I met a nice Brazilian lady on the internet wooooo!!
Her name is Rosaly, she said I can come visit her in Salvador if I get the chance to travel from Pernambuco.
On an unrelated note … the other week, I was sitting on the train when Bishop James phoned me and was like ‘yoooooooo thank you for the package’ and I was like ‘no problem bro!’ and this woman must have overheard me because she came and sat next to me and started chatting out of the blue in English about politics and the environment and kept asking me what I think about all these world issues, and we had this lovely interesting discussion for about half an hour, her name was Elizabeth, and then at the end she handed me this book called ‘What Does the Bible REALLY Teach?’ and told me she was a Jehovah’s Witness and that I should come to her bible study group the next day. How sneaky!
But either way I couldn’t go to the study group (I really would have you know, I can never say no when people ask me to go to church) because me and Sara were supposed to be going to Berlin, which didn’t work out in the end because something went wrong with the tickets, so we went to Salzburg in Austria instead which is a very pretty town that I’ll put up photos of later.
On Saturday we (host-family and I) are going up to the mountains on holiday! It’s technically a ‘skiing’ holiday but I tried learning to ski once and I’m the worst skier that ever existed so I’m just going to stick to the sauna and swimming pool, maybe do a little sledding if I’m feeling crazy.
The Sweetest Girl That Is And Was And Ever Will Be (Part 2)
The Sweetest Girl fled down the path to the river and flung herself onto the ground and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. Her friends didn’t know what to say, they’d never seen her this way before. Eventually the girl sat up, and though her eyes were red and puffy, there was a hardness in them that hadn’t been there before.
‘There is no point in being sweet,’ she said, darkly, ‘if it means that people can make you sad.’
The Herring glanced doubtfully at the Stalk.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say there’s no point -‘
‘No.From now on I will never do, say or eat another sweet thing in my life!’ cried the Sweetest Girl, and she turned back and marched through the woods without picking a single flower.
The next morning, the Sweetest Girl tramped through the forest with a lemon in her pocket and a scowl on her face. To her surprise, and slight disappointment, the boys who had been troubling her the past few days had disappeared - she had rather wanted to give them a piece of her mind.
Instead, another boy stood under the big oak tree. The Sweetest Girl recogcnised him - he was one of the little boys who had kicked the ball and dirtied her prettiest dress all those years ago. As she reached him, the boy smiled and waved to her.
‘Hello!’ he said brightly.
‘Piss off.’ Said the Sweetest Girl that is and was and ever will be.
(To be continued…)
The other day Giant Baby Fine came over (pronounced Fee-na) and me and her and Lorenz were just jamming about playing Thomas the Tank Engine when suddenly she stopped and looked like she was concentrating really hard. So I go, ‘what are you doing Fine?’ and she goes, ‘a poo’, and I thought for the first time about what it must be like to feel a poo coming and pause whatever you’re doing and just POO, right there where you’re standing with everyone else still in the room.
You know how humans find other people’s poo disgusting? Is that just a human thing? Do you think other animals find poo disgusting? They can’t do because otherwise horses wouldn’t poo so casually around other horses. But surely they can still smell it?
Also, imagine if adults wore nappies too (Fine pooed in a nappy not just on the floor) and people just went about their days not knowing when people around them were going to the toilet.
Just some food for thought there.
The ‘Sweetest Girl’ thing is meant to be a motivational story for/about a main don of mine but I got distracted at the most depressing and least motivational part lol. If you are reading this lady I swear it ends happily!!! Well I can’t remember how it’s meant to end I need to get back in the zone. Remember, I promised you I’d write something about you like 2yrs ago … we were lying in the middle of the road in the night and then a storm came and there was lightning in the sky but no rain. Do you remember that? That was sooooo cool, that was one of the coolest things I ever saw perhaps.
The Sweetest Girl That Is And Was And Ever Will Be (Part 1)
Once upon a time in a far off land, a baby girl was born into a family that loved her very much. The lovely little baby grew, as babies who are loved by their families almost always do, into a lovely little girl, and as she grew, her family began to notice something special about her.
Everybody knows that little boys and girls love sweet things, and this girl was no different. What was different was this: when normal little boys and girls eat too much sugar, it seeps into their bodies and they start to grow sideways instead of upwards. When this little girl ate sugar, it seeped into her mind and her heart andshe herself became sweeter. If she ate a jam tart, she’d be smiling for the rest of the day. A doughnut and she’d pay a compliment to everyone she saw. A whole chocolate cake and she’d stand by the side of the road waiting for old ladies to come along who she might help to cross. Every morning, to make sure that her day would be Sweet, she walked down to the river to pick flowers with a lollipop in her mouth and a skip in her step.
One morning as she skipped through the woods, some boys playing with a muddy ball accidentally kicked it in her direction and spoiled her lovely new dress. Any other little girl might have been awfully angry, but our Sweet Girl just took another lick of her lollipop and said to the boys, ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure you didn’t mean it!’
The years went by, and the little girl filled her belly every day with honey and cakes and cookies and ice cream and Arizona iced tea, and before her friends and family knew it, she had become the sweetest girl that is and was and ever will be. On especially difficult days she stuffed herself silly with chocolate chip muffins and custard creams to help tide her through, but these days were not too often, and mostly she was just fine with her lollipop as she skipped down to the river every day.
On her fifteenth birthday, the Sweetest Girl was walking through the woods as usual when she noticed a different group of boys, loitering by the big oak tree. The lollipop in her mouth today was bubblegum-flavoured and especially delicious, so she smiled at the boys brightly as she passed by - but just as she did, one of them stuck their foot out and tripped her over!
The Sweetest Girl had the oddest feeling that the boy might not have done this by accident - but then, no, who could ever be so mean? She ignored the feeling, stood up and brushed the dust off her knees. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said to the boy, smiling, ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean it!’
When she reached the river that day, she told her friends the fish and the birds what had happened. They fumed and they raged at the idea that anyone could be so cruel, but the Sweetest Girl really was very sweet, and she refused to get angry at all.
The next morning she was on her way to the river again, when, lo and behold, there were the boys by the side of the path once more! The Sweetest Girl’s lollipop today was raspberry-flavoured and especially delicious, so she gave the boys another bright smile. But, just as she did, one of them reached out and pulled her hair!!
The girl was so shocked that at first she didn’t quite know how to react. There was no denying it: this time the boy had definitely acted on purpose. But then, reasoned the Sweetest Girl, nobody would just go and pull someone’s hair for no reason. There must be some kind of explanation … maybe he was just trying to let her know that her hair didn’t look all that nice in the pigtails she was wearing today? Yes, that was probably it. And if that was the case then really the Sweetest Girl ought to be thanking him for the advice. How was he to know that the way he’d tugged at her plait had really quite hurt? ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, smiling, ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean it!’
When she told her friends at the river what had happened to her that day, once more they were furious.
‘HOW can you let anyone treat you like that?!!’ cried the Herring in outrage.
‘You really are FAR TOO SWEET.’ grumbled the Stalk, and he was right, for the Sweetest Girl still refused to be angry, she just picked her flowers and carried on being sweet inside and out.
The very next day the Sweetest Girl picked her way through the woods once more, and the rowdy group of boys were hanging about under the big oak tree by the side of the path again. The girl couldn’t help but notice a sick sort of feeling in her tummy - even though all the sweetness inside her was telling her that they meant no harm, there was something about those boys that made the Sweetest Girl think that perhaps they needed to eat more sweets.
Sure enough, as she walked past and gave them her brightest smile, one of them jumped forward and KICKED HER IN THE SHINS!!! The Sweetest Girl couldn’t help it, her eyes brimmed with tears and she blushed because she really didn’t think it was sweet to cry at all. ‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered, biting her lip hard, ‘I’m sure you didn’t mean it.’
And she went to run down to the river to pick some flowers and ask her friends for advice, but as she did, she heard the boys calling after her,
‘Why do you always tell us not to worry, as if we cared in the first place?! We never even said sorry, you silly little girl.’
Me and the two Kindergarten teachers Magda and Maria spent the morning looking through this 2012 calender of half-naked men that Stefan the caretaker got Magda for her birthday. Maria (who is 59) advised me always to look at the size of a man’s feet before I make any decisions about him :|
Maria and Magda and Stefan say I’m going to end up alone in life because I’m not settled in one place for long enough, Maria keeps going ‘ALEX!! What are you doing here?! There’s only one prince left, get back to your country before it’s too late!’
Next weekend I think I’m going to Berlin with Sara and a nice American girl called Annie. Errrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmm I’m too lazy to try and remember what else has been happening in my life. But I’m really looking forward to coming home suddenly!! I woke up one morning and I was like WOW I’m excited and I miss everyone.
I’m not saying I’m in favour of child labour or anything but sometimes I’m sure these kids could really be doing something more useful with their lives than just waiting around to be old enough to go to school.
Like, sometimes Maria and Magda the Kindergarten teachers bring in all their massage equipment stuff from home (like those little wooden hammers for your back etc.), and lie down on the sofas and get the kids to set up a little massage parlour thing. And at first I thought, well that’s a bit exploitative, but at the end of the day the kids have just as much fun pretending to be massousses [?] as they do pretending to be farm animals or whatever it is they do in their spare time. And at least this way their capabilities are being utilised and they are being taught potentially useful life skills. Sooooo. Maybe we as a society should reconsider what we do with our children. Just throwin that out there.
LOL I’m kidding I’m kidding I didn’t mean any of that (apart from the fact that Magda and Maria get the kids to set up a massage parlour, that is true). What I mean is, kids here don’t go to school until they’re 6 years old, and I used to think that was a good thing because I do think there’s too much academic pressure put on kids in the UK … however, nearly all of the kids aged 4+ at kindergarten are more than smart enough to learn to read and write. They’re all so curious and always asking how to write certain letters and numbers etc., but primary schools here actually FORBID parents from starting to teach their kids to read/write before they start school because it’ll give them an unfair advantage over the other children and they’ll get bored being smarter than everyone else.
I find it so foolish that these kids are so bright and eager but they spend all their days sitting bored playing with LEGO at Kindergarten. They get sooo excited when you teach them even the smallest thing like how to plait hair or go cross-eyed. It’s sad, they’re literally just spending the 2yrs before they start school killing time waiting for their next birthday. There should be something they could do that’s just a weeeee bit more mentally stimulating than Kindergarten but still not as stressful as school.
Why don’t I just write about what happens in my day like this blog is intended for?
HANNAH I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG
THE CLEANING LADY FINALLY GAVE MY FAVOURITE BRA BACK AFTER FOUR. MONTHS.
FOUR MONTHS I HAVE BEEN SECRETLY TRYING TO LOOK AT HER CHEST BECAUSE I KNEW IT WAS HER WHO TOOK IT AND I WAS RIGHT. SHE IS THE REASON I HAVE NOT RISKED PUTTING MY 2ND FAVOURITE BRA IN THE WASH FOR 1/3 OF A YEAR. I CAN’T EVEN DESCRIBE WHAT I AM FEELING RIGHT NOW.
