I Finally Think It's Safe to Come Out Now

I've heard some noticings lately about my lack of blogging.  They've come from family.  They've come from friends. And most recently they've come from a particular best friend's family because that's how they're able to keep tabs on their own daughter who lives across the field from me.

Why has it been almost a month since I've blogged?  Well, where do I even begin?  I thought about listing all of the seriously crazy things that have happened but I'll spare GUE from printing a 30 page post and just share two examples of crazy:

1.  Friends having emergency surgeries.  It was only a bursting appendix.  My friend's doing alright.  Personal note to said dear friend: I love seeing you in a verticle position however still think you should be staying at home!

2.   Two weeks ago I received my new debit card.  It only took three and a half weeks for it to arrive.  When you don't have a debit card in Brazil, this means not having access to your checking account.  You cannot pay bills; your friends do it for you. This means you cannot get cash so you take out loans from your friends.  This just, really, sucked, for a lack of a better word because you're helpless, your friends are great but borrowing money just really isn't cool.  It makes you feel grossly incompetent.

Have you heard about the crazy planet alignments?  They have reeked havoc around me.  Since we're still in the month of August, probably not best to mess with the planets before they move.  Love you planets!

Schools' fine.  My new class is growing on me.  I was am very attached to my last group but the personalities are coming out and I'm starting to enjoy them more and more.  Today I was asked several time during my reading assessments if I was married, a joke was made about my last name and one student added a new state to the Union.  The state of Oreo will take the place of Ohio from now on.  Also, my new assistant is amazing.  I had one quit after two days with me (another crazy) but Valmir is wonderful and I'm lucky, lucky, lucky to have him.

Grad school's going strong with being halfway through my second class.  Can you guess why I'm writing this post over reading about special ed law?

So, I'm here.  I'm alive and I guess this post is me saying, I think it's finally safe to come out now.  This is made especially east since I have four days till my first Brazilian vacay.

I'm headed to the Canoa Quebrada near Forteleza in the Northeast of Brazil with Sam and Kathy. The name Canoa Quebrada means "broken canoe"  Hopefully some fun friends and a little sun, sand, a dunebuggy ride and perhaps a beer or two will break this funky start and get the good "stuff" flowing freely again.

Family Dinner

While many of you read the post title and think of your traditional holiday meals or perhaps just your regular daily dinners, for me a family dinner can take on a whole new meaning.  I did have what would first come to your mind a wonderful family dinner with my parents and the Goo back home a couple of days ago.  We ate delicious marinated flank steak off the grill, yummy sweet corn, green beans and red potatoes.  It was the perfect way to end my time in Illinois.

When you live overseas though, family dinners possesses a different meaning.  Tonight I had my Brazilian family dinner.  No, there was not a single Brazilian there (maybe we should work on that) but I dined with my surrogate family that lives with me in Brasilia.  Kathy's sister and aunt are visting from the states so she wanted to get together for a little pizza rodizio (all you can eat) dinner.  Well, when you go rodizio, it's never going to be little and with my Brazilian family (4 Wolvies, 1 Andrea, 1 Sam, 2 Robertsons and me) which is nine members strong and tonight Libby joined us as well, it was a big meal all around.

Dinner was great.  The food of course is wonderful.  The waiters bring around pizzas sharing what the combos are and you just say yea or nay to the choices.  Just a little pizza rodizio background for you.  The pizza choices can include traditional U.S. types like pepperoni but it stops about there.  Some of the combos that are really popular include:  sundried tomato with arugula and tonight a new one California (calabrasa with peppers, pineapple and other sweet fruits).  Then there are the dessert pizzas.  These include a traditional pizza crust with cheese topped with bananas or strawberries that are then covered in chocolate.  It's delicious!  And I'm stuffed even just writing about it.

Okay, back to the reason for this post, my family here makes things easy.  We picked up right where we left off with the teasing and joking and catching up on the remainder of the summer.  It was great to see everyone smiling, looking relaxed and refreshed and kinda ready to start up school again tomorrow.  I just like that even though I live so far from home, I have people here who can be there for me.  Whether it's driving me everywhere because I've injured my foot and am in a boot (fingers crossed all for an injury-free year) or take me out to dinner when I have a bad day or just hang out and sing karaokee.  They're just fab.  We really don't have particular family roles like moms and dads but we're more like a bunch of brothers and sisters who just take care of one another.   I'm just lucky.  Thanks guys for being my family.  Love you!