Intercâmbio e Estágio

Monday morning, August 11th. There I was at VEC in the middle of a kaleidoscopic cloud of "strange" words coming from apprehensive students, welcoming coordinators and not less friendly Canadian teachers. My first impression was that I had plunged myself into an ocean of cryptographic codes. Everything was confusing to my unquiet and anxious brain, whose only contact with the English language had been during teenage years when Frank Black's Pixies vinyl albums inhabited the cherry-wood shelving unit of my room (good moments when, with my feet in the air and my head on the ground, I used to ask myself where my mind was).

Despite the expected stumbling-blocks and a storm of new expressions, I knew the only way to learn a new idiom was by totally abdicating my Portuguese and getting myself completely immersed into this new world. There I was then, in countdown to land on that world where tongue trips and vowel dialogues would turn those next four months of intensive classes into a really hard patience exercise.

Jim Morrison once said what makes us grow is the need of experimenting new things. I am not quite sure which context these words were inserted in (actually I am), but I confess they perfectly fit into what I had thought by the time I signed up for the BINT classes. It would be a great and unique opportunity to polish my English and aggregate more professional knowledge at the same time, so here we go.

One, Mississippi, two, Mississippi. The confidence comes as I gulp down countless textbooks provided by the school. Morning class, afternoon class and the cloud get sucked down the drain. After two months of full-time preparation to the so-called business environment, I felt all my invested money had definitely paid off. During all this period, I learned from experienced teachers not only concepts involved in everyday negotiations but could discuss with other classmates fascinating subjects, as for example administration strategies adopted by an eccentric bigwig of a British record label.

Eight weeks later, and rat-a-tat-tat: with the obliging help of the internship coordinators, I was now knocking on the door of an Internet company called Cinemaworks, this time calm as Hindu cow, waiting to be interviewed by its CEO.

That was just the beginning of valuable months working as a network consultant where I had the opportunity to not only put my technical knowledge into practice but also to stone the edges of my English skills.

The codes got cracked and Mr. Palahniuk's stories now make sense.

Thanks VEC.

Rodrigo Otávio Paes de Barros Otaviano
Brazil - aluno do programa de estágio voluntário