Turtles are seriously cute

Milk! Oh, how I miss thee. I never realized just how much of a milk person I was until I came to Brazil. Of course milk exists down here, but it's rather nauseating. Are all of you familiar with the abbreviation "UHT"? If not, kindly follow this link. It will tell you all you need to know about the only type of milk available in Brazil. There's just something terribly unnatural about a carton of milk that can sit at room temperature for months and never spoil. I have found it mildly palatable only when mixed with Toddy, a powdered chocolate nutrients supplement, pretty similar to Instant Breakfast. In the end however, I can think of only one word to describe UHT milk: Bleh.

Other than my liquid adversary, things are still treating me pretty well down here. I've had a short week of school because of all the testing. This week we only had four classes a day instead of the usual six because the seniors use the last couple hours to take their finals. The other four classes aren't usually more than role call and then sitting around studying or chatting. Wednesday was the English final, which ended up being pretty fun for me. Everyone was asking me about vocabulary and grammar all day. It's strange when I can't always answer their questions! There's a big difference between studying a language and just speaking it naturally. But I like to think I was of some help to some of my friends, anyway. The English final was the only test I actually took, and I think it went pretty well. It seems like it would be easy, but all the questions are in Portuguese and many of the responses have to be as well. So it ended up being a test of both my English grammar skills and my Portuguese proficiency. I wouldn't be surprised if some other students did way better than I did! I couldn't think of the Portuguese word for "stage" for the life of me, and I had absolutely no idea what "indirect discourse" was. Oh well. At least my diploma doesn't depend on it.

On Friday was the Prova Geral which lasted the whole day, so I didn't even go to school. But I was invited to a churrasco afterward to celebrate the end of all the tests. I got to skip the test but was still invited to the party? I love being an exchange student! It was a pretty sweet, too. My friend Luiz Felipe hosted it at his apartment building and a lot of my good friends from school were there. We played futsal for a while, and I even scored a few goals! It was a pretty easy-going game, so everyone scored a few times, but still. I'm just glad I didn't make a fool of myself! The rest of the time was just spent hanging out, eating meat skewers and snack food, and taking turns playing DJ. My favorite part was when Everton switched it to Colt 45 by Afroman. I felt like I was back in Anacortes!

My mom picked me up to go visit Thais, Ricardo, and Henry later that afternoon. Henry was sleeping the whole time, but that didn't stop everyone from leaning over him and exclaiming over his resemblance to his parents, his cute little hands, and the amount of hair he already has. Thais's mom, Íris, showed me around their apartment and introduced me to all their aquariums and little animals. When she took me out on the deck to meet their turtle, she got a little panicked because we couldn't find it right away. Eventually we discovered it cramped at the bottom of a foot-deep drain, just chillin' there like turtles do. I reached my arm down there and lifted it out of it's damp and depressing prison, and I was relieved to see that it was definitely still alive. As soon as I set it down it went over and started gnawing on some of the vegetation they grow out there. We covered the drain and then went inside and tried to figure out with everyone how long it must have been down there. We never came to a conclusion, but it couldn't have been that long. After all, it wasn't dead, right?

Oh! I've been forgetting to tell you guys that I finished my first Portuguese book a few weeks ago: Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fênix. I've read the fifth Harry Potter book a couple of times in English, so that made it quite a bit easier to understand in Portuguese. It was a long read, but was immensely satisfying when I finally finished! Then I read O Alquimista by Brazil's very own Paulo Coelho. It's a really cool story about a Spanish shephard who heads to the African continent to realize his destiny and fulfill his personal legend. It's all very spiritual and gives you a lot to think about. His works have been translated into dozens of languages and I can't tell you how cool it felt to be reading his literature in it's original text. Some of you may have read the English version, The Alchemist. If you haven't, you may want to consider it. It's a short read and I seriously loved it.

On Wednesday (am I a little out of order here?) I went to the mall to hang out with a couple of my exchange student friends- Brittnie from Canada and Bryan from the good ol' US of A. We decided to watch the new 007 movie- it came out a week earlier here than in the United States- and we had some time to kill before it started, so we wandered around looking at fish, getting kicked out of furniture stores for just sitting on the couches and talking, and oggling at the early Christmas decorations. I forgot to mention that, too. Christmas decorations have been up for at least three weeks now. I know! But without Halloween or Thanksgiving, Brazil is free to fast forward to twinkling lights, candy canes, fake snow, and dancing Santa Clauses. There are already giant pine trees in all the shopping malls, and Christmas carols can be heard just about anywhere. I guess it wouldn't be so weird to me if it weren't 80º out! But Brazilians are serious about their pre-fabricated American traditions. They get really into bundling up and celebrating the winter holidays in the swealtering heat of summer. Everyone tells me this is a direct import of American culture. I still don't really get it. Anyway, the movie was pretty cool. I really like Daniel Craig as the face of bond these days, even if this movie was a little lacking in both the witty dialogue and nifty gadgits departments.

Alrighty, this is the part where I post some pictures and say goodbye, but I don't really have any pitures relevant to this week's events. However, my camera functional at long last, thanks to the lithium battery charger my mom sent from home. Thanks mommy! Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures of my friends from school. Which reminds me... I decided I'm going to continue school until everyone else is done. They told us that the exchange students don't have to come anymore. Now that finals are over, it's just review for all the students to stay sharp until the end their college entrance tests. But I'd rather be at school than be hanging out at home with nothing to do while my friends are in class. So I'll be at school for a few more weeks.

Also, I'm updating weekly now. Expect a new post every Sunday. This way I'll be obligated to write something and won't be able to put it off and put it off like I've been doing lately. So if you don't hear from me in time, send me angry e-mails! Or nice ones. Just get on my case if I don't keep up.

I'm going now. For real. I love you guys!

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