So after returning home today after a long day at school I was very pleased to find that I had recieved an e-mail from my first host brother. His name is Fabrice, he is 16 years old, and he is the youngest of his family. Here is his e-mail:
Je m'appelle Fabrice et je t'envoie cet e-mail de la part de toute la famille, je suis le derniere enfant de la famille. Excuse nous pour le retard pour prendre contact avec toi mais nous avions beaucouo de travail en ce moment. Nous sommes ta premiere famille a t'acceuillir pour échange du Rotary. Si tu as des questions à nous posez tu peux toujours nous envoyez un e-mail sur cet address: ..............................., nous te repondrons le plus vite que nous le pourrons. Nous sommes ta premiere famille et tu restera bien 4 mois chez nous. Si tu ne comprend pas tu peux toujours nous envoyer un e-mail pour que on te le traduise
Of course I understood what it said because luckily he kept it very simple, even I found humour in the last line; I mean, if I didn't understand French, how would I know they could translate the e-mail for me? Whatever, I'm just so glad to have finally gotten some word from Belgium.
I also sent Fabrice a short e-mail to introduce myself and explain that I would have lots of questions for him and his family in due course (actually, when I can get some help from my Belgian friend or my French teacher) which I'm hoping he will be able to understand despite my mediocre French. Now if only my guarantee form would finally come! -Andrew
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Orientation Pictures
At the hotel: Marie-O, our resident Belgian inbound and my good friend sporting her very heavy blazer.
The sessions: stuck in the back at the Belgium table.
The weather: Firday night and Saturday morning the was a blizzard in Edmonton which put down probably one of the most significant snow falls of the year being that it was the warmest Canadian winter on record EVER.
The dinner: Terry, the new-back from Belgium who stayed in Liège, carrying the Belgium flag and leading the five of us marching under it into the dinner in the parade of nations.
The end: Our district banner, I found out 5370 is actually the second largest Rotary district in the world which is funny because it's in Canada which is the second largest country in the world.
Spring Orientation
Whew, so I'm finally able to get beck here and get working on this blog again after a few busy weeks at school, the good news is I OWN at chemistry and my average so far for grade 12 is 90%! Well, back to exchange stuff I guess. So I thought a good place to start for this blog would be the spring orientation which was held in Edmonton, Alberta on March 17-19, 2006.
I honestly didn't really know what to expect going in to the weekend but I tried to stay open because it was my first experience as an exchange student and I knew probably my only experience I will have as an exchange student before I'm actually in Belgium.
So we drove seven hours to Edmonton and stayed at a hotel there which had big convention rooms which the Rotary took over for the weekend to hold the many information sessions. Friday and Saturday were both full days with sessions for each of the three groups (outbounds, inbounds and new-backs/rebounds) and an assortment of guest speakers lecturing on everything from health topics to cultural sensitivity. We also had our pictures taken and were fitted for our blazers. Saturday night there was a big dinner and dance (I steered clear of the dance so as not to reveal my vulnerability of having two left feet). We had to sing to our parents before dinner which was a little weird but luckily they also brought in a couple of guys who did an improv comedy act which was pretty entertaining so it wasn't too bad in the end. On Sunday we were given binders which included rules, contact information, preparation and after arival/during information and work, a section with information about Canada, and some recipes. They were really well done and it was nice to get a resource like that all put together making it no longer necessary to do that yourself. So a big thank you to, I think, Sally Schilds, and also to whoever helped her out with those. Also I guess it is necessary to thank everyone from Rotary who put together the whole weekend, I'm really looking forward to seeing them all again when it is my turn to teach the outbounds in two years.
Probably my favourite part of the weekend was meeting everyone, the inbounds, the new-backs, my fellow outbounds, and also the district exchange commitee who seem very dedicated to running a great program for the students. The most informative sessions for me were the ones which focused on life on exchange, the majority of those being done by the new-backs who all had very interesting stories and some useful advice.
One thing about the orientation weekend which I didn't really enjoy was the fact that we spent a fair bit of time in sessions which really didn't need to be sessions. That is, if instead of sending us to a session on travel health or staying safe on exchange (not to say those are not important) they had just given us information pamphlets, we could have had more time to focus on some of the topics which become of more concern when it comes to preparing for exchange. The other thing which personally offended me a little bit (though that may well have just been me) was that the outbound students were left out of all the seesions which had the information on things like travel arrangements and insurance, which I found to be a bit patronizing. This becomes of particular concern to me now as I am someone who feels that I, as the exchange student am responsible for my preparations and I have no intention of relying on my parents to do things like visa applications for me when I am perfectly capable of doing them myself with a little information; information which I am finding extremely difficult to get now.
Well that ought to about do it I suppose, I praised, I bitched, I revealed awkward secrets and I hopefully was able to shed some light on what the orientation was about and how it worked. Being so dorky I've taken a minute to add up the days to when I could potentially be leaving (I used the computer calculator and calendar so it didn't take long, I'm not that dorky to go to my wall calendar and count each day) and if I were to leave on August 15 then it is actually 100 days exactly which provokes both feelings of anxiety and excitement right now. Ah well, here's some eye candy, no it's not me in short shorts, it's pictures from the weekend:
Okay, I tried twice and they won't upload to this post so I think I'm just going to put them in a seperate post.
I honestly didn't really know what to expect going in to the weekend but I tried to stay open because it was my first experience as an exchange student and I knew probably my only experience I will have as an exchange student before I'm actually in Belgium.
So we drove seven hours to Edmonton and stayed at a hotel there which had big convention rooms which the Rotary took over for the weekend to hold the many information sessions. Friday and Saturday were both full days with sessions for each of the three groups (outbounds, inbounds and new-backs/rebounds) and an assortment of guest speakers lecturing on everything from health topics to cultural sensitivity. We also had our pictures taken and were fitted for our blazers. Saturday night there was a big dinner and dance (I steered clear of the dance so as not to reveal my vulnerability of having two left feet). We had to sing to our parents before dinner which was a little weird but luckily they also brought in a couple of guys who did an improv comedy act which was pretty entertaining so it wasn't too bad in the end. On Sunday we were given binders which included rules, contact information, preparation and after arival/during information and work, a section with information about Canada, and some recipes. They were really well done and it was nice to get a resource like that all put together making it no longer necessary to do that yourself. So a big thank you to, I think, Sally Schilds, and also to whoever helped her out with those. Also I guess it is necessary to thank everyone from Rotary who put together the whole weekend, I'm really looking forward to seeing them all again when it is my turn to teach the outbounds in two years.
Probably my favourite part of the weekend was meeting everyone, the inbounds, the new-backs, my fellow outbounds, and also the district exchange commitee who seem very dedicated to running a great program for the students. The most informative sessions for me were the ones which focused on life on exchange, the majority of those being done by the new-backs who all had very interesting stories and some useful advice.
One thing about the orientation weekend which I didn't really enjoy was the fact that we spent a fair bit of time in sessions which really didn't need to be sessions. That is, if instead of sending us to a session on travel health or staying safe on exchange (not to say those are not important) they had just given us information pamphlets, we could have had more time to focus on some of the topics which become of more concern when it comes to preparing for exchange. The other thing which personally offended me a little bit (though that may well have just been me) was that the outbound students were left out of all the seesions which had the information on things like travel arrangements and insurance, which I found to be a bit patronizing. This becomes of particular concern to me now as I am someone who feels that I, as the exchange student am responsible for my preparations and I have no intention of relying on my parents to do things like visa applications for me when I am perfectly capable of doing them myself with a little information; information which I am finding extremely difficult to get now.
Well that ought to about do it I suppose, I praised, I bitched, I revealed awkward secrets and I hopefully was able to shed some light on what the orientation was about and how it worked. Being so dorky I've taken a minute to add up the days to when I could potentially be leaving (I used the computer calculator and calendar so it didn't take long, I'm not that dorky to go to my wall calendar and count each day) and if I were to leave on August 15 then it is actually 100 days exactly which provokes both feelings of anxiety and excitement right now. Ah well, here's some eye candy, no it's not me in short shorts, it's pictures from the weekend:
Okay, I tried twice and they won't upload to this post so I think I'm just going to put them in a seperate post.
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