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Dear Diary,

So everything was packed from the crate that was shipped by boat early to our many suitcases. We left Memphis that day with a lot of our family standing at the gate because back then you could get past security. We met up with our friends from MLC(my friend who I thought was my girlfriend) at the Miami airport to continue our trip together. We both had Teddy Rubskins or however you spell that teddy bear that talked and told you stories. It was in the Miami airport that I said goodbye to my long time invisible friend Jason.... I wonder where he went anyway? I bet he went to the Virgin Island's and has been kicking it there! We arrived in Brazil and made our home in Campinas where my parents would go to language school for a year and I was sent to Kindergarden at the Brazilian school. I made friends fast there... my neighbors all around soon became my best friends! My first day at school was dreadful... I hated it... it was loud and noisy and there were a lot of kids eating glue and acting stupid I thought. I was bored cutting out shapes and singing stupid songs. The teacher talked to my parents and I ended up in first grade. I loved first grade!!! I had two friends with me... Rebecca and my friend Daniel. So I learned how to write in Portuguese and spell in Portuguese before I learned how to in English and I thought that was cool. Within the first week I could sing the Brazilian National Anthem and I did it often... in fact my dad found a video over the holidays of me standing in my underwear singing it for the camera and family back home( my sisters loved that one). Brazil was home for me. I really didn't think about the U.S. except for family but I didn't miss all of them. My first Halloween in Brazil marked my first visit to the emergency room because I was playing around the swingset with friends when I fell and someone swinging caught my head and there was a nail hanging underneath which split me wide open. I remember getting up and feeling the warm blood on my hands and then it came pouring over my face. Looking back now it was like a scene out of the old horror movie Carrie! My parents and friends were inside having a Halloween party and here I came walking through the door screaming with blood flowing down my face. I got my first set of stitches that day and the lady doing it said it would feel like little ants on my head... she lied!!!! Stitches actually didn't bother me all that much... I was back to playing in no time. That same year I had my first root cannal and I remember the dentist who was my neighbor across the street pulling out a needle to numb my mouth and I refused it.... I pitched such a fit that my mom and he agreed to doing it without numbing my mouth. I got my way but it hurt really, really, really bad. I used to swim behind his house with his kids and try to do every daredevil trick I could. I tried a frontwards flip and cut my head open again.... My first birthday there I turned 5 and I thought I ruled the world. Before I knew it our time in Campinas was over and we packed up and moved on down to southern Brazil to a place called Cascavel which in English means rattlesnake. Sounded like an adventure to me and it proved to be some of the best days of my lifebut it was there that I also met another side of darkness....