I'm sorry I'm such a terrible blogger. It's just that it's hard for me to find the motivation to write here. There's always so much going on in what I am feeling, thinking, and learning, that I feel like I can't write anything that could possibly cover all of that. I know I should just choose some aspect of all of that to write about, but it's so hard to choose what to write about because all of it is interconnected. Anyway I'll keep sticking with it.

Some of you already know that making friends has been somewhat of a slow process for me. I don't think that it has been from lack of effort or boldness, but rather cultural differences and a social intuitivity I just haven't fully developed yet for this culture. I always try to smile, be friendly, talk and I have been able to make one good friend at school, but I feel like most of the time I'm either pushed away by the others or simply tolerated. I think from the perspective of most of my classmates my friendliness is interpreted as not completely genuine and they think that I only want to be friends with the girl I'm already friends with. I've been able to stay positive until now thinking that it will keep getting slowly better and better and by January- February at the latest, I'll have more friends. But now it's almost February and everything isn't like I thought it would be. That realization completely hit me in the face Tuesday- I was so mad. How could all of my efforts and optimism STILL go unrewarded?! Why do all of the potentials for get togethers and getting to know people better fall through and then are replaced by new potentials that you have no idea if they will bring you what you hope they will? After being really angry about it, I just felt humbled. I said goodbye to everything I knew, later realized what I left, am trying to build a life here, and this is where I am. I'd never thought that I would be anything but the ideal exchange student, but I guess I'm not. That's okay.

Today (I started writing this Yesterday), I feel a lot more positive about everything and happier. For example I found out that the a girl in my class that I like is having problems at home. Part of the reason I was so down earlier this week was because I thought she didn't like me anymore because of the way she acted, but now I realize it was just because of the things going on at home and not me. There are other small things that have made me happier, but this is the perfect example of how most of this year has been so far for me. One day I have a really positive perspective on everything and I feel really comfortable with my classmates and we talk a lot and joke a lot, but then the next day or next week, my outlook completely changes. All of the sudden I feel like everything isn't going in the right direction or at least not quickly enough and I wonder why I was so happy and positive the day before. It's like an ever-changing, ever-shifting picture and I can never perdict how everything is going to be. Sometimes that's really stressful and unnerving, but at the same time I love how unpredictable it is and I love how much I learn from the fact that it is unpredictable.