Brynn Barineau

Month: March 2011

  • The Miracle of Pregnancy?

    The Miracle of Pregnancy?

    The miracle of pregnancy is that any woman voluntarily goes through it more than once.

    At 19 weeks into my own pregnancy, this is the conclusion I’ve come to.  Am I the only one that thinks a process which makes the act of consuming food torturous at exactly the same time your diet becomes more than ever before, is flawed?  Admittedly, eating has become less of a chore in the second trimester, but between constantly belching like a teenage boy chugging soda to an increasingly limited number of comfortable sleeping positions, I’m not sold on the experience.

    I’ve been doing a lot of research.  I’m reading every thing from mommy bloggers debating epidurals to the Mayo Clinic’s week by week summary.  Pretty much everyone, doctors and bloggers alike, reference this “glow” pregnant women experience.  A warm, fuzzy feeling that radiates from toes to earlobes every time a woman looks at her belly.  Unless this glow refers to light reflecting off of my sweat, I don’t know what they’re all talking about.  I’m waiting for the fuzzy feeling.  Seriously, any time now.

    Maybe my hormones are off.  Although, I’ve done so many blood and urine tests at this point, I’d think somebody would have noticed and told me if they were.

    Do not misunderstand me.  I’m not upset about being pregnant.  I’m not regretting it.  Really, I’m a huge fan of family.  Go family!  “More family,” I say.  I can’t wait to go to school plays and put colorful, abstract renditions of the family pets on the refrigerator.  I’m just not a huge fan of the pregnancy part and based on the vast majority of what is online, this feeling (or lack of) puts me firmly in the minority of women.

    Reading the material available for pregnant women and new mothers, it’s pretty clear there are millions of women who dream about being pregnant.  They yearn for it.  They wish, hope, pray and stare longingly through store windows at baby clothes.  I have never felt this.  I never dreamed about being pregnant and giving birth was never on my list of life goals.  In complete honesty, getting pregnant has yet to give me even half the personal satisfaction that finishing my master’s degree did.

    When my husband came home from the doctor two years ago and said we might have trouble getting pregnant, I said “We can just adopt.  There are plenty of kids that need parents.”  I truly didn’t feel any sense of loss.  What I wanted down the line was a family and that, at least in my mind, never required my being pregnant.

    I understand many women feel a need to be pregnant, but I can’t empathize.  I’m thrilled the baby is healthy and growing.  I’ve got a library’s worth of books coming that will tell everything from how her synapses are forming to all the colors her poop can be and what they mean.  Her nursery color scheme and theme are set five months before she’ll need it.  Yet even amidst the nesting, there is a feeling Audrey will be an only child.  At least, the only one I’m giving birth to.  I’ve told my husband we can totally have more kids but it’s his turn to gestate.  He assures me this won’t be possible.  I shrug my shoulders and say “Well, there are lots of kids who need good parents and a big sister.”

  • Coconut Water in a Bottle

    Coconut Water in a Bottle

    I’d like to share a PSA I’m working on.

    “Hey kids, let’s talk about statistics!  Statistics are lame? Ok, how about, sex and statistics? Did you know there are lots of statistics about sex? Totally! People base entire careers off of pie charts illustrating issues about sex.  What issues?  Well, you could have data about how likely it is for someone above a certain age with a certain medical history to have a baby.  You could then pass this information along to doctors.  Doctors in turn pass it along to patients.  These doctors might even chuckle when the patient talks about continuing to use birth control for the time being, because the doctor knows the odds of pregnancy are so slim contraception isn’t necessary.  Then the patient and his partner, believing the doctor knows what he’s talking about, think it’s ok to go a few weeks without birth control.  Four months later the couple is researching baby names and picking out colors for the nursery.  Look kids, my point is that the only statistic about sex that really matters is ‘A small chance is NOT the same as no chance.”  Say it with me, ‘A small chance is NOT the same as no chance.’ ” -This message was brought to you by the US Department of Agriculture, for years bringing you numbing statistics such as raising child from birth to 17 costs $221,000 (not including the cost of time, sanity or college).

    A little wordy for a 30 second spot?  Maybe.  I could just make t-shirts that state in bold and all caps “A SMALL CHANCE IS NOT THE SAME AS NO CHANCE” and give one to, well, everybody .

    It’s an important lesson my husband and I have learned, because, obviously, the story above is ours.  I am currently 18 weeks pregnant.  We’re expecting a little girl August 26.

    Despite what my PSA might imply, we are excited.  Although, to be completely honest, it is has taken me a couple of months to reach that stage.  We always planned to have a family, but we were going to wait another year or two.  Being a person who sticks to any well-made plan the way others adhere to religion, I was thrown by this schedule change.  “Buying an apartment comes before having a baby!”  Then I looked at the big picture, the one where you see your entire life laid out, and I realized that having a baby after college, after grad school, after marriage, after employment, even if it’s still one year earlier than planned, is actually pretty darn good life planning.  Also, I started looking at baby stuff and discovered there is not a single item of clothing that does not become totally adorable when miniaturized.  OMG, baby socks!!

    Now that I’m far enough along, I’m comfortable posting about my pregnancy to the world.  This means Coconut Water will have lots of posts in the coming months about having a baby in Brazil.  Having read about expats in Rio, I already know having a baby in Vitoria is about half the cost as Rio for the same quality of care.  There will be posts about my doctor (love him!), raising bilingual kids, costs, hospitals, finding a nanny, coordinating family visits, etc. Between the new job and the new baby, I have so much to write about but right now I need to go edit essays.  So many posts, so little time.

  • Blog Upgrading: Brynn in Brazil’s Coming of Age Tale

    Blog Upgrading: Brynn in Brazil’s Coming of Age Tale

    My new job has done the impossible.  I have been made to feel like a computer guru.  My husband, brother, stepmother, and any other family member I have recruited as tech support over the years, will marvel at this development and immediately question the quality of teaching staff at my school.

    I’m not particularly good with computers. I know I could get better, but I have no patience for them.  The slightest thing goes wrong and I get a knot between my shoulders and a seriously cranky attitude.  One complication and I shutdown faster than my MacBook. This assumption I have that anything beyond word processing will make me want to cry, is why I continued to put off upgrading my blog.

    Back when I started writing,(I think this is probably true for most expats) my blog was a simple way to keep family informed about what I was doing in Brazil.  It’s so much easier to write a single blog post than 20 emails. I got a Mac with iWeb and realized I could have a blog with pretty pictures.  Oh, and a cool black background.  And no code!!! I never had to see rows of letters and symbols ever! My needs were simple, and iWeb filled them.

    Last year, we moved to Cachoeiro de Itapemerim. I was without work and started putting a lot of energy into the blog.  I found a whole world of expat communities online and started registering my blog on their sites.  One day, I got a comment from someone I had never met, spoken to or heard of.  A complete stranger who found my blog, read a post, and liked it enough to spend her time leaving a comment.  My sense of validation only increased when I discovered the commenter was a gifted photographer, cook, writer and blogger.  Only her blog, named after a brine soaked sea fish, was a hundred times more sophisticated than mine. (Really, you should check it out.)

    I rediscovered my love for writing.  By writing regularly, inspiration came more easily. My blog soon had a ton content and some regular readers.  The quality of my posts improved. (At least I think, do you all agree?)  This was the point when iWeb started to let me down.  It’s still hard to admit because I’m a Mac worshipper but iWeb, in the words of my husband, “really sucks.”

    He’d been telling my this for years and I had ignored him.  This made acknowledging the need for a better platform, all the more difficult.  Not only did I have to betray my Mac and face headache inducing computer stuff, but I also had to admit my husband was and had been right all along.  (Honestly, I’d rather try writing software code.)  The other major hurdle was that now I had three years worth of content to move and no idea where to start.

    Fortunately, my parents put me in touch with a guy who would do everything for me.  He’d get a new domain name, host site, and move all my content. This was back in December.  Due to various delays that included him being stranded because of blizzards and me having serious stomach issues that had me postponing every Skype call, it took two months to get everything set up.

    Thus, the two month silence at Coconut Water (UPDATE July 2015: Now officially Brynn in Brazil).

    I’m glad I did it.  WordPress is so much better.  Not as simple, but I think I’m ready to use real blogger tools.  In the end though, no one could figure out how to transfer all my content, because, cue husband, “iWeb sucks.” Yes, I know.  I’m now copying and pasting old posts into the new site a few at a time.  50 down.  70 to go.  I’m still glad I moved.

    I hope you all like the new site and design as much as I do.  I’m in love with the banner, which was also the result of someone generously donating their time.  Turns out I’m neither a coder or designer.  That’s ok.  I just want to write.

    Oh, and the reason I’m the computer guru among my fellow teachers?  The school has started moving to Macs and no one knows how to use them.  I wonder if I should talk to them about iWeb.

  • Coolest extracurricular activity ever!

    Coolest extracurricular activity ever!

    I’ve spent the last couple of days editing essays.  I’m drowning in essays.  During a break, I watched a clip of the Daily Show where they showed a commentator ranting about how teachers are paid too much for a part-time job.  I envisioned ramming a two-inch stack of ungraded essays down his throat until he chocked.  It made me happy and reminded me that I still had about 20 essays left to grade.

    When not being used as a weapon, my student’s essays are also an endless source of amusement.  I fill entire dinner conversations relating what pearls of wisdom my kids have come up with.  The essays are also helping me compile a list of potential extra curricular activities available in Vitoria for any future Brazilian-Americans I have in my house.

    It’s fascinating to see what activities teenagers in the US and Brazil share and what activities are unique not just to Brazil but to Vitoria.

    It’s no surprise a kid in Vitoria can be a soccer player but I also have competitive basketball players, skateboarders and surfers as well.  Judo is pretty popular.  There are ballet studios and acting lessons. With my guitar players, drummers, pianists and singers, I can supply any event in Vitoria with a band.  One of my students has taken cooking lessons and runs a small business catering desserts for parties.  Another is a financier in the making, having taken classes on the stock market and started his own investment portfolio.

    But I think my favorite hobby, of all the hobbies I’ve read about, is competitive oceanic fishing.  It’s not my favorite because it’s anything I’d like to be proficient at myself but because it is such an utterly foreign activity to the suburban, Atlanta culture where I grew up.  Competitive oceanic fishing!  Maybe there were some kids in my school who regularly caught trout from the Chattahoochee River but nobody was heading to Australia to compete catching marlins.  Which is exactly what one of my students did.

    I mentioned this to my husband and he said “Oh sure, Vitoria is one of the best spots for oceanic fishing along Brazil’s coast.”  Huh, a new fact about Vitoria thanks to my students’ essays.  It seems one of the perks of being a teachers is that the learning goes both ways.

    Oceanic fishing is a skill I would never have thought to offer any of my future kids.  It wasn’t part of my childhood and I would not have made it part of theirs.  Now I know.  And if the kid doesn’t like fishing, there’s always surfing, sailing, samba dancing, cooking, judo and of course, soccer.

  • New job, new blog

    New job, new blog

    Almost two months since my last post.  I know.  Bad blogger, but I have an excuse.  I got a job.  A hard job.  And the blogging had to be put aside until I found my footing.  Let me explain.

    The last time I was required to show up for work five days a week was September, 2006.  As a result, I have been blind sided, chewed up, spit out, wrung out, and manhandled by a regular work schedule.  And I’m so much happier.

    When hired as a teacher at a private school here in Vitoria, the moment called for champagne, but I have to make a rather embarrassing confession.  While I believed teaching was a better job than no job at all, I deep down thought it was beneath my potential.  I truly believed teaching was a profession people joined who didn’t think they could make it in more competitive fields.  I had a truly brilliant roommate in college who was passionate about teaching and education, but I didn’t base my assessment of the field on her.  Rather, in my facebook colored perception of reality, I based my assessment on all the mediocre students I had gone to high school with who are now, according to their profiles, teachers.  If someone who barely passed biology could go on to be a science teacher how hard can the job be?

    When I get home at night my feet are throbbing. My voice is worn out.  My patience is gone.  I don’t have energy to care about what’s for dinner let alone remain standing long enough to make it.  I drift listlessly around my apartment from 9:30 to 10 because I just can’t go to bed before 10 but I can’t think hard enough to give myself any direction.  I’m asleep by 10:30.

    It’s pretty hard.

    I now know the people in the US currently complaining about cushy teacher salaries have never really considered what teaching entails.  There’s pretty much a consensus among people who have kids that raising them is hard.  Kids don’t pay attention. They don’t think.  They lack knowledge, motor skills, and basic hygiene often into adulthood.  Ideally parents come as a two person team but often one parent ends up in charge of the kids.  Again, we agree that one parent with two or three kids, “that’s a tough job.”  Teachers have 20 kids, all to themselves, for 180 days a year.

    Think about handling a herd of those adorable, self-involved, cognitively underdeveloped munchkins.  Now think about having them all day, every day.  Did I mention you have to do more than just keep them from gluing their hair together or cracking their head open as they lean back in their chair? No, preventing physical injury is not enough.  You must also keep their attention and help them learn something they didn’t know before coming to you.  You must stimulate their creativity and logical reasoning.  You are not allowed to send the slow ones, or the obnoxious ones, or the slightly smelly ones off into a corner.  You must work with all of them.

    To sum up, a teacher must take a group of kids, keep them safe, awake, focused and then improve them.  A teacher must send the kids home as better, more knowledgeable human beings every day or she is not doing her job.  Teaching requires creativity, improvisation, patience, public speaking, stamina, organization, diplomacy, all in addition to knowledge of the subject being taught.

    Any teacher making less than a six figure salary is underpaid.

    I am underpaid. But happy.  I was wrong about teaching.  It is an immensely rewarding challenge.  One I’m thoroughly enjoying.  Not that I would say no to a six figure salary.