I apologize beforehand that this blog is a little more of a vent session than cultural, informative or gruesome and funny. Me, venting? Crazy I know... But it's true, something irritated me. Surprise!

Today is Saturday. I work Monday- Saturday and on top of that, last night I had an extra class and didn't get home until 9 30, then had to eat, shower and get my head monkey-picked (my paranoia has made this a daily thing, combing vinegar in my scalp). Point is, getting up on Saturday morning (especially when it's overcast and chilly) to repeat a basic English phrase like "When's your birthday?" "My birthday is..." is not on top of my list (by the way, why do we use ordinal numbers? It's such a pain because then they confuse "I'm 22" and "my birthday is on December 22ND"). Newsflash, Contrary to some beliefs, I speak English!! And I don't need to spend 5 hours of my day getting to and returning from a class of something I learned when I was like 3.

But I DO it. And usually I enjoy it. I spend a lot of extra time searching for creative and fun activities. But when my students come to class 20 minutes late, look like zombies, didn't study and talk (in PORTUGUESE) when I'm talking... You can bet your ass I'm not going to put up with it. Nor keep my mouth shut.

You're tired, worked late, went out drinking... It's fine but guess what, I'm human too and you're paying for this class. Maybe you should be taking responsibility and MANNERS class. Just a suggestion. You have a native speaker spending over 2 hours with you to practice English. After spending the whole week not practicing or studying, I would take advantage of this opportunity if I were you.

The good news is that it's not all my students. 2 were like that today, gossiping in Portuguese during the exercises, hanging out with the secretary even when class had returned from break, not paying attention. But my other 2 students were the opposite. Both asking questions, practicing and participating. And we actually had a good time learning birthdays, ordinal numbers and horoscope signs (I taught them the words soul mate and perfect match, it was funny).

So end of story, I leave in 4 weeks (woooo) and I dont have time to waste on people that don't care and disrespect my class BUT there will be a few Brazilians left behind with some good pick-up lines.

"Hey, baby. What's your sign?"