HELLOW!!!

24 January 2018
18:30 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Current Temperature: RAIN RAIN GO AWAY

--Thursday
Well, I chose to take another day off. If I remember correctly, it had continued to sprinkle down rain throughout the day and so no Cipex for me. However! It did stop for a while when it started getting dark, and I managed to get some A-Mazing pictures of the sunset.

 


--Friday
Friday, I FINALLY managed to get over to Cipex for about five hours in the evening! I got the entire first layer of all the bricks down. Now I just need to go over some of them with another coat, paint the wall below it with a fresh coat of white and make sure all the pencil sketching is erased!

--Saturday
Saturday, I relaxed once more. However, with a single look at the week ahead, in reference to the weather, I didn't really have a choice but to relax. Starting Sunday, we were going to have constant rain and thunder storms. Lots of fun...
ADORABLE KITTEN!!!

--Sunday - Wednesday
It has really be storming everyday. However while it has rained everyday, it ranges between complete and utter thunderstorms and just calm sprinkling of rain. However, it's made the ability to walk anywhere very scarce.
Even as I'm writing this, it's thundering outside. It has only been sprinkling rain all day but I've heard thunder every once in a while, the main storm is probably farther away.

1 AM Update Time = Success

18 January 2018
01:11 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Current Temperature:

So the worst thing about this is that I had managed to have everything written out and ready besides today so that I wouldn't have much to do... I still managed to totally forget until I was about to go to bed... Whoops...

--Thursday
Well, I went back to Cipex once more for a few hours. Paulo ended up coming as well because he had work he had to do, so we ended up hanging out while doing our own stuff. I finished sketching out where I wanted all the 'bricks' to be, and had started filling in the larger ones with a paint roller. However, as it turns out, they don't look too nice when you use a paint roller. So after already filling in about 10% of the bricks, I decided to go back through and neated those up by hand, with a brush that is about an inch wide. After that, I simply filled in about half of the rest of the bricks by hand as well. So far, I think it's coming out quite well!

I'm still waiting to get the putty spatula so I can fill in some scrapes and such, however I might just end up painting over them. Most of the scrapes and such are really small and at the base of the wall, so they aren't super noticable.







--Friday
I was planning on going to back Cipex again on Friday, however the temperature got in the way. According to the weather station, it was only 24 C (75 F) but it seriously felt like it was at least 34 C (93 F)! So, I decided to stay home and not die of heat.
The worst part of Friday, was that my fan stopped working! So even though it was a little cooler inside the house, it was still REALLY hot, and I didn't have anything to cool down!

--Saturday
It had been raining off and on all Saturday evening. Quite annoying when I wanted to go out and do stuff. However, I did manage to get an adorable picture of Nero!

--Sunday
Once more, my plans to go to Cipex were foiled. I had checked the weather forecast, and while it said that it wouldn't rain until the evening, I didn't want to be stuck at Cipex when I wanted to leave.
Normally, when I go to Cipex, I go later in the day and then leave around 19:00 to 20:00 (7-8pm). As the forecast had said, it was going to begin raining around 19:00 (7pm), so I really didn't like my odds.

--Monday
I had been awake for less than an hour and already had more than three new mosquito bites on my legs... HOW?!
Well, while I had planned to go to Cipex and work some more on the bricks, it was sprinkling rain off and on throughout the day. I probably would have been fine to just go, however I chose not to.

--Tuesday
Started off the day right! I went outside and picked up Nero, who had been laying under a bush, and brought him inside to hang out with me. I'm not sure what he got into, and I'm pretty sure it's not because of the bush, but I ended up getting a few small spots of a rash on my arm. I know it was from Nero because they showed up exactly where Nero's front paws and head touched my arm. Odete put some stuff on the spots and they have disappeared now, but I'm still curious what he got into that caused me to get a rash.
Also, while Odete was out doing something I had a mini-vistor! Sadly I only took a video and no pictures, so the picture I have is sorta bad quality, but apparently it was just a regular lizard here. It was just strolling through our yard to hide under a giant flower bush Odete has. She said that they can get really long when they grow up, so the one I saw is probably still a baby.

If you can't see him, look closely at where the grass and the green base of the fence meet.

The rest of the day went by slowly and around 21:00 (9pm) my time, I FB called with my parents for about an hour and a half.








--Wednesday
Today went by like normal. I really wanted to go to Cipex and work more, however the weather had another plan. Odete and I had a late lunch, and shortly afterwards it started pouring. It kept doing this off and on for a few hours, however later at around 18:00 (6pm) I managed to go outside and lay out in Odete's hammock for an hour or so. It was actually really relaxing and nice, I'm definitely planning on doing it more in the future.

Pintura, Pintura, Pintura

11 January 2018
11:54 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Current Temperature: 29 C (84 F)

--Friday
I managed to finish taping up the hexagons on Friday. However, planning to only be at Cipex long enough to put up the tape, I didn't bring my phone charger and came with only half battery on my phone. Taping everything took a bit longer than I thought it would and so my phone ended up dying before I left. No music for me on the walk home. Also my luck with cockroaches once more. Cipex doesn't usually get cockroaches because it's not lived in like a house. However my luck said that there would be one sitting outside the front door to greet me... No pictures, but at the end of the day I did get to hang out with my kitty!


--Saturday + Sunday
I decided to take this weekend off, though I don't have a proper job to actually take time off of. I don't have any pictures from Saturday but I did managed to take progressive pictures of Nero's laying position on the couch with me. At one point he even fell asleep with his tongue sticking out, most adorable thing ever!

 

 

Sorry for the quality of this last one, I had taken a video and just screenshot one frame from it.
Also, yes, in the second to last picture he managed to steal my hand as I was trying to pick him up.


--Monday
Monday I started and finished painting in the hexagons! I took off the tape from around it and started repainting bits that needed to be white. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures yet.

--Tuesday
However on Tuesday, I finished painting over the little bits of misplaced blue as well as I started sketching out where the 'bricks' are going to go on another wall. I do have a picture of the hexagons, however the sketching was too light, as sketches are suppose to be, to be caught on camera.

I should also mention, that before going to Cipex, I went to the store on my own and bought myself stuff. Unsurprisingly, it was terrifying, however I managed.
If you are wondering why it is terrifying for me it's because I don't like going into big crowds of people I don't know on my own.









--Wednesday
Yesterday, I didn't really do anything. I actually had plenty of time to write out the blog and upload it but managed to completely forget. Soooo, yeah. Sorry about that. Now I'm scheduled a pretty busy day ahead of me so wish me luck!

Painting!!!!.... And Torrada!

January 4 2018
10:40 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Current Temperature: 22 C (71 F) Forecast of lots of rain.


--Thursday
Well, not much happened on Thursday, however the highlight of the day was..... drum roll in mind.... I got my hair cut!! Woohoo!

 

--Friday
The next day I began the long project of repainting one of the rooms at Cipex. The room in particular being Andrea's "classroom!" Students are allowed to draw on certain parts of the walls, however it was time for a change, and so I started out by simply painting over the drawings with white. I spent about three hours at Cipex on Friday doing this.

--Saturday
On Saturday, I got into contact with some Brazilian friends and tried to set up a time when I would be painting at Cipex and we could all hang out. Sadly in the end, everyone had been busy, but I still got quite a bit of painting done! I was at Cipex for... six hours!

--Sunday
Sunday, I had a busy night ahead of me. My host mom left at about 21:30 (9:30pm) to go to church to celebrate the New Year. I stayed home and hung out with my kitten who was being surprisingly cuddly.

 

At about fifteen minutes until midnight, I started making myself some macaroni and cheese while doing a short FaceBook call with my friend and her mom. Shortly after the Brazilian New Year, we ended the call and I sent messages out to all my friends here in Brasil.
I then proceeded to have a plate of the macaroni and stayed up another three hours. Why? You may ask. Well, Brasil is three hours ahead of Indiana. Meaning in order for me to celebrate with my US friends and family, I will stay up until 03:00 (3am). This I did, I stayed up, and at 02:00 (2am) started another FaceBook call with the same friend along with a few others who had joined her for New Years. We played a very silly game of Apples to Apples and once 03:00 (3am) or 00:00 (12am) came around, I sent out messages to my US friends as well as my family.
After that I was quite tired. Oh, and did I forget to mention I had to get up at 08:00 (8am) the next morning?

--Monday
Well, even though I had set an alarm to wake me up, I must've turned it off in my sleepy state because at 08:30 (8:30am), the time we were going to leave, my host mom came in and woke me up.
I might want to mention what we were doing, we were going to a family member's house to celebrate New Years Day. The car ride was two hours long, and it was a packed car. (Odete's parent's picked us up and they had another person with them.)
It was actually quite nice, we hung out there for the majority of the day and had lunch. Around 18:00 (6pm) or so, we headed home!
Annnnnnd, here's a silly out of context picture from the day...

--Tuesday
On Tuesday, it was another relaxed day. I spent part of it hanging out with the wild Nero kitten when he came inside, and at one point made myself a torrada I am quite proud of.
If you don't know what I mean by torrada it is this... A torrada is a sandwich you can put anything in, and then you grill it. Imagine a grilled cheese, but you can put anything in it and it's MUCH less greasy. Torradas... are... amazing.
This particular one I made with some chicken and cheese.

--Wednesday
Wednesday started off slow. However once about 16:00 (4pm) rolled around it was time to go. At this time, I went to Cipex and began painting once more. With all the work I'd done before, I only had to do a few more layers over certain parts of the walls to finish with the drawings.
Once it was about 17:00-17:30 (5-5:30pm) Paulo as well as Ana came around. Paulo was doing a quick review lesson with her before she left for Canada in the next few weeks. (I will mention, there were suppose to be two other boys with her, however they went to another city for the day.) Ps. These boys kept teasing me with pictures of Subway.
We all hung out and by the time I left at 19:00 (7pm), I had finished painting over the drawings, had created paper cut-out frames for the diamond and hexagon designs and had started taping out the hexagons!
Wish me luck!

Ps... Sorry for the delay... only realized I had forgotten about the blog when I had curled up in bed...

Kinda Busy... But Not at the Same Time

27 December 2017
17:51 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Current Temperature: 31 C (87 F)

--Thursday
Thursday was actually quite busy once the afternoon came around. I slept in until about ten o'clock and then at 14:00 (2pm) I walked down to Cipex. After that, Andrea and I went out to the market to get paint, paint tools and tape and anything else we needed! Plus we dropped by the grocery area and I bought some snacks.
Anyways, we got two cans of white paint, and one can of blue paint. Plus some spackle for any holes in the walls left by the crazy students we all know go to Cipex. After that, an hour or two had gone by and Andrea dropped me off at home.

--Friday + Saturday
Nothing much happened on both of these days. However I do believe it was on one of these days that I had the pleasure of seeing another cockroach just relaxing on the wall up by the ceiling. It seems I've gotten used to it, at least partially, because I just calmly said, "Mãe, barata." (Mom, cockroach.) and pointed it out.

--Sunday
Sunday however was partially crazy, as it's Christmas Eve! We left the house a few hours after lunch and headed to Carazinho. We stayed with some family members for an hour or so before going to Cristiano's house for him to get into more formal clothes. While there we were greeted, or at least I was as I was the last one to walk in through the door, to a cockroach scuttling by and crawling under the fridge. He sprayed a bunch of pest spray under and around the fridge but it seemed to not have done anything because later it just crawled out and ran across the floor. Odete just kinda walked over and stomped on it. Normal Brasil in the summer for you.
Anyways, after this, we headed to Cristiano's sister's house where we had dinner! She set up her table very prettily and I ended up having to take a picture.

--Saturday

When I had asked on Sunday if we were doing anything the next day I was only told that there was a chance we were going to Odete's parents house. We didn't however. We just relaxed for the full day at home. Odete got me a present. A towel with my name and flag and inbound year stitched into it!










Also, I got some pictures I had asked for from my family back in the states! I asked for pictures of our Christmas decorations to show my family here.

I finished the night by watching The Santa Clause with a mug of hot chocolate. Before it got dark, and before I had started the movie however I took a cool picture.



--Monday - Wednesday
Nothing much has happened over the past few days except LOTS of rain. Especially today. There was even a mini pool in our backyard because of all the rain!

I may have exaggerated but there was SO much water!

Again?!

22 December 2017
21:48 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Current Temperature: 24 C (75 F)

SUPER sorry for the delay. I only just realized how I hadn't even started working on the blog and how it was supposed to go up two days ago.

--Thursday - Saturday
Nothing much happened over these days, we had a slow and relaxing week for the most part.

--Sunday
However on Sunday we did do stuff. We went to the host gparent's house! (Which is actually where I am right now while writing this, and at the moment they do not have the wifi turned on and so I cannot actually post this.) Well, we arrived at their house shortly before lunch and had lunch with them. Shortly after the wind, that had already been sorta strong all morning, started to pick up. We had a rainstorm!
At first it was just the super strong wind, but later it did start raining. Also, by super strong wind, I'm not exagerating. It was picking up dust from the dirt road and you could see the wind that way. Just as it started raining, we (Who had been sitting on the porch watching the wind, because the porch was shielded by the house.) noticed that there was a small bird hiding behind the fence out in the wind and rain.
As it turns out, the wind probably knocked the chick out of its nest and now it was stuck in the storm. Happily, Odete's mom went out and grabbed it. We kept it in a drawer in the bathroom until the wind calmed down enough. Then we released it for the parents to watch over.
After the entire storm calmed down, which was an hour or two later, Cristiano, Odete and I headed home for the day.

 


--Monday
Now, Monday, stuff was scheduled. At 10:00 (10am), my counselor, Andrea picked me up and we headed out to go do some Christmas shopping! (Though it was technically just shopping.) I managed to find a new summer dress, as well as two pairs of leggings. After that, we went to Cipex where they were having a sort of celebration for the students who had graduated their class (Sorta, don't know how to explain it.). Though they had cake and such, and I hung out there for a short bit longer and then headed home.




--Tuesday + Wednesday
Not much happened over these two days, Andrea and I were going to go out again on Wednesday but some complications came up so we put a rain check on it. However I did love wearing the new dress, it made not feeling like I was going to melt a LOT easier.


PS Now again, super sorry for how late this is. Time has gotten away from me like crazy it seems. Also, for the people who I have learned get to ready these blogs as a sort of preperation for your own blogs, just remember you don't have to use the same style as everyone else. Find one that works for you. If you compare the first blog I put up to one from a few weeks ago then compare those two to this one, you'll notice I've sort of figured out my own way of organizing these blogs. As for the title, don't think too much about it and just write a silly or serious title for whatever happens during the week.
Good luck on your exchange years everyone!

I'm not late... you're.... late?

14 December 2017
11:44 BRT (EST + 3 hours)
Current Temperature: 29 C (84 F)

--Thursday
Well I actually got to do something Thursday! I hung out at Cipex for most of the afternoon, and then went home with Camila who had invited me over for dinner! I got to hang out with them until almost midnight, and her son got me to play Freddy Fazbear: Pizzeria Simulator. (Not to be confused as FNAF 6.) I did good, and then he persuaded me to salvage an animatronic... I died many times...
Anyways, it was really nice and I got to meet her daughter as well, and learn the layout of her house. Which is nice because she may be my future host family.

--Friday
Just about nothing happened on Friday. I just relaxed in my puddle of sweat.

--Saturday
Now, this was the time that everything started getting busy. I woke up at  09:00 (9am) to my alarm, and shortly after I was told we were going to the gparent's house again! So I got ready in record time while still managing to have coffee. We drove over, had lunch and I got to meet their new horse! They had a mare now and she was very beautiful. Cristiano rode her around for a bit and then let me ride her. To me it seemed like she had a bit of a lopsided gait when she walked but I got used to it. Later, everyone got to work with a couple of sheep. Though this time they weren't going for the wool... I very happily, kept my distance because I wasn't sure how my stomach would react.
Then later once more, we had dinner and I got to try a ice cream dish that Odete's mom had made. IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! It had BIS chocolate bars and it was just so stinkin' good!

OH I FORGOT TO MENTION!!! While driving to their house we may have seen an ostrich crossing!!!

 





--Sunday
Sunday was just as busy. However this time, I was woken up being told we were going over again. We left a little later in the day however, more towards lunch. We had lunch, relaxed for a little bit and then we went swimming! After we had swum for a while we went to a lake area and hung out along the coast of it, just relaxing and having a few snacks when all of a sudden... THERE WAS A BABY Komodo Dragon!!!

It was kind of scary but REALLY cool!!
After we were done with everything, we drove back to the gparent's house and then drove home for the night.

--Monday-Wednesday
Nothing really has happened to be honest. However I was notified about my Dad getting injured at work because of the ice. He's okay now, just recovering. So, now I think it's time for a picture from home!

It must always be warm in our dryer because if we leave the door open too long then our cat Boomer loves to climb in and lay down!