Thursday, March 5

If You Thought Google Earth Was Cool...

...check out what else Google has...

http://www.google.com/moon/

Sad Day...

Yesterday was a day that made me sad...why?...Because of the NHL

First it was very depressing to look at the Western Conference playoff standings and to see my three favorite teams as the three worst teams...I had so much hope this year, especially for the Coyotes since there were in 5th place in the West going into the All-Star break...but losing 9 of the next 10 games after the break, they quickly fell to 14th place...Sad Day...

On top of that, the trade deadline was yesterday, and again the Coyotes continued to disappoint...They sent off (in my opinion) their best scorer, Olli Jokinen, their best defenseman, Derek Morris, their best fighter, Daniel Carcillo, and their best backup goalie, Mikael Tellqvist. None of them make a ton of money, except Jokinen, so there wasn't much reason to dish them off...Jokinen makes a ton of money, so I can see why they got rid of him, but Morris has been an amazing leader for the Coyotes since aquired from the Avs. If any defenseman needed to be dished it should have been Jovanoski, making about 7 million a year and not even having 30 points then with a -15 rating on top of it!

The Coyotes have been rebuilding for the last few years and it finally looked like they had a set team with them soon to be making runs a playoffs every year...I was wrong.

Oh well...you take the good with the bad in sports...I know there's a lot more that goes into it, this is just from my perspective...gripes and all

Oh...and...all the Coyotes got in return was a couple no-name players and a few draft picks

Tchau

Monday, March 2

Been A While...

I just realized that it has been a few days since I posted anything, I want to keep everyone updated with how things have been going

What can I say, things are going great...did you expect anything less, haha...We started our art and culture class last Saturday. We went to the city centre to see where Sao Paulo was founded, in 1554 by the way, and some of the historic sites. The class had about 40 students in it, so we were able to make some new friends. After that my friends went to a churrascaria, which is a traditional Brazilian restaurant, the meat on the stick and all that jazz. The loved it, but since I knew it was gonna be $30 or $40, I bailed on them, haha. Sorry guys, they loved it though, so I was a little bit jealous

Speaking of jazz, we went to a Jazz club that night, it was awesome, a very chill atmosphere, the drummer was insane. A good time out, where we got to meet a few new people

I went to church Sunday at the Calvary church, good times, meet a few new people, and an American...yeah, that's always nice to meet someone from your home country. Then, back to school

Now that we're all caught up, I'll talk about some more important things. I've done a lot of praying since I've been down here, and thanks be to God for getting me throught the first month, not that everything is super difficult, but I love the way things go when I stop worrying about them and just wait upon the Lord. The first few weeks here awesome, I've got to meet a lot of cool people, and see a lot of the city, by foot, bus, and metro. But most of the days I would end up or choose to be by myself...some things are easier that way...but it gets old after a while, and I started thinking a lot about why God wants me down here, I had so many plans and ideas of what he wants me to do down here, I didn't feel I was making good friends with anybody, just the superficial type, I felt my Portuguese was not doing nearly as well as it should be, and more. God has gracefully given me peace about everything, and I've stopped worrying about it. I know it's very cliche, you hear it especially in church, but everything really does go better when you don't worry about things and rely on God

Since then, I've made some more good friends and a lot of things have started to where I will be hanging out with a lot more people, more frequently. The college-type group at the church starts this Tuesday, I've also started getting involved at the school, athletic-wise. I joined the school soccer team today, I never thought I'd say that...haha. Everyone was awesome and I'm excited for the season. Also, I'm going to try to start playing rugby with the school as well, I've never played rugby so I hope I can catch on quick, haha, we'll see. "The Five" of us have been getting closer and closer, having more in depth conversations about life, religion, annoyances, haha, and more. I'm excited to see how all of are relationship will develop and whatnot. Lastly, I can tell my Portuguese is getting better, I'm started to understand a lot more of what people are saying, and can somewhat speak back. our Portuguese class starts this week, so that's going to help me tremendously. That's my main goal for being down here, and accompanying the class with a couple hours of studying a day, I hope God will grant me the knowledge I need to be able to speak and learn Portuguese

That about wraps it all up, I'm looking forward to the time ahead, and I ask that you can pray for me to keep looking up to God for guidance with everything. Thanks

Tchau