Well the day has arrived. January 20th. Do y'all know what that means? It means that I am five months into my exchange, and that it is, roughly, halfway complete. Already. Wowzers. I know I haven't checked in with you guys since I shared the events of my Christmas vacation, so I've got a lot to fill you in on. Get ready.
First of all, I switched host families. This has been a pretty big change for me, as I have gone from being the sole daughter living at home for the past two plus years, to now being one of three, plus another who's off at university. Of the other two, one is in my year at school, and does gymnastics, though she hurt her shoulder and recently went through surgery, and the other is 13 and plays basketball. I'm starting to get used to the life of a female dominant family, but there is a truck load of hormones up in here, that's for sure. Some other changes include the presence of a television (I promise I don't waste too much time in front of it mom), walking and/or being driven to and from the train station as opposed to riding my bike, and, maybe best of all, a piano. It's keyboard really, but it has all seven octaves, and a pedal attachment, not exactly the baby grand I've got waiting for me back home, but good enough to get my fingers moving again. The family itself is pretty great. They yell at each other a lot, but what else can you expect when there are three teenage girls all under the same roof?
School continues mostly comme d'habitude, but as of late, it's been a little wonky. As a think I may have mentioned in one of my previous posts, there are no substitute teachers over here, so when teachers are sick or have trainings, we simply don't have class. The past couple weeks have been chock full of free time for me. I think the last full day of school I had was the first Thursday back from break, and even then, we got out 20 minutes early because our teacher had a dentist appointment... yeah. I haven't had Religion class since before Christmas, and I've only had French about one and half times (a dentist appointment, really?) since our return. The frustrating thing is, you don't always know ahead of time, in fact, usually you don't. That makes it so that when your first few teachers are sick, you show up at the same time as usual, and then sit around for hours while you could still be sleeping. Grrr. Yesterday, I had exactly one class. Fifty minutes of math, in which we took a test that I finished in about twenty. Out of a total six hours that I was there, I did twenty minutes of work. Way to go Belgian school system, you should get an award.
Alright, obligatory summary part of the post is done. Now it's time for a little real talk. Being in the position that I am, over here on an adventure, it makes it easy to forget sometimes that big choices in my future are right around the corner. Easy to forget, that is, until some lovely European adult asks me what I'm planning to study at university, as over here, everyone has to decide that before they go. Put simply, I have even less of an idea about that than I did before I came to Belgium. Luckily, I don't have to know yet, but having all my friends at school deciding, in fact, they're all mostly decided, I feel a little lost. The fact that my exchange is half over makes me feel more pressured to decide, like this year has kind of been my break from real life, and I'm heading back into it completely unprepared. Adding on to that, I keep having mini heart attacks when I wake up from dreams where for some reason, Berkeley didn't make any note of my deferment and they decide to reject me and I don't go to college or do anything with my life ever. Lovely, I know.
So I've been hearing a lot of questions and concerns from people back in the States about the current state of affairs over here in Europe, in reference to the recent terrorist activities. To be completely honest, I have not been terribly affected by it. I have not been able to tune in to the news for the past week or so, so I don't know much more about what's happening here than most of you. There have been a few "terrorist-linked protests" here in Belgium, the closest to me being about 14 miles away, but in a completely different city. They have started checking I.D. more frequently on the train, and I'm sure there are other safety precautions in place, but regardless, I feel totally safe, and I don't think there is anything to worry about.
Thank you guys for continuing to tune in for the first half of my adventure, and I promise there are many more exciting things to come, if you keep coming back! i.e. Croatia, Italy, and potentially London.
P.S. I don't really have any relevant photos for this post, but I have recently added a bunch to my album on Facebook, so if you're interested, check 'em out.
