Stuff

It's been a bit since I wrote., but I dont know that I have much new to say.
Life here has become normal, but it wont stay like that for long as I am moving houses and being completely uprooted in 2 weeks.
The date for me switching houses has been set. The 25th. And the closer I get, the more prepared I feel. At the beginning, the thought of leaving my current family made me sad and the idea that they would be 'replacing' me with another student made me ridiculously jealous, but now, I've accepted that I have to move, and I'm actually kind of excited.
The Rotary's set up with moving houses, I think is a good and bad thing. There are a bunch of kids here with AFS, another exchange program, and they all talk about how ridiculous it is that we have to change houses. But its good because you get to experience so much more of your host country. Meet family friends of 3 different families. Know 3 native families inside out. And that is something that not everyone can experience.
I have been thinking lately about how not many people actually get to do this. Actually get to see a country for what it is. I know Brazil. I am as close to a Brazilian you can get without actually being one. I live in the home of natives, go to school with natives, eat their everyday food, not the food of restaurants, go out with them to the local spots. They incorperate me into their daily lives, and that is how you really should experience a country. When you travel as a tourist, you see what they want you to see. You encounter the norm, the fakeness of pretention, and you truly dont get to see the real country, or know its people. I'm a different nationality this year, and its a new life.
I've pretty much accustomed now. I'm speaking well enough to have conversations, and I understand enough to know what is going on 90% of the time. I am making more friends all the time, learning more about life here. My goal, which I'm not sure I will achieve, but I want, at the end of the year, to be mistaken for a Brazilian. Now, its difficult in my city to be mistaken, because there are very few Caucation people here, but in the south of Brazil, when I go there, I will see. Already, people have mistaken me for a native, but that, of course, was before I talked to them :p
I'm trying to speak without an accent, but I think that is impossible at this point, there are just some things that you have to live in the country from childhood to pick up...or else, live there for a long time. But I'm training now. I started a Portuguese class with the English teacher of one of my friends, and every class, he has me read passages in Portuguese, and helps me with pronunciation. Explaining sounds and how letters phonetically work. Which is strange in Portuguese.
I'm going on Summer break in a month, and I'm so ridiculously excited. I think that, of course, its going to be boring sometimes, but there is no way it is more boring then being at school. So it should be good. And I've met so many people, I think I'll have things to do a lot of the time.
I'm excited for my summer days here. Lazy and hot, but full of festas and swimming, and just relaxing. Making friends. Having a coconut in the shade. haha.
Right now a lot of the kids are freaking out studying. My senior friends are taking the huge college entrance exam now, named vestibular, and they are studying like crazy. To enter college here you just have the grade from this test. There is no matter of essays or interviews or going to meet the college. You go where you get accepted and can afford to go.
And then the kids in my grade are freaking out about some country test, I think it is something like a standardized test in the states. But when that stuff is over, there will be more people for me to go out with.
I'm starting to worry about what I'm going to do when I go back to the states. With college and stuff. I know that I will be ok. I can deal with what I need to do to graduate. Just that I think I'm going to have a slightly lowered work effort when I first arrive, and I'll have a lot to do. I still have to take the SAT and ACT, I have to get 6 or more credits to graduate. I have to get my college applications worked out. Figure out what I'm doing with my life...oh jeez. Its a lot that I will have to deal with, and it will be hard to go back to real life. All though this life is pretty real too, just that there are different priorities.
I know that this year is worth it though. Whatever I will have to do to re-cooperate I will do. Just worrying like I do.