mundão

It’s surprising how many people from the course I’m still in touch with. I chat with Genia on whatsapp and\or on facebook messenger daily (diolch am dy gymorth di gyda fy nosbarth i, BTW - if that’s any accurate), Liz and I also have a few nice little conversations every once in a while (I’ve just sent her pictures of the flat I’ll hopefully be moving into next week), Ren’s always a joy to talk to, despite the fact that she’s often lost somewhere on the globe and hard to track down (she shared cool photographs of Chinese terracotta warriors with me some time ago), Charles might be silently reading the mostly nonsensical messages Genia and I, and sometimes Ren too, exchange on our messenger group, Matt has been following the blog (diolch yn fawr!...), Phil and I jokingly became husband and wife (gwr a gwraig, can’t use accents on ws here with this keyboard configuration) for an imaginary Welsh soap opera with a great soundtrack, and even Ioan, who’s wisely not on facebook or whatsapp, has sent me a couple of emails (and been bothered by mine in return or in the first place), cool (well, not the bothering people bit, you got it).

But I haven’t written in such a long time that I don’t even know where to start anymore. Oh, the lesson on comparative forms and rugby versus football, or rather football versus rugby, since I deliberately asked the group (no, I haven’t got any this term, I was just filling in for a colleague - and was absolutely astonished to meet a former student of mine, from ages ago, who’s a fully grown-up boy now, a man, in fact, and whom I didn’t recognise at first because, well, he looks so weirdly, nice, he looks nice, I mean, it’s just strange to see him like that, all manly-looking, I felt truly old for the first time in these nearly twelve years of ELT) to defend our national sport at the expense of Wales’s. This reminded me of the day Genia took me to the Millennium Stadium* (which is actually right across from the hostel where I was staying - and is now called Principality Stadium instead, I wonder if anyone uses this name, though) to, guess what?, watch some rugby for the first time in my life (I was going to say ‘and last’, but then Genia and I have stayed in touch, as I’ve said, and will continue to be in touch, I hope, so I wouldn’t doubt it if I ended up at the stadium for another dose of her favourite game one day).

Y Stadiwm

I have no idea anymore what exactly it was, that event we went to, I only know they were very quick matches and there was the word seven, sevens?, in the name, lol. I liked it, I did, don’t be misled into believing I didn’t just because of my horribly poor memory. I learnt a lot (and forgot most of it! lol) about the sport, from basic rules of the game to its ethical aspects, and was pretty much convinced that it’s a more worthwhile sporting pursuit than football. A player who got seriously injured in an accident or something and is now paralysed and can’t play any longer is being helped by his former team or something like that, with the selling of rugby-related products, and there’s that Oddballs company too, which sells mainly men's underwear in bright colours and (odd, indeed) patterns to raise awareness about testicular cancer. I, for one, can’t remember seeing something of the likes of that in the football milieu (please correct me if I’m wrong). Moreover, it was really nice to see my friend rooting for whichever teams she was rooting for, and myself as well, consequently (‘So who are we supposed to be cheering for now?’, lol). She also tried to get me to sing along to... Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’ (ironically, he plays football in the video! lol), I reckon, but to no avail (I’m not that big of a spoilsport, I didn’t know the lyrics, that’s all). I did enjoy myself by seeing Genia enjoying herself so much. Yeah, that’s me.

The funniest part, to me, was, however, when some random Welsh or other young women of whatever nationalities they were got onto the field dressed in rather modest (by comparison, yes) Brazilian-ish carnival outfits - to dance to some music of which lyrics went like ‘Ô, Brasil, Brasil, Brasil!... Ô, Brasil desse mundão…’ (and, yes, this is me on Forvo - sorry for the low quality, though), LOL. I was nearly startled. What we’ve got to do with rugby I’ll leave for you to figure out (and tell me later, please). Oh, and that evening was also when Genia (the German who hung out with a Brazilian, to make an inside joke more mentionable in public) and I (the Brazilian, of course) said our goodbyes, with a big hug and, in my case, at least, watery eyes. We’d met only a fortnight before that, ain’t it funny how we can get easily used to having certain people around, in our lives? That wasn’t even the first time I’d seen a new friend from the course leaving - it was, perhaps, the first time I’d realised what it would’ve meant had I not decided to stay for another month?... And, yes, Genia’s… Well, Genia. Which equals ‘awesome’. :D There are people we simply click with straightaway (right, Carol? You didn’t think you’d escape being remembered in this post, now, did you?). And there are those we warm up to once their initial barriers, and\or our own, come down a little, and then a little more, and more, and - you got it, right. I’m still surprised at how many wonderful individuals I had the chance to meet on that course\trip. You’ll be introduced to many more of them here, just hang in there, my word.

*It wasn't actually the main stadium itself, it was a sort of... brother stadium? Sister? Help me, Genia, please!