parabens! (congratulations!) on the sidewalk. Some donot shout but instead mutter it quietly as they pass you while walking. Otherslick their lips. Drivers of cars and motorcyclists constantly honk their hornsto... (I suppose?) praise women on the street. Brazil is a great place to be ifyou are a woman with low self-esteem. At the beginning of my stay here,this whole attitude was a big shock to me. It was super-weird. Now, I justexpect it. 3) TheAw-Everyone-Is-So-Friendly-And-I-Love-Brazil! Phase:Typical-Shiva-Quotationsduring this phase included: "I love Brazil!", "Why would I everwant to go back to Australia?", and "It's so easy to make friendshere". I was so happy, everything was exciting and fun, and I had lots ofnice new friends. It is true that Brazilians are very welcoming to foreigners -they are generally very curious about them because they are quite rare. Andinstead of doing what an Australian would do with his/her curiosity (i.e. betoo shy to ever say anything), Brazilians loudly ask whatever questions popinto their head, usually: Do you eat rice and beans in Australia? Do youhave a boyfriend? Where do you live? Do you have a football team here yet? Doyou have saudades for your family? Is it hard to learn Portuguese?while making side-comments on your appearance and weight, until they becomeexhausted. Another thing you just get used to! I also fell super in-love withthe University of Sao Paulo - with the class offerings, with the amazingopportunities, with the extracurricular activities, with the student life - anddecided that I really wanted to stay here.4) The Shit-I-Am-Graduating! Phase:This was, as it may appear,the phase where I realised that I had to get my act together to prepare forwhat I would do after graduating. Why didn't I think about it before? I had aboyfriend in Australia, and had planned that after this year I would go back toAustralia to do my Honours year, which was an optional extension of my program.When that didn't work out, I decided that I would try to enter into a Master'sprogram here at USP. But this put me into a frenzy of trying to put together aresearch project Sure, I have had some ideas since Ive started studyinglinguistics, but I wasnt ready to present a proposal to a supervisor. InAustralia we do this in the second half of our Honours year, or in the case ofa Masters, in the second year of the Masters degree. Here, the proposal is acondition of entrance to the Masters program. So I scrambled to the library tograb a bunch of linguistics books, and spent a month worrying that I might makewrong decisions about my potential specialization, and very slowly gathering upthe courage to talk to a professor whose research I was interested in,until...5) TheI-Fell-In-Love-With-A-French-Man Phase:...(which I hope, is not really a phase^^) where the idea of a Masters herebecame logistically impossible for our relationship and so morphed intoShiva-Trying-To-Find-A-Job-For-The-Next-Six-Months-While-Dreaming-Of-Europe.During this time, the semester ended, we went to the Amazon for three weeks, andcame back to Sao Paulo tostart looking for jobs. I definitely wasnt expecting this to happen, at least not in Brazil (he he he).