First schoolweek

Tuesday, I woke up just like the day before. I had a shower and had breakfast, some minutes later I went off with Beth to school. My first course, which I had been looking forward for a long time, was Ict. I follow Ict with only one student named Willem. He’s a nice guy and had already told some things about the course and teacher. The first lesson (double period, so 1 hour and 10 minutes) Ict, we found lots of differences between courses and schools in England and in the Netherlands. Last week, England had holiday, and before the holiday, Willem had made an exam. It was great for me, because now we would start with a new chapter. The next few lessons we will be talking about jobs Ict-employee can have and which requirements the employee needs. These periods we didn’t do a lot but it was fine! When lesson was finished, I went to atrium to have a warm breakfast/lunch. I met another great amount of people, most of them years beneath us (but my age) and lots of friends of Beth. After the break, we had our first lesson psychology.  It was the first lesson and only lesson with Manon and Sanny. We revised again what the other students had done before the holiday. We were talking about studies, the researchers, the location of studies (field, lab), and reasons to investigate those studies. So, it could be compared with the anw pta about diseases. We had to write down a lot but it was quite fun! After psychology I had three periods free, with a big break in between. And in big break, I met another great number of students. Some girls asked me if I could come along to watch the girl school team play hockey. Sanny was going to play and Manon and I would be watching. However, Sanny and I first had two periods chemistry. However, we had to leave earlier because the girls would leave at half three (15:30) so almost three quarters of an hour earlier. I didn’t care (of course). So, after only one period of chemistry, instead of two, Sanny and I left chemistry. We walked out-side and Mrs Webster, coach and driver of sport bus, was waiting for us to take the girl school team and cheerleader (I) with her. It was a short ride, and I was sitting next to Gabbie, who told a lot about the school team and hockey, etc. She is a nice girl!! We arrived and I, still having blisters, run like a monkey over the field because it was the first time since five/six months I played on a pitch out-side. Both teams made themselves ready, and some minutes later, the match started. I knew already lots of girls of the team, and there weren’t any other boys to feel ashamed, so I acted as a cheerleader and made some ‘funny’ (girls liked it J) dances and statements! My dances and statements helped because they won with 13-0! However, I was (:p) disappointed because they could have won with 30-0!!! We drove back and Mrs Webster dropped me close to the school. Beth, Sanny and Manon had hockey training and I had to walk home!  When I arrived, I had dinner, and watched a movie with Sam: the Inbetweeners. It is a funny teenager movie and a well-known English series too. It was quite funny but Sam told me that the series is even funnier! Mrs Webster and Beth arrived during the movie and I went to bed at around half eleven.

Wednesday morning I started off with psychology in which we discussed one of the studies. In break I had hot food again (for freeJ). I made some new friends, which became really my friends: George, Harvey, and Louis with who I would be staying two weeks too. Also today, I had most of the hours free. It became a bit boring, because most students were following courses and I had nothing ‘interesting’ to do! However, there are always people chilling in the twelfth year chill room so I talked with some guys and watched a part of a movie. That day, I had history too and this time, we had to stay in the lesson. During our history lessons, we were sitting in a room next to builders working on the school building, and they made lots of noise which made it quite hard to understand the teacher. We could leave earlier too, because of the noise. That afternoon, guys had asked me if I wanted to play with them in the twelfth year school team, and I, still hurt by blisters, joined them in the afternoon and walked for the first time to the hockey club (the match of the girl school team was in another village). I tried to put on my hockey shoes, but my feet immediately started to hurt again. So, I played the first match in my normal sneakers. It was really cold, and I played sweeper (laatste man) so I was really cold. I was able to run but still run pretty weird -__-. We played against, mostly, boys and most of them were around the twenty years old. So we were all really young in comparison with the boys. However, we won with three/four – one. So we played pretty good! Mrs Webster was one of the referees, so I got a ride back home. I took a shower and we had dinner. That night, I watched Kill Bill volume 1 with Sam.

Thursday, I started with two periods free. In small break, I was invited to go to the movie at Friday with Beth, to go bowling with George and Louis, to go to a concert with Harvey, Amber and some other girls, and to go to Woman in Black at Sunday with Daisy and some friends of her. After small break, I had Ict which was quite an interesting lesson, because we didn’t stay in a class room but went to a church where the writer of the book Dragon gold would tell something about her book and to be a writer. We had to put on the laptop, take a beamer with us and put the writer’s powerpoint presentation on the beamer. The rest of the two periods, we could listen to the writer, but Willem teached me how to put on a tie and I was finally able to put on a tie myself!! When the writer was finished with her talk, Willem and I took all the stuff with us back to school.  After Ict, we would have had psychology, but the lesson was canceled so today too, I had only two periods and seven periods free… The last three periods, period 7,8,9, I was free again. However, I had to be at school till half four, because that night, we would go to an university, and follow a mini-lesson astronomy with the physics class and me (I don’t do physics here, but wanted to follow a mini-lesson). Those tree periods I started with work for next week. It was quite boring but fine, because I won’t have to do much in the last few weeks. When school was finished, Sanny and I walked with Kumar (our personal guide J) to a snack-bar where we had dinner. At ten to five, we went to the station to meet the physics teacher and take the train to the university. We had to walk around ten minutes from the station to the university. It was getting quite cold and I had forgotten to take my coat or sweater with me  -__-. We arrived at the university, and were taken in-side by one of the teachers of the university. He had a little powerpoint presentation ready about the stars and planets (Venus, Jupiter and maybe even some others) which we would be able to see. We walked out-side and a big electric telescope. It was quite cool, because you can choose between planets in a planet list, and if you choose one, the telescope starts to move and aim at the planet you have chosen. You could see the moon pretty good, and the phases of Venus were visible too. However, it was getting colder and colder… After around one and a halve hour, we were able to make pictures of the planets through the telescope. With many thanks to Will, Will and I made lots of pictures and some are pretty good like you can see. It took quite a long time before we went in-side again, and I was really cold -__- . We thanked the teacher and walked back to the train. When arrived, I had another dinner at Christine’s house (host mother Sanny and Manon). When finally arrived at home at around nine o’clock/ nine thirty, Mrs Webster told me that it was too late to watch another movie with Sam, so for Kill Bill volume 2 I had to wait till the next day.

Friday, my last school day of my first school week, I started off with psychology. We watched 15 car accidents, 2 cars hitting each other. We had to guess at which speed the two cars hit each other. We all got a paper with the question on it, but none of us realized that the verb in the questions was different: hit, bump, affect, etc. The conclusion was that the students with the verbs causing the most dramatic consequences guessed higher speeds than the students with verbs causing less dramatic consequences. This was the study we would be discussing for several weeks. So, psychology was fun. After psychology, I had two periods off and after those periods, I had Ict. We talked about the requirements someone working with/in Ict should have. It was quite fun, because after every five minutes of talking about the requirements, we talked about differences in school systems and etc. After Ict, big break in which I heard that the concert for next Saturday was canceled L. However, that afternoon I would go to the movie with Beth so I didn’t really care. After big break, history (triple periods K). However, it was a nice and interesting lesson. We talked about exam questions, and we had to give grades to answers from other students. We tried to find differences and similarities between our grading and the grading of the exam teachers. It were three LONG periods but they were interesting so fine. When school was finished, I met Beth and walked home with her and one of her friends. When we arrived home, we found out that both of us had forgotten our keys and when Sam, who after ten minutes arrived, also had forgotten his keys, we had to call Mrs Webster to open the door -__- . During our stay around the house, Sam and I played basketball and got some food from the shop only one minute away from their house. When we checked the time of the movie, we found out that the movie would already start in ten minutes and we would never be able to get to Brighton (location cinema) and buy tickets… So, movie was canceled too L! I did care but didn’t too, because I really wanted to go, but now I still had some time with my host family, because next Sunday, I would leave and move over to my second host family. I arranged with Beth we would go to the cinema the next week! That night, I watched Kill Bill volume 2 with Sam and drank a lot of coce!!! My first week in LOGS was INTERESTING + FUNNY + A LOT OF PEOPLE MEET WEEK + EXCITING + GREAT + FUNNY + MANY HOURS FREE WEEK!!!!

Picture 1: Registration time

Picture 2: Moon (made by Will)

Picture 3: Telescope

Picture 4: Struggle with tie