Ana's tale - Chapter one.

The beginning.
Suddenly aware, I looked up from the table to see a boy wearing a pink polo shirt, with a flipped collar, standing right in front of me. Amazingly gorgeous, Matt had a smile lightened by his blue eyes that gazed at me happily, as was his charm. Nervous, I looked down in a failed tentative to concentrate in my homework, until I froze when I heard his voice call my name.
“Ana.” He said. I have been going to Blury High for eight months and it was the first time I heard him say my name so close to me. Actually, it was the first time I heard him say my name at all.
It was a spring day and I was sitting in the library waiting for my dad to pick me up. He was only coming at four, even though school ended at two. “Hey” was all I managed to say back .Suddenly it was so hot in the room and I couldn’t stop biting my pencil. Grinning at me, he looked back and reached for a chair in the next table. Next thing I knew he was sting across my table gazing at me contentedly. “I’m Matt by the way.”
Or course he was. Matt Di Biagio was simply the hottest guy in school. He was also, president of the senior class and captain of the basketball team. A guy who, according to my earlier experiences in high school, would never – never talk to a girl like me.
“I’m Ana.” I said softly beneath the rush of sensations I was having.
“I know.” He smiled again. Could any one have more perfect teeth? “Math homework?” he asked. “Yeah.” I said. “Algebra was never my strong point.” I kicked my own foot under the table. I had to make sure it was not a dream.
We spent the next hour working on my homework, talking only about ordinary things. Like the weather, the last night’s Friends episode and whether people buy more orange or yellow socks. Surprisingly, he was just like any other guy I know. Expect maybe, for his perfect features. At 3:30 he rose from his chair, went through his hair with his hand and stared at me. “I will see you later Ana.” He said and he meant it. A second later he was gone.
It took me a while to process everything that had just happened, not knowing that what had past was going to change my life. I just had had a normal conversation with a guy I used to hate with all my heart, mainly because I was completely vulnerable to his charm even though I never talked to him. And also, between all the anger, I was madly in love with him.
I am not the girl who life turns around boys, so my passion for Matt was never hard to deal with. Sometimes I forgot all about him and most of it I was too busy hating him to actually love him. With the exception of the times he played basketball at my neighbor’s house, or passed by me in the hall ways. The single glimpse of him made my heart go all the way up in my mouth.
I was still floating in the sky two hours later, lying in my bed when I heard a ball kicking outside in the street. I ran to my window just to see my neighbor Kyle with it. Yet, another thing caught my attention. A little brown box standing next to my car, a
yellow new beetle that was a gift from my seventeenth birthday. I walked down the stairs, to the front yard and opened the box.
That was when everything really started. With the box, I mean. Inside it, I found letters addressed to me that I never received, full of poems and confessions. There were pictures of me eating lunch at school, paintings of my face with my long brown hair and dark eyes, and in a new envelope, tickets to the Knicks game next Saturday.
It all came down so quickly, it was hard to breathe. I just knew, there was no signature in the box, but I knew. He loved me. I dare to think he even hated me too. Just like me. I don’t know how everything went from that point on. That was simply it, it changed my life.
What followed after his first move just came as a reaction. All of a sudden I knew him so well, and loved him so for he also loved me all along. Nothing else mattered, we were together. We never needed explanations for why it took so long, it was over now. I seemed to distinguish him from a past life, his short blond hair, blue eyes that could capture the entire ocean in one single look, a smile that had the power to make a flower blow, I knew every inch of his body.
“I just couldn’t take it anymore, not without you anyway.” He said to me later that night. I smiled at him. “I know.” And I knew. That ordinary spring afternoon was just the first day of the rest of our lives.

Sete meses

Entao, faz quase 7 meses que me encontro morando nos Estados Unidos e tenho soh mais 3 meses aqui. Da um baita aperto no coracao de pensar nisso. Posso dizer que nunca me senti tao dividida em minha vida. Por um lado, a saudade me consome quase por inteiro. Como eu quero abracar meus amigos, ver minha familia, comer arroz com feijao, voltar as 6 da manha da festa, falar portugues, estar em casa. Que ansiosa eu fico pela minha nova vida. Cursinho, vestibular, Porto Alegre me esperam. Porem, de jeito manera quero deixar a vida que tenho aqui. A vida americana eu ateh conseguiria viver sem, mas me refiro a vida de intercambista. Nao eh facil, mas eh perfeita. Que monte de coisa eu aprendi! Interagindo com gente diferente, conversa inteligente, respiro cultura. Que divertido! Falar palavroes em varias linguas, trocar experiencias, costumes. Gente de tao longe, mas ao mesmo tempo tao perto, unidos pelo mesmo motivo. O intercambio. Intercambio de cultura, de amizade, de vida, de coracoes. Nao tem diferencas entre a loira alta da Alemanha, o baixinho aziatico do Japao, o moreno da India ou da latina do Mexico. Somos todos um, somos todos intercambistas, aproveitando o maximo desse ano que ta mudando nossas vidas. Ninguem nos entende melhor que nos mesmos, estamos vivendo nosso sonho. Somos especiais. Por varios motivos. Somos patrocinados pelo Clube que mais faz pelo Mundo hoje em dia. Temos os privilegios de interagir com rotarianos que visam um mundo melhor sempre, que tem fe na juventude de hoje, que trabalham pelo amanha. O Rotary Youth Exchange Program nao eh soh estudar e aprender outra lingua. Eh viver, conhecer, entender, caminhar junto com esperanca no futuro. A gente eh o futuro, e somos especiais por ter estes anjos rotarios olhando pela gente. Pois eh, este ano esta mudando a minha vida. Aprendi a amar e respeitar os Estados Unidos e tambem todo pais do mundo. Vi tanta coisa linda, tanta coisa feia, chorei de saudade e chorei de felicidade. Ja quis muito voltar pra casa, e ja quis ficar aqui pra sempre. Tenho familia aqui, tenho amigos aqui que hoje nao me imagino sem. Cresci muito, e cresci pra melhor. Amadureci com as dificuldades, mas nao perdi a juventude, o jeito de falar bobagem e de dar risada ateh doer a barriga. Me diverti, e fui extremamente responsavel. E o mais importante, aprendi a valorizar minha casa e minha familia. Que orgulho de ser brasileira e que orgulho de ser do MUNDO, intercambista do Rotary. Tenho soh mais tres meses aqui, e pretendo vazer valer cada segundo. Agradeco demais a todos que contribuiram para fazer este meu ano tao especial. Nao eh facil, mas vale muito a pena.

Too much books.

I've been reading books for 89% of my time. Latelly my choice has been about teenagers like me, living all the trouble on an american high school behind the shadows of the joks and cheerleaders. But what kind of book heroine would I be?? The really short girl, in white skin and brown eyes and hair, chubby, TOO CHUBBY. The one with no real friends, that can't even speack english that well. Well, in the books I've been reading all heroines start like that. However, in the end they end up finding they prince charming in the strangest way possible. The thing is that the object of my afection is not the President's son, or the reencarnation of King Arthur and really not a vampire. It is simply this kid in my bio class, not even a jok. He is in the swim team for God's sake. And I'm not even close to my happy ending, he barelly notices that I'm there. Well, no boy does actually. I think that extreme chubby girls don't get a happy ending. In the books, always something laime happen and the girl and the boy meet, like when she's running on the park (I don't run), or in the drawing class, or the bio class! That's it! We did met in the bio class. However, he did not notice me. At all. And then, something really cool happens, and they realize how much they love each other, like she saves the President's life or something. And of course, some magic thing will happen and the boy (who happens to be the hottest in school) will leave the blond cheerleader and live happily ever after with the not-that-attractive brunnette heroine. Is it that I'm not in love with a jok guy? This really doesn't matter, that vampire guy wasn't in the football team anyway. High School is hard, especially if you -like me- are not in the In Crowd. Not that I care, of course. But with all those books, man, I wish I had my prince charming. NO! He is not even that charming. He is just this kid with a messy light brown hair who wears pijama pants almost everyday to school. He is funny, and so, so cute. And it is not that I've never tried to talk to him, believe me, I sure did. The problem is that I don't know what to say when it comes about boys! Yeah, I know. I have no change. But maybe, maybe if tomorrow during my bio class I go up to him and aks im out then he will totally say yes! Not. Who am I kidding here? There is no chance. I'm not in the book heroine list. I told you. chubby girls don't get the guy. You know what? I think I will probably go looking for a more-good-looking-dangerous-like-the-book-characters guy. Who knows? Maybe tomorrow I will ran into this kid who is a werewolf, or Harry Potter, or the football capitan, or something. Than he saves my life against this giant snow monster who wants to eat me due to this ancient prophecy who says that I'm the great-grat-great-great-grand doughter of this Queen that he was in love long time ago and dumped him for the, you know, hot guy. And then. I will find my happy ending. (Probably running for the monster I will lose all those pounds and stop being the chubby one.)

The day i left home

It has been almost a year since I had become an exchange student. However, it was this morning that I was going abroad. I woke up early and walked slowly to the bathroom. While I was getting ready I had a need to make the most of my last moments at home. At the kitchen my family was waiting for me: my grandmother, my grandfather, my bother, my sister, my little niece and my mother. All of them sitting around the big table in the center of the room. I grabbed a piece of bread and a glass of orange juice; I did not feel hungry, though. My brother was trying to make small talk when my mother suggested that we were ready to go.

My grandmother and my grandfather gave me a big hug, and I fought the tears. My brother and my sister carried my two black suit cases into the elevator, my mother hold my hand when we closed the door behind me. On our way to the airport the sound of the radio replaced the need of conversation. The darkness was fading away with the outcome of the daylight. Everything looked the same, the houses, the trees, yet I kept my self aware that I would not see this for a long time. In my mind twelve months seemed an eternity.

After arriving on the airport we went directly to the check-in. Therefore, without big bags, only with my hand bag we were able to have a better locomotion. My brother and I walked through the stores while my sister and my mother set down in a coffee place. I still had a couple of hours. Minutes later we joined my sister and my mother to a cup of coffee. My phone rang; I answer it without looking to see who it was, I already knew. My boyfriend talked about how he would not forget me, and spend the last minutes wishing me all the best. This time I did not fight the tears, they did not come. It was being easier than I thought it would be.

I hang up and gave the phone to my mother. My cell phone was not going to work in the United States anyway. I stared at my hot chocolate thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. I was going to live abroad for a year, what I always wanted. On the other hand I would be away from home. The time was passing quicker now. My sister brought up the subject that no one wanted to talk about. It was time to go. My mother ran to the cashier while we tried to take our time on standing up. The four of us walked slowly to the terminal that my flight was on.

My sister was the first to make a move, with warm hands she gave me a hug and whispered good words in my ear. My brother did the same, although “Take care little sis.” was all he said. My mother held me tight against her chest and seemed like she did not want to let me go. I went to the security with growing anxiety as I left my family behind. From the terminal I took one last look through the glass wall, the tears were coming now. But I fought them and the feeling of expectations, freedom and happiness kept them from coming. So, fearing my new journey and filled with emotions that I could not recognize I got on the plane heading to the United States.

Free thoughts put into words.

When I try to find myself, I end up getting lost. Life is complicated, bad things happen all the time. And you know what? It is amazing! Sometimes I feel really bad, turn my back to the world, everything is wrong. However I started to think about how perfect life is. What if there was no problems at all? No pain? How would you know the feeling of happiness? It would be so boring! It would have no magic, no sense of achievement. We need the hard times to be able to appriciate the good ones. Life is a journey and if we want to complete it, we need difficulties. How wonderful is the feeling of accomplishment, of winning the battle against the bad guy. It makes us stronger, a better person. Eventhough life is not a sea of roses, it is perfect on its simple things. A hug when you really need it, stare at the one you love, watching the sunset after an exausting day, making your friend laugh, see the smile on the face of people you really care about.. The small things make everything worth it. True happiness is above material stuff, above a pretty body, it is above money. It is all about making through the though times, appriciate what you have, and understand the value of the simple things in life. In order to find myself, I need to get lost.