There are NO CHOCOLATE CHIPS in Brazil!

Which makes it very hard to make chocolate chip cookies! Which is exactly what I was trying to do!

Monday was a bit of a wasted day. I did all the work I had to do in the morning, and then I could have done some research or something, but instead I talked to people on MSN and didn’t do much of anything. I wanted to do stuff, but there just wasn’t much to do. And it was just me in the office. My area is People Development, so it’s difficult to do much without any people! I did go to an Arabian fast food restaurant for lunch with two former LCPs though, which was cool. I had these little pizza-like things, one with chicken, two with beef and one with cheese. I hung around because I was supposed to have a meeting at 6:00, but then I found at 4:30 it was cancelled. At that point I wouldn’t be able to make it home before rush hour struck to I hung around a bit longer. I went to the bandejon (absolutely guessed the spelling…) with Renato. Basically it’s the really cheap cafeteria that is subsidized by the government so students can afford to eat. It’s $R1.90 for a whole meal. You are supposed to be an USP student to get in, but I have Diogo’s old card and they don’t really look that closely. In all, I spent around 10 hours on the computer on Monday. Note to self: don’t do that again.

Today was better. I was supposed to have a meeting with Renata, so I prepped for it in the morning. Turns out she couldn’t make it, but it kept me busy. I ended up exploring @.net for several hours. And I found so much awesome stuff! @.net can be the most horrible thing and the most wonderful thing sometimes. I must have joined 10 or more communities today, and I found loads of resources about PBoX, Explora, CEE PBoXes and implementing the @XP. It was like AIESEC euphoria, and finding all these recourses gave me a lot of ideas. I find that I approach @ very intuitively. I figure out what needs to be done and I do it, without really realizing what I’m doing. So when it comes explaining my roles and responsibilities, sometimes I have trouble expressing what exactly it is that I do. But going over the documents on @.net really helps a lot. Instead of saying “I make sure everyone has something to do in AIESEC” I can say I’m in charge of “Talent Management”, or something like that. I’m getting better at breaking down jobs and responsibilities, but I still have a ways to go. Anyways, back to the day… it was pretty quiet as well. There were a couple people around, but I was basically on my own. After a while I got to a point where I just couldn’t look at the computer anymore, so I decided I would go home early. But if I went home early… what could I do? Dinner isn’t until late, so I’d have a lot of time to kill. But I really wanted to DO something. So… I decided to make cookies! I grabbed a recipe off the internet and then Renato went with me to the super market to buy everything. I came home and tried to explain to Iza’s Mom that I wanted to bake cookies. She said it was ok, so I set to work. Paulo came home shortly after and I guess he had never made cookies before, because he seemed very interested in what I was doing. He asked me some questions and kind of watched as I made the batter. Of course I had no chocolate chips, so I just used a knife to chop up some baking chocolate I had bought. Oh, and ovens here (at least at Iza’s house) don’t have temperature settings. There’s just, hot, medium and not so hot. So we decided to go for medium. The oven also does not tell you when it is hot, so you just have to guess. The cookies turned out ok. They were kind of crunchy, and I prefer the soft cookies. But Iza’s family seemed to like them. And I was very glad to do something a little different. Even if I’m not that good at it, I like baking and cooking, and it makes me feel useful and productive. I think I will try again soon.

In other news, I made myself a calendar and I’m working on some travel plans. I’ll be going to Rio June 15-18 and possibly to the northeast after that. This weekend I might be travelling as well, on a mini @ road trip. More to come.

I also tried contacting the recycling people, but the person I got on the phone didn't speak english. I might try again later, but it might not be as easy as I thought.

Sorry, no picture today, I need to take some more!