Thus Far In Life: November 2010

The word saudade has no direct translation in english, it can be described close with the words miss, or longing, but also it means to delight in knowing someone,place,thing. Saudade has these lingering sentiments of positive feelings as well as a sadness. Like smiling goodbye to a close friend who is moving to a different state for college(like all of my friends), and a tear roll downs your cheek. Inside your happy this person is going where they are called to be but at the same time you will miss their physical presence in your life.

This is probably one of my favorite portuguese words, saudade. It explains how I feel at the moment. I miss home and I wish I could be there, but at the same time I am very happy and feel bless for this opportunity to study abroad in Portugal. I am living and breathing everyday in Europe by myself, I came here knowing my program director via emails. I can count how many times I've seen her on one hand, and I've been here for about 2 months and some days now. So I basically came here with no one, an open mind, two big suitcases, and my portuguese phrase book. I must admit there are days when it's really refreshing to realize how much I am growing and how humble I am by this experience. I have met so many amazing people here in Portugal as well as other parts of Europe. They have really helped shape my experience to a positive one. Relationships. simple yet complicated. sometimes you have to let old friends go, for your own personal growth. (don't tolerate the apple in the barrel to be your life) relationships are so important in life, what would life be without them?Just like communication, I surprise myself sometimes when I speak portuguese or when someone talks to me in portuguese and I actually understand everything that they said. I get this big smile on my face and I nod my head with excitement.

But I will also admit there days that are hard for me. The days I wish I could just "jump" home just for a few hours, smell my mothers cooking, hear the school bells at Henry, hear the two dogs near my house bark at the neighbors walking on the sidewalk. I miss sleeping in my own bed. I miss my friends laughter, I can't remember the last time we were all together. Time has divided us but memories keep us together. I even miss my crazy first wave family. "where theres a will theres a Willie Ney," I miss long rehearsals, I miss memorizing lines and performing. I miss just bust and even the first wave checkins with Kahaema. I miss fleeing to Katrina for understanding, helping me remember education cannot come in the way of my learning and/or my growth as a woman. (shell woman). I miss state street with all those badger fans in red,lol. I miss everyone at FOL church, Pastor Gee's sermons were always real and deep. "Don't half way pray to God, he doesn't give you a half way blessing" so true!

Some of the FW family, when we were on our way to England for CTW. Man that experience was amazing, I still think about it.

I miss family dinners, the time you get to see everyone in the family at one time other than at a funeral. I miss that; setting the table, cooking, eating, everyone full and laying around. I'm laughing at the thought of all of us full sitting on the couch. We even play games together:Pictionary, Gestures, and Scrabble...ahh I miss that. But I'm sure there not missing the Scrabble champ Leslie to much..me being away gives them time to practice. lol

Last years Thanksgiving. Man I miss all that food oh ya and my family too..lol

Eu saudade minha familia. ->I miss(bittersweet) my family.

Eu saudade meus amigos.-> I miss(bittersweet) my friends.

So the end of October there was a four day festival called "Lutada." They have this tradition here were the freshmen are called "collouidos," the one thing I think it is the closest to in the US is fraternity and sorority but in public, not divided by sex but by what school they are housed in(science, pharmacy, letters, etc.), and its basically all month long until "Lutada" but they are still called collouido not by their real name.

When I first witness this tradition it was strange because they poured beer over this girl head in my residence halls. Then when my classes started as I walked to class I would see more and more "activities" taking place. Making them sing songs in public, act out plays, tie an upper-classmens shoe, hold hands and walked down the stairs together, wear pajamas all day, play tag, basically they did what ever their group leader would say or another upper-classmen(which usually is a person with a harry potter cap on which is called a toga but I prefer to call it harry potter clothes.lol) anyways i went to two events, the first one was basically tons of students drinking and acting crazy on the street. it started at 12am till 7am, it smelled so bad, after about 15 minutes of people watching, i headed home. the other event I cant remember the name but this one was during the day 4pm till i have no idea. The collouidos dressed up in different costumes and there was basically a chaotic parade with tons of stoping and chants. Also the upper-classmens were eating on some kind of vegetable that i dont know the name of, the same vegetable that a rabbit would eat. And the colluidos had buckets of candy or silly things like an empty can of shoe string, they tried to sell while there. Not sure what they did with the money but it was only like cents and they didn't seem at all serious about selling. I posted photos and videos below so you all can witness what I did.