Monday, March 12, 2007

So it's been a while:

Ten days, it seems.
Anyway, first week of classes went well. I'm really glad to be back in the classroom and reading some awesome material. Things have been going well and I'm really psyched about the classes, the teachers are all pretty nice and everyone seems to be receiving me pretty well.
I have also been going out a bit more with friends because I realized that just classroom Portuguese isn't going to help out my cause very much. So Caroline and I have been going out with people as much as possible. She is learning Portuguese little-by-little. She can understand a bit and usually picks up on at least the topic of conversation. She can really speak only in the present tense but my friends know that and usually understand when she means to speak in the past.
Anyway her classes at CELIN start tomorrow. She'll have Basic Portuguese for Foreigners Two two days per week, three hours per day. Hopefully they cover some more things than basic one because from what she says, basic one didn't seem to cover much important stuff.
Hmm, what else? Well, nothing really. Rachel has been gone for something like two weeks and comes back tomorrow. This has given me some time to download some documentaries and movies and other things I've been meaning to download. Right now I'm downloading the Pimsleur language course stuff for French, Haitian Creole, Italian and... I think that's it. I have already downloaded the one for Hebrew and Swahili. I'll probably get Spanish later. I figure that I need to be able to speak to the entire Western Hemisphere on some level. As for Italian, it's Italian. Doesn't everyone wanna speak Italian?
As for Hebrew, it's my duty to keep the language of my people alive. It must be in my genes. What I've been learning so far has been coming pretty easy.
I'm thinking about taking a weekend trip to Ilha do Mel soon. It's about time to get away from Curitiba for a while. Curitiba is just like home. Sometimes you have to get away to really appreciate it.
Also I downloaded this amazing documentary on the massacre and genocide and war and criminal activity that occurred for so many years in East Timor (also a Portuguese speaking country). It really is quite sad. I suggest to EVERYONE ON EARTH to watch this documentary if you can get your hands on it. The name of it is "Timor Lorosa'e - O Massacre que o Mundo não viu". In English it is called "East Timor - The Unseen Massacre". It truly is fantastic.
I need to find out a way to get there so I can do something to help out. The Peace Corps doesn't send people there (I can understand why, really). I guess you have to go to Australia then go from there to Dili (capital of East Timor). Anyway, maybe I'll see what's possible when I return to the US.
Umm, I can't really think of much else. Not much has been going on as of late. I think we're gonna go to Parque Barigüi sometime soon. It's a huge, beautiful park with lots of Capybaras running around.
Really the awesome stuff right now is happening over at my other blog with my political organization. I had this awesome idea, which will never pan out but who cares. I was thinking, "Virginia Foxx hasn't had much competition lately!". I am trying to figure out how to beat her in '08. The blog is Policy Reform in Action. There should be some decent stuff going on soon.
Anyway, really that's all right now. I'll try to get some pictures up here soon so everyone has some stuff to be entertained by. Things will start picking up soon, I promise!

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