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I’d have to say we had one of the strangest closings, not that I’ve been to many, but it was definitely unbelievable! The buyers’ bank representative had to be on some sort of drugs because he was acting like he was on speed. As the buyers signed, they didn’t put the year for the date and when the banker noticed, he had a fit! He started talking under his breath and shaking his head and twitching like he has some serious OCD issues and one of the buyers and I were on the verge of saying something to him. He was a ticking time bomb.

Besides that, the bank had just moved into the office and there were barely any office supplies, so when it came time to make photocopies of documents, it took an hour for them to find copy paper! Our attorney was in disbelief of the whole situation as were we! We were thrilled when it was finally over. As we left the parking lot, we had such a sense of relief and elation even–that old door had finally closed and we were ready for the next to open! Almost a whole year of stress was finally over. Or was it..now we just had to secure a mortgage!

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Multiculturalism

Multicultural (or intercultural) education focuses on endeavors which deal with the rich diversity of cultures within the United States. According to the American Council on International Intercultural Education, we tend to approach multicultural education with a set of predispositions. There is an aspect of our nature that keeps diverse peoples from living in harmony.

Some attribute this to the limits of our comfort zone, our attraction toward the familiar, our fear of the unknown, family pressures, our lack of knowledge of others and limited opportunities to interact.

The intensified desire for peace and international understanding in this post-9/11 world has validated efforts to incorporate multicultural education in academia. Yet multicultural issues can be intensely personal, challenging and, in many ways, threatening to us as individuals and institutions. This topic clearly deserves attention and deliberation. Through this case study, students and educators will look critically at these issues and possible solutions.

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Two years before getting pregnant I started surfing. I got so passionate about it, I surfed almost every day. As soon as I got more confident at it, I was off to new surf spots, reef breaks, and big swells. I even wrote ¨Let´s go big waves!¨ on the back of my longboard.

And I was really all for the big waves. I´d drop anything to surf a swell (a swell is when we have bigger waves hitting the coast and it may last from 1 to 4 days, more or less). I had fun with my wipeouts too. I really loved it when it was huge and I could feel my whole body do a summer salt underwater – COOL.

Then I got pregnant, which made me surf more carefully. I still had a go once when I was 6 months pregnant.

But surely too, after having Luísa, I became such a wuss. I no longer went for the bigger waves, I no longer had fun with my wipeouts, I was more scared and getting hit by my board more often (because in surfing, hesitating is the biggest cause of injuries with your own board). I no longer went for just any size of wave.

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