HEART STATION

The Tanabata Matsuri is a festival that celebrates the love between a princess and a peasant of her kingdom. The father of the princess did not respect the relationship, for it was all about love and they forgot to work. He got really mad and separated both of them, he put each of them in each side of the sky, separated by the milky way, and in Japanese beliefs, they encounter once a year, and that’s on the 7th day of the 7th month.

I got really excited last year when I saw one of my favorite television program hosts (Daniele Suzuki) go to the festival and show us a little about it. She went around looking at the various presentations, we saw what kinds of food they had there and a lot of the beauty in the traditional decorations set around the area of Liberdade.

This year I really wanted to go there, for it’s the neighborhood with the most concentration of Japanese citizens in Brazil, and that’s what Liberdade is known the most for. My mother and I really planned this trip, it’s too bad that I wasn’t able to contact a few of my friends and that the rest of them were traveling, since it would have been fantastic to share this experience with them. At first, it was planned that way, we were bringing some friends, but then we decided to go by ourselves, just as a family.

I woke up at 6:00 a.m. to get there in time (10:00 a.m.), since São Paulo is 1-2 hours away from Campinas

The exotic, yet urban view of Liberdade

(Where I live). Everyone was very cooperative, and the first thing we saw that indicated we were getting close to our destination was the exotic, and yet urban style of the area. It was really cute to look at the contrast between Liberdade and the surrounding areas.

We knew we were getting somewhere, then we saw the beautiful fair, with colorful

Entrance of the festival

traditional decorations, flags, tents everything all set up and waiting for the noisy crowd to arrive. We were lucky we got there just when it began, since later on, it’d be impossible to move around with so many people in one place.

We got there and we looked at all the scented foods and feasted on the beautiful decorations, for we knew people worked hard to create all these colorful hand-made balloons that so beautifully completed the Japanese atmosphere of the fair,

Beautiful hand-crafted balloons

A bamboo with a few wishes hanging from it

and even though we were really busy eating delicious foods, we all knew that my mother was looking for the tent where we purchase little strips of paper to write a wish on and then hang on a bamboo tree. This happens because each piece of paper has a color representing a theme (Yellow: money, Blue: holy protection, Pink: love, and so on), and you write your wish on the appropriate piece of paper and hang on a bamboo tree so later it’ll be burned and brought to the princess and the peasant to make it come true. They will only be able to meet again next year if they make every wish come true. My mom decided to pick the red (Passion) and blue (Holy protection) wish-paper and I picked the yellow one (money), my sister picked up a green one for peace. very happily, we wrote what we wanted on the little scrolls

Our wishes and a few others

and hung them on a bamboo tree next to a tent.

We went on, looking at the fair and my mom was having a blast. She bought lots of things for her and she loved the friendly Japanese ladies at the tents (Brazil is the second most Japanese-populated area other than Japan [Which is number 1]) and she was having a really good time. I was too, of course. The stores all had really adorable things, and I bought myself a pair of wood sandals to walk around at home. They’re really comfy. We passed by a manga shop and later on, met up with my dad that was at a meeting. We had lunch in a Chinese restaurant and we left.

It’s too bad I didn’t get to see the wonderful Japanese presentations of fan-dancing or popular culture presentations. We got to see a Cosplayer, though, and it was an amazing trip. My mom can’t stop telling me how much she loved it! I’m so happy everyone loved it so much! We’re surely returning next year!

I also found out where to order an original Portuguese Cardcaptor Sakura manga. Even though it’s from somebody else, it’s in excellent conditions and I hope I win the auction since it’s really rare.

Now it’s 0:15 a.m. here in Brazil and I have just returned from my graduation celebration at school, followed by my own celebration (Dinner at “Outback,” even though I was completely unaware of dinner). The people in my class all were beautiful and everyone was radiant. My family and I were talking about how I was one of the only boys that actually looked as charming as the radiant girls in our class because I actually dressed up properly for the occasion. The girls in my class had fabulous gowns and dress on, there was not one single girl that looked less than perfect. It’s true that our class looked really beautiful as a whole, but the performance could’ve been considered funny!

Because my name is Alvaro, I was first in line in alphabetical order. I was the one that had to memorize everything without anyone showing it to me before, and that put a lot of pressure over me, but I managed, I planned on using my charisma to get out of awkward situations and that’s what I did a few times through the night. The strut to the stage was funny because while some people were radiant, others were hunchback and a girl even lost her shoe while she walked. But these were all cute mistakes. Some of us forgot words to the Brazilian national anthem and there was always a stanza that we never knew of, so the people would just mumble and I laughed at the lack of attention.

During the many speeches through the night, I felt really entertained by the thoughtfulness of parents, students and teachers. I then looked at the audience and found the cute little sister of one of my closest friends. She was being really cute and I looked at her for so long and smiling at her cuteness and mischief that I forgot the case of the diploma that I was holding and dropped it on the stage, it made a really loud noise and everyone looked at me, but I picked it up and smiled up to everyone, so it was wasn’t that bad!

At the end, I felt I was going to cry as I apologized to the teachers that I love so much. Tooms was being so sweet, she brought this bag full of little bookmarks all printed professionally and laminated with a cute little message by her for us. She was freezing cold and shaking so very much, but she kept on with her plan and looked for every single student and handed out their little gift! It was really thoughtful and sweet of her! Baby C showed herself to be really excited for us and in the middle of the principal’s speech, he talked about how the teachers seated at the back were really proud of us, and we all look up, naturally, to find a cute little Baby C hand waving at us all glowing with happiness. Everyone giggled and laughed. When I gave them that last little goodbye hug, I felt like the world was going to break apart and I thought about how many lasts that hug represented. While Baby C gave us each an idividual hug, Tooms ended the night with a group hug!

To complete the mood of heartbreak, I was saying goodbye to Sofy because she’s leaving our school and moving to a Brazilian one. She began crying and told me “I’m going to get your suit wet.” I felt really bad, since we’ll never have any group projects together anymore and nothing else of that genre. I’m going to miss Boby a lot for this year that we’ll be apart, and every second in class will mean a second imagining if she was there with us. The most special people are leaving this year and I’m going to miss everyone so much! I just hope that our relationship remains the same and that we see each other frequently!

The rest of the night was a pleasant dinner at “Outback” with my brother, my two sisters, my father and my mother. We had a great time together and it was a fun graduation day filled with great moments!

Thursday and Friday were two great days, but they only reminded me of how near the end of the school year actually is and how sad this week will be because so many people are leaving and because of so many things that we’ll never have and that were so great from 7th through 8th grade.

Thursday was a great day because the awards ceremony at school prized the best students in your class and these were Cary, Sofy, Laura, Pam and Silvia! Congratulations to them for winning so many valuable awards! They work hard and they deserve it very much! Shakespeare Club’s last day was also Thursday and we’re never going to be able to have any other Shakespeare Club because Baby C will be leaving for New York and that’ll cause such an awful impact in my life. Even if we were to have Shakespeare, Sofy wouldn’t be there either and that’ll break my heart because Cary, Sofy and I are soulmates and breaking us three up will take a really miserably and depressing long time to adjust, but I’ll never accept it and whenever I have some free time, I’m surely going to schedule a get-together!

The party thrown for Shakespeare Club was really neat, it was like a banquet and most of the people decided to join some money to get a gift for Baby C and I was the one who bought the gifts, I felt like crying when I gave it to her, it was a pretty painful moment, our last Shakespeare Club… The last time we’ll be giving her anything and the last time we’ll have to hang out at Thursdays afternoon with such a special teacher! Great music, great food and great friends! Perfect party.

Other than all these wonderful things, I also discovered (Luckily, since there were no commercials about it) that America’s Next Top Model is back in Brazil and not the completely fake Brazilian version of it! It’s really behind (8th season) but at least we have it again! I really missed because Tyra is so much better and more original than Fernanda Motta (Prettier and more funny as well!). I’m never missing an episode (Even though I know who will win)

Friday was a really positive day and we were happy the whole time, it was really contagious and it was a great day to hang around with the people I love! It was also our last friday as an official school day, I sure hope this firday comes fast because I want to get the final exams over with!

These two days were a great ending of a week so full of ‘lasts.’

Every year in the month of May our school prepares a food festival at school called ‘International Day.’ The festival consists of food everywhere, game booths brought by a certain grade of students and lots of hanging out with your classmates and your family. I just came back from this year’s ‘International Day’ and it was a very pleasent festival! Better than any other that I attended so far.

You see, the main purpose of the party is to get money for your class and advertise your booth to get lots of hits. It was so much fun working with the kids that I actually took 2 shifts (Of one hour each) at the booth, helping my classmates out when others weren’t helping.

Other than all the friendship and helping out, I couldn’t seem to stop visiting the marvelous and wonderful Korean booth. It seemed to be the booth with the most food being sold because the food was running out 1 hour before the party ended and it was DELICIOUS. For every plate you ordered, you could have either some meat to follow or a pair of rice cakes and you also got free korean tea. All this with chop sticks! The noodles were incredible and so were the Korean rolls. The rice cakes I got were the best food I have ever eaten. The dough was made out of rice (Of course) and they were circular. They were also pink. Inside you could taste a very sweet and delicious essence. With noodles they rocked! The tea created the feeling that we were actually in Korea, having a meal with friends. The friendly Korean women (Mothers of students at EAC [My school]) who were serving us all had on traditional Korean dresses and so did the men. The booth was the beautifullest one and the one that was the most delicious. Too bad the rice cakes ended so fast.

There were many funny moments throughout the afternoon and Pamela returned from the United States today from the Intel Isef fair and came to the festival to check out how everything was going. It was a very deliciously fun day.

Today was the day that Xuxa was burried, 2 days after her death. It was far more difficult seeing all that dirt being thrown over her coffin than actually seeing her lying dead on my nieghbor’s garden. We got to the cemetery and asked the lady there where Xuxa was. She pointed out the way and we got to a room where a white dog was enveloped with a red blanket on top of a table, but Xuxa isn’t white, so it couldn’t have been her. My mother looked at the wooden box beside the dog and when she peeked into it, all of us began to sob and cry. There she was, with lots of flowers lying on top of her. We looked at her, my mother pet her head for the last time and with that last image of her, we sealed the coffin. We went outside to look where she’d be burried. Following the indications of the lady, we awaited, looking at the deep whole where our beloved cat would remain from now on.

We talked for a while, crying and sobbing, until the man came out with her coffin. I looked at it and squeaked, then the tears wouldn’t stop coming, I think I was never that sad in my whole life, I have never cried that much ever. The man placed her inside the whole and began bringing the dirt to fill the whole. It was a painful process for me. So painful that I wouldn’t stop crying loudly all the time. Just the thought of only having that depressing grave to look at whenever I thought about her was a nightmare. No more of her sexyness when she was laying down on the floor all elegant. No more listening to her nails scratching the carboard beds we put out for her to sleep in, no more of her entering the house quickly after we open the door so she can go down to the room where her last litter of kittens was born. No more unity between she and her daughter, Pakita. No more dressing her up in adorable outfits. No more Xuxa, the wonderful cat that won’t ever be replaced.

I took notice of all of that during the whole burrying. It was only then that it actually striked me that she’s really dead and that this is it. When I found her for the first time, it took me about 2 minutes to start crying because I was in shock, it was so sudden, and to think that if she wasn’t at the wrong place at the wrong time, she would still be here, wonderful and fantastic as she had always been. I’ll never forget her adorable habits and how special she is. She shouldn’t have gone away this way, I’ll miss her forever.

When I was turning 8, I really wanted to have a cat, since I have always loved how they are. My sister decided it’d be a good gift, and my father is a real animal lover, so he was really into it. It was a weekend and we went to a pet store that now is not there anymore, called “Animal.” When the lady escorted us to the display of persian kittens, she took out a tiny, grey one called “Thundercat,” and happily went on and on about how cute he was, but I looked at this tiny furry, champagne-toned cat at the corner of the display, she was also looking at me, all relaxed and elegant (She’s the sophisticated kind), and I was sold, she was the cat I wanted, no matter how excellent all the others were. I loved that one. We brought her home, and even though my mother freaked out, she ended up loving her anyway. We went to a Japanese restaurant in the neighborhood with her, and my mother kept saying how she didn’t want her to go to the bathroom there at the restaurant. I don’t know how she recieved the message, but when we got home, we saw that actually she had, only she did it on her tail… It does sound gross, but it didn’t even look like it, it took a while to notice, but we washed her up.

Then came the joy of birth, four times. The first time she had kittens was in 2004, when I was coming back from a birthday party and entered the kitchen. Her serene expression and her tiny little paws slowly carressing the floor with her nail. But then again, not all kittens survive and this was pretty much a bomb, whenever one of them died. The other three times were also blessings, but they didn’t catch us by surprise like the first birth. We followed every step of her kitten’s lives, we fed them when they didn’t find where to find food and took care of them all the time. It was the first thing we did when got home from school.

After we got Prince, our male cat, we decided to marry both of them, and her fourth and last litter of kittens were the outcome of this “marriage.” This was around 2005 and we still have the certificate. Then we spayed her and she got a lot more caring and docile, if that was possible. Everytime the window was opened, she’d jump and stay with us or walk around the house. Everybody loved her and out of the 3 cats, everyone’s favorite for being so cute and the most social.

Today, after my sister and I came out of the car, we heard cries from our neighbor, Emellyn, telling us not to get in the house. She was crying and told us to follow her. When we got where she wanted us to be, we saw Xuxa lying on the floor, dead. Her tiny mouth was opened and some blood was inside, her eyes were wide open and her position was still sophisticated, just like how she always had been. My sister and I broke into tears and so did our neighbors. My mother was crying from the phone and Xuxa was sent to the vet to analyze her death. Because of her red mouth, the veterinary believes she suffered of some impact on her nose because it’s a very sensitive area, and it killed her. I can’t even think straight, she meant so much to me, any thought of her makes me cry and writing this post was one of the hardest experiences because of so many tears and memories of our past together. I never thought she’d die so young (4 years old) and so suddenly. I’ll never forget her, my little baby.

About 6 hours ago, I have written a letter to Baby C’s mother, Tina, (But so they have nicknames that rhyme, it’s Baby T!) because Baby C’s visting her for a week for a very annoying reason. I don’t know if I’m the one to talk about it, so I’m leaving the link to her blog. I really like her mother, even though I’ve never met her (yet!), so I’m writing this post especially for her!

We haven’t had much contact other than Baby C talking about her and the reading of her fabulous comments at Baby C’s blog, but I know her enough to know how special and amazing she is. She’s also very funny and sweet. She’s the best Baby C-teaser in the world and whenever Baby C writes about her, I always smile and feel the urge to comment about how much her mother is awesome (I think I’m runing out of adjectives… But it’s not because she isn’t great, it’s my fault for my narrow range of vocabulary words). Whenever Baby C talks about her I smile for so long that my head begins to hurt a little and I always end in an “aw,” and I want everyone to show their support for her, since she’ll be the victorious one against this problem, and your support will be greatly appreciated! Be it in the form of prayers or beautiful comments, I’m sure she’ll love it, and so will I! because she means a lot to so many people!

Even though my post may be short, I believe she deserves millions of posts about her radiance! But I’ll leave a video for her by Kylie Minogue, who has been through almost what Baby T is going through. She’s absolutely brilliant and so is Baby T! So we’re all wishing you well, Baby T, and there’s nothing to worry about! Even though we (Students from EAC) might be distant, we’ll always be by your side!

Somewhere Over The Rainbow:

When everything is coming to an end, I always take time to reflect on it even if it’s painful. In this case, spring brake wasn’t that bad, I feel like I wasted some of it, but it was nice wasting part of it in the comfort of my couch while I watch television and go on the internet at the same time. This went on in the beginning of spring break, until I focused on Baby C’s birthday present for this tuesday. It’s a fantastic present (At least for me), and its the first time I make an absolutely complete birthday pack for anyone! I’m so proud of myself, but she said she wanted something that reminded her of us, and the present I’m giving her reminds her of the class in a whole, not me, only, and being egocentric as I am, I have to give her a present reminding her of me! So I went to the website of a store close to my house, Japan Society [Website in Portuguese] and buy her something from there. I have an idea of what I want to buy and it’s going to be awsome! (By the way, did anyone else notice how excellently perfect Ayumi Hamasaki’s “alterna” song is? The one that plays when you enter Japan Society’s website?)

But enough of that, I’m very upset that school begins on tuesday already, but I have everything ready for tuesday and I can spend tomorrow doing whatever I want! And that’s always great. I’m buying Baby C’s gift tomorrow and I’m very eager to do that. It’s weird how I don’t want school to begin and still want to go to school and give her the gifts for the wonderful day that tuesday will be for being her birthday date!

For two weeks now, my ex-babysitter, who took care of me since I was about two years old until I was about five or six, has been helping my mother out with house work because she had been dismissed from her earlier job because the kids were old enough to take care of themselves. The  babysitter agency set her up with a to-be-mommy whose baby is due this year and she’ll begin in September when the baby turns 3 months old. Well, for now, she’s been earning some money here with us, and I love spending time with her because she’s so creative and fun. But now I have a very weighted consience.

She has always been a very happy and bubbly person, of course, everyone has their ups and downs, but she always manages to lift the heavy atmosphere of our house and cheer us all up. I believe my sister doesn’t like that that much and acts all spoiled and immature whenever she’s near, sometimes resulting in a fight that Regina, (The babysitter’s name) has to take and not say anything. Regina has a very dark sense of humor too, and Aydee, (My sister) being immature and literal as she is, always takes it seriously and tells my mother everything Regina is joking about as if it were for real.

My mother didn’t like it one bit, so yesterday, she told Regina not to return anymore, and Regina got very upset. We didn’t believe her when she told us, but I still asked the cause, (Just to be sure) and if it was because of Aydee, (Which it was) and she said “No, it’s just because I have some work to do and I’m visiting the kids I used to take care of.” It was pretty heartbreaking, even though I didn’t believe her. When it was time to say goodbye to her, I didn’t even make a big deal and was with my laptop when she kissed my forehead to say goodbye. Now that I see that it was true, I feel really bad for not giving her a proper goodbye, at least. I made my mother feel guilty and call her, and all my mother told me that she answered was “I understand.”

 Today our class went to a shopping mall near school to visit a museum where everything is pitch black and you go through different settings (Such as a forest and the city and it ended at a bar), while you’re holding a metal rod to help you out and your sense of touch. The people guiding the groups have visual deficiency. The point of the trip wasn’t to spend one hour being blind, since it’d be completely offensive to gain money on the deficiency of others. The objective is to remove every prejudice we might have of others when we look at them. That’s why it’s called the “Museum Of Blind Communication.” I think that’s pretty neat.

Another thing added to the experience is that we were recorded by a television channel because it’s such a new thing here in Brazil. Before we actually got into the museum, we heard the instructions of the monitors and we played a few games. Little by little, groups of eight students were going in, until Bo, Giovanna, Marina, Eduardo, Thais, Cassandra, Laura and I were left. In my opinion, this group couldn’t be better. After having loads of fun with each other, it was time go in.

We couldn’t bring anything that glowed or sparkled or anything like that, so I had to leave my glasses at the little cubbies at the entrance. Our group also wanted to adventure a little more and took off our shoes to go barefoot. It was a lot more fun going barefoot. We got to feel the grass of the forest and the concrete of the streets and it was a very singular experience. Our guide was very fun and it was weird to notice how the most minimum things impressed us so much. Even touching water from an artificial waterfall impressed us.

The bar part was pretty much normal. We talked a little about what the experience was to us and purchased some junk food using only coins (The clerk was also blind). When we left, the light didn’t have as much of an impact as I expected, but we left (I earned a headache for staying in that pitch black darkness for so long [I'm serious, if you passed your hand in front of your face, you wouldn't see it]), and we went straight to McDonald’s and ate there. When we returned, we were so tired that I don’t know how we went through the day.

To shake off my tiredness, I decided to take a shower and rest, and so I did. I feel pretty restored, the tiredness is still there, but nothing that a long nap won’t solve.

This picture has been taken in front of the exibition, it’s a picture of the group that was going into the exbition first.