on a more serious note:

I'm chilling at home today. I'm doing some laundry, and by "some" I mean A LOT. Pretty much all of my clothes are dirty. So right now I'm sitting at the dinning room table with a cozy little fire in the fire place... just kidding.. I DID have one, now its dead. I decided it was the perfect time for a blog.

One of my reasons for having this blog was in hopes that a future exchange student will find this and learn what being an exchage student entails, and also, when they're down in the dumps, they can look at this and have some hope that things will get better. All my posts before have been about how much fun I'm having. As much as that is true, it's not the entire truth. So, I've decided to make this post a little more honest.

So to start off, Blog readers, meet my journal...

Torn...
from everything I've ever known,
from comfort,
from home.
Placed in a foreign land where nothing is familiar,
where comfort isn't easily found,
and where home is 4000 miles away.
Yet this wasn't a forced torn.
In fact it was quite the opposite.
This was my choice.
I chose to leave comfort,
to pursue a dream.
A dream filled with adventure, discovery, and freedom,
but also with confusion, pain, and awkwardness.
I have hope that things will get better,
they already are.
Friendships are being formed.
The language is being learned.
Soon this foreign land will feel like home.

I wrote this the other day when I wasn't feeling the greatest.
Don't get me wrong, I AM having a great time here, and I DO love it here, but at the same time it's hands down, the hardest thing I have ever done. Everday brings a handfull of confusing, awkward and tough situations which most of the time I fumble around with and rarely come out of the situation victorious. I can't remember the last time I felt comfortable at school. It's not the people at school, they're all great! Everyone is really friendly! I guess it's just me worring that I'm doing something wrong. I HATE how being a foreign exchange student has made me so insecure. I'm also tired of being so uncomfortable. I've been forced to go WAY out of my comfort zone in order to be as outgoing as I possibly can. Sometimes I just want to be alone in order to relax and not have to worry about misunderstanding someone, or doing something wrong, but I'm afraid people will take it the wrong way.
BUT this is what I chose, and I don't regret one bit of it. I know things will be tough for a while, but it's all apart of this year long dream of mine.
Don't worry Mom and Dad.. I'm ALLLLLRIGHT!

On a happier note, I made a checklist of random things I want to do this year... some of the good ones are:

• see and take a photo with a seal.
• take a photo on top of the giant tiger outside of Oslo S.
• write a letter to the king.
• eat dinner with the king.
• go mountain climbing
• visit Bergen
• get a trendy Norwegian haircut
• exit the school though a window.
• read the first Harry Potter in Norwegain.
• buy over priced Mountain Dew from Deli de Luca
• feed bread to the bums in Oslo
• pan handle
• learn Norwegian
• get a Norwegian sweater.

and the list goes on.

As always I'll leave you with some photos.

(Sarah came down and visited and sayed at my host families house for the night! We had a good time!:) )

(let me introduce you to The Rotary Blazer. This beauty is what sets Rotary exchange students from the rest. Every Rotary exchange student has a beautiful blazer like this which they adorn with pins given to them from other exchange students, and other radom items that hold some sort of memory. This is me wearing mine before my failed Rotary presentation. All of my hardwork that I did on my presentation was for nothing. None of my photos showed up on my powerpoint. BUT I did impress everyone with my Norwegian!

ANND this is me really excited to be eating cereal for the first time in over 2 months!

And that is all.