Not So American Girl?

Hi, you found your way to my blog. Congratulations.Why do I have a blog and what will I use it for?That is a great question. Let me explain myself.

Background

I am a simple Belgian girl with a craving for adventure, but at the same time I’m not very brave. So, I asked myself: what is the safest way to have some unique experiences?
My answer: studying abroad. Yes, I will be studying in the USA for one year.
Are you freaking out? Because I am.

This blog

Right now, I am “patiently” waiting for departure, which is set in less than a week. (That’s why I’m freaking out)

Every upcoming post will be centered around my trials abroad. This means that you will have front row tickets to all my ups and downs for the next year. You’re welcome.But why do you write in English if that’s not your native language?

Another exquisite question. (try saying that 5 times fast)
There are a couple of reasons:

N° 1:

This way I have a perfect reference for my (hopefully) improving English proficiency.

N° 2:

Once on campus I will be speaking English all the time (or that’s at least my intention). If I would write this blog in Dutch, I would spend several hours thinking and writing in Dutch and I would have to switch back to English once I am finished. This takes quite some time and it could interfere with my improvement.

N° 3:

I can reach a bigger audience. Wait, don’t judge me yet. Let me explain myself.
When I started toying with this idea in my head, I constantly had a lot of questions. Some questions I could answer by looking at YouTube-videos or reading other blogposts, but most of them were left unanswered. These questions were usually more specific to CSUSB (which is the university that I will attend). CSUSB is a “smaller” uni and I didn’t really find any answers to my questions, because nobody has thrown their experience on the internet, yet. I know that CSUSB is one of the partners of WEP (this stands for “World Exchange Programs” and they helped me get here), which means that there’ll probably be more Belgian students in the future who will attend this specific university. Some of these people might be French-speaking (bonjour) and it would be very hard for me to write a whole blog in French (just for the record: my French is relatively good, but far from good enough to be writing things for the internet to read), so as a true Belgian I chose the middle-ground and opted to write in English.

Though, it is possible that I will be writing some posts in Dutch, but those will be more directed towards friends and family or I’ll make sure to also write them in English (and who knows, maybe some French, too).
However, it will be safest to assume that everything will be in English.

Hopefully this is a satisfying answer. If you still have questions, then please send them and I’ll be happy to respond.

-N