New Friends

At some point in this past week, Rotary of Rancagua finally decided to put its foot down with the house changing situation. They decided that everyone has to change houses immediately, so in Chilean that pretty much means we should be changing houses in about a little more than two weeks hahaha. There is SO much drama here with the house changes that it's almost comical how ridiculous things are. The grown-ups are fighting like children and the children are being moved around like inanimate objects, but I'm not actually upset this time. I took a vow to be happy through the hardest parts of this exchange and I will honor that. I'm not going to get worried because I still have four months left here, I know I will be a good daughter to whichever family receives me, and because I have already gotten through so much. When I get back and am asked to explain all the crazy things that happened in my exchange, nobody is going to understand me. Most exchanges are like movies with climaxes and resolutions while mine is more like my mom's Chilean soap operas where there always seem to be problems but I always seem to be fine anyway hahaha.

This Wednesday at school we had a group activity day where we all went through a process of thinking about what we want to do with our futures. It was interesting and I got to learn a lot about our classmates. I even had to speak in front of everyone at one point and I was super embarrassed about it, but when I was done everyone laughed and applauded for me and I felt happy and supported. We got into little groups and made posters for the kids who will do the activity next year. 

The other girl laying down on the floor next to me is named Paula, and I think she is one of the biggest reasons I am happy at my new school. This girl LOVES to laugh and I swear nothing embarrases her. Whether she is singing in class or dancing in the hallways, you can always spot her and just know she is having a great time. On my first week of school she sent me a message in Facebook and we began talking and since then we have become pretty good friends. She introduced me of her group of friends and they are all lovely girls and have recieved me so well. Paula knows I want to perfect my Spanish by the time I go home so she even set up a weird little Spanish program with little things I have to do everyday (like talk to a new person at school every day.) She likes to be happy and I know Juliana would love her and that's how I know we will be great friends hahaha. 

This weekend my parents told me that I would be switching families with Alex. Alex has had some troubles with her family, but she loves them a lot and I know that I will too. I also am sure my family will be very happy to have Alex in their home! I have met her family before, but I don't really know them that well and I wanted to get to know them better and see how Alex lives in their house. I went over and spent the night on Friday and was so pleasantly surprised! Alex's little sister, Monse (9) is absolutely and adorably sweet and is excited as I am to have a big sister. The mom, Nancy, is very different from Lilian but still am extremely kind person. While I was with them we went over to celebrate their cousins birthday party. Alex and I set up a nail painting booth as a birthday present and I even ended up painting my new host grandmas nails! Hahahha after that Nancy painted my nails and every time I see them I crack up laughing. 

I know I will be happy in this family. It is going to be weird at first (adjusting and all that) but I am excited to get to know how another family lives in Chile! That's all for nowwww! Bye. :)

Track Practices and More Sushi

This week I completed my second week at Colegio Quimahue, and I have to say it went pretty well! I definitely have friends at my new school and I really feel like with time I will feel close to them. I don't know if it's even possible to make friends like the ones I made at Coya, but I am certainly going to try! 

On Tuesday I went over to Katie Hagemeier's house after school. We ate lunch and then went on a nice long run afterwards! It felt so nice to have someone to run with, and afterwards we jumped into her pool and then did some yoga. We had such a great time that we think we are going to turn it into a weekly thing! 

On Thursday a girl from my class invited me to go running with her. She found out I liked to run and told me she liked it too, but she forgot to mention that she has been training for marathons and is an absolutely amazing runner. We met up and rode our bikes to the track together.  I explained to her that I am a sprinter who runs distance for a hobby, so she told me we would run slowly. I guess that slowly meant running 5k in under twenty minutes. I was so surprised I could keep up with her! After that we did some exercises with a track group for a little bit. It was fun. :)

On Friday I met up with my friends from Colegio Coya to eat sushi. It was so nice to see them for the first time in weeks! We caught up and laughed a lot and it felt sooooo good to be around these people I love so much. Being with my friends from Coya made me realize how much more comfortable I am with them than I am with people at my new school. It's not like I am uncomfortable with my new friends, I just felt so much more at home with my old friends. Noticing that feeling made me want to get to know my new friends better so I could feel at home with them as well!

This week Eduardo got back from his two month long military camp thing so we went to the movies. It was fun! I'm glad he is back because I want to be able to hang out with him while I am still in Chile. He has to wear his uniform everywhere now and I like to bother him about it hahahah

That's about all that has happened this week! Last night we skyped Fran for a long time and it was so nice to talk to her again! I miss living with my Chilean sister. She is so funny and always has such great stories to tell. 

As I write I am at Louis house watching a movie and he is mad because he wants me to stop blogging. 

Hahahaha that's all! Byeeee. :)

First Week at Quimahue

So as you guys read in my last blog, my first day at my new school was a little iffy. I, however, am delighted to report that as the week went on, things just got better and better. For one thing, my school hours are about half of what they were at Colegio Coya. The latest I get out is 1:55, and on Thursdays school starts at 9:30am! My schedule isn't the only thing I like at Quimahue, though. My classmates are very friendly people and I can't wait to get to know them all better. I might have sugarcoated my first day of school in my last blog post, because in reality, not very many people talked to me on my first day of school and I was devastated. But on my second day of school, people began to come up and make conversation with me, and on my third day, a few girls explained to me that they had really wanted to come talk to me on my first day but they were intimidated because they weren't accustomed to receiving exchange students. You might be wondering why I don't just walk up to people and start talking. The thing is, if I were in a country where I could speak English, I would! But when you start a conversation with someone, you are sort of responsible for where the conversation goes, and I am not THAT comfortable with my Spanish yet, or at least not when I am at school trying to make friends. The best I could do was try to look approachable, and I think that really ended up working out for me! I had a very fun week and the teachers at Quimahue are amazing. Also, I am beggining to understand some of the tests and I actually completed a few philosophy and Spanish class worksheets with some help from my classmates! This school is also cool because in PE, the teacher makes us work hard! She makes us run and do sit-ups and I like it hahahha. 

On Friday, some seniors invited me to a pool party thing after school. They were super sweet about it and even scheduled transportation for me so I wouldn't have to worry about anything. I had such a good time with my new friends! I still don't know all of their names, but I still had a great time talking and laughing with them. Apparently I had a ton of beginners luck with being new and everything, because they taught me two new card games and I won both of them! After that, some of the boys invited me to play fooze ball with them and I was shy about participating because I didn't think I would be very good at it. I had no idea what I was doing, but I ended up scoring like 7 goals which made them think I am cool! I felt so accepted and happy. We all took a bunch of pictures together after that hahahah. 

After that long week I was feeling super tired, but when I got home I was in for another surprise! Louis called me on Skype and I got to see all my beautiful exchange friends! They are all on the North Trip, and Louis let everyone pass his phone around so they could say hi to me. It was so sweet. I miss all the exchangers so much and I'm bummed I couldn't go to the Atacama with them, but it was nice to at least be able to say hi. They all told me they loved me and missed me and wished I was there with them. At least I will be able to see them one last time in the Easter Island trip! 

Saturday morning I really wanted to sleep in after a week of waking up early every day. Hahahha but then stupid Nicolo called me at 8am. He didn't just call me once, he called me four times until I finally answered. He called me to tell me that he was tired and that he didn't know why he was calling me, but we had a nice morning Skype anyways I guess. Later that day I went over to his house and got to meet his twin brother in Skype, which was cool! They look and sound exactly the same hahah. After that we went to the movies where we ate WAYYYY too much popcorn. We felt so sick afterwards. It was bad. Hahahha when we were walking out of the movies popcorn was literally falling out of his shorts and neither of us really understands how it got there. 

Saturday was also Dia de la Mujer, or Women's Day. I wrote my host mom a little card and hid it under a pillow on her bed where she found it while I was out with Nicolo. When I got home she told me that I had absolutely made her day, and then gave me a present of my own. She gave me a super soft little blanket which colors that she said reminded her of me. She said it was small enough to take home on he plane, and that it would help me remember her. (HAH, as if I could ever forget such a wonderful person anyways.)

Soooo that's about all the exciting things that happened this week! I mean, I probably forgot a lot of things but that's it for the most part. Oh wait, did I forget to mention that my host club dropped their young exchange program? Yeah. Apparently my old counselor isn't my counselor anymore and now every exchange student in my city (there are like 10 of us) now have the same counselor. Of nothing ever got done before, I don't know how anything is going to get done now. Hahahha oh well. I have honestly lost all hope for the Rotary in Rancagua, but I still love living here and am grateful they have given me the chance to come here. 

I can't wait to go to school tomorrow! Bye! 

The New Girl

I have always liked being the new girl. I like going places where people don't know me even though it scares me a little bit. Of course being on exchange makes me the new girl wherever I go, but I have been here so long I stopped looking at it like that. 

Today I went to my first day of school at Colegio Quimahue. As I walked through the hallways behind the principal, my entire body was shaking and I wasn't really sure what facial expression I should make. I put on a little smile to try and hide my anxiety, and when I made eye contact with people I stretched the smile a little bigger. I was about 49% sure I looked normal, but that was a high enough percentage for me. I honestly think that all together I had a good first day. I met a ton of people and they were welcoming and so friendly. The teachers were awesome and made me feel very welcome and comfortable as well, and speaking Spanish helped me a lot with actually being able to communicate with people like I couldn't my first day at Coya. But that was my problem: I kept comparing everything to Coya. I got a lot of attention today at my new school, and I felt like I was meeting cool people, but I just missed my friends. I didn't realize how comfortable I had felt in Coya and I missed it. It was so weird and I didn't know what to think. 

When I got home from school, I could finally think. I went on a run and began the process of clearing my head. Only then did I remember my first day of school at Coya. My first day at Coya I was shaking all over every time someone said hello to me and I felt overwhelmed and out of place. My problem was that I spent the day comparing my first day of school at Quimahue to my last day of school at Coya, and that just isn't fair. I made friends quickly in Coya, and I will at this school too. I just have to have the open mind I did when beginning my studies at Coya. I know I will end up falling in love with his school, I just have to give it a little time. 

Tonight I recieved so many messages from my friends from Coya asking me about my first day of school and even more messages from kids from Quimahue telling me they can't wait to get to know me. I am excited to actually know people's names and become an active part of their lives! It's going to be a good semester and I am going to be the best exchange student I can be, that, at least, I can promise you all. 

Awkward "this is my uniform" picture. :)

First Day Eve

So at this moment I should probably be trying to fall asleep. Tomorrow I have to wake up early because ITS MY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! It's almost 11pm, and I know I wouldn't be able to fall asleep right now even if I really tried, but I'm still going to try and keep this post short and go to bed soon. I absolutely love love love love love first days of school. I love firsts of anything, really. I like begginings and changes because they are exciting and unpredictable, and first days of school are always delightful in my eyes. I mean, yeah, I have to wake up at 6:30am and sit in a classroom all day, but that doesn't really bother me. I like Spanish and I like friends and I actually really like learning. 

When I first found out I was switching schools I was devastated. The friends I had made at Coya mean a lot to me and there are Rotary rules against switching schools because it interrupts your exchange. I spent so much time and effort making a place for myself in one school, and now I have to do it all over again? That didn't seem fair at all to me. It still doesn't seem fair. If I were someone else, I might choose to be mad about what happened and complain about it a lot. But I am not one to look in the negative of things and I understand that life isn't always going to be fair and that I might as well make the best out of it anyways. I'm not GLAD to change schools, but i have thought about what changing schools menas to me and realized something I could have easily skipped over out of anger. I realized that while I wanted to remain in Coya and strengthen all the amazing friendships I already have, I love meeting new people and will enjoy making new friends. I'm not saying I am leaving my old friends (never hahha) but I love how I learn new things with each person I meet and that's really why I'm here: to learn about people, life, and Chile. I have no idea what sorts of experiences I will have in my new school or what kind of people I will meet, but I do know that I am ready and strong and that tomorrow morning I am going to walk through those doors with confidence and a smile no matter how awkward or new I might feel. I am going to show them what a cool gringa I am and I'm going to do all of it with a sincerely good and happy attitude, because that is honestly how I feel. I feel happy every morning to wake up in Chile, and I am so grateful for this opportunity every day. I knew this exchange wasn't going to be perfect by the typical exchange student standards, but it is perfect for me because it is mine and I can adapt happily to whatever is thrown my way. 

Wish me luck tomorrow!

(My old school uniform and my new one)

La Serena

Last night I got back from such an amazing vacation! My parents, my cousin, Katie Ward, and I drove many hours north to spend a delightful week on the beautiful beaches of La Serena, a northern beach city in Chile. We spent the entire week sleeping in, playing in the sun and sand, shopping at local markets, and eating delicious foods! I got to bond a lot with my host cousin and I really want to hang out with her more in Santiago. Her name is Rafa and I absolutely adore her. It was funny for me to watch my whole family play tourist rather than just Katie and I hahaha. I took my camera most places we went but I didn't take many beach pictures because I was afraid of getting sand in my camera..

As usual, after these trips, I have way too many things and way too little time, so I'm going to just post a bunch of pictures and let them speak for themselves!

I had an outstanding time on this trip and I have thanked my host parents about a million times for taking me and my friend with them. I'm so lucky to have a family who takes me on such adventures. :)