I was deep in enemy territory, the wanted man, and any movement I made was a risk of being noticed, yet any hiding I did was to no avail, for they knew all the spots. Nor was I surrounded, I was trapped, with no conceivable way out. Yes, it’s true; it was my going-away party, and I was standing outside, on the concrete pool deck, surrounded by friends and family, but mostly my family.
So why, you might be wondering, was I describing them as the enemy? I suppose it does me no credit to say so, but at this point my family had been constantly peppering me with questions and it was getting quite repetitive.
I was speaking with my aunt about the exchange trip – it was getting really easy talking to everyone; I kept repeating the same information over and over again. At least I was ironing it into my brain. Where was I staying? Fortaleza. Where was that? The Northeast. What was my family like? Two parents, 17-yr old girl, 15-yr old boy. Did they speak English? The mom’s an English teacher and both the kids are fluent. What classes would I be taking? English, Portuguese, and probably History, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, some form of Math, and Physical Education, among other things. No chorus? No chorus. Is the school life the same? No, totally different. School runs from 7-12, Mon through Sat. Kids stay together. Classes are on some weird schedule where I don’t have every class every day. Did I know the schedule exactly? Not a clue. How was I feeling? Anxious, I guess. Nervous? Yeah, probably. Not sure? I think it’ll hit me on the plane, and I’ll be like, ‘oh Lord, what did I just do to myself?’
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| A beach shot in Fortaleza, Brazil |
This particular time I was speaking with my aunt. She didn’t seem to be making small talk – she seemed to be genuinely interested – as did the rest of my family, which only made talking to everyone that much more draining because they were all so into the conversation. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking to my family, but saying the same thing over and over again just makes a guy zombified, y’know?
Anyway, after being in such a routine of answering the same questions in the same order (and no kidding, they must have planned this or something), I got kind of used to the repetition, so it really threw me off guard when my aunt asked a question I hadn’t gotten before.
“So, have you packed?”
Excellent question. The honest answer was no, but I suppose that, with the little reserve of energy I had left, I could try to be impressive and responsible and say that I had, which technically wasn’t lying, because I already had a preliminary list of what I was going to pack, and that totally counts, right?
“No, haven’t started yet.”
Yeah, I need to work on that whole responsibility thing.
At this point, somebody else arrived and I was able to escape and help them with putting their food (people brought food! It was so generous.) away and showing them where the bathroom was and asking them if they wanted a drink and all of that jazz. When that was all taken care of, I joined my friends.
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| Another beach shot...gotta love those palm trees! |
Home territory was officially under the deck, away from the sun’s harsh rays, which were pleasantly beating down that day. My friends and I had set up a small, yet potent, fortress consisting of several chairs and a pool sofa (you know, an outdoor sofa that doesn’t get ruined by the rain) arranged in an ovular shape, and a small table settled in the middle. We were right next to the door that led to the downstairs apartment, where all the food was being held, which entitled us to easy access to the rations. I looked around at the faces, some of whom I’d be seeing for the last time. I won’t bore you with the details of my friends, but it was very sentimental, to me at least.
I’d woken up that morning with the distinct emotions of excitement and happiness. Excited because I got to see my friends and family. Happy because they actually cared enough to come.
(It’s here that we note that Jake has some pretty major self-esteem issues.)
The party went well. Some people could only stay for an hour, and I had one friend who dropped by just to give me a present from her and two others (it was a handmade photo album with pictures from pretty much everything we did since Freshman year, and the second half was empty for me to fill with my own pictures from Brazil. I was touched.) before she had to leave. She couldn’t stay because of some nasty inflammation on her palm – it looked pretty painful. I hope she recovers quickly and that there’s nothing seriously wrong with it.
One of my friends came with a present that I initially mistook for a towel (that wasn’t embarrassing). When I opened it, I was confused by some of the contents. Let’s just say that I’d never seen a travel pillow before and was rather perplexed as to its function and leave it at that, shall we?
After the party, I cleaned up a bit and put everything away. My friends wanted to throw me a party (I seriously love my friends – it seems like they actually like me.) and so I said that we could do it the day after this one and use all of the leftovers. That’s exactly what we did. By the end of the weekend, I was absolutely exhausted.
Meanwhile, I had given packing absolutely no thought.
I currently have under a week to start packing, and I do have a pretty good idea of what to bring. I finally finished with getting presents for my host family.
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| Fortaleza, Brazil |
My parents and I agreed that I’d have my Financial Literacy work done by Friday the 15th. And so, I crammed two semester’s worth of consumer math and taxes and other things that I guarantee I won’t remember by this time next year into two weeks. And yet there was one small problem. Some of the things needed to be graded (this was all done online at a sketchy website that had lots of typos in both the questions and the answers, but apparently my school trusted it) by the actual teacher, so I think we have to wait until school starts again so she can grade everything and unlock both midterms and finals for me. Moral of the story: if you have graduation requirements, get them done before going abroad.
Speaking of graduation requirements, AP scores came in this week (I know that they’re totally unrelated, but talking about graduation somehow reminded me of AP scores. Just go with it.). I got a 4 on English Lit and World History. And somehow, I managed to get a 3 on both Chemistry and Pissics. That’s passing. And yes, it’s Pissics, not Physics. I don’t like it. They weren’t as high as I would have liked, but I’ll take them, especially considering I didn’t know anything about the Mongols and their role in the history of the world and that Poetry essay selection in the English Lit test went way over my head. I took the SAT in June and got a 670 in Reading, a 680 in Math, and a 600 in Writing. Not as high as I would have liked, but hey, at least I scored at least 600 in every subject. I was shooting for at least a 2000, but I guess I’ll live with a 1950. I got an 8 on my essay, which I don’t disagree with, because even I think it was pretty terrible. I did write about Dumbledore, though. Maybe my graders weren’t Harry Potter fans.
As the days tick down, I’m getting more and more anxious and I’ve been feeling the need to go running and biking (I’ve even started doing laps in my pool) to burn off all the extra nervous energy. I don’t act stressed, but I keep all of my stress in my jaw, which has been noticeably tight these past couple of days. It’s like when people ask me if I’m nervous. Well, it never actually crossed my mind, but I am now!
Tchau!
