Is It Terrifying To You...? Does speaking with natives of the language you are learning sound terrifying to you? To me it did for a while. I'm going to talk a bit about my experience on Italki so far and why the heck I was afraid of talking to native English speakers. First things first, I have been learning English for a long period of time. In my English course, as in many others in my country, we are taught more grammar than the actual speaking part of the language, which I see it as a bad aspect of language courses in Brazil. Therefore, if we want to become fluent, we have to study outside school as well. So, after many years studying English and speaking to myself, I found this website. Here, I'm able to help people with Portuguese and be helped with English. So far, I have had a good experience with Italki, except for some bad ones with people who were neither interested in learning my language nor in helping me with theirs. Now, why did I use to have this fear of talking to native English speakers? Well, first because I'm a little bit shy when I meet someone, a foreigner? much worse! Second because I used to think my English wasn't good enough to hold a conversation with a native and that my accent was terrible and people was going to make fun of me. Besides all that, I used get nervous when I had to talk to a native English speakers; it seemed that all my knowledge of the English language disappeared when I saw a native. However, fortunately, I was able to overcome this fear. Once, a teacher of mine asked me: Would you make fun of someone learning your language or would you find (it- Do I have to put IT here?) cool that this person is taking the time to learn it? That question made me realize how silly I was, of course I find it awesome when someone is learning Portuguese! After that day, I decided to change. So, a couple of months ago I met this really nice American who has been helping me with my speaking and I also gladly help him with Portuguese. I can say I've made some breakthroughs so far.

Turning 20 I cannot believe I'm 20 already! It's so mind-blowing how time goes by so fast that if we think about it, 100 years is not that many years to do everything we want to do, if you know what I mean.The fact that I'm 20 and haven't done half of the things I intend to do, worrys me because there are lots of things I want to do before I die, and just the thinking of not achieving my goals in life, drives insane. Yesterday I turned 20. My birthday was fun, I had a great time with my friends and family. Firstly, my friends, with the help of my parents, sister and boyfriend, threw me a surprised birthday party; they really caught me by surprise because I wasn't expecting a party or anything like that at all, and I loved it! Since it was my special day, I got to choose any place I wanted to go and they would take me to it. So I chose a history museum that I wanted to visit in so long, named Imperial Museum, also known as Imperial Palace, located in Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro. It was an wonderful unique experience, I loved everything about this museum, and most important of all, I was there enjoying it with endear people to me. "Living is dying", this saying speaks volumes about life philosophy. We only live once, so we must chase our dreams and do our best to make them come true.

My Sister, My Best Friend One of my best friends is hands down my big sister. Unlike many brothers and sisters out there, who like to fight with each other all the time, my sister and I are very united. For example, we hardly ever have disagreements with one another. Of course, like many children, when we were kids we would always pick a fight with each other. However, we no longer do that these days; on the contrary, we are very close. Moreover, we have each other's back, and she's always there for me as well as I am there for her. Furthermore, she's not only very good at giving me advices, but she's also very supportive. I'm the kind of girl who likes to stay out of trouble, but if I ever be in trouble I know I can count on her to give me great advices. Also, she's very supportive with me as I am with her; she always encourages me to chase my dreams no matter what. Additionally, her taste in a lot of things is pretty similar to mine. We like going to the same places, listening to the same kind of music, reading the same kinds of books and we are both crazy about TV shows! Besides all that, we have the same way of thinking, I'd say. It's nice talking to her, we usually have good conversations and I always learn things while chatting with her. I'm proud to say that my sister is one of my best friends, I really look up to her.