Paula- First Writing

ANA PAULA CHIOVITTI

(HIGH 2 – Teacher: Rick)

WRITING:

(First Draft)

“Talk about your adversity experience”

 

“Building Castles”…

 

Going back in time, I think the hardest experience I´ve ever had, it was to study (and to finish) the College at Law Public School in Brazil (College of Law “Largo São Francisco-USP”). Actually, this history is in the context and I have to explain it. There are some events which contribute for this: 1) I’ve always studied in a public school that has been terrible in terms of medium level; 2) My family came from a modest origin and 3) My parents had gotten divorce and I had to work when I was 15. Everything could have been a motive for giving up following my dream, but, in opposite, those adversities were my motivation to go on.

 

People usually use excuses to explain your faults; I did it many times, but not that time. I remember that I thought about my life and, in the beginning, I confess: I was a little bit upset. But, I had to choose: to give excuses or to do something. I chose the last one. After that, I started form scratch: I studied a lot, worked hard and finally… I didn’t pass. Yes, I failed in my first opportunity. It was not so easy, but I didn’t have choice: no excuses! I studied more and more and my dreams came true.

 

In hindsight, I think I’m stronger nowadays. I had a lot of disappointments; however I learned many things which only the life teaches. The felicity demands to be corageous. Like Fernando Pessoa said: “Are there rolls in my way? I’ll keep them – everything – one day I’ll build a castle…”

 

 

Mauro writing

DANGEROUS EXPERIENCE

Ten years ago I lived in Vila Mariana and I usually took a subway to move. At that time I didn’t have a car. During the workdays this way was very crowded because it was a way that a lot of students used to go to ESPM and Belas Artes School. However, on the weekends the street became desert.

 

I was aware that the way became dangerous at night especially on the weekend due to the fact that illumination was deficient, with many of lamps turned off. But I never thought that a bad thing could happen to me. So I usually pass on that way even on the weekend night.

 

One Sunday, when I was coming back from my girlfriend (now my wife) home, suddenly a man came behind me and announced an assault. In fact as it was dark I didn’t know if he had a gun or not, but I didn’t take a risk. He asked me to give the wallet and money. I said him that I didn’t had money, I moved by bus and subway and I tried to convince him that I had only subway and bus passes and R$20,00. Thanks God he said me to went away and not to see back, if not he would kill me.

 

I did what he asked. At that moment I was calm, but after I arrived home I became very nervous and I couldn’t sleep, because every time the scene of the assault came in my mind.

 

I only overcome that after 2 weeks and after that in the weekends I used another way to get my home.

Moving to São Paulo – Lívia

When I was sixteen I decided that I wanted to become an administrator. But with this decision I had to move to São Paulo, the big city. I was very excited about the idea of having my own house. Until my seventeen’s I lived in Rio Claro, a small city.
In December of 2000 I did my enrollment at the PUC-SP University. I was very happy about my new step in life. Everything was going so well, I got a job, my grades were fine and I was falling in love.
Suddenly I realized that I was getting very distance from my best friends. We studied together for almost fourteen years and now we were in different ways. Our quintet was putting out of joint, our lives were pretty different and we were making new friends…in a different type of friendship. I’ve missed them so much that sometimes it hurts in my heart.
We’ve tried to talk and to see each other every twice a month. But in a natural way our lives have gotten too distance. Today I still consider them my best friends because I know they are the ones who know me better. We knew and lived a time that we will never forgive, we know who we really are with no interference in our pure thoughts.
I love all them, Lis, Elisa, Melina and Alessa, I will never forget out time together. I wish success, love and happy in their lives, I am sad that I am no longer essential part of their lives.

Patrícia (1) – Big City!

The adversity that I had to face was to move from a small city, where I lived with my parents, to live alone at a huge city like São Paulo. Note that I didn´t know anybody that had been living in São Paulo that time.

Alone, I moved to the capital to study and I lived by myself for a month. I had a car but I didn´t know how to drive in this city, so I got lost everytime, everywhere!

I had do start from scratch and had to make new friends, learn how to drive in this terrible traffic and also, I had to get used to spend a lot of time inside a car, every single day!

Nowadays, I got used to this mess and I can´t imagine my life away from here! At least, all this stuff was worth it!

Daniel – First Writing

When I was fifteen, my family and I were going to Embu das Artes to visit a famous street market. The way to get there was pitch hard because the street had no asphalt, so we had to go a bit slow, the road was really empty due to there was a big forest there and few people lived in that location.

After ten minutes on the road, suddenly a car blocked our car and we got stuck, then two guys with machine guns got out of the car, and my mother ran away at the same time starting a high speed persecution on that small road with many hairpin bends. It had last 2 minutes when a bus on another hand was coming, there was no way to pass so my mother crashed the car on the bus strongly. Afterwards, the robbers ran away to the other side and quickly we called the police. It was an afraid situation and I was scared to death. Nobody got hurt, tough.

Juliana Writing

THE MIRACLE OF LIFE

 

In the most of the time it’s very hard dealing with adversities. In the follow lines, I will describe the worse experience I had confronted in my life.

 

Recently, in December 6^{th, I had a healthy baby called Lucca. But, at the day he was born I felt so scared.}

 

When I got to the hospital I didn’t have enough dilatation. So my obstetric doctor prescribed a medicine to help me to have a natural part.

 

After few minutes of medicine I had four strong contractions and the baby stopped to breath for while.

 

I got very nervous with that situation and I started to cry a lot. I really had been going out of my mind.

 

Suddenly, the doctor interrupted the medicine and asked me to be calm, that everything would be all right. At that moment I was felling very nervous.

 

While we waited for the baby’s cardiac shock became normally, the doctor prepared the Sao Luis team for an emergency cesarean.

 

After about twenty minutes in the Surgery Center, I had my very healthy and handsome Lucca, with 3,040 kg, and 49,5 cm.

 

Nowadays, Lucca represents to me the miracle of life.

Rafael (1) – The passion for the human life

I have been having a beautiful life, so i don’t have any significant adversity that i had to face in my life. Because of this, i’m going to tell a story that happened with the singer José Carreras:

Have you ever heard about the Three Tenors? The group of singers formed by the Italian Luciano Pavarotti and the two Spanish men José Carreras and Placido Domingo.

Placido is from Madrid and Carreras is from Barcelona, and there is a big revanche between people from Madrid and people from Barcelona. In 1984 by politic questions, Carreras and Placido became enemies, in that time, in their contracts said that they only will make a show if the rival didn’t sing in the same event.

Nevertheless, in 1987, Carreras won a new enemy, too much worse, he discovered that he had leukemia. After that, he stopped singing and started a big battle against the leukemia. He submitted in many treatments and soon all of his fortune ended and without condition of work, he didn’t have cash to continue the treatment, but he found out an institution called “Fundacion Hermosa”, this foundation was created with the unique purpose of helping people who have leukemia.

In the end, because of this foundation he won the disease and he restarted to sing. As soon he started to gain a lot of money for his shows, he decided to join the “Fundacion Hermosa”, and reading the contract, he discovered that the biggest colaborator and the president of “Fundacion Hermosa” was Placido Domingo, more than that, the foundation was created, in priciple to help him, and Placido kept in the anonymity for not to constrain Carreras to acept help from the enemy.

Later, an extradiornary moment happened, during a concert of Placido in Madrid, Carreras appears, knelt and apoligezed. Than, in a interview with Placido Domingo, a journalist asked: Why did you create the foundation? By the way, besides helping an enemy, you revived one of the the few artists of the world that could cause a competition for you. He aswered: Because a voice like that, couldn’t be lost. 

 

 

An Amazing Holiday

Last year I went to Rio de Janeiro to spend a holiday. I don’t remember which one was. I traveled with my husband and one more couple. We had beautiful days with sun, beach, nice dinner, good conversation…everything was perfect until we arrived at airport to take the airplane back. We arrived at Santos Dumont around 6:00pm. Our flight was scheduled to 19:50. We did the check-in and we went to the lobby waiting the call. We waited there until 11:30pm when someone from the company warned us that we should change the airport, to Galeao, to take another airplane. We took a taxi to Galeao. We arrived there around 1:00am. At Galeao, we and all the passengers from that same flight, went to the company´s gate but nobody knew what was happening and didn’t know any information. After a lot of discussion, one guy from the company called us and told about  knew flight that should be taking off at 2:45am. We decided to take this one, the flight take off on time. To complete this soap opera when we arrived at Guarulhos – SP we went to baggage claim to pick up our luggage. To our surprise…guess what…our luggage weren’t there. After to fill in a form we went to home and our luggage just arrived in the day after.

Rick (1) – Losing the Love of My Life

Alicia was the only woman I have ever truly loved in my entire life.  We met while we were foreign students at California State University Long Beach in the beginning of the 1990’s. Born and raised in Paris, Alicia went to the States to study Philosophy. Since she could only work on campus, she applied for a full-time job as an English instructor for a program for foreign students who came to visit California for the summer. Facing the same limitations to find a job for being Brazilian, I had also applied to work in the same summer program. We taught English in the morning and accompanied the foreign students in their afternoon and evening activities as local tour guides; in other words, Alicia and I ended up spending the months of June, July and August of 1992, virtually 24 hours a day together. And the more time we spent together, the more we realized how much in synch we were with each other. We had the same goals, the same values, the same views in life. For people who believe in reincarnation, we were soul mates, for sure.

After the summer program ended, we decided to share the same apartment building right across from the university, and we lived together until the end of 1996, when both our green card applications had been turned down by the American government. Unlike couples who break up for incompatibility reasons, we were being split by outside forces. The problem is that Alicia wasn’t willing to give up on her life in Paris to come live with me here in Brazil, just like I wasn’t willing to restart my life in a country where I would take the risk of not being able to get my green card again. Besides, I spoke no French, and she spoke no Portuguese. So we decided to part our ways even though we still loved each other very much. I was going out of my mind on the day Alicia left for France at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). I knew in my heart that we would never see each other again, a promise that I have kept to myself until today. But I also knew for a fact at that moment that no matter what happened in our lives from that day on, I would always love her until my dying day.

Rick – Welcome to High Intermediate 2!

Hi guys,

Welcome to High Intermediate 2 Blogging. Our first assignment has to do with the theme we have been discussing in class. I would like you to share an adversity you have had to face in your life with the rest of the group. If you don’t feel comfortable disclosing information about yourself, you can also select an adversity that someone you know has faced in his or her life.

Just a few reminders:

(1) This entry will serve the pre-writing stage to our process writing assignment. And as any pre-writing stage, we are not concerned about accuracy. Don’t worry about making grammar mistakes or having the obligation of using the vocabulary and expressions from the book. At this stage, we are more concerned about the development of your ideas. We want to see if your story makes sense to us, your readers.

(2) When you finish writing your piece, add your name and assignment number in parenthesis so that I will be able to retrieve your entries more efficiently in the future. For example, my sample pre-writing will be named Rick (1) — Losing the Love of My Life.