Entry Three

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Well, it has been a month since i've written a blog entry and that is quite surprising. Days are going by so fast! I can't believe I have already been here for a month!

Here is a recap of the past few weeks:

My second week in Holland I spent at Dutch Orientation Course (DOC) in Boxtel where I met 20 other exchange students from USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Taiwan. During this week we had lessons on the Dutch language, and also had plenty of time to bond. We went to a dutch carnival (kermis), Den Bosch, museums, and even visited the Boxtel Rotary club. My roommate during the DOC week was Jillian and by the end, we were crying because we didn't want to leave eachother. Our host family (Marc, Els, Tom, and Imke) treated us like family and because of that I think the overall experience was phenomenal. The next student weekend is in Zeeland from the 21-23 September and I am really excited!

After DOC I moved in the my first host family, the de Jong's. They have three younger children: Meike (14), Pieter (11), and Olivier (9). Meike goes to my school (Montessori College) and is in HVO 3 while I am in HVO 4. They treat me like another member of the family and enjoy having an older sibling in the house. Marieke and Kees (my host parents) also seem to enjoy having an older child around. I am very happy with this family and I have high hopes that these next three months will be fantastic.

My first week of school was very intimidating. I was really nervous my first day because I wasn't sure what people were going to think about me, but I quickly made friends. I am very interesting to the people in my school because I'm foreign (I was told that was going to happen but I didn't believe I was going to be that interesting to them) and so far, they seem to like me a lot! I make friends everyday but it is still a day to day challenge because of the language barrier. My classes are all in Dutch (Nederlands) so my they are a little bit boring. My friends translate for me every once in a while so I'm not completely lost, but I do not have any textbooks currently (they will also be in dutch) so i am slowly falling behind. My teachers understand that I do not know the language and do not expect too highly of me which, so far, is a good thing. My friends all speak English to me but it makes it harder for me to learn so i generally ask them to say things to me in dutch as much as possible.

I also had my first meeting with the Leeuwarden Rotary club, and I think they enjoy having me as their exchange student. I attend meetings every Monday evening and they seem to be quite glad that I am so determined to be an active member of their club.

Overall, my past few weeks have been full of many adventures and while the homesickness does creep up on me sometimes, I don't let it bring me down.

If you want to see pictures just go to my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rejection).

Until my next blog entry, stay excellent!!

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