Wednesday, November 29, 2017

The Chillest of all Weeks

29 November 2017
22:06 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Today's Average Temperature: 35 C (95 F)

--Thursday (Written on Thursday)

Not much happened at the beginning, however my class did get out about 15 minutes early at the end of the school day!After I got home, I relaxed for just under five hours and packed a couple bags. One had a change of clothes and a few other things. The other just had my phone, sunglasses, headphones and my water bottle.At about 16:30 (4:30pm) I headed to Cipex. Since it was Thanksgiving, Andrea was doing a sort of celebration for it. (They don't celebrate it here, which makes sense.) I dropped off the bigger bag, and headed to the gym with the smaller one.My plan was to drop off a change of clothes and stuff so that when I go back to Cipex after going to the gym, I could change out of my sweaty clothes and into clean ones.I did this, and hung out for the last few hours with everyone who came.Now to just plan out paint ideas.....

--Friday through Tuesday (Written on Wednesday)
Really, nothing happened. I would have gone to the gym again on Tuesday however it was 32 C and I thought it might not be a good idea to exercise it that much heat. However it seems the week ahead is only going to get hotter so I might just have to suck it up and go.

--Wednesday
Well, tonight (Right as I'm writing this) there is a Gremista game going on. A few students at school this morning were wearing their team wear due to it. Also, it seems that the school year is ending here. Apparently (I didn't know until after the school day.), all the tests everyone had been taking yesterday and the day before that were the end of year tests. So the system here is, if you have good passing grades you don't have to go to school for the rest of the school year. However if they aren't good, you stay and try to improve them until the school year is finished. Either way, I still have to go to school.
Anyways, after the school day Odete and I went to the market to have lunch. (They have a buffet style lunch area.) Immediately afterwards, we were headed off to her different clients houses for her work. They lived in more rural areas I guess I could say. We did this while on our way to her mom's house. When we arrived, I got to pick a bunch of oranges to make juice out of while she and the person watching over the animals (Her parents are out of town atm.) made cheese! I got to see how she and her family makes it, it's really interesting.
Next, when we had everything we needed we headed back home. However, another exchange student was in town today. Mariana from Russia! She had been hanging out at Cipex and Andrea really wanted me to come by as well, so on our way home, Odete dropped me off at Cipex and I spent the rest of the evening there.


Random Note:
It actually is forecast to get hotter as the week goes on. By next Wednesday it's suppose to be around 37 C (Almost 100 F). So wish me luck!

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Note Thy Text Sarcasm!!!

22 November 2017
19:26 BRT (EST + 3 hours)

--Thursday + Friday
Nothing much happened both Thursday and Friday. Had school then relaxed for the rest of the day. The only thing that would stand out is that on Friday I went to the gym, sort of. One of the Rotarians from my district, as a gift, is paying for a years worth of gym membership for me. So, Friday I went, introduced myself (With Andrea's help.) and got to know any rules I'd need to know, their hours and so on. From now on, I hope to go every Tuesday and Thursday at 18:00 (5pm).

--Saturday + Sunday
Saturday and Sunday both, I ended up not doing anything. It was nice, just relaxed again.

--Monday
Monday, I may have woken up to my alarm, turned it off, and fallen back asleep for two hours. I ended up just not going to school that day. Seeing as I had already missed half of it. Thus, Monday became another relaxing day like Saturday and Sun.

--Tuesday
Tuesday...
Was soooooo...
Fun. (Note text sarcasm)
I woke up, just a few minutes before my alarm was suppose to go off to a buzzing noise. It sounded like a beetle flying against the wall so I just ignored it and continuing trying to sleep the last few minutes. Except the buzzing continued, a bunch. It was weird. My alarm turned off and I looked towards where the sound had been coming from, and was continuing to come from.
Then I saw it, it looked like a giant beetle. It was crawling around on the closet compartment that is in my room.
(Here's a picture of the closet from where I was sitting on my bed. It was crawling around the top area, it's dark in the picture.)
I, of course, partially started freaking out. I grabbed my phone, and while continuing to stare at it as it crawled around, managed to grab my glasses and bolt out of the room. I was debating whether I should wake Odete or not, and ended waking her up. (The other option was text Andrea and tell her I couldn't go to school because there was a beetle thing in my room and I couldn't get to my school stuff with it there.)
When she went into my room, the bug had spontaniously disappeared. I then super nervously went about grabbing everything for school really fast and exited the room.
When I got home, I learned that Odete had found it and killed it, and so she told me that it wasn't a beetle at all. But a cockroach! Seeing as how I know it couldn't have gotten into my room throughout the night due to my window being closed and the crack under the door being too small, it had to have been in my room throughout the WHOLE NIGHT. WHILE I WAS SLEEPING!!!! So that was suuuuuuper fun. (Note text sarcasm.)
ALSO! This one is actually good. I went to the gym the first time since arriving! There is one guy at the gym who speaks a little English and is helping me figure out a sort of work out plan. He led me through different machines and different exercises, seeing what I needed to work on and everything else! By the time I left the gym an hour later, I felt like my limbs were a bit of jelly.

--Wednesday
Finally, today. Well it started out good and continued to be good. Since I went to the gym yesterday, I'm super sore and kind of stiff, around my shoulders particularly. School went by mostly normally and I went to Cipex for a few hours. Tomorrow, after school and the gym once more, I'll be going and hanging out at Cipex again because they are having a Thanksgiving sort of dinner. Due to it being an American tradition, I get to talk about the culture around it and what we normally do on this holiday!

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Wait... it's already Wednesday again?

15 November 2017
21:24 BRT (EST + 3 hours)

--Thursday
Well... "Aerith" had "her" first day of running around the house. I closed off all the other rooms and let "her" run around for a while. However then I realized something that a "her" wouldn't have...
So yeah... The cat is a he... The awkwardness was funny when I had to explain to everyone at Cipex.
Later that same day, I was talking with my sister and she figured out a new name! (Sorry, didn't hold a vote this time.) The kitten's name is now Nero! (Near-o)

--Friday
Friday was just as relaxing. Once school was over, I ended up relaxing on the couch for a while, just watching videos on my phone with a sweatshirt swaddled kitten napping with me.

--Saturday
Saturday, was when stuff actually happened! Odete was going out of town for the weekend, and due to sleeping arrangements, I couldn't go with her. And so I ended up staying with a friend of Odete's for the weekend. I packed up a bag, along with a kitten, and at 14:00, got taken to the other house. However, once I was there, it went back to the normal nothingness. The nice thing was, shortly before then I finally decided to read the Divergent series. I've had all three books for probably over a year and haven't read them. So while I was there I read a bunch.

--Sunday
Also, on Sunday, I went out and hung out with Paulo for a short while. Other than the random thing, it was a pretty normal weekend. Just relaxing.

--Tuesday
So, Tuesday night. There was a football game going on. (I'm talking about international football, not American. I'm trying to get used to saying football.) Andrea, my counselor, invited me to go with her to a sort of restaurant/bar place to watch it with her and a bunch of others. However, she did say that if she felt it was unsafe or anything at all (Because there was alcohol.) that she would take me home.
Once we had arrived, a quick glance didn't show any other girls there. Andrea asked one of the guys she knew and he confirmed that no other girls were there. (It was just Andrea, a friend of hers, and me.) Due to this, Andrea didn't feel it would be safe and so we called it off.

--Wednesday
Nothing much happened today. It was Republic day and so we didn't have school. Cristiano came home and so the cat never came inside. The only mildly interesting thing that happened today was that I took all the clean laundry and hung it out to dry. I think I did it pretty quickly by how surprised Odete was when I said I was already done! (I also got to have chocolate because Odete got some!)

Other than all that, it was a pretty uneventful week, though it went by REALLY fast.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Throne..... Ooooooooh.... Thorn!

8 November 2017
--:--BRT (EST + 3 hours)

--Thursday
I woke up at 07:00 (7am), got ready for school, and headed out the door at 07:30 (7:30am). The walk to school takes about 15 minutes, and while walking I noticed that the intermediate-level school was closed. Though it had been closed on days the high-school had class so I didn't think much about it. However as I continued walking I noticed that there wasn't even one other person walking, and I only saw maybe five cars drive down the road.
I guessed that we didn't have school that day, but I wasn't sure. So I made a plan, if school was closed, I would start walking back home through the longer route, and see if Amazóna do Pão was open. Sadly, every shop I passed, including Amazóna do Pão (I think that's the name, I could be wrong.) was closed. So I walked back home. Later, I learned from Paulo that we didn't have school, Thursday or Friday due to a holiday. (No one told me so I had no idea.)
Later, Paulo and I got to go out and have shakes! YEAH, shakes!

--Saturday
Saturday morning, we were suppose to go over to Odete's parent's house. I'm not sure what changed because Odete told me we weren't going anymore, but I can guess. During the night, it was storming a bunch (It actually knocked our power out for a short while again.) and I woke up to it around 04:00 (4am) I believe (At the same time, Odete told me we weren't going anymore). I'm guessing that because of the storm the roads would be too muddy to drive down to get to their house. (They live in the country side, so the roads are just dirt.)
So, instead, to my surprise, the gparents came here instead. We had lunch and then they hung out for a while longer.

--Sunday
On Sunday, the same happened. The gparents came here and we had a bigger lunch. (Sundays are sort of dedicated to being with your family, thus the bigger lunch.) For the rest of the day however, we just relaxed again.

--Monday
Monday, got up and started getting ready for school. However I felt a little sick. Not nauseous, but just my body felt tired and I was a little lightheaded and dizzy when I stood. I ended up not going to school due to this. I fell back asleep and woke up a little bit before noon, feeling a LOT better. (I probably slept between eleven to twelve hours total.) Later, I went and hung out at Cipex!

--Tuesday
CAT!!!!!
School was normal. However, later... I was hanging out a Cipex for a little bit, and then Andrea took me to her house so that I could take one of the kittens!! After that, we just hung out at Cipex until about 20:00 (8pm) than I brought the kitten home. (Also, she is only about a month and a week old!)

--Wednesday
So last night, I had kept the cat in my room, due to it storming outside (We couldn't move everything to her spot outside.). Due to this, she kept meowing and waking me up throughout the night. I was pretty tired but once I came home from school and tried to sleep a little, then showered and then I brought the cat to Cipex with me for a few hours again! By this time we (I put out a sort of vote for a bunch of people.) had figured out a name.... Aerith!!
So, Aerith and I just hung out at Cipex for about 5 hours. I figured out while we were there that she really likes being completely covered by whatever she's sleeping in. I had laid her in my sweatshirt and she burrowed her way through the folds so she was WITHIN the sweatshirt. It's actually really cute.

(Title is inside joke... sorta.)

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Camping with Exchange

1 November 2017
21:45 BRT (EST + 2 hours)

~~Thursday
Thursday started out like normal. I went to school and such. Then once I got home, I relaxed for a short while, and went to hang out at Cipex for a few hours. Then, around 18:00 (6pm) I went home, finished packing my bags and relaxed a little more. Then at 20:00 (8pm) we had dinner and time went by quickly after that. Soon it was 20:15 (8:15pm) and I was rushing to put my bags into the car so that Odete could drive me to the bus station so I could buy my bus ticket for 20:30 (8:30pm) and get there on time. I did and Paulo met me at the bus station. We got on the bus and started our 2 and a half hour drive to Santo Angelo. That night, since the camping hadn't started yet, I slept at the house of a Rotarian. They had a small dog named Luna, and she was very cute. The couple whose house I stayed at were really nice. They also had neighbors that they introduced me to, they were also very nice. (They all lived in the same apartment/condo building but on different floors.)

~~Friday
WARNING: This is about to get really confusing. Throughout the weekend there were three different Paulo's. To try and keep this as not confusing as possible they will be "Mini Paulo" for the rebound from Santa Barbara, "Coordinator Paulo" or just "Paulo" for the one who is the Inbound Coordinator and "Host Paulo" for the one who's land we stayed on while camping.

The next day, around 10:00 (10am), the Rotarian I stayed with drove me to Paulo's house where some of the other exchange students were already waiting. Once everyone arrived, we went to have a lunch along with ice cream afterwards. After that, it was about 14:00 (2pm) and we all packed our bags into a trailer and piled onto a bus that took us to where we were camping. Once there, we were all introduced to Host Paulo and his wife and were told the random rules a such we had to go by since we were camping on their land. Then we set up all our tents, had dinner, hung out listening and dancing to music and then had a fire and went to bed.
(Happily, one of the other exchange students had a two person tent and I was able to camp with them, as well as another student had an extra sleeping bag!)
P.S. ALSO, we went on a trek through the woods while it was pitch black. It was really cool!! Though a bunch of the other exchange students kept getting spooked pretty easily.

~~Saturday
On Saturday, we all woke up about an hour before we had to. (I'm not sure how because I don't think anyone had an alarm set.) We then went about preparing for the day. The whole weekend was scheduled and so we knew that on this particular day we were going to a park. This particular park had rock climbing, as well as tree paths and zip lining. As well as lots, and lots of evil caterpillars. The first thing we did once we arrived was that we went on a sort of scavenger hunt. We had a map with locations of different posts around the park and with the use of a compass, we and our partner had to go to each one and stamp a paper with the stamp from each one. During this hunt, we had to cross a small creek/river. I might have taken a slight dip with one of my feet and got my shoe soaked through.
Next, everyone tried rock climbing for a while, and after that, everyone got harnessed up to go on the tree paths. While waiting for the chance to go up, one of the evil caterpillars got onto my back, right behind my arm. Once I accidentally moved it with my arm, I finally realized it was there because it started hurting me. (This is why they are evil.) I had also been stung by one the previous day, but it wasn't as bad because we were at the camp site. (Some info I learned last night about these evil creatures. They are perfectly calm until disturbed, aka when you touch or try to move them, when this happens they inject you with a small amount of poison which is why it hurts. This poison is deadly, but happily, only in large doses.) These things hurt, it feels like constant pinching all in one small area where the caterpillar is and was for a short while after it happens.
Now, when I finally got to go on the tree paths it was really cool. Terrifying because we were like 20-30 feet in the air, but cool. There were different parts of the path that were easier or harder to get through. The first was just a regular path but the beams were farther than a regular bridge. Then the next was the same but the beams were only like an inch and a half thick. The third part, was a single wire. On the previous two we had ropes to either side to help steady ourselves. On this part, there was only one rope on one side, then we had to balance and cross a smaller gap to the next part. The final part was the same as the previous, except it was longer and had rope on both sides. Once more, terrifying but really fun. Finally, the way to get off the tree paths was a zip-line. Not much to say about that, it was really fast.
After that, we went back to camp. We had some dinner, and a few of us jumped into the pool that was there! IT WAS FREEZING, but we didn't care. (Not actually freezing but it felt like it.) After that, a ton of us all had to wait on the single bathroom so that we could shower.

~~Sunday
Sunday, we all got up at about 07:00 (7am) and started getting ready for the day. We were going to a water part for the first three quarters of the day and then an archaeological site during the last part. While at the water park, we hung out, took TONS of video on both my, and Jan's GoPro memory cards (Jan is one of the two from Germany.), and I ended up trying a zip-line they had going from one side of the pool to the other.
The entire way was safe, it was over water and at the end they had stuff wrapped around the wire to prevent people from getting hurt. However they made sure it was safe for the majority of people, the ones that made it at least halfway down the zip-line. For some reason though, they had the water part set up so that the beginning half of the pool was only about 3-4 feet deep and the last half was deeper. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.
Well, the reason for me somehow trying this zip-line is that Mini Paulo went up the tower at the beginning and started not wanting to do it anymore. So I told him that if he did it, I would try it too. He did it, and so I had to uphold my part. Now, this zip-line is not the same kind we had gone on the previous day. It was just the kind you hold onto with your hands, and so.... After finally pushing off the beginning platform, I went down about five feet from the start and my grip slipped. I fell into the shallow half of the pool. I had managed to kind of roll back so that instead of my legs going in first, it was my back that hit the water first. After that my arm was the only thing to hit the floor below that. When I got back above the water I realized what all the books I've read meant by the air being forced out of you. I started sucking in air as fast as possible and moved towards the edge of the pool. It was not a fun day.
After that, I ended up getting out of my swimsuit and into dry cloths, though it hurt quite a lot for anything to touch my back, even if it was just clothing. Then Coordinator Paulo took me to the city and to a hospital to make sure that nothing was injured internally. After the doctor confirmed that nothing was wrong internally he prescribed me some pain medicine and we headed back to the water park. Having taken the pain medicine, I felt a lot better than I had before.
Afterwards, we headed to the archaeological site. It was an AMAZING site. It was an old castle-like building that we were able to walk through and take pictures of. After being there for a short while, going to dinner nearby, we came back after dark. They had a light show going on at the castle/building. I'm not sure exactly what it was about (There was talking to go along with the lights.) but I would guess it was about the history of the building. However, half way through the show I started tuning out, the pain medicine had started wearing off and it was REALLY cold outside, like constant shivers-down-your-spine cold. Which when you have a messed up back that keeps shivering, it's not fun. Once the show was over, we headed back to camp, to get some well needed sleep.



 

  
These two happened as we were walking back to the bus to gather for dinner.
 


~~Monday
Monday wasn't very eventful. Once everyone woke up at 07:00 (7am) we started packing everything up. Suitcases, tents and all. We had breakfast and Coordinator Paulo took me and a few others to the Police station in Santo Angelo to get our Brazillian IDs! FINALLY!!! After that, we all hung out at his house for a short while before we had to go on our bus home. Mini Paulo and I's bus was at 10:00 (10am) and it ended up being the same bus that two of the other exchange students had to ride!
After we finally got home, I unpacked my suit case and ended up sleeping for nearly three hours. Which, upon waking, I went and hung out at Cipex for two hours.

~~Tuesday
HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday wasn't very special at first, school ya-da ya-da. But afterwards, I got to go to Panambi with a bunch of the students from Santa Barbara-Cipex as well as Camila and Andrea for a Halloween party. (There is also a Cipex in Panambi, which is where the party was, thus the specification.) The party went by pretty fast, and shortly after 19:00 (7pm) I was home.

~~Wednesday
There isn't really anything special to today. However, we did end up having a free class instead of Math. I went outside and ended up playing basketball for a short while before getting too hot. Then after school, nothing happened. Just been sitting around relaxing my back. (We were suppose to have a party for one of the students at Cipex but it has been postponed.)