so this isn't about Belgium. or at least not this part. But the US election is in 4 days, and I have a few things to say. I'll try and keep it appropriate, so that in the event that I ever decide to run for public office I won't have a Blogger-gate to do me in. So anyway, my thoughts on the election:
1) I am obviously an Obama supporter. This is not just because he is the Democratic candidate. I have been incredibly impressed by the organization and effectiveness of his campaign. While we were hearing news about the fighting within McCain's campaign, and the $150,000 spent on clothes/ accessories for the hockey mom and her family, I received an email from the Obama campaign with a subject line of "how Maria can change America". I think that's the way we should be looking right now, not pointing fingers and placing labels.
2) Fear: it is what seems to drive the McCain/ Palin rallys (again, this was never going to be a subjective post. I realize it's biased). There's fear of change, fear of terrorists, fear of differences, fear of Obama etc. And the main battle-cry? (aside from calling Obama a socialist, saying that he "pals around with terrorists", that he's Muslim, or that he's inexperienced) They're concerned because "we don't really know who Barack Obama is". Excuse me? He's spent the last 2 years in the public eye campaigning, plus he has two autobiographical books in bookstores. And we supposedly don't know who he is? Right, because Sarah Palin and her family don't have any secrets/suspicious activities and they've been campaigning for a lot longer than 2 months...not.
3) The debates. They're best seen (in my opinion) on one's iPod on the train to Brussel/ Leuven/ Antwerpen. They're also best seen if one is an Obama supporter. Otherwise, one would most likely spend the entire time cringing while watching McCain flounder (I was disappointed by his performance, I remember him as being more forceful and put together). My favorite was the 3rd, because it was really the only one that included interaction between the candidates. However, that whole "Joe-the-Plumber" business bothered (and still bothers) me. We're not voting on Joe the Plumber, we're voting on a candidate who hopefully has views/ policies about the issues we should be hearing about during the debate. And to be fair, Obama also addressed Mr. Plumber...
4) I feel like this election has gotten too partisan. I realize that that's what happenes during elections, but when you have a campaign that distinguishes between "Real America" and "Fake America" then I think you have bigger problems. I also feel like a lot of the election has gotten to be too personal- with one candidate calling the other on their history or something they've done. I think it should be about what they will do, about the state of the country and the world and about the American people and the issues and policies that affect us. That's what ultimately matters. I am, however, very pleased with Colin Powell and the Chicago Tribune's endorsement of Obama. It certainly means something to have two major Republican or Republican-leaning voices endorse a Democratic candidate. Maybe our country can pull together and pull through after all...
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
we komen aan in Brussel-Centraal
traveling in Belgium could read somewhat like a MasterCard commercial:
1 GoPass (10 one-way train fares to anywhere in Belgium)= 46 EUR
1 BuzzyPass (unlimited bus and tram as long as it's a DeLijn bus/tram)= 162 EUR
1 waffle from Panos for the train ride= 1,60 EUR
the ability to travel anywhere in Belgium within an hour= priceless
Belgium is a country with about 10 million people (that's 3 million more than the San Francisco Bay Area) and has just a little bit more land. Therefore, everything is compact- cars, travel times, houses, supermarkets etc. When I first got here, I was told that Brugge was a nice day trip, but that Brussels is a little farther, and might not be as easy. Coming from California, where you can drive for 9 hours and still be stuck in LA traffic, I imagined a 2 or 3 hour train ride. But no, from Gent-Sint-Pieters (a gorgeous train station, btw) to Brussel-Centraal, it is approximately a 30-45 minute train ride.
So now take Belgium (little bigger than the Bay Area) and divide it in fifths. 3/5s are Wallonia and 2/5s are Flanders. Now take Flanders and add approximately 150 AFS students. As you can see, the population density of AFSers is very high. This makes for lots of fun outings/ chance encounters with everyone else.
A few days ago, I went to Brussel with Bryan (AFSer from Cincinnati) after school (we get out at 12 on Wednesdays). While walking around, we saw a ton of police officers in front of some royal/ official building, so we stopped and waited to see what would happen. We ended up waiting for about 30 minutes in the rain under some tree in the park across the street, but all we saw were a few guys in business suits give us strange looks as they walked back and forth from the cars parked in front to the building. But I do think it was something important- probably something to do with the king. It's little things like this that make wandering in Belgium so much fun: being surrounded by Spaniards all decked out and already celebrating for the Spain/ Belgium World Cup Qualifying Game (Spain won, 2-1), finding some random Roman ruin next to the economic department building in Brussel, buying a bunch of bananas in Antwerp so we could get in to the zoo free and then being on TV as we gave them to a Belgian actress, running into all the Brazilians at the kathedral in Antwerp, listening to a mariachi band in Brugge and then getting lost for an hour on our way to the chocolate museum etc...this is what makes being an AFSer so much fun.
1 GoPass (10 one-way train fares to anywhere in Belgium)= 46 EUR
1 BuzzyPass (unlimited bus and tram as long as it's a DeLijn bus/tram)= 162 EUR
1 waffle from Panos for the train ride= 1,60 EUR
the ability to travel anywhere in Belgium within an hour= priceless
Belgium is a country with about 10 million people (that's 3 million more than the San Francisco Bay Area) and has just a little bit more land. Therefore, everything is compact- cars, travel times, houses, supermarkets etc. When I first got here, I was told that Brugge was a nice day trip, but that Brussels is a little farther, and might not be as easy. Coming from California, where you can drive for 9 hours and still be stuck in LA traffic, I imagined a 2 or 3 hour train ride. But no, from Gent-Sint-Pieters (a gorgeous train station, btw) to Brussel-Centraal, it is approximately a 30-45 minute train ride.
So now take Belgium (little bigger than the Bay Area) and divide it in fifths. 3/5s are Wallonia and 2/5s are Flanders. Now take Flanders and add approximately 150 AFS students. As you can see, the population density of AFSers is very high. This makes for lots of fun outings/ chance encounters with everyone else.
A few days ago, I went to Brussel with Bryan (AFSer from Cincinnati) after school (we get out at 12 on Wednesdays). While walking around, we saw a ton of police officers in front of some royal/ official building, so we stopped and waited to see what would happen. We ended up waiting for about 30 minutes in the rain under some tree in the park across the street, but all we saw were a few guys in business suits give us strange looks as they walked back and forth from the cars parked in front to the building. But I do think it was something important- probably something to do with the king. It's little things like this that make wandering in Belgium so much fun: being surrounded by Spaniards all decked out and already celebrating for the Spain/ Belgium World Cup Qualifying Game (Spain won, 2-1), finding some random Roman ruin next to the economic department building in Brussel, buying a bunch of bananas in Antwerp so we could get in to the zoo free and then being on TV as we gave them to a Belgian actress, running into all the Brazilians at the kathedral in Antwerp, listening to a mariachi band in Brugge and then getting lost for an hour on our way to the chocolate museum etc...this is what makes being an AFSer so much fun.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
welcome to The Great Language Barrier...
So I babysat my neighbor last night, she's three and absolutely adorable. And I honestly think I may have learned more Dutch in the 6 hours spent with her than at all my Dutch lessons combined. We read books most of the time, which was great for my Dutch, but once you've read Ivo gaan boodschaapen doen about 7 times, you've had enough with Ivo and Mama and Tante Rosa and Paultje. It was an interesting night, seeing as she doesn't speak English, my Dutch is rather limited at this point and she speaks with a mixture of French and Dutch because her mom speaks French and dad speaks Dutch. So I was running on intuition a lot of the time while trying to decipher what she was saying. But despite all that, we had a great time, and it was actually surprisingly easy after a while to communicate. And all the effort was worth it when she woke me up in the morning (I spent the night because her parents were out late) with a big kiss and another book to read. Maybe that language barrier isn't so big after all...
In other news, I made scones yesterday- the ones my mom always makes for everything. It was pretty amusing, because I had my laptop at the kitchen table since I had to keep checking the internet for temperature conversions, ingredient translations and such. They actually turned out just as they always do, only a little bit tough- I think I got over excited during the kneading process. But anyway, Annelies and Frederik (my host-brother and his girlfriend who live in Leuven) were here and we ate them for breakfast. It's interesting, because in Belgium, they don't have scones, so it was a very new experience for everyone- something that I hadn't really expected, although I guess scones are more from England, but I'm a little surprised they haven't traveled over here, seeing as Belgium is only about an hour away from England.
Enough about my scones- here's a picture of me, Annelies and Frederik that Laura took a few weeks ago at the Graslei:
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
politics!
So first off, Belgium is really split into two (technically 3, but for all intensive purposes, I'll leave Brussel out) groups: the Walloons- from Wallonia, they French-speaking south, and the Flemish- from Flanders, the Dutch-speaking north (ie. where I am). Despite both being a part of the Kingdom of Belgium (the official name for Belgium), a country that is only about 4000 square miles larger than the Bay Area, these two groups not only have their own political parties, news stations and languages, they also have separate Parliaments. But they are both part of Belgium and therefore both participate in national elections/ decisions etc.
Secondly, Belgium is a multi-party system. Granted, my opionions may be (read: are) biased, but I think that the way the multi-party system works, the parties spend too much time making what we call a kartel in Dutch (basically a block) against other parties by working to get enough people/ parties to out-vote another. This in turn seems to take time away from other issues at hand.
Secondly, Belgium is a multi-party system. Granted, my opionions may be (read: are) biased, but I think that the way the multi-party system works, the parties spend too much time making what we call a kartel in Dutch (basically a block) against other parties by working to get enough people/ parties to out-vote another. This in turn seems to take time away from other issues at hand.
I may have a skewed view of the political interests of teens in the VS (JSA can do that sometimes), but overall, they are much more involved/ interested in politics than teens here- everyone is actually. At risk of sounding cliché, the government of the United States really is the people's government (relatively speaking at least). It's amazing to me how little Belgians feel connected to their government. There is really an "us" and a "them" attitude about their elected officials and what they're doing. This is especially apparent amongst teenagers. While they are pretty much aware of the main parties and some key current events, we never talk about current events or politics or philosophy etc either in or out of class. I think a lot of this difference is that in the US, it's a cool thing to be aware of what's going on in the government, to have opinions about decisions or ideas and to discuss/ debate them with peers. So far, I haven't found that here. So while we learn about the political parties (of which there are many) in history, we don't discuss their party platform, or the decisions that are currently being made.
I'm sure this will be a constant discussion here, but I actually want to post this and stop sitting around, thinking about what else to say. So for now, I guess it will have to end with a to be continued...
Thursday, October 2, 2008
this is what happens when you stare out the window during class...
The other day, I was staring out the window in Godsdienst (Religion) and I saw something that I think is worth sharing, although sadly I didn't have my camera with me at the time to document it. From the window, I can see the tower (or is it steeple? do Catholic churches have steeples?) of Sint-Baafskathedral, which is currently under renovation, so there's scaffolding almost to the top and a big crane next to it. For the past few weeks, there has been a porta-potty on one of the upper levels of the scaffolding. At first I thought it was funny that there was such a contrast in old, fancy church-ness and a dark green plastic supersize porta-potty, but it makes sense, no?
Anyway, the other day, I looked out the window and saw the crane lowering the porta-potty back down. This makes sense too, except it was really funny to see a porta-potty spinning around about 200 feet up in air next to Sint-Baafskathedral. I'm sure none of you find it quite as amusing as I do (it's one of those "you had to be there" moments I think), but it makes me laugh to think about it, so I thought I'd share it. For reference, here's a picture of Sint-Baafskathedral (which btw is the namesake of our school. St. Bavo's feast day was yesterday, 1 Oktober.)
Anyway, the other day, I looked out the window and saw the crane lowering the porta-potty back down. This makes sense too, except it was really funny to see a porta-potty spinning around about 200 feet up in air next to Sint-Baafskathedral. I'm sure none of you find it quite as amusing as I do (it's one of those "you had to be there" moments I think), but it makes me laugh to think about it, so I thought I'd share it. For reference, here's a picture of Sint-Baafskathedral (which btw is the namesake of our school. St. Bavo's feast day was yesterday, 1 Oktober.)
a typical day at Sint-Bavo
for a school day on maandag, donderdag en vrijdag (Monday, Thursday and Friday, respectively)- Tuesday and Wednesday (half day!- all students in Belgium get out at 12) are different.
7:00- wake up, go downstairs and have breakfast with my host-mom: cereal and coffee, make my lunch
7:30- back upstairs to get dressed/ ready for school (my school has a uniform, so it shouldn't take long to get dressed, but sometimes it's hard to find clean socks...)
7:53- race out the door because my bus comes at 7:55
7:55 (never later- the public transportation here in Belgium is awesomely on-time)- wedge myself between people on the over-crowded bus to school. I'll spend the next 10 minutes breathing peoples hair products and being far closer to strangers than any normal situation would call for.
8:08- arrive at school (Sint-Bavohumaniora, in the historical center of Gent. Sint-Bavo is a Catholic school, but in Belgium Catholic schools get government funding as well, so it's not private. We're known as the "groentjes" (or "little green ones") because our uniforms are green.) and make the first trip of many to my locker (which, for those of you who went to Canyon (I don't know what the Creekside lockers looked like), are about the size of our little PE lockers- the ones in 6th grade where we had to have a separate combination lock. And they have a key, not a combo lock.). Then it's off to find the other 6th years until the bell rings.
8:15- bell rings. We all have to line up according to class and then listen to the headmistress read the announcements, the bible, the school rules, poetry etc enz. During this time, the teachers walk up and down the rows making sure we're all in uniform, facing front and being quiet. The quiet part is kind of a wasted effort. (this is for Tuesday-Friday. On Monday, school starts at 8:35, because the internaats move in. Sint-Bavo is also a boarding school, so the internaats (boarders) move in on Monday, stay until Friday and then go home for the weekend)
8:25- first class of the day begins. each class is 50 minutes and we have 7 classes a day, not including lunch. There are 2 classes in the morning, and then...
10:10- 10 minute break
10:20- 2 more classes before lunch
12:00- LUNCH! we have an hour and a half for lunch, and 6th years are allowed out of the school for lunch (it's a closed campus for everyone else), so we usually eat in the city somewhere
1:20- three more classes
4:00- school's out. last locker trip of the day and then I either take the bus home, or stay in the city and do any necessary shopping/ exploring.
my schedule:
maandag- Godsdeinst, Engels, Geschiedenis, Nederlands, LO, LO, Fysica
dinsdag- AFS Dutch lesson in the morning (I miss two periods of Economie, one of Chemie and one free), free, free, free
woensdag- Engels, free, free, free
donderdag- Economie, Seminarie Economie, Biologie, free, Economie, Esthetica, Nederlands
vrijdag- free, Nederlands, Geschiedenis, free, Godsdienst, Aardrijkskunde, Nederlands
*note: I have free periods when the rest of my class has French, German and math, so I go to either the library or the study hall.
godsdienst= religion
engels= englsih
geschiedenis= history
nederlands= dutch
LO (lichamelijke opvoeding)= PE
fysica= physics
chemie= chemistry
economie= economics
seminarie economie= we're creating our own small business (business plans, bookkeeping, entrepeneurship etc)
biologie= biology
esthetica= esthetics- basically art and music history
aardrijkskunde= geography
7:00- wake up, go downstairs and have breakfast with my host-mom: cereal and coffee, make my lunch
7:30- back upstairs to get dressed/ ready for school (my school has a uniform, so it shouldn't take long to get dressed, but sometimes it's hard to find clean socks...)
7:53- race out the door because my bus comes at 7:55
7:55 (never later- the public transportation here in Belgium is awesomely on-time)- wedge myself between people on the over-crowded bus to school. I'll spend the next 10 minutes breathing peoples hair products and being far closer to strangers than any normal situation would call for.
8:08- arrive at school (Sint-Bavohumaniora, in the historical center of Gent. Sint-Bavo is a Catholic school, but in Belgium Catholic schools get government funding as well, so it's not private. We're known as the "groentjes" (or "little green ones") because our uniforms are green.) and make the first trip of many to my locker (which, for those of you who went to Canyon (I don't know what the Creekside lockers looked like), are about the size of our little PE lockers- the ones in 6th grade where we had to have a separate combination lock. And they have a key, not a combo lock.). Then it's off to find the other 6th years until the bell rings.
8:15- bell rings. We all have to line up according to class and then listen to the headmistress read the announcements, the bible, the school rules, poetry etc enz. During this time, the teachers walk up and down the rows making sure we're all in uniform, facing front and being quiet. The quiet part is kind of a wasted effort. (this is for Tuesday-Friday. On Monday, school starts at 8:35, because the internaats move in. Sint-Bavo is also a boarding school, so the internaats (boarders) move in on Monday, stay until Friday and then go home for the weekend)
8:25- first class of the day begins. each class is 50 minutes and we have 7 classes a day, not including lunch. There are 2 classes in the morning, and then...
10:10- 10 minute break
10:20- 2 more classes before lunch
12:00- LUNCH! we have an hour and a half for lunch, and 6th years are allowed out of the school for lunch (it's a closed campus for everyone else), so we usually eat in the city somewhere
1:20- three more classes
4:00- school's out. last locker trip of the day and then I either take the bus home, or stay in the city and do any necessary shopping/ exploring.
my schedule:
maandag- Godsdeinst, Engels, Geschiedenis, Nederlands, LO, LO, Fysica
dinsdag- AFS Dutch lesson in the morning (I miss two periods of Economie, one of Chemie and one free), free, free, free
woensdag- Engels, free, free, free
donderdag- Economie, Seminarie Economie, Biologie, free, Economie, Esthetica, Nederlands
vrijdag- free, Nederlands, Geschiedenis, free, Godsdienst, Aardrijkskunde, Nederlands
*note: I have free periods when the rest of my class has French, German and math, so I go to either the library or the study hall.
godsdienst= religion
engels= englsih
geschiedenis= history
nederlands= dutch
LO (lichamelijke opvoeding)= PE
fysica= physics
chemie= chemistry
economie= economics
seminarie economie= we're creating our own small business (business plans, bookkeeping, entrepeneurship etc)
biologie= biology
esthetica= esthetics- basically art and music history
aardrijkskunde= geography
inkomensverdeling, babbeltjes and bohemian rhapsody
So, I'm in Economie-Wiskunde (for those of you unfamiliar with the European school system-which would be most of you- students choose a focus-a little like a major-during the last half of secondary school (which by the way is 6 years- the equivalent of 7th grade in the US to 12th grade) and take classes with other students in their "track" that are specialized for that interest. For example, I have 5 hours of econ a week whereas someone who's taking Latin-Greek might only have 1), but because there's only 6 of us, we're combined with the rest of 6B (ie. Economie- Moderne Talen) for most of our classes. Economie- Moderne Talen (Economics- Modern Languages; Economie-Wiskunde is Economics- Math) is known at Sint-Bavo as the "easy class" and has a bit of a reputation as having the not-so-bright students of the 6th year. And I'm not going to lie- some of them fit that category perfectly. But everyone (well, almost) talks. And I don't just mean at break or before class starts. Always, when the teacher is teaching or talking, when someone else is talking, just after being reprimanded for talking etc. I've never seen anything like it in a classroom before. And the teachers don't punish anyone (apparently, it's allowed, but no one does it). So we spend the whole period of economie on 2 questions (ie. doing nothing) while my econ teacher bangs on the window wither her keys in an effort to get us to shut up. It doesn't work, but one of these days, she's going to break a window.
And then there's Esthetica (basically art- and music-history), which is a whole nother can of worms...basically, the teacher can't teach, the student's aren't interested and Mr. Van Tricht looks really funny when he plays the piano. That combined with the fact that we don't have to take notes (or pay attention for that matter) because all his powerpoints/ notes are posted online, is enough to create chaos.
And then there's Esthetica (basically art- and music-history), which is a whole nother can of worms...basically, the teacher can't teach, the student's aren't interested and Mr. Van Tricht looks really funny when he plays the piano. That combined with the fact that we don't have to take notes (or pay attention for that matter) because all his powerpoints/ notes are posted online, is enough to create chaos.
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