I really am here, Mom.

Photographic evidence that I am still here and doing well. Mom says I don't put up enough pictures of myself, so here is one from this weekend.

I'm heading out of town this week to go to the beach. We figured if we can't have all the fixin's on Thanksgiving, we at least wanted our toes in the sand. Here are a couple of pictures I snagged off of the internet of our weekend destination, Morro de Sao Paulo. Check back next week, I'll make sure to post an update, with me in a couple of pictures, I promise Mom!!!

Happy Turkey Day y'all!

The Purple Ribbon.

I was 13 years old. I was at Ashley Gleason's 13th birthday party and my Dad had just arrived to pick me up. I knew something was off but I couldn't quite shake it nor put my finger on it. I could not follow anyones conversation and it was like my brain was on delay. I headed into the kitchen with my Dad to thank Ashley's parents for having me over. I sat on the barstool and that was it...

Blankness...

I wouldn't wake up for about an hour. And, in that one hour, my life had turned upside down. I lost my ability to be independent, I lost my parents trust, and I lost my own trust. I had my first seizure. For the next few years seizures and epilepsy would become my nemesis. Traveling with me on trips with my 8th grade class to Washington D.C. where I would have 2 in one day, preventing me from getting my driver's license because people with Epilepsy have to wait 6 months to get a license, and accompanying me to inconvenient locations like college visit days where my Dad looked at me and told me my eyes were rolling into the back side of my head.

My Dad and I both suffer from Epilepsy and even though it has been a long time since my last seizure. I worry about it everyday. I am so lucky that I have been well controlled but I have seen first hand the problems that effect those who are not. Epilepsy is something that not many people know about nor does it get the press of other syndromes or diseases. November is National Epilepsy Awareness Month. So, I am here to ask you to get educated! My sisters blog has detailed information about Epilepsy and what to do when someone has a seizure. Feel free to check it out here. If you don't do it for any other reason, do it for me. :)

Don't judge a girl till you walk a mile in her Brazilian high heels...

You notice a lot of things when you move to a new place be it a different city or a different country. For me one of the things I noticed when I came to Brazil is the difference between women in my culture and women here. Let it be said, that in both cultures there are the same type of women: beautiful women, ugly women, women who are cute, women who are not so cute, women who look like their lives are so easy and women whose lives have obviously been hard. One thing that “almost all” women in Brazil (who live and work in my area) have in common are their fabulous shoes. Never have I ever worked with women who can rock the high heel all day long, that is, until I came to Brazil. And, man can they rock it.

So impressed by their ability to wear the cutest and highest shoe possible. I have now joined the ranks of people who are obsessed with shoes. Okay, maybe obsessed is not the word, but for a girl whose shoe collection pre-Brazil consisted of mainly shoes from places such as: Target, Payless, and the occasional Macy’s sale. I’ve really stepped it up. I’m not sure what it is. The allure of leather, The desire to fit in with the natives, the fact that shoe stores are everywhere. I don’t know, but I do love it. They always say, "don't judge a man till you walk a mile in his shoes", "I say don't judge a girl till you walk a mile in her Brazilian high heels." :)

A very Brazilian birthday!

Normally, I am not a big "birthday celebrater." I have never liked all the attention of people singing to you and what not that comes along with your birthday. But, after this year I just might reconsider. I have met some really awesome people here and they all made my birthday really special. I don't think they will ever know how much I appreciated it.

Occasionally at school I proctor the SAT's to help out my friends in the Counseling Center as well to get a sweet paycheck. But, I had decided to not proctor today because all I wanted to do was sleep in. Somehow, I ended up agreeing to help but asked Kristopher, my coworker in charge of the SAT's, to keep it on the DL cause Im not a huge birthday celebration fan. Anyways, Kristopher is such a pal that not only did he tell anyone that might want to know, but he also decided that all the proctors were going out to celebrate after the test was finished. We went out to Carpe Diem for a late lunch and hung out at the restaurant for close to 2.5 hours. Kathy and Lillian even brought a cake to the restaurant to celebrate. It is pretty common to bring cake to the restaurant where the wait staff will bring it out and sing to you. It normally looks like this:
Normally, the whole section of the restaurant will erupt in applause or singing. So, I was incredibly grateful that my friends whispered the English version of Happy Birthday to save me some embarrassment.

After lunch, I came home and took a nice nap. I had agreed to meet Amy and Leah for supper at a restaurant called Roadhouse at the Brasilia teenage mecca known as Pier 21. It is kind of like Logan's back home but with the Brazilian prices. :) I was rushing to get ready for dinner when at 7:45 I heard a knock at the door. When I opened the door, I saw that several of the newbie girls had come out to celebrate my birthday as well. They even brought molten chocolate cake and ice cream.

At the restaurant, while we were waiting on our food to arrive we had our first enounter with a man we will call Felix, mainly because that was his name. He came over to talk to us because he used to live in the US because he works for the government. He obviously was not very smooth because he told us that he asked the waitress to listen to our converstation to see if we were discussing our husbands. Im not kidding. He asked us if we wanted to chit chat with him and his friend, Emerson. He seemed harmless so we told him that we would finish our dinner and then come over and talk. Well, something must have happened while we were eating because all the sudden, the waitress brought us this:

After we sat down, we quickly realized that Felix had had a little too much to drink. He asked us about ourselves, why we were here, he told his opinion on Obama, his work with the government and then he set his eyes on sweet Amy. All of the sudden he starts telling Amy all about how he could not let her leave with out telling her how he felt. "Your eyes do something to me" he said. "They are like the ocean, Can I have your number?" So, what is the big deal you may ask. Only that he is married! That is right, Amy was hit on by the elusive cheating man. Was he sexy? no. Was he powerful? Probably not. Did he have pictures of his wife and children on his phone that he was showing us. Abso-freakin-lutely. We quickly turned the tables on Felix and informed him that Amy was married as well. He didn't believe it so we quickly upgraded Amy's "man-friend" Darryl, to husband status. We also threw in a child for good measure. Once again since he wasn't buying our story we had to say that they had a 3 and a half year old daughter named Sophie who had red hair and big brown eyes.

As we tried to quickly leave the restaurant, he came after us to give us a hug and kiss, and referred to us as the Anglo-Saxons. I mean he was just too much diplomat for words. Luckily for us, he gave us his card so we can call him and have drinks again.
It was such a fun birthday and I am so glad I got to enjoy it with my new friends! If this is what "25" looks like, it looks like it will be full of laughs!