škola.

im not a fan of school.

big surprise huh? i mean, seriously, what kid actually likes going to school, right?

well, lets just say, croatian school makes me miss school back in america. 

i think i would even go as far as saying that it makes me want to be in school back in america, actually want to go there. 

i think ive talking about school before, but lemme recap about what its like, okay?

kids here have 17 subjects a year. yes, 17. from things like math and history to sociology and ethics and logics and psychology. not to mention croatian, english, 2nd language and 3rd language.. which confuses me since that makes 4 languages. plus other seemingly random classes which i find, well honestly, kind of unnecessary.

not only do they have around 3 times as many classes as we do in the states, but the teaching style is very old fashioned. it is endless lecturing and note taking, no worksheets, no projects, no hands on learning or anything. you sit there while the teacher talks or writes on the board and write everything down. then you go home that night, read your notes and learn everything on them because they also have this fabulous and totally awesome things that i love called oral examinations. (and for those of you with no sense of sarcasm.. that was it.) yeah, by that i mean you better have studying and learned everything your teachers ‘taught’ you because they randomly pick people each day and ask them questions or make them do problems in front of the entire class, for a grade. oh, yeah, well thats not embarrassing at all. seriously? are they trying to make the teenagers hate their lives? because its succeeding very well. 

and you know what, i think i figured it out today why im having such troubles here in school. i dont think its so much the fact that its all lecturing and note taking, but the fact that we dont ever review anything. no lie, we ‘learn’ something (i use that word lightly, since the learning takes place at home by yourself) one day, then the next day its on to something new. if you didnt go home and learn it that day, oop, your screwed, moving on, next. now take that, multiply it by 17 classes and what do you get? kids who are excited if they get a D on the test because they didnt fail. kids who are so stressed with school they dont know what to do. kids who have 5 F’s, 9 F’s. 

at home im not happy with getting anything under a B. Theres no reason to be getting C’s or D’s and certainly not F’s, because our teachers TEACH us. they make sure we understand what they are saying. they teach in a way that we learn and remember it, not that we memorize it long enough to pass the test and oral examinations. okay sure, so we may not cover nearly as much material as they do here, we may not know about all the different things the kids learn here, but on the other hand, were happy, were not overwhelmed to the point where school and studying IS our life. life isnt all learning things from books, you need to learn by being social, taking part in activities, leading a real life, hell even getting a job, which teenagers cant even do here because of the amount of studying they must do. ridiculous. 

so, i mean, maybe im just being a lazy teenager and complaining because i dont want to spend my entire life studying and learning everything there is to know. i want to have a social life and i want to be happy, i want to spend my time doing other things. 

but really.. after hearing about croatian school.. can you blame me?

what a weekend.

would you like to hear all about my weekend? 

yeah?

so.

friday started up with me not waking up on time, which has been happening way to often lately. and not only did i not wake up in time to take the 6:35 bus which i was planning on taking, i only woke up 10 minutes before the last bus i can take to get to school on time was leaving. yes, great. 10 minutes to get ready for school. im a girl, i think thats almost impossible. 

anyways, your probably wondering why i needed to get on the earlier bus right? well, probably not but im just going to go ahead and tell you anyways. it was because friday was doras birthday and me, emma and tina were supposed to meet before school to buy cake and balloons to take to school, but well, clearly i didnt get there in time to do that. so they went and got it and came to school. 

so first period we had english, which our class is split into two and half is with one teacher while the other is with another, and it just so happened dora was in the other half from us. so during first period we blew up all the balloons and set the cake on her desk for when she came in for 2nd period. it was just like an american birthday! yes, were cute friends, i know. [:

so the rest of the school day was boring as usual. i took a physics test, or tried to is more like it. i did one problem, which will get me a 2, or a D, and im pretty okay with that. so after i finished my one problem i started tracing the little squares since it was on graph paper, then i got yelled at by the teacher because well, i guess its like illegal in croatia to draw anything on your tests. honestly, im getting really sick of the school system here really fast. i never thought id say this but, i cannot waittt to go back to school in america. i appreciate it so much now. i miss drawing on my tests. ugh. 

so friday night 8 of us went out for 'coffee' for doras birthday. it was really fun and i made some new friends. one of them has pigs and im going to go over to his house and pet them one day. kinda excited.

saturday i woke up around 1, chilled for a few hours, packed my bag and headed off to avenue mall to meet emma. i ended up going and buy a new sweater and some shirts because i have a shopping problem. then we went back to emma house to get ready to go out for the night. so we got all ready and went out and well, i wont bore you with the details of the night.. being as this is a rotary blog. (; 

so i slept at emmas house saturday night, for a few hours at least, because we had to be up early since emma had a soccer game at 10:30 on the other side of the city. 

sunday we wake up and head to the soccer game, we get there and not everyone showed up so they dont have enough players to play and are going to have to forfeit the game. except its a championship game for 3rd or 4th place and kinda a big deal. SO someone has the great idea that i can play for them. 
me. play soccer. in a real game. 
im not sure if you know this but, i. dont. play. soccer. 

yeah, wellll, apparently now i do. because i played the game..

hahahhahahahahha.

yeah. 

i played soccer.

and there were like people with microphones and legit video cameras filming.

and the best part? during halftime they came over and interviewed me and emma all about how we were from america and all that. 

im pretty famous now, for sure. 
so then i went home, ate lunch, and watched criminal minds.

really, i have to say is, what a weekend. 

if you only even knew. 


[:

ITALIJA!

last week i think i probably had the best weekend i have had in a long time. okay yeah, not probably, i did.

let me walk you through this. 

thursday i went to school. boring, boring and more boring.. imagine that. after school i went with the other exchanger student, okay i think by now i can just say emma and you’ll get it, right? right. so me and emma went back to her place, ate some beanutbutter and jelly sandwiches, attempted to talk with her house cleaner, all in croatian might i add, and waited for her host parents to come home from work. why did we do this one might ask? uh yes, because her fabulous, wonderful host parents were taking us to istria and italy for the weekend! :D 

so her parents got home, i helped emma pack her bag for the weekend, we got in the car, and started the 3 hour drive to the sea coast. we arrived in poreč, a seaside town on the peninsula in croatia called istria, around 7 or 8, went to the hotel where we got a little villa for the weekend, and went to get some dinner at the buffet in the hotel. so yeah, were thinking okay, a dinner buffet at a hotel, probably like some meat, a salad, bread, nothing big or special right? wrong. oh my god. we walk into the room and there is so much food there you dont even know what to do. they had everything from like pizza to 10 different kids of fish, and ham and chicken and turkey and like 5 different salads, so much bread, french fries, stuffed tomatoes, vegetables and even raw bacon! plus there was a huge selection of desert.  yeah, i know. im hungry now too. 

so anyways, after a amazing dinner we walked along the sea into the town then back and went to sleep.

friday. 6am my alarm goes off and the last thing i feel like doing is getting out of bed. so i lay back down, close my eyes and suddenly remember “omg dorothy, get up, get up your going to ITALY todaaaay !” so of course i instantly get up and get ready. we left poreč at 8:13am, okay yes, i remember the exact time, shush. anyways. it was to be about a half hour drive to the slovenian borer, than another 2 hours to venice. not to bad, huh? yeah, it wouldnt have been except for the people who work at the slovenian border were on strike. and not on strike like they werent working, they were working just very veryyy slow. so slow that it took us ohh, 2 and a half hours to get through. and we finally got to the place where they ask for your passports, so we hand them over, they stamp them then continue to look though the entire thing at every other stamp we have ever gotten, just to waste time of course, before they gave them back and let us go though. ridiculous. so after about 5 hours of being in the car, we finalllly get to venice! we park the car in a big parking garage outside the city because well, clearly we couldnt drive though the city, not without getting a little wet at least [: 

so let me just tell you straight out how venice was in just two words: absolutely magical. it was seriously everything i had imagined. it was so beautiful, and those italian boys, yes please. we took a boat thought the city then got out and walked around. and we ate pizza of course! so emma and i got our delicious looking pieces of pepperoni pizza, and we had to take some pictures of course. i mean, we were eating pizza in italy, how stereotypical is that? so as were taking pictures of eachother these two girls about our ago standing next to us ask up in perfect english if wed like them to take a picture of us together. so of course we say yes and start talking to them. they tell us they are from san diego and are studying abroad for the year here in italy, in florence! so we tell them were exchange students too, only in croatia! what a coincidence that we’d meet other exchangers ! so we spent a few more hours in venice and headed back to poreč that evening. we got back around 10, went out for dinner then fell asleep. 

saturday we got to sleep in until around nine, went and had some breakfast then drove into poreč for some sight seeing and shoppping! after a few hours we got back in the car and drove to this place practically on the slovenian border for some lunch at this restaurant on top of a mountain with the most amazing view. there they had two big black pigs that are used to hunt for truffles! they were so cute! so we had a huge lunch with amazing food and some good wine, then some weird truffle and chocolate thing for dessert. ive never had a mushroom for desert before, and im not going to lie, i dont really like truffles very much. i would definitely not pay all that money for them. after lunch we drove to this other seaside town named rovinj. it was absolutely gorgeous. this town looks like it has not been changed in hundreds of years. i was one of the prettiest places ive ever been. so after we left rovinj, on our way back to our villa in poreč we stopped at this fjord which is like only one in croatia i think. it was really cool! so we got back to the hotel and had that huge buffet for dinner again. and yes, it was just as amazing as the first time. [: 

sunday was the day we were coming back home to zagreb. we left around 11 and stopped in rijeka, for some coffee of course. im not sure if croatians can go more than about 3 hours without stopping for coffee. i find it hilarious. so anways, rijeka is the 3rd largest city in croatia and so beautiful. i would love to back sometimes for a little more than some coffee. i got home around 1:30 and honestly, it was so good to be home. its odd to me to think this is my home, but it really does feel that way. 

okay well, i think i have definitely bored you enough for one post. [;

proud to be an american.

i wanna rant a little on something, so just stay with me.

here we go.

i know all the different stereotypes of americans, how were all fat and lazy, how we are dumb, how we dont care about anything but ourselves, our guns, our religion, our money, our mcdonalds and burger king. how were narrow minded and think we are the best. and i mean, sure, i can see how if you were going on just those things that maybe you wouldnt be the biggest fan, right? but come on. do you reallly think that every person in america fits those stereotypes? is every chinese person smart? are all muslims terrorists? are all black people good at basketball? no.
i know that. i know not to judge someone to that extent. but being in a foreign country i have learned that not everyone sees america the way i do. even for how crazy it seems to me, people really do believe those stereotypes. they do think all americans are like that. since i have been here i have been yelled at for speaking english. i have been talked about and ignored. i have been judged and made fun of. and yes i have been discriminated against. even being in a country who is very accepting of americans, i have encountered this.
i got offended at first when this happened, i just couldnt see how someone who does not even know me can just decide they dont like me simply from where i come from. i clearly cannot be one of 'those' americans, look at me, here i am. ive left my country, ive left my entire life, ive come to live in your country, to learn your language, to learn your way of life. give me some credit for that, its no easy thing being an exchange student.
but then i realized, it will do nothing for me to get upset about this, to sit here and feel sad about someone not accepting me, and that what i need to do is to prove to those people that no, not all americans are like what you see on 'jersey shore'. were not all close minded and ignorant. i need to show them those stereotypes are not entirely true. i think i can handle that.. ill sure try at least.

im pretty sure that has been one of my biggest eye-openers since i have been here.

thanks for putting up with me, everyone.

[;

vikend.

not gonna lie, this past weekend deserves its own post.

lemme start with friday.
okay.

i met americans! :D yes, realllly! i was sitting on the bus coming home and i love sitting there listening to people speak croatian and see if i can pick up on words and figure out what theyre talking about. so i was just listing to everything and in my head i was like, "wait a minute, i understand something! omgg englishhhhh!" so i look and there they are, a group of five people standing up by the door speaking english. perfect, beautiful, not accented english. and so, if you havent figured this out by now, i neverrr hear other people speaking english. i had only heard it one other time. anyways, so after debating in my head whether to go ask them if they are from america or not, i got up, walked up to them and i go "hey! are you guys americans?!" hahhah. they told me that three of them were and so i told them i too was american and asked why theyre in croatia blah blah. turns out theyre from pennsylvania and delaware! and theyre here going to med school! it was just awesome. it easily made my day.

but, so. back to my actual weekend. saturday, i woke up a little before noon. it was supposed to be my big study day. i have a croatian test monday, and a big english and math test on wednesday that im not prepared for.
but, first things first, i had to get on to check my facebook. and well, lets just say, i ended up skyping with this aweome croatian boy who ive been talking to, bruno, for an entire seven hours! yes, really. how can you talk to someone for seven hours straight? i have no idea, i dont think i have ever done that before. but it was so much fun. i dont think ive ever laughed as much as i do with him. it was just crazy. apparently croatian boys really like to talk [:
so we finallly got offline and i went to the main square and met up with emma for mcdonalds. we ate some cool pie and people watched. the people watching there is absolutely intense. we saw one girl wearing skants and we almost died of laughter. its these crazy skirt pants things. they are just awful. so after we were done we decided to talk a walk up to uppertown in zagreb. the city looks so pretty at night from up there.
then i went home, and went to bed.

sunday.
i woke up around 9 and went with my host mom and sister to a town called samobor about 45 minutes away, just outside the city. we went to, i think was my host moms cousins house or something. family of some sort anyways. it was really fun talking to the two boys there. they were both in college and pretty good at english. they asked me all about the us and nyc of course. and we talked about how much we hate glen beck. that was funny. we had very similar viewpoints, thankfully. we had a delicious lunch, and then we left. my host mom, sister and i then went to the town center to this cafe bar where they serve this famous desert thing called kremšnite. it was delicious. i honeslty cant even describe it. google it if you really need to know. [;
so we came back home and i went to my room to study, cuz well, not like i got any done yet. i studied my croatian for a while, but i was having problems with my pronunciation. luckily for me though, bruno got online so we skyped and i would say a word, every word i knew pretty much, then he would correct me and sound it out so i would get it right. i bet we did that for over an hour. it was really funny. i just cannot make some of those sounds. finally we got though all the words and then some and we could just talk in english then. [:

so now, here i am, its almost 1 am and i have school in a few hours. but i just figured i needed to write about how awesome my weekend was.
thats all.

:D

this is now my life.

this week has been pretty normal, and honestly, im really excited about that.
it makes me feel more like this is my life, not that im on some awesome vacation, far away from home. i go to MY school every day. i hang out with MY friends, i come home to MY house, i sleep in MY bed. this is my real life, and everyday i get more comfortable. every day i fall more in love with this country, these people, this way of life.

my 'one month anniversary' has come and gone. ive never been away from home for this long. and im really proud to say ive made it. but really, i shouldnt take so much credit for my bravery and independence. this month was not hard. i was not sitting in room crying because i was homesick. actually, i havent even done that once. sure, sometimes ill be on facebook looking at pictures and wish i was in them. or ill talk to my friends and feel like im missing everything thats happening back at home. but i stop and remember, 'dude, dorothy, your in freaking CROATIA, its like what youve been dreaming about for the past year, stop being dumb and live it up!' [; and then im okay.

now i have to admit, im a little upset at how little of the language i feel that im learning. i think i set some unrealistic goals that im clearly not meeting. school is much harder than i would have thought. its harder than my school back at home. i feel like i spend my time studying physics, or math, or memorizing shakespear instead of trying to learn croatian. its not what i would choose to do, but school has to come first.. unfortunately.

as for my social life, its just as good as ever. [; ive come to love this whole going out for coffee thing, even though i never do actually order coffee. i meet new people every day, some become my friends, some just become people ive met. and one, has become someone i want to meet! hahah [;

but oh heeeey, looks like its time for another day of škola. yaaaay.
good thing i memorized my shakespear for today!

bok!