Nou, Não Now

Well hey there…

Let me start by saying that if you like a cappella music and you haven’t heard E.T. by Pentatonix, then you are missing out on a real treat! I’m listening to it now on repeat as I write.

Secondly, see the title? It's a little bit above this... yeah, there it is. All those words are in different languages, they all mean different things, but they all sound the same. Dutch, Portuguese, English. It's funny to me, because if you understand all of them, then you can say "Well, not now" using the same sound! But maybe I'm the only one who gets a kick out of that..... yeah, that's probably safe to say. Anyway...

So today I was the POD, which stands for person of the day. That means that I was in charge of making sure that everything that had to get done got done smoothly and on time. It switches every day on rotation. It’s fun. This is what I had to do today:

- Make sure everyone was there since we had a free morning and met in the afternoon.

- Explain that the schedule had changed a lot and give the new order of events.

- Get appreciated (everyone goes around the room and says a nice word about the POD)

- Read from the love bag (we have a Ziploc bag called the “love bag” where people write nice anonymous notes to others and the POD pulls a few each day and reads them aloud. As you can tell, we care about making each other feel good.)

- Then we had a Politics and Development class

- During break I had to make a chart on the board so people could sign up for what they wanted to do tomorrow, since we’re splitting up into different groups

- Introduce our guest speakers, talking about urban planning and housing

- Interrupt to tell them to wrap up the lecture since we were going over time a little (the class loved me for this, because we often can go over an hour late due to such shenanigans)

- Then we went to the rooftop of an apartment complex to do some community building sessions, so I had to introduce the discussion topics, lead one of the discussion groups, then explain the game we were going to play and facilitate that a little bit too.

That was our day today. Everyone gave me a lot of compliments on being a good POD, hooray!

I have to say that I don’t really like having my computer here… because I’m realizing lately that it’s more of a detriment than an asset. If I just had my iPhone, that would be great because I could check email, Facebook, listen to music and FaceTime my mom, use Google Translate, and play Tetris, which is all I really need to do… But since I kinda have to have my computer to do the readings and write essays, it’s really easy to get distracted and watch music videos for an hour… or 6. Oops. Time I could have spent with my host family or being productive or somethinggggg. Well, gotta get some self control! (The real thing, not the app… hahahah).

Guess what! I’m going to need a haircut in South Africa!

I actually smile and laugh so much here. I love my group, they are so awesome and fun!

I feel really behind on my independent project, seeing as we really only have one more week here (eek!) and I haven’t done any interviews yet (aah!). But then I stop to think about it and I’m really far ahead of a lot of people (phew…! But I’m still totally floundering).

So last weekend I went to an island with three friends. It took us 12 hours to get there (yuck) but it was beautiful! And we lived with the nicest family who shared all their food with us and took us to the beach with them. I would show you pictures, but my friends haven’t put them up yet. So watch for them soon…

I’m going to Rio de Janeiro for our vacation week – should be sweeeeet.

So, since my lack of Portuguese skillz has been a real obstacle thus far, I’ve decided that I should start learning Vietnamese now. I’ll be fine in South Africa with English, and my Dutch will also come in handy, so I’m not worried at all. But Vietnam…. The only problem is that all my favorite free language learning websites don’t offer Vietnamese, so I’m thinking about investing in the Pimsleur approach, but it’s a little expensive. I’ve read reviews and listened to half the free trial lesson, and I think it sounds pretty fine so far, especially since I need to be able to HEAR the language (it’s tonal, so reading it will only get me about a stone’s throw in progress). Thoughts? Let me know, because if I’m going to buy it, it’ll be like, in the next 2 days, haha.

Alright, if I’m being honest with you then I’ll say that it’s 12:20 am and I’m procrastinating on proofreading my anthropology essay and doing the readings for my Urban Planning/Sustainable Environments class tomorrow.

And another thing, I refuse to proofread this post before putting it on the internet for all to see HAHAHAHAHA

…. Okay, so it’s not just me that’s going crazy, I promise. A lot of people have been feeling weirdly crazed or childish or constantly jazzed. There’s always so much going on and I think we’re all in this state of getting used to very little sleep, always being excited to see each other, making plans all the time, being stressed about schoolwork and partying hard whenever we get the chance.

In an attempt to add some stability and peace to my life I’ve been trying to find some quotes or just look inside myself and come up with my own mantra that I can say to myself each morning to remind myself how to live in the best way possible. I like the quotes I’ve found, but you know, they’re by like, different people, not me. So… how could that be my mantra? The answer is – well, they could if I weren’t cReaTivE. But, I still haven’t made up my mind on my own quote yet. Something about living life to make myself and others happy, being modest in all things, and appreciating little things and beauty.

I have to admit that I really like Ralph Waldo Emmerson’s quote: “A great man is always willing to be little”.  

I also like what Buddha said, “Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it” (but he’s kind of cheating because he was locked in a castle until he was an adult, so he’s literally talking about the world).

And who could forget Gandhi? “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”

This one has been one of my favorites for a while: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle” - Plato

That last one is one that I really take into account… especially if I see someone who looks a little down, I try to cheer them up, because… well, feeling bad feels really bad! And people should feel good! (Not a direct quote, but something my dad says a lot – that people should feel good.)

Argh, now its 12:36 am and I still have to do those thangz, soooo off to the land of work (sad).

If you haven’t noticed, this blog is very different from my others. I say things like “thangz”. It’s because I don’t really feel the need to be reflexive for some reason – as my friend Terese pointed out. Oh well. Hopefully it’s still good enough.

Até logo,

Emily

PS: Here is a picture of some food. It's called feijoada. It's traditional. This particular plate includes, rice, cassava powder, salsa, greens, an orange slice, and a piece of fried meat that was so hard I couldn't eat it. And in the bowl is black bean stew with pork, sausage, and beef. You eat it by putting the stew on top of the rice and then the cassava powder on top of that and kinda mix it together. Yum yum yum, lekker lekker, delicioso! (Is it sad that I had to Google Translate that last word? Yes it is. This is why I'm investing in Vietnamese lessons.) Ok, bye for real now ^^
PPS: I have to admit to proofreading this. I couldn't resist.