Seasons of Love

Hello Everyone :)

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee,
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?
How about love?
Measure in love
Seasons of love

I was on iTunes the other day... and being the cheap person I am, I was looking at the songs for 39 cents. I found all these songs I used to love! That I used to listen to when I was a pre-teen that I would blast on my boom-box when my daddy would make me clean my room... it brought back so many memories! When I was in grade school, we would have little orientations once a month to make us more cultural, or artistic, or aware, or sporty, or intelligent, or religious, or who knows what. One time, we had a group of singers come to the school and sing us modern songs but sung in this old-fashion type of way... I still remember it. I was sitting in the back of the room on a sunny day next to my giggling friends and the next song they sung was called "Seasons of Love" from the new movie musical called Rent -it made me stop messing around and just listen. I had never seen the movie (still haven't) but when they started singing it I got goosebumps... legit goosebumps. The words just struck me and made me want to dance, sing, love, laugh, and live all at once. I just felt... so alive. I wanted to grab life and shake it and tell it never to go away and that I will embrace it until I can't any more. Little much for a 12 year-old? I was very mature for my age and have always had this sense of time and living in the moment. So, when I heard this song on the 39 cent list the other day it almost made me cry... because right now I am following my dreams and living in the moment - measuring My Year in love, through seasons of love. I am doing what that little 12 year-old sitting cross-legged in the back of the room could only dream of doing ... by measuring my life in love. By measuring my year abroad in love... the year that I have never loved so much. Myself. My friends (old and new). My family (on all levels). My life. My choices.

I could write my whole blog entry on this... but I won't. I just knew that my faithful followers have gone awhile without a paragraph where I analyze a new favorite song of mine... :) Bon appetit :)

I'm living my life by seasons... and I'm happy to say that I think Spring is coming very soon. I woke up today with a sunrise that made me go searching for my camera at 7 AM. It was beyond beautiful and made me smile... I'm glad I captured a little bit of the beauty. The sun is starting to rise a little earlier than normal... doesn't that mean something? I hope so! I want to feel the sun on my skin and not be covered up by multiple layers of sweaters anymore. Dear Belgium, stop teasing me with the sun coming out and then taking it away it makes me think Spring is coming tomorrow!! PS - I would be super happy if it did come tomorrow. Thanks.

so now my week.
Here are pictures from Friday - my friends put them up late so I couldn't put them on the last blog! But here are some of me with my class :)

Saturday was such a funny and failure of a night. I was not planning on doing anything all day since I was exhausted from my long day before. My parents were having family friends over and I had planned on eating with them (Racklettes!) so around 6 PM I took a nap. Half hour into the nap, Benoit and our friend (Constantin) come knocking on my door telling me to get ready because I was going out with them. I protested.. but they won. Benoit had to play ping-pong that night so after I got ready... Constantin and I went to watch him play. He is so serious... but so is everyone else playing. We had a good laugh when we were watching. He had 4 matches... and was supposed to be finished by 10. So around 8, Constantin and I walked back to my house to have a few racklettes with the fam and then went back over to watch the last 2 matches of ping-pong. Then when Ben was finished we went back to the house for him to shower and then went to Constantin's house so he could eat with his parents around 10:30! It was a lot of moving around... then we finally left Constantin's house to catch the bus to the party. But - of course - we missed the last bus so we enjoyed a good 40 minute walk to the party (which is a very long time in Belgium). It was so fun to just walk and talk with Ben and Constantin though... I was laughing the whole time. We had maybe another 20 minutes to go and then Constantin stuck out his thumb and a car stopped! We all got in and this nice woman drove us to the party! A complete stranger! If you did this in the states... you would be dead. I was in the back seat freaking out but after wards it was just funny. I can now say I hitched a ride :) I would never do it in the states though!! Not that stupid! Then after we walked half an hour and hitched a ride we finally made it to the party... andddddd had an amazing time? Nope. They weren't letting any more people in since it was too late!! After all we did that night! By this point... it was just hilarious and Benoit and I were picked up by Alain around midnight. Talk about a night to remember! Or a failure? Honestly, I had fun either way :)
Sunday - I got up and went for a run then did some homework. I'm slowly easing into the idea of doing homework on a regular basis. Then around 5, I caught a bus into town to go have dinner with Mollie, Margaret, and Margaret's mom! Her real mom! We enjoyed a nice chinese dinner and nice conversations in English. It was a really fun night and I'm glad I got to finally meet her mom :) It was nice to catch up with the girls since the last time I saw them was the weekend of my Birthday festivities. I caught the second to last bus home, and while I was waiting at the bus stop a boy asked me what time it was. I was listening to music and couldn't hear him so he asked maybe 5 times before I got it... and responded. He was like, "Um, where are you from?" Apparently, my accent is a dead giveaway. This boy was in no direction cute with his long hair and gothic apparel and I can say honestly that I don't think we would be friends if we went to the same school... but for some reason we kept talking (in French) for the entire bus ride - which was about 30 minutes long. About everything! It was great... to just have an amazing conversation with a random person you know you will never see again. We didn't exchange numbers... just first names. I just love life sometimes when you meet people you would never meet in 'real life'... and share a moment together that might not have happened if things went a little differently in the universe. To say the least, I was smiling the whole walk home after I got off the bus :)
Monday was lame. In gym, we were doing this stupid exercise and a girl ended up jumping (legit jumping) on my upper back. I cried... and it was just a mess.... now I think I have a collapsed lung. That is just a bit dramatic... but my back really does hurt!! Stupid gym.
Tuesday I had french class... that was good. We are in the same classroom of the French class I had when I first arrived. It is on the 5th floor overlooking the river and the city... and when I had just arrived in Belgium I remember looking out the window when things got boring in the French class and I would look out at the sun shining on the old buildings and dream about knowing the streets of Liege someday. Now, I'm in the same class ... looking out the same windows at the sun (sometimes) shining on the old buildings and I can now say I know Liege. I know where to buy the best apples, I know where to fix my stupid phone, I know where my favorite shops are, I know which streets to take to avoid the begging man who I always want to give my spare euros to, I know where to meet my friends at the fountain, I know the best bench to sit at in the square, I know where my bus stops are, I know how long it takes me to walk from each place I'm at, I know where you can use the bathroom for free, I know the streets now. It makes me happy to finally know my city that I have been dreaming of knowing even before I was in Europe :)

all for now :)
nice catching up!
Mallo