Some pics... becuase I'm lazy

So My Christmas after the thoughts that I put down was quite interesting. My parents didn't buy us presents becuase the plan was that we were all going to go to the coast for the new year. So we decided to open the presents that I bought for them and the presents from my sisters. I bought all of my presents with Johanita my younger sister for my family, we bought a tie for my dad, a blouse for my older sister Eli and pants for my mom. I also got Johanita a T-shirt. I got a great shirt from johanita and from Eli I got a little ecuador mug! I also gave my family a peace flag from West Wind Peace Flags in Ashland. They loved it! I was super stoked to have brought the peace flags. I also gave them a christmas ornament. I'm not sure if when I was writing the last post if I knew whether the place had changed for our christmas dinner... well it did, at the last minute, we went to my aunts house. It is way, way in the north of Quito. It is a small apartment, and there were like 20 people it was nuts. It turned into a disorganized hodgpodge of people in every room, I could tell that my mom was dissapointed. Becuase of the multiroomedness it seemed way different than a christmas dinner, one cousin was doing homework for college, another listening to music, a few people sleeping, and others watching TV. It was kinda a bummer for everyone that it turned out that way. So my family left early and... well the picture of the kids with the hoola hoops is from christmas eve when I went to give the bags of candies. My dad and I recieved deodorant from my aunt! hint hint...

Whats New!? Feliz Año Nuevo

Ok so lets start with my fellings about the new year: I remember Blythe telling me last year that 2008 would be a good year. I think that 2008 was actually a great year, it seems like this planet may be starting the turn around, I feel like 2009 will be better, this is just an exponential growth, as more and more people begin to change their way of thinking, slowly, the force is growing. 2009 is going to be an even bigger change, it is the time to start looking to ourselves, we, the common people have the answers and the power to change.
As far as my feelings go... I feel as if life is putting me in this situation to challenge me. I have never felt so assaulted on all levels in my life, it is really almost too much. But I am calm in the midst of the swirling chaos of my situation. I have been here long enough to really have my decisions about what is up, I have made so many changes as I mentioned in my other post. I think that I'm going to place my creative energy in Capoiera and Breakdancing, I think I might look into a way of getting some of the music that I lost and a new Ipod. I feel the loss, really, that music was something to do in all of the time that is just nothing. But in any avent everything really is good. The honest truth is that I've been looking at everything from the perspective of learning, it is just that I'm frustrated at how the dice were rolled. I will come out of this year completely different, I just want to come out with a positive change that will help me in whatever path that I choose to take. The city for me has become a completely new form of energy to work with, the energy here is just... hard, cold, and hateful. I think that just living in the city has had an irreversible affect. I said this to ben "I came to Ecuador high on life... and now I've become completely serious" The simple facts are that Ashland is such a different place than the rest of the world. I came to Ecuador to learn and that is what I'm doing... so I can't complain. Life is Good, just difficult... and without sleep... that is just nuts, I'm going to be sleeping all summer.

Random Photos!

So these are a couple of photos that I've got. Adam and Claudio chillin' on top of my roof. The mountain that is close to my house and Kaeti another exchange student from the US during the gift exchange in Crepes and Waffles... how cliche but great waffles!

Christmas Eve Thoughts

Warning! This post will consist of a series of rambles that I will continue until I'm tired.

Lets see, I've been sad this week... just becuase Christmas here thus far has beed a kind of let down. But I'm happy right now becuase this sadness was never bad, it was just a thoughtful profound feeling that got me thinking this week. I feel weird that the only presents under the christmas tree are mine to my family and that my mom told me that we would do the gift giving on the 28th.
I'm amazed at how thankful I am right now. I felt like something was wrong in my life after my birthday passed, I just had a weird feeling that life was passing me by and that there was something missing in my choices. I've passed this and have matured a lot in these last weeks. I had been creating walls that were closing in my perspective, I was pushing myself in some areas where I shuld have been taking it slow and setting myself up in situations that weren't healthy for anyone around me.
I have changed, my life here has become so different. Image the person that I was before i left and wipe it out of your memory, I'm not sure how to describe what went down since I've been here but I'm not the same at all. It has all been responses to my new situation and none of it was on purpose. Living in a new family, city, sitting in busses all day, etc. I actually was calculating it one day in the bus. If I'm here for 300 days I will have spent more than 20 days in a bus. This a rough estimate cansidering weekends and vacations... but I'm always on a bus. Up to three hours a day, and then some days I'll get home and my parents will invite me to do some errand, which is of course in car and bus and my day is just being lost. I am still the same in many respects, but perspectives have changed, the soul remains the same as everything else around it is creating a dance of the stimulouses that we recieve from outside. I have become a piece of clay that can be molded day in and day out but I will never change from being clay. This expirience has taught me so much, I just want to fly... in a literal and abstract sense... I havve learned so much here, and I have so many ideas, many that I had before I came to ecuador, but they have become obscured or morphed. Right now I just want to breathe in the enery of the universe and become the best being that I can be, to do this I must work on opening up my soul and eliminating my prejudices and my ideas that have no positive meaning in my life and neither in the lives of those who I'm interacting with. I feel like school and much of the life in the city has begun to close many of my earlier receptors to life, and at the same time has opened new doors that I thought could never be opened.
Today I recieved a call from the president of my rotract club to see I'f I wanted to go and give bags of candy to poor kids in a population in The Valley of Chillos, about a half hour from my house. I jumped on it because I was just talking to my sister about how I needed to do something today. She went with my mom to work at my moms shop in a shopping center in a poor part of quito, she is there now, her cellular was stolen today too, I don't know the details becuase my cell phone broke today too. I met up wit my clubs president who coincedentially actually went to SOU for a year two years ago. So I actually have some one to talk with about the CO-OP, and all of the other cool places in Ashland. We met up with two other guys from Roteract. We drove into this little village where all the women were dressed tradionally and all the houses were concrete rectangles and the community building doubles as a school. We walked into the place to find the kids practicing a presentation for their holiday program. We were t obe a part of the program, in the building were about 25 kids and their mothers. We started off by giving a christams message. I talked about family and how important it is especially duringg christmas. After we talked the kids did a couple of dances and games, we handed out the bags of candy and a couple was there with more bags of candies to give out to the kids. Some kids were overjoyed, these were probably the only presents that they would be getting for christmas. At this time of year there are kids out in the streets that ask for money or christmas gifts. We played a couple of games and did the Tomato dance, which is a dance between two people with a tomato pressed between them on their foreheads. The last team with the tomato wins, it was pretty funny. I actually didn't play because I was too tall. But I cheered on the teams. This expireince really put everything in perspective, how much I appreciate what I have in the states and all that goes with it. I love my life!
We are all in search of fufilment and I am finding what is most rewarding in my life these are the things I will follow, my dreams will carry me on when I'm down becuase I have recieved my answer. My path is a good one, there are some tall mountains and strong rivers but I must keep on walking this path, for on this path I will become the best that I can be... a human being in the fullest sense.
We can all rise to a level of conscience that will eliminate the problems in the world, it all starts with the individual, when the individual has reached ones potential and is ready, one will pass the level of life in the individual sense and begin to see the world as a huge interconected being. We are all one, part of what has put us here is in all of us. We are a part of the one and at the same time are the one. We are beginning to move into a whole new level of thought on planet earth.... I lost my train of thought becuase my sister came home sad about her cell phone, but in my philosophical state I talked her through it and told her just look at where she is in life and how much of difference the cell phone will make. So it is all good.
So, I think that I have lost the flow that i had so I'm going to change and keep on going... wee... I'm sure you are having fun reading this. I did a secret santa with my class and with some rotary exchange students! I gave a shirt to a kid in my class and got a cool ecuadorian shirt. And with the rotary kids I got a shirt too! I'm stoked to have gotten things that I'll be wearing when I get back!
Life is good, I think that there is hope in the world and that we are growing as a planet of real dilinquents... after all that we have done we can still fix it. I want to wish everyone a merry, jolly and thoughtful christmas. Lets spend this time with family and be thankful to all that we have and thoughtful of those who don't! I will do my part and we can make an agreement to all work together. I love you! and am so grateful that you are reading my blog!!! YOU ROCK!
La Paz es el Camino y el amor la Manera!

We're in!

So my team made it into the tournament. We were in a bracket of 7 teams and the tournament will be between the top two teams from each bracket. So in total there were 84 teams in Quito. This tournament is between 24 teams. If we had lost our game we wouldn't have had any more games this year. We actually tied the game. Which meant that in the next game a school had to win, so that the team that they were playing against wouldn't get the right amount of points.
We really had bad luck in the game, we ended up tying because of two fouls in the goal box, two PK's which they finished, so it was bad, bad luck. The thing that I didn't write about was how crazy my team is.
After the game on tuesday, one of the players on the team fought with a kid on the other team, he beat him up pretty good, when the team left the parking lot in a car they threw water bottles at us. This kid who fought before picked up one of the water bottles and went running after them, they stopped at a red light and began to get out of the car. About 7 kids from our team went running after Carlos... the kid who is ready to fight at an instant. There were probably about 8 kids on their side. We were lined up on the street, the two teams facing off. I grabbed Carlos and told him to chill out and started walking away with him cussing his head off at the other team.
We ended up not fighting but this is one huge difference between Ecaudor and the states, at least in Ashland, our first reaction isn't always to fight. Teenagers here have embodied the flight or fight syndrom perfectly... I have seen tons of fights here. My team mates wil fight others on my team over stupid things, it is really wild. There is actually some kids who go to the nearest park after school and fight. No one here can believe that I've never fought. For example one kid told me that he has fought 30 times this year! This is an extreme example but the teenage boys are ready to fight anyone and everyone.

Stuff

So I actually thought that there wasn't a mail service here... but there is... so late in coming here is my address for the good ol' snail mail.

Av. Ilalo, Calle Rio Paztasa y Rio Corrientes, Conjunto La Viña, Casa #6
Quito- San Rafael, Valle de los Chillos
Ecuador

So, I know that it works, my brother has been sending my family stuff from Germay, so I have Confidance in the mail system. So ya... sorry about not getting this out sooner but better late than never (you wouldn't believe how many times I hear this expression from my sister...)
So... I'm still doing a good job being lazy. But, whats new, I got a whopping 40% on my last math test. I have a boilogy quiz on carbohidrates and lipids. Oh, I'm going to learn how to do blood tests. In ecuador they are really big on the poop, pee, and blood tests. There is actually a Clinical Laboratory in my school. So I had to collect smaples of everything and had it all tested. So in biology we are going to learn how to take blood and then run it through a bunch of machines to sample it... and then later maybe with poop and pee! weee, anyways we practiced last week with oranges and syringes that we bought in a drug store (can you even buy syringes?), I'm a little scared actually, but it is becuase I'm going to have to be taking the blood from my sister... were partners... and, well, this is a little sticky... I'm afraid of the concequences.
I have a soccer game tomorrow, we are in the tournament, we won our last game and we had just enough points to enter the tournament. So here we go, I'm stoked, I played well but I don't have goal painted on my forehead like my coach says that I need. I just am always looking for passes first, I missed a great opportunity for a goal.
I was practicing Capoeira on friday with my teacher, his brother and another crazy kid named pancho, who is insane... well all of them are. They throw down the flips ike nothing and are frustrated at times becase their backflip 360°'s aren't perfect and stuff like that... anyways I just was working on backflips... I have some real confidance problems, with reason, the bother of my teacher practically killed me. The short of it is that I fell prety good on my head. I did such a good job of taking care of my body... but whatever, I'm a walking wreck.
My house is all decorated! We have a fiber optic tree... seriously. I bought a tie with my sister for my dad and I'm still short presents for the rest of my family. My mom is in another one of the houses in our apartment, the 9 days before christmas all of the neighbors are meeting in different houses to do a celebration for the birth of Jesus.
Ok there was a nice short update, big thanks to all those who are reading and especially commenting! thanks everyone!

Mi Cumpleaños!

My birthday was good. I was woken up in the morning with a knock on my door. Quickly there after my whole family streamed into the room with a cake and began singing happy birthday. My first reaction was to hide under my sheats... I like a little time to wake up, especially since it was 5:30... Here in ecuador they always sing happy birthday in English and then in Spanish. So two candles were lit, a 1 and a 7. I blew them out with a little difficulty since my sister was sitting on me. I was told to bite the cake so I did, it was a long role like thing, chocolate and vanilla with fruit in the middle. Later after everyone had left my room I checked my cell phone to find a text message from a friend of mine, she had woken up at 12 in the morning and sent it to me.
At school, I recieved a lot of happy birthdays. The only thing that was really wild was the great ecuadorian tradition of getting hit with your belt... 17 times. Now I've never expirienced this before... and I don't really want to ever again. But during the second break I took off my belt and freinds and non-friends beat the crap out of me. My sister hit me first, then was Adam and Polo. After these three it was a line of people. I was hugging a tree as people wailed on me. The first five were fine, my pain tolerance was fine. But number 13 was a kid that I know from playing soccer at the break. He had a wide belt on, he took it off stepped back and hit me. I practically fell over and cried, it hurt soooo bad. I almost couldn't go on, I felt like I was on fire. At one point a kid was about to hit me, and I was like, "who are you?" he introduced himself and hit me. This tradition is quite weird but definatly something to expireince. Moving hurt for the rest of the day. And the General Inspector came and tried to break up the beating but it continued all the same.
After school Adam and I went to La Mariscal, the turist district where all of the discos and English Speaking people are. We went into an English book store, which felt like one of the funky used book stores that can be found in Ashland! After that we went to eat, Shawarmas, a really good middle eastern food that is hot meat with a flat pita like bread and with some really good sauces... yumm. I met my dad at his work and we drove back to my house.
We left to go out and eat lasagna which I have really missed since I've been here. We first went to the mall to see about switching a new pair of jeans that my family gave me for my birthday. We couln't find another pair that worked out so I'm gonna use these, we also bought two new shirts, a longsleeved pink dress shirt and a short sleeved dress shirt. We left the mall to find a huge stage in the park next to it. There was a band up there playing Pink Floyd. We went closer to check it out and on the other side of the stage they were sending mini hot air baloons with flashing sparks. They sent out 17, and then there was a long pause. It seemed pretty cool, after a few minutes another 20 or so were sent up. We left to go and eat. The place that we went to was empty, just us. We all got different lasagnas, they were little personal lasagnas baked in clay platters. The pasta wasn't all that great but, all in all, it was good!
That was my day, a good adventure. But I really did miss my friends and family. It just didn't feel the same without everyone that has always been a part of my life.