I'm learning a new language! Milestone 1.

I think I understand everything

This phase starts when you first begin to learn your new language. You're able to recognize some words when people say them, and even understand complete phrases, like, "Tu viens manger?" or "Tu es fatiguée?" (Are you coming to eat? Are you tired?) However, you're sorely mistaken. You really only understand about 5% of what's going on, and you don't realize that everyone is talking at their version of a snail's pace so that you'll be able to pick up on at least a little bit of meaning behind the phrase. You make embarrassing mistakes, like mixing up the words for "decided" and "dead." You think someone asked you what time school starts, so you go into a long monologue about class starting at 7:38 am and ending at 3:01 pm, except for Wednesdays when you're done at 1:01, and your poor, unsuspecting victim smiles and nods along, then quietly explains that they were really asking about the weather. You mix up the masculine and feminine for words quite often as well. You ask your host mother if he has seen where you left your book, or if her daughter in Florida is enjoying himself. After about two weeks, you come to realize that your vocabulary consists of the following words:

Yes

No

Okay

I'm tired

I'm hungry

Good

Ça va

Please

Thank you

I don't understand

You also learn that when people ask if you speak the language you're trying to learn, the answer is a very loud, very emphatic NO. See, before, you were saying that yes, you understood quite a bit, and you spoke decently well. But that was before the uncomfortable incident when a girl asked you if you thought your host brother was really super duper sexy, and you said "Oh YEAH!" thinking she was asking if you liked Harry Potter. And yes, he was standing next to you at the time.

Happy Birthday Eduardo!

Today is Eduardo's 19th birthday.

Te amo, mi amigo.

Je t'aime, mon ami.

I love you, my friend.

Happy Birthday.

<3

My best friend

is named Hannah Mueller.

And we're stuck like glue. I'd be lost without you.

This week sucks.

I'm not homesick, I just want to go home. I'm tired of being an exchange student. I'm tired of not understanding, of making mistakes, of being the butt of someone's joke, because, hey, the foreign girl doesn't understand. There are still teachers who don't know my name. I'm so tired of all of this. I'm just... tired.

Bulletin !

J'ai reçu mon troisième bulletin aujourd'hui, et je suis contente. :) J'ai réussi dans tous mes courses !

I received my third report card today, and I'm content. :) I passed all of my classes!

Mes résultats:

My results:

Religion: 16/20

Education Physique: 14/20

Histoire: 10.5/20

Anglais: 18/20

Sciences Sociales: 16/20

Sciences: 12.5/20

Géographie: x/20

Français: x/20

Mathematique: x/20

Overall: 69%

I would like to stress that my overall score is good. There are Belgians whose scores aren't as high as mine. I'm immensely proud of the points I've earned here.

Two things to note here:

1. Any grade above 50% is passing, so yes, I am passing History, despite my 10.5.

2. I didn't get a grade in French, Géo, or Math because I don't do the tests in those classes. I'm not really sure what's going on in math (we've had 2 teachers, and now all the students are "en stage" which means an internship of sorts, until the end of April), I take notes but canNOT seem to follow along in Géographie (besides, my teacher doesn't even know my name. He's called me Clara once and Emma twice. The most recent time? Today. I wrote my name in giant purple letters on a piece of paper and held it up for him to see. We'll get to being invisible in another post, okay?), and I tried doing some work in French, but my teacher didn't bother to give me any points. If you will grade my work and write "Useless" and "sense? sense? sense?" all over it, but you won't bother to give me any credit for it, then sorry, I'm not going to work for you anymore. Fair?

I did receive a rather lovely note at the bottom in the comments section:

Le conseil de classe te rappelle que tu es ici pour t'investir dans TOUS les cours. Nous comptons sur toi.

English: The (equivalent of) homeroom teacher would like to remind you that you are here to invest in ALL of the classes. We are counting on you.

See point number 2 above.

My point? You're not counting on me if you don't know my name, and you're not counting on me when you don't give me points.

I showed my host parents my bulletin today, and they were very pleased. My host mom kept saying "Tu as des bons points !" (You have good points !). She told me to keep my bulletin downstairs to show my host dad after dinner, but be ready, he was going to tease me and tell me they were bad points. Sure enough, when I pulled it out, he told me to kneel down on the floor while he went over it. (It was funny, I promise). The first thing he said was "Religion. Only 16? What is this?!" He was giving me a hard time when my host mom ran into the dining room, waving a dish cloth and a plate in the air crying': "And how many points did YOU get in Religion, huh?!?!?! Let's go pull out YOUR old bulletins and show those off!" My host dad's response: "Chuuuut. Go back in the kitchen."

***I would like to point out that this was a joke and that he was *not* being serious.***

Then he told me that he completely and totally flopped Religion and was going to have to retake his rhéto (flunking senior year) but he passed some test and was allowed to finish school.

They both seemed pretty proud of me, and I'm proud of myself. I've gone from being completely lost and confused to understanding everything around me and doing well on tests.

Happy St. Patty's Day everyone!

By the way.

dessus and dessous

are the two MOST CONFUSING WORDS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

Thank you.

Mrs. Linville was right.

There's nothing new under the sun.

I'm sitting at my desk, reflechiring (that's some Franglish for ya... reflechir + thinking = reflechiring) about how much I've changed since I've been here in Belgium. It's already been 7 months (where did all that time go?!). I know for a fact that I'm more confident than when I first arrived. I'm no longer uncomfortable asking for help when I need it. I can speak, understand, and write in a different language. I can navigate myself through buses and trains, and usually be on time. All of these things have helped me grow as a person and realize the beauty in myself and in others around me. During this year, I've also seen other exchange students change and grow. I've watched my Belgian friends mature and discover new things about the world (a few of them have even decided to embark on exchange themselves, including Amandine and Florian). Of course, there are still times when I feel down or unhappy here, and there are definitely days when I wish I could go back to my simple life in Colorado. But that's not what living is about.

I've learned that confidence can be shaky, and there are times when I think that it's all overrated -- exchange, being a teenager (if these are the "best years" of my life, I'd like a refund, thank you), eating vegetables... you know.

I've also learned something that I consider to be very important. It's okay to not want to be friends with someone. I know that in kindergarten, we learned that you have to share with everyone, and everyone is your friend. That's not true, plain and simple. And that's okay. I've met people here I don't need to be friends with in order to be happy. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Life is about being happy, yes? So why do we weigh ourselves down with relationships that will never take us anywhere? I don't necessarily have anything against any of the people I'm not friends with, and I'm not intending to bash them in any way. I'm just trying to explain that for me, personally (and you do NOT have to agree with this), being friends with tout le monde (everyone) just is not possible. And I don't want to have to alter who I am to be friends with someone. In my opinion, friendship is about complete honesty. I think it's important to say what you feel at all times, and friendship is a manifestation of that ability. I'm not saying that people should get away with being mean, I'm just saying that honesty really is the best policy.

Shout outs:

Talia Saville: Today is your birthday, ma belle. Enjoy it. I love you.

Toni Theisen: Thank you for teaching me subjunctive.

Emily Snell: For sharing skirts and random host family stories.

Hannah Mueller: For everything.

Ms. Cherek: For writing a letter of rec on super short notice -- you are the BEST!

Mr. Cain: For sending me scholarship apps so I don't forget, and for actually reading my blog.

Mrs. Linville: For teaching me that there's nothing new under the sun and for being the best English teacher I've ever had.

My mom: For filling out a billion and one forms, countless trips to school, and agonizing hours of trying to get Skype to work.

Ericson Morales: For the love of Goldfish, get your phone working again. Thank you.

Song of the Day:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TALIA!

It's 1:14 am.

And two minutes ago, someone rode a horse down the street. I could hear the clip-clopping of the hooves as they cantered past my window.

I miss riding horses.

Joyeux anniversaire Amandine !

Today is Amandine's 18th birthday. Last night, a group of us all met up in Hannut to celebrate the last few hours of her minority, and to celebrate the fact that as of 12:01 am this morning, she can now do the following:

buy a house

go to prison

get a tattoo

vote

and technically buy alcohol in this country

Pretty awesome, no?

On Thursday, I spent the day with Amandine. We took the train from our local station all the way up to Oostende, in the very northernmost tip of Belgium. Why? So I could see the sea (I usually say ocean, but my Belgian friends frequently correct me and tell me it's the sea not the ocean, gawwwwwsh). It may surprise many of you to know that I didn't see an ocean until I was almost 17 years old; The English Channel is the first body of salt water I ever set eyes on, and I saw it 2 weeks before my 17th birthday.

Anyway, we headed up to Oostende so that I could see (and touch!) the sea. We arrived in Oostende and immediately started taking pictures. We walked around a little bit, and headed toward the beach, which was all blocked off because of construction. We eventually found a portion of the beach that people were allowed to walk down on, so we marched on toward the water. Here's something awesome about the beach: IT'S WINDY. VERY windy. But SO beautiful! It was clean and pretty and there weren't nasty seagulls everywhere, like the public beaches back home. Amandine and I walked to the water's edge and I touched salt water for the first time in my life! It was awesome, albeit FREEZING.

After that, we walked around a bit more, bought waffles, visited souvenir shops, and saw a beautiful cathedral. Amandine told me it looks like Notre Dame in Paris, which is pretty cool. I can't wait to see the actual Notre Dame!

Not long after buying waffles, we hopped back on a train to go to Bruges, which is another city in the north of Belgium. I've been there once before with Rotary, remember? Amandine had never been there before, and I didn't take nearly enough pictures the first time I went, so we decided to add that to our adventure.

Bruges is a very, very beautiful city. It's known as the Venice of the North, as it has loads of canals and waterways, just like Venice. You can take horse-drawn carriage rides around the whole city, and there are loads of chocolate shops and lace stores as well. Belgian lace is truly extraordinary.

Amandine and I walked to the Grand Place and took pictures, per the usual, and just poked around a bit before deciding to go to the Chocolate Museum. Yes, that's right, a museum based on chocolate. We were both pretty excited to go, but since we're the two most directionally-challenged people on this planet, we ended up getting lost and wandering around in circles before finding the chocolate museum about an hour later. And it was about... 100 yards from where we started. But of course, we didn't know that until later.

Anywhooo, the Chocolate Museum. SO awesome. They have a whole section on the history of chocolate: how it was discovered by the Aztecs and Mayas, then Cortez brought it back to Spain when he conquered Mexico, how Belgian chocolate companies have developed and changed how chocolate is made. There was also a demonstration about how to make pralines, given in Dutch, French, and English. At the end, we all got to sample a praline. Goodness they are DELICIOUS.

After that, Amandine and I decided to head home, as it was cold and rainy looking, and the train ride is 2 hours. Of course, we got lost again and ended up walking around in another circle before finding our way back to the train station. We got home at about 8 pm, and her parents dropped me off at my house. I had a quick dinner and hopped off to bed, thus concluding my day of Belgian Adventures.

I hope you're all having a fabulous day!

Mikayla

PS

Pictures WILL be coming, I'm just having trouble uploading them right now because the internet is spazzing out.

Thank you.

That's all I really have to say for today. I'll write about my voyage to the sea tomorrow.

I want to thank you for everything you've done to support me while I've been on exchange, even if it's just reading this blog post. It really helps to know there are people out there who believe in me.

Song of the Day:

Sad news.

I hopped over the English Channel on Monday morning at a rather unfortunate hour (something gross like 6 am...), arrived at 7 am local time in Dover, and headed off toward Cambridge and Newmarket. The weather was AMAZING in England. Really. It was warm and SUNNY, and the air smelled like springtime, which was WONDERFUL. It's really a beautiful country, with rolling hills and tiny villages. Driving on the left side of the road is pretty fun too. :)

I know I promised pictures, but here's the thing....

I only got about 20 pictures the entire day, because we were in the car the WHOLE day. I'm not kidding. I got out three times: once to go into each of the John Deere stores we visited, and once to eat lunch and go to the bathroom. Seriously. No exploring, no visiting towns or interesting sights. So, all of my pictures were from inside the car, so they weren't that great.

Here's the other thing:

They all disappeared.

No, I'm not kidding. I uploaded all of my pictures just now, and they're mysteriously... not here. I checked my memory card, and they're not there, either. I must have accidentally deleted them. It's unfortunate, to be sure, but that's the way these things go, I guess. I wish I still had them, but at least I didn't lose a BUNCH of pictures, like the 150+ I took today in Bastogne. Ah well, life goes on. :)

So. I finally got home yesterday at about 5:30 pm. My host dad had a dinner of some sorts to go to, so he left, and my host mom and I had dinner, then I came up to my room and went to sleep. I'm lame, I know. I go to bed at about 8pm every night, but I'm TIRED people. It's exhausting to be an exchange student.

Today, I woke up at 8 am to catch a train at 9:22 so I could be in Liège to meet up with everyone else from Rotary and go to Bastogne, a city in southern Belgium. Christian, my Canadian buddy, and I sat together on the bus, which was quite pleasant. When we got to Bastogne, my favorite New Yorker, the fabulous Emily Snell was waiting for me, so I was STOKED about that. We started off having lunch (it was like 11:30 or something by that time) at some sort of petting zoo/farm thing in Bastogne. It was a pretty cool place: it's a petting zoo/farm as well as a home for people who are mentally handicapped. The residents take care of the animals and help out with general farm work, which I think is really cool. The land was very beautiful. While we were there, we saw goats, rabbits, llamas, chickens and sheep, including a lamb that was born this morning! One of the workers caught a lamb and we could pet and hold it as well, which was so cute!

Christian and a llama.

After that, we piled back in the bus and went to a museum about World War II. The guide is a member of Rotary, and he had Harry Potter glasses. SO awesome. The museum was WONDERFULLY done, and very interactive. There was a lot of information and a lot to see. There were little video screens everywhere, playing videos of people who had lived in the region during the war. They shared their memories, which were heartbreaking, more often than not. One woman told how her father had told them to go on ahead as the family was fleeing from the Germans; he would catch up with them later on his bike. He never came.

A letter written during the war. It was giving information about people selling on the black market, which was a booming business at the time.

After the museum, we went to the Mardasson Memorial, which is in honor of the Americans who fought and died in Belgium during the war. Over 70,000 American soldiers died there. Isn't that number mind-blowing? The monument is in the shape of the star, and it has every state engraved on it. You can climb up a spiral staircase to the top, and look down over the city of Bastogne, which was really cool.

Yours truly in front of the crypt. There's a memorial in there for Catholics, one for Protestants, and one for Jews. They're absolutely BEAUTIFUL mosaics.

Christian and I on top of the Mardasson Memorial.

After that, we climbed back into the bus and drove to a random building (that's not an exaggeration... none of us knew where we were) and where we were served pie, waffles, coffee, and soda by Rotary. They have a thing for giving us pie, seriously. There's almost always pie at Rotary events. I sat with Emily and Kryston (New York and Missouri), Christian (Canada), and Siddhant and Aditi (both from India). We had a very interesting conversation about geography. I learned that India has 28 states and that Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. Also, Aditi and Siddhant tried to name all 50 states. They got quite a few of them too, which was very impressive, I think. The first three they named? Washington, New York, and Ohio. Emily and I thought it was hilarious that Ohio was the third, out of all the states they had left to choose from...

Side note:

Some of you may know that one of my passions is education. I believe that the American education system is broken and needs to be completely reformatted. Schools should be palaces. Teachers should be paid like kings. Kids should wake up every day excited beyond all imagination because they get to go to school. Courses should be challenging. Graduation rates should be 99% across the country. All of these things are POSSIBLE. But as of right now, are any of them true? No, unfortunately. But I digress. The point of this was to explain a few differences between American schools and schools in other nations.

Did you know that in Canada, kids can (and DO) choose to take a 5th year of high school to bring up their grade average and thus give them a better chance to be accepted to college.

Siddhant and Aditi could name about 35 of the 50 American states. I couldn't name 5 cities in India. Nor did I know that India has states. I took World Geography sophomore year. I passed with an A. I took a full year of World History Sophomore year as well (1st semester Pre-AP, second semester regular). I earned an A in both of those.

Siddhant and Aditi are fluent in English, German and Marathi, as well as 2 or 3 other native tongues from India. They are here in Belgium, learning French. They are both 18 years old, and they speak 5 languages each, FLUENTLY.

At the end of this year, Siddhant is returning to India for 2 months, then moving to Germany, where he will study to be an engineer for FIVE years. He won't return home during that time. He will be going to university in GERMAN.

And to think, kids in America whine about having to take 2 credits of foreign language.

Just some food for thought.

Tomorrow, Amandine and I are going to Oostende, so I can touch the ocean. I've never touched an ocean before. Heck, I didn't even SEE the ocean until 2 weeks before my 17th birthday! I'm super excited. After that, we're going to take the train back down to Bruges and spend the day there. I'm excited! :)

Friday night, we're all meeting up in Hannut to celebrate Amandine's 18th birthday (WOO!). Then, Saturday, I'm hoping to go to Maastricht (in the Netherlands) with Christian. I love having a week off of school. :)

Biosus,

Mika

(that's what all my Belgian friends call me. I LOVE it.)

Surprise Vacation.

Hey all,

I just found out this morning, but it looks like I'll be spending tomorrow and part of Tuesday in the lovely land of England! My host parents have to head over there for work, and they decided to bring me along. I'm SO excited to head back! We won't be in London, but I'm still excited to see something new. We're leaving at 2 am tomorrow morning (yaaaaaaay) and we'll be coming back sometime on Tuesday. I'll be sure to post some pictures when I get back!

Bisous,

Mika

10 things I'm grateful for today.

1. Getting out of school at 10 am.

2. How I Met Your Mother.

3. Cheddar cheese.

4. "my grumps"

5. Olive oil.

6. Lozenges.

7. Amandine and Florian.

8. Buses

9. Being called Mika

10. Toes

Have a great weekend everybody.