Czech, Colds, and Confessions

First off, sorry I have not posted in a while. To be completely honest, not much has happened lately. On Monday I began my Czech language course, which I went to Monday thru Friday for five hours a day. Just a random fact that expresses my frustration with the class: It has been said that Czech is the third hardest language to learn, following the African click, and Hungarian. This language is almost impossible. The only comfort I have in taking this class, is that everyone is just as bad at it as me! I have one more week of it, and then I'm done. I did learn basic phrases such as "Dekuju" which is "thanks" and "Prosim" which is please, but other then that, its all really a blur. Instead of just teaching us basic phrases that we need such as ordering food, or asking where the bathroom is, they are teaching us adjective tenses (affirmative and negative) and noun genders (male, Feminine, and Neutor). Needless to say, I will not be coming home speaking Czech :) 

Then yesterday both Meredith and I woke up with bad colds. We knew we had it coming, since they told us in orientation to go ahead and buy cold medicine ahead of time, because almost everyone gets sick due to the stress on the body from culture shock. They were completely right, almost everyone here is sick right now. We are being hermits in our rooms, bundled in whatever clean laundry we can find, watching movies. It is nice to get in some good rest every once in a while.

So now that I have explained the first two topics in my title, let me explain the confessions portion. I am having a BLAST here. It has been more fun that I had anticipated. I have meet the nicest people, learned how to interact in a entirely different culture, and even learned some Czech on the way! But here is my confession...I'M SOOOOOO HOMESICK! There I said it! Whew. That may not come as a surprise to some of you, but its very true. It could just be that I'm frustrated with this language course, and enduring a bad cold, but the fact of the matter is, I long for a hug from my mommy, and a good night sleep in my own bed. 

Now, do not let this alarm you. I am doing just fine. I knew I would be really homesick here, I mean come on, the most I go without seeing my family is one to two weeks, where as most college students only see their families on breaks and during the summer. However, I know that this experience is helping me grow up a lot. I am learning to do things completely by myself, which is something I know little about thanks to my parents and joe who constantly are helping me! I know that I am going to walk away from this experience so glad that I did it, as I can already see growth within myself, but know that all of you are so important to me and I miss you VERY much!