Penas e pena

Olá! So i named this entry "feathers and 'shame...'" I'll explain why later. hehe just a little clever thought that popped into my head because the words are the same (isn't that strange?).
Wow I'm having so much trouble remembering what I did last weekend....um...
Friday I didn't end up going out, but I invited Elizabeth (California) over for a sleepover, which was fun. It's good to talk with another American sometimes. Though now I'm trying to focus on being social with portuguese people, which is hard.
Saturday I got up at 1h30. wow. never do that. But I think it was good to relax. went to work on a project with a girl from my class... don't think I did much else. My memory has become nada I think. yikes.
sunday we had lunch at the house of my host grandparents. croquettes again, which are becoming one of my favorite foods (basically creamy meat stuff fried). bacalhau (cod), of course.
Came home and watched the movie version of a play we're reading in portuguese. with english subtitles, it was easier to understand. I had tried to read the play, but it was quite difficult.
Um....Monday after school worked on my project again with the girl from my class. It's for geography, on a company that makes concrete. fascinating. hehe.
tuesday I had two tests. portuguese was difficult--that's to be expected. math was fine...I did it without using my notes or the book, even though I could. Hm...maybe I won't switch math. I don't know.
Wednesday=english test. yay. I feel lucky not having to study. In english class we write strange things like "in spite of not involving the creation of an entirely new human being, cloning is seen as a possible way to solve serious medical problems." wha? Or (though the grammar's correct on this one, it still sounds funny) "If you used a piece of your great-grandmother0s DNA to create a clone of her, you could be her parent." Then there are exercises in the book wtih things like "Kate is a more radical vegan than Julie." "Kate is the most radical vegan of the group." It's a strange book--but has good environmentalist messages! anyways, english class is strange.
thursday I had a filosofia test...it took a long time...don't know how well I did. But I could use the book which is good. Copied a lot of frases from the book because I didn't have much time to think of how to put them in my own words. I think that's ok though. I've actually been getting pretty good grades for the most part, which is good. My class director was a sort of exchange student too, so she can tell all the other teachers to be nice to us.
AFter school I went out to lunch with two girls from my class adn some of their friends (I'd taken this initiative to invite! go me!). we went to lunch at a place I've been to 4 times already with yummy kebab and falafel and baguettes and things. Although it was hard to join in on the ocnversation, I talked a bit. AFter that I went ot the museu de marítima with Mariana from my class. It was really cool and interesting! Yesterday there were bunches of spanish tourists around for some reason, and all these cras from spain, and a couple from france, which was cool. I had a little "wow I'm not too far from spain, am I?" moment. I think I'll probably miss europe when I get back next year.
Yesterday was another day off! yay! slept kind of late, and woke up with the normal uncomfortable "I don't know what to do with myself/life" feeling I get waking up late. Maybe I need to plan something for mornings when I don't have school. It's quite strange and annoying. oh well. maybe it's also because a lot of times I get out of bed late and htere's no one home, or not many people home. yesterday joana was sleeping and everyone else was out of the house.
I read a bit of Terrier (yay!!!! thank you so much mimi ron and ke!). I think an obsession has come back a bit. hehe.
Then went into the Baixa area with Anne-Lise. It's lots of shops and cool buildings and things. forgot my camera, though. sorry. we went to a little cafe advertising asll these types of hot chocolate but they didn't actually have any, which made me sad. But the food was good and we had a good time. then got pastries adn walked around. We didn't actually do much shopping, but it was fun anyway. we had tried to invite two girls from school to come with us, but they didn't respond to my SMS. meh. at least we tried.
so that was fun.
I came home, went on the computer a bit, then practiced some clarinet, planning to go the band practice that night. Here's where ht epena comes in--anne-lise had told me that she was going out to a disco with some people from our class, adn asked if I wanted to come. I said I'd like to, but I had band practice...and since I've only been to one practice so far, I'd decided I needed to go to acutally get integrated into the band. Then Joana invited me to come with her to the birthday party of a host cousin I don't know. i said I'd like to, but I needed to go to band practice. so then I went to band practice....and it
cancelled for today! so I say que pena! (What a shame!) that things happened that way. Although I'm not a huge fan of parties and discos, I'd like to work on learning how to be social and get used to things like that. I had had two opportunities to be social, but said no because of something that didn't happen. hm..
so came home nad just as I got there MIguels and Miguel were arriving from hunting. they had gone south to a place to hunt partridges, and got 40 of them! so of course I had partridges thrust into my face, but this time was better than with the hare...I just laughed and didn't really get traumatized, though it is quite sad seeing so many dead birds. I took pictures of all the birds laid out. Yikeys. and we're going to eat them! this is quite different from home. so that's wehre the "penas" (feathers) in the title come from.
today I haven't done anything. i tried to invite two people from my school to come to the movies with me, but they both can't. so i kind of feel like a social failure. someone needs to help me learn how to organize social things...it's always last minute for me. this taking the initiative is hard! and it's hard because I'm not used to it, having stayed at home a lot last year doing homework...but a very good lesson.
I read more, played children's christmas games on the internet to boost my "morning mood," told myself I should go on a run and then didn't, ate a whole lot of bread (I could live off of bread)...yeah. don't know what I'll do the rest of the day. any ideas?
hehe.
I think my homesickness situation is a lot better. last week I wasn't very homesick... maybe it had to do with the fact htat I ate so much chocolate--chocolate really works wonders sometimes. The christmas holidays of course make me a bit homesick, but it's better than I expected. I jsut always find mysel singing christmas carols all the time, especially traditional ones from revels. I think the only thing I like about americanization here is the fact that I know all the christmas carols because they're all american. I can sing along!
5 days of school until christmas vacation! ok, I admit, I'm lucky. I have this worry that I won't have enough friends durring the vacation to do things with, though. I have portuguese acquantances, but not really friends. I know this is normal, but... I need to work on that initiative/inviting people thing. hm...
anyways, I think it's lunch time soon, being 14h32. hehe. we eat late here.
ttfn!
ps. Yesterday was my 3 month anniversary of being in Portugal! that's so crazy...the time flies by...
pps. photos are at http://Ligeeda.shutterfly.com. It has a password, so e-mail me if you don't have it.