WOCHENENDE!

It's FRIDAY.

TGIF!

Let's play the Friday song, okay?

It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Fridaaaay~

Okay sooooooo back to topic.

Last Saturday, I was watching "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" which is actually "German Idol". Apparently it was the semi-finals, and I was watching with Julia and her friend, Selina, in her room on my Mac. Turns out that the rest of the family members hate that show, and the amazing Swisscom has an online television program where you can just sign in and watch TV from your computer (with internet connection, of course). My host-mom insisted we take a photo of us squeezed together on a bed and watch on a small 13'' MacBook screen.

Couldn't you see how hard I support Malaysia? Mount Kinabalu and Cempaka all the way :D

The next day, I don't know why, but I woke up and my host-parents were gone. Turned out that the whole day was just us kids (Yes, I consider myself a kid eventhough I'm 18) at home. Selina slept over last night and we spent the afternoon together, me, Julia, Joel and Selina. We went out for volleyball, but then it hurt us so much, I took out my frisbee from my room and we played it. The wind was so strong, the frisbee kept ending up flying either not far enough, or too far, and several times it landed on the roof. One thing about here is that kids can just simply take a ladder and climb up the roof and walk over the roof to retrieve something. I think back home in Malaysia, the parents and the neighbours would be freaking out. We have a playground on the backyard and we were repeating our childhood. Swinging competitions, jumping out while the swing is up high, twirling the swing and then let go... I even took my camera to capture all these "childhood at 18 year old" moment.

God I feel so old.

We had to make our own dinner too, and we took whatever food we can eat from the fridge and just heated it all up. When it's all finished, we were still hungry, so we made pizza :D

Believe me, it was DELICIOUS.

School is normal as well, normal normal.

Oh and I was so used to waking up after 9am during the holidays and snoozing my alarm, I snoozed my alarm on Monday and ended up oversleeping and Julia coming over to wake me up. Embarrassing :(

And although spring is here, it's just getting warmer now. Which means, the farmers start letting the animals out and graze on the big green nature carpet. Plus, they wear bells and the slightest move will make a loud DONG sound. When a herd of cow/sheep/goat are together, it sounds enough for someone to dance.

Julia took part in an exchange program in her school with the French part of Switzerland. She went to Cossonay for 3 days 2 nights before the Easter holidays. On Wednesday, Valentine, the girl whom Julia stayed with while she was in Cossonay, came and stayed for 3 days 2 nights. That's really just about it. I had a skype call with Suwei, and it lasted almost 2 hours. It feels so nice to talk SOO MUCH again. We were talking about everything, from high school to college to my life here in Switzerland and to people from school that changed 360 degrees.

Thursday was the first time I felt super warm in Switzerland. I kept my leather jacket into my bag, and took off my hoodie when I was in the bahnhof. Even in t-shirt, I did sweat when I reach home. But I'm not complaining :P It's sunny, the sun shining hard on my skin, but with cooling breeze.

TODAY.

Nothing biggie. I braided my hair to school today because I had so much time before I left for school. I love Fridays cause classes start at 10am and I can take an hour later train to school. Which means I can sleep at least 30 minutes more. Some girls from my class were "examining" my hair, cause they said it's braided like the Swiss bread, Zopf.

Have I mention this is delicious?

They were saying things like "Maybe that's a Malaysian hairstyle?" but in German so I didn't really get what they were saying completely. Then I admitted that I learned that online, from YouTube. Hehehe.

Oh and I walked home all the way from school today. School ended at 4.10pm and the next train was at 5pm. Instead of waiting in school or in the train station, I decided to walk home. It's a beautiful day out and I should waste it, right? Plus, I've gain 7kg. SEVEN KILOGRAMS! Well that was 2 weeks ago, maybe I've lost some, maybe I've gained more, who knows? I don't really dare to weigh myself now. So I guess this could be a great exercise for me.

Know how long it took me?

See for yourself.

It may be a long walk from school, but the weather is super and I got home earlier than waiting for the train. Oh and the "lap 1" was the time needed to walk to the Mensa, aka the Cafeteria, from the school.

So..

On Tuesday, my English teacher gave us, the exchange students, this.

 

The other side of the page is the same story, but in English. She gave us a short story on both languages for us to read. That was really nice of her. But look at the first page.

See the red highlighted words? See the blue highlighted words? Those are the words that I have absolutely no idea what it meant. Reading this short story is practically reading a dictionary. But then, it's a good thing, too. A great way for me to learn vocabularies and grammar.

German.

Sigh.

It's 24th of April, 9.52pm when I'm writing this.

Can't help thinking, just 2 months ago, exactly 2 months ago (well, don't count the time difference), I'm sitting in McDonalds in KLIA, freaking out about things that are going to happen few hours later.

It's been 2 months since I've been here, and I still can't speak good in German. Yeah, I can say a few sentences, but to engage myself in a long-lasting conversation? God knows when I can start doing that. But still, could you believe I survived 2 months? It's been difficult, and sometimes it's just absolute torture, but yeah, I'm still here, and I plan to be here for the rest of the year.

We have a "Class Hour" every last period on Monday. It's 1 hour, and everyone in my class sits in a circle, and discuss about what can they do to improve a better study environment in class, and talk about the conflicts and problems faced by everyone in class, and everyone gets to speak out. I don't really understand the class hour yesterday, but one part it was about the exchange students, all being in one class and being in the 2nd last year of school. I THINK, they were saying how busy they are with their Matura and couldn't really socialize with us, and how they must be super attentive in class and couldn't really give the exchange students a better time in class and something like that. Isaac was saying that all exchange students in a class isn't good because we all tend to stick around each other, and kind of neglect socializing with the Swiss students. Well, I think this is true. But I'm still grateful that I have exchange students in my class.

I think the hardest part for me is that I came into the school in the middle of the year. That means I'm like half-hanging and don't understand the classes because they've already learned half the stuff before I'm even here. And to be in the 2nd last year..? Lock See said that their 2nd last year is our form 6. That explains the kisiao Chemistry class, learning diamonds and graphite. The maths class, MATHS, I have no idea what's going on.

Well it's 10.10pm now. Bleh. Must. Sleep.

Been having a bit of insomnia lately. I was laying in bed for more than 2 and a half hours last night. I was dead tired, and was already in bed at 8.30pm, but only manage to sleep after 11pm, which zombiefied me today. Plus today we played Volleyball again, and I have such ill-fitting sports shoes, I hurt my ankle, not sprained, but hurt. It hurts madly when I twist my ankle now. Swiss with their indoor shoes rule... PFFT.

So a few hours ago, I screen-downed my Mac and tied my hair into a braid and wore my leather jacket and equipped myself with my Canon EOS 550D loaded with Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Lens and tucked into my shoes and walked out of the house like a boss.

Well, I've been spending too much time on the computer, and the calories are liking my body so much, their sticking with me. And if I don't try to work them off, they're gonna be with me forever.

My host mom told me about a path by the stream, which is a great place for jogging. I don't really know where it is, so I just decided to go for a walk and find the place. The weather today is pretty, with sunshine and a cool breeze of wind, unlike the last few days, where it rained whole day and the weather was below 10 degrees.

It's crap. Don't know which kind, but it's crap.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you.. Hasle

self-timer fail

And when I got home and looked into the mirror, I jumped at my reflection. I looked like a Katniss. Seriously. Cause I braided my hair and I was wearing leather jacket. And yeah we both have chubby cheeks. Well I braided my hair into Katniss style, which is very sloppily done. Everyone knows I'm never good with my own hair...

 

Okayy so time for my weekly update.

So as my last post said, I was in Jun Khee's house for a night along with the rest of the Malaysians, except for Shu Chien. So the next day, which was Saturday, I took the 1pm train back and reached home around 3.15pm. The train ride wasn't that long, it was the in-between rides wait that was long. It was cold and I had to wait 20 minutes each at 2 stations. Ah well, that's about 5fr cheaper than taking the train straight to Luzern and changing trains there. My purse is going thinner and thinner. On Saturday night was Anja's birthday party as well. I took the bus to Sörenburg from Schüpfheim bahnhof. I was an hour earlier than everyone else, it appears to be. So I got the chance to really get to know her family, who are friends with Fränzi. Her house is just next to the ski lift, and her mom used to work with Fränzi or something. Apparently that night I was speaking really good German. I don't understand how I did it, but I manage to have conversation with Anja's mom in German, and I understood them very well. The party was in the Garage. They had to close the garage door, which makes the garage feels cramped up, but it's good cause it blocks out the cold wind outside. I drank beer (for women) and Trojka, some yellow vodka or something. I ate a lot too, the pizza was amazing, so was their cheese tart, which was baked and served warm instead of refrigerated like Ding's. The combination of a stomach full of cheese and pastry with Trojka and beer was something I could never forget. I felt like throwing up the whole time, but it was difficult to get out of the garage, because the door is the type of big doors for cars, and when you open it, everyone would be freezing. I kept it in, and tried not to make big, sudden movements and stayed seated. I did have some conversations with a few people not from the school, and as usual, they were asking me about Malaysia and chinese stuff. Around 11.30pm, Isaac and Marcos asked if I wanted to go home, cause we're getting a ride from Anja's dad. Apparently the last bus down to the bahnhof was 8.30pm, which I knew and my host-dad said to call him when I needed the ride home. Anja's father offered to drive us back, cause it's about 15-20 minutes drive from Sörenburg to the bahnhof or something. He dropped off Isaac and Marcos at Marcos' house in Schüpfheim and drove me home cause unfortunately I missed my last train back to Hasle. Since he knows my host parents, he knows where I live, too. Thank you so much for the ride.

One thing about here. I don't know how they address a friend's parents. Back home in Malaysia, we just call everyone UNCLE or AUNTY. Here, the parents introduce themselves with their first name, and it sounds so weird to call people Herr Blaser or Frau Blaser. I need to ask people soon.

Sunday wasn't much. I really forgot what I did on Sunday. So I'll just skip till I remember what I did.

Monday..... wasn't much either. I think I did nothing on Monday. Skip. Oh wait I went to Schüpfheim for swimming. It's awesome cause it's locked and my host-mom has the key so we went in ourselves and we had the pool all for ourselves. I went with Joel, his friend Nicola and his 2 cousins, who are also our neighbour, Micha and Tim. The pool is indoors, and the water is really warm. Micha and Tim are so lovely! Micha talks to me in German, sometimes English, but when he speaks German, he does these hand signals so that I could understand better. He's just 11 years old, I think, and Tim is 8. Tim, on the other hand, took out his swimming pants in the pool and ran to the showers naked, and he was being happy about it.

Tuesday I met up with Nadine, my AFS contact person, aka my Götti (Godmother). I don't know why they call it Götti here, but that's what she is, according to AFS. I met up with her in Luzern, and we went for a movie together. Well I kinda suggested it, cause no one wants to watch The Hunger Games with me, so when she asked is there something I REALLY wanna do, and I said I wanna watch THG. Apparently it's not as popular as it is back home and in US I think. We watched it in German, cause the English version is only available at night. Well, at least I've read the books and I know how the story is, and I really just wanna see Josh Hutcherson :D The German dubs were alright, and Gale's voice sounds kinda gay, whereas Peeta's voice was more manly.  I didn't like Katniss' voice either. It sounds so gentle, but Katniss' character is so tough. And something "special" about the cinemas here in Switzerland. They have a commercial break in the movie. For you to go out and stretch yourselves and go to the loo, I guess, but in THG, it paused at one of the most exciting moments, when Katniss confronts Peeta about confessing his feelings on television. Nadine never heard of the story, and never read the books, but I think she enjoyed the movie. During the pause, she was asking me about how the movie ends and how exciting the movie is, and at the end of the movie, she said she wants to find out about the rest of the books.



Wednesday I went to Zurich with my host mom, sis and bro. We took the train there and went shopping for clothes. Mainly it was to shop for Joel's clothes, for his graduation and all. I could see he despised shopping. Julia was like choosing clothes for him and he's just going Noooo Noooooo. Reminds me a bit of my brother, though. His face when he finds an outrageous shirt was priceless. We had McDonald's for lunch and went to shops like ZARA and stuff, but I didn't buy any clothes, except for a cardigan in H&M. I needed one, true story. I almost bought 2 hoodies for 9fr each, but then took a tenth look at the hoodies while lining up at the counter, and decided not to buy it, cause it doesn't really fit me much, and I'm just buying because the price was insanely cheap. In the evening, I went to the library in Schüpfheim with Julia, cause she was searching for the Nicholas Sparks book, The Lucky One, but in German. I found an amazing book there, and I borrowed it. It's so amazing!!!!!!

I learned English reading these when I was young. So maybe I'll use the same technique to learn German :)

Thursday was normal for me as well. I went to the bank and post office to run a few errands for my host mom. I also mailed a couple of postcards, and bought a cinnamon roll in Volg, the kedai runcit of Hasle. The pang of guilt hit me after I bought the roll, cause I just told myself to stop eating so much snacks and keep it to the strictly 3 meals a day diet. But I feel like I'm betraying my stomach for not giving it food when it's crying for food. Ugh. Why can't the calories disappear as quickly as the money in my purse?

Friday, which is today, well, not already cause it's 1am here now. Shit I'm getting back to my bad sleeping habits in Malaysia. What the hell is wrong with me? Didn't do much today, except for eating and eating and eating. Go away, big appetite!!

I think now I'll make a post once a week. Hopefully I can keep it up for the whole year. Hopefully it won't become once a month.Ugh

So this week it's Easter holidays. Yay.

Well so on Monday, the day after Easter, was a public holiday, too. I forgot what's it called, and I didn't know what a big deal a public holiday is here in der Schweiz. A few of us Malaysians planned to go to Luzern to meet up and discuss about the overnight we are going to have. Jun Khee, Shu Jie and Shu Chien came. Pei San and KC couldn't make it. We decided on Luzern because it is in between Bern and Zurich, which makes the nearest place to meet up for everyone. I reached Luzern first, so I was planning to go find a bakery and buy a Birchermuessli. For some reason I'm addicted to that. The bakery at the Bahnhof was expensive, so I wated for the others to go out and look for other bakeries. When we walked out, all the shops were closed. We then decided to go to the old Luzern to shop for some stuff. But then, ALL shops were closed, no matter how popular they are. H&M, C&A, even COOP was closed. Luckily, the kebab shop was opened. Although it is 1fr more expensive than the one in Olten, but at this time, beggars can't be choosers. I don't know if that applies to this case. We bought kebabs and went to a bench by the lake and enjoy the scenery of the lake and the far away Alps while eating the heaven-made food, kebab. There was a street piano performer, who took a whole piano out to the streets and played songs for hours. That guy is seriously amazing. There we were, eating kebabs and taking photos, and our fingers were frozen it almost fell off. But this guy, this amazing guy here, could play his piano despite how cold it was. Did I mention it was super cold that day? My fingers were never so numb before. We had so much time to kill (because we couldn't go shopping, LUCKILY) so we went to the famous lion monument in Luzern. I didn't understand the writings there, it was in Greek or something, but I asked my host-dad later an he said it was a memory for the Greek warriors during the war or something.

Tuesday was boring. I woke up late, about 10.30am, cause I sleep late for these few days. Yeah. Blame youtube, PPS and torrent. I've been watching so many movies here. After eating breakfast by myself, I took my mac into the TV room and watched Journey to the Center of the Earth. Yes, I'm addicted to Josh Hutcherson. So sue me. I like to see guys with bold jaws. Okay back to business. After lunch, I attempted to read Pride and Prejudice, a book we have to read for English class. I'm 100 pages behind everyone in class, so I needa catch up during the holidays. Forgive me, but I'm not a fan of these kinds of books, where women plays such a small role in society, where women has no place compared to men. Well I haven't finished the book, and I don't really know the story, but so far I've read about how the mother is so eager to marry off her daughters, because women cannot survive on their own, and cannot inherit their father's property and wealth. I hate the mother. Ugh. And thanks to PPS, I get to watch the movie, and I couldn't stand the mother a single bit. Ugh. I feel like slapping and shut her up, along with the youngest daughter, Kitty. By the time I read till pg 80, dinner was ready. And I gave up reading the book and watched movie.

Wednesday was a forever alone day. I went to Luzern BY MYSELF and searched for a bikini. Yes, you didn't read it wrong, I searched for a BIKINI. And 90% of the swimming costumes are bikinis, plus the cheapest swimming costumes are bikinis, so I'm actually left with no other choice but to buy bikini. I bought mine in Manor, and went roaming around Luzern. It actually feels nice to be by myself, cause I could kinda pay more attention to the things surrounding me. I almost took the wrong train home, which I only found out 1 minute before the train departed. I didn't have enough time to change the train, so I waited for the train to stop in Wolhusen and changed there. After dinner, Joel and I played speedminton, again, in the rain. The good thing about speedminton is that the shuttlecock is heavier so you can play when there's wind. But if the wind gets too strong, it's impossible to play. The wind was blowing towards Joel's direction, so no matter how lightly I hit he shuttlecock, it ends up going further than expected. The day before, I played with him, too. But then I went inside early and Micha, Joel's cousin and our neighbour, took my place and played with me. According to Joel during dinner, Micha hit the shuttlecock too far in on the roof and they couldn't retrieve it. Oh yeah, every shuttlecock has a name. Fun Speed, Match Speed and some other names which I forgot. The best shuttlecock was on the roof, so we had to settle with the 2nd best. Unfortunately, I hit the shuttlecock a wee bit too hard, and it landed further in than the one that was already on the roof. We climbed ladders and took a hoe to kinda pull the shuttlecock towards us, but no luck. Then, Joel ran to the garage and returned with a backpack. Inside his backpack was a harness, ropes and gears. He tied the end of the rope into a hoop, and was doing some kind of lasso and retrieved the shuttlecock. Later Micha joined us, and he hit it to the top of the roof again. Blasted wind. This time, Micha wore the harness, and Joel threw the rope over a branch on the tree, and pulled Micha up on the roof to retrieve all 3 shuttlecocks on the roof. The whole time my mind was thinking, how did he come up with such ideas? He was really, really well equipped. There was a pulley, and he took gloves, so you won't get rope burn, and he could tell which branch is easier for the rope to go around with. And the whole time he keep reminding himself, "I need to clean the roof during summer."

Thursday I went to Bern and met up with Jun Khee and Shu Jie. I went to buy a birthday gift for Anja, cause she's having a birthday party this Saturday. We actually didn't do much, and went to Migros and Coop to buy our lunch. I bought a whole big bucket of yogurt and finished it that day. When I reached home, my host family was in Luzern,and wasn't back until I don't know when.

So now, Friday.

Kathi, my host-aunt brought us to Alpamare, a water themepark in Switzerland. I don't know where it is exactly, google it yourself. And this is the reason why I had to go to Luzern alone and search for a bikini. I felt awkward wearing it at first, but then I looked around, everyone was wearing bikini. No matter young or old, fat or thin, they were all bikinis. So soon I got used to it, and felt comfortable in it. Weird right? And the slides in Alpamare is SO different than those in Sunway. It's actually like a roller coaster, except you're not sitting in a cart, but on a float. I went on a slide, which was called Thriller or something, it was a very very dark slide, but with ghostly lights. And it was steep like roller coaster. There was also another called Twister, where you slide till a place where you go around in circles until you reach another tunnel and then SLIDEEE down again. The worst part of Twister was that the twisting part was outdoors, so it was freezing cold, especially when you're wearing bikini. But something funny about Alpamare. The pool outdoors were warmer than the pool indoors, and they had a Iodine pool, where the pool is yellow in colour, and looked like pee. You wouldn't know if someone actually peed in the pool, cause the pool is salty and yellow. The most amazing part is that the party is not at the pool side, but inside the water. They have underwater speakers where you can listen to music while you're inside the water. It is AMAZING.

Right now I'm in Jun Khee's house, along with Shu Jie, Pei San and KC. Shu Chien was here earlier for dinner but left because she had a host family meeting the next day. Tata.

My mom says I don't post enough stuff here. Okay.

Random post.

2 weeks of school now, let me tell you the 5 most spoken sentence in my 2 weeks of school.

"Was machen wir jetzt?" - What are we doing now?
"Gehst du auch die Mensa?" - Are you going to the cafeteria, too?
"Was? Ein noch mal?" - What? (Can you repeat the sentence) again?
"Was haben wir jetzt?" - What (class) do we have now?
"Entshuldigung, Ich kann nicht gut Deutsch sprechen" -Sorry, I can't speak German well.

Yes. That's it.

HOLIDAYS

Yeah. Holidays. Happiest school times :D


On Thursday (5 April 2012) night, the whole family watched a film together.


We watched it in German, but with English subtitles. Their German sub are great, unlike the Chinese ones, where it sounds super fake.

It's rated 16+ here in Switzerland, but it contains SO MUCH of 18SX scenes. And my host brother, who is 12, was watching it as well!! It's so awkward for me, and... I don't know what kind of respond should I give when the scenes were up. I feel soooo like a kid.


So on friday, it was good friday. Finally know why it's so good, cause we don't have school. That's why it's called good friday :D We went to pick up my host-grandmother from the old folks home and brought her out for lunch somewhere near Langnau. Don't be surprised, it's normal to send old people to the old folks home here in Switzerland. At least that's what they told me in the orientation camp. Plus, the old folks home here is so much UNLIKE Malaysia's. It's practically like a hospital, with cafeteria, a garden, a playground, there were even goats and chickens.


Today is Easter. Frohe Ostern :D It means Happy Easter in German, I think. I'm not really sure, though. I just saw a lot of that sentence everywhere I go. What a good day for snow. It was already snowing quite heavily when I got up, and by the time we ate breakfast, the snow was already about 6 inches deep. Breakfast today was potatoes, eggs and breads. We watched "Click" on the television and then went out to build a snowman.

Yes. A snowman.

And it really is what you see on the television! You have to make a snowball first, and then put it on the ground, and then roll the snowball around until it becomes a big snow ball for the body. It's hard work, I tell you, and the snow has to be fresh from the snowfall I think, I don't know why, but when you pick up a handful of snow, it can be easily molded into a snowball. And when the people make snowmen, they go all out. Julia and Joel took a hat, a broom, a carrot, a scarf, and Joel's apron for the snowman. It's awesome.

The final product. Ain't it a beauty?

We even played Speedminton in the snow. It was still snowing, but we managed to play it without problems. Speedminton is just like badminton, but the shuttlecock is made of plastic and it's slightly heavier, and flies faster than the shuttlecock in badminton. The racquets are more like Squash racquets. I played with Julia for a while, then Joel, and then we took a break to eat some chips, dipped in Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. Ahhh the chili sauce. It's sweet, but it has no spicy effect on me. However it does have effect on Julia and Joel. I'm beginning to wonder how am I gonna cook curry for the family :O