oi long lost public at large!

it has been quite some time since i posted here and lots of interesting things have happened. i think the best way to let you know what kind of time i'm having is to tell you a story:

the iguana story
my friend luisa called me and was all hey morgan come over here there is an iguana loose in my house and i need you to catch it...
so, i went over there to be all heroic
well, i make it upstairs and her mom is in the living room in her bra and some spandex pants and the maid is looking terrified in the corner and holding a broom like she wanted to fly away on it...
so i figure i'll do this like i do with my iguana at home and throw a towel over its head so it cant see me and wont be so scared. then ill just pick it up and take it back to the wild...
when i get a sheet and head toward the corner where it is i'm not worried...
then i see it...
that is not an iguana!!!!!
ok morgan, calm down....this is what i'm saying to myself...
when i first saw it i thought it was a snake because i couldnt see its legs but,it was just a really big creepy lizard....
a really fast, creepy, big lizard...
did i mention it was really fast?
after about ten minutes i finally got the sheet over it and i went to pick it upand it ran up my arm and jumed off of me onto the couch and then prompltly ran under the couch
we finally got it about fifteen minutes later....

so, that was definitely alot of fun, just like everything else here. I love it and I am so glad i decided to do this. A few of the friends i have made here will be exchange students in the U.S. next year and I am definitely going to visit them because so far, I haven't met a person I don't like here.

my português is definitely getting better.... and everyone is always teaching me a new word...
which, is how i got my new nickname: pipoca
pipoca means popcorn
they call me pipoca because when i said it the first time they thought it was so cute that now they have to call me that. really, i don't mind though. its nice to have such awesome friends.

in december i am going on a cruise with my family here. i am waiting on the itenerary so i can forward it to rotary for approval but, i think it should be fine. i'm really excited about it =)

i'm not really excited about changing families though...
i know it will be good to experience another lifestyle here but, i'm just starting to
get used to this one

oh well, life is all about change i guess

School

So, i hate being cold. I love snow and blah,blah,blah but, i hate being cold. When we go out on the weekends here we are out until like 2,3,4,idk what time in the morning so it gets cold. Last night was especially cold so i had my swearshirt on at like 11 and felipé told me that i was obviously a true brazilian. I think he is right.
Rachel had some people over for her birthday last night to eat pizza and when she told me i was expecting like ten kids and some delivery pizza. boy was i wrong...
people were arriving at 8 and at like 6 this van pulls up and these two people get out and start unloading stuff. These people end up being the pizza guys. They set up some stuff in the backyard and started making pizza. Then rachels dad comes home with some folding tables from the bar and basically turned our backyard into the bar. I was impressed. I'm looking forward to my birthday now. =)
In a couple of weeks I am going to throw an "american" party at the request of my brazilian friends. I'm looking forward to it. I'm sure the guys will be dissapointed that i didn't import any blonde cheerleaders though.
Its weird how everyone here wants to be blonde with blue eyes like what they think americans look like. In the u.s. everyone wants to be dark and foreign like they think brazilians look. In all honesty though, i look more like what i pictured brazilians looking like. I am the 6th darkest person in a class of thirty people. i don't mind though, after the beach, i have the tan of a lifetime...and it's not even summer here. =DD

So.....
I attend a affluent private school in Brazil...which translates to I attend a school where children study more than any human being should have to. It is an Anglo school and they are like a well known chain of schools here in Brazil. I don't know if this is true of the entire chain but, my school is exceptionally boring(barring my literature class, which i dont understand a word of but, the teacher is so crazy i cant help but stand back in awe). Even the classes i understand are boring. Their math classes in the second year of high school are harder than any math i took in high school. I'm glad i'm not getting graded on my performance here.
I'm always suprised at how much i understand in school. Like last week they were learning about Neo-Nazi's and the KKK and stuff and i understood everything. It was cool. I still don't speak alot but, at least i understand.

Now it is time for me to go do my Português homework =(
Tchau

My trip to Rio

Hello out there!!!
I know I don't update very often but, trust me, that is a good sign!
I'm having an absolutely amazing time!!!
We had last week off from school and I went with my family to Rio de Janeiro. The beaches really are as beautiful as they look in pictures. The city itself was pretty amazing. The one thing that gets me about Brazil is how one second you are driving past thousands of favellas and the next you are driving past five star tourist motels. There is basically nothing that separates one part of town from the other.
I put all of the pictures I took on my photobucket so, check them out.
Now for the best part: my old woman story
so here I am on the beach in Rio. I'm laying down reading Deception Point by Dan Brown (good book) and i happen to look up and see this old lady dancing around....in a purple...thong bikini...i was like whoaaaaaa. She had to have been at least seventy or eighty years old and she was dancing around like she was fifteen. I loved it.
I must, however, cut this update short because the woman who comes every week to do our nails is here and she is yelling for me.
Tchau

I will update soon, i promise!!!

I have been slacking on my updates, i know. It is hard to make time for it though. I have a million things to do when i get online. The most important of which is an essay for my Berea application. They have changed the process over the summer so instead of updating my application, i have to fill out a new one. This happens to be difficult from here becasue their online application is not currently working.
In Brazilian news however, i start portugues classes friday. Saturday I will go to a friend's house to play ps2. Im excited. Of course, the most exciting thing is that next week i will go to Rio de Janeiro... =)
The second most exciting thing is that my b. dad is back from the United States. He has been studying at Harvard for one month and he will go back in twenty days. I think my b. mom will go with him for a week in the U.S. But, back to the exciting part. He brought back things from the U.S. for everyone and he brought back....a...guess.....A NINTENDO WII!!! I feel so much more at home now. I was really starting to miss video games but now i am happy.
In other news, i love it here alot. I'm excited about the portugues classes because i need to learn more. I can understand a good bit of what is going on around me now but id like to be able to do simple things like answer the phone. of course, the fact that i dont speak portugues hasnt stopped me from answering the phone. i always forget and pick it up. sometimes they speak some english but, mostly they just hang up on me. haha.

sorry this is so short but i promise i will do better later this week!!!

a micareta is a huge kissing party, fyi.
there are like 10,000 people in a field full of speakers
with a stage and lots of techno music
to begin with and then the live band comes on
and this whole time everyone is dancing
and talking and stuff
and the guys are going around trying to kiss you
and you are supposed to fend off the ugly ones
and kiss the cute ones
but,
i refrained from kissing even the cute ones
because,
the thought of kissing someone who's name i don't
know isnt all that appealing to me.

it was a lot of fun though and the band was good.
chiclete com banana
which translates to bubble gum with banana

i made a list of things i need to know
how to say in portugues and im going
to have my sister write it all down for me
so this should help
in day to day conversations

i hope so at least

someone send me peanut butter...
they dont have that here...
=(

So this week has been really good. I am definitely starting to get used to things and i love it. There is this boy named kyle who i am helping with his english so that should be fun. Everyone here wants to talk to me in english which is making it somewhat difficult for me to learn any português but, at school all the teachers talk in português and my friends tell me what stuff means (usually not what the teacher is talking about though)

My little sister here, victoria, is very awesome. She and i have been playing tic-tac-toe and hangman. Hangman is kind of difficult but, we usually do only like colors or animals or something like that.

Everyone here eats everything with a fork and a knife. Rice & beans, knife and fork. Pizza, knife and fork. Do you have any idea how weird i feel eating pizza with a fork?

I am going to rio next month, assuming its okay with rotary but, im going with my famly so i dont see why it wouldnt be. I still need to make sure though.

So tonight i am going to a micareta (idk on the spelling) i dont really know what it is but, from what i understand its basically just five to ten thousand crazy teenagers in one place. Ill give a full report whenever i wake up in the morning...haha

I took my ticket to the previously mentioned micareta to a professional hacker yesterday (the ticket is a shirt). Seriouslee though, you take them the shirt, they cut it up so its very small and revealing, and you pay to get it back the next day. Sounds crazy, huh?

I have a few mathematical questions...how many mph is 90 km/h? and how many mph is 130 km/h? i ask because the speed limit was 90 and we were going 130 and i just want to know what that all adds up to.

so friday i went with b.mom(that's brasilian mom in case you didnt catch on) to her friends house for pizza
while there i witnessed my first hail mary
im not sure if i said this already but, my family here is catholic and i have been going to mass with them on sundays
saturday i went shopping in sao paulo. there were people everywhere. you couldn't even move around in some of the stores because there were so many people.
then i went to see peter pan in theater. of course it was in portugues but, when the time came to stand up if you believed in fairies, you better believe i was all about it.
alot of t.v. is in english here
it helps when i am homesick that i can watch c.s.i.
it is very hard sometimes to be away from everything ive ever known
and then sometimes i dont even realize things are different.

saturday i went to a brazilian culture fair at the school my sister went to last year.
i got to see some awesome dancing.
that is one thing i have to do while im here,
i have to learn at least one dance.
i had some chocolate covered strawberries. strawberry is morango.
there were a bunch of bands there. one of them sang ''i will survive''
made me smile.
it was so loud though and i ended up with an awful headache.

wel, thats all i have time for right now but, ive decided to take
notes so i remember all the things i want to say in here