putain la vie est chiante

Well we're getting somewhere around a month since I last posted, and I'm bored as hell right now so I thought why not get some of my thoughts down.

So right now it's exams time at my school, and seeing as I only have three to write in the whole two week period (one being English) and also that no one gives a flying fiddler's stick how I do, and the Christmas break starts immediately afterwards, I'm pretty much left with a month off. Sounds great right? Guess again. I live in bloody party central here, seriously everyday there are like two or more huge events going on, but for me upstairs it can get pretty damn lame. So I've taken up reading, English books that is, I do read French books for school, but they're still a little ways away from being good pleasure-reading material. I've also started to buy more cd's, Dream Theater being my latest discovery, probably on account of my not being able to play music this year, which I wouldn't have ever guessed would be such a pain in the ass while I was here. It's getting a bit too expensive for sure though, which lead me to recently draw up a budget which should help me start saving more money. Good thing too, as I've already spent over a third of my savings in under four months, not too good.

I'll be moving in a couple of weeks which is going to be a welcome change I'm thinking, not that I'm not happy here, just that there's one person that manages to get on my nerves just about every single day and I reckon I would go mad if I had to live with him much longer. My next house should be a little less hectic too which will be more like home and thereby more to my liking. My next family are the Dufays', they live in Liège (as opposed to where I am right now in a suburb that's just so far as to make it annoying to go into Liège, which I do quite frequently) in a humble home with a little garden. The dad's name is Christian, I think he's an insurance broker, he works in insurance for sure anyway; the mother's name is Isabel, and I believe she's an English teacher (she won't speak English with me of course); and they have a son at home named Xavier who has a mental disability but is very friendly, they're all very friedly come to think of it. They have a daughter who's on exchange in Brazil whom they're going to see her at some point, like everyone else with kids on exchange, I seriously don't know why Rotary even says anything about it, no one listens. Anyways hopefully everything will be fine over there, not that I doubt that it will, but of course you always have little worries about going to live with strangers, which are mostly unfounded but present nevertheless.

So what else is new? Jeeze, it's been a quiet month, only a little excitement since Paris. I'm trying right now in a little episode of regret to register for the trip to Berlin with Rotary in April, and I say in an episode of regret because the registration's been open for over a month, but I originally didn't sign up thinking I'd be smart and save my parents some money, but when I talked to them recently they made it quite clear that I was to sign up for everything, that's why my mother's taking extra shifts and such. It's a strange thing, coming to worry about money after being so liberal with it for years as a care free teen, I mean I know my family's alright, they had the money to replace the downstairs carpet for pete's sake, plus they'll probably take a little vacation this year too, this with me here and my sister in university. Still though, spending a year not really working and getting to go lots of cool places at your parents' expense can make one feel guilty, it's why I wanted to work so much over the summer to earn lots, so I could have my own spending money as I currently do, but I know that they're fine with financing this because I'm learning a language and being exposed to a lot of culture and life. For Berlin anyways, there's 50 places, which isn't a lot for all the kids in Belgium, but it's not till April so I'm hoping some kids won't have registered right away to save them having to tie up €190 so far ahead of time. If I have missed it then that's a shame, as I probably won't have another chance to see it, and it's such an important place in 20th century history. I won't miss anymore opportunities to travel though, there's the Normandy tour which I'm going to do for sure, plus Eurotour in June. I'm still hoping another opportunity to go to London will present itself, after missing out on the Rotex trip I was consoled by the fact that the SEPA site (SEPA is the organization within Rotary in Belgium who organized the tip to Paris I went on, plus they're organizing the Normandy tour and Eurotour) said they would also be organizing a trip to London, but unfortunately it was removed from the site some time ago and I fear it won't be coming back. So I guess it's time to exploit some of my family contacts in the UK, there's mum's friends in Scotland, and I think they live near Glasgow or Edinburgh, both of which I wouldn't mind seeing. Also I'm hoping to be able to take advantage of some of the close-by day trips that are possible, cities like Maastricht (Holand), Amsterdam, Brugge (Flemmish Belgium), Antwerp (also Flemmish Belgium), Brussels, Lille, and some in Germany are all within such a distance that a single day trip is possible by train, the biggest benefit of a single day trip being that no paperwork is required, just permission from my host parents and possibly my couselor, then I can go with a friend and see lots of cool stuff.

What else then, oh yeah, I'm not cutting my hair this year, it's already been like 4 months, so soon I'll have wicked long hair, plus I'm groing a sweet shredder goatee that's filling in nicely, I pwn. I was recently very close to buying a guitar too, luckily that didn't work out though because I decided that my priority for my money next year needs to be seeing Rush on possibly their last ever world tour to promote they're new ablum which should be coming out sometime in the spring, making for a spring-sumer tour. Depending on how they set the dates I might be able to see them in Canada or western USA with my friends, if not I'll see them here, in the UK or Germany, they played Glasgow on their last tour (come to think of it, I hope mum's friends live near Glasgow), and they had like 5 dates in Germany, which is right next door. Hopefully I'll be able to see them with my friends, I'm going for sure though, and I'm going to buy my tickets the minute they go on sale so I can can be close enough to reach out and touch Big Al.

Well then, I guess I can finish this post up, first I'll address the photo issue though; I have a bunch of photos prepared to be uploaded but currently the computer situation is very unstable (it's seriously been killing me for the last month basically) and so I figure I'll be best off saving the task or getting those posted till after I've switched families, then you guys will have my other new pictures too which I still haven't uploaded. I sent my parents all the photos I've taken so far on two cds with their Christmas chocolate package, so they'll be happy, the rest of you can wait it out though. I should be getting my box from my parents tomorrow, so then maybe there'll be some sweet stuff to stave off boredom a little more, other than that I'll just keep reading the Lord of the Rings and listening to John Petrucci's mind blowing guitar.

See you guys soon, only seven more months! Oh yeah, I have to pick my date to come home, so give me suggestions of good dates and why I should pick them based on cool activities, important dates etc. That'll do then, bye bye. -Andrew