Formula 1

Hello everyone!

Just wanted to give an update on what is all going on with me.

First of all, I switch host families on Sunday. SUNDAY. Do you know what that means? That means I have been here for 4 months. That is 110 days so far. Blah. That is crazy. CRAZAY. Feels like just yesterday that I got here, then I look over my pictures or blog posts and I see things that happened just a few weeks ago, that feel like a lifetime ago. It is unbelievable. That being said, looking at how many days I have left seems like a lifetime as well. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing yet. Bittersweet.

Speaking of bittersweet, back to switching host families. I really like my host family right now. They are great. I really REALLY don't want to go. But at the same time, I am super excited to go to my new host family. I am excited to see another type of German lifestyle, but it is also hard to leave something very easy and comfortable. Time will tell. I will spend the next week packing up (and finding) my things. Uhhh, better get started. :/

Oh, and by the way, the Formula 1 winner this year is a German. Just like the last two years. :D

Beth

TESTS

The season of the tests are upon us, here in Deutschland.

     November is the season of tests, although some leak into December as well. Don't get me wrong, there are quizzes pretty often (even though I would say not as often as in my old school), but these tests are different. They are two hours long and are worth most of your grade (I think). The first test I had was in English. That went pretty well... obviously. I received a "1" which is the highest grade. Then... I had Erdkunde, which is a long geography with weather mixed in and such. I am not quite certain. That was... not so good. Luckily I haven't gotten my grade back yet. Then was Biology, German, and then today I took the Math test.
     Biology was probably the worst test so far. I hadn't studied for the test so much because, to be honest, I really hate biology. But I did study a little bit. I got to the test and didn't not understand it at all. There were things I had never seen in our class before! I pushed through it and was able to complete a few of the problems, but I ran out of things to do. Then I started looking through all of the cool tips in my dictionary. Picture this-- a foreign exchange student taking a very important test. She is hunched over her dictionary flipping through the pages not writing anything. My teacher thought I was so flustered with the language that I just gave up... whoops. She came up to me and told me that I could just write the test in English if I wanted to. While she was trying to be nice, that honestly doesn't help at all. If I am supposed to write in English, then I would have to learn the material in English! How I am I suppose to write a test, when I sat through the class in German! The point is that I didn't learn all of the information in class because it was in a different language and therefore I can't pick up all of it. It is not helpful for me to write in English...
    In my German test I only got through one of the two questions, but I think it was okay. It took so long to write because I had to look up so many words in my German dictionary. But I feel good about that test because I actually understood the text that we received. :)
    Math was really good today, but I had forgotten how to do a really easy problem and then remembered as soon as I had turned it in. :)
    Otherwise all is good. I am going to try and celebrate Thanksgiving a little bit on Thursday and Friday. My awesome mom sent me some stove-top stuffing to make, which I will make on Wednesday, and then I will make pumpkin pie on Thursday! :) Hopefully my host family likes it! Okay all, that is it for now!

Beth

100 DAYS

100 days. That is quite a long time. I think. I am not so sure anymore. Today, at 13:00, was the 100 day mark for me.

CRAZINESS.

In a way, it is a lot like this winter. The temperature has been going slowly going down, getting colder and colder, until I finally realized I was freezing, bought a coat, and started buckling down for winter.

They days have simply been creeping up on me! I finally calculated how long I had been here and realized -- Oh God. This means that I will have to go home soon, too!

The past 100 days have been filled with ups and downs, trust me. But I think I am finally getting over this rut that I have been in. I am starting to actually figure out this language. I realized that I can figure out words like sewing and slope from context, not just looking them up in my dictionary.

 I know that the hard part of the year is still coming-- Christmas time. And while I don't want to go home now, I still can't help but daydream sometimes about what I will do when I get home. Seeing all my friends and family, going to college, eating Chipotle, etc. I hope that is normal. But I still don't try to dwell on it.

While 100 days have passed, I still have many days left to go here. Some will be very fulfilling, and some quite challenging. But all will be worth it. Wish me luck!

Beth

5 German Things (Kind Of)

Hey guys!

Germany is great for so many reasons, but I wanted to share some of the little things that brighten my days here. Here are some photos to show ya what I mean:


1) Math--

Wow. I never thought I would say this. But I am really glad that I have math in school here. Why? Because I took the exact same math class last year! This way, I can spend more time learning German than learning the math, and I can brush up on the skills I learned! (And not forget them all.) :) Plus my math teacher is such a nice guy.

2) SLEEP--

I am a big fan of sleep. BIG. FAN. And I definitely get a lot of sleep here, which I am grateful for. I am going to use the excuse that listening to another language all the time is exhausting, because I am always more tired over here! .

3) Peanut Butter, Nutella, and Banana-

Okay, well, peanut butter is actually not a German thing, but Nutella sure is! I bought the peanut butter from the American aisle in a really big grocery store during my language camp and I am so glad that I did! I didn't realize how much I missed the stuff! I don't know what I will do when I run out! ... Well. Probably just eat more Nutella. Oh, and don't worry, Mother. I do not eat this combination every day. My host-sister and I just experimented today. :)

 4) Pens and Graph paper-

Even though I may be a chaotic mess sometimes, I really like organization.  Whenever something is going on in class that I don't understand (Religion class) or is way above my head (Informatik. Try learning computer programming... In German!), or in math if they are covering something easy and boring, then I organize. I draw calendars, to-do lists, ect. It is great, but there are only so many things you can organize... I am trying to find something productive to do in my one hopeless class, Info, so if you have any ideas I am open to them! I see a lot of pages full of doodles posted from other exchange students online, but I don't want to end up reliving the last week of my Senior year in High School. (I just colored in my Hello Kitty coloring book. I am not proud. But I was stressed in-between finals.) I'm thinking about hauling in my English-German Dictionary and working on German, though. (Normally I write words I don't know in a vocabulary notebook and translate them when I get back home because my dictionary is on my IPad and it would be weird/disrespectful to do that in class. But I am going to borrow my host sister's HUGE and HEAVY dictionary... Woo.)

5) HIMYM-

How I Met Your Mother. This show is awesome! What is even better is that I learn so much German by watching this show! Whenever I need some down time or a break from studying/organizing/whatever else I am doing... (/sleeping) I watch this show in German with my host sister. It is great because I already know all the words in English, so I know what they are saying and then learn the German version of it! :)

BERLIN

Hey everybody!

Sorry that I haven't updated very soon, but... I have no excuse. :)  My goal is to post once a week for an update, so I will try to follow that!

So, from the 24th to the 28th I went to Berlin, and it was AWESOME! :) We had a tour about the Berlin Wall, went to the parliament building and had a tour, a city tour, went the the Brandenburger Tor, and went to the new Holocaust memorial.

A lot of people ask me what I am missing the most in Germany. Of course, the number one thing I miss are family and friends, but I know they will still be there when I get back. For your entertainment, here is a list of things that I couldn’t live without, and therefore I have brought with me to Germany. (And one thing that is killing me because I don’t have it.) My next blog post will about what I won’t be able to live without when I go back to the US. Trust me, most of it will be food. :)

1) My calculator. This sounds stupid, but I couldn’t live without it. We are doing calculus in my math class right now, and while I already know the topic because I took the same class last year, I am REALLY bad at simple math. My calculus class ruined it for me. I know, that is backwards, but I cannot do it. My host mom always makes fun of me when I try and do math related things.

For example--
Me to my host mom: Aren’t you excited?! Your birthday is in 13 days!
Host mom: No, it isn’t.
Me: Of course it is! Today is the 30th, and your birthday is on the 13th!
Host mom: Try that again.
Me: Oh.

I blamed it on not knowing there were 31 days in October, but I knew. Oh, I knew. It was a moment of shame.

2) Peanut Butter M&Ms.
Okay, I could definitely live without these things, mostly because I didn’t eat them a whole lot before I got here, but if I didn’t have them, I think my host sister would kill me. :) She REALLY likes them. I brought them mostly because of the peanut butter thing (Europeans aren’t as into peanut butter as we Americans), but they are actually quite good, if you didn’t know. I shared them with my host sister and now she wants to eat them all! And I brought 5 large bags of them with...

3) My IPad.
I never thought of myself as one of those dorky IPad owners, but after my mom bought me one as a generous going away gift/graduating from High School gift (WOHOO! Thanks mom!) I LOVE it. It is perfect for those moments where I really need to look up a German word, and then I can pull it out of my bag and quick look it up. It was really useful when I got the words to kill (umbringen) and to bring (bringen) mixed up.

4) My Watch.
I think that watches here are much more popular. In the US I always just looked at my phone when I needed to know the time, but I am so glad that I bought a watch with my awesome friend Kelsey before I came. This way counting down the minutes until Informatik is over is easier.

5) BATH AND BODY WORKS HAND SANITZER.
Let’s get real. I would die if I didn’t have this stuff. It is like crack. Clean, floral-smelling crack. I filled my suitcase with the stuff before I left because, unfortunately, they do not have B&B here! I know-- they are crazy. :) I also like to watch people’s reactions when I slather on Apple Lavender. Normally they just sniff a few times, and look around wondering where the delicious smell comes from. :)

6) Chipotle.
Lastly, my one true love. It kills me a little inside that there is no Chipotle here. I have an honest addiction to the stuff and I am going through some serious withdrawals. I got the Chipotle shakes. This was my last meal in the states, and will surely be my first when I come home again. If you’ve never had it, think of it as Mexican Subway. :) I went to a theme-park with my host family, and there was a Mexico themed section. I persuaded them into eating here, and I got a burrito. It was heaven. My nowhere near as good as Chipotle. Chipotle-- I miss you.

Okay folks, that is all.

I will update soon! (I hope!)

Beth