Shopping and a flat chat.

Since I have a little bit of extra money from being home (thanks guys :)) I decided that it would be smart of me to buy some clothes. I actually really needed them too, I wasn't just wasting my money. So I went online and luckily there are alllllll sorts of sales right now with stores getting rid of their winter stuff! I got quite a lot of clothes for not very much money and I'm pretty satisfied with the results. I came out of my room wearing some new stuff and Cathrine said "Ooooh you're turning into a European girl!" That's a good thing at this point because I always feel like I'm sticking out when I'm walking through campus. Plus now I have a few things that are nicer instead of just wearing sweatshirts and jeans everyday...

Last night all of us flatmates were sitting in the kitchen talking about everything from 9/11 to racism to the schooling we got when we were growing up. It was really great. Some of the stuff was kind of shocking though, the way we see things in history differently and the things that we're taught growing up. Cathrine (Norway) said that they don't even have the terms "black" and "white" for people... they just don't have any words for the differences in race. She also said that she can't believe that some kids in the US get spanked when they are little and she told a story about how her mom grabbed her arm once and she was terrified. She said she can remember every vivid detail about it. There are lots of little things like that that I really hadn't thought about before... even though I very rarely ever got spanked either it never seemed like that big of a deal if someone did.

We talked for a long time about our school systems. I told them that we had the option to take another language when we're in 10th grade. Cathrine said that in Norway they start English classes in 2nd grade and Franchi and Annie (English) said they can take languages starting in 7th. I kind of wish that the US was this way too... and maybe it is some places but definitely not at Valley. Sarah and I also talked about how immigration is a huge hot-button issue in the states right now and everyone else was shocked at some of the things that Americans believe like saying we should build fences to keep people out and things like that. There is so much that we talked about that there is no way I'm going to be able to cover it all here so I will end this here and leave you with a picture of all of my flatemates (plus Stephan, minus me).

Stephan (USA/France), Cathrine (Norway), Annie (England/France),
Franchie (England), Sarah (Maine, USA)