I love Target soo much!
Target is like a department store where we can but anything we need
It's like Walmart, but it's a little bit more expensive than walmart but still affordable and the quality of the stuffs are so much better!
I got most of my things there
Yesterday I went shopping there with my Dad and Tennent, my sister
The thing i like the most shopping with dad is because he is patient and he pays for things that I need, unlike if I'm shopping with my mom
So I used that chance to get everything that I basically needed
So I got a hard case for my Ipod, an Ipod sport armband so when I'm running I can listen to my iPod, some long sleeve tshirts that I can wear underneath my slong sleeve tees (i got 2 blacks and 2 whites), I got ink for my printer(My dad lends me a printer so i have a printer in my room! amazing!),and last but not least I got a 'Dear John' novel by nicholas sparks. It's much cheaper to buy books there than in Davis Kidd Bookstore or Barnes and Nobles store. I have been wanting to read the book since a long time ago, so I bought it! Well, technically Dad bought it for me. It's very sweet in the beginning but I knew from my friends that the ending is not quite clear and happy, so I kinda wants to continue reading it but i kinda don't want to read it too, since I don't like sad endings. That's why I haven't watched the movie yet, I know it's a good movie but I don't want to cry in the theatre. Ha ha.
Anyway, I think that's eveeything that I purchased in Target yesterday. Thank you so much dad for paying those things for me!

Hi guys!
Listen up, I got a good news!
I'm on Radio~
How nice!
I remember I did record for a commercial
It's a commercial about how 70% of high school students don't drink alcohol
i did it just for fun as my service project with International Teen Outreach Program
Months later, I already forgot that I recorded for a commercial
But suddenly one day when i walked to my US History class, my classmate, Warren approached me and said,
"Guess what?"
"What?" I answered
"I heard you on the radio!"
"What?!? Really?"
"Yes, I heard you on the 101 radio station. I heard,"I'm Lisana I'm Exchange Student from Indonesia I go to Hillsboro Highschool" And I said wow she's my classmate! Haha"
Honestly, I didn't expect for people to hear me, I thought it was just a commercial that plays in not so popular radio station or played really early in the morning or something like that. I was surprised when Warren said 101 is the 3rd most listened radio station in Nashville
Hahahahaha. I'm so happy!
I'm proud of myself
After that my friends keep walking to me and said "I heard you on the radio!"
Yippee~

Anyway, here is the recording of it if you want to hear it
I took quite a big part in it, soo enjoy!

My commercial:NPP 3.mp3

Last weekend, from Friday 19-21 I went to Gatlinburg with a Youth Group. If you guys don't know, Gatlinburg is located in East Tennessee, near Knoxville, and on the Smoky Mountain if I'm not mistaken. It was so much fun! The events were fun, there were Illusionist,his name is Jared Hall, comedian named Bob Smiley (he wasn't really funny to me but at least his jokes about Cheerleader were so true that they made me laughed so hard), and the others whom I don't remember the names, and last but not least is Shawn who was a participant in a TV show named 'Biggest Loser' (it's about obese people trying to lose incredible amount of weight,and it's an amazing show). I had such a good time with my friends, they were so nice and so curious about Indonesia, unlike my friends in Hillsboro(they don't even care that I'm exchange student). And the most surprising thing was I met with my mom's work friend! She was really kind and after we talked for a while she suddenly gave me $40 for me and my friends to have fun. So i think on Saturday afternoon me and 10th graders went to the top of one of the Smoky Mountains by a 'Sky Lift', the view was really snowy and pretty! I printed the picture that was taken on the Lift. And after that I did 'Alpine Slide', it was like a sleding with a sled equipment that has a stick so we can control the speed, and we sled on a track, not on the snow itself. It was great! On Sunday I left home, the journey on the Bus was fun, I chatted with my friends and slept a lot. The most interesting part was when I called my dad in Indonesia by accident the he unexpectedly called me back, so we talked through the phone in the Bus with my friends watching me speaking in Indonesian. They were so amazed, I was so happy! Ha ha.

By the way, when I arrived home I was so dead tired but I still needed to pack because the next day I was going to Kentucky for my AP Human Geo field trip. I packed until 9 and I slept until 6 and ate breakfast and took off to school! I was so excited for the field trip, because I was going to see Archbishop Desmond Tutu(He is a nobel peace prize winner because he fought against Apartheid in South Africa)'s speech! Can u believe that? So we left school around 7 and we arrived at 10. The trip wasn't bad at all. It was a very amazing trip actually! We only paid $20, but we got Lunch, Dinner, and breakfast for free in the Murray State College's cafeteria, and the food was good. We got a tour around the campus, it was freezing cold but we still had to write notes although our fingers were so numb. That wa riddiculous. But at least the tour guide who is the college student was very cute, so that refreshed me a little bit. Ha ha. I'm just joking. After that we had a session about Murray State University, a college that hosted us for the night, and they talked about how to get in, how good MSU is, etc. They talked about Study Abroad too, which was very interesting. It made me think about going abroad again for college. To Canada or Australia, probably. Well, I don't think my parents would allow me though, i think they will say they still miss me. Ha ha.

Finally it's time for us to take a rest! But, suddenly Mr. Sawyer, our teacher said Archbishop Desmond Tutu called and said that he wanted to meet us personally so we ran to the building where he was and we took a picture with him! I really respect him because when I saw him he was so down to earth, had a great sense of humor, he was so polite, he had a great personality! Last but not least his speech was the greatest speech I've ever heard. I didn't understand the whole speech because he has a very strong accent, but whenever I could catch what he was saying, what he was saying was always has great meaning, touching, smart, so full of humanity. My favorite quote was, "My humanity is bond in your humanity. We can only be human by learning how to be human from others." I've never thought about that before. Anyway, both of the trips that I got to go were awesome! I'm so lucky that I could go. Thanks God for giving me that chance! I appreciate it!

February 17th, 2010

Nashville, TN

USA



Did I tell y'all that here I go to church? Yes, I'm going to church here. Oops, don't get it wrong, I'm not a Christian. Not at all. I'm pure muslim, but here I'm going to church because it's just a very new experience that i can only get here ( I don't think back in Indonesia my parents would ever let me to go to church). Beside that I stay in Nashville, which is in the Southern part of the USA and most Southerners are so religious and I don't know why but here teenagers are like soo obsessed with Youth Group thing that is a part of Church's group, so I go to church so I can get new friends.

So one day I went to 'Overflow' which is a Youth Group meeting on Sunday night, and it was real fun! We had a bonfire(kind of), we just hang out and stuff. They did a worship part afterward when they were singing some Christian songs but I just sat there, listening to the beautiful songs, I was so overwhelmed. I had never been in a Christian service but it was not as bad as i thought it would be. Haha. And they were so welcoming and friendly, they didn't care that I am a Muslim and I wear head scarf. It was a great experience. After that I started to go to church almost every Sunday with Beth and Tim Webb(They are a family that said they wanted to host me but they can't). Even after I moved to the new family I still go to their church instead of my family's church because I already got friends there. I tried to go to my family's church around twice or three times but I didn't enjoy it that much. Probably because in my family's sunday school they separate boys and girls so I can't enjoy the view of boys, you know...Hahaha. I'm kidding.. For sometimes this year I didn't go to church a lot because I was pretty tired of listening to preaches about Jesus and stuff and started to feel uncomfortable, but now i can cope with it. So, on Wednesday this week I went to the church for the youth class and it was as much fun as before because we just basically hang out together and share stories. I met new friendly friends! I love them! I really do. And I can't wait for tomorrow because starting from tomorrow to Sunday is Winterfest when teenagers from Churches gather and hangout and do fun things, and this year we're going to Gaitlinburg, East Tennessee. I heard it's close to Smoky Mountain and it's a very cool place and most of my friends are going. And I can make new friends, that's the most exciting part of the trip! It actually costs $100, but the church paid for my trip! Isn't it amazing how nice they are, to me? I wrote a thank you letter for them, it was cute! I hope they like it. I still have to pay for my food during the program but I'm fine with it. I'm sure it worth it. It's Gaitlinburg! And I get to skip school on Friday to prepare and such. Yippeeee~ Can't wait!

February 9th, 2010
Nashville, TN
USA

Yesterday my mom called me! Finally! I think the last time i talked with my family was the very beginning of January. I've promised to myself that I'm going to talk with my family just once a month, because if i talk to them too much it will make me feel homesick and my English will not improve. Eventually, it works! I rarely get homesick, and my english is so much better now. But my Indonesian language get worse than ever. Now that I speak in English, try to write always in English, think in English, even dream in English, sometimes when I talk in Indonesian I feel so awkward and weird. No, no, i don't forget Indonesian at all. There's no way that I will forget Indonesian completely, it's my home language! Well, sometimes when I call my family i find ou that I forget some words in Indonesian, but not entirely. The problem is, I think my accent changed! Before I came here, I had a very strong Sundanese(ethnic language in Indonesia) accent, that whenever I meet new people they can tell where I come from(which is Bandung,obviously) because of my accent. I remember there was an Indonesian singer called Cinta Laura, she's Indonesian but she lived in foreign country for a long time so she speaks English and she doesn't talk in Indonesian so much, and when she talks in Indonesia, her accent was sooo weird! We, Indonesian people always made fun of her by pretending to talk with her accent. I used to hate her so much because of her accent. But now, i think I have that kind of accent too! Not as strong as hers, tho, but still! Ah! How ironic. Maybe it's my karma.
Another ironic thing, yesterday on the phone my mom and grandmamma asked me about the weather here in Nashville because they saw the news about the snow storm in Washington DC, that now DC is so covered by thick snow, very thick! The schools there are closed because of that. Meanwhile, I said in Nashville it doesn't snow that much. Well, on January 29 to 31 it snowed quite a lot in Nashville so the school was closed until Tuesday February 2nd, but it wasn't that much compared to the snow in up north. It was only 4-5". So I said to mom, "Oh, don't worry it doesn't snow much here. It's even rare for Nashville to get snow, because we're considered South. It snowed a little bit in the afternoon, but i think it's just a sprinkle. If it snows here, it's always only a little tiny amount of snow. So, don't worry!" And, ironically, after I hung up on the phone, I looked outside and the ground was covered with snow! There might be at least an inch of snow! So ironic to what I said just a moment before! Hahahaha.

Before i decided to be an exchange student, i thought that what a big world earth is. And i was stuck in Indonesia, I never went anywher further than Solo, Central Java. But after I arrived here in the US, my whole perception changed. Here I meet so many people from around the world, China, Belgium, Iceland, France, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Nigeria, Ghana, Thailand, Malaysia, Germany, from every corner of the world! I thought i would just met american, that was a big mistake! And the funny thing is, before I came here there was an AFS returnee in Padang that told me there is another Indonesian student in the school that I'm going to be in the US. That was so unexpected. And when i came here, the Indonesian student's mom invited me to meet Indonesian people that live here in Tennessee. There were 30 people or so, i was so happy to meet them! And what makes me think that the world is small is one day when I went grocery shopping in Nashville I bumped into 2 of the Indonesian people that I met in the Indonesian gathering. Ok, that's not a big surprise. But when I went to Washington DC I was walking toward the capitol bulding when I suddenly heard a voice that said, "Kameranya ditaro dimana ya?". That was definitely Indonesian language, so there might be Indonesian people around. And I was right! There were 2 Indonesian people that was working for VoA and I met them! I wished i took a picture with them! Beside that when i had a booth of Indonesia in the Celebration of Culture in Nashville TN, suddenly a woman approached me and said that she once lived in Indonesia for 2 years or so. Wow. And recently, i think it was 2 days ago, I went to Ravenwood's International Music Festival. I walked around and i saw booths of many countries! And guess what? I saw an Indonesian booth! And amazingly, the one that had the booth wasn't Indonesian, she was American that lived in Indonesia for 2.5 years, and she has so many Indonesian stuffs from all over Indonesia's islands. She told me on Thanksgiving day, instead of cooking turkey and other American food they cooked Soto Ayam! Hahaha. I told her i can't cook Indonesian food and she invited me to come to her house so she will teach me how to cook! It's funny that I'm pure Indonesian but I'm going to learn how to cook Indonesian food from a pure American. hahaha. What a small, weird world!

Today i woke up at 5, and then i prayed. But i fell asleep after that because i didn't have enough sleep since i coughed a lot at night. Suddenly i heard somebody tapped on my door. It was mom! She came to check on my condition, do i feel better or not? Whether i want to go to school or not? I was surprised that she woke up so early to check on my condition. Then i realized it's not that she woke up early, i woke up late. It was 6.20 when she knocked on my door. Because i still don't feel well and i woke up too late to go to school, so i didn't go to school. Now I'm relaxing at house in order to get better. and later in the afternoon I'm going to finish up the homework that i haven't done yesterday.That's another reason why i didn't want to go to school. Hahaha. So i slept until 10, drank my cough medicine, ate breakfast, then when i was trying to get my homework done, my computer was attacked by a virus, so i couldnt go to internet! I tried so many softwares but nothing worked. I'm so frustated. And i can't buy the antivirus because it's too expensive for me. So, i decided to leave my computer unprotected. I can't help it. Oh, well well. Now, I'm going to lay on my bed so i will be better. TTYL

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Name: Lisana Alia.

Nick name : Lia

Indonesian. Now in Nashville, TN. USA

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