DON'T PANIC

Hey everyone. As you all know, my journey is almost at its end. Or maybe not. I think that this is not the end, but the beggining of a new one. Or is it the continuation? A think this journet will never end, but only improve with time because of the lessons we learn in the way. In the last two months I've learned a lot. Not just how to eat your taco without making everything falling off, or how to make a snow man (things that are simple and yet very important), but things more meaningful to me. Learning and understanding concepts was a result of this trip. I finally understood why we are ambassadors, even without seeing politicians and things like that, and a lot of other questions I had were answered (but then more questions came). I feel that our group was perfect. I could see a difference in all six of us after these months, and I'm so happy that our group is in a perfect tune. I was able to see life through an entire different angle, and that made me open my horizons in an incredible way. The exchange program is not just about changing your physical location, but changing ideas with different people and changing your mind. Now after exchanging a lot of visions, culture and information, I'm ready to go back and apply that to my life in Brazil. The experiences I lived here were amazing, an opportunity of a life time that changed the way I analyse life. The memories of these two months will be far beyond the 523 pictures in my camera, but forever in my heart. Something that I learned here was how to enjoy a new experience to the fullest: using every opportunity you can, but always aiming for the best. Now my brain is at the same time in Portuguese and in English without having to "switch" at any time. Well, saying how amazing everything was and how that changed my life, what is true, would be cliche and everything, but anyway, everything was AWESOME and very important. And for that incredible experience, I would like to thank. Thank everybody envolved in the process to make this possible. At first I would like to say thank you to my parents, that supported me all the way, and that will always support me. Thank you to my aunt Andrea especially, for introducing me to Partners and this program. Thank you to all my family in Brazil, for always believing in me. Thank you to everyone that helped me along my way to the US. Thank you to Ana Isabel, Ana Mary, Ana Maria and everyone in Partners RS. Thank you to all my friends in Brazil also, for supporting me, even saying that I was crazy spending my summer vacation in the cold of Indiana. Thank you to the Youth Ambassadors 2010, for being who they are. Now I want to say thank you to everyone envolved in the program in the US. Thank you to Jhani, Leslie and Laura, who made this happen and in such an incredible and fun way. Thank you to Rosane, Leonidas and their children for the hospitality and an unforgettable Rock Band session. Thank you for Dra. Campbell for finding the most amazing host family ever. Thank you to everyone in South Vermillion High School, for teaching me a lot more than school stuff. Thank you to everyone in the Sudduth and Polomski family, for the amazing time. And finally, thank you to Jeff, Rhonda, Amanda, Jordan and Brooke, for letting me be a part of your lifes for a while, as you are an important in mine. (If you are reading this, thank you for you too.)

Over and out

LeftRightLeftRightLeft

Hey, what's up? These last days have been quite in a rut (can I say I have a routine?), but there was still time for a lot of new experiences. For example, I went bowling and it was awesome! But anyway, the most awesome thing that happened was just before the bowling. It was the dinner. What was special about it? It was a brazilian dinner! We had guarana, black beans (that weren't done in time, so we ate them the next day), rice, chicken and for dessert, sagu with cream and pacoquinha. It was really cool to be able to show a little bit of Brazil's meals and a lot of people liked it. This has been an incredible opportunity to be literally living the U.S. culture and it has been amazing.

Another great experience I had was to play in the church's band. It was really cool to go to practice with all the band and then to play with them on Sunday. It was really awesome.

Over and out

42

Hey everyone! How is it going?

Inspite of the wonderful week with snow days, KFC, Olive Garden, an enlightening visit to the C.A.N.D.L.E.S. museum, Valentine's Day Party at Rosedale Elementary School, shopping in Edinburg, and of course the amazing trip to Chicago (!) there's not much left to say, but you can see that a lot of stuff has been going on. The most perfect moments have been occuring, and what's ahead of us excites me to the most. If once a wise man said: "A picture is worth a thousand words" here are some "Print Screens" of this incredible adventure.

Over and out

A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Well, hello everyone! How are you guys doing?

The week here went flying by, but three interesting things happened:

- I went back to Van Dyne Elementary School (the place I was going to volunteer) and then I was told that I could only volunteer there with my background checked by the U.S. authorities and that would take a long time (more than 2 weeks!) according to my mom so I gave up the idea of volunteering there.

- In the other hand on Wednesday (January 27, 2010) evening I went to church to help in a weekly event where they gather the children of the community and play games and make crafts with them. It was awesome!

- Finally, my new school schedule started! After convincing the counselor to change my classes, I finally have the classes I want (At least Mondays and Wednesdays). How is it now? Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I have the same schedule (History, P.E., Geometry, Biology, English, Computer Applications and Spanish), but on Mondays and Wednesdays I have a different one (U.S. Government, P.E., Pre-Calculus, Biology, English, Comp. Apps and Chemestry). Awesome.

Well, besides that the week was fine, but I'm not here to talk about the week, I'm here to talk about the super-awesome weekend!!!

It started with me going to Leslie's house and meeting with Maite there, so we could go to Muncie in order to volunteer. In the way we talked a lot about everything it was going on and it was awesome. Getting to Muncie we were supposed to meet everybody at Pizza King for lunch but we arrived early and then we went really quick to Walgreens, a giant pharmacy that even sells clothing! When the time was right we went to Pizza King and there we met everyone else. It was so good to see each other again! There I also met some of the members of the host families. They looked pretty awesome. After a delicious pizza and some breadsticks (don't forget the incessant talk in portuguese between the YA's!) we headed to the place we were going to volunteer. There we met a lot of persons and we made blankets for Riley's Children Hospital. It was awesome!! After that Leslie took me, Maite and Gabriel to a jewish deli called Shapiro's. It is a very good deli. Then Leslie drove Maite and me to Terre Haute and my mom picked me up at Leslie's house. It was a very good day. In the next day, after some donuts (!) I spent 3 hours in the shopping mall, shopping. It was awesome! Then I went to the Youth Group that Jordan and Brooke participate and it was fun.

Well, it was a very good weekend, and I can say that this week is also being pretty good. I'm very excited about what's coming on, what can I say: "Bring it on!!!"

Over and out

P.S.: Check the other YA's blogs for more pictures

An International Man Of Mystery

Well everybody, it has been a while since my last post, and I have a lot to catch up with you guys. Let's go chronologically, shall we?

January 15, 2010 (Friday): Classes by the morning but in the evening we went to the most classical movie theather ever! We saw "The Blind Side", a true story about a football player. After the movie we were on our way home and SURPRISE! We went to Dairy Queen, and I had the best Oreo Blizzard I've ever had. (It was the first one also). Wow what a day, time to go to bed because tomorrow will be a great day also!

January 16, 2010 (Saturday): After a great night of sleep, I went to the mall with my family for teaser. As we had to go to the basketball game later, there wasn't much time to shop or browse either, but there was time to purchase some stuff. Well after that we went to the basketball game. Wildcats vs. Cadets. Guess what? We won! The game was very cool, everybody was there and that was great.

January 17, 2010 (Sunday): Today was awesome! In the morning Dra. Campbell (the teacher of my school related to Partners) picked me up and we spend the day together. Me, Dra. Campbell, her husband and her son. First we went to church and her church is very different than the Sudduth's church, but it was nice. Then we went to Applebee's for lunch and that was very good. It wasn't like brazilian Applebee's, it was better. Then we went to the movies but first we ate dessert at Cinnabon! So good. Well, in the movies we watched Sherlock Holmes' movie. It was very cool. Awesome, perphaps. Well, I went back home and Jordan picked me up and took me to the church's Youth Group. It was on Ben's house. There we watched an episode of a journey of two missionaries that go around the world preaching the word of Jesus. Back to the house and guess what: I watched another movie! Transformers 2: Revenge of the fallen. Finnaly, bed.

January 18, 2010 (Monday): Regular day of school, but later I went to Van Dyne Elementary School, the place where I will develop my volunteer work. There I met the teacher I will work with and the kids, but I didn't do any work, because I had to go to Swim Team Seniors' Night at school. What's Swit Team's Seniors' Night? Well, that is the night when the seniors of the swim team, their families and all the swim team get together to say goodbye to the seniors and then we eat dinner and cake. It was very cool. The seniors made posters and a movie and the food was very good.

January 19, 2010 (Tuesday): In the morning I had the best news I could ever have: 2 HOUR DELAY! But what is 2 hour delay? Due to the extreme fog the school had to delay the start of classes 2 hours. What does that mean? It means: 2 extra hours of sleep! Hooray! Well, after a very short class, my dad took me to Paris. Yes, Paris! (Paris, IL of course). There we helped grampa Sudduth to put his new couch inside his house. Job done and as a reward he gave me 7 dollars. Four dollars in bills of 2 (!) and 3 rare 1 dollar coins. After that we went to a very traditional american restaurant with a very good, homemade food.

January 20, 2010 (Wednesday): Today is Brooke's B-Day. At night we went to McDonald's to eat (I had an Angus Mushroom and Swiss Burger) and to help in the Sierra Cooper McNight. What is that? Sierra Cooper is a young lady who has a terminal disease. Then, to raise funds to help her pay medical bills, we helped cleaning tables and opening doors at McDonald's and then McDonald's gives us 20% of that night's profits. That was nice. And we had a good time doing that.

January 21, 2010 (Thursday): Nothing special. At night me, Jordan and some of his friends played Xbox and it was very cool.

January 22, 2010 (Friday): At school we had a fire drill. We had to get out of school (it was cold) and then stay in a specific location until they made sure everything was right according to the safety procedures. After that nothing new but the possibility of a new school schedule. Let's hope I get some different classes (or not). After school I went with Jordan to Brazil! (yeah, Brazil, IN). There we watched a basketball game on Northview High School. Wildcats vs. Knights. We won both games (boys and girls) inspite of Northview being bigger than SVHS.

January 23, 2010 (Saturday): Today I went to IHOP (yes, the world famous International House Of Pancakes) with mom, Jordan and my grandparents. It was awesome. Simply awesome. Then we had to dress up for the school's homecoming dance. We got ready and went to Lauren's (Jordan's girlfriend) house. There we ate pizza and met some of Jordan's classmates. We also played games as Wii and Rock Band. Then we went to the dance and it was sooo good! We danced a lot and all my friends were there, it was a very good time. Party is over, what do we do? After-party! Where? Musall's house (Trisha Musall is Jordan's friend). There we played charades, ping-pong, pool and twister. It was very cool. Well, no one is made of iron, after that a nice night of sleep.

January 24, 2010 (Sunday): Church at first and then we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch, to celebrate Brooke's birthday with the family. It was great. Very good food. Then we saw the Jets vs. Colts game and the Indianapolis Colts won! After that we went to the church's youth group and it was very cool. Then to finish the day, pizza night at mom's parents. Tomorrow, classes start again.

January 25, 2010 (Monday): Today, after school, started snowing!!! It was awesome, and when I got home it was snowing a lot (good thing I was at home). And now I just found out: tomorrow, 2 hour delay again!

Over and Out

Parachutes

Well guys, this week I went to school, South Vermillion High School to be more specific, and it was AWESOME!!! It is very different than my school back there in Brazil, but it's very cool. Everyday I have the same subjects, we don't have breaks between the classes (just lunch break), we can't carry backpacks around the school, so between every class and the other, we have to go to the locker (at first I couldn't open mine, but now I got it). This and a lot more little things that are different between USA and Brazil. Anyway, I'm very excited for the events that are coming up, and I am also very happy that the "school" took me in very well and in a friendly way even that I arrived just a few days ago. I am following my sister Brooke in all classes (except P.E.) and it's been fine. Another thing that I would like to point out is that in the last couple of days I tried a lot of different foods (mainly snacks and pops) and most of it was pretty good. I don't know why we don't have things like Reese's or Mountain Dew in Brazil. I am just saying.

Over and out.

First Impressions

Well people, we made it to Indiana!!!!! Fortunatelly the trip was very smooth, with no problems. When we got here there was snow everywhere and it was so beautiful! Jhani and Leslie pick us up at the airport and we went for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and it was soooo good. Then we went over to Jhani's place and there we played with the snow a lot. Snow is so fun! Then we talked a little with Leslie about our families and everything. Then we met a bunch of people from Partner's. I was the first one to meet my family and the Sudduths are amazing!!! They are very nice, pleasant and very funny! We went on a family dinner and it was awesome! We played bingo and I met everyone on the family. Well, we got home and "my" place is so cool! Well I think it's about time to get some sleep because tomorrow is going to be full of surprises!

Over and out!