Last week before school

     Ok, so I had started writing this blog last afternoon and I had to start completely over because so much worthy of note took place last night. It was going to be quite a bit shorter with an apology for having so little to tell, but now instead of 1 thing to talk about, I have two. (It doesn't sound to impressive, but just think about it as a 100% increase. That is a pretty large margin.) 
     
     Number one: I had my first fencing practice. I think all you fencers know what I mean when I say fencing fixes everything. Any problem you have, if you just go to practice and fence some really good, hard bouts you will feel loads better. The only exception is if your problem is with your fencing. Then you are just SOL. But anyway, it was great! The coach was as nice as my first impression lead me to suspect, the people that were my age throughly kicked my buttock, but I scored some touches, so I don't feel too out of my league, and from what I could tell the people there were really nice. It is hard to get a grasp of personalities  when you don't understand what everyone is saying, but no one was ever mean to me, and they were all very helpful. That is always a good thing. 
     A bit of excitement that happened during practice was what Kelly (my fencing coach in KC for those of you who don't know) has informed me was a drop in blood sugar. (Wow, that sentence was convulsed. I'm sorry. I don't know how to fix it. And I don't have my editors close at hand. bwa!) So it was after we had done our warm up, and we had gotten our equipment on, and we were starting to do drill work. It was normal epee stuff: just keeping distance with the foot work. I was able to keep up with the first bit quite easily, but then in the time it took the head coach to change the drill, I ended up sitting on the floor because my legs would no longer support my weight. The room was spinning and I couldn't see anything. My stomach started to feel like it wanted to throw up. During all of this my only thought was really, "I can make it through this. I don't want to look like a fool in front of these new people. I don't want them to think that us sabreists are so weak we can't handle a little bit of drill work." But in the end I decided sitting down was better than passing out. I ended up sitting on the side of the gym watching for about 20 min, while my partner for the drills offered me some of his water (I was too stupid to remember to bring one of my own. I forgot drinking fountains don't exist in Europe) and a sugar tablet. The combination of the two was successful in returning me with all of my energy, so I got up and got destroyed by some beautiful fleches. I just want to take the time to say thank you to that guy who helped me out. I don't know his name or anything really about him, but I am grateful. I don't know how else really to thank him at this time. So I'll leave my thanks here.


     The second exciting thing that happened was the friend of my host brother's (the really shy one who I had the conversation with that I was really excited about) came over and showed me the notes and work he had from his math class last year. 

     It got me really excited for school (starts tomorrow) but at the same time it depressed me a bit. I realized they are basically going to be starting me in the middle of calc BC and moving forward from there. I guess it could be worse, but looking at his stuff I realized how much I had forgotten over the summer. I think I am going to be very surprised when I get into the class and I am going to do very poorly. And I know I am not expected to do well, but I mean it is math. My favorite subject. The subject I consider to be my best. It will be a little crushing for my ego if I fail at math here. Ah well. That is the live of an exchange student. I am still excited for school because I will be getting out of this house and meeting new people and everyone says the school is where your French gets better the most quickly, so all of that is good. 


     Sorry I don't have more to tell. I wish I did, but I am sure the post for next week will be giant. Not only do I have the first week of school, but on Wednesday we also have another meeting with all the rotary students. We are going to visit some mine somewhere. I am pretty excited. But like always I am missing you all back home and quite often i wish you all were here with me. You should all move to Belgium. You would love it. 


     Anyway, thank you for reading this. I hope everything back home is going well. Gah, I am really bad at ending these. Sorry for that. It is like saying good bye, but to a whole group of people at once through text. I don't even have the added tool of the hug to implement. Just pretend I am hugging you right now. Yeah, that works. E-Hug to finish off this post. I love you all. 


~Weston Halberstadt