DISCULPA

Disculpa means sorry. I say it a lot.
I haven't updated my blog in a long time! And I'm sorry! I've been busy! But here is the week in photos for you.

This is Wilson, and *another girl*, from school
He loves my camera

seriously, all day today he was using it.

All morning, I kept looking up, thinking I heard a bird call, coming from the air conditioner. I kept asking people if they heard it too, but they dismissed it for a bird sitting on the window.
But I knew.
So they finally did figure out that there was a tiny helpless brazilian bird caught inside the air conditioner, and rescued it. It was epic.

Also, today we had PE- which was a girl's arm wrestling competition in the classroom. I ended up competing for the championship of the classroom, but my opponent got really angry and scary, and I kept bending my wrist, so after two retries, I gave up and let her win.
Well, I shouldn't say that, I probably would have lost anyway. But at least I kept my honor. Anyway as soon as she put my arm down on the table, the whole class erupted in 'Brasil! Brasil!'. Kyle, behind me, said 'you failed your country.'

me and my scary opponent
she's actually a really nice girl, but I swear I saw fire in her eyes when arm wrestling.

I'm so glad I found someone with a piano- not only can I hang out with Kyle and Hellen and Luan, but I can practice as well :)
I finally found my way to their house the other day. I was walking downtown when I decided I wanted to hang out with them, so I called, and was basically told to find my own way. crazy deserters (is that even a word? my english is getting so bad..!).
I made it most of the way, and then got too lost. So I called again, and they said they would come out to meet me. As soon as I hung up with Sven (he was there too), there was something up with my cellphone. And, trying to figure out what was wrong with it, I suddenly felt someone come up and grab me from behind. I screamed (like I always do, but this time I really was terrified- my family keeps telling me about how there are dangerous men on the street that would like nothing more than to rape and murder me- this was it. This was my time. American exchange student found dead in Brazil. Rotary Youth Exchange students sent home. Brazil and the USA wage war. Devastation on both sides. Nuclear holocaust. Rotary International closed down. Aliens see turmoil on Earth and take advantage- Earth no more.)- turns out it was just Sven, Kyle, and Luan scaring the shit out of me.
I tripped on like, 9 potholes on the way back to their house, which, it turns out, was only like a hundred feet away from where I gave up.
Anyway Hellen was there, and later Jasmine showed up, we watched some brazilian soap opera about mutants (it was AWESOME), and I figured out how to play the soundtrack to Blood Diamond.

me and hellen


Luan and the piano that I've been working on (it reminds me WAY too much of my first piano.. sad memories)

Tonight, in about 20 minutes, me and my host mom are going to pick up Jasmine, and then we're meeting Sven, Kyle, and Noquina, our counselor, to take a 6 hour bus trip ride thing to Salvador, the capital of Bahia. There we'll have a weekend orientation. I'm excited to finally meet all the other exchange students that I've been talking with online for months!
I'll post everything when I get back, sunday night.

guys guys guys

you know how I freak out if I don't practice piano for a long time? In Brazil, pianos are fucking hard to find. At least in my city. There's no piano in my school, none in the church that my family goes to, the only one I could find was in the Music School downtown, where I would have to pay 70 reias, about 50 dollars, to practice 3 times a week for an hour. Totally lame.
Well last night, I went to an Interact meeting. This takes place once a week, where all the inbounds, outbounds, and any other kids involved in exchange meet and hang out. There was official business for like five minutes, and then the president, a guy from my school, rang this little bell thing, and we all got up and talked, I met a few people, it was cool.
We all went to the mall (that's where everyone hangs out and eats outrageously expensive mcdonalds, ha) and hung out there, and I found that the older brother of my best friend from school (hellen), was an exchange student to Sweden a couple years ago!
Most everyone was speaking portuguese, Kyle and Jasmine were speaking english, Sven and a girl who was an exchange student to Germany were speaking German, so me and Hellen's brother were speaking swedish/danish.
Let me just say, I had no idea how much I had forgotten. It wasn't even complete Danish, it was like a mix of Danish and Portuguese and English. I would be like..
"Eu tagede toget til Sweden uma vez."
which means, in portuguese, danish, and english,

I took the train to Sweden one time.

That's messed up, I gotta say. But I've always had this problem..
Turns out he's in a band, and he plays the piano :3
Sven plays too, but he's not desperate to practice like I am. Anyway I said sometime I could play for him, hinting at the fact that I have no idea where I can practice. So I'm going running with Hellen sometime today, and I'm going to find out if I can come over and play for them. He said I can play there whenever I want!
Heh. :)
sorry, no pictures this time. I forgot my camera last night.

Random Tidbit of Culture, and an Insight into my Feelings

I'm going all sufjan stevens on you with the long titles there.
Well I just finished my School Life post, and I walked out on the veranda for a bit of wind, and as the breeze swept over me, I looked down the five stories to the sidewalk, and saw two men in flip flops and cheap looking clothes walking down the street, both with big empty burlap sacks over their shoulders.
They walked to the front of my building and bent down in front- I leaned over the side of the balcony to see what they were up to. One of them bent down over some trashbags waiting for pick up, and ripped them open. He picked out the few recyclables (we don't have a recycling system here), put them into his sack, and followed his buddy down the street to the next house, and did the same thing.

my street

On the one hand, it's good that these men are picking out recyclables- I assume they're taking them to a recycle center to get money for cans and what not.
But on the other hand, I doubt they were doing it for the environment. They obviously didn't have much money, and they need to eat, so this is probably part of how they survive. Unfortunately, Brazil is one of those countries with a huge divide between the wealthy and the poor, and the poor have a really hard time getting by here.
Plus, he made a huge mess on the sidewalk all down the street. I mean, he basically tore apart our garbage, spilled it out onto the sidewalk, and walked away from it. It's not exactly polite. But when you're that desperate, I suppose, you're not thinking about being polite.

= = = = = = = = =

I get the feeling that my family thinks I have an eating disorder or something. Lately, I haven't had an appetite. When I'm upset, I lose my appetite. It's not my fault..! And for the past 4 days or so, I have been ishly rather greatly upset. So I haven't eaten, other than lunch. and like, water. But last night, I had a long talk with my mom and dad about what I am able to do, what I'm not able to do; we came to a compromise basically. And even though I still feel very much suffocated by my mother's efforts to stop me from having a social life here, I feel better than I did before.
And just now, I ate like four cookies.

School Life

Monday was my first day at school. It's not very big, compared to my school in Indiana, but there are a ton of people I don't know.

We wear uniforms, but they're not at all bad. Just a t-shirt that they give us, and we wear jeans. We also have to wear tennis shoes or converse or whatever, no flip flops (they call them Havaiianas here).

Jasmine and Sven- elegant uniforms
(sven's fucking tall by the way, so in all of his photos he's leaning over)

School starts at seven in the morning, and since I live only about five minutes from the school, I've been trying to walk. But my host mom has been crazy smothering me, and it's hard (very very hard) to go anywhere on my own.
Anyway my class is Segunda C (2C), and we stay in the same class all day, with the same people. Everyone's so nice, though, they all want to get to know me. The teachers go to the front of the room to lecture, where they stand on a raised platform stage thing, and write on a curved whiteboard. I don't understand anything the teachers say, so I've been studying portuguese during class.

me and my buddy evellyn

But it's fun, and it's so great to get out of my house (did I mention that I'm not allowed out of my house?), that I would gladly come to school any day. Jasmine, Sven, and Kyle are all great friends.

me and sven (ok this is sad- I'm on my tiptoes, and he's bending over.)

It's awesome, me and sven and this one other brazilian kid are the only blondes in the whole school. we unite.

Today, we all went down to the audio/visual room to watch a movie. And as it came on, I saw that it was a sesame street-puppets kind of kids show. But the main puppet, who was singing, was a piece of shit.
no really, I was being literal.
Then the title came on - A Historia do Coco. That's right, The Story of Poo.
The shitlet started moving around and dancing in place, and then he started singing in a really deep, husky voice:
"Let me tell you my story.
It's a sad, sad story.
A story of Coco."
At this, three puppet birds (big bird kind of things), and a big puppet horse popped out of the bushes behind the shitlet and started singing background.
"Coco.. coco.. coco... coco..."
The camera panned out, and the entire class screamed when we saw a puppet boy laying on the grass, with his elbows propped up and his chin resting in his hands, nodding his head to the music, WATCHING and ENJOYING the shitlet's music.
It was the weirdest, most digusting, and oddly the most entertaining thing I've seen in a very long time.

The 3rd blonde in the school, Christian. He's brazilian, but his parents are from Germany. He's pretty cool. :)

At around 10:00, we have a lunch break. By the way, people eat a lot here. I don't know how they stay so skinny. I can't eat this much.
Anyway everyone buys a soda and a little sandwich, and they go to the auditorium and hang out with friends. Music comes on, people shout at each other over the noise of other people shouting at each other, it's good times.
Yesterday, school ended here so we could watch a soccer game. I KNOW. It's awesome.
School ends at 12:20, and everyone goes home to eat lunch, which is the family meal of the day.
Anyway today, school ended early again (I don't know why this time), and instead of going home, my class played a game of capture-the-fanta-can in the auditorium. At one time, I was running to tag someone on the opposite team, and when I missed him by only a few inches, I slipped and fell flat on my ass..
My friend Evellyn took these amazing videos... I'll upload on of them:




So that's me reenacting my epic fall, and that's Kyle, an exchange student from new york, running in the very beginning. He's the guy in blue.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Thursday, August 21, 2008

my class
tomorrow, that girl the brownish hoodie wants to teach me a traditional brazilian dance, in front of the class. I'm embarassed.. haha. The class is excited for it though.

I saved this as a draft yesterday, I have more to write :)
Today, school was sad. I've been having huge problems with my family, and school has been my refuge, but Jasmine and Kyle are both getting homesick. I'm not, and I don't think Sven is, but I feel for them. Seeing my friends cry makes me cry :(
But tonight we're going to a Rotary meeting, so I'll see them. At least, I'll see kyle, I don't know about sven and jasmine.
Today was 'mini election day', they had a mock election in my class. There were 5 candidates, and they all got up on the stage and gave speeches, and passed around flyers and flags. One kid offered to buy me a coke if I voted for him.. I'm voting for my friend, Hellen, instead :) She's Kyle's host sister, I don't know if I mentioned her in a previous entry..?

Kyle with a "vote for hellen" flag

All day, the school was buzzing with excitement about the football (that's soccer in the rest of the world, you foolish americans, you) game that was taking place; Brazil vs the USA. Everyone was asking me who I wanted to win; I told them I couldn't choose :) I'm such a diplomat.
Walking out of school, I saw a few dozen people across the street, gathered around this tiny TV on a stand. They were all shouting and shaking their fists at the TV.
So I went over, and they were watching the game! I hung around for a few minutes and saw that the US was ahead, 1-0.

The girls watching the game. See how they're biting their nails? Soccer is a big deal here. :)


enthralling!

In Brazil. Day One and a Half.

Ok first off, I'd like to address one of my old friends, Jamie, who asked me months ago to find out if the toilets flow differently here in the southern hemisphere.
They don't.
totally lame. :P
So I left out of South Bend, got pissed at Sam for not coming with, said a tearful goodbye, and boarded my mini plane to Atlanta.
I know that I cry at everything, if that's what you're thinking, but as soon as the plane departed for Atlanta, and I recovered from my crying episode, I noticed the man sitting next to me was reading the Complete Idiot's Guide to God. I thought it was funny.
He turned out to be really cool, he's a preacher from Atlanta.
So I got to Atlanta and met up with Madisyn, from Oregon, and we made our way to Sao Paolo. There, I met Jasmine, from Oklahoma, and we waited for our plane to Salvador.
This is all really boring, but as soon as we made it to the Salvador airport, everything was great. We said goodbye to Madisyn, and left on our mini flight to Ilheus, the city next to Itabuna.

an upside down picture of me, jasmine, and madisyn in the sao paolo airport.


from the plane

The first view of Salvador

We made it to Ilheus yesterday afternoon, and as we walked into the Ilheus airport, we saw dozens of people waiting for us, holding huge banners with our names on them.

Isn't that awesome? There was a banner! With my name on it!

We went to a restaurant on the coast, and met the other exchange students, Sven, from germany, and Kyle, from new york. Everyone's nice :) Jasmine and Sven I are sharing host families, so right now, Jasmine is with my second host family, and I'm with her second, and.. hm. I don't know who Sven is with. He's not with my second.. maybe we're only sharing two families. I don't know.
So now, I'm in my host family's house. I have an older sister, Bruna, 19, and a mom, and a dad that I haven't met yet. He's in Sao Paolo, taking my other host sister to the airport. She's going to Vermont for her exchange year. Anyway, they're both really nice! This morning my mom went to church. Tonight she's going again and Bruna and I are going with.
I'm also having really strange food experiences. Just this morning, for example, I was eating some fruit, and Bruna came and asked me if I wanted -insert uninterpretable portuguese here- on it. So I smiled and nodded, and she dropped a spoonful of what looked like dried milk on top. It was kind of weird.. really sweet and thick.
So, my house! We live in an apartment building about five minutes from my school (I haven't been there yet, my first day is tomorrow), and we're on the third floor. It's a big apartment! I'll post pictures later!

shit shit shit shit shit

Not appropriate.. sorry..
Anyway I made this video para mis amigos and I'm posting it!




One thing I've been wanting to say is that my friends have been AMAZINGLY supportive about my exchange year.
In seventh grade, when I told my friends that I was going away for a year, most of them were supportive about it. But there was one kid, who at the time was one of my best friends, who wasn't. He begged me to stay behind. Every day for most of seventh grade, he reminded me of the great times we had, the jokes we shared, the wonderful friendship I could never replace. But by telling me these things, he implied that by leaving, I was giving it all up. It was actually much more complicated than that, and it's a lot of explanation, but don't worry about it kids, ok? :P (we'll see if anyone gets that.*)
Anyway, I didn't have a choice but to leave. And when I left for Denmark, I tried my best to keep in touch with my friends back home. But every time something went wrong, or something was less than perfect, that nagging voice of my best friend at home came back, reminding me that I had given up everything I had with him, for this, something less than perfect.
And because of that constant nagging in my head, I became so depressed that I lost almost all of the friends I had.
And it was all because my supposed best friend begged me to stay behind. I don't blame everything on my friend, but I believe that if he had been more supportive, I would have been stronger. But my friends now remind me every day that while they'll miss me, they can't wait to hear about my exchange, my family, my school, and my new friends. And instead of reminiscing on the good times we had, they daydream about the things we'll do when I return. They're so supportive, and I'm really thankful for it :)






*references that no one understands, NICOLE!

Also, READ THIS, GUYS:
I dropped my cell phone in a swimming pool, if you want to call it that, and all my contacts were erased! My number is still the same, so please text me and say who you are, and I can add you again!
seriously, do it.

One Day Left

I've recently decided that I'm not going to worry anymore, about things that I can't control. So I'm not terribly nervous about planes arriving on time, weather, ect.
But I still can't help but think about things. It was two years ago that I first started thinking about going on exchange. Since then my ideal country changed from Brazil to Colombia to Japan to Argentina, to Iceland, to Denmark, to South Africa, and back to Brazil.
I just can't believe how much has happened since then. I made amazing friends, I left said amazing friends, I made amazing new friends, and now I'm leaving them too. But this time I'm coming back, for the first time in.. a very long time.
Every time I've moved, people have told me how much they'll miss me, that sort of thing. But I never really understood it until somebody actually left me. When Tati left, I felt so ripped apart, and now I finally understand what people mean when they tell me these things. But it still doesn't change my feelings about anything. I'm going away for a year and that's that.
It's just hard to put it all together- I've been waiting for this for two years, and now finally I'm boarding the plane tomorrow.

School started a few days ago. And since my school for some reason enrolled me in classes, I went with Nicole to the first day. Everyone I saw was confused, it was pretty funny. But I was so sad, leaving at the end of the day. It's a pretty awful school, most of its teachers are awful, but I still felt horrible leaving everyone behind. Even more so, I still feel really weird that I'm coming back. It's always been the opposite.

I don't know. It's not something that I can properly document, I guess.

6 Days Left

And I'm talking with my buddy Frances from Colorado. She just found out she has a mild form of synesthesia, in which she designates a color for every number.

0 is white,
1 is black,
2 is green,
3 is sunny yellow,
4 is blue,
5 is red,
6 is bright happy orange,
7 is purple,
8 is yucky yellow,
9 is burnt rusty orange,
10 is black and white! Cause they work together!

Isn't that interesting?????

7 Days

.. until I leave. I'm almost scared to turn on the TV right now, afraid that the girl from the Ring will pop out and eat my face. Don't judge.

Some friends that are in my district in Brazil are leaving today. I'm really excited for them, and also jealous that they're already on their way to Brazil, and I still have 7 days to go. They've just started the best year of their lives! Today, they're taking the first step on a huge adventure that they'll remember forever! I can't wait to join them. Of course, they are missing the opening night of the Olympics.

I'm watching the Parade of Nations right now. President Bush is sitting in the crowd with his wife. It's not that his image or his self disturbs me, but as an extremely political kid, and a very passionate liberal person, it pisses me off how he presents himself.
He sat down in his seat and put on a surly expression. He was extremely rude. He slouched lower in his seat and checked his watch, and when Iraq passed in the parade, he had this horribly smug look on his face.
He makes it really difficult to represent my country in a good light. With every rude move he makes in everyday situations, he supports the American stereotype of stupid, obnoxious, and rude fat white people, and let me assure you, I'm not like that at all. And none of my American friends are like that either. But our president? I know that Bush isn't stupid, despite his reputation. I mean, morally I'd say he's on the lower scale of intelligence, but he's not a stupid guy. He knows exactly what he's doing as president. So he can stop this show of acting ignorant and obnoxious.
So shape up, President Bush! Courtesy! Civility! Respect!

Yeah, yeah, I know. Not going to happen.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I got my visa today!!!
I haven't received it in the mail yet, so I technically don't have it, but my travel agent emailed me today saying that she received it from the Brazilian consulate in Washington, and that she's going to book me a flight, and mail everything to me in one big delightful package.

Also, I updated my movie list :)