Thirty Minutes to Midnight

I didn't think it was possible for my life to go any faster.

We are down to the wire - I have exactly one month before departure. Embarkment. Going over the rainbow. Snapping the cord.

Today I sat down with my host mother and we talked about my last few weeks here. I looked at my calendar - that's still, what, thirty days, right? That's such a long time. This calendar fills up an entire page.

Why do I feel like I have to do everything now?

Why don't I get it?

...

Wait.

Does that mean I'm going home? No, really. Does it?


But what is home, really? This place feels like home, doesn't it? Everything is so familiar. The shape of the pillow has molded to my head. The seat of the car. My classes at school. The adorable stuffed kangaroo sitting on a shelf in my room.

The walls around the building. The gym on the ground floor. The set of gates by the front. Our parking spaces. The canopy of leaves that shadows this street. The sounds of honking cars in the evening. The streetlight that is secured in place by a ladder.

Tall buildings. Constant noise. Webs of telephone lines. Rusty billboard signs. The fact that I can see the mall from my house.

Okay, so I still haven't gotten over that one.

My brain just doesn't compute. What do you mean, I'm going home? That can't be. I have a pile of books I need to need. I have places I want to go. I have things I want to do.

So, what do I do? Do I just get up and leave? Do I just take everything that I brought and let the rest stay? Do I still speak Portuguese with everybody?

Do people really speak English? Does this happen?

...

It goes through the back of every exchange student's mind. Will I live this year in isolation? This semester? This month?

For some, the answer is yes. Some people don't make lasting connections with people on their exchange years. Some people never learn the language of their host country. Some people don't look around them.

For others, the answer is no.

...

It just seems do definitive. You're going home. Cut the ropes. End of story. Sorry. Curtain falls. Show's over. Go gag yourself and stop whining.

And then, once you've said your heart-breaking, tear-wrenching, sorrowful good-byes, what's next? You pick up your bags, and you get on a plane.

And you sit there. On a plane.

And I guess you think. Maybe you talk with other people. Maybe you talk because you don't know what to think, or how to think anymore. Because it's happening again.

...

So what do I do now? What's left?


Perhaps it's all in my head. Maybe this is actually a dream. Maybe I just got attacked by an incubus and I'm hallucinating. That's a logical explanation.


Or maybe it was the nargles. 


That doesn't even make any sense. 


Okay. Right. What's left?


Well, I'm here. That counts for something, right? I have my physical possessions. If I touch them, maybe I'll remember something. I have my camera, with fresh pictures on it. I have my computer, with old pictures. And there's always Facebook. And Skype. 


Oh, Skype. My primary telephone.


I still speak this new language...basically. I have my clothes. My journal. My defunct cell phone. 


And I still remember things. I wrote things down. I took pictures. I clicked my mental save button. 


But when I get back, what do I do? Everybody will be happy to see me, okay. But then...what's left? Do I just pick up where I left off? 


Will my dogs remember me?


...

Such are the thoughts that are running through my mind, one more before leaving. And then I think, what about those people I've met? Those people in the "Brazil" category of my mind? What about them?

Does life just continue, like clockwork? Does everybody just go about their business, going to school, watching movies, tanning at the beach, eating sushi?

Do the hands on the clock keep ticking?

Why is that a problem?

...

I think there's a lot of fear. A lot of uncertainty. A lot of rush to finish things. To get it all done. To make it last long enough so I can say, "Well, when I was an exchange student..."

Which begs the question: do we ever stop being exchange students?

Just because I touch down in my home country, does that mean this is over?

Did it stop?

Does it stop?

...

Why don't I get it?

Tiradentes

Two weeks ago, the 21st of April, was Tiradentes.

There was a protest at Praça Portugal.

Quick history lesson: Tiradentes was a Brazilian that shuffled gold and other valuable resources from the mines of Vila Rica, the capital of the state Minas Gerais, to Rio de Janeiro. His trips to Rio explosed him to liberal ideas, including those by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and the American Revolution. He became increasingly dissatified with the amount of exploitation that was being done to Brazil by the crown in Portugal.

A Marcha Contra a Corrupção - The March Against Corruption.
In our government. In our finances.

Tiradentes joined with a number of other like-minded citizens. They wanted to create a new republic with a capital at São João de Rei and start a university. Their flag was a triangle surrounded by the Latin words "Libertas Quae Sera Tamen", or "Freedom, Even If It Be Late".

This is a national organization.

His plan was, on a day of derrama, or a day of high dissatisfaction with the government (there is no translation for this), to take to the streets and proclaim the Republic.

With the blessing of the police, we too, took to the streets.

Unfortunately for Tiradentes, one member of his group, Joaquim Silveiro dos Reis, betrayed the movement to the governor, and Tiradentes was forced to flee to Rio.

And people watched. Cars honked in encouragement. People joined us. 

He tried to reorganize his movement there, and he agreed to meet Joaquim Silveiro dos Reis in Rio de Janeiro, not knowing that Joaquim was the one that betrayed the movement. Tiradentes was arrested on May 10, 1789.

While others passed by, forgetting the significance of this date.
It's just another annoying protest, their faces said.

His trial and the trial of nine others took almost three years to complete. The Queen of Portugal lowered the sentence of the other nine to degredation instead of death. Tiradentes was hanged on April 21, 1792, in Rio de Janeiro, in the plaza now named after him (Praça Tiradentes). His body was cut and a document was drawn up in his blood, to declare him infamous. His head was displayed in Vila Rica and parts of his body in Rio de Janeiro, as a warning and a reminder to those who oppose the crown.

And now we do what Tiradentes could not.

Today, April 21 is a national holiday in Brazil, a day where students organize revolts and protest against the government. There is a city in Minas Gerais bearing his name, and several other Latin American countries also honor him by naming major avenues in his honor. The proposed flag is now the flag of Minas Gerais, the only difference being that the triangle was changed to red.

And we, too, remember Tiradentes.

- Jake

Páscoa!

Sorry about the long hiatus. My computer fio (cord) broke and for some reason I don't want to upload the 600+ pictures I've taken in the last month to the family computer, and I for some reason I don't want to blog when I have no pictures. So until that arrives (should be next week, I hope), the blog will be pictureless. Yippie.

In other words, things break. Use an adapter next time, Jake. Then this won't happen. These things are so evident in retrospect.

I've got to blog about Salvador, which was the 13-16 of April, Carnaval, which was back in Feburary (whoops), and the first orientation, which was back in...November? It might have to wait until I get back home. There are some other posts I want to write (about blogging, about this series of protests that's been going on, food, Brazilian culture, the city of Fortaleza - interesting stuff), and I think we're going to Jericoacoara at the end of the month. My host mother, the official trip-planner (she's just generally awesome), says that we exchangers have to go before we leave. The big obstacle? It's on the other side of Ceará, about a six-hour car ride from Fortaleza.

Páscoa (Easter) is the name of the big holiday that we celebrate in the United States, but here in Brazil, the Semana Santa (Holy Week) is much more important. Semana Santa is pretty much that entire week. I had the usual hummy-drummy Monday before taking two long and painfully difficult tests designed to simulate the monster that haunts the nightmares of every Brazilian High School student:  O Vestibular. To put this into perspective for you, using the American school system as a base, imagine that the SAT covered advanced English, Mathematics, History, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Geography, and either Spanish or French, and that you could only take it at the end of the academic year, and that your score on this single test would determine what college you could go to and what you could major in. Yes, it's that scary. The school system here merits a couple of posts all by itself.

During these testing days, we students have the luxury of sleeping in, or getting up early and studying, or some other third mindless option. (I went to Lojas Americanas, this absolutely wonderful God-send of a store that I will ake a blog post about, and bought food.) We go to school before 13:00, which is when the test starts. You eat lunch and then bring snacks, like cookies or Japanese peanuts. Or both. (Hint: This is what I did. In the US, we're not supposed to eat in the classroom because of kids that have peanut allergies. Not sure about what my school does about that, or if anybody attending even has peanut allergies. I expect they have this sort of information on file. Anyway.)

We arrive, find our assigned room (this information is posted in seemingly insidious places throughout the school; I can never seem to find them until somebody points it out to me), pick seats, and begin. I've always found it very interesting here how students are organized by their first names - everybody has at least two last names and few people have a middle name, so I suppose going by the first name is easier. They split the classes into two different rooms: one for A-N, the other for O-Z.

About an hour and a half, two hours, I'm-actually-not-sure-because-I-wasn't-keeping-track hours, they hand out the answer sheet. It's fill in the bubbles, but we have to use pen. So if you mess up, you get that question wrong...? I don't know anything about this. It's definitely not Scantron, because you must use pen.

And then you leave when you're done. It's like college, except much more frightening. I think.

One day was Math, Portuguese, and Foreign Language; the other was everything else. For the Portuguese test, we write an essay in addition to the multiple choice. These are different too. Imagine if the SAT Essay had more abstract grading criteria than it already does. And a minimum line count. Not a minimum word count. A minimum line count.

So anyway, anyway, let's talk about the fun stuff now.

We left for the sítio (country house) Wednesday night, as neither Rapha nor I had class for the rest of the week. Along the way, we stopped at the house of Mãe's grandparents to pick up her aunt and her niece, Roberta. The sítio is about half-an-hour away from the apartment, and by the time we got there and unpacked it was nearing 11:00, which is past my bedtime. Except not really. But I was tired, so I slept.

The next day, Thursday, Roberta and I chilled until Clarissa, Laura, and Elif arrived. This was around 3:00, and since Roberta and I got up around 10:00, there wasn't much chill time. We ate lunch. We tried to remember the words to Química do Amor. We ate more food.

They did arrive, and introductions were made all around. In Brazil, introductions are almost ritualistic. Men shake hands. Women kiss each other on the cheek once or twice, and the same is expected between men and women. I'm not quite sure of how you know whether to do one kiss or two kisses, although I suspect it varies from family to family.

And then, we took part in what has become a great exchange student pasttime - we watched movies. In Portuguese with Portuguese subtitles. I feel like this is the best way to work on comprehension, because you don't always look at the subtitles when you're understanding the audio. And sometimes, jokes are just that much better in a foreign language. And sometimes they don't make any sense and you're left wondering what the Dickens that was supposed to be in the original script.

Friday was a beach day. Beach beach beach beach beach. Except we only went in the morning. But that counts as the whole day, pretty much. And I burned. I reapplied SPF 50 twice, and I still burned. And now, sitting here, more than two weeks later, a corner of my foot is still burned. I give up. Brazilian sun, you win.

Clarissa brought a giant chocolate egg for us. In Brazil, people usually give large eggs of chocolate. They're hollow, but with more chocolate inside (but it's wrapped). Bite-sized eggs, like in the US, are nonexistant, and chocolate rabbits are only for small children. The difference with Clarissa's egg is that she actually made it. Chocolate on cookies on chocolate on strawberries on chocolate. Delicious.

And really, Saturday and Sunday were pretty calm. Visitors came - this is very common, visiting somebody in their sítio to get away from the city -, we went swimming, we played ping-pong, we made brownies, we watched more movies, we climbed trees and held uncomfortable positions so we could take good photos and not fall off.

All pretty normal stuff.

I got home around 5:00 or 6:00, and we headed right off to mass. I may officially be Catholic, but I'm not religious and I don't agree with a lot of things that the Vatican says and does (and doesn't do). But, interestingly enough, a mass in a Brazilian Catholic church and a mass in an American Catholic church are actually pretty different. For example, no Latin in masses. No crossing with the Holy Water upon entrance. No kneeling and crossing before sitting down. The priest doesn't come through and sprinkle the Holy Water throughout the crowd. Sometimes, the Host is dipped in the wine, sometimes they are separate, and sometimes there is no wine except at the altar. You cross after putting the Host in your mouth, not before. you don't bow your head just before receiving the host. In Brazil, you receive a paper with has all of the mass printed, except for the Priest's speech, and sometimes they change the songs. Churches range from being stunningly modern to simple, from ornate to undistinguished. Oftentimes, churches overflow and have an entirely separate room for people to sit in plastic chairs.

The dove (which represents the Holy Spirit) can be found everywhere. In homes, on bumpers, photos in restaurants, stores, etc. The saying "Deus é fiel" (God is Faithful) is also a common sight, usually on car windows.

But interestingly enough, Catholics in Brazil aren't as conservatives as Catholics in the United States, as this article suggests (although, it's a little dated).

That said, Ceará may very well be the most religious part of the country. One of the great things about Brazil is that it's so large and so diverse, so what is true for one part of the country might not be true for another part.

Hey, that sounds...familiar.

Messing Up

It happens sometimes.

Earlier this week, my host parents sent me out to buy bread. In Brazil and pretty much everywhere except the United States, people actually eat real bread (yes American, I am hating on your flimsy bread), and therefore you must buy it at the bakery...or bread-vending place. Whatever it's called in English.

To be fair, my directions were given after a long set of confusing instruction and much bandying of words between my host parents (everybody has their specific bread preferences, it seems. Me? I love bread. It's a bit of a problem.), they sent me off.

So, right. I went to the bread-store-place and got what the told me. 7 loaves.

But when I got back, it appeared I was supposed to get 7 loaves of two different types of bread.

Oh, right. Gotcha. I totally...did not understand that part. Whoops.

It's not that it was a big deal or anything - I just feel like it's worth mentioning if only to say that it's okay to mess up. We're here to learn. You know that. Your host parents know that. Your host siblings and people in your host community know that. You mess up, you learn from your mistakes, and then you try harder until you get it right.

It might be a good idea to reiterate this to yourself. And just remember - we've got your back.

Three months left.

- Jake

Canoa Quebrada

I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Canoa Quebrada is a beach located in Ceara, about a two hour drive from the city of Fortaleza. The city itself isn't so much a city, but more like a conglomeration of settlements. There's the main settlement, and then there are a few small housing developments a mile or two away in any direction, and it's like that.

Everybody arrived at the apartment of one of the AFS volunteers at 9:00AM (what? 9:00? On a Saturday? That's so early!) for our 10:00 departure. We actually left at 10:15, but this is basically 10:00.

Just a small part of the AFS Family

 It was during this time that I learned that we were actually receiving four exchange students instead of two, and that AFS was starting a new chapter in Caucaia (go to another language for more information...English Wiki is seriously lacking the goods this time) and placing two of the students there, one from Germany and the other from Thailand. Unfortunately, one of those students arrived by 9:00 but hadn't paid in advance (because his host parents didn't tell him about the trip, or something...?) and couldn't go. But he was the only one. We other seven went. Poor guy. Next time, I'll drag him by the ear.

Yes, we actually went to Broadway. Who knew?

We stayed in a pousada (hostel) owned by a guy who lived in Italy. Laura, our resident Italian, was delighted.  Not everybody had arrived, but we went to our respective rooms. Boys and girls. In total, we were 15, 8 boys and 7 girls. Five of the boys were arriving later, so it was just three of us to start.

And here it is. Pousada.

Well, we did some quick math and figured that the girl's room was bigger, so we needed to switch. But no. You know how girls can be with these things (no offense). So instead, we guys were going to vote somebody off the island, so to speak, to sleep in the girls' room, or we were gonna half to break out the hammocks and sleep on top of each other. Almost literally.

Just before lunch.

We went down to lunch, which was actually too much food. I think my stomach has shrunk. I am definitely not eating as much as I would be eating in the US, and I don't feel any hungrier. 

After lunch, we took a ride to the beach. I'm not actually sure how the transportation system works, since we never once paid these guys anything. But...

Sitting on the back. Don't try this at home.

It was pretty crazy. Almost crashed with tourists that didn't understand the road signs a couple of times (which was really scary, considering that there were no doors or windows and four of us weren't even in the car) but then we arrived at the beach. I think these drivers just like to show off, because we inclined it on the sand at a pretty solid 45-degree angle. Don't let go, don't let go...

But the beach! I was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

But then, so are we. :)

There was only one buggy (that's what I'm calling it), so we had to wait for the second group to get here. That called for a dance party.

See? I didn't even make that one up. 

One of the volunteers taught me and Elif two traditional dances, which I may or may not have already forgotten. And no, it's not all just salsa. And yes, it is much harder to dance on the wet sand. But I think we covered it pretty well.

But then they arrived and we set off towards our real destination: the symbol of Canoa Quebrada, a certain point in the sand formation.

This, and between the pass. But mostly this.

And then we took so many pictures it's taking too long for me to look through them all. But here's a favorite:

What am I doing? What is Elif doing? Why are we up there?
How did we even get up there? Why didn't I take a picture
of that?

As it turns out, the symbol of Canoa Quebrada is the same symbol that is on the flag of Turkey. So weird. Yet so awesome. Welcome to AFS. 

It's actually really, really, really tall.

 And then, y'know, shenanigans galore. What else?

This kid's name is Kiki. She's awesome.

And then, while everybody else was having fun and shouting like
"massive surprise inheritance", I was actually working on something.

We decided to go swimming.

To Africa.

To Africa!

Sadly, we did not reach Africa. The conversation went something like this:

Elif: Guys, we have to go deeper! *goes farther out*

Alex: Elif, you're so small! Don't get swept away!

Elif: *rolls eyes*

Me: Deeper! Whoo!

Elif: Whoo!

Laura: No! Guys, there's nothing there but Africa! *dramatic pose* Africa, I say! *she pauses* No, wait, is it really Africa?
Me: It's Africa.
Alex: Africa?
Laura: AFRICA!

It's what we do.

The others arrived, so we went to dinner! Comedaaaaaa!

In this new group were the other two from Thailand, Int and Puri (who we called Juni), two other volunteers from AFS, and this guy that just knew all of them from school. Sitting in that restaurant, we had the United States, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Thailand, and Brazil. 

How often do you get to do that?

After dinner (and after the digestive process had settled a bit), we went to a luau. Or, rather, a "luau". A Brazilian luau, not a Hawaiian luau. There was a hut on the beach that swayed back and forth, and there was a small fire in the sand. Had it not been for the deadly combination of Reggae and Forro, I may not have actually started to get tired. Should have drunken more coffee.

Speaking of which, Brazilian coffee is absolutely wonderful. Do drink it. 

But I made it through and we went to the streets, in front of a bar, where people were dancing. Two dance parties, in one day? You're kidding me, right? (Okay, so the first wasn't actually a dance party. Now shut up.) AFS showed us some Brazilian dances, and I, in all of my foresight (read: somebody said it would be a good idea), had already learned most of the lyrics to the more popular Brazilian dance songs (this generally isn't my style), which made such a difference! Because, y'know, that just makes the whole thing so much better. 

We finally arrived back at the hostel around 3:00. 

Then I got voted into the girls' room. D: Just kidding. It wasn't that bad. Just had to wait a long, long time to shower. It was near 4:30 by the time I finally get to bed. 

The next day, we took a boat trip. Or, rather, we got on a boat, got swamped by waves, and then went back to the beach. :)

We were on a boat, and I was sitting at the bow with Laura. I sang Come Sail Away. Because I could. (Read: Because everybody was like, 'Jake, sing something!' And the only other thing I could think of was 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean'. They might have tossed me overboard.) Being at the bow in a boat like that is a great idea, because the waves were merciless. Absolutely merciless. This one huge wave came and knocked me and Laura towards the mast. I dunno if anything has ever been so much fun. We were laughing and coughing up water, which was pretty hilarious. I almost fell overboard a couple of times. 

Then we went on top of the sand and took weird pictures. You must do this every chance you get. And just fyi, it's a long way down...

Weird pictures: 

Charlie's Angels...again

I was meditating. It's a pretty big deal.

Celebrate good times ~ 

The beach. To the right you can see the shack that served food.

Wuz here. Just in case you were unclear on that bit.

Afterwards, we went for a BUGGY RIDE! I have videos. I have not yet checked them to make sure we didn't say/do anything blog-inappropriate (just kidding. AFS kids are always professional) before I post them. The buggy trip led us to some interesting places, and most of the following photos are from there. Elif still hasn't uploaded her photos, and she has a lot of good ones, so I might just, y'know, steal from her...

I was pretty impressed.

I thought there was a bench, so I sat down with
everybody else...
There was no bench. 

Posing with Elif.

What is the only thing that could possibly attract that amount of people?
And if you guessed ice cream, please try again. Soccer.

Dinner!

Afterwards, we went dancing again. :D I almost pulled an all-nighter, but the coffee crash plus the dangerous combination of forro and reggae finally got to me. After discovering that I had, in fact, tanned (Brazil is magic), I took several trips along Broadway to look at merchandise (read: eat ice cream) and score some last photos...which are all on Elif's camera. Once she uploads them...

AFS Fortaleza 2012. 

Note: Not all of these pictures are mine. Julia, an AFS volunteer who was with us, put them on Facebook ie publin domain, and so I borrowed exactly 20. And then I probably deleted about 5-7 in Blogger angst. Big thanks to Julia. : D

I'll post/link to videos later. 

The Last 100 Days

Warning: Lots of cake in this one.

It starts tomorrow.

Or, at least, I think it starts tomorrow, because I have been getting some pretty conflicting return dates. June 28. June 24. June 23. July. Aghh.

Nobody else knows who's gonna win this starting contest...

I received an email from the community theatre group I usually do during the summer, and we talked about how I would audition, and when, if possible, and they ask me, "When do you get back?"

To which I replied: "Nobody actually knows."

This is where I wonder if anybody has actually bought our planes tickets yet. AFS, sometimes you make me wonder. (Note: AFS in your home country is responsible for buying your return ticket.)

In Portuguese, there is this verb aproveitar, best translated as "to make use of (something)". We don't actually have a verb for this in English, but I think Thoreau said it best: “I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”

I think aproveitar is a little more compact, but that's just my opinion.

But, let me tell you, I am gonna aproveitar these last 100 days. I have trips planned. I am going to Canoa Quebrada (a beach - check it out) this weekend with AFS. I am going to visit Salvador in late April with my host mother, Elif, and my host mother's friend. During the semana santa (the week leading to Easter), I am going to do...something. That I have no quite figured out.

I don't even know where to begin with a checklist. There's so much stuff I want to do. It's like a hysteria. I have to cram everything in there. I have to find some way around these obstacles that pervade my life. Jeitinho, I tell myself. The little way. Like rain, slipping through the cracks. It exists.

“Your name is Rain, isn’t it? Rain slips in the cracks and slides through the seams. You can do it? Can’t you?”

We'll start with number one: I just forgot how to spell "obstacles". I should be so much more worried about this...

But because I like to keep positive, I'm going to say this: I think the fact that there even are obstacles for me to work around is pretty exciting. Adventure. Challenges. That's why I'm here. When I go out, I get sidetracked so often I should probably get myself a behavioral correction device so that those fifteen minutes don't turn into four hours, but I don't because the very idea of doing something I didn't plan out is exciting.

Serendipity is the isle we seek; and her ship: she sails by the name of spontaneity.

Or something like that. For those of you who don't know what serendipity is (it doesn't translate into other languages), think of it as a fortunate discovery. Like you went looking for a needle in a haystack and emerged with the farmer's daughter in hand. Or something like that.

My last post was about this not being real, about how I can't believe that I can actually have my cake and eat it too. Now this post I'm going to tell you it's becoming too real. You can't put an expiration date on this. I've been so anxious for the point where my Portuguese is fluent enough so that I can actually understand what's going on around me, and now that it actually have the nerve to show up I want more time.

Gotta go squeeze it out.

Ugur, from Turkey, came to visit us this weekend.

Cake. It may be a lie, but it tasted great.
We exchange students love our cake.

That reminds me. We just bought a juicer. Time to make some orange juice. Peace.

It's Actually Happening...Right?

Sometimes I wonder if this is actually happening. I can't wrap my head around it.

And then there are days when it all comes together. There are days when the world seems magical, and the realization finished creeping in. Things here are different. No, they're not different. They're exotic.

You walk out of school at 1:00, in the heat of the day. You see a friend waiting to be picked up, and you give them a friendly punch on the shoulder. Something really funny just happened as you left class, and you're still laughing about it. The sunlight feels good on your forearms and face, and although it's bright, you're wearing sunglasses, and you're pretty used to it now. And those everyday objects are so much more exciting, things you would never see back home: a man moving his tapioca cart to a different location; long, dead leaves stacked on either edge of the sidewalk; tons of kids in uniform and tons of cars - honking, anxious looking, chatter, acknowledgement.

It appears, for that moment, like a scene out of a fairy tale. That fact that you're on an adventure becomes fully realized. You're not in Kansas anymore.

But this is their lives. These people do this every day. To them, it's not exciting. It's all they know, just like your life was all that you knew. But then you did something crazy. You stepped outside your comfort zone. You did something extraordinary.

The magic comes from you. It comes from inside you. It's all about how you see things.

I quoted Paradise Lost in the sidebar because I think it hits the nail on the head: it's all about your perception. Keep it positive, and nothing can go wrong.

I quoted Jane Eyre as a warning. Look for the good things, and do not blind yourself to that full brightness. Your host country is a wonderful place. Your host family are wonderful people. Don't be a Miss Scatcherd.

I quoted Out of Oz for the simplicity. Live life without grasping for the magic of it. Just enjoy the moments. Know that there will be others. Know that when they come, they will be worth it.

Build that chain. Make it out of gold. Craft the links from clay. Flower symbolize love. Iron will strengthen it. Thorns will keep others away, for this is something personal and sacred. And that memorable day? That one you will remember years from now? It's here. Right now. Today. And it's tomorrow too. And then next day. And the day after that.

Now off to the gym. (Gotta prevent that exchange weight!)

Jake