Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 24 °C, warmish, sunny, and slightly overcast.

It is Thursday, and it is a good day. Tomorrow will be Friday, and then the weekend, but now it is Thursday, and I have plans for today.

I have the usual early-morning routine: up early, exercise, coffee, preparation for classes, etc.

One of my pupils, an old lady of 85, whom I dearly like, has unfortunately fallen and broken her arm. She will be having surgery today, so there will not be a class. A fall for an old person is deadly; my dear grandmother once fell while going to the shops, breaking her arm and never fully recovered. I hope my pupil recovers well from the operation.

For the afternoon, I have planned to walk from Praia de Botafogo to Catete, the next neighbourhood after Flamengo, about a three-kilometre walk.

I need to change the battery in my watch and buy a new skipping rope, as the old one broke last weekend. I skip intensely, so they don’t last long, a couple of months maximum, and then they begin to break or snap. So, I am free from two p.m. until my next class at five.

I have a thing for jeans and white flip-flops. I like the style; it is stylish, simple, classic, comfortable for hot carioca days and a little different. I finish my attire with a black long-sleeve UV shirt that I always wear and leave to do my things.

There is an ice cream parlour beside my building that sells açai, in addition to ice cream. As I had not had lunch yet, I thought of buying an açai and eating it while walking to Catete and listening to music with headphones. I love walking, listening to music and eating or drinking in the streets of Rio.

When I had the dogs, I would walk with them whilst listening to music and often drinking a long neck, preferably either a Heineken or a Cerpa (a prime brand of Brazilian beer from the north of Brazil).

I had always thought it was tacky to drink a beer whilst walking in the street, but for a time, I loved it. Now that I drink very little, I have replaced it with water or açai in the street instead of beer.

The afternoon was hot for autumn, warm in the sun and cool in the shade. For a Thursday, there were quite a few people in the street, and I was feeling good, walking leisurely, eating cold açai and listening to either Sigur Rós or Talk Talk.

It is good to do things we like that make us feel good and unique, even if they are silly or not very interesting to others. If they make us feel good, then they are good.

I found a medical and health supply shop in Largo do Machado that sells the same rope I used before at a lower price.

After buying the rope, I was looking for a watch repair shop; it was difficult, a dying breed, but a person pointed me to a street vendor with a stall in front of the main street selling all kinds of things, including watches and their batteries. He had the battery I needed, and for R$20.00, he changed it in less than two minutes.

I thought it was a little expensive, but as the old man was extremely nice, it was evident that he was another northeasterner who had made his life, family and living in Rio, like so many other heroes from the north of Brazil. As always, I asked him his name, and he told me it was Silverino; you can’t get more northeastern than Silverino. I, of course, paid and thanked him and began my return home for my 5 pm class.

It is so good to break the routine and do something different.

Spending our whole day, every day, the grindstone is not living. It is just an act of survival, especially in a country like Brazil, where the skilled and qualified may have more freedom to be more adventurous, whereas the semi-skilled working class have to live each day as if it were their last, paying the bills.

I arrived home feeling happy after escaping from my schedule. The rest of the classes for the day went well. Sometimes, just sorting out small but significant problems can give us a lift in our day-to-day lives, which significantly helps us sort out our shit!!!