Exhaustion

Hello everyone.
This Friday I will have been here for 2 months... time is the weirdest thing. It feels like I've been here for only a little over 2 weeks!

I have decided to stop appologizing for my tardiness... because let's be honest. Life is happening! I am sleeping in my down moments instead of updating you and I will not appologize for that because I'm seriously dying of exhaustion here!! My school days start at 8:30 and end at 5:10 then on tuesdays and thursday I get to go to french class from 6 - 8. Longest days of my life are becoming "normal days". C'est la vie... I'm tyring to embrace it with a smile but my body is starting to hate me. My mind also - she doesn't know what to do with the constant switching back in forth between french and english. French is coming along though!! My Belgian friends (yes - I must specify) say that I'm improving! I was so happy! I try to speak french anytime I can but I'll have to admit it is very easy to get away with speaking just english here. I know some exchange students that haven't learned a bit of French... so I think I'm doing well :) I'm not fluent but I think by Christmas I will be pretty decent. French class will help! Great - just jinxed myself. I do have exciting news about school and me learning french. I took a test in my Sciences Sociales class just to try and it was about submission to authority and all that jazz. We had to read 2 texts on the subject and respond to some questions and I got a 100%! This is not a joke. I was so happy. I was grinning from ear to ear all day - I actually did better than some Belgians! I came home and the first thing I did was show my parents and they were so impressed - so impressed they gave me a pin for my blazer. It was so cute :) I am smiling now as I remember this. I will never forget how happy I am every time I see my cute, Tchantchès pin! Happiness :)

The weather is being weird. Actually that is Belgium I think. The weather here is very bizarre. It will be freezing, rainy, sunny, then overwhelmingly hot in a matter of maybe 2 hours. It is very fast. Last week was really nice and sunny though... everyone is outside when it is sunny because you don't know how long it will last or when it will come again. Which I like a lot. Makes you appreciate the weather...

Last-last weekend (ahhh that is bad - but not appologizing!!)
Friday, I stayed home and watched my sister because a family friend unexpectadly passed away. I had no plans that night and it was good timing for me to watch Lisa... she played and I caught up with Facebook.
Saturday was special. We didn't do anything during the day but at night - for some reason - the town decided to light up the massive amount of stairs (remember?) with candles. Not only just the stairs but the old citadelle and pretty much the whole downtown was lit up with little white candles. It was so romantic and disgustingly crowded with people. It was so pretty against the warm, darkness of the night - yes that was poetic wasn't it? Marta and I were so cute, when we saw a candle blown out or knocked over we would relight it. Ofcourse I would sing the song "Go light you candle" - shout out to my Sion girls - and Marta would sing "Candle in the Wind". It was cute. I liked it. I stole a candle and was joking I was going to glue it on my blazer ... we will see if this happens. But everyone was a bit tired all night and we stopped for a good half hour at this random spot in town. I just thought we were chilling and enjoying the people watching. But ofcourse I was lost in translation and we were waiting for a fireworks show. It was the best surprise :) I love moments like this... when you just go with the flow and are pleasantly surprised. These things are teaching me to go with the flow more and not psyhco analyze everything. Which I have a tendency to do... :/
Sunday was nice. My host grandfather (the father of Larry) works as a tour guide of a very nice museum in Liège and he gave us a very nice tour :) It was all in French - but I tried to follow along. I could understand a lot of things but a lot of things were very technical terminology ... so that was sometimes a failure. It was very interesting and the museum was full of so many cool things! Not to mention it used to be a house and Napolean stayed a night there ... not a big deal (does everyone know that I have sick-obsession also with Napolean Bonaparte yet?). Then after we went to a cute little farm that specializes in goose and pears and had a fabulous lunch there. I wanted to eat there all day. I am drooling a little as I write this... it was amazing!! It was such a nice sunny day and the flowers looked so pretty against the old stones of the farmhouse. I loved it. After this my parents when to the funeral of their friend who passed away and I went to my friend's house and skyped for the first time in 2 months! I am actually really impressed that I lasted so long without seeing my parents and friends. It was so great. I loved it. It made me so happy and just rejuvenated - not homesick at all. Which is good!!

okok interruption of the merry-go-round of happiness
Last week was really hard for me. It was a mixture of a lot of things... but I was so emotional. I would feel like crying at random times through out the week for no real reason. It is not at all that I'm not happy here. I have talked to a few other exchange students and past exchange students who have all experienced the same thing. I feel a lot of the time "personality-less". This has a lot to do with lack of french fluency I think. Actually - a whole lot. In the states I am able to say what I'm feeling right off the top of my head or be funny or say something intelligent or just plain "being mallory" but here I have to put in a whole lot more effort to do any of these things with success. It is tiring... but part of the deal. I am almost rediscovering myself from ground 0... things will fall into place though. It it not unhappiness let me clarify ... but something within myself that comes with the deal of living in a different country that speaks a different language. C'est la vie. I am feeling better about things now though... I have a much better attitude towards the challenge :)

This past weekend
Friday, I hung out with school friends.
Saturday I got up at 6:30 in the morning to catch a train to Namur - a city in Belgium about an hour from Liège - for a Rotary event. It was so early... but I sucked it up and actually had a good time despite my lack of sleep. It was cool because we visited the Parliment of Walloonia - anyone following Belgium politics? I really don't want to get into what is going on with the politics of Belgium on here (my blog) because I honestly don't really understand it well enought to talk about it objectively. But it is kind of a big deal to visit it now because it might not be there in the future... it was really interesting. It was such a nice day - so sunny! We took a boat trip and I just caught up with friends I made in Brussels. There was probably 100 of us because they gathered 3 districts together. So it was nice to see people you normally don't see :) I had fun! I didn't do anything that night - I was beyond exhausted. Story of my life?
Sunday was really relaxing :) I slept in and got up for breakfast then took a run. It was so sunny and everyone was just lounging in the sun all day. But I had to make a power-point about Kansas City, my family, and my school all day. Yes - it took all day. I think it is pretty good ... but I have to present it all in French. So we will see how that one goes. I am actually presenting it tomorrow! Wish me luck - here everyone says "Bonne Merde" which literally means Good Shit but it is nice to say that to someone. I think? Then that night I watched a movie with my family... it was called "Meeting with Joe Black". Brad Pitt was in it and he was so young and cute! I loved the movie and I understood a lot of it! Success!

All for now. I need to go do some finishing touches on my presentation ...

à tantot!
Mallo