After 3 Months

I'm currently sitting here, listening to some good old Trevor Hall and thinking. Thinking about not only how good a week I just had, but how real it is that I am not in America; that I am not spending my junior year at Gettysburg Area High School, that field hockey season has just ended and I haven't been on the field with my girls in so long, that I didn't get to dress up for Halloween and go trick-or-treating (mature, I know.) Of course there are many other things crossing my mind, but number one being that I am not home, but I am still home. After being here 3 months, I think i just started to realize or maybe accept the fact that I am in my own world away from all my loved ones back in America. A year seems like such a long time when I tell people that's how long I am staying here, but is it really a long time? Not at all. Most women live to be at least 80. One year is nothing, but this year, this year abroad for me could be everything! I guess we'll have to wait and see. But really, 3 months down already? I haven't even done that much. Some days I think I will die of boredom and never get out of here, but sitting here, looking back on the time I have already spent in  this amazing new place, I am begging for more time. Holding onto whatever I can get my hands on. Talking to whoever will talk to me. Being friends with anyone who wants a new friend. Living my life for me, and only me. And lastly, writing my memories so that I will never forget...

I think this is the best week I have had so far. Probably just because I had an amazing weekend, but it’s not even a big deal. Nothing really out of the extraordinary happened during the week. On Monday I made my normal walk to basketball only to find 5 of my teammates sitting outside looking confused. Turns out practice was cancelled, so before walking back home, I stayed around for a little just to talk the boys. My Portuguese is a lot better. I actually understand most of what is being said around me; until they start talking fast, then I’m in a daze again. Once I got back to the house, my Rotary counselor called me to see if I wanted to go out for ice cream the next day. A counselor isn’t like for emotional problems, HA… but more like any problem I have while I am here, he’s who I go to. My Rotary club at home says it’s very important to develop a good relationship with our counselor because they are the first people we are to go to with a problem other than of course the family. But if it’s something the family can’t fix, or a problem involving the family, that’s where your counselor acts. Plus, I realized it’s just good to have another adult on your side. On Tuesday, Alessandro, my counselor picked me up and we went to another self-serve ice cream place. Gotta love the self-service. ;) To  my surprise, he speaks English pretty well which definitely helped eliminate any awkward silences when I couldn’t form a sentence in Portuguese. He is very nice and funny, and super easy to talk to. He told me he’s talked to my family and school and I can’t say that I wasn’t surprised by some of the things he said. I mean I get along with everyone here, but the comments were a lot nicer than I would have expected, haha. There is another thing he told me that I can’t exactly blog about, but it’s quite a funny story. On Wednesday, I don’t really know what made school so exciting, but my friend Agnes was more hyper than usual and took a good 2018237 pictures. It was a funny day. Of course I had basketball again which was, like always, a good time. Thursday consisted of nothing new or exciting, but on Friday, we had a chem lab like we do almost every other week and my friend Agnes invited me to go to some Halloween party with her at a club. Of course I’d already been invited, but had no definite plans so told her I’d talk to my parents.

On Saturday, I went to a churrasco for my dad’s work. He works at a bank and his coworkers are quite entertaining. I basically spent no time with the family because at the beginning, my mom and I sat with a man, his wife and daughter, who were very interested in me. When my mom got up, I was still in conversation so couldn’t leave with her, and I basically stayed in conversation with the, the whole day. It was Enguguese I suppose since he’d try to speak English to me every once in a while and I spoke as much Portuguese as I could. Afterwards, my brother Rafael came home because it’s another holiday weekend. I won’t have school Monday or Tuesday. I LOVE all the holidays in Brazil. I had to call Agnes since my parents said I could try to go even if I wasn’t 18. She speaks no English, but we had a successful conversation on the phone. It was kinda funny though, not gonna lie. At 11, my parents took me to the club where I was to meet Agnes, but I saw Bia and Isabella, two other girls from my class, first so we called Agnes who showed up soon after with her boyfriend. The line was literally a block long, and I guess they were all as anxious as me to get in so we found some of their other friends near the front of the line. I met a ton of people that night. Too many names to remember though, unfortunately. The club was 2 stories and also had a spot where you could go outside. I am not quite sure why I took absolutely no pictures, but eh, it happens. Upstairs there was live entertainment while downstairs there was a DJ, a really good DJ at that. Lady Gaga and Ke$ha equals a happy Jade. The live music was good too, though we didn’t spend much time upstairs. In fact, we really didn’t even spend that much time together, haha. The club was too big and there were a lot of people so we kept getting separated. Luckily some of my guy friends from school were there as well and if I wasn’t with the girls I was with them. I heard the band going hard singing some Lady Gaga though. That was definitely impressive. I was out until about 6 am, and even then people were still entering the club. Talk about crazy. I don’t think I have ever slept as well as I did when I got home. The picture of me, actually dressed presentable to go out, in case you read this Linnhe Kapner, you should be proud. :) On Sunday, thankfully I not only got to sleep in, but relax all day. Definitely a good week and even better weekend. The girls said we’ll go out more often since I’m a good time. :)

Week 12

This week wasn’t the best. I kept waking up in the middle of the night all sweaty. At first I thought I had a fever, but I didn’t have any sort of headache, I was just hot plus I was just kind of frustrated with everything. On Monday was Jasmine’s birthday, yet I never found a birthday card to send, so I walked downtown after school and got some postcards. The fact that I wasn’t exactly sure I knew how to get downtown or where to buy postcards put me in the worst mood. Anger problems? Yep, somedays. On Tuesday, I was once again in a bad mood, yet still, over little things. At basketball, the way I played displayed my mood, and I suppose the boys were a little surprised to see me get mad. Haha, whatever. The only good thing I remember about the day was that I watched the 5^th Harry Potter with my little brother. Good thing I am a nerd now. On Wednesday I went downtown to finally send Jasmine her birthday postcard. At basketball I learned how to say like “cocky/annoying” which has already come to great use.  Ronaldo, one of the boys who really knows how to bother me, yet all in good fun, and I played the best out of three 1vs.1 to 5. I beat him in two games. I thought that would make him shut up, yet he still was “fogado” or “cocky/annoying.” Haha. On Thursday, I had a really bad headache so slept almost all evening.

Friday wasn’t bad except for some reason I was really excited for basketball and when I went to leave the house, my mom told me I wasn’t going because I was spending the night at my grandparent’s. She and my dad went to dinner, cute, I know. J My grandpa, who thinks my Portuguese is awful and insists on speaking English with me, was very surprised when I told him “voce nao neccesito falar ingles comigo. Eu quero aprender Portuguese e quando voce fala ingles, voce nao ajuda eu.” (or in English; “you don’t need to speak English with me. I want to learn Portuguese and when you speak English, you don’t help me.”) I’m not going to lie, I surprised myself with that statement as well. On Saturday, I didn’t do much except hang around my grandparents, but I was surprised that I woke myself a little after 9 in the morning. As most of you know, that is very early for me. Haha. I stayed home again on Sunday, but spent the day watching movies with my parents. First we watched “P.S. I love you” which I had never seen before. After, we watched “Extraordinary Measures.” When we watch movies together, we usually watch them in English with Portuguese subtitles so that we can all understand, but the subtitles for “Extraordinary Measures” only caught every other sentence or so. So we watched it in Portuguese, and later I watched it in English. I realized after watching it for the second time in English, I understood a lot more than I thought I had. Go me. Of course, I already know I am going to be very tired tomorrow since I am still awake writing this at 12:43 in the morning. It’ll be a splendid Monday morning for me…

Week 11

This is my first post of being 17. It feels slightly odd, I suppose. The fact that I am one year closer to legally being an adult is crazy. The fact that I spent my 17^th birthday in another country and didn’t get to go to a restaurant of my choice is also crazy. On Monday, a few friends and some family members came over for cake. My second host mom who lives near my house now, came with my soon to be new 3 year old sister. It was pretty fun, my friends and I sat around the table and talked for like 3 hours before eating cake. One of my friends who can speak English got me the best card ever. No, he wrote me the best message in the card. It said, “I couldn’t find you a card with Lil’ Wayne, so I got you one with Snoopy Dog instead…” and then some other stuff, but it was so cute. I’m glad when looking at my ipod, one can tell who has my heart; Weezy F. Baby. :) While my “party” was going on, Anais was on skype with the family. She wanted to be there to sing happy birthday. I love my sister, she’s honestly the best. On Tuesday, my actual birthday, PJ happened to catch me on the computer right at midnight so I skyped with her for the first time since I have been here. We had another churrasco because it was Children’s Day. My other aunt, uncle, and their kids came over along with my grandparents. Once again, a lot of ping pong was played, and even some soccer. Mae decided she’d do my hair for me. It probably took a  good 3 hours because she washed it, I guess texturized?, (I don’t really know, the words she used aren’t in my Portuguese vocabulary yet,) then straightened it. It looked surprisingly good since we all know my hair doesn’t straighten well. On Wednesday I had to go back to school after a 5 day break. It wasn’t even dreadful. OBVIOUSLY I am not in the United States. Haha. On Thursday, I ran some errands with mae. She was telling me what she knew about my second host family and they seem really nice. I am friends with my 19 year old sister on orkut, which is like google’s version of facebook, and we talked. She is only home on the weekends since she goes to school in another city, but she definitely seems cool.

On Saturday, I went to dinner with the family. I had my first Brazilian hamburger. It was really thin, but tasted fine. It didn’t have the exact same taste as ours, but it wasn’t bad. After, we rented a few movies and I watched “The Proposal” with my parents when we got home. I have to say I can’t believe I went this long without seeing it, it is such a good movie! This week seemed to go slower than usual, even with the 2 days off school because I had no basketball at all. Oh well, I’ve got it tomorrow! :)

Week 10

Another week down. Time actually does kinda fly. Weird. I can’t honestly say my week was splendid. I was just straight up bored. On Tuesday, though, I got a package from Linda. Not gonna lie, she remembered everything I asked for and even gave me some things I forgot. What a champ, she is. :) I spent almost all afternoon making new hemp bracelets since it’s been about 2 months since I’ve made any. I made a necklace for my host mom. She wants me to teach her how to make hemp, only without the hemp cord because she doesn’t like the smell. On Wednesday, Sammy turned 17. That made me realize how close MY actual birthday was. I’m not even excited though? I am turning 17 in 2 days, shouldn’t I be excited?

Friday, which started out wonderfully, I woke up as always around 6:20 but instead of being a zombie, I could actually like open my eyes and you know, function. It was weird and somewhat unexpected because I definitely stayed up late reading on Thursday night. What am I reading? I STAY reading Harry Potter. :)  But anyways, when I got to school, after the first bell hardly any of my classmates were there, and the teacher didn’t show up. I, being always confused, was even more confused than usual. Once my friends arrived, I found out there was a huge test, the way I interpreted it, it was similar to the PSSA for all you Pennsylvania’s. PENNSYLVANIA! Tell me why when I tell Brazilians that is where I am from, they think I mean TRANSYLVANIA or wherever Dracula is from? I can’t tell you how many times I have had to take the United States shaped silly band off my wrist and show them that Pennsylvania is located on the eastern side of the United States. But anyways, back to the test, I lucked out and didn’t have to take it. So after hanging out with my friends for an hour, they went to take the test, I walked home and took a nap. On Saturday I spent the day at home because my brother Rafael came home for holiday. On Tuesday, there is a holiday in Brazil; Children’s day. :) Why don’t we celebrate that in the United States?! Today, we had churrasco at the house. Did I mention I love churrascos? Anyways, my grandparents, uncle, his girlfriend and her son, all came over. I showed the little boy, well, is 9 that little? Anyways, I showed him my silly bands and let him have some. Like most Brazilians would, he chose to keep the soccer ones. We played a lot of ping pong. We as in the whole family. Even my grandpa joined in. It was quite entertaining to watch, he’s such a cutie.

Week 9

This week was one of the best yet, even though I got sick again. Haha. On Tuesday, I got a fever and my nose became the most runny again. I found out though, that some of my other exchange friends have been sick basically the whole time they have been here as well. On Wednesday, I had a basketball game with my club. The team I played on wasn't the usual boys I play with, I guess boys a year or two younger who weren't as good. It was fun to play in a game though, like with a score board and refs (even if they were just the older boys.) Since after the game we had practice, a couple of the boys and I went to a store up the street to get snacks in between since they were all at the gym to ref and watch. They kept trying to make me say cuss words and other bad things to each other. Luckily, I learned most of the bad words in my first week or so, so I didn't embarrass myself too bad. I lifted with the boys after which felt so good. I missed lifting for sure. :) I wish I knew how many kg were in a lb though so I could know how much I was lifting. I also stopped being afraid to go to the basket and stuff, so I started scoring a lot more than just the open 3's I take. It feels really good to be playing like hard. Especially with such a fun group. :)

On Friday, I went and watched my little brother's school team play soccer. He is so good, like I know I say that almost weekly, but it's true. The family and I went to pizza after basketball practice and my parents told me I could have friends over for my birthday. :) Yesterday, I went to my first real soccer game with rotex! It was so much fun! :) :) :) The team, Corinthians, which my family happens to be crazy about is who we saw. It was a tie game and just crazy. Like the fans get so into it. It was really fun though. Jordann and I were trying to be all Brazilian and mock what all the other fans said. It was quite entertaining. She, Favi, and I went missing basically for a while, because we misunderstood the plans of the day. We thought that after the museum, we could go for lunch in the tents right outside the stadium because they said, "after the museum, you will  have  abreak for lunch." At the last event, we had like 3 hours of freetime in a mall for lunch, so that's what we figured we would have at the game. Big misunderstanding because Rotex got the most upset with us because they thought we were missing. It was not a good situation at all, though we are not missing...and I am alive. :)