January 23rd Notes

Announcements

• Glenn will be absent temporarily
• Laerka had a quiet week. She hung out with family, went sledding, and she's looking forward to next semester. Denmark is winning all their games in handball.
• Craig announced that instead of doing the marble raffle draw, we will be using the wheel.
• RAR tickets are available to club members. 
• Wayne Massing, packets, 50 tickets, 10 in each section, receipts, contact Wayne Steele for more tickets or for turning in money
• Email from Jim and Carol on selling tips. 
• Earl sent out invoices.
• We can take cash or check for ticket sales, not allowed to sell tickets online or through the mail, no Venmo, very strict gambling laws, we can accept card at club events with Square.

Brags

• Earl, $53 because he had a birthday, $1 because he passed a kidney stone
• Jim, him and Carol had birthdays recently so $75
• Wayne Massing, attended dancing with the Wenatchee stars, fun social event
• Julie, went to brunch with parents of outbound parents 

Program

• Taro Masudo
• Medtronic
• 22 years
• Moved to Wenatchee in 2004
• Clinical specialist
• In 2001, trained in South Carolina, pacemaker school
• Checking electrical values of heart
• New, small pacemaker goes through the femoral artery
• New pacemakers can disperse heat from an MRI
• Occasionally called into the open heart room
• On call 24/7
• GED, gap year in Spain, university of Utah, best skiing, Spanish degree, pacemaker school for 4 years, a year of training at company

Raffle was $9. Bill's ticket was drawn, but no luck! Try again next week.

Lifeflight - everything is in

Joke - Mark “One of my friends is a train operator. I asked him how many trains have derailed? He said It’s hard to keep track."  

Pearl sent an awesome email update about study abroad. The email and some photos are below. 

Hello! 

This is my recap of the last few months!

The past months have been so full of so many incredible experiences, and I can't believe that I'm already halfway through my exchange. I've been so busy. Almost every week has been a new thing and there are still so many things I want to do and see while I'm here. I think that the last time that I sent an update was in September, so there is a lot to write about. I'll try to contain myself to just the highlights of each month, but we'll see how I do. 

In the beginning of October, I got to go to Paris, which I think I mentioned in my last email. Paris has been a city I've wanted to see for as long as I can remember. My host family took me and we went with two other exchange students and their families for two days and one night. It was so beautiful. I got to see the Eiffle tower light up at night, practice my French, see the Louvre and the Notre Dame remains, along with the Champs-Elysees and so many more spots. It was a heavily packed two days. 

I think my favorite thing was seeing the Eiffel tower at night. It was just so beautiful to see. It was actually funny though because I was sitting with my friend's host mom and we realized that we were both watching the same couple and I was about to say something along the lines of 'wouldn't it be cool to see someone get engaged here?',  but right before I could say it, she said word for word what I had been thinking.  Less than a minute later, the guy couple in front of us that we had been watching proposed. I guess that's not a crazy coincidence considering it's Paris, but it was still cool timing. 

In November, I went on a trip again with my host family and a Thai exchange student to a Belgian city called Ypres. It's a super historical town, and I got to see some incredible immersive museums and walk in trenches used during the World Wars.  We also stopped at the Belgian coast on our way home which was beautiful. Although, we did go during a crazy storm which actually made it hard to walk just because of how much rain there was and how much it was raining. I thought that it was a really fun adventure. I was definitely enjoying it more than the others. 

December was full of day trips with Rotary, concerts, and new Christmas traditions. The Belgian kind of have some American influence with a Santa figure they call  Kerst-man, but what the kids actually believe in and what is way more popular is Sinter Klaas. Sinter-Klaas is a Dutch story and rather than being from the North Pole like Santa, SinterKlaas is from Turkey. On the nights leading up to Christmas starting in November , you put your shoes by the fireplace and when you wake up there is a cookie or a chocolate or some other snack. Normally only really young kids do that, but my host family thought it would be fun for me to experience so I got to join in. Then, on December 6th, SinterKlaas brings lots of candies and gifts to everyone. 

Another fun thing about SinterKlaas is that it is super well organized. He "arrives from Turkey" by boat in Antwerp and slowly makes his way across Belgium on a planned schedule. It's not the same person playing him every time, but there is only one Sinterklass in every city and he follows the schedule so it really feels real to the kids. It's definitely not like in the US where every store has its own Santa. When SinterKlaas arrives, he comes on horseback with his helpers and they play music and throw candies to all the children who came to welcome them. There is actually a lot of political controversy around the helpers- the Zwarte Piet, and when I was learning about it everyone was very enthusiastic about giving me their opinion. 

In December there were also a ton of Christmas markets that were really fun to see. My favorite had to be Dinant or Brussels. Christmas we celebrated on Christmas Eve, and it was not super different from what I'm used to. It was just different food mainly, but one thing I really liked is that you go and visit your family on Christmas day (or at least my family did). We would go have coffee and talk with my host moms parents, and then a different family member would come so we walked to the next house of another family to catch up with and so on. It was really sweet. 

On New Year's Eve it's typical that you go visit the grave of a deceased family member but it was raining too hard for us to do that. I spent New Years with my friend Ozzy, his girlfriend, and his host brothers, which was really fun. We went to their local Christmas market, checked out the parties that were going on around town, and then came home and played cards and danced until midnight with the family. I also had a Rotary New Years Gala a few days later. It also snowed around then. It was maybe 5 inches and everyone was outraged that schools were still opened which I thought was really funny. Most of the schools actually did close. Only two other girls showed up from my class and we did basically nothing all day.  

I tried to keep things in this update somewhat short, but I've also gotten to do so many day trips throughout Belgium, the Netherlands, and even Germany a little bit with my families, with Rotary, and with friends that I didn’t mention. It's been really cool. One of the things I love about being an exchange student here in a small country is that I really feel like I've gotten to know it so well. I also recently moved host families. I really love this host family, and things feel really good with them. I was having some difficulties in school, nothing big, but I actually switched my class so now I have all my classes with my host sister. It's really nice because we are super similar and get along really well. My host brother is obsessed with all things American, especially American snacks so we get along too. My host mom is also taking my friend and I to Spain in a couple of weeks while the rest of my host family goes to NYC, so that's something I'm really looking forward to.  

Everything is going so well, and I'm loving my time here so much. I'm so grateful that I got this opportunity. 

I also want to thank everyone for the cards. I'm lucky and I haven't really had any issues with homesickness but spending the holidays away from home was a little weird nonetheless, and it was nice to know that I had people at home thinking of me. 

Thank you for everything! 

Pearl Spurrell