My 3 Week Update

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while and I figured I'd just give you a quick update on what's been going on :] (plus I realized that as of today I've been here for 3 weeks!)

So, last week I was lucky enough to get a visit from Justine and Christope :) It was so great to see them! They came here and then we ended up going to Charleroi because there's nothing to do here (remind you of anywhere else? Ehm, Portola). Anyways we just got some Belgian fries, milkshakes, and window shopped a little. But it was a really nice break:)

Then on Saturday I helped the family get everything ready to send off to get their apples made into apple juice. First I helped Thomas wash about a hundred bottles, it took days! Then I helped pick apples, but it was okay, this time the horses weren't there :) Some of the apples we picked were enormous! And they had a very interesting way of picking them, they would "lasso" the tree and then shake the branches, it was literally raining apples.

So after that, I went with the whole family to Isabelle's best friend's birthday party, she was turning eighteen. And, wow. It was such a huge deal! She rented a small castle (no joke) and had about fifty people there. There was a DJ and a bartender and rows of tables all decorated in matching blue, honestly it looked like a wedding reception! And that's not all, there was a "dress code" I had to wear a dress and heels! But the weirdest thing, for me anyways, was that there were kids even younger than me drinking beer and wine right alongside their parents! It's just so odd I kept feeling like cops were gonna bust in and start handing out MIC's! The next day I went with Mano to another sort of "coming of age" party and this one reminded me of something Mom would put together. It was just in the backyard with a few tables set up, they had drinks out and some snacks, but the thing that just seemed so like something Mom would do was all the games! Yes, there were games set up all around and various people "working" them and the deal was that you could play a game and depending on how you did you got a certain number of beans, and I think you could "purchase" prizes with them since there was a table covered in little goodies, though I'm not sure. Now try and tell me that's something Mom wouldn't do haha.

And now, about school. It's pretty laid back, which is awesome, and now that I have attended three whole days I understand more what is going on. So this is kinda how it goes, I get up at 7 (oh so much better than 6 last year :)) and walk to a nearby bus stop at 8 where a friend of Mano's who works at the school picks me up so I don't actually have to take the bus. Then at school all the students just hang out in the "courtyard" until the bell rings at 8:25, but we don't go to class then we have to get into lines where the number of our class is painted on the blacktop (this kind of reminds me of CRC) then our various teachers come and get us to take us to class. The reason we can't just go to class is because the teachers move rooms, so it's not like you go to "Martinez's room" or something. Anyways then we have whatever class is first for about two hours! I'm not exactly sure on all the times, I just follow everyone else haha. Then we go back out into the courtyard for a sort of "nutrition break" which is like ten minutes, then it's the same drill for class number two, then lunch, then the same thing. It's pretty simple and the other kids in my clas have been helping me out. For example, since I have a "science focus" along with two boys from my class (yes there's just three of us) when we had chemistry or biology they came up to me and told me that now I had to go with them instead of the other people in our class, very considerate :)

Now very quickly a few thoughts on math. I had my first math class today and, dun dun dun, it went extremely well! We just did a review of what makes a function and it's inverse so it was something that I already knew and even though it was explained in French I still understood :) And I know that this makes me a huge math nerd but I was sitting there looking at my notes, and I realized how much I like math, I even liked the way my notes looked! With all the different symbols (plus the French I copied from the board was cool) and organization, it was exactly my "cup of tea." And I sat there feeling super happy and then I remembered that one poster in Womack's room -'Math lights my fire' and I suddenly realized that it applied to me and I had to laugh. I did have my doubts about studying math and physics in college but after today's experience I'm feeling a lot more sure that that is what I want to do.