Yo yo yo! How's everybody doing? Swell? Great! On with the opera, not too many terribly important things have happened since last time, but I do have some pictures to share with you!
First thing's first, the past. Last week or maybe the week before that, I visited a Hoegaarden brewery. I don't know how common Hoegaarden is in the US, I know it's there becasue it said it was imported to the US on some plaque in the brewery. The tour was mildy interesting, I guess. I remember two plus one main things. 1) They put a lot more stuff into beer than I thought they did. It's not just hops, it's also wheat and grain and coriander and dried orange peels, and I know I'm forgetting something else, but I can't remember it. But I thought it was just hops, and I was wrong. 2) Back in the middle ages, glass mugs were really heavy, so the glassblowers put long, pointed knobs all over the mug to make it earies to hold. Later, the mugs got lighter, so the knobs shrunk to a purely decorative function. Plus one: beer is really old. The sumerians had beer. What's so awesome is that they had this to prove it! This is a chunk of stone that is litteraly thousands of years old and COMES FROM SUMERIA. They had it sitting there behind glass wit ha little plaque explaining that it was Sumerian beermen making beer! I feel that much more awesome for having seen this thing. It had like, legit cuneiform on it. I was blown away by this thing. It was just like, "Yeah, beer is thousands of years old. Here's a stone tablet from Sumeria that's thousands of years old that proves it." Well, I thought it was cool. Kyle, you can read cuneiform, right? What's it say? At any rate, the other interesting thing was that at the end of the tour, everybody got a chance to try Hoegaarden or one of its vareities. I tried "Hoegaarden Rosée," which was the raspberry kind. That stuff was good! That was like the only time I ever wanted to drink more beer. It was really good. Also notable was that as I was sitting at the table drinking my beer, I was sitting next to somebody from Argentina, I think, and some mexican-californian dude, but more important were the Japanese schoolgirls. There are four Japanese schoolgirls in my Rotary district, and I spent a lot of time just kind of listening to them speak Japanese and being near them because I think that's cool. Especially the language, because it's just something you hear on TV, on the internet, but you never hear it in real life. It's just really neat for me. I remember how blown away I was a couple of years ago when I was visiting France with my French class and some Japanese guy bumped into me at Mont-Saint-Michel, turned around, and muttered, "sumimasen." That was the coolest thing. Well, I must admit, Mont-Saint -Michel was also really cool and probably my favorite stop on that France trip, but the Japanese guy really kicked it up a notch. That was cool. But here in Belgium, I'm getting many more times the real-life Japanese exposure than I ever did in France. I swear to you that before the year is up I will get a picture of me with the Japanese schoolgirls to prove that I'm not bluffing. And becaue I think it's just that cool.
So hoegaarden was cool. Then yesterday, we went to Germany. We went to the town of Aachen, more specifically, for the christmas market. On the way walking from the bus to the market, we passed this here church, which I thought was really neat. It had saints like most chuches have pidgeons, and I gotat admit that I was really diggin the saints. Also notice the musical ensemble that was playing in front of the church, two accordians, a saxophone, and some type of drum. They were good. But there are really two things to talk about for the Aachen trip: Robert Miles and the food. You may remember Robet Miles from September when I called him Robert from New York (more specifically, he's from Long Island). I've been waiting to see him again, and I finally did, and it was totally awesome. I roved the market with him and an Austrailien named Susan-Elizabeth but refuses to be called Susan-Elizabeth; she goes by Suzie. It was really great to be around these two guys. Oh, Robert, you should really come to more of these events. Apparently, he and Suzie (Susie? Dunno) go to the same school, and Susie dragged Robert into this, but I'm very glad she did. We all had a great time. Both Robert and Suzie got food that reminded them of home; Suzie got fairy floss and Robert got chestnuts. I also ate some chocolate-dipped fruit kebabs, which were delicious. I had two grape ones and one strawberry one. I kind of suspect that the grapes were soaked in some type of alchohol, but I really don't know. Maybe they were just kind of old, and the chocolate coating kept them from drying out, so they were just full of wine instead of grape juice. We also had some candied almmods, which were delicious. But none of that can measure up to what was to be the main feast: appel strudel. Oh, that thing was so good. Note to all people: buy food from street vendors. It's always the best. I have yet to buy fries or waffles off the street, but especially after my strudel experience, I'm totally gonna. This strudel was yummy cinnamon apples wrapped in some sort of pastry that I can describe only as being like crepes, but thicker and doughier all sitting on a brioche-like base, served in a pool of custard sauce and a cloud of whipped cream next to it. AAAAAARrrghraharghr...It was so good. I gotta learn how to make that. Now that I've tasted what it's supposed to taste like, I just have to find my favorite recipies and tweak them a little. That was really what made it worth it. The strudel. Straight up, it was so great. At the end, we had some hot wine, which I didn't think was very good because I don't like wine. Robert and Suzie both used their tickets to get "kinderpunsch," which was so much better. It was an apple and cherry punch that I'm pretty sure had cinnamon in it. It was kind of like strudel in a mug, so it was fantastic. I have a theory about alchohol in general, but particularly wine: if you were to graph enjoyment of the beverage against the number of sips you take of it, you would obtain a gaussian distribbution curve. The first couple of sips are pretty harsh, but then you kind of get used to it for a while, until the nasty alchohol taste grows on you and it gets worse again. so the wine wasn't that great, but the strudel surpassed excellent. I feel like I have smelled Germany, or at least all the parts worth smelling.
And here are two other pictures I took that don't rightly have a home. First, my school. There it is. That's more or less it. Well, you can't see the wing up higher on the hill because it's behind the first wing, the one on the right. Also, there's a gymnasium/stage to the left that you don't see. That's also where the courtyard used as a basketball court is. Still, this gives you an idea of what it's like. Also, here is beer in a vending machine. I just thought it was entertaining. Technically, you're not allowed to buy beer or tobacco until you're fifteen, but I can't see what would stop you from getting it put of this vending machine. I felt it merited documentation.
Oh yeah! The day before yesterday, Tuesday, I had a totally transcendental experience. One thing I need to tell you is that tuesday is the day I have biology and chemistry, and those two courses do not please me here. The teacher is half the problem; the students are the other half. The thing is, the students sometimes have trouble understanding the lesson, so they'll ask a question. I think that teacher has a hard time understanding exactly what the student is asking. He'll start explaining something, but I don't think it's necessarily the answer to the student's question, so the student doesn't understand, asks more questions, other students back up the first one, the class ends up going kind of nuts, and no one's the richer for it. This is also the day that I learned that the two hours I thought was free study was actually supposed to be spen re-copying something we'd previouslly written in order to make it pretty. I feel that this is a ridiculous waste of class time. There was absolutely no reason not to have the students do this at home. Recopying an assignment is a horrible, horrible waste of class time because it is an absolutely individual project. Class time is for activities that you can do only with the other students and a teacher, because you can't do those at any other time! It jsut got me really annoyed. I was feeling altogether pretty agitated during my lunch period, which I guess I should say is a whole fifty minutes here. I took a look at the wood behind my school, and decided to take a walk there. That was so amazing. the trees are totally bare now, so it was like the forest had rolled out a carpet for me to walk upon. The trees were like temple hallways, with the sun shining obliquely from that close-to-the-ground winter angle, occasionally a wholly green conifer would be there to be amazingly green against all the sticks...I was totally a transparent eyeball. It was amazing. It really set me straight. I felt a lot better after that.
Oh, and a bulletin/reminder: if you want a letter, email me your mailing address. My email address is hanging out on the front page you just came from.
Peace.
Today is December 17, the day of the Project for Awesome on Youtube and the four-month anniversary of my arrival here in Belgium. So we'll start way back when. Here in Belgium, it's not just christam that's celebrated in December, but also St. Nicholas, which, you will remember, was celebrated by the rhetoriciens in Huy on the 23rd of November, which was the Monday before the Monday before St. Nicholas, which is on December 5th, which is also the Day of the Ninja, which I was unfortunately unable to participate in this year. At any rate, Santa Claus (well, Father Christmas/Pere Noel) and St. Nicholas seem to be semi-indepentant personnages here in Belgium. I think that the St. Nicholas holiday itself comes from Holland, just to the north, but you gotta remember that St. Nicholas is, after all, a saint, whose origins rest with the church. I read a couple children's books the neighboors lent me on him, and that was exactly the thing I needed to find out a bit about St. Nick. I forget about all the stuff, exactly, but apparently he lived sometime in the 300's, I think; he became the patron saint of navigators because he helped lead some ship safely through a storm, and he because the patron saint of Children because ,the story goes, there was some cannibalistic butcher that had once just finnished haning some children up in his meat locker when St. Nicholas came by, asked to be let into the meat locker, was allowed to, and then walked out with the children alive, well, and in tow. I'm not entirely sure how this translates into putting candy in shoes, which is what he does all the weekdays leading up to the fifth, but there you have it. So yeah, all the children of the house, including me, left thier shoes in front of the chiminey/fireplace to wake up to candy in them. That was cool. Then, on the morning of the fifth, we woke up to a big platter of candy that everyone's been slowly chiseling down since. Im'a eat five chocolate pence right now (is it "Im'a" or "I'ma?" I've been using "Im'a," I think I saw a precedent somewhere, but I'm not at all sure). So there's St. Nicholas. On the evening of the fifth, the Rotary (well, actually, the Rotex, the "former exchange student" organization) organized the "Exotic Dinner," the event where the students all make dishes they deem representative of their home countries and serve them potlock-style to all comers. I don't remember exactly what I ate, I know I ate some Canadian stew and some Tawainese tofu. I didn't make anything, but other Americans had made hot dogs and PBJs. The PBJ is foreign in this region, and, once described to them, some people have seemed slightly repulsed by the idea of peanut butter and jam together. The Japanese schoolgirls were all there in kimono, so I thought that was pretty cool. One of these days, I'm gonna get a picture with them. And at the end, after everyone had eaten, guess what? St. Nicholas himself walked in! He looks in Belgium more or less like he does in the US, but he doesn't have a Santa hat, his red robes are trimmed with gold, and he's always holding his Bishop's cane. Walking stick. Paddle. Whatever you call that thing. He had in tow his counter part, some guy whose name I forget, who's the one who comes around, takes St. Nick's candy, and puts coal in your shoes. I forget what he's caled in French, but I know that originally, he was a charicature of Charles Quint, who was a Spanish emporer that fought against Francois I and actually managed to capture him in battle. As a result, Charles Quint became unpopular in Francophone places (Belgium may well have been a part of France back then, I have no idea), and his caricature slowly became the evil version of St. Nicholas.
Also, in the train station here in Huy waiting to get on a train, this other exchange student, Louis, showed up, and we got to talking. I was playing DS, so the conversation kind of drifted into vidoe games. I ended up telling him my interpretation of Tetris, and he totally dug it. I feel really good that I was able to contribute, even a little, to an art form I love by showing someone else a side of it whose very existance he may never have tought could exist. One down, five billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-some thousand and some to go. At hte very least, I was very glad to talk to this guy, because conversation with him proved fruitful. We were actually able to get a bit a bit of a dialogue going and exchanged ideas a bit. I feel more like I transmitted ideas to him, it was really good to be able to connect to somebody on a mental level, which I feel like I haven't had much of an oppourtunity to do in a while. So that was good.
Also, I want to shoot the radio. I'm standing the radio, which is like always on, less and less these days. My fantasies involving it are becoming progressively more violent. Thankfully, I won't have to endure it much longer. That's right, I'm only eight days away from moving. The day of Christmas, I'll wake up and move out. The mother (I wanted to use the term "okami" here to designate an alpha-female, but didn't them explained it to you) of the house recently underwent surgery, I think a couple procedures, on her stomach, so that house isn't quite ready to recieve me. The Pariettis would have kept me at their house, but, ignorant of the surgery (as was everybody, I think) they made plans to go to France to visit Didier's parents. Consequently, I'll spend five days in an interim familly consisting of two Doctors of Chemistry. I hear they have a collection of over 800 comics albums, so I bet I'll find a way to keep myself interested. I've meet the couple already, we all had dinner at the Pariettis', and they seem really nice. Everybody here is really nice. Everybody is always open and welcoming here. They say that that's a distinctly Waloon trait, and that people in Flanders are far more cold and guarded. I wouldn't know, I'm not in Flanders. So, the 30th, I'll finalyl land in my true second host familly, the Prignons. I've met them, too, and I don't think theat that will be a problem. I said that I won't have to endure the radio much longer because I'm moving, but that is actualyl wishful thinking. I'm hoping that the Prignons won't play the radio as much as the Pirards so, but it's true I have no idea. AAAAAAaaargh, I'm hoping pretty hard.
Also worth noting is the fact that I jsut finnished up my exams. Exams here are a kind of funny business. for long courses, I think 4+ hours a week, a student has from 8:20 to 12:00 in the morning to finish an exam. A three-and-a-half hour exam seems a bit extravagant to me. From shorter courses, the student will take two in a day, so these are live one-and-a-quarter hour exams, I guess. Still, there's significantly less material covered in any of these courses than was covered in any of my US courses just because there wasn't enough time. My biology class has spent like three months on two-by-two Mendel Squares. I never would have thought that Mendel squares could be so hard to understand until I saw my Biology class try to understand them. I honestly don't understand what these people don't understand. So, that covers dominince, recession, and codominence, but that shouldn't take three months. That should take like three weeks at most. You could do that if you had a class every day instead of every freakin WEEK. Argh, I don't like this system. I'm going to see if I can change classes during my second host family, becaue they're the one that has a student at the shcool I'm going to. Her name is Helen. (Remember that's French: 'eh-LEN.) Whenever I tell a boy that I'm going to live with her, he says, "Oh, that's good. She's got--" and then he'll put his cupped hand in front of his chest to show that she is, as Dolly Parton would say, "bosomy." I don't know why Belgian High School French hasn't adapted an equivalent to "she's got big tits," but apparently it hasn't. One kid even told me, "I hear she's a D-cup."
This seems pretty par for the course, really. More than once, mostly during Scout gatherings, I think, boys have tried to get me to tell them what kind of woman I preferred, or line up some girls and have me rank them, and I think that's just kind of stupid. There was one boy who asked me, "So, blonds or brunettes?" I spent a moment trying to formulate my response, and, seeing my hesitation, the boy laughed and said, "Oh, no, it's redheads!" the fact is, I try my hardest to ignore appearences and to concentrate on interpreting a person by what that person says and does. I payed attention to Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. I know that it's what's on the inside that counts. (Admittedly, I am a human, and what's more a boy, so I'm going to be influenced to some degree by how people look, or the simple fact that a person be male or female. But like I say, I try my hardest [the reason that I mention I'm a boy at all is because I think that male sexuality in inherently more impulsive than female sexuality]). Nevertheless, it seems standard practice here in Belgium to have some idea of what a "perfect woman" is, and to just kind of act like I've been trying to train myself not to act. Every wednesday, the exchange students get together in Liege, in the Caree, which is kind of like the shady student party district of Liege. I haven't gone yet, because it was pitched to me by an Australien as "a big piss-up" in which all the girls take off their shirts and dance when a particular song comes on. This did not sound like the kind of environment I prefer to find myself in, so I haven't gone. When I tried to explain this to the Pirards when they once asked why I hadn't gone, Philippe's response to the shirt deal was, "Oh, c'est bon ça." "Oh, that's good." I made a face or something, and he preceded, "what, you wouldn't like that?" The conversation quickly drifted elsewhere, but I'm kind of depressed by the idea that my host father would condone such exhibitionism in high school girls. My feelings about this are semi-complex, because I could anticipate a lot of counter-arguments and so forth, but I think, situated in its cultural context, that it's an affront to female dignity and helps support the ornamentalisation of women, even if they don't see it as such. Also, being a boy, It's easier for my crotch to take the place of my brain, and I don't want that to happen, so using shirtless girls as a reason to go anywhere feels like I'm letting my body control me, and no matter how much Neitzche may think that's inevitable, I'm gonna do my best to keep my head on my shoulders and out of the depths. I like thinking. Mother Prignon has gone to these gatherings and says it's great and I have to go, so I know I'll end up going to at least one while I'm here. Expect a report. I figure that if a host parent condones it, it can't be all that depraved.
But back to exams. I don't like tests here in general becaues they often contain questions about material that was barely mentioned in class but was in the handouts somewhere. These tests encourage studying all of the useless crap that you could possibly concieve of being asked about on the test. In that respect, I think it's a bad system becaue you end up haveing to know thing instead of having to understand things. I'm also used to using what's emphasized in class to be a more or less acurate indicator of what's going to be on the test. The logic is, "if you don't talk about it in class, it must not be that important." That logic works--in the US. I think it's legit. Granted, in English class it can lead to class discussions being a kind of cliffs notes for the students, who can then write decent papers on a book they haven't read based solely on said discussion, but by and large I think that "what's in class will be on the test" makes sense. I like it when things make sense. Basically, I think that rote learing should be minimized. I think it's fine to ask students to remember that Sulfate is SO4 sith a charge of -1, and that's just rote, but you use Sulfate in problems all the time, so you don't need to study it. Aksing what the three major philosophies of the Humanist period seems like a resonable question, and after having missed at least a third of it during a French test, I can now tell you that they're Stoicism, Epicurism, and...crap. I know for a fact that Stoicism is one of them, and Epicurism I'm pretty sure about. The third is probably calvanism of protenstentism or something...let me get my notes. Okay, so they're Stoicism, Epicurism, and Skepticism. Liek I say, that seems like a reasonable question, but they were never, or at the most barley mentioned in class. Class was spent mostly on analyzing the Humanist perspective in a broas sense, and these component philosiphies where neglected. The only way to know them was to have studied, as the French say, "bêtement par coeur." I don't like that. Fortunately, this means I don't feel too bad when I miss these question because I know it's just an errant fact, and I know how to do what I'm doing well enough. Suffice it to say, I feel pretty good about most of my exams. Especially Math ad the Sciences. I feel kind of hesitant in French. Latin I'm pretty sure I bombed to Mars, I don't know Latin. And we were translating Tacitus, who writes like a latin Shakespeare. He uses all the tenses, even really weird things like the "future infinitive," which doesn't exist in like any other language. Och, he's wierd. But I feel pretty god in general. I could feel the Rote aspect shipping away at my grades, though. Yesterday, I went in and did my detention time for having skipped school to go to the St. Nicholas parade. I was made to read two articles on global warming and a big, long thing about the King that was copied off of the official Belgian website of the King, and sumamrize them. This was not too hefty a punishment, because it meant I got to read and think a bit about what I read, which is the kind of thing I like to do anyway. The thing about the King was pretty boring, though it did help me get a better idea of what the King does. And I still can't see the utility. I really don't see why Belgium doesn't get rid of its King. They don't need him. No offense, Albert, but I think the money your country spend on you and your family could be better spent elsewhere. Where exactly, I don't know. Bottom line, after I go in tomorrow to get my report card, I'm on Winter break. I hope that all you have good winter breaks, too, and I hope the exam season hasn't been too traumatic. If it has, take it easy during the Holidays.
The Pirards do "Secret Santa" for Christmas. This means that I don't get to ask my target what he or she wants for Christmas. I don't like this system, as I think that it tends to result in more giving of useless crap than useful crap, but it's whatI have to deal with. I think I've got a good idea, though. Still, I much prefer the "Christmas List" method.
One last thing: the woods. I've taken another walk in the woods behind the school. I wasn't as blindsided my the natural beauty of it as I was the first time, but I was also less agitated when I went in. Still, It was again a wonderful experience. There's just something about walking up there and entering into another territory, governed by the trees, that I find magnificent. They're all naked, but there are pockets of conifers, and it's jsut really marevelous. I'd have to write peotry like Robert Frost does in order to do it justice. It really is more or a "poetry" beautr than a "prose" beauty. It's just so awesome. But I figured something out: I get the same feeling from the woods that I did from the Library in Central. Some of you may remember that for alsomt the entirety of my high school career, I went to the library to read instead of eating lunch. The library was my temple, and nothing less. It will always be a holy place in my mind. I figured out during my last year there that the library was a place inside of me, and that I could find it there if I ever needed to, but it's very easy to foget about it. The woods help me remember how to find the library inside of me. It's something about being alone that does it, I know that; also the feeling of being alone in the presence of something else that makes you feel your identity more concretely. I can feel my self when I do it right. Whether it's trees standing up or trees shredded to little bits with black dye on 'em, they help form a massive "other" that lets mee feel my self. I'll probably go back to the woods sometime. It's a really nice place.
So. It's Christmas today. Merry Christmas! For me, as for most, I believe, the festivities started yesterday evening. The day istelf yesterday wasn't terribly exceptional, but the once the sun set, things got interesting. I'd prepared a chicken Pot Pie, but didn't cook it until later. The evening got interesting when we went to Christmass Mass (Christ Mass?). Remember, everybody in Belgium is a de facto Catholic unless a conscious choice is made otherwise, so going to Mass is a kind of secular tradition nowadays even if the Preacher is preaching Catholisism. Paptist. Anyway, I got to play the trumpet at the Mass. I and another trumpeter played the upper two voicings of a standar four-voice arrangement of "Voici la Paix sur Nous" (Behold the Peace Upon Us, which may actually have a very different title in English) while a pianist played the lower two voices. Just before the mass started, the other trumpeter handed me a hand-transcribed copy of the music, saying it had been transposed into five sharps so that the pianist wouldn't have to transpose. I, fool that I am, believed the man, though I quickly realized that the piece had been transposed into four sharps when I hit an A# instead of an A as the second note of the piece. I was able to subsequently correct myself. I also got to play the Battle Hymn of the Republic at the end of the mass, which the pianist began a step higher than I thought he was going to. This was the cause for some brief consternation while I figured out the new key, but was soon resolved. Then, we went home and started exchanging gifts. On my part, I recieved from my host mother a towel set (to remind me to bathe more often) in the Red and Black of the July Rebellion (wonder what she's implying there) and a four-pack of Hoegaarden Rosee, my favorite beer. finding a gift for my host sister Emma was tricky, because she doesn't have any overt interest that I could have invested in, and I didn't want to try to buy here clothes, jewelry, or makeup/perfume, given that my taste in those matters has been questioned by others. Buying a gift for an other, I figured it's best not to try, espically in clothes, because it's so easy to get something in the wrong size. I remembered that she'd reported a hositive experience in "The House of Pecket" in Liege, so I got her a bottle of Pecket. It felt like I ought to be acting really furtively and nervously at the checkout of the gorcery store buying liquer (the stuff is like 34 proof), but it was totally legal for me to do so. Didn't even get asked for ID. Anyway, the Pecket seemed to go over well. Next came the eating. Everyone contributed a dish, which made for a meal with many courses. In the US, I'm used to two courses: meal, then dessert. You just put all the courses on the table at the same time and people take what they want. This year, there was a long procession of appetizers and so forth. Let's see whatI can remember; ther were, at first, things on crackers, including butter+salmon, cheese+marachino cherry, and brined fish wrapped around an olive. Then, there was, what, the cabbage thing? No, there was something else before that, I think. Maybe not. In no particualr order, there was a shrimp/chicken flambe appetizer and a cabbage leaf stuffed with foie gras and pan-roasted figs. They were both pretty good. There might have been something else, too. Then, there was the main course: Chicken Pot Pie. It went over pretty well. I managed to get real buttermilk this time, instead of the cheese I had to deal with when I made pancakes, so it was all good. Mom, your Chicken Pot Pie was a hit in Belgium. Dessert was an ice cream cake, which is to say a dessert that had alternating layers of ice cream and cake. That was good. Then, we went to bed. I had my bags all packed and everything, so this morning I got up, ate brekfast, and moved out. I'm writing this from a temporary bedroom in Terwaigne, or something that sounds kind of like I just spelled it, which was proabably incorrectly. I got here sometime around noon. My hosts, Anise and whats-his-face, whose surname escapes me, had a party today with lots of people, so it was very animated here. There were a few small children (5,6 years?) and one almost-toddler, so it was fun to see those guys. Little kids are alowed to have fun at gatherings like this one, and it was nice to see some people having fun. Everyone else enjoyed him or herself, too. IT made me realise that my Christmas formula has always previously involved playing video games, because I always got some new video game on Christmas. I missed video games today (it behooves me at this instant to say that I also missed my familly and everybody. Sorry I couldn't be there, guys, or sorry you couldn't be here, get well soon, my Uncle). I miss Smash Bros. I miss it so much. Oh! also, aunt Ina, I got your package! Thank you very much for the calendar. The Pirards all had fun looking at it and asking me who all my relations were. I couldn't identify some of the yourger ones and I still can't tell the difference between Cheryl and Brenda, but fortunately enough their birthdays were marked to help me out. Thanks a lot, I'll make good use of it in the comming year, and it's sure to be a good souvenir of home. While I'm back at the Pirards', I should mention that I gave them The Essential Calvin and Hobbes and a book of photos of Illinois for Christmas. I made is a present "a la maison," and made it clear that it was not only a Christmas gift, but a thank-you gift for all that they'd done for me. That, also, went over well. Nothing went badly yesterday. Or today, for that matter. Similarly over here, many people each contributed a dish, but they were paced out over the entire evening and afternoon. The most bizarre thing I ate today was a Foie Gras Flan. Some Centralians may remember Flan as the recurring Columbian dish in the international potluck that Central reguarly puts on. That flan is sugary and vanilla. This was just wierd. Imagine meat Jell-O, and that'll give you an idea of what this was like. It felt kind of gross to eat, just becaues it felt like I was eating a pile of fat, which I think, more or less, I was. I was reminded of Angela's Ashes, where Frank McCourt said that his mother once came home and served her children each a pile of fat for dinner, with one morcel of lean that she gave to the baby, who proceded to throw it to the dog. The difference is that Frank McCourt was living life as a deprived, impovrished Irish pesant, and I was in the company of a bunch of well-to-so Belgians in a really nice house eating decadent Christmas meal. The fat is what stayed unchanged. You should all read Angela's Ashes, by the way, or even better, listen to it on tape, because the author narrates it and he probably does it better than you could in your head. He really adds another dimension to it. Author = Frank McCourt. But eating isn't the only thing that happened today; people drank a lot, too. People drank a lot yesterday, too. I feel like, especially yesterday, my liver took a hit. I was never drunk, I don't think I felt any strong effect of alchohol, but I know that my liver had had to process a lot of it. But, I kept on receiving gifts today! It made me feel bad that I had nothing to give in return. Everybody told me that it wasn't important and they didn't mind, but I still wanted to. It's the season of giving, or which the receiving is consequential. Saying this makes me realize that Mom, Dad, I never asked for you Christmas lists even though I've always given you mine. I'm gonna have to get yours from now on. Anyway, I got two comics, one of which I've read already, and I think it was good. I'll want to read it a gain and pay closer attention to some specific things, but it's left a good impression. I also goot some macaroons and some Neuhaus-brand chocolate. Neuhaus is a fairly well-known brand of chocolate in a country that's well-known for chocolate, so I'm looking forward to that. (Diversion: do you know why Belgium became famous for chocolate? Leopold II and Colonialism. Belgium had a lot of chocoalte plantations in the Former Belgian Congo, then Zaire and currently, if I'm not mistaken, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. so these tasty treats are ultimately the result of European ethnocentrism and forced slavery. They still taste really good. That's in the past, anyway, even though its reprecussions are still felt. But, as I noted, this is a diversion.) In the end, a good time was had by all, and I managed to have some decent conversations. I don't currently have an electrical adapted for my computer; the one I used previously belonged to Margot Pirard, who declined to give it to me, so I'll have to find a new one all my own or find out a way to use the one that my brother left me, which hasn't fit into any sockets I've seen yet. My battery is at below 50% right now, so Im'a finish up and say that you might not see me for a while cause of the battery.
chill out, peace on Earth, and Merry Christmas.
I'd talk about why I think Christmas should be celebrated by every American regardless of their religion, but that would take to long.
Peace.
So, I'm in a new house agian, this time for several months. Internet is well-established in this house and I have an electrical adapter that I know will serve me till the end of the year, so there shouldn't be any problem here. That's good. Now, the only problem remaining is the Pariettis, whom I know use dial-up with a system driver that wasn't compatible with Vista, so doubt it'll be compatible with Windows 7, which I hope to be running by then. I haven't checked--I'll need to find out what the Windows 7 OS-tan looks like. I know that people never really agreed on a Vis-tan. But that doesn't matter terribly much right now. What matters is what's happened to me over the past five days. I spent a lot of time reading comics. Probably most of my time there. Sadly, though, I don't feel that it was very fruitful. By that, I mean that I don't think I read very many good comics. The collection in the Paris house is geared more towards comics that aren't as good which tend to be aimed at smaller children. Ehn...I'm waiting for somebody to have David B. or Marjane Satrapi in the house. I haven't seen it happen yet. I should seek out those "Lapin" or "l'Association" authors. Heck, I might be able to get some issues of "Lapin!" That'd be great! The patriarch here, Xavier, says that the best comic os Asterix, so I don't know if I should keep my hopes too high for this house or what. I'll note that I don't have anything against Asterix, I jsut veiw it kind of like Lee Falk's "The Phantom;" it does what it does very well, but I don't think it does very much. Notably read at the Paris house was "Le Marque Jaune," the most famous album of the "Blake & Mortimer" franchise. "Blake & Mortimer" is a fairly well-know, well-reputed franchise, but if the album I read was representitive, and I think it was, it's not very good. There was one specific problem with it that could be easily rectified: almost every panel had a caption. This was frequently flagrantly unneccesary, and made the whole thing feel more like an illustrated radio drama than a comic. If your panel shows a guy kicking another guy, that's pretty self-explanitory; when you add a caption that says, "But Mortimer dealt him a mighty kick to the chin, knocking him out!" you can almost hear the 20's radio static. It actually took me like six hours to read a 30-some page album, and I think, in resrtrospect, that it's becasue it was so boring and badly put together that I kept losing interest and spacing out. So, in summary, Blake & Mortimer is a very good lesson in what not to do.
Oh, a few detail about the house itself; I learned one morning that the house was originally built in 1711. At the same time I learned this, I learned that a metal plate affixed to a door just below the keyhole was the double-headed eagle of the Holy Romain Empire. Yes. That house is older than the country I was born in. that gave me a bit of a turn. I visited a house down the road that had a part of it built in the 1200s. that's before the Hundred Years' War! I can't imagine that, but there it is. The Paris house also had a somewhat tremulous division betwen the first and second stories; there were places wher you could easily see the lower story through the holes, and places that kind of sagged when I walked on them. Also, two people could readily converse through the floor in places. Many doors were about an inch and a half too low for me, a testament to an age where people were smaller, I suppose, so I had to rememmber to duck a lot when entering a room, or else I hit my head. It took a few knocks for that to sink in.
So it was an old house. Anyway, I visited a museum in Liege that was originally a manor house of some rich merchant. In some places, the house itself was left bare, so the house itself, kind of, was a part of the exhibition. I saw the "chronological exhibition," which started before mankind and proceeded to the middle of the 19th century or something. Notably, almost all of the piecees in this exhibit came from the area, from ancient big cat skulls to arrowheads, to roman coins, to paintings, chests of drawers, and clocks. It was pretty cool. There was a lot of really pretty stuff there. I visited that place with Agnes, the matriarch of the Paris house. Yesterday, I visited Brussels with Serge, the Rotatrian who took me tp play music with his friends, his wife, and Venitia, the other exchange student that the Ocquier on Condroz Rotary Club is hosting, who is Mexican. We spent the whole day in Museum(s), and it was frikin awesome. We I add the (s) because everything was in the same building, but pretty sell divided. We started out visiting an exposition on the Silk Road, which was really well done. The thing was organised semi-chronologically and semi-geographically, so you got a sense for how long the silk road was around and the extent of its influence. The exhibit kept on talking about the Sogdian and Sassanian peoples, and I had no clue who they were. I think they were some ancient near-eastern people? Dad? Sound familliar? It was really cool to see al the old stuff that was accumulated there. The whole thing was organized in the standard labarythine format, but since it's a temporary expostion in the temporary room, all the walls weren't real walls but pieces of soem material stretched between two supports. Upon the material was printed photographs of the place that the room the walls belonged to was intened to exhibit. That accomplished a really good ambiance.The whole thing was jsut really well done. After that, we ate something at the cafeteria, which was apparently designed by a famous Belgian artist. Panamadenco or something of the like. Serge kept telling me his name, but I can't really remember it. So, after that, we went to the Paul Delveaux exposition that was currently playing in a different room. That was good to see. I was practically completely ignorant of Delveaux beforehand, so that was a good discovery. He makes a lot of referrances to ancient Grece and Grecian myhts, and I felt like I didn't know my myths well enough to appreciate some of his paintings. Also notable in Delveaux's work is the very large number of naked women present. He likes to put naked women in his work as much as Junko Mizuno does. I thought it was kind of excessive, but I do realize that naked women are, in truth, a pretty reasonable symbol for Antiquity and its aesthetic. Still, now. After that, we proceeded to the lower levels, to the Musem of Modern Art, which comprises centuries 18 and up. I spent untoild hours in that place, and I'm going back for more. The museum closed on me, I didn't have enough time. I got to see some Dada-like stuff in one area, and it was good to finalyl see the type of thing that I've read so much about, even if it wasn't exactly the same works. There was this one work by one E.L.T Mesens called, "La Partition Complet Completee," or "The complete Sheet Music Completed" that I thought was absolutely great. I can't find any pictures of it, so I am forced to resort to describing it to you, which is really impossible. It was two pages of sheet music pluss collage. The music was all written by Mesens, with parts for among other things, Claret, Bassoon, Horns, and Human Bassson. If any of you Centrailiens remember the "Farie's Aire and Death Waltz" that Mr. Currey had pinned outside his office for a while, it was like that, but better. Mesens wrote in a bunch of things resembling musical notes and phalluses at the same time, particularly for "Human Basoon," he had at least one shift into 3/15 time, and he had photographs pasted all over the place and wierd stuff written in. I really liked that one. I want a reproduction if ever I'm a band director. Heck, I want a reproduction anyway. It was great. the museum featured primarily works by Belgian artists. I think it's a Royal Museum, so it makes sense that they's be showing off their Belgian Pride. Ther ewas just too much to see there, I'm going back. It's an easy train rise away, not going back is not an option. I have to go there. There's something else in Brussels that I have to se...did you know that Magritte was Belgian? That's right! There's a MAGRITTE MUSEUS IN BRUSSELS!!!1!11!!1!1~!1 I'm totally going there. I gotta! I don't have a choice! I'm going there. I'm already excited about that. After the museum(s), we went to a restaurant and we ate Brussels Waffles. Brussels waffels are different than Liege waffles. Brussels waffels have few, cavernous squares, are really light and fluffy, and are frequently served with whipped cream and/or fruit. Oh, that was so good. So good. Venetia didn't say much the whole day, and when she did, she spoke pretty softly. I can only assume that she had a good time, too. I know I did. I love museums. I feel likee I saw more paintings yesterday than I have in my entire life besides. I think that's probably true, but even if it isn't, I feel that way. It was great.
And Happy New Year, everyone, no matter what your tradition is, I hope that it's happy for you and all that I'm going to a Rotary party that'll take place in a former mill, so that ought to be fun. It's not a party with the other students, but with the Rotarians of my host club, but that should be good.I'll tell you about it some time in the New year. I pray that 2009 hasn't treated you too badly, and that 2010 won't either. Holy crap, the winter Olympic Games are coming up. I've gotta find out when that is. I love wathcing the Olympics. So I've been Seiza sitting for practically the whole time I've been writing this, and I need to go now. Peace.
