horray for the sun!
Mood:  a-ok
It is sunny today! ouiah!!!!! I got out of school at noon time because on Thursdays I have no classes in the afternoon. Usually I walk home, and today was an great day to do that,considering the exceptionally good weather, but for I don't know what reason (maybe it was becase I just happened to be passing the bus stop when the bus just happened to be coming by) I hopped on the bus, only to find out much to late that I took the wrong bus. bus 67 and 68 pass by my house... not 69 ...and I was on bus 69. By the time I got off, it was too late and I was hopelessly lost. Crap. I had to get lost on my beautiful afternoon off from school. I walked and walked and ran and walked some more and never thought I was going to get home. Finally I stopped and asked a woman if she knew where Bellaire was. She tried explaining it to me, but must have heard my really strong american accent because she opted to drive me their instead. (!!!!) wow that was so nice because I was a loooooong way from home.

Adriana had religion class directly after lunch, so she couldn't leave with me, but instead came to my house afterwards. We chilled here for 2 hours with mr. Zi zi Coin coin since it was too late for us to go into town, then I walked back to the school with her because she had French4 and had to make a presentation.

She tried making her presentation in her last French class, yesterday or two days ago but the teacher told her to redo it. She had made a speach earlier this month for French class too (and that was what started this whole thing off) and when the teacher graded it, he gave her a 45. a 45!? His explanation was because she had to ask people to correct it. Um... yeah, did he expect that she would write a first draft and have it be absolutely perfect?! People who speak french as their first language can't even do that, so why in He!! is he expecting that from her? She decided that if he wanted a presentation without faults then she would talk in Portuguese because then no one could correct her. So she stood up infront of the entire class and started her presentation. Portuguese is very similar to French and at first the teacher (and all the students, I think) thought she was talking in French, but no one could understand her. After 10 minutes, Pierre finally realized that it wasn't in French and that she would have made her whole thing in Portuguese if someone didnt stop her. "Adriana... in French"

She stopped... "But no, I made a presentation earlier and you took 65 points off because I had to have someone correct it, so I decided that if you wanted a flawless performance, then it would have to be in Portuguese."

The teacher was BEAT RED!! "But I didn't take points off for that.."

*Adriana shows him her paper*

..."Oh, I see" ... (still completely red) "well I will look this over and in the mean time, I would have liked you to come and talk to me privately about this"

But that teacher... and all the teachers at INDJ are the same, never had time to talk to her every time she asked, he was busy; She even asked the English teacher to try and see if she could go to the teachers meeting but Mm. Bemeur forgot to hand in the paper...

And after 8 months of being here and having the teachers make shit with our lives... we are getting tired. They do not read the tests we hand in (no... they would much rather make fun of our French before they actually gave it a grade) then do nothing to support us or make this any better. Their minds are like this ---> . <--- They only see one way of doing things. The students are not much different; And I am just sick and tired of it. J'EN AI MARREE!! I am going to request that this school does not accept any more exchange students.

And I know, as sure as I'm standing here, that next year will be the same as this one, different person, same senario. But all the students will say "oh, those exchange students last year, they didn't want to learn french, they just wanted to come to act stupid, and skip class." ..."They didn't ever study and got really bad points..." ..."All they cared about was traveling... not school" SO WHAT!? I study french. I can speak french!!!! Wasting my time stressing over Math and Science homework isn't how I want to spend the one year that I am in Europe. They live here. Their Easter vacations consisted of skiing in France, or Switzerland, or visiting Paris, Amsterdam, Germany, Spain, Italy. This is normal to them. They have their entire lives to see it. I don't.

I... live... in... MAINE. What don't they understand?! I can't just come back on holiday on a skiing trip in France. I will, thinking practically, never return here the rest of my life. I don't want this short time to be wasted (and i say this with such contempt) on unsupportable homework for unsupportable teachers in unsupportable classes.

Yesterday the science teacher passed back the tests that we took the class before. There was a big red x through the only question that I answered (because for the first time ever, I thought that I actually knew the correct response) and at the bottom (because I didn't know the other answers, I drew for the remainder of class) I had drawn a sheep, then a cow, then a pig, then a human. I titled it "Darwinism" lol, cute huh? He put 3 big red arrows through my drawing and wrote a little comment (in french) 'is this the the only word you know in French?'

...excuse me?

That was it. I was done. I left school right then and there, returning home at what already would have been a half day; making it a quarter day for me.

And for his information, 'Darwinism' is a word in English also.

But I am 'a-ok' Wednesday afternoon I went into Liege with Adriana when she was finished, and we went shopping (which always makes me feel better) and I saw the cutest pants and vest at H&M that I need to go back and buy. ...neeeeeed.

And let me just repeat it one more time:
ITS SUNNY TODAY!!!! 8) When Adriana came over we took some photos outside and I will add those to my April Album right now while I'm thinking about it.

-ciao
bisous a tout le monde!

Math Class
Mood:  cheeky
My productive 2 hour math class:

^Adriana's contribution

The truth is, my blog is doing unruley things
Mood:  irritated
This poop bucket has a mind of its own! And I think Lori's does too because she posted the exact same entry twice... now why would an intelligent, logical person, do something like that?

http://lilredd-headedgurrl.tripod.com

The answer is, it wasn't her fault. It is Tripod.com!! Its rebelling!

my latest entries turn out with the wrong date attached and after every post I have to go back and correct it.

But I've got nothing against Tripod. (I love you, tripod <3) :) I'm just writing a disclaimer to everyone who reads this (just Lori, apparently) :p that ... well... for the time being, if the date looks screwy, its because it probably is.

moving on...

Absolutely nothing has changed since I wrote yesterday!! Incredible, huh!?

"I try to take it one day at a time, but sometimes, several days attack me at once" -Jenniver Yane

I'm home from school today because I feel rather on the down side (and it gives me time to read 'Da Vinci Code' that I'm borrowing from Adriana) I'M ALMOST ON CHAPTER 4!!! (The chapters being about 2 pages long on average :p) Has anyone in the states read that book yet? It is alllll the rage here in Europe. Every family I've been to, has a copy of that book. And I'm reading the illustraed version (in French) which makes it a lot easier to understand. I debating whether or not buying a copy of it for myself before I go home, but its 30 Euros for the illustrated version. :/

Yup, that pretty much sums it up.

Bold... and ... Pumpkin...
Mood:  chillin'
This will probably be a short entry because I'm on the computer in the "mediatheque" or ... library if you will, and I only have an hour or so to write. This doesn't pose a problem for me because I don'thave very much to say. :)

I was re reading my last entry (it seems to me that I am the only one who reads these things any more) and I realized that I never gave an explanation for the title of my last entry. "Seven months in Belgium and you are becoming American." It was because (as if it really needs an explanation... If I'm the only person who reads this...then I already know the meaning behind it...) Adriana used to be very... correct. Very mature. This is right and that is wrong. If someone was angry with her than it was because they had a very good reason to be and she should probably be the one saying sorry... always the rational thinker.

well... then she met me.

:p (!!!) Now she is crazy irrational thinker who does what she wants. Pats the dogs and then eats dinner without washign her hands... a real rebel, I know. :p (!!) One day she had a pink shirt on and she thought to herself, "I should change piercings with tracy, that way it will match my shirt. ... omg ...eww... why did I just think that. That was a dirty american thought!" She thinks of me as a dirty american but now... sorry, she is the same as me!! :D

salle americaine!!


Last night I called Jodi for the first time in forever. we talked for about an hour which is going to kill my host families phone bill (desole) That was a deserved phone call... very reassuring. Dustin is planning on meeting me at the airport the 2nd when I come home and I do plan on partying with them on the 4th(I MISS MY GARDNER FAMILY!!)


I got an email from my sister this morning. It was titled: 'bold pumpkin.'

bold pumpkin?

The first sentence started out: "if i were going to make a new language those would both be swear
words. wow...tahts bold like that sthe shit. bolden right. pumpkin you! yah i got it all worked out."

hahahahahahah YES!


I wish Lourenco would get online. I havn't talked to him in so long... And it was always so nice to talk to him, he always made me feel better when I was sad. ooOOOOooo and i added two new photos of him to my April Album!! ;)


My hour is up.

-ciao

After 7 months in Belgium, you are becoming American
Mood:  a-ok
As requested in Adriana's reply to my last entry, I have to tell the story about the crazy gym teacher. She took us running all over Jupille, through the woods and such, and running and just not ever stopping. Adriana was dead tired and so Julie (a belge) and i stopped and walked with her. The prof. just took off with the rest of the class and when the 3of us came to a crossroads we just chose the closest to us, hoping it would be the right one. (Thanks to Julie, because if it were me, and my truely wonderful instincts, I would have taken a different route, and Adriana... even another.) And come to find out, skipping class wasn't so bad (mechante) because Adriana tells me that the teachers don't even look for me to see if im in class any more. It is april, and my year here finishes in a month or so, so it doesn't make much sense for them to try and hold onto me any more.

Ok now for what I have been up to the rest of this week. Last time I wrote was... Tuesday. I was a good girl and stayed in school the whole half day on wednesday then went into town to meet Vanessa Dannemark. She is a girl who studies in Verviers and in her English class, the teacher assigned them an email address of a person whose native language is English and they have to meet this person at least once and write a report about it. That was fun fun fun! We talked for a couple of hours over waffles. Her english is really good but because their teacher I guess is a quack, it has really turned her off to learning english. dommage. After my rendez-vous with Vanessa I headed to the carre but short story there, no hot guys (Or i should say no hot straight guys, so i headed out) leaving my long gray fuzzy scarf behind. That was terrible. I had to call I don't even know how many people before finding someone to retrieve it for me (merci beaucoup, Finnagin!) :)

Thursday I skipped the whole part of school after lunch because I have 3 hours of study hall and then English. Adriana and I walked to my house where we downloaded my photos and chilled. she had to go back home around 16h30 so her family would think she was in school (shh) lol. Thursday was a good day. The weather was nice. I think I got a lot accomplished. My host grandmother came from Tuesday evening until Friday night because my host dad left for DC and because my host mom works, someone needed to be there for when the children got home and such. So thursday afternoon she was there and she met Adriana.

In the mornings my host parents take all the kids to school. Usually it is my host dad but because he was in DC, my host mom took us. She doesn't work on Friday so we didn't have to leave a half hour early, as we do when Bernard takes us. So 5 minutes before school was about to begin we were all in the car on the way to school and my host mom randomly asks if we want to see the bunnies before school?

yeah!

My little host sister said "yeah, after school, right?"
host mom- oh! school is about to begin! ohwell thats not important.

So we take a side road that gets really bad in places, and is all muddy (things beginning to look like maine scenery) and driving really slowly we passed by all these wild rabbits that were in the fields and on the side of the road!! it was toooo cute!


Normally I would have gone to the American party in Charleroi that was on Friday night but it wasn't very well planned out on my part and friday afternoon I ditched the idea and went to Serena's house afterschool. (a belge) (MY ANGEL!! ;) ) My host dad got home from DC on Friday night and brought everyone presents. I got a cup that says "somone who loves me went to Washington DC and bought me this cup" awwwwww my host family loves me!!!! :D

Speaking of Washington DC. Tomorrow morning my mom (the one in maine) and Laurie fauquenoit are going to Washington DC to see my uncles who live in an appartement overlooking the whitehouse. sweeeet. I've never even been to DC!! Ths is really the best time to go also because the cherry blossoms are out. soo prtty (ive been told.)

Adriana came over Friday night and we worked on scrapbooking some photos. Mad fun, I know. Doesn't really compare to American party in Charleroi but ho well, that would have stressed my new host family and I don't want problems after only being here one week.

Its almost 11 and I'm not planning on skipping school tomorrow, so I better hit the sacks.
-ciao