Monat: Oktober 2017

Next Tuesday is halloween and many houses are already decorated. Some people are crazy: they have big blown-up ghosts, cats, and pumpkins in front of their houses 🎃💀👻. They also have graves and skeletons in their front yards. Yesterday I saw a big tree with a spider’s web and a big spider. At school, many teachers decorated their classrooms too. My english teacher has a huge mummy in her room! And you can see many pumpkin garlands and signs with creepy slogans. On halloween, all students are allowed to wear costumes at school and I’m going to dress up like Minnie Mouse. Diana brought me to a big halloween store in LaSalle and I bought a dress with white dots and Minnie Mouse ears too 🐭. That’s going to be so cool!! I can’t wait!

I had an IB off day this Wednesday, but it wasn’t really for hanging out with friends or doing something cool, because I had my english essay due on Thursday and I had to study for my history test also. I got up in the morning, had breakfast, and did my homework almost the whole day. For the test, I had to learn about 60 pages in the book by heart. I was so tired afterwards 💤 but I think I did better in the test than last time.

Friday after school I went home with my friends. Erika, Maria, Sarah, and I had a sleepover at Erika’s house. First, right after school, we went to Sarah’s house. She forgot her pyjamas and all her other stuff. Later, Erika’s mother picked us up and we went to Erika’s house. She lives in a cute house, together with her parents and her cat Camomille 🐱. Camomille is a white, brown and fluffy cat. Omg, I love her 💗! Erika, Maria, Sarah and I, we decided to go for a walk and on our way we visited Claudia. She is in my class, too. She came with us to Erika’s house and we had hot chocolate together, but then she had to go home for supper. Erika’s parents are really, really nice and they bought and made asian food for us: egg rolls, rice with plum sauce and cherry sauce and broccoli. It was very good! And we had cheesecake for desert. Chocolate and lime cheesecake 😍. Then we went downstairs and watched TV. We wanted to watch a movie, a scary one. It was quite boring, but the Cheetos and Doritos were good, haha. All of us were really tired, because of school, so we went to bed at 11:30.

On Sunday, my friend Larissa and I went to the mall in Châteauguay . She isn’t in my class, but we have french together. It was a rainy day and she wanted to buy a black dress for her costume for halloween. She wants to go as Wanda, the marvel character. We went to a bunch of shops and she found a cool dress at Ardene. The mall is quite small, but is was fun with Larissa! After our small shopping tour, we went to Tim Hortons for a hot chocolate and pumpkin spice latte ☕️. We sat there for a long time and then we went to another shop. Afterwards her father picked us up ☺️

Last week was very stressful. I had a math test and a science test at school. Over the weekend I had to finish two 800 word essays. This is why I didn’t do anything during week, except studying and doing my homework. Sometimes I went outside, for a walk with Cooper. Luckily my english teacher changed the due date for the essay, so I had more free time on the weekend. That was great because we did some exciting things:

On Saturday afternoon we went apple picking 🍎! I never went apple picking in my life, but here, many people do that during fall season. There are big fields with apple trees near Châteauguay 🌳. Desmond, Diana, the dogs and I met with Tara and her daughter. They were waiting for us. Then we wanted to go and start picking the apples, but there we no more left!! All of them were already picked. Oh nooo!! We were too late… So, we just went for a nice little walk in the fields. And I found an apple! A beautiful red one. I didn’t eat it right away. I had it later in the car, but it was very good! After our walk we all went to the small shop nearby. There, we bought more apples, carrot cake and apple donuts. Then we sat on one of the benches in front of the shop and had the donuts. They were quite good 😊

 

 

On Sunday my family and I went up north (Diana, Desmond, Samantha, Patrick, and I). And of course, the dogs came too. It took us about 1,5 hours to get there. The sun was shining and all the trees were so pretty 😍! They were yellow, orange, red,… and looked very nice. We went around with the car and stopped sometimes. Desmond showed us some beautiful places ☀️. At Bromont, we had a picnic with sandwiches, chips and fruit 🍇🍞🍊

 

 

On October 13th, Patrick’s friend Ronnie invited me to a dance show, more precise, a ballroom dance show. Ronnie did ballroom dancing when he was younger and he knew that I really like it too. He and his mother picked me up at about 5:30pm. At first, we went downtown Montreal to get Ronnie’s photography equipment. He wanted to take pictures and videos at the show. He rented a camera and lenses at a photography shop. It took us a long time to get there because of the traffic on the streets. Then we had to go to Vaudreuil-Dorion, which is 35 minutes from downtown. The show was in a big hall and the dance floor was in the centre. All around it were several tables and some people had supper there. We didn’t see the the opening, but we arrived on time for the next dances. First there were many dancers from Montreal and surroundings. Most of them were older people. There were various categories and dances, for example: Viennese Waltz, Waltz, Foxtrot, Jive, and Quickstep. Quickstep was my favourite!! It looks like so much fun and the women’ dresses were falling so beautifully. Between the different competitions were line dances. Line dances are extremely funny, haha. All the old people, who didn’t compete, went on the stage and performed a group dance, all together. And sometimes people joined them, who can’t dance or didn’t know what to do. Later in the evening the more professional dancers went on the dance floor. Some came from all around the world. They performed latin dances and all of them were very good dancers!! That was such a nice and exciting evening! Thank you so much!!

 

Today is October 9th and it’s thanksgiving 🎉!! Thanksgiving is always on a Monday, but we celebrated yesterday.
In the morning, I got up late and went down in the kitchen to have breakfast. It smelled sooo good in the whole house, because my family prepared the turkey for supper. It was gigantic: 8.5kg!! All our guests came in the afternoon at 3 o’clock. Our house was full: 30 people, 5 very happy and excited dogs and two cats 🐱🐶. We had three big tables in our living room and everything was decorated lovely. Everyone brought something for the big buffet. Diana and Desmond made the turkey and stuffing, too. Usually you put the stuffing into the turkey, but we had it separately. And omg, it was delicious!!! The stuffing was the best! I couldn’t get enough of it, haha. After supper we had desert: many different types of cake, pies and fruits 😍. I was so full afterwards. The whole family is very nice and they had a lot to talk about. Later in the evening I played my two favourite pieces from La La Land 🎻. They loved it!!

 

 

 

 

Monday was a busy day. I had two tests at school: history and math. Math was pretty easy and history wasn’t bad either. In history, we are learning about the Act of Union (1840) to the BNA Act (1867). That’s only 27 years of history, but a lot of important things happened there and we had to know mostly everything by heart. After lunch break was the 2k run. Everyone was very excited!! Luckily it wasn’t too hot or too cold this day. The boys of grade 10 and 11 started. After their run was finished it was the girls’ run. I had a good start position. It took me 9:07min to the finish!! That’s my best time. And I was the first girl from grade 10 and 11! Really cool! ☺️

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I went to school as usual. And on Thursday and Friday I had no school!! Yesss!! I had a 5 day weekend. First the two Ped Days, then the weekend and Thanksgiving on Monday. That was awesome! On Friday everybody was at home. Samantha and I watched TV and then we were bored 😂. So we decided to go shopping. We went to the ten 30, which is a big shopping mall nearby. We went to many shops and spend a lot of time at Zara, Forever 21 and Sephora. Actually we spent too much time and were late for supper. Therefore we went to ThaiExpress on our way home and bought noodles 😍😍

Monday was my fist IB Off Day. On IB Off Days, all the IB students can stay at home and do their homework, organize themselves and enjoy the ‘no school day’. I didn’t have homework so I stayed in bed until 8 o’clock and at 9am I went to the gym with Desmond. There were only 4 other people, but we had fun and did some exercises. In the afternoon Desmond and I wanted to go to a park and feed the birds. The park was really nice 😍. We walked through the small forest and stopped at the green meadow. There, we waited for the birds. Usually they land on the peoples’ hands, Desmond told me, but no bird came to us. They were all sitting in the trees chirping. Sad life 😢…

In the week I had some running practices for the 2k run at school, which is next Monday. I improved my time from 9:50min to 9:20min. That’s pretty cool! It’s fun to practice running at school, because after the practice we can do what we want. For example football, soccer, walking around… And I got back my french text: 95%!! Often the teachers give numbers of percentage on tests and exams. And of course, 100% is the best. I’m very, very happy with my mark 😊😊😊

On Friday we had six dogs at home! Six dogs! It felt like being in a zoo! Three dogs were playing in the house the whole time. One dog was sleeping, one dog was barking for food, and the 6th dog was hiding under a chair. In the afternoon, after I came home from school, Desmond and I decided to go for a walk with them. 1km took us half an hour, haha 😂. Desmond had the ‘difficult’ dogs and I had the ‘easy’ ones. There was a really cute Labrador puppy: Archie. He’s gorgeous 😍!!

 

On the weekend, we were invited to a birthday dinner of Diana’s aunt, so David’s, Sam’s and Pat’s great aunt. The whole family met at her house. I met everyone and hopefully I remember all names next week on thanksgiving. Ok, I don’t, but I try 😂. I had some nice conversations with a few family members and then, Mike (cousin’s husband), David, Sam, Pat, their cousin, Amanda, and I played ‘Phase 10’. It was the first time they played this game and I had to explain everything, but they understood it very quickly. We had a lot of fun together and they really like it ☺️.

P.S. I found out that my friend Reggie loves eating cornflakes:

On Saturday and Sunday it was more than 30ºC!! The highest temperature of the whole year! We were outside almost all the time.

Saturday we went kayaking. It was an activity for all of the exchange students and their families. At my school, we are about 10 students from different countries but only two families wanted to take part in it. Calvin’s family and my family. It was a shame, but we had a lot of fun together! Diana, Desmond, Samantha, her friend Pepe, and I went kayaking. We met with Calvin, Tara, and her daughter, Riley in Ormstown (40min from Châteauguay). Then we took the bus to the start. After about 200m on the lazy river Desmond got stuck with his kayak and 300m further, Calvin fell into the water 😂! That was almost impossible with these kayaks 😂!! But he was all right. The water wasn’t cold and the river is not very deep either. We went about 6 or 7 kilometres without any incidents. Right before the end was an obstacle: many big stones and small rapids! It was soooo cool!!! So much action 😱. Everybody got stuck except Pepe and I. We had had a short break. That was good, because my arms were hurting, haha! After our exciting kayaking trip, we all went to a restaurant nearby and had some poutine, hotdogs, and burgers, with fries 🌭🍔🍟

 

 

And on Sunday, Diana, Desmond, Michelina (grandmother) and I went for a drive with the Jeep. The roof was open and we left the doors at home. We went next to Lac St-Laurent. It was beautiful!! It was warm and the sun was out the whole day. The water was sparkling in the sunlight. There were many surfers and yachts. Big and small ones. On our way there, we visited Desmond’s sister. Her name is Linda. She and her husband live in a nice house. We sat in their garden, drank some cold water, and they showed us their new pool 😍