It's done

This will be my last post and I hope I don’t have to write a blog anymore. I know this is helpful and could support and improve my writing and also the way to think about the topic and develop the idea. However, it was annoying, beside all the things that I was supposed to do for other class, even for ESL class, I had to spend time writing on this blog, thinking about what to write, etc. On my blogger’s group I could read great stories and facts, I could catch myself reading and responding with a lot of excitement. I’m glad the ESL 142 is almost gone, and I can’t wait to go farther. I wish I could take the summer class, but at this moment for me is more important take summer off and have a vacation, but go to school. I’m pretty stressed, lots of things going on my life, and everything that I need after next week…is RELAX!!!!!!

Mother's day

Mothers have always fulfilled the primary role in raising children, and in order to commemorate and celebrate their undying and selfless endeavors, Mother’s day is celebrated on various days in many places around the world. This year will be my 3rd year that I’ll be away from my mother on Mother’s day, actually this is not a happy day for her, nor for me. It’s so sad, I miss her so much, and I wish I could go to Brazil just to spend next Sunday with her, give her a hug. I was thinking, since I can’t be there; send her some flowers or a basket filled with yummy treats, like chocolate or a basket with things for breakfast, so I could try to make the distance between us, less painful. I wish next year I can spend mother’s day with her and I’ll work hard to make it happen.

Counting down...

This week and the next one will seem longer than ever and at the same time very short for all the tests and everything that need to be done before the end of school’ semester. Today I had my 4th Algebra test, and to be sincere I’m a little bit disappointed with myself. I’ve studied hard since Jan, doing all my homework, trying to be on time with everything. However, about 3 weeks ago I got sick and I had to miss a class, and that class was very important, about log and its properties. I tried to learn the topic of that class by my own, and I think I did a pretty good job, however I was waiting more of myself. I know I got 2 wrong exercises of my test today, I was confused about one, and the other one I had no clue how to get to the final results. That’s fine, I had great scores on my last 3 tests; however, the problem will be next week, on the final test. I don’t remember anything about the first months of school. This weekend will be crazy, so many things to do: finish my grammar online class, do an in class essay, study for ESL final test, and plus study for algebra!!! Gosh!!! When It will be over???!!!!

Happiness

Just the other day I was watching this movie about some rich lady who lives in a big mansion. She seem to have it all, lots of money, a nice house, a loving husband, beautiful kids and lots of time to do whatever she wants. Yet blessed with all this prosperity, she was still unhappy. In fact she was miserable.
I believe that happiness is a state of mind or feeling of contentment, joy, satisfaction, pleasure, and peace of mind. It is very important having a positive outlook on things. That despite all the problems or hardship you might be facing, things will not feel so bad if you respond to it positively. Talking about how using positive words that you say to yourself can actually affect the way you are feeling or responding to a situation.

Summer Vacation

I start today planning my summer vacation. I was thinking about take summer class, but I already change my mind, and I just want have fun, spending the money that I was supposed to pay the summer tuition and go traveling. I’ve lived in the US since 2006 and I didn’t have the chance yet to go to West side. Today, I started tom search over for package to go to California. Actually, I’m searching a package starting in Las Vegas, and after going to California. I’d like to go to San Diego, Long beach, Los Angeles, and Santa Monica, but I believe that I won’t have enough time to go to all these places. However, even if I don’t have the time that I need, I will go anyway. My goal this summer is going to CA, even if just San Diego, I’ll be so happy, because I love spend time travelling and also I believe that the money spent in vacation is the most well spent money, because it brings me a lot of happiness and good time.

Good friends are priceless

Only a few times in your life do you find a friend that will truly be there for all of the ups and downs that life has to offer. We all have casual friends that we hang out with occasionally. We have a lot of friends in our address books but not frequently see them. Then you have true who helps you through your hard time, shows up on moving day, and supports us with moral. A true friend shows up when your heart is crushed and feeling no hope. Friends send those spam in your e-mail every day, a true friend call you to know how you are feeling. Friends hang out until morning’s hours, talking about nothing and laughing about everything. True friend help you when you have that terrible hangover, it forgives you, and try to show you that drinking too much isn’t the way. True friends are honest and will tell you the truth… even if it hurts. One of the most important things in friendship is to know you can tell them anything and count to them anytime.

Life and its acessories

It’s about life and the accessories surrounding it. Thus, there could be so many things to talk about, be it, family, loves, relationship, people, places, wisdom, philosophy, stories and many more.
Life has so many accessories and I believe the most important accessory for our life is the love of our family. Nothing is more important than family, friends are essential but family is fundamental. Plus I believe after leave my family behind, in Brazil, I stat to realize how they are important to me and how they fill my life with joy. I never been so close of my family, and when I was 21 a left my house to live by my own, it maybe is a natural process in many countries, but in Brazil you live with your family for how long you want. Even living by my own I was close of them, just 1 hour driving, but today I’m 10 hours flying and I miss them so much. I hope finish my degree in my planned time to go back to my roots.

When I feel frustrated

I felt frustrated when I want to explain myself and I don’t find the words. Explain feelings is not easy, sometimes because it feels embarrassed, sometimes you don’t want to expose yourself to a public, or even because you don’t want suggestions. However, sometimes you want to do it, but you can’t, especially in another language. Sometimes I want to tell a person something that happen to me when I was I child, or even an event from the past days, and I can’t explain what I really want because the language’s limitations. I need more than ever improve my vocabulary, I feel it so poor. Also, I need to improve my reading too, sometimes the meaning of the word isn’t a problem, and the problem is how to say the word properly. This are things that frusta me: can’t explain myself and don’t know how to say a new word.

Organ Donation Example

On my grammar class we had a topic discussion about organ donation. The main idea was talk about the text that we had read before, it was about a French family that was travelling in Italy with their kids, and had their son shot by a criminal. Nicholas was 9 years old; they were visiting a famous place in South Italy when criminal tried to pull them off from the road. Reg, Nicholas’ father, didn’t pull off, instead he sped up and the criminal shot the car. The kids, Nicholas and his sister, were sleeping at the back seat, and after the car being shot his mom didn’t realize that Nicholas was almost dead. After a while she looked back to the kids and she saw blood coming up from Nicholas neck, he had been shot on his head.
At the hospital, the doctors didn’t have much to do, because Nicholas had brain death. His family decided to donate all his organs to save Italians. The Italian society was very ashamed of the incident, and begged from forgiveness. Nicholas’ family also got a medal in honor of their position toward organ donation.

My childhood pastime

When I was a little girl I had many pastimes. I used to play with my older brother and his friend. Our favorite kinds of play were: kite and hide and seek. Plus puzzle always was my pastime when I wanted play by myself. Adding, puzzle is still my pastime. I love spending time with the small pieces and at the end is like a prize to me, when I see the puzzle finished. My favorite kind of puzzle is that involved animals, specially cats and dogs. I like to find solutions and build things by my hands. Also when I was a teenager I used to do my own clothes, and my own purses. I believe that I have to explore this side of my talents and maybe I can find myself.

Stupid dog...the return!!!

The stupid dog is back. Last Wed when I got home from school I saw pieces of Ziploc and papers all around the TV room. After I've checked, I could realize the dog had stolen a few things from the kitchen storage room. In fact this time wasn’t my fault, someone left the pantry open, and then the dog went there and got some things. The funniest part is, he stole a pack of lentil, a box of spaghetti and a pack of sugar, which was half empty. He ate half pack of sugar, what made him sick and very hipper. That day he didn’t have his dinner, he was crying and just drink water. He had to sleep outside that night, because he was asking every third minutes to go outside. I was wondering, how come? He eats everything and he is still alive…. I don’t really know I just hate when he does it.

Last time that I've cried

The last time that I’ve cried was last Thursday. Sometimes I feel very frustrated with my pronunciation and if the lack of words to express myself. I’ve been trying hard to enlarge my vocabulary and improve my pronunciation, but it seems not get better. I think my problem is that I speak Portuguese a lot, consequently I don’t practice my English. The most frustrate thing is when I want to express myself and I don’t find the right word, or the word with the same intensity. Also I believed that none word in another language can replace a word on my first language, especially when I’m talking about feelings.

My worst habit

I have been biting my nails for years and I can say it is my worst and disgusting bad habit. I’ve tried stopping it, but I didn’t success. When I was a child my mommy put pepper on my finger, so I could avoid bit my nails, but it didn’t work at all. I’ve tried those bitter nail polish from avoid people who bit nails…but it didn’t work as well. Also from New Year’s resolution, I promised myself several times to stop bite my nail, but I just kept my promise for a few weeks. I tried acrylic nails too, I didn’t bit it, but I catch myself trying several time. Maybe one day I’ll stop it, but I’m not sure. I hate look to my finger and see my bitten nails.

Sick weekend.

Last Friday I didn’t feel good, my body was aching and my head pounding. I thought I was tired or even lazy. However, at night I felt my throat. I didn’t want to take any medicine, but on Saturday morning I wake up feeling miserable. All my body ached, my head was still pounding, and I had sore throat. The problem was, I had a birthday party in the city Saturday night, and it was from one of my best friend. I start to take Tylenol every 6 hours and take warm tea with honey, but it didn’t seem help.
At night I was feeling a little bit better and then I went to my friend’s b-day. At the bar I was feeling tired and cold, then I had 2 shots of Tequila and it helped me to feel warm. At 2:30am we decided come back to CT. I slept all the way back and we got home almost at 4:00am. Yesterday I wake up feeling miserable again, and then I went out to eat and spent all my day resting on my bed. Today, Monday, I still don’t feel good and I’ll miss my class, because I want rest and feel better for tomorrow.

Bilingual education

I was thinking about bilingual education at the early childhood. If I have had this opportunity in my life, of being fluent in English without leave my home country, I might not be here to right this post. Maybe bilingual education is a must if children are to succeed in the academic environment and in becoming more productive adults. Also, I think motivation is an important factor to help learning another language, and kids are always motivated to learn new things. I can say I had a tough experience in my first months living in the US and thinking in the way of kids learning English, my struggling could be shrunk. However, the experience of leaving in a foreign country is very valuable and nothing can replace it.

One of Brazilian environmental issue.

Brazil is a big country with different environmental issues. The most talked or is about the air pollution. I’m going to give as an example the city of Sao Paulo. With an estimated population of 11,105,249 residents, Sao Paulo is the most populous city in the Southern hemisphere and in effect of this high population; high air pollution is one of the big problems of Sao Paulo, mainly due because of high car and buses circulation. The industries have a big part in this environmental problem, ton of toxics gases are launched in the air every second, around Sao Paulo city. People are worried about and because of this, few years ago was established the law called “rodizio”, it means every Mondays cars with final plate 1 and 2 cant circulate in the city, Tuesdays plate final 3 and 4, Wednesdays 5 and 6, Thursdays 7 and 8, Fridays 9 and 0, lastly weekends are free. Also cars with high emission of smoke in the air are subjects of fines. For the industries, was established that filters should be placed in the chimney to try to block the most dangerous toxics of being launched in the air.

Older pics

One of my friends went to Brazil to vacation and I asked my mom to send her my older picture’s frame, then she could bring it to me. She came back last week and I went to her place to get my photos. I start to see the pics and get so worried about the time. It is passing so fast! I saw photos of my grandparents and they died few years ago and I got really upset about it. Also I saw photos of my older house, my older friends, and my little sister; she is 21 now!!!!! In fact it brought me lots of good memories about my childhood and also it made me remember where I came from. I wish I could upload some pics here, but I dont have the scanner, maybe I'll check out with my friends and if they have I'll do it. Next time I have a friend going to Brazil I’ll ask to it bring me my teenager’s photos!!! They are funny ….oh my goodness!!! Miss my teenager stage so bad.

North Carolina

My trip to North Carolina was really nice. I had enough time to relax and enjoy the nice weather down there. My boyfriend’s friends were really nice and did everything to us fell comfortable. Besides that, going to North Carolina almost drove me crazy. First at all, the plane was horrible, smaller than a bus, and noisier than a zoo. That wasn’t the most problem; the problem was my lack of concentration. Before leave their house to come back home, I forgot my purse there, then we came back to get it. On the way back the same small plane, and after we lend I stopped to wear my warm boots and my coat and I forgot my purse once more. I just realized when we get in the car, then I got crazy, all my things were there, cards, phone, money, driver’s license. I went back inside like a crazy one, then the airport security called mu boyfriend; they had my purse with them. I was so relieved, and I got everything back. Back to CT, I started to look for my Honky book, and guess what??? I’ve forgotten in North Carolina.
I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m so distracted, it never happened before, I’m so focus on my things, but for some unknown reason I’m very fuzzy.

Middle child.

I’m the middle child of three, and after read few articles I could see myself into the topics related. I’ve already heard about it, on friend’s jokes; for example: “poor girl, nobody loves you” or “nobody cares about you”, “this world doesn’t have space for you.” My mom never ever had a special time neither to my older brother nor me, however she always treated us as the same, but we weren’t. After my sister born, I really felt that I lose my little space. All the attention was focused on the little baby girl. I felt my mom was always on my brother side, protecting him, and my dad on my little sister side. As showed on the websites, I felt careless, without space, the life wasn’t fair; however, I never ever been a “problem child.” I always was the one who was solving problems, adapting to the new situations, but a little bit frustrated. The difference between my siblings and I, were not just in who had born first or last, I was the one who left my family house in search of challenges. I’m very independent, easy going, peacemaker, friendly and outgoing. In contrast, my brother, the first child, is a trouble maker, very dependent, and my sister, the last born, also is very dependent, laid back, and quiet.

Stupid dog.

Yesterday I left the house and I had forgotten a carrot chocolate topping cake on the counter. This shouldn’t be a problem IF the dog wasn’t inside by himself. When I came back 2 hours after, he had gotten the cake, broken the plate, and also cut himself. Had pieces of glass everywhere, blood all over the kitchen and also chocolate on the rug. I was so pissed off that I couldn’t say a word. I wanted kill the dog, but he is just a stupid pig dog, who eats anything and also he is a thief…LOL
I had to clean all his mess, and I was also worried about him had eaten a piece of glass.
This time was my fault, because I had facilitated, leaving the cake on the counter, but this stupid dog is always causing problems. He stills everything; for example, cereal boxes, peanuts bags, cat’s food, pretzels, etc. He also open garbage, once he opened the door and believe or not…he opened the container where we keep his dried food….(this container is dog proof). He is a such bad dog….I’m still pissed of… I want kick him so bad!!!!!!!!

Card or money?

I love the facilities of online bank, online shopping, and everything that you I can do online without live my house. I do have credit card, to be more exact I have two of them. However, I never ever had problems with the credit cards bills. I'm very controlled with my finances, I know how much is hard to earn money, so when I have to spend it, I'm take it easy!!!!
The credit cards always help me to pay my super expensive school tuition, I can pay with credit card and I have enough time to make the money to pay it, also my credit card give money back after $50.00 dividend dollar earned.
I still don’t know what is better to carry; money or cash. I think it depends of each person. I believe the choice needs to be made based on the person ability to control itself. The choice needs to be made based on the past, in their own experiences. Personality, my choice is to carry cards.

Healthy or junk food?

I think the US is the place of junk food. I particularity don't like to eat this kind of food. When I was in Brazil, I used to like MC Donalds and all the American junk food that we have over there, but after move to the US and being in touch with this kind of food so easily, I cant stand it. I love the home cooked food, and I also like to cook.
I don't cook in my house, I live with a family how cooks very good, they love cook as well, so the food is always awesome.
I eat my native food sometimes, in Bridgeport and Port Chester have a lot of Brazilian restaurants, and the food is very similar as the one cooked by my mom. Also, sometimes I shopping some Brazilian treats and cook at my place, but this is not frequently, by the way, my favorites foods are Chinese, Japanese, and Italian, and I can say that I eat more this kind of food then my native food.

The best place ever...

The best place ever that I've visited is Switzerland. I had the opportunity to visit Europe 2 years ago on Easter holiday. I went to Paris, which place disappointed me a lot; Amsterdam, which I really liked, and Zurich, which was my favorite place ever. Swiss people are nice; the city is clean, and quiet. Switzerland is on top of my list, beside the cold weather, I loved the country. I have a Brazilian friend who lives really close of Zurich and he could hang out with my friends and me and show the things to do around Zurich and Lucerne.

I love beach cities, warm places, but I fell in love with Zurich and Lucerne and if I have the opportunity to move to Europe some day, for sure my choice would be Switzerland.

My sign is Cancer.

My personality is very hard to describe. I’m Cancerian and I can relate my personality with the descriptions of Cancerian people. I’m very deeply emotional person, very kind, generous, moody, dedicated worker, and I like helping people almost all the time. I’m careless sometimes and I don’t like to be alone. I have a great compassion and a good sense of humor.
Frequently I keep repeating the things and I know people don’t like; for example, telling about something that happen in the past, which I didn’t like or something that disappointed me. It’s hard for me to forget emotional events and I have good imagination and intuition to feel what others are feelingI’m very worried about the future, and I’m always searching for stability and guarantees. Worrying about the future makes me insecurity about the present as well.

Spring Break

The spring break is gone and I didn’t do anything beside travel last Friday, but it’s going to be written in a new post. I had last week free from school to study, to finish my Algebra graphs, and also study for midterm, but I had no expiration. I’ve been felling so tired last days, I fell without energy, and the only thing I want to do is sleep. I think I’m a little bit depressed, maybe because of this cold weather, maybe I’m missing my parents. Also, I’m worried about the summer, I won’t have job for 7 weeks, and I want to take summer class and the money is short. I don’t know what to do and this is killing me, because I spent hours of my day thinking about it. I hope I can find a job for at least 5 weeks, or I’ll be harmer.

Changes of plans.

On my last post I’ve written about a possible vacation on the end of my spring break. I was very confused where to go and about spending money, but finally, I’ve decided, and the decision is out of those plans that I had before.
I’m going to North Carolina for the weekend. My boyfriend has a friend down there, and we decided go for a short visit. I didn’t have NC on my plans, but I don’t really care about the place, I just need a vacation to relax and be out of Connecticut.
I think the weather is going to be nice and warm. This weekend was 80F and I’ve checked for the days which we going to be there and I think is going to keep on 70’s. His friend’s lives really close of the beach, and I hope we can have a chance to catch some sun.

Thinking about vacation...

Yesterday I was talking to my boss about the NCC spring break, and she gave me 2 days off, Mar 19th and 20th, also I have free weekends, then I have 4 days to take a short vacation to anywhere. I was thinking about go to Miami, but I’d traveled to Miami before and I’m not sure that I want to go there again. Then I started to see packages to Las Vegas, and I loved the idea of spending 4 days there and, also I was checking San Diego…..to be sincere…..there are many places where I want to go and is getting hard to decide.
When the plan is vacation…there are many options. I start to thinking about money as well, and I don’t want spend lots of it….then I started over my search, and finally I decided that I want to go to Atlantic City, NJ. Unhappily the weather won’t to be warm to go to the beach and catch some tan; however, I loved the idea of spending my short vacation on the casinos and just relaxing in a nice hotel beachfront.

Snowing days...

Yesterday was horrible. I hate snow, and I don’t know what is worse, snows on the weekend or weekday. I think maybe on weekdays, because on weekend you can make plans to be inside, getting together with friends, watching movies, playing cards, or whatever.
I was stuck all day long inside, couldn’t go anywhere, so slippery and cold outside. The only time that I went outside, was to get the mail, and it was enough to make me sicker of this weather. Thinking better, I’m sick of this cold since before Christmas. How the winter can be so long? It has been cold since September, and I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t wait for the sunny days, long days, even humid!!
The summer is the best part of this country, is the time where I feel happy and with more disposition to do anything. The beaches are not good, the water is freezing, dirt, and sometimes smell dead fish; however, it’s better than nothing. It’s a place to lay down under the sun and try to catch some tan, after the endless freaking cold winter!!!!!

Public health system in Brazil.

As I told on my last post, I’m going to try to explain a little bit about the health system in Brazil.
In Brazil most of people don’t have health insurance; however the public system is very good and effective. If someone needs special treatment like for cancer, AIDS, and other serious illness, the health system is able to comport this. Also the public system offers expensive medication, and birth control methods, for poor people, who don’t have money to buy it. Any time you can use the public system, and the best part you don’t have to pay for anything. If a sick person needs be at the hospital for a few days, this isn’t coast anything as well. However if the person prefers, they can have insurance, and choose the best place to be treated, and also choose nice rooms at the hospital, or their favorite doctors.
The insurance in Brazil, covers anything, and isn’t expensive as here. Also, if you are an employee, you can have it for cheaper then usually, and the same happens for dental insurance.

Health System.

My friend’s dad has been at the hospital since last Friday. He has heart problems and it got really serious after Friday afternoon. He is an American citizen and also he is over the age where Americans has Medicare from the government. He has been treated and tomorrow is going to do the exam where they insert the stuff in his shanks and goes to his hearts. The problem is…why are the professionals from the hospital waiting since Friday to do this exam? How the health system can afford pay the bill for all these days that he is being treated? Where is the money coming from? The answer is, from the citizens who pay huge amount of taxes, from the international students who pay almost three times more for the same education as an American can have. The health system in the United States needs urgent changes in the policy. On next post I’m going to write about the health system in my country, and I believe there works better then here, for many reason.

Monday…..

Everything seemed the same today. Homework, work, school, essay… Also today I had my first Algebra test. It wasn’t hard; I did everything what was asked on the test. To be honest, I didn’t even study this weekend. I didn’t have time, the weekend passed and I didn’t even feel it!!
This College Algebra class is easier than that Intermediate Algebra that I’d took last semester, maybe because I already took this College Algebra in Brazil, and now I’m just remembering the things that I’ve already studied. However, my goal is to keep my GPA, not missing class, going to the recitations, doing my homework, and also paying attention to the classes is helping me to get in to the topics, and improve my understanding of math in English.

The city..

Friday night…..How I’d written before, I love weekend. Last Friday I went out for diner in NYC. My friend friend’s has an apartment in Tribeca on the 14th floor; and the view of the city is great. It was a little cold; however, we went up to the roof to check the view there as well. I was fascinated; I love the city, the lights, and the tall buildings. I could feel closer of the life I had before US. I used to live on the 14th floor as well. My city was not big as NYC, but not bored and small as New Canaan. The city is a place where I wish to be. The suburban with the nice houses, nice pieces of lands, doesn’t supply my necessity of see people, hear noises, and have everything that I want…..anytime I want.

Valentines

Pos Valentine’s Day.

Last night my friends and I had celebrated Valentine’s Night in a great style. I invited them to come over have a little wine and dinner. The main dish was Salmon with cauliflower and asparagus, it was awesome. Also we had the wine…LOL…and the best part was the desert. A wonderful brownie, with hot fudge, strawberry, and French vanilla ice cream!!!!

This year it was very nice, last year I didn’t have a good Valentine’s Day. I was all the way down to Miami, and I got very sick, I couldn’t enjoy either the weather or the Valentine’s Night. However, this year Feb 14th worth it. Good friends, good food, good wine, good movie, and an excellent time.

Weekend...please

Today I fell really tired. I’ve been driving almost day long, doing laundry, reading book, and also doing my grammar assessments. I had to write for my grammar class about the experience of being a middle child; it wasn’t the worse part, because I’ve lived it. Besides the writing, I had to look up for 10 new adjectives and their synonyms, and make phases with the new words.

Also the Honky book takes me a while to figure out all those new words; however, I feel like learning more than ever. The best part of this is…tomorrow is Friday, and form my supper happiness Monday is holiday!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week I’ve thinking about weekend since last Monday, however…I’m almost there!!!!

"Places I call home"

In the US I fell as a homeless, I don’t have my own space; I don’t have my family and friends, and also has the problem of cultural contrast.


Places I call home.....maybe Brazil I don’t know. I have been living in the US for almost 3 years, then I don’t know about the feeling of going back to live there. Maybe when I come back I’ll give the exactly importance to my roots, or maybe I feel like that isn’t my place either.

In contrast, have two places in Brazil where I feel really enjoy being. One is a mountain city, kind of winter city, where I used to go for the winter festival. The city name is Campos do Jordao, Sao Paulo. The other one is named Maresias, also in Sao Paulo state. Maresias is a coast city, with clean sand and warm water, where the sun shines almost all year long.