Le weekend

So this past weekend has actually passed quite eventfully for me. Saturday morning I made homemade chocolate chip cookies. Same recipe i use in the US and all. Except not because of course it was more complicated than that. First i had to convert everything into Grams and Celsius (which wasnt actaully that easy because multiple sites gave me different answers). Then there was the actual makin the batter part. I got everything measured out okay (using all bio and farm products) but the batter was slightly sticky/liquidiy. But oh well, whats a girl to do right. Then came the time to put the chocolate and because we had no chocolate chips, my host mom had to put a chocolate bar in the food processor. Overall though the batter tasted pretty good. Then came time to bake them. In the end they needed more time but they tasted mighty good to me.

~And the whole point of me making the cookies you ask? Well i had a meeting with AFS Namur and i was supposed to bring a typical dish from the states. Basically i had no ideas so i did cookies. My host mom and I left for the meeting around 1h30 and more or less got there around 2 where i was able to meet up with all the other exchange students who live in the general area. We split into smaller groups and played games and did little activites. Also lots of just talking about how we we're doing. Not to mention almost all of this was in French and i'm happy to say i think i understood a good part of it. We then had time to snack on what else besides chocolate and waffles before we continued with activities. After our activities we're finished, we hung around and socialized with the other students and their families. It was actually pretty great and it pushed my brain into the french zone so much that when someone said something to me in English, i just responded in French. Later was the buffet of the food that all the exchange students had brought. Mmmmhhh lots of good food. And following that, even more good dessert. By the time it was finished i was completely exhausted ( i dont know why). Despite this fact, i had a good car ride home and i slept really well.

~Sunday however is another story completley. I had to get up at 8am (early for a weekend) and i went with my family to the primary school of Perwez (host village). We live right next door and teh school serves breakfast for all the neighbors (once a year i think). Later that afternoon, after lunch, i headed up to my school because i was volunteering to help with an activity. Basically theres this walk to raise money for the school and the students arrange little games and activities for points along the walk. That way each team that walks can try to win the most amount of points. So i, along with another studnet and teacher, had one of these booths. After that I met up with my host mom to eat dinner at the school as part of the event.

After all this, came the Playback. Students and groups of students at school can sign up to put together a routine and lip sync to a song. The entire Rheto (senior class) had the final spot of the night with our 13min routine. We all dressed in sweats and brightly colored tee shirts and danced to a mix of songs. Overall it was a pretty good night even though i was really tired at school the next day. I think it was probably worth it though ;)

Fun facts

At school events such as these, its perfectly ok for everyone to smoke on school grounds. As a matter of fact students and teachers can smoke during the school day as well.

In addition, the school can sell beer and wine on the school premsis. The money earned from the beer sales probably provides a large portion of the money that the school got that night.

Pretty interesting in my opinioin

thats all for now

tchao tchao

school...

Its been quite some time since i've blogged and alots happend but i'll try to remember it all. I'm into my 4th week of school and its true, school everywhere is pretty boring. Or maybe thats becasue i dont understand most of it. Who knows. Anyway in Belgium, secondary school is 6 years with the sixieme (6th year) being the last year before college. In my school, i'm in the last year of school or Rheto. Theres two classes in Rheto, 6A and 6B. i'm in 6B with about 20 other students. I have most of my classes with this same group of people except for certain classes (like foreign language) where we're mixed.
this is my schedule. Every day is a different set of classes but every week is the same. There are 9 blocks per day and every block is 50 minutes. So sometimes you have a double block of something. Also you'll notice i have a lot of social science. Thats because thats my area. Every student has a focus. like mine is social science so i have more hours of that and only 2 hours of math and three hours of science. somone who is math fort could have up to 7 hours of math per week.
Monday
Spanish
biologie
chemistry
study hall
history
lunch
english
english
french

Tuesday
Spanish
history
social sciences
study hall
physics
lunch
PE
PE
french

Wedensdays (we get out at 1 instead of 4h10)
French
french
study hall
study hall
morale

Thursdays
study hall
english
math
math
PE
social sciences
social sciences
morale

Friday
study hall
english
social science
geographie
study hall
lunch
spanish
spanish
french

one thing about the classes that makes it difficult for me to understand is that its primariliy lecture style. No textbooks. The teacher may write on the board or just dictate notes. Because of that i miss a lot. Luckily some of my teachers have noticed and have starting writing important info on the board for me.
thats all for now

Offically 1 week...

Now that i have been here a week, i suppose its actually time for me to update. I feel like simultaneously there is a lot and nothing to say. Its seems like its been longer than a week since i've left thats for sure. But anyway life here in Belgium is going well. I've adjusted to the time change and am starting to get used to hearing french all the time (which btw sounds completely differnt from french class). I can understand quite a bit especially if its directed towards me. Things get more complicated when its other people talking amongst themselves. However i am horrible at speaking french and have an obnoxious american accent. But oh well. Hopefully with time thatll get better.

Earlier in the week I went to Brugge for part of the day with my host mom, two of the host sibs, and one of their friends. Brugge is apparentley the most touristy of Belgian cities but it was still fun to walk around the city and expierence Belgian fast food in the form of Quick. Next we went to the beach where i met some of my host sibs cousins and grandparents. It was really cold but i still braved the freezing water (which was actually enjoyable). So i can now say i have swam in the North Sea.

I also went earlier in the week to register for school. It dosent seem too bad yet. I believe im on the social sciences track of study (mostly because thats all i qualify for). School dosent start until Sept 6 so until then im just chillin and enjoying the rest of summer while all the MHS kids suffer through school.

until next time

Visa app and the such

Hey Everybody!

So far my blog has been fairly boring so in an attempt to make it more interesting, I'm going to talk about the visa process.

A week or two ago I got my visa info from AFS and I started the crazy process of collecting different kinds of documents and waiting for AFS to send me the rest of the documents i needed. After calling the consulate in New York numerous times and going to the bank and the doctors office, I went to Fedex and got my application shipped off to the New York office of AFS. Because of the time constraints, AFS is going to personally walk the application over to the consulate in hopes that it will get thru the scrutiny faster.

So essentially now im just waiting for my visa to be processed and sent back to me.

Also I've been painstakingly trying to prepare for my departure in 19 days. I have so much to do in so little time. I'm working on going through my closet and trying to create a packing list. Unfortunatley I think of new things to add to the list all the time so its kind of like a never ending process. I will say packing for an entire year and multiple seasons is a lot of work and stress. But soon I'll be in Belgium and it'll all be worth it :P

On the plus side though, I have all my paperwork in for AFS and I have my flight to New York booked. So just one step closer...

jusqu'a la prochaine fois

Departure info and such

Okay so I've finally gotten around to updating this thing. Since my last post I have gotten my flight info and departure info! wooooooo
I will fly from stl to jfk on August 18th and arrive there in the early afternoon. After that i'll spend that night and the rest of the next day hanging with other outbound exchanges students and doing AFS orientation stuff.
On the 19th i board a 6pm flight out of jfk and will land in Brussels at 7:40am the next day (which is complete craziness). Finally, i'll spend a couple of days there with AFS before meeting up with my host family.

I'm pretty excited and also slightly stressed and nervous. Mostly excited and ready to be in Belgium. And the stress basically comes from trying to figure out my visa application, and trying to imagine what i'm supposed to pack. I just got my visa info this week so all i got to do is get a million documents filled out and sent in to the consulate. No big deal of course.....yea right....

okay a plus tot!

Graduation, class 2010

So this is only semi related to exchange but none of it would have occured without Belgium.
Tonight was my high school graduation and I am now literally done. Its such a weird feeling. I started high school with a certain group of kids with the intention of completing my four years of school and graduating as the class of 2011. Within the span of this year, that idea has completely changed. I have just graduated, in 3 years, with a group of people i hardly knew, and as the class of 2010.
Anyway just saying that im glad my hard work paid off and that its weird :P

Tchao

MAP!

For those of you unfamiliar with Belgian geography- here is a conveinent little map :D

The line in the middle area is the showing the boundary with Flanders in the North and Wallonia in the South. The red dot is supposedly where I will be living.