June 30

Still working on getting my visa in on time while getting ready for Calvin and my dads resteraunt opens in 2 weeks and we're not ready 😨😨😨😨😨 I'm going to the embassy tomorrow to apply In person, however that can only be done if I can find a way to submit my online application form correctly because the system keeps kicking me out. The plan for my dad's resteraunt is to open on July 11 but the front desk, the menus, the recipes have to be made still....... I have my host parents for the first part of my exchange paweł grzelewski is the father and beata grzelewska is the mother. also there seems to be some confusion as to when I'm arriving, my departure date is the 8th through the 12th but apparently my arrival date is the 30th so something is wrong. Ill keep the blog updated based on when things happen with any information I get as well as the 2 times a week.

June 24th

I'm going to start posting 2 times a week from now on for the 6 people who seem to look at my blog:). tomorrow I'm going to the going away party for the outbound from Thailand, I tried to go to everyone else's parties but my schedule just didn't line up. next week is my last week at work, which from my limited experience has been a pretty good job, its basically a toy store with nothing over 5 dollars and i get 20% off everything which is pretty amazing, but its time to close that part of my life and move on to the next chapter in Poland. my language skills are coming along slowly but surely, i have a list of 50 words per week to memorize with a mix of verbs nouns and adjectives as well as important terms for travelers, the translating app is a lot better than just me and a sheet of paper but i can only use it with internet so it can only go so far. I made a plan for each week of the next month in terms of polish language, but it turns out that i have been pronouncing a lot of things wrong because of the phonics that i didn't even think about. I have a family friend who's sister in law is polish and she told him that her dad would always yell Boga Bóg uderzy piorun w dół na tych dziewcząt głów whenever they did something silly like forgot to pack something or say something goofy about his hairline, it translates to "god god strike a thunderbolt down on these girls heads". i don't know if thats a common phrase in polish or not...just kinda funny.

Catchup

So lots of stuff happened very fast, 1. I'm no longer going to Germany I'm now going to Warsaw poland, 2. I have my school and departure date, 3. Family reunion, 4. Working on my visa, 5. Polish has almost nothing in common with english, 6. My buttons came, 7. Dyed my hair purple with my youngest sister, 8. New shoes came, 9. Working on gifts for host family, 10. I went camping with a friend at lake Michigan. A LOT of stuff....

1. Germany made a rule this year after accepting me that they would no longer accept students with ADD, a common mental disorder in the USA. After about 4 weeks of scrambling around to find a country somewhere for me to go to and the first to say yes was poland and the capital no less!

2.my school is something I can't pronounce (yet)  but below is a screenshot of the acceptance letter. My departure date is the 8th of august through the 12 according to my tzell profile (the travel agency), it seems like just yesterday that it was months off and I thought I hade all the time in the world to do whatever needed done, now I have very little time and lots to do that needs done soon. Very little to do and so much time.......scratch that reverse it-Willie Wonka

3.I got to go to a family reunion before I left which was nice to see all of the extended family before I left as well as cousins and aunts (reunion for my grandmas side of the family) I have photos of my youngest cousin with my aunt playing in the slip and slide as well as one of my dad and grandma sitting away from the pavilion in the shade (below), lots of food (too much to eat) and as usual on my dad's side of the family... as mush dessert as really food available.

4. I'm working on my visa right now, I got the checklist 2 days ago and I'm calling the embassy in chicago tomorrow to schedule an appointment hopefully before calvin in July (8th) some of the paperwork is easy but it requires some running around so it'll take some time to get the paperwork done (by that I mean dragging my parents away from work during one of the few days I'm not working(: ).

5. With german I had 3 years under my belt and a few fluent german speakers I could direct questions to and German and english are pretty similar, polish is none of that... it has as many exceptions as it does rules. If anyone knows any great translate websites or books (books would be great) to recommend that would be awesome because right now I can only remember like 20 words and 3 of them are bad words I learned in middle school...):

6.MY BUTTONS CAME!!!!!!!!! after playing phone tag with the south Bend chocolate factory for a month and having no other ideas pan out I broke down and ordered some online, they both have elk on them (I'm from elkhart) but the one in green and blue is opaque and not visible in the picture, both quotes are from Tolkien. 

7. I dyed my hair purple, part of it anyway, as I've mentioned before I'm taking each of my siblings somewhere before I leave the country and the salon was where the 5 year old choose, I might have already posted this but it needs my password to check posts and I'm not doing all that. 

8.My new shoes came in the mail! I'm putting this here because I wrote it in the journal and I've received no tangible objects regarding the exchange other than my buttons. Plus they're new shoes! 

9. I'm working on gifts for the host family, whoever they may be. I've decided I'm going to get stuff from work like coffee mugs, key chains with their names sports pride stuff something along those lines cheap but very American. 

10. I went camping at lake Michigan with some friends at lake Michigan (weco beach) and spent almost all of the time making racoon jokes ( a racoon got into the car on the first night) and hanging out on the beach where the sun decided to give me all the love it could give by burning my entire body. We walked about 2 miles to Warren dunes to hang out on the world famous massive dune from which the park gets its name, which is likely where they majority of sun love was recieved...

This is just miscellaneous stuff that's happened, my sister graduated from preschool, and I went to her day cares father's day party (her dad was...unwelcome) to see her. And me a a friend at work bought ponchos, squirt guns, and water bottles and went to war for a few minutes after we closed in the front of the store while passersby looked on in envy/curiosity (they wish they were as cool as we looked in our ponchos). And I ate a turkey avocado peanut butter bannana sandwich.

Construction

Yesterday I was helping my father in his new the resteraunt to try and strip it down from what the previous owners (stride rite) had left behind, yesterday it was just the first 2 coats of paint an

Return from isolation

So quite a few things have happened and are still happening. My moms moving so I have to help her move which is taking forever and we have 2 more days to be out... Yikes! I'm working at 5 below right now part time after school 1 or 2 days a week right now, if I don't get more hours I'll get another job working for my dad at his new resteraunt (opens in a month and a half!) And make some spending money for while I'm over seas as well as try to pay back some people for the money they gave in the beggining.

Now for the excuses, I haven't posted lately for lots of reasons, I've been busy moving, my phone bill and my paycheck we're about a week apart this time, I couldn't figure out my custodian password for the blog, and im buay with finals final projects and ap testing but the biggest reason is I simply forgot, for that I'm sorry to those of you who read the blog and to those who have given me the opportunity to go overseas for a year. 

I still haven't been contacted by my host family or host club but I'm waiting patiently...kinda. I'm going to try and post at least 2 times a week for now on but I can't promise anything for the next 2 weeks as that's when I get out of school and finish moving.

I had an interesting thought the other day while eating a waffle, "I don't eat waffles very often so this could be the last waffle I eat in the united states" then I've had waffles 3 times since then:) so it's been my symbol for the time being that I have time to do what needs done and I have time to eat waffles.

April 29

Still no word from Germany regarding contact or host families or really anything. My little sisters really sick with some virus right now so all I can hear is a symphony of coughing from the next room (poor kid). I am absolutely swamped right now, I have finals, ap exams, I step, final projects in 3 classes, work and the exchange to work on. On top of all that my dad is setting up his new restaurant in mishiwaka and my mother is packing to move in 2 weeks. The south bend chocolate factory has called me back about me buying some wrappers to make buttons for the rotary jackets, 65 dollars for 250 I don't know whether to try and haggle or not :/ all my grades are fine right now I just have to make sure that with all this going on I don't lose control of them.

2nd post

Second post

Sorry about being late on this bye well... a lot I've been busy and forgot about it, I'm working on finding "support team" members right now, I don't have all off them yet but I'm working on it! I still don't have a city nor have I been contacted by my host family but there's still time so I'll be patient...for now. The conference went well and was a lot of fun the pictures below are from waiting in the lobby for something to do. The conference at the Radisson hotel had some interesting guests and speakers, they had one former biggest loser contender and somebody that does work in Nepal regarding human trafficking. Some students from RYLA were there too (its essentially junior rotary members). 

I'm deathly allergic to cats and had a bit of a close call 2 days ago that I'm still recovering from, we went to a friend of my mom's for dinner and they had a few cats, within 7 or 8 minutes I had to leave the house because I couldn't breath well, my whole chest became a little swollen including my back which is the part I'm still recovering from, I couldn't move for a few days without a lot of pain but luckily it was over by the 3rd day, just in time for my 3rd day at work. Speaking of work I did finally get a seasonal job at the new 5°below in Goshen, no that does not mean come in and mess with me...you know who you are.

 I'm meeting with the production manager at the south Bend chocolate factory in a few days to talk about getting wrappers to put on my buttons for the jackets, I'm going to need somewhere around 200 to 250 buttons overall I think to be safe. Then I have to find a place that will let me use their button maker. 

The model UN that a few friends and me were trying to make is looking like it won't happen after all, the school likely won't approve the version of it we want and to do it outside of school would be far to expensive. 

Prom was a few days ago, I didn't go since I'm a.) Broke until my 1st paycheck B.) Single and without a junior or senior to go with and C.) Didn't really have any desire to go. I realized to day that I have 23 days of American school before I leave for Germany in the fall, so holy freholes (I do not think I spelled that correct). I also made some more food (desserts of course) I'll put pictures up below with the ones from the conference