What I've learned outside the textbook

"Learning outside the textbook" is what I said I would do in my essay to get into the MHIRT program. Anybody who promotes study abroad, and traveling usually uses this logic but what does it all mean? Isn't reading and studying about countries and their history fundamental to the understanding of its cultures? You can read about Rio de Janeiro's mountains and see Christ the Redemer in the movies. You can watch videos on the water quality of Sao Paulo and the crisis they faced during a huge drought in 2014, take a virtual tour of the city or even listen to Baile de Favela but you won't truly comprehend the culture without the experience. Think of it as a lab, you can read the protocol five times and still enter lab completely clueless it is not until you actively engage in the process that the movements become more natural, a muscle memory kind of learning.

So what all have I learned during my time here, in SP? I learned that the best cappuccinos are made with love no matter how much more the other food truck offers. I learned that the mesh apron never comes out of the genetics room but there is pitiful mercy to those who confess. I've learned how much force to use with the pipet tips on the agarose gel. After much trial and error, I've learned how to find my way home from practically any metro station in the city and that it is in fact very possible to injure yourself in a turnstile. I've learned that kinder eggs are legal here and collecting their surprises has become a sort of compulsion. I learned Christinia likes only artificially watermelon-flavored things, not watermelon juice which is essentially a watermelon in a cup. I learned that it is impossible to take a good picture posing like Jesus on top of Corcovado and that surely everybody else has photoshopped theirs. I learned what a feijoada party is. I learned that the cable cars which take you to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain aren't as scary as I initially imagined. I learned that it is nearly impossible to only eat one pacoca at a time. I learned that patience is in fact a virtue when running PCRs. I learned that rice and beans have some secret affair and as the equivalent of salt and pepper it is not practical to eat one without the other. One of the most important things I learned, however, is that at times when you feel lost and little helpless it is okay, expected even, to ask for help.