Im still alive.

Its not that Ive gone missing or anything like that. When I was in training for this year an exchange students curve was explained to me.... at the begining everything is super exotic and exciting, then novemberish you start to get used to the new country and realize that a year is a really long time. then you get over it and realize that your really lucky to have such a cool experiance and simply live your life as a forigner. finally, you fall in love with your new version of life and are a total mess when Rotary makes you return to your home land. Im at the simply live your life stage. My name is Deanna and im an exchange student to belgium. its no longer a news flash or a banner that randomly streams across my brain and makes me gasp thinking about how remarkable this situation is. its simply a fact. I eat my breakfast of bread and nutella while drinking green tea, I go to my aerobics class on monday where the instructer yells things in french, i walk home from my private catholic school on days when it isnt raining. I make salads. I do laundry. i watch films with out subtitles, occasionally i take a train halfway across the country to visit a museum or something like that. its normal. everything that happens now-a-days is what happens to Deanna the exchange student. Sorry if i don't blog everytime I do something. Cuz at this point, im simply living. =P so certain cousins, aunts, and friends. CALM DOWN <3 im still here, im still making the most of it. and ill see yall soon =) love ya!!

MERRY CHRSTMAS part 3 of 4

So here is one example of why being an exchange student is so great. I got christmas presents on the 13th of December, the 25th of Decemer, the 24th of January, and when i return home i have more presents waiting for me :))) this is the explanation of the January 24th.... so my two host sisters studied straight thru christmas. since exams are finished the fetes commence!! we ate alot... and then we opened presents (chocolate, scarves, jewlery, and a wallet for me) i do love when christmas last more than the month between thanksgiving and christmas. and since the 6 cds of christmas music only just arrived last week i have been enjoying Relient Ks 12 days of christmas.... quick question.... anybody NOT know what a pear tree is??

Host Family #2

I moved to a really really really sweetly decorated house. Its african/asian/cool. Theres a real dead christmas tree. My room is spread over 3 floors: bathroom and closet on the second floor, desk and stuff on the third floor, ladder going up to my bed in the loft on the 4th floor. I love my room! And geuss how many pianos are in this place... not one, not two, not three or four or five or six, but SEVEN PIANOS!! no joke. and the house isnt remarkably huge or anything but wow! There is a dog named Peanuts. I have two older host sisters in college. So far all theyve done is study for exams but theyre over now so the studing can cease (!) I ride to school with the neighbor and his son. I come home either with them or one of my host parents will pick me up or I 'take the bus' (ive tried three times, ive yet to take the bus home after school) 2ish weeks ago i went with my english class to see The Importance of Being Earnest. and who do you think was sitting behind me?? JENNA!! my friend from home who is also in Belgium! crazy!

December in a Nutshell

Im the equivellent of a Senior here. Saint Nicholas came to my class and gave everybody animal crackers not in the shape of animals. But I'm not complaining. St Nick and Father Christmas are different people here. The first came the 13th-ish of December and gave me a new journal and a bunch of chocolate. The second never actually came. HUGE disappointment! We stayed up until midnight on christmas eve and opened all the presents we bought for each other... i thought come morning therd be a lil something more from santa considering theres a 9 year old in the house and we were still lying to him. but no. we slep in christmas morning then went to the grandparents house where we ate alllllll day. and since half the family are teachers... for our entertainment we played Jepordy in french. Needless to say I was more than useless. I did know the capitol of Cuba. Luckily my team mate was my host mom so we came in second out of 4 teams. For new years my host sisters went out but i stayed at the house. We dressed up and watched the eiffel tower light up on tv then listened to the king give the same speech 3 times, once in french, once in dutch, and once in german (the three official languages of Belgium). i called my parents and was like 'happy new year' and they were like 'its only 6' a lil bit twilighty zoneish. doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

Thanksgiving

so we had thanksgiving on Saturday. sorta. we ate turkey anyway. i think. it was like a turkey-stuffing loaf in the shape of a turkey anyway. and we had a fancy form of tatertots for potatos and a mushroom soup. it was very sweet tho. Ill definatly be missing Aunt Lynnettes house tomorrow. i called ohio for the first time on monday! mom answered the phone and she didnt recognize me so we had a casual conversation for the fist few secondes until she was like 'whos this' and i was like 'Deanna' and she went... NO IT ISNT! IS IT? aww! sweetie?.... too cute :) we talked for wayyy longer than we should have probably. but dad said hed take the international phone bill for one hour if its a problem. i figure tho, if i would have called for 5 minutes every week since ive been here it would be up to the same so i think im justifyed. im in a Junior acheivement mini entriprise and we had our big meeting with our share holders last night. my entriprise was looking pretty spiffy if i do say. guys wore black dress pants, white dress shirts and red ties. Girls wore black skirts, white shirts, and red ties, except for me cuz ya know, i for got to pack my tie collection when i was packing for an entire year in 2 suitcases. we all matched and new our parts (mine was to stand there and smile and not let people know im from a different country) ya know your not in america when students serve students champagne at a school event. wow.

PB and J is something everyone takes advantage of until they no longer have it.

Well, nothing is new. But family members are getting a lil bit angry because I never post anything... but theres nothing to post. I've gained weight. I drink more OJ than is good for my teeth apparently but I despise milk. I love getting mail :D its the highlight of my week even if its just my grandma informing me that her flowers died. <3 Im saving tons of stuff to scrapbook. Ive mentally filled about 5 books already. Im journaling more than I can believe... One book per month. So if your thinking to yourself right now i want to give Deanna a present.... mail me blank journals,(get the address from my mom or Gram) or start a stash of amazing scrapbooking stuff for me in July (i exahusted my supply for my SMB) Thats all. Miss everyone!

Just an Update...

Well, nothing has really changed all that much since my last post. :) Im still in Belgium and still loving it. I went Kyacking on Saturday. the Country side was beautiful. Eventually Ill put some pictures on facebook. School is going good. Nothing new there. Im now going to greece over spring break... thatl be good fun. Oh ya... the other night we were eating chicken nuggets and I was dipping them in what I though was like a whippedcream jello dessert... no. It was fish eggs. So I geuss I like dipping my chicken nuggets in fish eggs. Thats about it.