2 Schule Stunden = 1,5 Stunden

So this week went as follows...

Monday
Let me tell you one thing. The bus in the morning is full to the brim. My school is like in the middle of the freakin' woods. The city is here then you make some turns drive straight and then BAM! Woods....turn a little....school. Yeah it's takes like an hour to get there.

The teachers are really cool. The first day I had no schedule so I had to follow my liaison or betreuerin around to her classes. Monday she goes in at 9:40 so I got to sleep a little more. First class was chemistry and the teacher is like major clueless. She's teaching and everyone else behind her is talking away about their two week vacation and whatnot. It was quite obnoxious of them and several times I asked myself, "Is this a joke? Why am I here?"

But later she actually got the chance to teach and then whatever it was that I heard I have no idea what it meant because it was chemistry... in German. Then she handed out papers and she made us fill them out, my betreuerin explained to her that my German is limited and she gave me a, "Oh...?" kind of face. Kinda like "Oh, that's a shame."/"Why should I care?"/"What do I do?" face. It was really weird, but anyway I'm definitely in her class because I need chemistry. She will also be my bio teacher.

The only thing that made me feel like crud was the fact that I only knew one person in this whole entire school (liaison/betreuerin) and she sat next to me and during most of the class she was talking to her friends next to her, across he room, behind her, but not me. And it's a worse feeling than feeling like a loner, because you have someone but they won't pay attention to you.

Then next class was really interesting. It's called Ethik but it's like philosophy. It's really cool because you read a paper and then you just start talking about it. Basically it's you opinion and everyone else's except in a classroom environment where you don't start beating each other up if you disagree. It's was actually really cool except I didn't understand so much.

As for the students they were all pretty cool. I won't say they're super friendly kids, but they're not anti-social either. I walked in the classroom got a few curious glances but from then on I was pretty much absorbed into the class. It was actually a kind of relief, I honestly thought either they'd be an overwhelming crowd or a cold one but they seem to be the right kind of people for me.

Tuesday
I had more classes and let me tell you that today when I looked at the grass I was very surprised. It was covered in icy frost. It looked like snow but it hadn't precipitated overnight, it was frost covered grass. It looked white or whitish green. It was really creepy. And this morning when I left my house at 6:55 it looked like night. The moon wasn't even out and sunrise wasn't until a while after seven, almost eight.

Anyway, today I left my house only to realized the bus didn't come to that station today. It only came on Fridays. So I had to take the train. So I took the train and missed my other bus so I had to take another one. My betreuerin called me to ask where I was and when I told her I was on the bus she said to call her when I got to school because she was already going into class.

There were a bunch of students on the bus and  I remember my host dad telling me "Follow the students." So I got off when they did and followed them. After a while when I realized I had no idea where I was I remembered what my host dad said after that, "Just make sure they're going to the right school."

That's when I started to get a little nervous so I asked this "student" where she was going and literally she said, "I don't know." So then I asked her where Ost Schule was and she said again, "I don't know." Then she saw my face and nervously suggested that I asked someone else. So along I went ditching the clueless one and asked another young lady when I noticed everyone of the students going into this building that I did not recognize as my school and she told me that I was at the University.

So I quickly asked for directions to my school and luckily I was not far. But even getting to my school I ended up taking a wrong turn and took a nice long walk down an empty street. It was quite creepy but the sun had finally risen nice and high so it wasn't dark and I was able to go back. I finally made it to my school 45 minutes late.

My German teacher didn't mind at all and continued on with what he was saying. Later I realized he spoke English and he even told me that if I ever got bored in his class I could take out a book and read. Next I had math and the teacher came in also speaking English because he heard I would be in his class. He shook my hand and asked, "Sprichts du Deutsch?" (Do you speak German?) I answered with a "Nicht wirklicht" (not really) and everyone started laughing. I'm not sure why that was funny but apparently one would normally answer with "Ein bisschen." (A little bit). Anyway they got their tests back and they started to go over it and I was sitting in my seat having a mental war. I knew all the things they were doing except in an odd way I didn't remember. And it certainly did not help that the test he gave them was all word problems so I didn't understand it. Also I haven't been in school for nearly four months. Talk about a rusty brain!

Anyway after that we had economy and politics and I have no clue what went on in that class I just took the paper she gave us and began translating it, sorta. It was more like looking up every other word. But whatever she was alright with that. Then it was the end of school for me!!

Also I got my schedule and here it is:

Moday

• Biology
• Religion (WHAAAAT??!!)

Tuesday

• German
• Math
• Economy and Politics

Wednesday

• English
• German
• Chemistry
• Math
• Spanish

Thursday

• Music (YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!)
• History
• Chemistry
• English
• Some sort of long break
• Spanish

Friday

• Methods (??)
• Physics
• Math

And that is all. Somewhere in there I'm supposed to squeeze in a Sport class. I'm still not sure where though.

Wednesday
We started off with English and it was pretty interesting since there was very little German being spoken. Anyway it's slightly boring. Then the rest of the classes went by. I midly understood something in Chemistry and we didn't have math. Then we had Spanish and the teacher made everyone in my class ask me something in Spanish and I answered in Spanish. Every time I said something they would look at me like I had eight ears. They just started Spanish this year so the amount of Spanish I speak was a bit scary for them.

Thursday
First I want to start off by saying that the only reason I was excited about going to school was because of music class and it turned out to be shit. Honestly, I walked out of that class feeling like a tractor ran over me and my expectations. The entire hour and a half we watched a movie about the Renaissance, with men in tights wearing pink and purple robes on top. It was horrible. The screen was behind me so a part of the movie was projected onto the back of my head as I sat in a highly uncomfortable position. I know I should have moved but it's extremely hard to get the nerve to stand in front of a bunch of people you don't know while they're looking in your direction, block the movie, and then pick up your chair and walk through the maze of people still looking at you to an empty spot.

I was also excited about History because I actually like it. But unfortunately for me I didn't understand, the only word I kept hearing was Romans, so I figure we're somewhere more than just a few centuries ago. Then extended boredom in the next two classes.

Finally I had this long break and I can leave school and come back so I planned to meet my friend, Ana, who goes to another school not too far from mine. So I asked my betreuerin when the next bus was coming. She told me in a half an hour, that if I was planning to go somewhere I wouldn't have time. So I called Ana and told her I wouldn't be able to go. About two minutes later I found out that my betreuerin also had the really long break and she's telling me to hurry up that we were going to miss the bus. So called Ana to tell her I was going but she was already gone. So basically I followed my betreuerin around town making errands and shit after she lied about the bus and all. I was pretty angry. I was supposed to have lunch.

I'm still angry about that and the way she pretty much ignores me in class whenever I ask her a question. Or even when we have the pauses, which are very often she just leaves me and I'm like "Now what?" She's only there and talks to me when there are no friends of her around to talk to or be with. It's really makes me feel like shit and so Friday I decided to change that.

Friday
I understand that sometimes you need to ask for help but if it's not given to you from the person you ask then you have have to find someone else. And so when my betreuerin just left with her other friend during the pause I stayed behind and talked to a group of girls that I talked before like two or three times and they seemed like really nice girls. Not to soon after she came back and said, "Are you going to stay here?" when I told her yes she left but back in class when I needed help I was not given it. She gave me the pathetic excuse that she didn't know and barely talked to me for the rest of the day.

After school I packed my bags and went to Grünberg. I had an AFS camp! And believe me after what I would have considered a first unsuccessful week at school, getting out of town was the best thing to do. Not only was I getting out of town, but I would get to see my friends again and I was itching to see them again. It had been three weeks since I'd seen most of them and the feeling of having friends was one I really needed.

As it usually happens I missed my train and arrived an hour later. It didn't seem like that was a problem though. At the train station I met a couple of new friends. From Equador, Honduras, Italy, Bosnia, and Thailand. So now I have two friends from Thailand. :)

Anyway, we went to a youth hostel and ate and then had a small session with the AFS councilors and then we were supposed to go to sleep so that we could wake up a seven the next day. But some people stayed in the main area for a while and then a time later we split up some stayed even longer and others left to their bunk-room things. There we talked and shared our experiences so far and what we thought about things.

Saturday
Early in the morning in the girls' bunk several alarm clocks rang but were immediately turned off. Several minutes later there was a highly annoying knocking on the door. Then again, then again until someone told them they were awake... which wasn't necessarily true. Anyhow, in the next hour more these girls quickly took turns taking showers and got ready and headed off to breakfast.

After breakfast the entire AFS group met up and was spilt up into groups of three and each group was given an apple. They told us to go to the city and to find someone who would trade our apple for something else and to continue trading. We had two hours.

The part of Grünberg we were in was like a ginormous lawn. There was like nothing there and it always smelled like horse poop. So we had to walk a bit until we got to the city. Then afterwards when we got there I thought, "People are going to look at us as if we are crazy." But as it turns out people are really okey with trading their things for something else.

This was the sequence of trading. Apple- yellow pepper- würst (sausage)-2 duplos and 2 tangerines- badminton set with two birdies. Somewhere in there an old man didn't want our pepper but he gave us a pocket knife. And another man didn't want our würst so he gave a newspaper, and later we traded the newspaper for two magazines. So total we had 2 magazines, the badminton thingy, and a pocket knife. All for an apple. The only bad thing was that on our way back to the hostel we got lost.

We had a few more sessions and then we had like an hour and a half break. During that hour and a half I picked up a badminton racket and started practicing fencing moves. My friend Javier was interested and wanted to fence too. Of course we had badminton rackets, no equipment, and no space. So we went outside and I taught him most of the basics as best as possible and we fenced. Some people walked by and watched but I thought it was pretty cool because I haven't fenced in the longest time and it was really fun.

Later that night we went for a walk in the forest while it was really dark. We walked not to much but there were several uphills that were killer but we when we made it to our destination we were quite surprised. It was a small meadow and we sat on haystacks and read a story in German. It was really beautiful. There were stars everywhere in the sky. We ate some chocolate and then we went back.

Sunday
We left this day and honestly I was quite sad. The camp was really short but it was a lot more fun than I ever thought it would be. I also very much enjoyed the company of my friends which I had missed so much! And also I just really don't want to go back to school. Honestly, school seems impossible to me. I don't have friends, I don't understand and I don't even know if I can turn to my betreuerin for help anymore. I really, really wished I could have stayed maybe a day longer just to be truly enjoying myself. But apparently I'm not the only one with school troubles. I just hope that soon I can get through this rough spot.

And now for something completely different...














My cyclops- pumpkin, Erik.Happy Halloween!!!



"So don't give up, stand 'till the end," -Joe Jonas
Sorry it's so long! And yes... Jonas Brothers. Here is the link.

Blogging and Agonizing

What a difficult job it is to blog. Whenever I think about blogging something I don't have the time and whenever I have the time I don't remember what it was that I wanted to write.

But anyhow I'll give you a little insight to what I've done not so long ago. This weekend I went to the annual Frankfurt Buchmesse. First off, let me tell you a little about it. It's the largest book fair in the world and yes, it was huge! I believe the building they have it in is used only for the buchmesse and then as an office kind of thing the rest of the year.

The ginormous building was split up into halls and each hall was about three floors high and quite wide in both directions. And total I think there were eleven halls, so yeah it was big. Big enough to have a bus service to take you from one place hall to the next hall. Honestly, it was sooooo big.

There were all the kinds of books you can imagine. No joke. There was books for children, teens, adults, old people. Biographies, fantasies (fiction), non- fiction, knitting, cars, naked people, comics, anime, and also international publishers were present. They had some authors read out of their books to interest people, some places were they talked about the development of the book and the dude who invented the printing press and a model to show you how it first worked. Other halls, such as the comics and anime, were full of people dressed up as their favorite characters! And honestly I was in there most of the time completely fascinated. It felt like this weird version of Halloween were I'm not dressed up but everyone else is dressed up as a character from a comic/anime and there was a lot of books instead of candy. It was really cool.

People here really know how to dress up. They had makeup, wigs, nails, fake pointy ears, fake fangs, contacts and the accessories- they were super. If only I knew people were going to dress up. : /
But anyway the buchmesse every year focuses on a specific country and this year it was Iceland. They had this huge black room filled with enormous screens of Icelandic scenery, huge bookshelves with all about Iceland and the people. On some of the really big screens there were Icelandic people reading a book, live. Like they just sat there reading a book and every minute or so they would turn the page. Frankly, I found that a little strange.

The only bad thing is that I went on a Saturday. Had I gone on Sunday, the last day, I might have been able to buy some books for a really good price.

However Sunday I was busy. I went to one of my host parent's friends house for a party. My host parent's friends are Iranian. At first I was like, "Oh... I thought they were Turkish..." But then after a while of being there it reminded me of back home. Back home I know a lot of people from the middle east and I hadn't realized how at home I felt with their way of being. They were all extremely friendly. Like the father, as soon as I walk in the door  he was like, "Oh, the American! Can you speak German?" so I said a little and he laughed and said, "Yeah, me too." And some other time later one of the guys that sat at my table eating randomly asked me if I liked potato salad and I told him yes, I love potatoes. So he showed me to another table and told me that I had to try the potato salad, it was amazing. And then this girl when I left she ran over to the door and hugged me goodbye, and I'd only known her for like four hours.

I really enjoyed my time there. It was really something I wasn't expecting but turned out to be quite spectacular. And they're food is soooooo good. It's almost like the food I eat at home but maybe just a little more spicy but it was so freaking good. I would have eaten like five plates if they would all fit.

And today I went to school and then two more days and then real school starts. I AM SO NERVOUS. But anyway, today is my host brother's birthday and he got this really cool new computer and I got him a book that I really liked (but in German) and also wrote him a little card full of insiders. I think he really liked it, even though my German was not so good.

Also I think you should know that I am completely agonizing right now. One of my favorite bands is on tour and their in Germany right now... Yesterday they were in Hamburg, today in Berlin and tomorrow in Munchen. You have no idea how much I wanted to go to the concert in Munchen but it's a seven hour train ride there and then back. First off, it really expensive if I buy a ticket today for tomorrow to Munchen, second if I went I'd  have to stay over night by myself or, if I decided to come back right away I'd get home at like three a.m. and lastly, I didn't tell AFS so no matter what I wouldn't be able to go. asdfghjkl  So in honor of it all, tomorrow, to school I will dress in the BVB fashion, kinda. I already told my host mom and my teacher and I was given the "ok." So yeah... my nail are drying right now, and they're black and later I must do something with my hair, and find out exactly how my make up will be assembled onto my face.Truly, I am super excited. I can't wait till tomorrow. You have no idea how much I love this band. If I was music I think I would sound like them, most of the time anyway... So yeah, if I can't go to the concert then I'll make one of my own. ;)

"When your life becomes a war, set the world on fire."- Andy Biersack
If you've liked my music so far, please, do yourself a favor and click here!

I'm blue in the face

It's finally Autumn vacation. We have two weeks off from school, except I still have to go for six more days.

Recently I've been feeling like I'm tripping over my feet. Today is a month from when I got here. Yesterday we had dinner in this cool place because of that. It's called the Dachcafé, and it's the tallest building in Giessen and it's only about 13 or 14 stories high. I felt a bit a wistful. You get to sit at the top of the building inside or on their terrace but it was too cold. My host mom reserved us a table by the windows. The view was absolutely beautiful but it I couldn't help thinking about the tall New York buildings and what it was like to look down from the top of the Empire State Building and I also thought about that picture I have on my fridge at home of me when I was about five. I was at the twin towers and behind me you could see everything that looked like little mini things.

Also when I was in Frankfurt everything was like an echo of New York. So many tourists, bridges, shopping centers, even a river! I was far from impressed, I felt sad. Though it was a lot like New York, it wasn't polluted, it wasn't as noisy and there were no yellow taxis everywhere. Everything seems to remind me of where I'm really from and who I really am.

The worst part is that no matter how hard I try to keep a smile on my face my host mom has noticed that I haven't been acting the same. Yesterday while we were at dinner she asked me if I felt homesick I said no, but instantly I knew that that wasn't true. And she noticed my expression and asked me what it was I missed and I just spilled it out without thinking. Familiarity. I felt really bad because I knew all of them were doing an effort to make me feel well.

Nonetheless I miss my friends and having the confidence of telling them anything. I miss sleeping in being one of those rare pleasures. I miss hugs. And I miss having a grandma around to yell at me and to hug just because.

To my surprise though, it's now that everything is starting to fit in. Though my German is still crappy I can understand a lot. Yesterday, my host sister and I actually had several conversations and she feels more sister like to me. She thinks I have a cute nose...  My host brother was as awesome as ever and my host mom was a lot closer to me than usual, in a very mom-like kind of way. This morning my host dad made me some coffee as we had a fairly casual conversation and now I feel totally confused.

The moment everything starts clicking into place here in Germany, is the moment I want to go back to what I knew even with my eyes closed. I don't know.

"I'm no longer running smooth," -Matt Skiba
The Link,

German Reunification Day

In seven days I'd have been in Germany for a month. I'm not sure if I should feel like it's going by fast or slow. Sometimes it feels slow but other days (especially days with routine) slip by like water through fingers.

Nonetheless, if you measure all that I've done it's definitely been a lot. Every Wednesday with the Sprachkurs we go somewhere. I think two weeks ago we went the Matematikum, which is this math museum. It may sounds boring but it was actually pretty decent with a bunch of displays and puzzles of all sorts. I took a ton of pictures but unfortunately something happened to my camera and I ended up picture-less.

The next week we went to someplace I can't remember, but the week after that we went to this really popular bookstore in Germany and let me tell you Barnes and Nobel can't compete. Next week we'll be going to Frankfurt. We'll have a group tour and then two or three hours to ourselves to explore Frankfurt!

But in between I've also done a lot. Friday when I got home from school I got into the car with my host parents and went apple picking in this field that my host dad owns. There I met my host dad's son (with another lady) who is technically my other host brother. I also met his girlfriend and her parents who were also apple picking.

The next day we went back, this time with  Darius and his friend and we picked some more apples. Then we took those apples to my other host brother's girlfriend's house and we made the 20 sacks of apples into apple juice. You bet your ass that was a lot of juice.

Then somewhere else in between I attended two birthday parties. One in Hüttenberg and the other in Lehnheim. Both of them were country like cities as opposed to mine which is a bit country-ish but compared to the others definitely city.

Somewhere else in between that I had a Welcoming Party where I met some of my neighbors and they're kids. They all brought me presents which was really nice of them considering I didn't know them. They're kids are super nice and adorable... all little girls. My neighbor, friend of Darius also came and my liaison, Lea came as well. We four played table tennis for a long time and then moved on other activities.

Then yesterday I drew for hours and was able to finally put them up as decorations in my room. They're like mini posters of things that mean a lot to me. My music, my books, my people.

Today I went for a four hour and a half bike ride with my host family and my host brother's neighbor friend. Let me tell you I am totally out of shape in the legs, which is quite embarrassing especially for a fencer. I do daily exercise but not in my legs.

Just a few other thoughts. I told my host mom that I'm losing weight because my pants kept falling anytime we walked and I forgot my belt. She freaked out. I laughed and told her it was okey, probably just some emotional/cultural adjustment still going on. But really I think it's the exercise I do. Also sometime after I start real school I'll be joining a gym thingy for fencers and possibly a arching (as in like bow and arrow) one too, if I can convince Darius to go with me.

My German is soooo much better. My host dad speaks no english and I've been having conversations with him more and more often. My host mom speaks more German to me than english and so have I. I understand so much at the dinner table conversations and I even catch some of the jokes and can say some funny things myself.

But, sometimes I find myself looking at someone thinking, "Can you help me understand?" Just like Craig Mabbit.
Here is the link.
But if you like it you must check out the music video.
Tschüss!!