SUU Nursing Students in Brazil

 I just became aware that SUU publishes a journal every year called The Global Review.  I'm not sure how this has escaped my attention until now.  I encourage you to go to the website listed below and read it their latest issue.  It's great.  It makes me all excited to do our own trip.  I've never participated in a student trip like this, much less led one, and I am nervous.  Reading The Global Review calms those nerves. When we are on our trip, I am going to have you participate in writing some reflection pieces.  I will do them as well.  Journaling on a trip is always a valuable experience.  I am a huge journaler.  Whenever I go on what I think will be an important trip, I get a separate book and keep a journal of the trip aside from my regular journal.  I really like to read those trip journals and relive my experiences.  So be prepared, there will be some enforced journaling during our trip.  I am going to try to ...

 **The following is written by my friend Adriana Twitchell, who has lived in Florianopolis for the past 13 years.** Florianopolis is a unique state capital with large areas of land set apart in nature preserve.  Large dense forest covered areas, beaches and lakes are all present within the city limits and allow fantastic nature experiences while being close to urban necessities.  Most of the city is spread over the island of Santa Catarina, which has dozens of fine-sand beaches, some only accessible by hiking trail or boat.  Many of the beaches are famous for surfing, others are quiet and waveless.  The water is clear and constantly changing in color from bright turquoise to a deeper blue-green.  Penguins, dolphins, and whales can be seen by the lucky at various times throughout the year.  Other wild life on the island includes monkeys, toucans, and capybaras.  There is a large fresh water lake in the south of the island surrounded by green, undev...

Precisamos muito de recrutar alunos para este viagem que falem portugues.  Caso contrario, teremos problemas quando chegarmos ao Brasil. If you can read that, then this trip is definitely for you.  PLEASE.  We need you.  We need students who can speak Portuguese to sign up for this trip.  I have been trying to learn for the past three months.  It is not going well.  Duolingo is worthless.  My husband even paid $89 for a subscription to Babbel.  It's just not going well.  The most helpful thing I have done is watch multiple episodes of Peppa Pig in Portuguese on YouTube.  That's about the right level for me.  They speak clearly and don't speak too fast and their vocabulary is limited.  Yes, I have been demoted to the level of a three year old. We are going to need some students who can speak for us.  If you served a mission to Brazil - or if you were born in Brazil and really wanted to attend nursing school in the stat...

 I'm planning on taking the students on a hike to Lagoina de Leste.  Lake of the East.  The hike starts at a trailhead and goes over a hill to the beach.  It takes less than an hour but it's steep up and then down.  The beach is so beautiful.  It feels remote because you have to get there by this hike so it's not very populated.  I would say that it's one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, but all the beaches in Floripa fit that description and I feel like I'm going to start repeating myself.  But it really is beautiful.  My daughter started collecting shells.  We had brought tuna salad and bread for lunch but forgot a spoon so we used a shell to scoop up the tuna salad.   Once at the beach, there is a steep hike up to a crown of boulders above the beach.  It's a little strenuous - especially when all you feel like doing is lying on the beach and letting the waves lap your toes - but it's completely worth it....

 My family ended up in Brazil this year because I didn't want to go to London.  My daughter had been begging to go somewhere during spring break.  It was her senior year and she had never been out of the country.  She and I had been trying to take a trip to London for the past two years with no success - once cancelled because of Covid and once because my mother in law, who was supposed to take us, broke her arm a month before the trip.  I was sick of planning for London.  I wanted to go somewhere else.   Meanwhile, my husband had become good friends with a family who was visiting Utah but who lived in Florianopolis, Brazil.  I had met them but wasn't as good friends with them.  They had done a lot of hiking and camping with Craig.  They invited us to spend spring break in Brazil.  In a temporary moment of weakness,  I agreed that it was a good idea to travel 6,000 miles to spend the week with people that I didn't know we...

 Guys.  It is summer 2022 - June 9, to be specific - and I haven't seen most of you in over a month.  Hope it's a good summer and you're not working too hard.  This is my very first post of what I hope will become an award-winning blog.  Pulitzer prize?  Maybe.  Do they even give Pulitzer prizes to bloggers? The whole point is to get some information out there about the trip I am working on for next year.  It has been entirely too long since the SUU Nursing students went anywhere.  I've heard rumors that SheriDawn took a group of nursing students to the DR several years ago.  That was before my time, so I'm not sure, it may or may not have been true.  And Mark has tried to get nursing students to Taiwan for the past two years, which got cancelled each year because of Covid.  I think he has given up the fight on that one.  The way things are shaping up for Taiwan lately, I think it's a wise choice.   Which brings ...