One month in!

Update, update, update.

And ya'll think I wouldn't stick to it. WEll I'm trying my hardest.

Im not sure where I left off from, but I'm still doing great! Still living at the same house, with the same family, going to the same school. Happy and relatively healthy.

The latest exchange thing, minus the mayor's welcome thingy last night, was going to Bendalong! BENDALONG WAS A BLAST. I learned two things at that trip

1. I suck at surfing
2. Those black sharp pointy things on the rocks are not for touching.

Nicky, Bri, and I all drove down (about a 3 hour trip) to Bendalong stopping at this very scenic, incredibly beautiful hill side and watched the people in parachutes and cliff hangy things fly around. If only my insurance would let me! We took some pictures of course and then drove to a place called the Kiama Blowhole. Its this rock formation next to the ocean and the waves come bursting up through it! You'd have to go there on a day with rough waves to see anything though. There was a lighthouse and some birds flapping about. Very east coast like. Mom would like it.

We got to our five-star shack (ha not really) in Bendalong and went down to the ocean. Seriously, I could live in a hut all my life if it meant I could wake up to the ocean every morning. It's incredibly beautiful. It just streches on forever.

We surfed the next day with a 7 or 8 year World Champion Surfer, Pam Burridge. She was a great great lady. We got suited up in our flattering wet suits, grabbed some boards, and then she took us down to the beach. We all learned how to lay and stand up on them. We did some surf yoga and then we had to test the beast ourselves.
The waves were gentle, although I probably swallowed my weight in sea water. Pam, and these other two nice ladies helped the group ride the waves and how to get up effectively. I tried sooo hard! I just kept going and going. I got up on my knees, then one knee. By this time, everyone else had gone in, but I was still out trying. Nicky gave me a sign saying "one more time" and I knew that this one last time had to be it! AND I DID IT! I stood up! Granted, it wasn't for very long, but I was soo happy! I started screaming and jumping up and down. Needless to say, I was pretty proud of myself.

After surfing we just messed around on the beach and wrote things in the sand. I took lots of pictures and me and Jenny managed to get closer over the weekend, so that was good! She is a lovely girl and we have lots of things in common. That night we had a cupcake decorating contest in which me and Eric won and we even saw a kangaroo! You can imagine what the Americans reaction to that was! It was ssoo cute! And speaking of animals, a possum crawled up on our porch one night and we fed it apples. They are pretty calm creatures, or at least this one was, and very curious. I just love little animals. :D Bendalong was fun. It was a nice, relaxing beach get away weekend. Next up is the liasion trip to Nelson Bay I think. :) I am excited for that.

School is going okay. I find i dont really like the curriculum all too much. At least in English. This may come as a shock to you, but I like Math more than I like English right now! WEIRD!!

I am trying to get more involved in things. I am going to Jazz Dance tuesday nights and I want to do some more Yoga with Bec. I am also contemplating on a sport! Any suggestions parents?? Cross country, soccer??? Let me know!

I have a Drama assessment and a Dance Assessment coming up soon. My scene for Drama sucks, (the play is shit) but Dance is interesting. It's hard but its not too out of my limit. I learn a lot too!! I found that Modern Dance is a lot more fun than ballet. It's very free and easy. Not as disciplined as ballet.

I might also join debate so we'll see how that goes! I think I would be great at that. Dad would agree with this.

I am making more friends and becoming accustomed to everything. Slowly but surely the weird American girl is fitting in. People are still bombarding me with questions. I even got the question "Can you take a train to Hawaii?"

Yes! We have these underwater trains now! :/

I am also looking into maybe a volunteer opportunity. But I have to make sure I can balance everything.

OHH THe Mayor's thing. I almost forget. To sum it up, I wrote a speech, only half of it saved, so I winged the last half. I put on my uniform, I talked in front of people, smiled for the camera, ate this amazing cake, got more photos, and tried to represent America, and Lakewood specifically as best I could.

Got some nice compliments, and the mayor liked my speech. Job accomplished.

Anyways, keep checking on Facebook for updates, and I'll continue to post pictures. If you want more info, or think Im not including enough in my blog, SPEAK UP!


Au Revoir


Evan


P.S. I'm jealous of your snow!!

BLOG UPDATE NUMERO TWO

CONTINUED!!

So thats school basically. The people are pretty nice. You'll always have your bitchy girls and man whore boys. Such is life

I am making a lot of new friends! Ben, James, Nicole, Taryn, Nicola, Aleesha, JOSHY BOY! Everyone I have met is really great! They ALWAYS want to know about American School. They are fascinated!

My extracurricular activities right now consist of going up to Engadine after school and getting a thick shake (thicker drink than a milk shake) or an iced chocolate. Despite what Brianna says, they are they exact same thing as a chocolate milkshake!
We can also go to the library or go to what they call Mackers! (McDonalds, Mickey D's) There Mackers is a lot more clean and nice. Makes ours look bad. (not that they weren't bad before) I have also noticed a lot more kids have jobs! I am insanely jealous! And everyone walks. They have the BEST transit system. Buses and trains. They are right on time and pretty muchh hassle free. So me and bri take the bus alot. Im getting a work out.

I am looking into sports. So far I have tried hip hop and jazz. Jazz I loved! Me and Bri's cousin Bec took a class tonight with some older ladies (made me REALLY appreciate my youth) and it was a blast. Dance is just fun! It's a form of expression!

I might do soccer or try to find a gymnastics place. It's all up in the air right now really.Oh and I REALLY want to try to rent a violin. Believe it or not, I miss playing it.

Everything is just so fun! Trivia, school, friends, dance. Not homework. But yeah, I think because it's all new! The weather is a kick too. Had a 7 day heat wave. They close the school if it gets above 40 degrees C. Hope you all are enjoying your snow days! We had the Welcome BBQ as well and that was nice to see everyone in the exchange Prodigy Group.

Okay..my fingers are hurting now and I have little to say. I'm happy, healthy, alive! I will update you again soon!

Now to post pictures.

Au Revoir. I miss everyone. Shannon, Marlyce, Brenna, Marissa, Tia, Madison, Kelsey, Abby, Mom & Dad, Other Family :) , Zander <3, STARBUCKS!

Ciao for now.

Evan

P.S. Say the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Woh.

BLOG UPDATE NUMERO UNO (dont think that's spelled right)

JUST A WARNING: I think this may be a bit of a lengthy post as I have lots to inform you about.

First off, I'm doing fine. Just dandy! Haven't had to go to the hospital or anything like that. I'm loving it!

SCHOOL

Uniforms. Mmmm those are just great. Like everything, they have their pro's and their cons! Cons: They are hot and white and unflattering. The dresses have sleeves and make me look like a little girl. They are not "fashion forward" in any sense of the word. Pros: They equalize everyone. And this is mainly coming from a girl point of view, but if your allowed to dress however you want, it brings out competition. Girls compete with one another to look better than the other one and if your found that you dont meet the "quota" so to speak, (if your not wearing what's hot and popular) your not hot and popular. You don't win the attraction and affection of a guy. If we take out clothes and such like that, we are all on the same level. Then you have to compete with your personality, and you can't buy that on aisle 7 :)

School is outside. Very little is actually inside! Except classrooms of course. But the hallways and courtyards, walkways are all open, or they're covered. And students don't have lockers really. You can buy one, but its cheap and small. We all just carry our stuff in a big binder and we have backpacks. There are 6 classes a day. 1,2 then a recess, 3,4 then lunch, and the day ends with 5&6. No off periods! On Wednesday me and Brianna get up extra early to take a seventh class called an extension class. WE take extenstion english, but there is extension math as well. I'm not even going to attempt to layout my schedule (here they call them time tables) for you, it's so confusing. But I have Advanced English + Extenstion, Advanced Math (shocking), Society and Culture, Dance, Chemistry, and Drama! They also have double classes. So some days you'll have 1 and 2 and they are both chemistry. Each class gets a double, but they fall on different days.

Are you keeping up with me?

The classes are 52 minutes each. Everyone groans that they are long, but I am rejoicing! Everyone balks at me when I say our classes were an hour and half. The only downfall is that you usually don't have time to teach much in 50 minutes.

They basically teach the same, except they follow a much stricter syllabus (specifically called "dot points") laid out by the NSW Government. You also get a less personal interaction. Kinda sucks. Oh and Mr. Mehlbach, if your reading this, I have found your twin. My English teacher and you would be great friends. Your personalities are identical. It's Great! He's funny and very educated, but stern and scary when he needs to be. You and him both get a kick out of life!

They go on a lot more field trips than we do. Partly because students in Australia have to have external and hands on experience in order to get a good score on this HUGE (HUGE) test called the HSC. Half the curriculum is based on this one test. THey get Year 11 and 12 to prepare for it, can you imagine? Plus every class they take is tested in the HSC. You take dance, you have an HSC Dance Performance Test. You take English? You'll get an HSC English Exam. There is more too it, but I don't want to bore you guys tooo much!

Anyways these field trips are called Excursions. I went on a Drama Excursion on Monday and saw some HSC performances that got the best possible score, hence why they were then performed for us. They were incredible. Just wow!

Dance Excursion is tomorrow! I wish our school had a dance class. How SICK would that be! I learned about my alignment, I guess I tend to lean forward and my right leg is longer than the left. How odd!

Okay Im going to end this blog post and start a new one! TO BE CONTINUED