlessly witnessing the biggest corruption case in the country. Where are the protest? Where are those who so rightly protested last year exactly against corruption and corrupted politicians?

While the country watches the biggest scandal ever, teachers struggle to make a living in a country where education is almost like an irrelevant issue.

Posted with Blogsy