Hello to everyone reading this,
Sorry for the lack of a post in the last month, but I've had what seems like nothing that is way out of the ordinary. But I find that to be a good thing now, because it means life is becoming normal here, as if I were not on vacation, just living life here and making all that I can of it.
Running takes up a lot of my time right now, I have either five or six days a week depending on whether or not I have a race or not. It isn't quite as intense of training as I plan to have when I get back to the U.S. but it's really fun and with great people. Many days here are spent on the Track, which I'm not used to as a cross country runner, but it allows for diverse training schedules, and that for me includes shot put right now, cause why not? That's one of the things that never seems to happen in America, where you're put into categories, and don't ever deviate away from that. It's also nice here to have practice in the forest consistently. The races here are also very different here with small regional competitions and also national competitions that replace our early season invitationals and late season geographically structured meets that range from Conference to Nationals.
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| Current top 5 after 4 races for Junioren B |
So far, all of my classes are going really well! My favorite days tend to be Thursdays and Fridays, not only because they are the shortest school days and they lead to the weekend, but also I have gym class which is one of the best classes no matter if I'm in the U.S. or here in the Netherlands. Today for instance, we had kickboxing which was super cool and allowed for a welcome change to the volleyball we had been playing off and on for a month. Also something that I've done for the first time in gym class was trampoline jumping which was also fun. Some of the classes here are frustrating for me, usually because I understand many of the words but a lot of the times, not the big points that are made and tests are also very hard with many of them containing large reading sections that make up the biggest part of the points given. While these classes are often frustrating, all of the people here make them worth it, and the lessons are helping me learn Dutch faster than I could without them.
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| Some of the best, most interesting people ever |
We had the first language test of the year with all of the exchange students in Amersfoort which went really well I think, the speaking felt really natural and the reading was also good, the only difficulty for me and actually most of the other exchange students was the writing, but that will improve when I begin writing a lot more for school. It was great to see how much everyone improved their Dutch over the past three months, some of us arrived speaking no Dutch, and others with also very little, but most of us now can communicate with each other through Dutch and not English as it began. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay too long after the test because I had a race the next morning, but as always when we all hangout- it was a good time.
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| The Cold Evening in Amersfoort |
Thankfully the homesickness that most exchange students have hasn't kicked yet for me. I mean, yes I miss all of the people back home. But it just seems like a silly thing to worry about when am in a wonderful place that I can only stay for a year. After this year I must return, so why fret away this amazing year with worries of the what's to come. But with that said, I do miss everyone and even some silly things like Taco Bell and Smash Burger and dad's barbecues.
Like I said, there weren't too many specific events that stuck out, but if you have and questions about what's going on while I'm here, you can leave comments, and I'll happily answer them.
Til next time, I miss all of you and enjoy winter!
-August-
