A Brazilian Man in London

A Brazilian man in London

I've been an English practitioner for about 15 years, but honestly I do feel like a student most of the times.

I felt in love with an artist in my adolescence (of course I don't dare to say her name now!) which made translate all her lyrics into Portuguese. And that got me started with English. When I was 17, I was a foreign exchange student in the USA for a year. That was an unforgetable experience to me. Back in Brazil, I majored in arts and Literature. My master's degree was in Semiotics. I studied a Russian movie director whose name is Andrey Tarkovsky. Then I started teaching English and some literature in colleges. I also spent some time in South Africa doing nothing, or better yet, ridding my invisible pink elephant, Nadia.

The school

I find the IH a wonderful place. Both our teachers are excellent, very patient with the group and their approaches and activities have been extremelly engaging. I am already full of new ideas.

The city

London is reviting, full of energy and I think it comes from the diversity of people and its multi ethnics. I see different and unfamiliar faces all over the city and I just love being hidden in this sort of anonymity, being among totally strangers. Even though London seems to me oddly compact, as if we are all going to the same place, to the same direction, to the same spot - centerwise, spinning, like a screw that's turning each time you take your next step, we never end up seeing the same face ever again. I blame the tube for that.

Each turn of the screw could be a "time swap".

When I was a young boy, I used to read Virginia Woolf and her London somewhat became mine and it trigged my imagination. In 1993, when I came to England for the first time, I was really disappointed with the city. Where did it all go? Years later, here I am. I'm older now. I was so naive back then. Three days ago, walking down a street, I grasped Virginia's saddness, Virginia's London, her profund silent in the middle of the busiest part of London: the perseverance of the old buildings. They were still there, patient and beautiful. I heard them saying their prayers, them singing their desperate songs nobody wants to listen to anymore. Like old men sitting on park benches alone waiting for your time.