schoool

 So , school here .... it not at all the same as back home.
       It's pretty much another world . I was warned by a friend that the day you first walk into school everyone will not flock around you and oogle because you're a foreigner , this is true. No one gives a crap but that's fine its a big school ( bigger than salem but not huge) and I'm sure rotary isn't really a big deal . But you don't have lockers you carry everything you need in a backpack or purse .Classes are fifty minutes long , yes those eight extra minutes are torture , and sometimes you have a double block . On the bright side you do get an hour off for lunch , where everyone is allowed to leave campus or stay to consume their bread products. I love bread don't get me wrong but i don't think that they have a lane bryant around here for me to buy the plus sized clothes I'll need shortly.
    The school is split up into separate buildings and they're currently constructing more so some of my classes are in a slightly more glamorous trailer . I'm lucky that i essentially have the same classes as my host brother or else I'd probably just curl up in a ball somewhere and hum the national anthem till the world made sense again. Luckily all my classes are with the same group of people too  . The school day varies depending on the day , monday's i only have three classes and I finish up before lunch but other days I'll be there until 4 YAYY... And every trimester your schedule changes so just when you get used to the routine they change it up on you ... but the worst part is that there are NO clocks in the school so i find myself glancing over my shoulder only to find a blank wall and odd glances from other students. It's a damn good thing I bought a watch. What really makes me feel all out of whack with all this , besides all of it being in french is that there is no supplement to school , no sports , no music , no theater, just school .. But I signed up for this so I better buck up and deal. I had my first gym class today and there's this fitness test that we have to train for that will be given in October or November and girls have to run 8 km and boys have to run 10 . So it's like 5 miles , which is doable for me but not when i have a carb based diet ... but seriously it's not hard to feel athletic here if you're a girl . The sport culture here for women is ..verysmalllll , if you play sports you probably play badminton or something. I tell people i play soccer and the usual response is " ohhh" because soccer for women here is NONEXSISTANT . *ladies, if you want to go somewhere to play soccer stay in america* . Anyway in gym today we had to run for 30 minutes around this little park by the school and   I'm not trying to brag but I'm pretty sure i ran the farthest , I was on my 13th lap when we stopped and my class was huge , i would say 25+ kids.
   As of right now none of the teachers have assigned home work but I was told that it should start next week. Not that it matters because I can play the " I don't get it " card . I'm a free student here anyway I opted out of science for a remedial language class either German or Dutch (* hopefully not dutch) . The biggest mistake I've made so far was signing up for Spanish , the equivilent of 12th grade Spanish .I felt so stupid , an american that doesn't speak french well in a spanish class learning spanish in french.... yeah so I wont be making a second appearance there . I get so jealous of how people are easily bi lingual here but then i realize that usually  if they are bi lingual English is not one of their languages , and i know english and english is important more important than german, so secretly ... i win. I'm actually in an english class and it's brain melting , that is the only appropriate adjective i can think of . They move so slowly they did one page of work in 2 hours . That's the problem here , Belgium has three official languages and english isn't one of them so they don't emphasize it as much . I could have dropped English and taken another class but i've decided to stay in it to help the few that want to learn it , because the teacher is really sketchy and also it gives me free time to write letters . On the plus side being a senior or 6ieme means hella trips ya'll , they're planning trips everywhere , my religion class is going to Andalusia  , my Art History class to Rome , the English class to London and so on ;). I'm trying to think of what I'm forgetting but it isn't coming to me so I'll just leave it at that .
  just kidding i remember now ,they don't use computers here or calculators it's old school . I'm completely dependent on my calculator unfortunately . but seriously when 2012 comes and wipes out everything no biggie at Big ol' Saint Union these bad asses will just whip out their abacus' and go to town.
   On a completely unrelated note I went for a run yesterday and came back completely covered in hives yay..... after much discussion and a trip to the doctors the tentative consensus is that i'm allergic to plums or whatever type of plum that they buy here. COOOOOOOOOL