Cold. Windy. Dark.

Love.

I got a new camera! Of course this picture is all blurry and out of focus for a reason, because it's artsy and cool DUH. I'm so glad I have a camera again so I can keep documenting my journey(BUTTT blogspot makes any picture you upload look really bad and small). So a lot has happened since I've really blogged last, well one thing is I'm staying the entire year in Sweden! I have been thinking about this since the day I got here, it would be impossible for me to stay just a semester and get the experience I want. I need to stay here for a year because this is the best decision I've ever made and I would feel like I was quitting if I left at semester. Since I am staying the whole year I had to pick more classes so I will also be taking: Business English, Swedish C (Yeah I know it's crazy but they said it's good for me to listen to the swedish not actually try in the class hahaha), Basic art class, DNA-Technique, psychology (YES, IN SWEDISH), and I think that's all the new ones or atleast all the ones I can remember! A lot of exchange students choose to take all fun classes but I really wanted to get the experience of being a swedish teenager taking what they would usually take. Also it's good because I meet a lot more people in these classes that some have to take to graduate. If I were to just take fun classes I would probably not be with that many people. ANDD anyway I'm in the music program so I have 10 hours of "fun" every week ahhaa. Basically all is good, I love everything here WOO! I'm going to a yfu fika with all the exchange students in the Stockholm area today. We have to have a presentation in Swedish so should be fun!

Swedish.

A guy in my Geography class said something yesterday that made me so happy and realize I actually am good at Swedish. We were all talking about my swedish skillzzz and they kept saying how good my Swedish is for me being here for 2 months and being an American (haha) and I was like nooooo noooooo nooooo I should be better blahblahblah. THEN he goes "Well you're better in Swedish than we are in Spanish and we have been learning it for 5 years!" and I was like he was so right.

I think the secret with learning a language fluently is actually being immersed in the language everyday of every hour. You just CAN'T learn a language in a classroom setting no matter how long or how hard you work. Usually the class will translate everything into your native language. SO WRONG, you need to associate the word with the object not the english word. When you were a baby you didn't learn your native language by your parents translating everything did you? NOOO, they pointed at something and said "TREE" So yeah, I'm trying and this is pretty hard but I'm going to be fluent in Swedish by the end of the year!