I am back.

I have finally finished my history project (a major reason why I haven't been updating my blog) so now I'm back.. 

In the next couple days I'll try to update about Prom and graduation and all the other happenings that I've been up to.. 

Here's my history project if you're interested though.. We had to create (in a group) a 10 minute documentary on the Free Speech Movement of the sixties.. A LOT of work, but I learned a lot too :)

I am terrible.

Dan, Myself, Brittany and Chad at prom

I'm still a terrible blogger.. Weird, who would've guessed.. It's nearly been a month since prom and I haven't written anything yet.. I'm sorry! I've been swamped with homework! This weekend we've had the Pops concert which is about 3 1/2 hours of music put on by the school.. I'm in concert choir, girls chorus, and two ensembles. Bellow you can see one of our songs where I have a one line solo. It was a lot of fun, last night was the first night and tonight is closing night..

The seniors are graduating next weekend and before long school will be out. Time is going so fast! 

I have my flights now and I'm leaving here on the 31st and arriving in New Zealand on the 2nd of May, but I will write more about that later when I have some time. For now I have an hour before I have to be at the concert and another page to write of a sociology paper due tomorrow with an accompanying presentation I haven't finished yet.. Last minute cramming, argh. 

But do not worry, I am still having a wonderful time and I will update you soon! I haven't forgotten about you.

April means Spring

Look at me, updating my blog in under a month.. I think it's a miracle! 


It is now April and the weather is getting better. This is good seeing as I'll be going back to winter when I return to New Zealand.

Natalie & I at NHS, see previous post

This week soccer started, yes Brittany and I are out for soccer in the community team. It's high school (grade 9 - 12) plus one middle schooler. It's mixed, so boys and girls, and Brittany and I are the only girls on the team.. Brittany had never played before and I played for a couple of years a while back so we're not the next Christiano Ronaldos, to say the least. I'm really enjoying it so far though. Because it's community soccer we don't practice nearly as much as the other sports, like we practiced for cheerleading. We practice three times a week and have games on Sunday afternoons. The first practice was on Thursday, we had one today (Sunday) and then we have one Tuesday, possibly Thursday too, and then our first two games are on Sunday which will be fun.


Apart from that, nothing else has really happened since my last post, except that I got to Skype my wonderful sister Veronika after church today for the second time since she left. That made my day :)


Just keeping it short and sweet for now,
Have a fantastic day.

Bad at blogging.

I'm very terrible at blogging. Not gonna lie, for a couple of weeks I didn't even think about blogging.


Last weekend was St Patricks Day, which is really big in Emmetsburg.. Everyone becomes Irish.. It was fun though, there was a parade and a "Miss Shamrock Pageant". Everyone was happy and the weather was pretty nice, by that I mean it wasn't in the negative Celsius.


This weekend was the last weekend for show choir, which I've been helping backstage with. It was lots of fun, think Glee, but much better choreography and not professional singers. Bellow is the introduction to one of their songs. There are 44 performers (singers and dancers) and 11 band members. The group has learned and performs five songs; Beautiful Day / I Can See Clearly Now, Love Goes On, If You Believe, Never Been Any Reason and New Divide.

My subjects this semester are all going really well, I enjoy them all and I've got either an A or an A- in them which makes me feel accomplished.. 

Dan, Myself and Brian at the NHS evening

In other news, Brittany and I have signed up for the mixed community soccer team which starts in April which will be fun.

The third weekend of April is also our prom which is coming up rapidly.

In the past month I've entered the Individual Speech contest where I competed in Districts and State.. I got a I (highest score) at Districts which meant I went to State where I got split Is (Two Is and one II), which means overall I got a I. I wrote my own speech on Organ Donation which had to be under 8 minutes, it was 7 minutes or just over.

BriAna and I at the Miss Shamrock Pageant

Tonight we had the honor society dinner which I did my individual speech for.. It went well. It was a supper recognizing students that maintained a high (3.20+) GPA (grade point average) for three consecutive semesters. I couldn't qualify because I've only been at Emmetsburg for 1.5 semesters.

Apart from the above, I don't think anything super exciting has happened in the past month.. But I will try my very hardest to blog more, even if I consider the things less exciting..


Oh, I did find out today who was chosen to be camp returnees. Unfortunately I wasn't chosen but Bryce, from New Zealand, and Camilla, from the Netherlands, were! I know they'll be great mentors. 

Myself, Natalie and Mara at the NHS Banquet

That's all for now though, if I keep trying to think of more to write I'll just continue to put this off and it won't be posted for another three weeks..


I hope you are all well :)

Happy Valentines Day

Hannah and I when we went bowling

Just a short post to hope that you all had a happy valentines day, even if I do think it's a bunch of over advertised nonsense to spend extra money on flowers, chocolate and things that are red. You shouldn't need a specific day to tell the people you love that you love them, you should do it any day and everyday.  

We had Wrestling Sectionals in the weekend and four of our five wrestlers came either 1st or 2nd so that means they are going to State Wrestling this week : )

We leave Wed at 7.30am and get back Sat / Sun depending if we make the finals. I'm excited.

Hope you're well and everything's great : )

New Month. New Post.

I suppose I should update my blog, since I said I'd update more often. Though I haven't really got anything super exciting to write about. I guess that everything just seems kinda normal, as if all of this has become normal. It's a weird feeling. I'm not bored with anything, everything's still great, but it's just kind of a weird feeling. 

Hannah and I baked cupcakes on one of our snow days. 

Last week I received my flight confirmation pack from EF which says I'm on wave two, which means I'll leave here between May 31st and June 2nd. It seems so close and my time here seems to have gone so fast. But then I remember that it's still four months away and back in New Zealand before I had left, four months was such a long time. 


I probably should have used sometime during my mid-week weekend to update, but I guess blogging has slipped my mind. And about my mid-week weekend, well it was great. Tuesday and Wednesday were both snow days because it was so cold and on Monday after noon and Tuesday we got a lot of snow! With the amount of wind we had (up to 35m/hour) it blew everywhere and created some cool looking snow drifts on the roads and on top of what would be sidewalk. 

The snow day earlier this semester was spent playing in the snow.

The roads weren't absolutely terrible, the school was more closed because of the country roads. The roads in town are generally scooped before 8am but a lot of the country roads when it's really bad don't get scooped before midday. We have to make up the days at the end of the term which I don't mind because I do quite enjoy my mid-week weekends. Hannah and I always spend a part of our snow days together, it's become somewhat of a ritual. The four we've had this semester have not been without a bit of Hannah time. The ones in January were both spent actually playing in the snow and this week we baked cupcakes and drew some pretty pictures.


School so far this semester is going well, I enjoy all of my subjects a lot and even though I have quite a bit of homework each night I've gotten really good at managing my time which is nice. 


The past week I've been sick, I have a cold, and it's gotten a lot better now but last Thursday and Friday it was quite bad. Apparently during the BCIG two day wrestling tournament the weekend earlier there was a lot of bugs going round and that's why my cheerleading coach got influenza a and b and strep, and in the past two weeks five of six cheerleaders have had a cold. It wasn't much fun and I've still got a runny nose, but I don't have a sore throat or temperature anymore which is nice. 

Hannah makes lovely cupcakes.

We have regional wrestling this Saturday in Okoboji, the following weekend we have sectionals and then the week after we have State Wrestling. By the sounds of things we will get a couple of wrestlers to State because we are a 1A school (the smallest category of school, larger schools wrestle 2A and 3A because they have more wrestlers or more funding or for some other reason are more superior than little 1A schools with under 170 people.) State wrestling goes from Tuesday the 15th to Saturday and so I will have a lot of school and homework to be catching up on! It's in Des Moines and all of the cheerleaders and wrestlers are staying down there for the week. That's about all I know right now about it, but it's the highlight of the season apparently. 


I guess that's about all right at the moment,
Enjoy your 75 (24 Celcius) Fahrenheit weather Auckland while I enjoy my 15 (-9 Celcius) Fahrenheit weather. 
Send me a little sun?
:)

New Year, New Post, Terrible Reliability

[This part's old, typed a while back but I never got round to posting it or finishing it.]


Yes, I'm very lazy and very bad at this posting on this thing. Especially during my winter break.. But winter break is coming to an end now so I'll stop being lazy and update.

Our Christmas tree

I would like to post an impersonal thank you for all the amazing Christmas and birthday cards and gifts I received. I love getting mail and each and every one made me feel so special. Thank you :)


Firstly, Christmas was very white and wonderful. On the actual weekend of Christmas Linda's family was here, her two daughters, her son, his wife and their daughter. Lee, Linda's son, arrived on Friday night, and Heather and Monica, Linda's daughters arrived early afternoon on Christmas day because the roads were very icy. We had a huge Christmas lunch / dinner and exchanged presents and played some card games. It was very nice and very relaxing.



The weekend of the New Year was like a second Christmas where David's family came round. 

Anna came home from college and is staying 'till the 10th

and David's two other daughters came up with their husbands for the weekend.

Veronika's last day of school :(

For my birthday I went out to eat with some of my friends and then they came round after and we played a few card games and had fun. It was nice. Just thought I'd add this and it makes me realize I haven't posted in over a month. Goodness.


For school we had finals and they weren't as bad as I thought they would be. They were exams, in certain classes, over topics from the whole semester and it goes on a separate grade on our report card. I didn't do as well as I liked, score wise, but I didn't do badly. 


[less old, still a while ago but thought you should know]


Side note: So I did get distracted with the post because the last few days of winter break went so fast and all of a sudden I was back at school and now I'm overloaded with homework.. But do not fear, I am still alive! I pinkie promise to write interesting things soon but right now life is jam packed.

The three of us sisters at the airport for a final photo

Veronika left on the forth of January to go home to Austria and it was extremely sad seeing her leave. She's home safe and sound now and is back at school and speaking German again. 


I started school the day after so I didn't have time to get lonely really, but the house is a lot more quiet without her here.


School this semester is going well so far, even though I am getting a lot of homework.. My subjects are English, Sociology, Computer Applications Development, Economics, U.S History plus P.E and Choir.

This weekend I have a two day wrestling tournament at BCIG so we stay at a motel Friday night, cheer Friday and Saturday. Cheerleading's going really well, but it'll all be over soon and I'll be sad.

Cheerleading, my newest favorite passion :)

I'd love to write more but I really have to get back to my homework, promise to write soon and more often.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Merry Christmas New Zealand,
and Merry Christmas for tomorrow everyone in America :)


I'm sorry for being so slack lately but I've been extremely busy with finals and the end of semester so I'll update when I get a chance, which is not right now unfortunately.. 
I just stopped by to post that I'm thinking of you.


Here's my last ABT assignment, one of my finals for school. It had to be the meaning of Christmas using stykz (a program that's much harder to use than it looks).

Whatever your interpretation of Christmas is, I hope that your day is more amazing than imaginable. 
:)

Briefly Stopping By

So this weekend was thanksgiving and it was soooo good :)
But I will update about that in my next post.. I'm very tired tonight but just thought I'd leave you with a cute picture.. The one above is my host family and I and bellow is a project I have been working on for ABT.. Click to enlarge. We had to make a photo collage on a theme, and the teacher's getting them professionally printed on 28" by 22" photo paper!


Chat soon :)

Four Month Anniversary

Veronika and I today after church.

Today I have been in the United States for four months. Even though I have a little homework to complete, I decided this was worth a short blog update..


At the moment I'm very busy with Cheerleading practice and multiple assignments so this isn't going to be a long post at all sorry.. 

The original photo.

This week is Thanksgiving which I'm excited for. We get Thursday and Friday off school, Thanksgiving is on the Thursday, and Friday is Black Friday where shops have extremely huge sales.

A photo I edited for my ABT Project

Monday the 29th is our first wrestling meet which is exciting. But due to Thanksgiving we only have two practices before the meet! It's a double dual also, which means two people wrestle at once. This means three cheerleaders are cheering for one match which the other three cheer for the other which is a little scary because people notice if you make mistakes a lot more since there are only three people!


That's all for now because my feet are cold so I'm going to put socks on and go to sleep. The temperature has been cold in the past week, it was 18 Fahrenheit all day yesterday! 
(I'm working at putting a fahrenheit to degrees convertor on my blog for everywhere else in the world that speaks in celsius)




Update more later :)

Unreliable Blogging. Sorry.

Brittany, Veronika and I

Not only did I get photos of leaves, but Veronika, Natalie and I decided to be photography for the afternoon and we took some photos playing in the leaves :)


Recently all it seems like we've been doing is play practice, play practice and play practice. Last Sunday we had practice for five hours!  It's still fun but it's very time consuming. 


Last week Linda and David were in Florida from Tuesday so Veronika and I stayed at Natalie's which was really nice. Even if we had to get up early for her show choir. 


It was the end of the first quarter on Friday (like term one in New Zealand) and we will be getting all of our quarter one grades on a score sheet. So far I know that I got an A- in US History and a B- in Psychology which I was really pleased about. In psychology I'm the only junior (year 11) in a class of seniors (year 12.. the final year of school in USA) and US History is a class of only juniors but it's quite difficult.

Fun in the leaves :)

Tomorrow afternoon Veronika, Pete and I are going to a Halloween Party with other EF students. I'm wearing my play costume cause I have it and don't have to buy it, and it's a costume cause no-one wears the horrible big skirts anymore. Then tomorrow afternoon I have play practice again, which we're running through the whole show so it's probably gonna last ages.


But all is okay, next week we're performing! On Thursday morning we're doing a full rehearsal in front of the Middle School and then Friday evening is opening night! I'm so excited, it's going to be so cool.

Squirrel!

Today Veronika and I went to Wrestling Cheerleading tryouts. Wrestling Cheerleading is a type of cheerleading where you mainly sit on the side of the mat and hit it in rhythm. That's really all I know about it anyway. So the squad is made up of six girls, and there were ten girls trying out, it was so nerve wracking. We had three days to learn the school song and the dance to it but we managed to get it down. I really enjoy it! If we don't make the Varsity (best) Squad then we are automatically put on the JV (Junior Varsity) Basketball Cheerleading Squad which is more of your normal cheerleading, routines and dances standing up.


Other than that, everything's been pretty normal. It's meant to snow this week though. I'm so excited! I've never been snowed on before, eek. 

I love Natalie :D

Also, if you want me to explain anything, feel free to ask, cause to me it seems like everything is normal but it probably doesn't to you and I forget who I've explained things to and what not. I don't want you to be completely lost! I promise to update a lot more often. For those that haven't figured out how to post comments yet, you click on the title of the post, for example the bigger "Unreliable Blogging. Sorry" for this post, scroll down to the end and post a comment. From there you can make an account if you wish where you may be able to have my posts emailed to you. I'm not sure though, I've never needed my own posts sent to my email. Otherwise post anonymously, but remember to include your name!


Also, exciting news. If you google "bryant camp ef" my blog is on the first page of results! I hope that's not just for me. Yes, I get excited about little things. 


That's all.
Enjoy the Sunshine :)

Procrastination.. More to Come

You may've noticed I haven't posted for a while, the main reason for this is because I haven't taken photos of the trees yet as I'd promised. I know, very slack and I should get onto it soon before all the leaves fall off, but I'm such a procrastinator. 

On the other hand, I've just finished another ABT project. This one was our choice so I made a movie about New Zealand. You can see it bellow. I don't like hearing myself talk but I had to have heaps of voice-over to have the information cause I don't really like subtitles, just a heads up.

Also, while we're sharing videos, for Psychology a small group had to make a "Choral Reading" on a body system that we're studying. Our group had to do the Endocrine System, so we made a rap. 

This is just a short update so that you know I'm still alive and doing great but haven't had the motivation to be creative as yet.


More to come soon :)

A week of school already..

What an eventful week that has just passed. 


Firstly, as you know I started school ! The first day felt so stressful, because there is so much jammed into a day. I have eight class periods, homeroom and lunch. Thankfully I was able to open my locker, but it took me quite a while so I didn't know how I was meant to go to it during class. When the day finally ended I was exhausted. I decided to move into Advanced Business Technology from Practical English and I wasn't put into American Literature, but it's okay, I've moved into American Government, as well as taking US History, Critical Thinking, Human Relations, P.E and Concert Choir. 


This week has been a lot better, I know where all my classes are and I can go to my locker in between classes too. I've also been getting quite a bit of homework too, it's extra hard in American History cause before now I had no idea about the history of America. It's good to know their government is reliable though. I'm also getting used to overusing z's. Seriously, way more z's are in words in "American English". 


On Saturday, Veronika and I went with Linda to the Western Iowa EF meeting. There were just under 30 exchange students there, along with other IECs and some of their host families. It was really fun. We went to the Grotto of Redemption. In short, it's a bunch of rocks and crystals making up a multilevel building-like structure. The largest in the world. It was exciting. 


In other news, there's another exchange student coming to EHS ! It's exciting. It all started when Jake asked his Mom if they could host an exchange student, since under 100 students still hadn't been found families and the cut off date was Sunday. And after a bit, they decided to become a host family ! So Pete, an exchange student from Thailand is coming to EHS in the next few days. 


That's about all for now, in the next few days hopefully I'll write some things about my subjects, but all are going well at the moment.


Keep Smiling (:

Day 7 in Iowa

Almost the view from our house

After arriving on Saturday last week, I have been in Iowa for seven days now, and I love it!


On Saturday evening, Linda (my host Mom) picked me up from Mason City Airport which is about one and a half hours drive from our house in Emmetsburg.


At 8:30pm, David (my host Dad) picked up Veronika (my exchange sister) from another airport, about 270 miles from Mason City. So by the time they got home I had unpacked and fallen asleep. 


On Sunday, after David and Linda had come home from church and Veronika and I had slept in, we went for a tour of the neighborhood. It's larger than I thought it would be, with 3000 residents and many nice sights and shops. No clothing shops though, as Linda had said.

Emmetsburg, the middle of town.

From our house you can walk down a path (kind of Alleyway) and you're at the Lake. (Refer to photo 'Almost the view from our house') We're also pretty much directly behind the Movie Theatre on Main Street, so a lot of things are within walking distance.


On Wednesday afternoon, Linda took Veronika and I into Fort Dodge to do some shopping before meeting another exchange student at the airport. We went into Target where I bought a black Mossimo Cardigan for under $20 (the exact price I can't remember). We went into a Mall but I didn't find anything in there, except a travel clock. 


After visiting the mall we went to an Italian place for dinner which was very yummy, but hugggeeee servings, I didn't expect anything less though. Then we went to Wal-Mart which was a lot larger than than the Wal-Mart in Newport. I managed to excite Veronika with the idea that there might be a Nirvana t-shirt cause I saw one at the Newport Wal-Mart but after a dash to the Mens clothing we were only but disappointed.



Yesterday, Veronika and I decided to walk to the library cause even though it's across town, 2 miles isn't that long, right? Not if you don't have footpaths over half the way. 


After getting instructions off Linda and David we were all set, once we turned off 8th Street we realised why they warned us there might not be footpaths on the side of the street we want to walk on. It was pretty terrible. Not only was there only ever a footpath on one side of the street, but it'd randomly stop in between houses. Sometimes there was no footpath at all. We quickly began to regret our decision. 


Eventually we reached the library, and it was as quiet as anything, there had to be two other people in there except us. I wanted to get out a book to start learning some more German, but nothing. Then I thought about learning some more Piano, cause there's a piano in the lounge. But nothing. So after a while I gave up and got out a book on Woodstock and a novel. Nothing too exciting.

Veronika outside my our school

On the way back we decided to take what we thought was a shortcut, while going past our school at the same time. After passing the school we couldn't believe that we saw 8th street, it was so much closer than the way we came. But after one block it stopped. Luckily we found our way back home through wandering in right direction. 


In the past seven days, I have been no-where near as busy as I was on ONE day at camp, but it's nice to relax. I don't start school until the 25th of August which means I still have a lot more time to relax and settle in, although I'm pretty well settled in now. I still have to decide my school subjects, get registered for school and buy an american cellphone / number. But more about that in the next post.

David, Linda and Gizmo, one of the cats at home

On an unrelated note, I am so lucky to be a New Zealander, just for the fact that our money is so much nicer than American money. I don't want my one cent change if I buy something for 99 cents! Seriously, who thought it'd be cool to have a one cent coin cause I dislike them greatly.


That's all for now, maybe one day I'll learn to post more often so it means I have to write less. 'Till then, sorry about the enormous posts. 

Flights to Iowa

Countless travelators and in airport train systems... What a day.

"The Cheeseburger Gang" (Minus Amy) nearly leaving EF Culture Camp

The past ten days have gone so fast and I had such an amazing time at camp. But of course, all good things come to an end and this morning all of us students left camp. First to go was Amy, who’s off to Minnesota for six months, who left at 1am on the very first bus with Cille, my amazing Dutch room-mate who’s going to Nevada for a year. Then we said goodbye to the Sarahs at 2am, Sarah Tilley who’s off to Idaho for 6 months and Sarah Palmer who’s off to Minnesota. Then there was just the five of us left, all departing from camp at the same time but on two buses going to two different airports. At 3am Grace who’s off to Oklahoma, Kim who’s off to Preston and Alanna who’s going to Iowa, hopped on the bus to Boston airport and Ashleigh and I go on the bus to Providence airport.

After a small nap in the bus to Providence Airport we were at the airport checking into our separate flights, and who did we see but Sarah Palmer who was leaving the airport around 6am like Ashleigh. We checked in and my luggage was an amazing 47 pounds (only because I have two super heavy carry on bags, but the airport doesn’t weigh those). Then we had to wait, oh the joy. Everyone was so tired and by the time Starbucks had finally opened I had already had a Red Bull in hope of staying awake until my 9:10am flight. That didn’t happen.

Sarah and Ashleigh around 5am at Providence airport.

I saw Ashleigh and Sarah off their separate ways and we wished each other the best of luck. No less than half an hour later I was asleep next to other EF students sitting at one of the tables in the food court until it was time to say goodbye to another small group at 7.30am. There was only three of us remaining after that; a German boy, Sarah a Swiss girl who I was talking to for a while and myself. When 8.45am finally rolled around I couldn’t be more relieved to board my plane, so I said goodbye to the other two and went my own way.

First I flew from Providence to Detroit which took two hours. Then from Detroit to Minnesota which was another two hour flight, luckily I met an Austrian girl from Norwich camp called Camilla who I talked to for a while. Now I’ll be waiting three hours to fly for an hour to Mason City in Iowa with Veronika who should be arriving soon. I really hope she doesn’t get lost, I didn’t even think to ask what flight she’d be on.

Update: Veronika's first flight was cancelled so I didn't end up meeting her 'till this morning cause she got into Emmetsburg around midnight!

That’s all the excitement of my sleep deprived travels for today; luckily I won’t have to do it again until I leave for Germany.

I hope wherever you are you’re having an amazing day (:

United Skates of America and other adventures at Culture Camp

Some New Zealand Exchange Students at the Airport

Since you had last heard from me I was landing in Providence, RI, and boy has the time since then gone fast!

I've been here 5 full days already, and I'm having an amazing time at Culture Camp. Camp is mostly for international students who don't speak English as a first language, but for us it's still a great time to learn about the culture and make some friends. It's run like school and goes as follows;

On weekdays the day goes like this; breakfast runs from 7am to 9am, classes run from 9am to 4pm with a two hour lunch break between 12pm and 2pm and then optional activities are offered with dinner running between 5pm and 7pm with curfew at 11pm.

Many activities are available at designated slots, scheduled between 4pm and 10pm. They range from small cooking classes to swimming, basketball, movies, football, baseball, line dancing and many more, there are even computer labs open for those without laptops. 

Alanna, Myself and Grace (Center) in Boston

On the weekend though it was different. On Friday and Saturday nights we had a midnight curfew and Saturday and Sunday mornings we were allowed a sleep in, with brunch running between 10am and 12am, and classes starting at 12am running until 6pm with a half an hour break and dinner beginning immediately after class.

So far we've had two excursions out of three, we've been to Boston for a day and to United Skates of America.

So on Friday the 23rd we went to Boston City, it was about an hours drive from camp in Smithfield but we were in coaches so it was comfy. Boston was AMAZING. I have seriously missed shopping. We were given the whole day to roam the streets with at least three others and had to meet back at 7pm, the rules stopped there. 

Alanna, Amy, Grace and I (All New Zealand exchange students) went shopping. We actually only went down two streets, and one was an alleyway with a mall in it. We caught the underground subway to the second street and apart from being scary, really really hot and noisy on the trip there, we found some good shops.

I didn't buy much because I don't want to pay extra for luggage to Iowa, but I did get a dress for $7, a pair of Paul Frank headphones, a Big Bang Theory t-shirt and a Transformers hat. We also experienced American Starbucks, which is extremely fast! They could teach the New Zealanders a thing or two. Grace has a happy meal, and it seriously comes in a box like on the ads, it was exciting, so I took her box and the smile makes me smile when I see it in my room.

Then tonight we went to United Skates of America which was also really fun. We went roller skating, with the four wheels, which after getting used to were really easy to use. There was also a place to go Rock Climbing and play Laser Tag. I played Laser Tag and came 3rd out of 18, but didn't go Rock Climbing unfortunately. It's really different from New Zealand 'Laser Force', the two teams have designated sides to stay on and you're not allowed to run, but it was fun anyway, especially sneaking onto the oppositions side.

Roller Skating at United Skates of America

Tomorrow we're going on our last excursion to Newport, RI. Again, we can do whatever we want with our time and I think that I'm going to join some Australians in exploring the shops because there's a Wal-Mart about 2 miles from where we're being dropped off, and Wal-Mart seems exciting.

That's all for now,

I'll try to update more often after camp, we're just crazy busy at the moment and I have to cram writing in at night.

Keep being Awesome (:

View More Photos of My Adventure So Far Here

Last Minute Posting

Just before I pack up my laptop the night before my departure, I thought I'd write a quick post.

I've just been out to dinner with Mum, Dad, Nana and Bridgette and we had a lovely time. My suitcase is all packed and it weighs around 20kg, hand luggage and hand bag are all ready to go.

I'm very excited as you can imagine! I've heard some cool things about camp from some of my friends there already, and can't wait to meet them.

It's going to be sad tomorrow leaving everyone in New Zealand, but I'm going to be seeing everyone soon.

Thank you all for your support. And especially to all my great friends who are taking the day off school / gateway to see me off at the airport. My Nana for coming up from Palmerston North. Mum and Dad for being patient when I've been getting stressed recently. All my other relatives and everyone else (well, you know who you are), who have all also been so helpful. I'm going to miss you all so much. You're all wonderful.

And my blog. Well I'll be seeing you in America.

Goodnight New Zealand, 'till we meet again :)

One Week!

With only one week to go before my departure, I'm getting super excited!

Yesterday I received my flight confirmation and after a 12 hour flight to LAX from Auckland Airport, my journey looks like the picture to your right.

With Green A being LA Airport where I arrive at 6.30am on the 21st of July, B being Charlotte, North Carolina, where I arrive at 7.06pm and C being Providence, Rhode Island where I arrive at 9.44pm to then journey to Bryant University Camp.

The Red A is Emmetsburg, Iowa, and I have yet to receive my flights from Bryant to my host family. But for someone who's never been to the United States, I sure am going to be seeing a lot of it, from the plane window anyway.

As my room gets tidier by the second and I am thinking about what to take and what not to take, I'm realising how much of a reality this all is becoming.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to my Mum for everything she's been doing recently. From helping me clean my room, letting me see a ridiculous amount of my friends (especially when I was hardly home last week), paying for my trip and trying not to groan each time we recieved a bill in the mail. You're amazing. I'm going to miss you a huge amount.

That's all for now, you may or may not get another post from me before my departure, so if not "Bis Bald!"
(Google Translator says that means Seeya Soon in German)

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind" - Dr Seuss

Host Family, Camp and all of the sort.

On Monday when I got home from school, I received some very exciting news..

I'm going to Emmetsburg, Iowa!
[Refer to the lovely picture bellow]

Emmetsburg has a population of around 4,000 people and is located around the southern bay of Five Island Lake. The school I'm going to be attending is Emmetsburg High School and it has a role of about 240. It's a little cute town, by what I've seen on Google Maps.

The host family I have been given is my "arrival" family. This means that I'll be there when I arrive and could be changing to another family if things don't work out, but they sound lovely!

My mother, Linda is a qualified Nurse who is working as a part time Pastor, and my Dad, David, is a pastor for the church next door. As I mentioned in the previous post I have been put on a double placement with a girl named Veronika, and she's really nice too! She's also 16 and is as excited as me to be going on an exchange.

But wait, there's more!

I've been accepted to the EF culture camp, a camp at the beginning of my exchange with other EF students going to America. This means my departure date will be the 22nd of July. The Culture Camp is held at Bryant University on Rhode Island for ten days. During the camp we attend "classes" in the morning, these include English, History, Current Issues and Life in America. In the afternoons we have the opportunity to try out new sports, music, arts and craft or visit the mall. We also get to visit Boston for some shopping on the 23rd and Newport Beach on the 27th.

I'm getting nervous about leaving my friends and family in New Zealand,but I'm very excited about my trip. Everything seems to be happening fast now!

That's all for now; keep it real.