Sorry For the Wait?

Sorry for the long wait, hopefully someone out there actually cares that I haven't posted in awhile. :) But wow. It's really been a long time since I've posted anything. I've finally found time to write, my homework is done and I am in the mood to write! A lot has happened in the past two months! It really feels like it's only been a couple of weeks. I'm finally adjusted to the schedule and flow of the school and dorm life, it hasn't been too hard.. but lots of stuff has been going on. It's really hard to be bored here! There's always something to be doing, or something that you could participate in.

I really don't know where to start.. For one thing, my schedule is reealy different than last year.. I don't stay up till 2AM or sleep in. Bedtime is officially 10:30 for Underclassmen.. I'm usually in bed by then. Some nights I have so much homework I'm up till 12. I wake up at about 7, 6:45 or so on Fridays because I help with sound at chapel. School starts at 8:50 and ends at 3:50. That's a typical day at school..

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The weather is another thing that is drasticaly different.. This past week has been wet, cold and cold. When I first came in August, it was rainy and not too cold. It cleared up today but something I've found out is that sun doesn't equal warm. This morning, I walked out the door and saw that water that collected in a round metal firepit thing that is outside had froze, the cars had ice on the windows too! It's so amazing seeing fall. I've never experienced the whole leaves changing color thing before. It hasn't really hit all the trees yet, some of them are yellow, red or orange and some are bare already, but others are still green. It's hard to imagine what it's going to be like with snow, that's something else that I've never really experienced, so I'm excited about that!

Living in a dorm is.. interesting. Even though it's been a couple of months, I really feel like I know the other guys. It's fun to live with other guys, because that's something that I've never experienced either.. There are some disadvantages to living in a dorm, like the food.. which, thankfully is eatable.. most of the time. I'm sure that any chef would have a hard time preparing a meal for 200ish people, that tastes great, on a budget.. Some nights, when it's something that no one really likes, almost everyone will go out to eat. Last week, some of the guys REALLY didn't want to eat the food and we convinced one of our RAs to take us to McDonalds (like 20 minutes away) It was fun and a lot better than the dorm food. For a small town like Kandern, there's quite a few options to choose from, the Döner place (Turkish kebab sandwiches), Asia Wok (Asian food.. of course), a Greek restaurant, and several cafés. There's also 3 large grocery stores.
This weekend, there's "Herbstmesse" in Basel, Switzerland, it's a fall festival that the whole school goes to, This coming weekend is a long weekend, which will be a good rest day. The next big thing after Herbstmesse is the Christmas Banquet, which for underclassmen is the only one of the year (Juniors and Seniors have "JSB" -Junior-Senior Banquet). Right now it's the big thing, Christmas Banquet.. well guys asking girls to Banquet is the big thing, that's all people talk about.. "Who are you asking?" "Did you hear that soandso got rejected twice?!" etc etc.. The standard way of asking is with flowers.. but people do creative things like treasure hunts or big stunts.. The other big thing is competition between guys to ask a girl. Or what happens is a guy will get rejected by a girl, then he'll ask again and the girl goes with him because she feels sorry for him, which frankly is sad.. I've debated with myself about whether I'll ask anyone or not. It's not really a "date".. I mean some guys ask girls they're interested in, but for the most part is just a friend thing. Even though it's been two months, I haven't really gotten to know many people, everyone seems to have their own cliques. I think I'll ask someone, I don't really want to be a loner.. So yeah. That's basically whats been happening recently.

I'm really enjoying my time here, it's a good place.. I do miss home sometimes, but most of the time there's so much going on that I don't have time to think about being homesick, the dorm environment is really homelike too, so it's almost like I'm at home here. So sorry I haven't updated in a long time.. I'll make sure I do in the future!

-Zach

PS.
I meant to post this on the 25th (last monday of Nov) but I forgot and the internet wasn't working and etc..