People
Professor Carlos has a huge puggy. A very large, fat, adorable pug. He says “my puggy” with the cutest accent and brightest smile as he shows us pictures. He is our go-to person for pretty much everything. He is picking up English again after almost 30 years without speaking it. I love the way he speaks; he enunciates everything very clearly, with a lot of intonation and expression. He is the iSEED program host, and has visited Rice/Houston multiple times to set up the exchange.
Christian and Chips are my main contacts at work. Christian is the CEO of Rockhead. He is a lighthearted, stylish mid-40s guy that could be mistaken for a 25-year-old. Chips is in charge of a bunch of things at Rockhead: develepment, testing, marketing, publicity. He speaks English really well. He is the leader of the strange-noise-squad (see Work Environment below). He is very personable, going out of his way to talk about American culture; he travels to Game Development Conferences in the U.S. and Europe fairly often. He is going to be in Austin and Houston this Fall – we are planning to meet up and go to a Texans football game together.
Bruno is a student here at PUCRS, but he’s going to Rice this summer! He has taken good care of us while we’re here. I hope the Houston crew does the same for him. We’ve been out to eat with him and his girlfriend, Rosanna, on a few different occasions.
Rafael is an engineering student from PUCRS who did the Rice summer experience in engineering design with Allie and Nathalie. He is pretty busy with studies, research, and work, but he’s been a great help when we’re on campus. He loves cars, both aesthetically and from an engineering perspective (he has a 70s Volkswagen Beetle and truck and city car).