I haven't posted since January! How did this happen...? I have no idea. I can't recall what exactly I've been doing since then but I'll try my best to recap everything. I'll list it out by month, and of course some months were more eventful than others, so some will be short and some will be long.

February

February was a really good month, as you know I was having quite a hard time in school, but luckily I was able to change schools to an art school!! (YAY) I was a little hesitant because I was worried that what if I couldn't make friends and it turns out I moved school for nothing, but fortunately it was very different from the old school. I made friends on the first day! People were inviting me to a bunch of things and it was crazy! I'm so glad that I did change schools!

my friends and I

March

So this month I was running around trying to finish all my art projects, which of course I found really fun, and it was nice to have something to do in school. At the end of this month my parents came to visit me! I loved seeing them. We went to Seville and Barcelona together. In Seville it was crazy! Because it was "Holy Week" all the churches had processions, some of them lasting over night! Thought these processions were really fascinating, they made it really hard to get around Seville.

At the Alcázar with my parents

a procession, and no they are not associated with who you think they are

with my family in Barcelona

April

My parents left the first week of April so after that I went straight back to school. We had a big project to finish this month, but fortunately I knew what I wanted to do so I finished it fast. This month there was also Sant Jordi, one of the cutest holidays ever! It's kinda like Valentines Day, but a lot cooler, what you do is if your a boy you give a rose to the girl you like and if your a girl you give a book to the boy you like. As I said super cute! Parents can also give their kids flowers or books.

my picture of a rainbow rose 

May

It's may now, and it has been more relaxed for me than April. We haven't done much in art class, but it's been really fun hanging out with friends :)

Christmas Time and Other Fun Things

The Holiday season is almost over and I still haven't shared the unique traditions that Catalonia has and my experiences.

In Catalonia Christmas is not that big of a deal here, so I was quite surprised when my host family told me that we are only doing secret santa (or "amigo invisible" is what it is called here), but I went along with it. It was nice that I didn't have to rush to get a bunch of presents, and when the 25th came we did our secret santa and then when off to my host grandmothers host for the big lunch (lunch is the big meal here). We ate a big meal and it was good, we had soup and roasted Chicken. After eating we went around the table and the kids (my little cousins, my host sister, and I) sang songs or recited poems. I not knowing any Catalan or Spanish Christmas carols sang "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" with my host cousin, Berta. After that we did something really unique to Catalonia. It is an activity called the "Caga Tio"

The Caga Tio

As you can see it is this log with a face drawn on it, and has a blanket covering it's whole body. What we did, and all the other children in Catalonia did, was hit the log while sing a song that is asking the log to poop out candies and presents. I am not kidding, the last line of the song is "Caga sisplau" which translated into English is "poop please". After we sung the song we went to another room and sang a Christmas Carol. This is when the parents put candies and presents underneath the blanket that is on the log, then we came back and sung and hit the log, we checked under the blanket and there was the presents/candies, and we did this 6 times. It was quite an interesting experience.

Another cool tradition here is the "Caganer", which is the little pooping man that they put in nativity scenes.

The Caganer

I've asked why they put this in the nativity scene, but thus forth no one could really tell me why. I just think this is really funny. 

After Christmas I went to Torrevieja, Alicante in the the South of Spain to visit a friend I met in Canada.

Torrevieja

It was a lot warmer than Barcelona, and was very beautiful, though the town was kinda dead because it is a summer town. While I was there visiting we went to Cartagena, Murcia, and La Manga. La Manga was really cool, it is a town that is surrounded by two bodies of water.

La Manga

It was also like a ghost town, again a summer city.

When I returned from my trip, I discussed changing schools with my host family and going to a school close by that offers an art program which I'd really like to do, and right now I'm not very happy in my current school. I'm really hoping that I can switch because I know I'd be A LOT happier if I was doing something I love like art in school, but right now we don't know if it is ok for me to switch schools.

Also speaking of art, I've been doing quite a lot recently, here:

Audrey Hepburn

Billie Piper

Emma Watson, and my personal favourite

Mulan

Jenna Louise Coleman

It's been quite awhile since I've made a post here, that keeps on happening... I'll try harder to post more.

In the last couple weeks I've done quite a bit. Two and a half weeks ago I went to France to collect chestnuts with my host family and another family for Castanya. It was quite enjoyable. It was outdoors in the mountains, so naturally I felt at home. I don't know, but there was just something so invigorating about being there. The air just felt so much fresher then here in the city, it was lovely. We had to "hike" to where we wanted to pick chestnuts, and to get to the trail we had to go through this small town. This town was completely beautiful! I loved it....

A house in the town

Once on the "hike" (I put hike in quotations because it was not the BC standard of a hike, it basically was a walk on pavement) it was still breathtakingly beautiful. There were mountains, trees, and actual forests!! I just loved it, for the first time on my trip I really felt like I belonged, it was wonderful.

The mountains before we started the hike

The mountains during the hike

When we got to the top there was a big beautiful church and SOOOOO many chestnuts. We collected a bunch of them :)

The church

Chestnuts

Chestnuts

I had a lot of fun in France and I really hope we can go there again.

Other than going to France my life has been very normal. I go to school, eat, exercise, and sleep. I've been having more and more fun though in school, which is nice. 

This weekend I went to this house up in the mountains with my host family and their friends. Here are some pictures:

The house we were staying in

View from the house

I'm feeling good, don't worry.

This week has been good.

I've talked to a friend about my frustrations and she says she understands and will help me, which is GREAT! School has been getting better, slowly. I'm really pushing myself to talk with people even more and I think it is going really good. I'm also learning new things all the time about Spanish, so I'm not to worried about the language. So if you are worried, there is no need to be. I sometimes get really frustrated and since I don't really have anyone here to rant to about it with (because at the moment I don't have a counsellor here), I ranted about it on my blog. I'm sorry if I worried anyone.

Today was actually a really good day. I took my parents advice and tried to be more open minded. AND, my dear parents, I'm sorry if I was so grumpy to you, I just hate it when your right when I'm feeling bad. I was being a little closed minded and immature when I was talking to you, and for that I am sorry. BUT any-who, about my day. I went and I helped out in a "grade 8" (segundo de eso) English class, and boy was that fun.

I was helping out these 2 boys who were doing a project on Canada. After the teacher introduced me to the boys, I told them I was from Vancouver, and one of the boys reaction was priceless. He got excited and told me he liked the Vancouver Canucks and that he really liked Canada. I was thinking, "This kid is going to go places in life." He also told me that he was going to Vancouver in 3 years, which I was like that's really far planning ahead, but OK. Then the boys proceeded to ask me about Canada and I helped with their English on their slides for the presentation.

Later in the day I went out for a walk, and I needed to send off my postcards. After I sent the postcards off I went to this shop I always look at. It is a tea shop, so of course being the tea fanatic I am, I had to go. I went and I bought chai tea and had a nice conversation with the store owner. She told me she always saw me looking in the shop when I passed by it (this is usually when I'm walking back from the gym and I have no money so I never go in). She also asked me where I was from, she thought I was from Japan because of my "looks" but I told her I was from Canada. She was surprised, and then I told her I was half Chinese and half German, and she was like, "That's a good mix" I agreed. She also gave me these free sugar candy things to put in your tea for free. She was super nice. I also would like to point out that I spoke only in Spanish, though it was very broken Spanish, it was Spanish.

And that's really all that happened to me today.

OH and also because I have so much free time, I've been really "finding" my style. It kinda all started when I was drawing something from a show I liked, when I though I really like drawing like this. It doesn't make me stressed it's just fun. So I drew more and more like that and I really like it. I'm still developing it more but for now it is just so fun to draw like this.

So things have been a little bit difficult for the last couple of days, but I think it'll be better soon.

this picture just... it sums everything up

I'm just going to take a step back and let friends come to me and not try to force things that aren't working. 

I also want to start trying to "find my style" in art. I think it'll really help me advance and become better

well that's really all... I just wanted to give a few little update

Also I drew this, it got a lot of likes on DA and it made me happy

I'm done.

Just because I don't speak the same language as you, does not mean I like being ignored.
Just because I'm not the same as you, does not mean I don't like being included.
Just because I don't like the same things as you, does not mean I don't like being ditched.

I'm trying so hard to make friends and be nice and talk to people, but I'm not getting back what I put out there. I got ditched not once but three times by my "friends" today. Do you know how much that hurts? If you don't want to be friends with me just tell me, okay? Don't let me believe you like me and then just not talk to me or ditch me, because that hurts a lot more then just telling me you don't like me. I can't believe this, I never thought people were this mean.

It's not all bad though I met some other people and they were nice, but I still don't understand it.

This is a little different