Wednesday I did some more nothing, I believe, which was a lot of fun. I watched the West Wing (sooo close to finishing season 6!) and just enjoyed my break from life. Vacations are wonderful. People should take them more often.
Yesterday I hung out at home and enjoyed my vacation some more, and watched more West Wing. I actually had an "Aha!" moment while I was watching, and I'll share it with you:
For those who don't know, I'm going to CSU next year, and I'm going to major in Political Science and minor in French. I love love LOVE politics, government, and everything else that goes along with it. Watching campaigns for office is really exciting, in my opinion. I'm one of those rare people that doesn't get sick of the campaign adds on tv. I like hearing what both sides have to say, and I like having opinions and fighting for them. I got to shake President Obama's hand when he gave a speech at CSU during his campaign. That was one of the coldest (and most AWESOME) days of my life.
Anyway, back to my story. I was watching an episode of the West Wing (Season 6, Episode 17: A Good Day). In it, the Speaker of the House cancels a vote on stem-cell research. He wants to wait until the Democrats are out of town so that he can get the outcome he wants on the vote. The episode revolves around the attempt to foil the Speaker's plans. It turns out that some of the main characters manage to help hide a group of about 15 Congresspeople in the Vice President's office over night, so when the Speaker calls the vote the next morning (thinking most Dems are out of town), they can vote and defeat the Speaker's evil plot.
Yes, I know that it's illogical. Yes, I know that 15 Congresspeople probably wouldn't hide out in an office all night long. Yes, I know it's a tv show. But that doesn't change my reaction to it.
I got tingles in my toes.
I was so interested in how the politics of the situation were set up and how the members of Congress were going to vote that I didn't even stop to care if it was illogical or not. It really reinforced for me how much I LOVE politics. I just love how people can come together (or separate) on issues. I love listening to both sides make their point. I love campaigns, elections, voting, and political efficacy (that one's for you, Mr. Felton). I love politics.
Wednesday night (okay, I did do something on Wednesday...), I was chatting with Aymeric, a Belgian friend of Talia's, on Facebook. He asked me how I feel about America and being American, and we discussed some issues that are very important to me, like the environment and education. Education is number one on my priorities list, yes, even higher than environment. We can't possibly think we can help the environment if we can't even spell the word. But I digress. Aymeric and I also talked about Belgium and the lack of government here. Yes, that's right folks. Belgium does not have a government at this point in time. Its been about 6 months without one. If I'm not mistaken, it's the second time in the past few years that Belgium has not had a government. Yes, there is a king, but he doesn't have the power that belonged to kings of years past. Donc (therefore), Belgium is kind of in a rough place right now. It was really enlightening to be able to talk to someone who's my age and who can explain how this came about here in Belgium. I've heard rumblings about it my whole time here, but any time I asked someone about it, they'd just say "Les politiques... trop compliqués." (Politics... very complicated). I'm glad I now have a little bit of a grasp of what's going on here.
Moving on to the rest of my Thursday...
Last night, Etienne, Anne-Michèle, Amaury and I went to my second host family's house for dinner. I met my second host dad for the first time and I think we'll get along swimmingly. He speaks 7 languages. SEVEN. That's crazy. And my host sister in that family speaks 6. I'm insanely jealous. I don't know how they do it... I can barely handle 1 1/2!
Tonight is a Christmas dinner, which should be fun. Adrien, my host brother who's currently studying in England, is supposed to be coming back, but we don't know if his train was cancelled because of all of the snow. I won't lie, at this point, there is a LOT of snow out there. My snowwoman is kind of... misshapen right now because of all of the snow that has landed on her in the past 2 days. I'd love to take pictures, but my camera is still dead. Insane, I know. I'll get batteries asap.
Merry Winter Solstice to you all!
Bisou,
Mikayla
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