Little Brother's Birthday Party

This is my little brother. Yes, I know, he looks silly. Well, that's him. He's silly. He's 9!

My grandpa

And that's me, over there. As you may see, I'm really happy and cheerful. It is not easy and no picnic to put up with a bunch of chekying kids, thirst for toys and football and all the other tricks, when you're thinking about the dreaded math test you'll have on Tuesday and for which you're absolutely sure you know nothing. Or even less, which is funny and unbelievable.

I'm so scared! I'm thinking of not going to the test. How does it seem to you? Hum? A nice choice? Or just should I go and make the test and have a miserable grade? At least I would not be humiliated for Bruno who's certainly going to have a better grade than me.

So, this is what my week-end was about: studying maths (and not hit one single problem - How frustrating that was!) and taking care of 8/9 year old boys who speak above the normal level of decibels that a normal person can handle. Stunning.

I'm sorry I took so long to post something, guys. It has been really hard for me this past weeks.

It's almost in the end. I'll catch up with you later. Love you all

xoxo

I Need a Break!

(OMG! Filipa found this picture somewhere and I just can't stop thinking about this AMAZING car. I want one of these!)

(My mother and my little brother)

  

 

I love flowers! And i can't help taking pictures of them everytime I found some.

This week was terrible for me.

I haven't had time for anything and, I know, I still owe you a bunch of certain pictures. By now, my new clothes are no longer new and I still haven't post them for you. But I will! I promise!

I and my mates have been rehearsing some songs for the eleition compagne days of my list for the Students Association of my school which happens in a week and, for telling the truth, I don't think we're close to ready. It all gets complicated because our schedules don't match. So, I'm getting really nervous!

Anyway, I've got chemistry test on Tuesday and Portuguese test on Friday. And after next week it all gets worse: Maths. God, I'm terrible bad at maths now! I just can't follow it. I'm afraid I'm going to drop like a dumb. So with all this, I guess that all kinds of photo shoots have to be shelve.

Any news I have, I won't hesitate on posting. 

Love you all xxxx

The hardest Goodbye ever

(I didn't have a picture with her because the machine died when it was my turn. Lucky me, hum? That's my middle brother, Carlos. He was in time to get a pic with her)

Yesterday we arrived home and my dad said he wanted to talk to us (to me and to my two brothers) about Lala. He said he was taking her to the clinic today, so she could die in peace and with no pain. I told you I knew he was thinking about it but I was surprised because it was so fast! I was not expecting we had to let go of her from one day to another, as it happened. 

My little brother, Zé, started crying and it crushed my heart seeing him like that. He didn't understand why we had to "make her sleep if she didn't want to". But I explained to him very carefully and the best I could that we couldn't be selfish and all of that stuff.

So, today, at 10.40am, I was in physical education class when I received a message from my dad telling me "I just buried her. She's in Peace now". I saw it latter, by noon or something.

I spent the day not in a good mood, my eyes were red and swollen because of the crying night I'd had. 

And now, I got home, and encountered it empty and sad. Her little bed was no longer there and the place was all cleaned. It is official: she's gone. 

And I know that, now, the pain is over. Hers and ours.

We're all gonna be fine.

LALA

This is my dog: Lala. 

It's a she, actually. And she is dying. Sha has been dying for a while, since the beginning of Summer, I guess. By that time, we did'nt know what was going wrong with her. We took her to the vet and the doctor said she had an inflamed ganglion, next to trachea, which was why she had ( and still has) an aweful cough 

(All of my friends laugh and laugh every time she coughs. That makes me so angry and sad because that is why she is dying and they're laughing, indirectly and unconsciously, of that).

But, last week, my parents took her back to the vet, and the doctor said: "Oh, after all it is more than WE thought! She has a cancer" And me and my parents were like: Oh, ok. thank you for telling us that now, when we already figured. 

Yes, we figured because my mom is a doctor herself. And my father took care of her during this whole time and he knew. Deep down he knew. So, they had already discussed it with me.

But today, when I got home, my father almost ran over her because she didn't leave the front of the car as she always do. She couldn't move. She was completely paralyzed!

When we were able to pass, I looked at her and she was not walking right. She was wandering from the right to the left as she was about to fall down at any moment.

I've never seen her like that! So fragile, so sick, se weak! 

I felt useless whatching her suffering so much. My dad called her and she almost crawled up inside the house, where he was. She was unable to climb the one and only step and, for a moment, I really thought she was going to get smashed on the floor.

It hurts so bad because I grew up with her. I now, she's a dog. Or it is a dog, for some people. 

But... God! She always was so nice, and sweet, and unable to hurt anybody (even flies or birds)! She was useless as a guardian dog and, except when there were mouses around, I never heard her barking. She was really a lady! So well behaved: she sat down and lie down when she was told to, she went to the street only with a finger-pointing, she just went for the ball when we said "go", she whatched me hang out the clothes from her little bed and I felt that she liked to hear me sing to her.

I lived with her next to me since I was 4. In other words, I do not remember living without her. And it pains me to think that, if she survives to this night, we're going to have to kill her. Or, using an euphemism, we're going to have to slaughter her.

I can't stop crying. Yes, she is a dog and it can seem stupid, but she is MY dog. My Lala. My Wave (her real name). And it hurts whatching her like that. I don't want to see her in that pain! I just don't. But it hurts more knowing that I'm going to have a word in taking her life away, in taking her away from me.

My dad can not feed her anymore. She is not eating a thing. And she is not even coughinh anymore! While I was crying (call me stupid and crazy and hypocrite) right next to her, I saw a tear drop in her eye. And I cried even more.

That's life, I know. But it hurts, anyway.

I've got some more pictures of her in the hard disk. I'll upload them later for you.

I wish you had known her. Or see how cute and yellow she is so you could fall in love as I did in the first time I saw her. I still remeber that day, in Alentejo, as it had been yesterday. I wont' forget what I felt right after I look at her: I loved her. I still do.

I'll check on her. Love you all, Maria.

I'm still here!

Don't you think I forgot about you!

I'm just trying to find some time to create a new and interesting post. 

I need pictures of my own and this stupid weather is just NOT helping!.

I've got to show you all my brand new clothes for Winter!

Boots, Sweaters, Jeans... OMG!

And I need Rita for a new foto shoot, of cours. But now, we are going to start with the tests again, so.

Anyway, just so you know I don't forget you, I leave you with some more pictures I took a while ago.

Love you all, Maria.

(Well, this is me, licking a huge peace of icecream that fell in my arm during this walk through Lisbon)

    

Second family

This time I want to talk to you about my second family. Yes, I've got another one. Obviously with another and different meaning but with a huge amount of affection for have welcomed me for a week in their house and for have given me the opportunity to learn and to live with them and for have left me enter in their hearts so easily.

They're far away and it's a long while since the last time I saw them. They're from Netherlands and it all happened because there was this European club in my school which allowed us to travel to one country so we could live there for a week, with a family, and learn their customs and way of living. I've always loved that kind of things so I and some other friends signed up. In May of that year, we all (students and teachers) caught the plain to Netherlands and spent an UNFORGETTABLE week with each of the foreign students who signed up for that project as well.

(I was 13 years old)

(everyone has got one of these :p)

When we arrived to the school where we were going to meet the foreign students, we were incredibly excited. I still remember the feeling of seeing Maud for the first time. It was like: OMG!

All this to write you the last letter I wrote to them: to my family, after a long while without any contact. 

(Me, Maud and Tim, her little brother)

"Dear family,

 We haven't spoken to each other for so long! I miss having news from you. I'm not used to that, unlike all of the other portuguese people who lost the contact with their dutch families a long while ago. This is what I always loved about us: we had a connection that no one else had. We were a family and as so, we naturally kept the contact. I don't want to lose it now. Please, lets not lose it!

 I saw some pictures of you on Maud's facebook in your Summer trip to Africa and I got amazed. Except Tim, who was inrecognizable and so different (a good and mature different), you look exactly the same: seems like the time stoped for you! Christina, you look gorgeous ans so bright!, Hans, the time definetely freezed for you! So young and just like I remember. Maud, you're beautiful, girl! Tim, as I said, I was not able to recognize you! You're so huge! I was not expecting so many changes on you, boy!

 And most important of all, you all look so happy! That's just what I needed to know.

 I've got some news, myself. Guess what: I'm a senior this year! Last year in school and then, well, I'll go to College. 

 As a senior, there are some cool things I should worry about: the prom and the senior trip. But the times are hardand it is not possible to have everything. I already went to Scotland this summer and so, I'm not sure I'll be able to go to Andorram where all my friends are going. I'll have to pay it myself if I really want to go, which is ok, because I've got some money I earned by working in Filipa's restaurant in August. 

 And about the prom, that's just another problem. The dress will certainly cost a lot and I haven't a date so far, which is humiliating.

 All that are things I'm sure I'll survive without and I am happy, as well. I'm working hard to get the best grades I can in this year's exames.

 I found a new passion: fotography. I've been takinh so many pictures, you can't even imagine!

 The machine I use is an old one from my dad, who loved fotography as well. And so, the machine is analogical, which is so much funny! I really love it. I send you the one I love the most.

 I really miss you. You were one of the most interesting things that happened to me.

 My mom,dad, Carlos and Zé send regards to you.

Lots of love, Maria. "

Sorry to make you read all this. But I really felt like sharing this personal think with you. 

I leave here some more pictures. Hope you like it. Lots of love

Maths Grade

PS.: I forgot to tell you about my maths grade! It was not THAT good, but it was not bad either. I had 17,2.
I had some stupid thinks there. Never mind. I'll get it up in the next one (:

Foto shoot with RITA

This is me, trying to scare away this annoying fly. Oh boy, I hate flies!

Me and Rita always have a great time together because we end up doing something crazy or stupid. And, recently, we found this think to do together: fashion foto shoots. And yeah, here are the results. I love her face in the most of the pictures, unlike her, who thinks she's awful. She makes some cute faces and I love the first one, where she's smiling like a total fool xD 

And here, she's not the boss, so she's not going to make me delete the pictures. Right?

We spent the whole afternoon from the inside to the outside, now in my room (which was incredibly messy) trying to find clothes to wear, now shooting in the street. It was very funny because there was people passing all the time and Rita started to walk as a silly so no one realized what we were doing.

And yeah, in a bunch of hours we only made two looks each one. The last one was taken at the beach-walkway, at sunset. It was SO windy and cold! My nose almost fell. And my feet hurted so much! I was definitely not made for hight heels.

This is what I have, for now. Love you all.