My First Brazilian Carnival

     The last time I blogged, I was focusing on my adjustment period at my internship, TORO Investimentos.  I can say to date that I have successfully adjusted and feel at home and integrated with my team of consultants at TORO.  I have a weekly task list of things to do, which keeps me busy but also gives me freedom to do my assignments as I see fit.  In other words, they have given me a sufficient amount of tasks to do while giving me enough freedom to engage in work I find most relevant to getting the most out of my internship.  For example, on days where the market is excessively volatile, I can sit in with one of my colleagues and observe how he engages in options trading.  In doing so, I have gained invaluable experience in terms of understanding the decision making of financial consultants.  Moreover, I have come to understand how financial consultants interject principles of finance and economics into their decision-making.  In addition, on days when my fellow consultants have meetings with clients, I occasionally help out in terms of putting all of the correct paperwork together.  Unfortunately, this constitutes a lot of filling in blanks in PDF files but I know the experience will only serve me well for the future.

     Furthermore, the Brazilian holiday Carnival (February 8-12) has come and gone since my last blog post.  For my first Carnival experience, I decided to go to a beach on the coast of Parana (the same state Curitiba is located in) with one of my host sisters, her boyfriend, and four of their friends.  On the night of February 8^th, we all packed our things and headed to the supermarket to buy all of the necessary food and beverage for the holiday weekend.  We decided to leave Curitiba at midnight in order to avoid the inordinate amount of traffic on the highway during a typical rush hour during the weekend of Carnival.  We made it safely in great time, put our things away, and rested up for the weekend ahead.  The next morning, everyone else arrived and the celebrations began. 

     Unfortunately, the weather did not serve us well and it rained off and on during our first two days on Matinhos beach.  As a result, we only went to the beach off and on during the first two days when the weather allowed it.  Luckily, our beach house was only three blocks from the beach so it was only a 5-minute walk, which came in handy especially when it started raining.  My host sister’s boyfriend, Eduardo, brought his fishing gear so we went out fishing a couple times and that was an experience to say the least.  It was my first time literally fishing off of a beach, a concept I could only laugh at when I first encountered fisherman casting off from the sand.  I had gone fishing before, usually on a boat but occasionally off a pier, so the concept of literally fishing from the beach left me in a bit of a quandary.  Having nothing else to do, I willingly went with Eduardo to fish off the coast, and even tried my hand it.  To nobody’s surprise, we came up empty handed and in all honestly I don’t think we had a chance from the get-go, but it definitely is a story I will be telling over the foreseeable future.

     Carnival turned into a much bigger learning experience then I had initially anticipated.  Despite the fact that my host sister and her boyfriend spoke a bit of English, their friends did not and as a result, I didn’t speak a word of English throughout the duration of the holiday.  There were moments in the various conversations we engaged in where I knowingly had no idea what was being talked about nor what was going on.  At the time, I felt as if I was in over my head but as I look back and reflect on those experiences, I realize that my Portuguese has gotten infinitely better as a result.  I didn’t experience the glamour of the festivities of Carnival, as one would expect to see on television emanating from Sao Paolo or Rio de Janeiro, but I am totally okay with that.  I experienced Carnival through the eyes of normal, hard-working Brazilians who just wanted to get away for the weekend and enjoy their time together on and off of the beach.

     After the first couple of days, the weather got much better and we had two fun-filled days at Caioba beach, just a few kilometers away from Matinhos.  At night, there were countless festivities on the streets in Matinhos and Caioba, celebrating Carnival, the holiday that celebrates the last few days Brazilians can consume meat before Lent commences.  We ended up driving home on Tuesday the 18^th, and I needed a whole day to recover on that Wednesday before returning to work on Thursday.  It was truly an experience I will cherish for the rest of my life.  In all honesty, I hope to return to experience Carnival in the future to experience the lavishness of the festivities in Rio de Janeiro.

Reflections after Week 1 at Toro Investimentos

     Today I commence my second week at Toro Investimentos.  Thus far, my transition into working at Toro has been seamless.  Toro Investimentos is a small financial consulting firm that is located in Batel, near the center of the city of Curitiba.  There are only six consultants that work in the office beside me, which makes for an intimate environment to learn and work.  I have felt welcomed and wanted from the start and have been provided the proper tools to succeed and continue to learn the financial consulting business.  Upon arrival, I was given various literature from Toro about the various financial products that Toro sells.  In addition, my boss gave me additional literature to read about the firms overall strategy in investing for their clients and for their own personal portfolios.  One of my ongoing assignments at Toro is to read “The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America”, which is a collaboration of letters that Warren Buffet wrote to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway.  I have found the content to be extremely helpful in terms of understanding the mindset and thinking processes of arguably the greatest investor of all time.

     One of the biggest obstacles I faced in my first few days at Toro was to understand financial terms and phrases in Brazilian Portuguese.   Luckily, one of my fellow consultants provided me with a website that contained an English to Portuguese dictionary of financial terms and their appropriate definitions.  Although I still have a lot to learn in terms of both the language and business, I feel as though I will be given every opportunity to succeed and learn throughout the duration of my tenure at Toro Investimentos.  Furthermore, after I became familiar with the products and strategy of Toro, I was given additional tasks at the office.  One of my fellow consultants gave me a series of PDF files with the names of various clients with information about their accounts that I had to input into a series of Excel files.  In addition, I have been given tasks that must be completed on a weekly basis, mainly in terms of writing articles and blog posts on their website and a financial blog that accompanies their main website.  Last week I wrote a brief essay about the ten richest cities in the world, with accompanying photos and videos.  I initially wrote the essay in English and then worked with one of my fellow consultants to translate it into Portuguese.

     Furthermore, another one of my tasks during my first week at Toro was to compose and present a Powerpoint presentation about myself.  I initially composed the presentation in English and then subsequently translated the text into Portuguese.  The presentation provided a brief background of my education, past work experience, goals and objectives for my tenure at Toro, and my future professional goals.  I tried my best to speak in Portuguese throughout the presentation and my colleagues appreciated my effort and always corrected me when I made a grammatical or contextual error in Portuguese. 

     To date, I cannot complain one bit about my time in Brazil thus far.  I have been blessed with a wonderful and caring host family and a working environment conducive to learning.  My colleagues at work have been very helpful and understanding of the challenges I have faced initially linguistically and have given me every opportunity to succeed thus far.  

Reflections and Expectations After My First Week in Brazil

     Today marks my seventh day in Brazil and I must say that it feels like I have been here much longer than one week.  This blog post is supposed to be about my internship related experience but since my internship has yet to commence, I will reflect on my experiences in Brazil thus far.  When I arrived in Sao Paolo International Airport, I knew I was in for an adventure of a lifetime.  When I reached immigration, the attendant started speaking to me in Portuguese about a discrepancy between my student visa in my passport and the original visa application.  Luckily, I was able to speak to her in Spanish and she could understand what I was saying and the situation was resolved in a few minutes.  From that moment, I knew I was going to have to adapt extremely quickly not only to the language, but also to a new culture and way of life. 

     Whenever I visit or live in a new city, I instinctually look to compare the new city to other cities that I have been to.  After spending a week in Curitiba, I can honestly say that this city is like no other.  As innovative and efficient as the city’s bus system is, actually using it in practice is quite a different story.  From the perspective of an international exchange student with minimal knowledge of the language, I have already had my share of experiences, good and bad, using Curitiba’s transit system.   That being said, I have already learned a lot from my mishaps thus far and am inclined to believe that my impression of Curitiba’s transportation system will be much different upon leaving in fifteen weeks.

     I start my internship next Monday.  I will be working from 9 am until 2 pm Monday through Thursday for the next fourteen weeks.  Because my internship has yet to commence, my learning objectives that I elaborated about in my first blog post have not changed.  I am very excited to meet my colleagues at Toro Investimientos in Curitiba and anxious to start working towards meeting and exceeding my learning objectives.  Furthermore, I am curious to see how the knowledge and skills I have acquired throughout the past four years at George Mason will help me in practice in a financial consulting firm.  In addition, I am interested to learn what my daily tasks will be in the firm and what area of the consulting business I will focus my time and attention to.  The tasks and area of concentration will undoubtedly significantly shape the experience and knowledge I take away from my semester long internship.

     Portuguese class has been a seamless transition thus far.  My background in Spanish language has been a huge aid to this point in terms of easing the learning curve in grammar and vocabulary.  Don’t get me wrong, there are significant differences among Spanish and Portuguese and at times my knowledge of the former has been just as much a hindrance as it has been a help.  That being said, in times where I have been stuck, Spanish has helped me communicate more so then English ever would.  When I speak Spanish, a native Portuguese speaker can understand most of what I am saying but when they reply to my Spanish in Portuguese I have a hard time comprehending the majority of their response.  That being said, I have already noticed the major strides I have made with the language in my first week and have no doubt that I will be conversational in Portuguese when I leave Brazil in May. 

Learning Objectives

     1. Relate my experiences in the classroom at George Mason in terms of theory and compare those         experiences to how a financial firm operates in practice.

-Explore how financial consultants use and interject principles of economics and finance into their strategies, both at the managerial level and in terms of implementing strategies for their clients.

-In addition, I can inquire among the consultants in my firm as to what degrees they had earned among their post-secondary institutions and how those degrees have shaped their professional careers.  Moreover, I can ask if they would mimic their academic careers or amend them if they had the opportunity to go back in time and start over. 

-By asking them to delve into their past experiences, I will be able to fundamentally understand which courses and/or degrees were most helpful and significant in helping them attain their current position in the firm.

     2. Understand how deals get finalized in practice.

-Although the classroom and readings provide an initial look into the business world and how firms operate, working in a financial firm for a somewhat extended period of time will allow me to gain infinite knowledge into the thinking and decision making of consultants.

-By observing how consultants negotiate and barter with other firms and clients, I will gain a significant advantage over other graduates in that I will have already experienced the harsh reality of working in the financial world.

     3. Learn how to facilitate, develop, and sustain relationships with clients.

-Understand how to form partnerships with other financial firms and other industries in order to foster horizontal and vertical integration.

-Observe how financial consultants sell their product because the success of each individual consultant relies on their ability to sell the product in addition to an intimate knowledge of international capital markets.

     4. Gain a better understanding of how financial markets are integrated in the global economy.

-Develop my knowledge of how financial systems and markets are integrated globally by being able to identify how a shift in a certain domestic variable will affect another economy.  By being able to do so, I will be better able to advise and consult future clients on how to deal with a constantly changing international financial system.

-For example, a significant increase in the price of a key input into the production of a given product will undoubtedly raise production costs in the short-term, which would lead me to revise my projections.  The faster I am able to identify the issue, the better I am able to advise my client which allows me to develop trust and maintain that relationship for the long-term, given it is in my best interests.