Random thoughts

Such a lot has been happening in just a few days, so i´m just going to write a list of random thoughts, as much for me to process as anything else.

• In Brazil they eat ice cream in a cone with a spoon! I´m still not over this. What´s the point of the cone if you have a spoon? My whole childhood has been a lie.
• Why is it that some things are standard between countries, and others aren´t? Like road signs always seem to be white writing on green, but every country has different pluggy-in-thingies (there´s got to be a better word for that).The people who are secretly controlling the world are doing a terrible job of it, obviously.
• Even though it has only been a few days, my eyes have been opened to just what the protests a couple of months ago were about. We may complain about our schools in New Zealand not having enough money, but really, we´re pretty well off. Our classrooms are pretty nice looking, our desks are in good repair, our textbooks are fairly new. My school in Brazil doesn´t have that kind of money. There´s one projector in the whole school (it´s a fairly small school, but still...) Although the thing where the teacher can never make it work until someone comes and rescues them is universal. The desks have obviously been used by generations before us. It´s just different.
• Add to that the state of the roads- i haven´t seen any roadworks, but i´ve seen plenty of need for them. Everywhere the roads are cracked and broken. I´m not saying this as a criticism of Brazil, i´m saying because i now understand. How does this country have the money to build stadiums? And when your child goes to a school with 50 year old textbooks (I didn´t actually look at the dates, but whatever), then how could you not protest.
• I watched some football (are you proud of me?). I´m not going to take sides in the Rugby/Football discussion, but it was fun. My host family are going to take me to a game at the stadium some time soon I think, which is exciting. I do think soccer players are a bit silly- they run into each other and then make aggrieved faces and try to blame the other person. But I guess that´s all part of the game.]
• This learning Portuguese this is hard work. I was doing okay with my family (okay as in usually managing to get my point across, with the help of mime and a dictionary), but I got to school and it all drained out my ears. But I am already more confident. Especially with saying ´eu não sei´ and ´eu não entendo´
• Jetlag sucks! Thanks to the people who talked to me in the middle of the night for making it more bearable :)
• school is overwhelming. Way too much happening all at the same time. And today was not even so bad- all we actually did was watch a movie about the search for Osama Bin Laden (it was yucky, I didn´t like it). But one of the girls I was sitting with asked the teacher to put on english subtitles for me, so that was nice.

That´s about all for now. I´ll be back later my dears :)