I can not believe it's already march. Might have something to do with the decimeter or so of snow still lingering. Everyone says though, that the snow is usually gone after march break, which as a matter of fact is in two weeks. 

 

So this week started off with presenting the part of a play plus the extra we wrote about it we've been practising in drama class. I think we did good, it was fun at least. I took drama class so that I' get to speak a lot of french, and so far so good. It's a very nice class, I mean it's drama, you have to be more or less weird to sign up for drama class, so naturally, everyone's really nice. 

 

In physics this week we've been building catapults, because that creates a projectile, which is what we've been working with. Anyways, this gave us the oppurtunity to go to construction class to get pliers (to chop the popsicle sticks). In that class they were building a house. Like an actual house, a real house that people live in. I just thought that was so cool, so I just had to tell. On friday, we had the shot-off with our catapults, the goal was to 1) hit a point 50cm away, 2) calculate la distance moyenne, and 3) shoot as far as possible. Julie and mine's catapult shot the second furthets, 5.70 m, quite impressing considering we had no idea at all what we we're doing... 

Jag och katten ser på melodifestivalen, men Phoebe är inte vidare impad... 

As for this very moment, I'm over at a friend's place, so I'm doing one of these handy time things. Monday was a  snow day, tuesday was mardi gras but in this country they eat pancakes instead of semlor (except for us, we had soup...). Wednesday was mercredi au cendres, so we went to half of third and entire fourth peroid. I learnt that they save the twigs from palm sunday the year before to use as ashes on this day. These twigs are shipped all the way from the Middle East. It is not clear at what point they burn them though. Anyways. So with this ashes they (the priests) painted crosses (more or less) in our forheads. I got two biddings on why; 1) to be forgiven for your sins or 2) to make a promise to lent, not from food necessarily, but anything. Thursday was valentine's day, and it seems at least half of my friends got flowers from their boyfriends, cute! 

 

As for now, I really gotta hurry up and catch my bus, can you believe I actually went up earlier for this? Ah well, peace out. 

 

Vem hade kunnat gissa att en sån fin direktöversättning skulle gå raka vägen till final? Vi tippade henne till andra chansen eller ut som femte, jag och Louise. Min personliga favorit var ju dock Pensionär. Otur att de bästa låtarna aldirg är bidrag... 

 

This week I have discovered the charm of being a 12th grader; spares! If your teacher's not there, you don't have to be either. Unless your physics teacher decides it's a good idea to leave the 23 year old gym teacher in charge for a week AND give you a test... Good thing friday was a snow day! 

 

So, I've hade three spares. One in socio that I knew about and two in politics that I probably should've known about... Hehe... The only bad thing with the spares is I still have to take the bus, so no ending early and no sleeping in. But not to worry, the time can always be spent studying physics, because god knows I need it. I have forgotten everything. Like legit, everything. I've had help through skype and watched so many videos on youtube trying to figure it out. I've learnt a lot of french words in the process though, such as montgolfier (luftballong) and mètres par second au carré (m/s²). Another interesting thing I've learnt in is that PQ-fromeln isn't the same, here they call it FQ (formule quadrative) and with that one you don't have to eliminate the coefficient of x². 

This week I started my new classes, and it really feels like it's been longer than a week, idk, i guess it's because we had a snowday tuesday so my mind thinks I've had two weeks. After a lot of switching around I finally settled for physics, drama, sociology and politcs. 

Physics, oh my I've forgotten so much of all we learnt last year, so it feels good to refresh it, maybe I won't be totally screwed next year haha... (Okay I will be, but still) The teacher started out nicely with wearing the cutest bow ties, he didn't have one friday though, but then again friday is casual clothing day for the teahcers. 

Drama is in my old dance class, and since it's also a 10 class a couple of girls from my dance class is in there too. We're doing weird exercices and reading plays, it's gonna be a nice class. 

Socio, this is an interesting cours. It's like analyzing human behaviour (comportements humains), and I already learned a bunch of new words. The teacher, who is really good, is apparently an under clothes model...

Politics, might be the weirdest of my classes. I kinda thought like yeah we'll debate and stuff like that and this is how you'd be a politician, which we might still do later but well. So far the teacher has mainly told us politics is treacherous, let's teach you how to see through them. It's not what I thought it'd be, but it's interesting. Monsieur talks sooooo fast though...

 

Friday after school there was a trip to Canal Rideau in Ottawa, which we went to. It was really nice, pretty and aaawe. So I'm not particularly good at skating, but by the end of it I got the hang of it, afterall I used to skate when I was five... Mind you, the canadians, being canadians, were fantastic skaters, wow. I also tried two very canadian foods, beaver tails (which aren't actual beavers, it's a kind of pastry) and snow frozen maple syryp. 

 

 

Later on today I will go with Norma to meet their first exchange student from France, thus I shall be translator. I'm almost eccessively excited to talk french. The canadian french is very differnet from the french french, if french french was swedish, the canadian french would be gotländska. On the rare occasionw when I speak french with Lisa through skype, we both laugh at each other. Her french is of course the "real" french, but I've gotten so used to this one so I find her french cute and almost silly, compared to this englified and harsch french. 

 

Since school started again after christmas we've had a load of homework. It seemed liked the teachers were trying to make up for everything we didn't do this fall. Because this is exam week. I hade my first, dance, this friday and so tomorrow, tuesday and wednesday it's the other subjects. I'm quite looking forward to starting my new subjects, but I am gonna missmy art class. It was the calm time of the day, and my art teacher is just so good. I think that's the subject I've learned the most in this semester. Madame helps us in a way that makes us better whitout even knowing we're improving kinda. We've also talked a lot about the difference between voir et percevoir. I see things differently, notice things I would never have noticed before. Details, the way the light creates shadows. It has it's backside too I guess; I can't watch a tree without analyzing it's structure... 

 

I've also learnt the entire lyrics to Oh Canada and in french you actually only sing oh canada once, even though I at first thought you sing it like four times. 

 

Yesterday me and Ann went with STS on a tour in the Parliament in Ottawa, organised by a host dad working there. There we learned amongst other things the the workd parliament comes from the french verb parler (to speak), since that's mainly what you do in a parliament. Also, they had the prettiest library I've ever seen. All around the walls, everywhere, there were these flowers carved into the tree. Not one identic to another. 

 

We also saw the house of commons, of senators and the peace tower. In the house of commons there were some students having a debate, so we couldn't go in there, we did go into the senators. In the peace tower the ceiling was super cool, it was like golden yellow plastic pieces all over the place creating a glow. There was a nice view from up there too. 

 

Lately, I've not been writing in the mornings, but quite frankly, it's just not woth getting up half an hour earlier... Anyways, today after philos (the sunday brunch restaurant) I went over to Em's place to help unpack Ann who has finally gotten a permanent family, so we were all a quite excited. Fun!

 

As for the rest of the week I've done next to nothing, I've slept a lot though... And watching hair tutorials on youtube making me wish so badly for thicker hair. After trying a couple hair do's on Ann and Em I got the proof, it is my hair that's the problem...

Oh, and I cuddled with the cats, gosh I love those cats. Mooooom, do you wanna get a cat? (a) 

 

So since I don't really have anything else to say, I'll tell you about my cats! (So if you don't like cats, stop reading haha...) 

As it seems, we survived another end of the world. Isn't that just lovely?

Monday was a snowday, even though tuesday was a whole lot snowier. in my eyes, the snowday system doesn’t really make sense; if the weather forecast predicts freezing rain (which might not even happen) the buses are cancelled, but if you wake up and it’s snowing a lot and the weather forecast didn’t predict that, they’re not.     

So monday morning I went a bit reluctantly back to bed, knowing we would’ve needed the time to practise for our Citart-dance, which we hadn’t yet learned the entire dance, first performance being on thursday. Around twelve I got a call from Jessica in my dance class, saying our class had decided to meet up in school and actually go to our dance lesson, so I went up and Kelsey was so very nice and drove me to school. Not everyone was there but a good half, so we got to practise and practise and also learn the ending. 

Wednesday when we went in the bus home, our bus driver gave us christmas presents, absolutely adorable of her. So now I have a couple of canada mittens! 

It's snowing again. Real snow, cold snow, the kind of snow that makes real snowflakes. Did you know that every single snowflake is one of a kind? Imagine how many snowflakes that fall in just one time at one place, and then imagine how many snowflakes there's ever fallen. 

 

This week I got a packet from home consisting of a bunch of christmas presents, tack älskade föräldrar! I had to open one of them though, the one from my oldest sister because I knew what was in it, the CD from her Spex, Christofer Columbus. So I've been listening to that quite a lot (a) I'm actually listening at this very moment: Landet kommer fyllas av en stam, människor som inte har nån skam...

 

Monday I had my first snowday, truth be told there wasn't much snow, barely even 2 cm, but I'm not complaining. I spent bigger part of the day curled up in the couch with Phoebe reading hp, mmmh... 

 

Now days go by fast, so I honestly don't remember which day it was, but we had a code rouge, which is a practise of what to do in case there would come a person with a gun to school. So they say lockdown, lockdown in the speakers. When this happened I had dance, so we all squeezed in one of the changing rooms, sitting on the floor in the dark. True to my habit I fell asleep... We were in there for a long time, they're supposed to walk around and say clear kinda, BUT they forgot us, or didin't see us, whichever. So what should've been approximately 15 minutes became for us over 40... 

 

I'm indecisive but now after beeing to the counseler thrice, a lot of thinking, considering pros and cons and talking to teachers I've switched my english cours next semester to sociologie, which is a subject where you learn a lot about families, like relations and stuff. Teacher seemed really nice. 

 

I've also been at a christmas thing at Kolby's school were we amongst other things got face paintings, nice eh!

I’ve spent more or less six hours today baking, making and decorating gingerbread houses with Ann. We actually made this farm, or at least it’s supposed to be; It’s the barn, the main house and three cows. And of course, my masterpiece: the tractor! 

Ann’s been at our place since thursday, since her host parents went away, so thursday we did our christmas shopping and friday Emilie was with us too, and we went to a friends place hanging out. He had the cutest kitten called Pumpkin, and a pet snake, which did not have a name, so I named it for him; Fluffy. I think Fluffy liked having a name, because he actually listened to it, I speak parseltongue, moahahah.....

Aaaaaaaaaaaand, this week I’ve made my first trips to the barn. It’s a bit bad it took me three months to get out there, but like they say - better late than never. I’ve been helping Kolby out with his chores, which is feeding the small cows/calves, giving them hay and feeding the small male calves. But I’ve also milked two cows, or well, put on the milking thingy, but I think that counts, so yeah, I’ve milked cows! I think I was more hindrance than help in the milking department though... 

There’s no more snow. It melted away, and it’s been the warmest december sine 1873, it was over 15°C the other day, so I’ve been waiting in vain for snowdays... Ah well, there’s school in january too, so maybe I can get a couple of snowdays then. 

Det är december och vi vet alla vad det innebär - JULKALENDERN! Musiken är rätt, ungarna pratar nästan rätt och med Jean och Staffan kan det ju bara inte bli dåligt. Årets julkalender är en uppföljare till mina allra bästa favoritjulakender Mysteriet på Greveholm. Om någon av någon anledninig inte sett det än, säger jag bara svtplay - GENAST! (och alla ni som sett originalet lägger ju märke till Melitta-rösten...)

This weekend I spent in Toronto, visiting my fathers host sister and her family, to whom my relationship is, as Kolby so nicely described it, complicated. Anyways, I had a wonderful weekend. I arrived with the train friday evening in Toronto where they picked me up. Back at their place they greeted me with all kinds of swedish things such as knäckebröd, glögg och pepparkakor, telling me that if you weren't homesick before, we're gonna make you homesick. I wouldn't say I got homesick really, but it sure was nice being surrounded by swedish things.

Saturday we went to the Toronto annual swedish market, where they sold swedish christmas decorations, herring and a bunch of other stuff. And they were all wearing the traditonal folkdräkt, it might've actually been the most people I've seen wearing them at the same time. 

Friday in school it was lumberjack-day, so almost everyone was dressed in checked shirts, boots, hats and braids. (I did a lot of braiding...) My dance class where part of the performance, so we were dancing, and I actually didn't mess up too bad.

 

Also people ran a kind of race where they pretended to be lumberjacks, so this ladies and gents is my french teacher. Somehowe I can not see our teachers at Nösnäs agreeing to do something like this...
   So what they did where first lying on the floor pretending to be asleep and then when the music started they had to put on the typical clothes, then drinking maple syrup and eating bacon, without hands. After that they got shaving cream on their faces, have to "shave it off" and then shoot a deer, walk with snow shoes over a couple of mattresses, pile some logs and saw off another log. All this racing the other person. So a couple of teachers did it and then students, grade against grade, while the others cheered all they could. Really nice!  

 

 

I've spent the entire day in Downtown Montreal, shopping with Anne (the girl in my art class). I had a really great day, and I found some nice stuff, and this is my reason for writing so late to you guys. Now this week is going backwards, but never mind. Yesterday I went with my hostfamily+Annunziata to the annual Christmas Parade. Some of the vehicles were really christmasy and all nice, and others were mainly just commercials, but it was nice all the same. I recognized some people from school, mainly from my dance class, but a couple of others too.

Tuesday I went with my danse class to Ottawa School of Danse (my second trip on the yellow school bus). This was a really nice experience, it was a big fancy school were you had to be really good to get in. So we got there, did échauffements (känner mig pro som kan ett ord på franska men inte på engelska, men för all er icke-franska, uppvämning) with one of the teachers and four students. They dansed to live music. I was so impressed by that. They actually had a guy sitting in a corner with some drums and a piano. Imagine that! 
Also, we watched these four girls dance, and oh my were they good. Afterwards they thaugh us some of the moves from their dance, and that was really fun, and we all did our best, but it was hard. At least, I found it hard, maybe the rest didn't, they're all so good. 
   We also got to watch a lession in action, taught by their 70 year old teacher (not kidding, they told us he'd turned 70 this year). He was so energetic, and his students jumped sooooooo high. Then he had us do weird jumping stuff, and also the going around by your hands first you know (hjula), which is something that regardless all the effort my sister put down I never learned. 

 

The rest of the week was quite uneventful, as far as I remember. Next weekend I'm going to Toronto to visit my fathers host sister and her family, and I am so excited! 
For you though, this means next time'll be a late update too, but since my only reader loves me, I'm sure you'll forgive me anyways ;) 

Since it's so long until next sunday, and since I by that time will have already forgotten. (And since I'm actually starting to enjoy this whole blog thing, not that I'll ever admit it...)
So this potluck dinner thing was really nice, I got to talk a bit swedish to the other swedish guy, and I find that my swedish accent is all messed up and sounding really ugly. I'm losing my swedish buhu :(

Anyways, here's the main dishes. I did read all the labels, but honestly, I don't remember what's from where. I took a small piece of everything (jag vet, jag är ett matvrak) and there's some stuff underneth which you can't see in the picture. But do you see the chili, in the left corner? That was made of mouse, canadian recipe. My favourite thing out of these though, I think was the broccoli salad, it was delicous. I guess I just like broccoli ^^ 

These were the desserts, and out of those I really liked the star thing, it tasted kinda like gingerbread, and also the raspberry youghurt thing. I love raspberries. i did not take any of my own buns, partly because I knew there weren't enough if everyone would have one, and well I'll admit it, partly because I had quite a lot of the dough yesterday anyways... 

 

The tasties thing out of all things though, that was this fantastic little piece. Some kind of homemade chokladkola made by the Brazilian guy. I was in heaven. It was just so so good. Me and chocolate, we go way back. The picture doesn't really make it justice though. It's not on the plate above, because they handed it out afterwards kinda, so I just tried taking a picture, but as you see, it didnät turn out too well. 

This week there's happened a lot, I don't even now where to start. I guess I'll just do it in order of apperance.

We had a short visit by the Hurricane Sandy monday night, with heavy wind and a blackout that made the clock on the microwave reset itself. Otherwise it didn't bother us too bad over here. 
Tuesday we had a dance-presentation. We worked on it for two weeks and then we had to have matching outfits that suited the type of dance; hip hop. So this is what my group came up with, personally I think we looked really nice ;) 

I've been up since half past seven, helping shopping for paint and later on painting. The grandmothers house is getting a whole new coat of colour, and I think it's going to look really nice when it's all done.

 

I am also very happy to say there is such a thing as an ordinary week. I've gotten into the rutins, and it feels good. There hasn't happend too many exciting things this week, but I did notice for the first time that there's a painting in the ceiling at one place in school, which I have never ever seen before but which apparently has been there all along. 

   Tuesday I spoke french with four persons, like had an actual conversation, so yeah I'm proud of myself. Wednesday I found out there's people standing at the crossing all around the schools making sure no kids get hit by cars.