I'm sick

For the past 4 days I've been off sick from school. So has Danni.
We've been playing Monopoly, Skip-bo, LIFE, Battleship, and other games.
It's a bit boring sitting at home, but at least we're not alone!
A cold is going around our school, and it got to us. I'm not as sick as Danni, but she gave me her cold, so I've been coughing and I can't breath out of my nose. I should be better in a couple of days.

Nothing else has happened this week. It's Father's Day this Sunday, which is a lot later than our Father's Day. We're going Tawhiti, which is a place that has train and boat rides.

I cooked dinner tonight, but we haven't eatten it yet, so I don't know if it's good or not. I hope it is. I made a roast chicken with herbs and Glen roasted some potatoes.

 I actually managed to get a picture of the mountain located by us. Mount. Taranaki

 

 

I also got a couple nature pictures around my house.

 

 





 

New Zealand School

I've been going to Inglewood High School for 6 weeks now and it's a pretty nice school. A lot of the stuff we're doing in class I've already learned from 10th grade at home. I am in year 11 here, which I think equals out to our 10th grade. I am taking Math, History, Geography, Science, English, and Computers.

The way you get credits in New Zealand is by doing internal assessments and external exams. The internals and external can give you anywhere from 2 credits to 6. This was strange for me, because I'm used to getting letter/percentage grades at home. Where each homework and test count towards your final grade.

The way you get credits is by completing and getting a good mark on an internal or external. The marks you can get are, Not Achieved, Achieved, Merit, and Excellence. For the two internals that I have been graded, I've gotten an Achieved and Merit.

When you get a Merit or Excellence they look better on your report. They have something to do with the NZQA (schooling system)

The classes are also more general, for instance in Math you learn all of the different kinds of math in one class, opposed to how my school is, where it is seperate classes for each type of math.

In addition they also have levels of classes level 1,2,and3. I am currently in level one math, but working on level 2 stuff, since I'm a bit ahead of the other kids. Level one stuff is for year 11, level 2 is for year 12, and level 3 is for year 13.

In New Zealand schools, even public ones, have a uniform. Mine consists of A blue shirt, a plaid like maroon skirt, tights, and black polishable shoes. There are exceptions, like wearing black sandals insteaad of tights and shoes, there are two different regulation shirts.

I've found that the rules are pretty strict at the school. Some of the rules are very weird (in my opinion). For instance we're not allowed to wear make-up, no eyeshadow, eyeliner, blush, etc. (i still wear it) and our hair has to be of natural color, which means the original color, it couldn't be like brown to blonde, since it's not the persons "real" color.

It's Been a Sad Month

It's been pretty sad couple of weeks. (Mom, don't read this one, you'll probably cry)


Yesterday morning, at around 7:00am they found one of the boys that fell off of Paritutu Rock. It had been 15 days since they fell off, and he washed up on shore. It was the boy from Brazilas an exchange student. It's so scary to think of what it's been like for the family and friends of his. Many people I know didn't know them personally, but I know this has effected us all. It goes from the students who went on TOPEC (the camp/company that does the climbing) last year and did the same thing the boys were doing, to people like me, who are exchange students.

There's a lot of things that are sad about this event. 3 people have lost their lives, one lost his because he tried to help the other two. It's sad because one was an exchange student, who was supposed to go home weeks ago, but asked his family to stay longer. It's horrible what all of the families (and friends)  must be going through, how much they're hurting. These people were children, brothers, and one was a husband and a father. I cannot imagine how they're feeling.

I've realized within the last couple weeks of the things that could happen to me, don't worry I'm careful and cautious, but it just had me thinking that at any point, even when I go home, something could go wrong. I know I'm scaring my mother with this post, I know she's probably crying even. But I've realized that life is way to short. I'm so glad I've come to New Zealand to experience what I am, because, like I said, life is too short and we need to live it to the fullest that we can.

I'm grateful that my mom and my host family are giving me such a great experience.

In addition, this is not the only sad thing that's happened to New Zealand in the past two odd weeks. I believe that 6 of New Zealand's troops have been killed in Afghanistan, one of them being the first woman in what I believe they said to have been 30+ years.

I don't understand all of the deaths. It's not needed or wanted.

Nothing Much has Been Happening

So, as per usual, nothing exciting has happened recently. I'm not as omesick anymore, which is good; and I've been emailing my mom, so it's all good. Today, one of the boys that fell off rock climbing, has surfaced. We don't know which one it is, but it should be announced within a few days. Most likely by tomorrow.

For school, I had an internal assessment to do, which I finished tonight. It was where I had to pretend to be Woodrow Wilson and George Clemencaeu, and talk about the Treaty of Versailles. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't difficult either.

Last week, I got my ears pierced. So now they're double pierced. They hurt a bit, but that's to be expected, there's holes in my ears...

I think I'm ready for it to be summer here, because I'm kinda missing the 80-90 degree weather; and I've bought some cute summer clothes, that are to cold for the 45-50 degrees we're getting right now. In a couple weeks I'll be going to Australia, so maybe it'll be a little warmer up there, crossing my fingers.

Okay, well that's all for now :)

Homesickness and Gratefulness.

This is a volg (I hope it shows up)
I ramble. It's not a super "happy" post.
It's not edited, so I ramble a bit

Here's my video,
So watch it, maybe? 

Hi

Sorry it's been so long since the last update. I don't think there's any super exciting news to share! For the last week I've been attending school, the usual I guess. Tonight we went to a friends house and had dinner, it was lamb roast with potatoes. It was yummy!

I couple days ago 3 people fell off a rock when they were climbing it. The waves were really rough and there's a bunch of riptides around there. They haven't been found yet, and it's really sad. Everyone on facebook is talking about, there was a vigil set up and over a thousand people attended. In addition one of the missing boys was an exchange student like me, and this happened about 15/20 minutes away from our house. That kinda hits home for me. But anyway, I think we're all just hoping they're still alive, but it's been close to 3 days, and the water is freezing. It's said they wouldn't of lasted the first night.

There hasn't been much other than that. So this is just a short update of the week. I'll try and update more often. I'm also hoping to do a vlog (video blog) in a couple of days, so you guys who haven't talked to me in a while can hear my voice again!

It should be up on this blog, or if I can't do that I'll youtube it or something. Whatever works :)

Okay, well I hope that was enough information.

I love you all. and if I don't know you. well. thanks for reading this blog of mine :) <3

Just an Update

Well, my birthday was on the 31st of July. So my host family. friends, and I went out to dinner.
We went to a place called Cobb&Co. and it was really nice. I got the Prawn & Parmasian steak, a banana colada smoothie (non-alcoholic), and then had a really amazing chocolate cake.

The cake was homemade by a friend of ours. It was a really moist chocolate cake, with kit-kat bars all around the outside of it. On top it had a bunch of M&Ms, and little handmade ladybugs on top of it.

As for my gifts, most of them I opened that morning:

From my mom, I got a Kindle Fire eReader (which I love) I've already bought and finished a book on it. Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children is a really good book! I've also got some music and a few more books on it. I also got an Amazon giftcard from my grandmother, to use on the kindle store. My mom also got me some earrings and some bracelets.

From my friend, I got a bunch of snack foods from America, like little mini Oreos, Nutter Butters, and Chips Ahoy (cookies). She also got me 5gum and my favorite makeup.

From my host family, I got my favorite purfume! I was so surprised! It's called Viva la Juicy, from Juicy Couture. They also got me a cute belt from a store here in New Zealand.

From our friends, well there's a lot. I got everything from a cute lacey jacket to a Kiwi bird necklace. I also got more purfume (a different kind), some puzzle books, a bunny hat, and a lot more. I need to write thank you cards now :)

As for the rest of the week, nothing much else happened. Went to school, came home, ate, and repeat. There's a new German exchange student at our school named Clara though, and she's really nice. Actually, I think every single German person I've meet have been really nice.

Okay well that's my update. Gonna go watch the Olympics now! and instead of "rooting" for the USA, China, and New Zealand. I'm "cheering" for them, because rooting is sexual here haha (found that out the awkward way).