HEART STATION

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.’

May and June… the months where every student dreams about the upcoming vacations. Until you get to 8th grade. To 8th graders, May and June mean incessant studying for your first final exams and you don’t know what to expect, so it only gets worse. There are only 2 more weeks until we have our final exams and only this week and the next to study. I’m only concerned about Portuguese and Mathematics material because they’re the kind of subjects that you go “what?! when did we learn this?!” when we review… Besides, I used to be good in both, but now I don’t know what happened this year that I just can’t pick up on things. This is pretty bad because of the fact that it’s the base for the beginning of high school, and if you have no base, you can’t build anything knowledge through the coming years, and that’ll lead to lots of humiliation in the classroom if they ask random questions to me that I won’t know how to answer.

From now on, I am to get really stressed and I think I’ll have to put piano to the side now because I’ll need all the time I can get to study. This weekend I plan to have no entertainment at all, only studying my English and Portuguese material. I hope I do just fine and that my hard work is worth it!

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.

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:

 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.

Sofy and I were looking forward to getting done with science fair, and with so many beautifully and intellectually wise projects, I have to admit I had almost no hope of winning any prizes at all, I didn’t get my hopes up, and we didn’t win anything related to prizes, but I do feel like a winner.

First, I’m very proud to say that all the individual project awards for this year were for 8th graders! In third place came Laura, with her neatness, politeness and superior intellect. Then came our beautiful Christina in second, who is just as intelligent and adorable. The first place made Bo (Sofy) and I feel like proud mothers. Pam came in first place, the beautifully intellectual companion of our lives! The speaker (Vivian) said so many wonderful things about her and I felt bad that I couldn’t go up there and celebrate and hug her, but I know she was smiling so much that I thought she was crying.

The best part didn’t even arrive yet. Pam, showing how much she wants to learn about science, was chosen to go to the United States as an observer of the official ISEF (International Science and Engineering Fair) event! Bo and I could just cry when we heard the news, we couldn’t be prouder of her!

At the end of the award-distribution presentation, we greeted Baby C and Tooms and as we looked for Pam, we saw her hugging everyone and it looked like she was a celebrity. We came up to her and we exchanged glances, then, knowing how each other felt, we jumped to each other’s arms and jumped around like a crazy threesome and screamed saying that we loved her and congratulated her. It was fun.

Nothing has really happened since I declared the changes that will be going on later.

First, I came back to completely venerating Koda Kumi. This time it’s even more! I love her new album, Kingdom just released in January and have fallen more in love with her previous ones and several of her beautiful music videos! Koda Kumi is such a perfect singer in so many ways and may be considered almost as good as Utada Hikaru. They both have very different styles of music but in these two different genres, they’re the best at it! I can’t stop listening to “Kingdom!” it’s one of the best albums in the face of the earth!

Sofy and I have a completely light conscience now because our science fair is a success, and all our test subjects were impressively into it and the little kids we tested keep on asking what the results were. All the publicity is just the beginning. Besides our project being school-known (I’m such a show-off), the science teacher told us she’d never seen anyone in all her years of experience who collected data so well and organized the well-collected data so well. Then Beebs joined in and started to discuss that we had a shot at winning and going to the United States as observers. The science teacher agreed. That made my day, and Bo (Sofy) and I are going to work so hard that time will fly by and soon we’ll be presenting to the judges. Now that all the testing is complete, we don’t have anything to worry about!

The teachers have been very nice to us and given simple and easy projects and homeworks and that’s a great sign! Since we’re halfway through the year already and if the teachers actually wanted to overload us again, they’d already have started!

I also think my grades are going well and that I’m very dedicated this quarter! My science grades are increasing and that’s amazing because I hated science and used to go bad… But then we changed teachers and I guess it all got a lot better.

Other than that, Bo had lent me the two seasons of “How I Met Your Mother” and it’s absolutely awesome! Far better than I ever imagined and it definitely shares a spot with “Ugly Betty” as my second favorite series! Alyson Hannigan is so beautiful and skinny in every episode that I have considered changing my favorite actress, but I came right back to Sarah Michelle Gellar after!

This week was pretty good to me! I hope it continues like this throughout this year.

Sofy, Pamela and I had been so excited for today for one fact: Tooms (Our english teacher would be celebrating her birthday today) (Oh, and I was especially happy because Utada Hikaru’s latest single, HEART STATION/Stay Gold was released today).

Yesterday we planned out a special little party for her, with a cake (Actually two mini-cakes), balloons, juice and our wonderful present: A 2-Disc CD with all our favorite songs for her to listen to. It even came with a booklet with all the tracks from each CD (One made by me, the other by Sofy), an “About the Album” page and a “Dedication to Tooms” page. It turned out fabulously perfect thanks to our graphic designer, Bo (Sofy)!

We were very excited to throw the precious party, but then Gisele (The principal’s secretary) came by and was scolding some kids for celebrating for some reason and was screaming at them that the “situation is serious and she’s in the hospital!” We later found out she had a motorcycle accident and was at the hospital… These news ruined our day and we felt really bad for her. She was carefully riding her motorcycle until something happened and she fell, scraped her arms and hands and the impacted cause her a black eye… Thank God she was wearing a helmet… our innocent little Tooms!

She suffered a concussion and doesn’t even remember that the accident happened.

No one helped, until two bikers came along and called 192 (911 in Brazil) to help her out. She’s fine now and she’s being taken care of, I think monday she’ll be back to school with lots to tell!

The surprise party we planned was neatly put into a bag, and tied with a ribbon which connected the bag, a card and two balloons together. Today our other teacher, Beebs is visiting her and she’ll bring it for us. I really hope Tooms loves the CD as much as I love it! I also hope she recovers fast!

The parties and get-togethers are over and tomorrow the hard work begins because of science fair, because the abstract of our experiment is due on friday.

Like I always do, first I want to express how I feel about that. Science fair can bring us scholarships, future knowledge about many things, but I believe it should be completely optional. Sofy and I (We’re doing the science fair together this year) are feeling very pressured and everyone insists on telling us how we’re doing it on the last minute. We need around 100 test subjects and all the tons of homework we had the last two quarters and all the holidays since the beginning of this year didn’t help. Every person who says we’re late on science fair barely started and I’m sick of these hypocrites. Do they want us to not do it at all because it’s the last week? Because it’s not like we can turn back in time. It’s not like they’re making a point by saying that.

The table which our subjects will be filling isn’t ready yet (Nor xeroxed) and we planned to begin testing tomorrow. I have no clue how we’ll do this but I know we’ll pull it through, Sofy and I are unbeatable! No matter what, we always pull it through! But the problem is the torture we’re exposed to while we’re in the process.

We don’t have as much homework, tests or projects as I expected, so that helps, more time to work on our science fair… and the homework we do have, I already anticipated. Science fair is so terrible to my health, something always happens since 6th grade to put me down… Here’s the list:

6th grade (With Talita): Terrible and incomplete idea, execution and analysis of data. The project was a complete failure, inside and out.

7th grade (With Cary): Great idea, terrible execution and lots of criticism, and it really put Cary and I down… The way we recorded our data was awful… nothing could’ve been worse.

8th grade (With Sofy): Yet to be completed, but so far, other than the due date and all the rest, things are looking up and the project is totally do-able! We have all the test subjects we wanted and three days to test them.

I guess what I’m really worried about is if the 4th graders decide to be tested today and we don’t have their forms. I hate doing things last minute, but it’s for the best and for a good cause. I know we’ll go well this year! I have this feeling!