Testing, Testing.... Hallo?

First things first:  Birthdays. 

To Morgan Kehoe and Amy Hobday:  I hope you both had a wonderful time celebrating your birthdays!!! 

Second things Second: School.

I took my Physics Klasure on Wednesday this week.  I wasn’t really anticipating it to be fantastic or anything, but I think missing the last Physics class on Friday (I was sick!!!) definitely exaggerated the situation.  I understood the material for maybe 2 questions on the test, and got maybe half a question right.

“Maybe” being the key word.

On the Friday after the Klausure, my teacher gave us all a very stern lecture.  I’m not a 100% what on, but he definitely was not a happy camper.  Apparently none of us did too terribly well on the Klausure.  We just did terribly.  After he was done lecturing us on the morals of being a student (I think that was the topic), he started to explain one of the problems from Wednesday’s test which, as the German phrasing goes, I understood “uberhaupt nicht”. 

Translation?  Totally, completely, 100%, not at all.  In my defense, there was a big nasty graph with multiple variables and loads of Calculus.

I took Calculus in the US, yes.  I took Physics in the US, yes.  But at no point in time did those two subjects overlap. 

I miss that.

Anyway, seeing as I had no clue what was going on, I used the time for something constructive: the lovely little doodle below.

I apologize to any and all CalTech people that may come across this blog.  To be clear, it is meant to exaggerate my inability to comprehend this Physics class, not to imply that you are all silly surfers.  Although some of you certainly may be.  I don’t actually know seeing as my knowledge of CalTech is on par with my knowledge of Physics.

Anyway, my point here is that Physics this week was just a tad bizarre…

After Physics on Wednesday I had my new Gym class, badmitton.  You see, my old Volleyball course was a mix of kids from the 11^th and 12^th grades, and 12^th graders are done with school now.  That being so, a bunch of the kids from the class are no longer there, and we didn’t have enough kids left to justify actually having the class.  Normally, this would be totally chill, and I would just be done with Gym.

But when have I ever done anything the normal way?

Gym is the last credit I need for Pennsbury (my high school in the US), so it is the one course I have to have the whole time I’m here.  There wasn’t much space left in any of the other Gym classes, so I ended up dropping Politiks, and taking  badmitton instead. 

Which is a lot more intense than people will lead you to believe!

We ran drills, we played games, we learned rules.  Holy Moly.  I never thought a tiny little piece of plastic could be so much bloody work!  It’s a good thing I know how to play tennis already or I’d have been completely lost, and looked much sillier than usual.  As it was, tennis and badminton are similar enough that I was able to get by quite nicely I think.  I’m legitimately really looking forward to this week’s class!

As well as the two free periods I now have on Tuesday.  Aaaah.  Chill time.  I wonder what that’s like…

Deutsch on Thursday was also a lot of fun.  I’ve gotten to the point where I no longer have to spend the entire class period translating words; I can actually concentrate on understanding the poem now, which is really really cool.  And this week’s poem was quite beautiful.  It was written by Clemens Brentano, and called “Der Spinnerin Nachtlied” (read it here http://www.literaturwelt.com/werke/brentano/spinnerin-nachtlied.html).  It’s all about a woman  ho’s beloved has either died, or left (that was the million euro question for the class period), and every time she hears a nightingale sing, she is reminded of him.  I tend to think the man is dead seeing as there are numerous allusions to the Fates, however both sides of the argument are quite plausible. 

Case in point?  Deutsch was really really awesome this on Thursday!

Thursday evening I attempted to make dinner.  My host mom had had parent teacher conferences, and both my host brother and I had had Klasures this week, so I thought it would be good to try and give them a bit of a rest.  For dinner, I decided to use the pancake mix my host sister had sent over.

To clarify, my host sister is still in the US, living with my family.  I am now in Germany living with her family.  The logistics of this exchange are a bit interesting. 

Anyway, all the instructions for the Pancakes and the molds were in English, and I’ve made pancakes a few times before, so I figured “hey, I can do this.  Adding molds to the process should be no sweat”.

Silly me.

I needed help getting the batter sorted out seeing as I don’t have US system measuring cups here, and I haven’t made pancakes often enough to know about what the batter should feel like.  Anyway, once we did get the batter all sorted out, we started to use the pancake molds.  Below is the result of the first two attempts:

Uh huh.  Beautiful aren’t they?

The third time, as it turns out, really is the charm.  For the third attempt, we changed the position of the pancake mold, and got this:

So, now we all know how to make pancakes, use pancake molds, and to say a whole lot of new words for a whole lot of obscure kitchen gadgets.

A very productive evening I’d say. 

Side note:  Crepes (a French style pancake) may be common here, but Maple syrup isn’t, I don’t think, so we ate the pancakes with sugar and apple sauce instead.  Yuuum!!!

On to Friday: after the lovely Physics class (the one with the lecture, not the Klausure), I got my history Klausure back!  Like I said, I didn’t really write to the exact question asked, mostly because I didn’t have time (or, I’ll be honest, energy) to read and translate all the required stuff in the time limit.  It didn’t seem to matter though, my teacher was really enthused that I put so much
though and effort into the essay.  He wrote me a sentence or two saying “Thanks for the debate on Adam Smith! “ and suggested I read some stuff by an author that is either A) an American who examines capitalism, B) examines American capitalism, or C) none of the above.

The poor guy’s handwriting rivals mine.  I’ll give you a better translation once I figure out what he actually wrote, and have time to translate it properly.

As far as the school week goes, that’s really it.  My host brother went to visit his dad this weekend, so my host mom and I decided to test out the bikes and took a ride to the city yesterday.  It was quite a ways, but the ride was really beautiful, and there weren’t too many cars on the road, so it was relatively quiet and peaceful as well.  We got to the city, checked out the new mall that just opened,  and admired a whole lot of awesome European clothing.

And shoes.  Don’t forget the shoes.

Sadly, I am too miserly for my own good.  The most I bought were some funny postcards and pack of gummi bears. 

Another Side note:  Although Germany is fairly famous for its chocolate, most of the Germans I have met eat more gummy bears and such.  I mean, they enjoy chocolate too, but most times, if they’ve a craving for something sweet, they chomp on a handful of gummy bears, not Milche or Rittersport.

Moving on:  I did, finally, take a bunch of pictures of the city!  You can check them out with this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=281617&id=641132010&l=034f85dc18

It’s the facebook public link, so even if you’re not friends with me on facebook, you should be able to see the pictures.

Moving on, I mentioned a moment ago that the ride to the city is quite a ways. It would follow then, that the ride from the city back home would also be quite a ways.  Conveniently, there was an ice cream place along the way, so we stopped for a break, and enjoyed the first real ice cream of the season. 

Have I mentioned how tasty hazelnut ice cream is?  Sooooooooo gooooooooood.  Anyone know if that exists in the States?  Cause if so, Granpop: you gotta try some!

For those of you who don’t know, my grandfather is, among many things, an ice cream connoisseur.  Ben and Jerry look to him to judge a flavor’s worthiness  (that is a slight exaggeration, but you get the idea).

The last bit for this week’s post:  I woke up this morning thinking in German.  And didn’t realize it until I ran out of German words, and was forced to substitute an English one.  I was quite confused there for a bit this morning, I must say. 

Ah well, coffee cures all.

Not sure what's on the agenda for this week, but I'll tell you all about what goes on with the next blog post. 

And for Mrs. H’s sake, I’ll try and make sure that it goes up on Sunday morning.  Sorry I’ve been disturbing the morning routine by not posting promptly!

Over and out,

Shannon 

Once again: Too much fun + weak immune system = Late Blog Post. Oops.

So this week was pretty interesting again.  Unbeknownst to me, Monday was the first day of “Spirit Week” at school here.  Except that instead of dressing in silly clothing to earn points for a school event, like Sports’ Night or something, the upper grades dressed in silly clothing to celebrate their last full week of school.  In the US, we still have to go to school for the second semester, at which point all the college apps and stuff are FINISHED.  Once the kids here are finished with their Abitur though, they’re finished with high school too.  Lucky ducks.  Here’s the dress up schedule:

-Pirate Monday

-Anti-social people Tuesday

-70s and 80s Wednesday

-Kindergarten Birthday Thursday

-“Wannabe” Friday

You thought Pennsbury was intense?  Whoa.  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.  **

On Monday, I literally thought I had walked on to the set of a Swashbuckler film.  Well, the costume area anyway.  Every place I cast my eye had a minimum of one Pirate, one Wench, and a Flag-Whirler.  Each with a gold cavity, knocked out teeth, booty, and standard regulation monkey, parrot, and/or eye-patch.

On Tuesday, every “anti-social” or “I’m-better-than-you stereo-type” was represented.  We had guys in wife beaters with cigarette packs tucked under the shoulder, and we had guys in propeller hats, pocket protectors, brightly colored jackets made for four year olds, and the ever important pant-leg-tucked-in-sock.  Then there were the girls.  We had too-much-make-up-Mandy, short-skirt-Sally, and trenchcoat-Tammy.  Not to mention the “I-think-I’m-cool-but-really-I-look-like –the-wrong-side-of-a-giraffe” people.

Like I said, it was a very vaaaaast range.

On Wednesday, I was sure to bring sunglasses to school seeing as the 70s and 80s are known for their bright clothing.  It’s a shame they broke on the way: bright yellow spandex, pink leotards, turquoise skirts, and silver belts.  I can’t see a thing.  Hoping that changes before soccer on Wednesday. 

Thursday was one of my favorite days I think:  It’s hard not to enjoy kids coming to school dressed as clowns, 6 foot tall 12^th graders riding those tiny bicycles from the circus, kids dressed like Steve from Blues Clues, or the girls who came with party hats, party favors, and cake.

Yes.  Cake.  Marie Antionette anyone??

And Emma, you and your Halloween costume from two years ago would have fit right in.  (FYI, it wasn't a scary costume, just silly).

And then there was Friday. You know how, when we’re little, like four or five or seven or so, we’re all like “I wanna be an astronaut” or “I wanna be Superman” and stuff?  That was Friday’s theme.  Take your childhood vision of what you’d grow up to be, and dress up like it.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t there for all of Friday (sick again, stupid immune system), but I did manage to capture the picture below:

Yes.  That’s Packman.  I believe he had a few ghosts floating around too.

So those were the theme days.  Like I said, it was loads of fun, and it made the underclassmen feel a little better about all those Klausures they still had to take. 

Speaking of which, I took my History Klauseur on Tuesday.  It wasn’t as bad as I expected.  There were three different excerpts that we had to read, and then three essay questions that we had to write about.  Now, obviously, I didn’t answer all three essay questions.  I knew from the start that that just wasn’t going to happen, not in the three hours we had. 

Oh sure, three hours would normally be plenty of time to bat out a few essays.  Ahuh, not when you’re writing in German and you spell like a four year old.

IE: practically not at all.

I started translating the first excerpt, realized it would take too long, and switched to the shortest excerpt, which was fortunately about my favorite Capitalist: Adam Smith.

Yes, I do have a favorite Capitalist.  Don’t ask.  It’s an AP Euro thing.

Anyway, the question stated that I should compare the first and third excerpts, then formulate a position as to whether Adam Smith’s Capitalism is good, bad, ugly, or kind of just irrelevant.  Like I said, I didn’t actually read the first excerpt, but thanks to McKay, I was able to write a decent amount about how Adam Smith’s version of Capitalism is outdated, but we can still use some of the basic ideas.  Not exactly the correct topic, but certainly not off topic either.  To read up on Adam Smith (really awesome and interesting dude), check out the book “Wordly Philosophers” by Robert L. Heilbroner, which has a whole chapter on him.  If you’re too lazy to leave your computer though, you can search for some interesting tidbits yourself.  I already found one good resource, not my problem if you won’t take advantage of it.

OK, that was waaaaaay harsh.  My apologies.  If you really are that lazy, all you have to do is search “Adam Smith Biography” in Google, but really, the above book captures Smith’s unique… personality best.

So yeah.  I would love to be able to write more about school, but admissions decicions for college came out this week.  I kind of just melted through Wednesday and Thursday, and, like I said, I came home sick Friday.  Not much to say about that other than Tissues, Tissues, Tissues, and Sleep.

To those of you wondering, I am currently 5 acceptance letters for 5 admissions decisions.  But I still have three schools to go, and can’t really see any of the financial aid awards until April 1^st.

So yeah.

Anyway, now that I’m done being the epitomy of “You’re so Vain”, I can tell you about Saturday (IE: yesterday).  My host mom and I went to Bremen!  It was loads of fun, except that my camera’s batteries died on me half way through, and apparently there are no batteries to be bought in the entire city of Bremen.

Again, harsh.  I’m just cranky about all this college stuff. 

Anyway, we still got some good pictures.  I really love the city of Bremen.  It’s along the Weser River, and has a beautiful Old City district, with a very old Church that has very modern stained glass windows.

Side Note: I’m a sucker for big stained glass windows.  I could sit and stare at them all day long.  Dunno why, I just find ‘em really wonderful.

Anyway, Bremen is really known for a) being an old port city, and b) the setting for one of the Grimm Borther’s fairy tails: The Bremen Town Musicians.  Check it out here:

http://www.grimmstories.com/en/grimm_fairy-tales/the_bremen_town_musicians

There’s a statue in the town of the four animals standing atop one another.  I think it’s supposed to be good luck if you pat the donkey’s snout.  My camera died right about then I think, so I didn’t get to take a picture of just the statue alone, but there’s me standing with it below.

I’m really loving that obnoxious yellow bag right about now. 

To continue though, Bremen was a lot of fun.  A little shopping , a little history, and a little Starbucks. 

Now, I’m not really a picky eater, or a picky coffee drinker, but you have to admit: Starbucks , is Starbucks.  It’s just plain old TASTY. 

Starbucks here is not nearly as popular as in the US, so there are a lot fewer Starbucks shops to be found.  Part of the reason is that, like in the US, it’s ridiculously expensive and, because of the exchange rate, even more so here.

Yeah, it was tasty, but I won’t be going there too terribly often.  Besides, there are way too many other cafés to try out.

That’s another thing about the culture here: in the US, coffee tends to be a way to take a quick rest, rejuvenate, and maybe chat with someone for a short bit.  A coffee break is short pause; a tiny lull in the midst of the normal chaos that constitutes life.  It puts you back on your feet quickly so you can focus in better at sorting all that Chaos out.

That’s not true here.  Here, a coffee break is forty five minutes.  Really, it can take the whole afternoon.  You sit, smell, drink, and enjoy not only the coffee and the company of those you sit with, but of the area you are sitting in.  Yes the coffee wakes you back up and rejuvenates you, but the difference between the US and Germany is that you don’t drink the coffee specifically because it will wake you back up.  You drink it mostly because it just tastes good. 

Case in Point: Every coffee shop I have been to in the US has spots for you to sit back and chill for a spell, but they give you a cup that you can take on the move if you so choose.  Here, every coffee shop I have been to has spots for you to sit back and relax, and they give you a big, ceramic mug that you can’t take with you.  They just expect you complete the metaphor: chill pill = coffee break.  Catch up with friends, clear your head, or just people watch for a bit.  Or just enjoy that delicious smell of freshly brewed coffee.

Spring is in the air here, and from what I’ve gathered on Facebook, the same is true back home.  On the agenda this week: college work.

And more college work.

And then a Physiks exam where, with any luck, I'll be able to answer half of a question correctly.  Sadly, I am not blowing things out of proportion there.  This is not only Physics, it's calculus and Physiks. 

Yay?

Over and out,

Shannon

**It has recently come to my attention that Pennsbury is NOT intense as regards spirit week.  Only for Falcon Friday do we get all dolled up.  I apologize for the misconception.

If something is continually late, doesn't that make it on time, and the stuff that's “on time” merely early??

I’m sorry the blog is late again this week.  I was sick on Wednesday and, after some much needed rest, I realized that I may have been pushing myself just a tad too hard.  I think that’s what caused the whole “sick-day Wednesday” bit seeing as, after the world’s longest nap EVER, I was like 90% recovered. 

After taking a mental chill pill, I reminded myself that Rome was not built in a day.

Or a week.

I’m not going to be fluent in a language composed of nearly a million words after only
a month and a half of work.  Now, I’m no math whiz, but something there just doesn’t add up.

That being said, I’m really hoping it’s not gonna take a thousand years either.

Anyway, to help banish the last 10% of illness, I had Doener for lunch on Thursday and Friday.

And Monday. 

Note to self:  Just because Elizabeth Gilbert could afford to gain 28 pounds on her
trip across the globe does not mean that I can.  My budget is not robust enough to
accommodate such dramatic re-wardrobing.  Though not for lack of effort, I assure you.

Aside from my self prescribed remedy of eating entirely too much Doener, I discovered something AMAZING on TV last Friday: 

ABC’s “Castle” auf Deutsch.

For those of you who live in a hole and don’t know this, the World Awesome factor of “Castle” is greater than that of discovering a world in which Jack Bauer crash lands on a remote island with a smoke monster. 

AKA: World Awesome Factor = Ridiculously High.

Oh Friday, like you really needed another feather in your cap.

On Saturday, the day I usually write the majority of my blog, I relaxed.  Chilled out. Did some things in English (the horror! The horror!). 

But as soon as I pronounced myself A-OK, I was back at it; my host family and I went to Bremerhaven on Sunday, an old port at the mouth of the Weser River.  Although it was a gorgeous day, it was still a tad too cold to wander the coast much, so we spent the vast majority of the day in the Klimahaus— the climate museum.

Don’t give me that look.  I’ll be honest: when my host family first told me there was a really cool museum on climate, I gave them the “The Climate Museum is ‘cool’?  You mean ‘cool’ as in ‘cold’ right?” look, the same one you’re probably giving the computer screen right now (unless you’re a meteorologist, in which case, I apologize for the latter remarks).  After looking at the website though, I was as excited to go to the Klimahaus as I get when we to go to the National Indian Museum in Washington DC.

The NIM has legitimately fantastic exhibits, not to mention Mexican Hot Chocolate.  I get more excited to go there than I do for a soccer game.

Oh yes.  It’s is that awesome.

Anyway, the Klimahaus is a HUUUUGE museum that takes you on a trip all along the 8^th degree of longitude, stopping at 8 different locations.  In addition to showing and telling you about the area that you are “visiting”, they show and tell you about a family from that area.  You see and hear them talk about their daily routines, their lives, what they love, like, dislike, and why they do what they do in that particular location. 

The Klimahaus has a very different way of presenting their material: they truly transport you to each of the locations, and every technique used to do so is amazingly subtle, yet profoundly effective.  The Klimahaus does not decorate, they recreate.  For instance: in the Sahara exhibit, the floor isn’t a floor at all.  It’s sand.

Sand!

They even altered the scent and temperature of the rooms, so while you may not be dying of heat in the Sahara, it is definitely hot!

On the other hand, they also take you to Antarctica; and let you wander through a snow-filled room chilled to 0 degrees Celsius; it was cold, but also cool.  

At the end of it all is the Postcard Room, where, surprisingly, you can buy postcards and ship them wherever your heart desires.

Everyone understands that I say “surprisingly” with complete sarcasm, right??

I won’t go into any more detail because the Klimahaus is truly an experience; you gotta go, see, listen, and learn.  I promise: you’ll be tired at the end of it, but it’s that wonderful, “wow what a wicked-stellar day” kind of tired.

On a different-ish note, the Klimahaus also brought to the fore what has long been lurking at the back of my mind: German Architecture.

Stop with that look already!

A lot of people may not know this, but Germany is considered the origin of many of today’s modern Architectural forms, Functionalism being the most prominent among them.  And though the “architectural rebirth” that started here is past its prime, I can see its effects in a hundred different places just riding the bus in the morning.

And I’m not even really awake then.  

Klimahaus Outside View

But anyway, I mention all this architecture stuff because half of what draws you into the Klimahaus is what it looks like from the outside.  The little book I picked up there describes the building as looking “squat” from the outside, but that’s certainly not how you feel once you step inside…

Klimahaus Entrance Hall

See what I mean??  And that’s just one of the many architectural wonders that flood the port of Bremerhaven.  The city has said that it’s tired of being known as “run-of-the-mill”, and hopes that the Klimahaus will do for it, what the Guggenheim did for Bilbao, Spain.  

Mission accomplished Bremerhaven.  Mission.  Accomplished.

As far as school last week goes, it was pretty chill.  The longer I’m here, the more I learn, the less I make mistakes.  Which means that you, dear readers, will be reading fewer and fewer stories about whirling laundry.

Hopefully.

Although, me attempting to speak German with a Russian accent on Wednesday did lead to some

interesting misunderstandings in Theater…

That being said, Math was pretty interesting last week.  We have two books for math; the first is a big pit of incomprehension, and the second is a slightly smaller pit of incomprehension.

We put down the big pit, and started filling in the small pit.  It was great!!  The first formula my teacher put on the board was “y=mx+b”.

I never thought I’d be so happy to see slope intercept form.  My excitement was short lived however, seeing as we quickly put that down and picked up “Kartesisches Koordinatensystem im Raum”.

We went from the lovely little coordinate plane on the left, to that monstrosity on the right.   

  

Apparently the small pit of incomprehension is a lot deeper than I thought.

It’s not so bad though; I went home on Tuesday and looked up the topic in English.  I’ve got a decent handle on what we did last Tuesday, what we did this week though?  Let’s just say that’s a bit of a different story…

After Math Tuesday, some friends and I met up to study for the English Klaseur we had on Thursday.  A Klauseur here is basically a midterm, so it’s like super-duper-mega-ridiculously-important.  We spoke mostly in English seeing as, for one, it was good practice for the exam, and for another, although I’m fairly good at speaking German now, switching between and English and German every other sentence is still ridiculously tough.

In my defense, I did try to switch back and forth at the beginning of the session, but when it got to the point that I was literally sitting with my head in my hands trying to figure out what language I was speaking, I decided that, for the sake of sanity, I should really just stick to English for a bit.

So yeah, that’s it for the past two weeks really.  I got a bunch of stuff on the agenda for this week again, including another Baskets game next Sunday (yeah!!).  On the Tuesday though, I take the History exam.

Oh boy.

More to come next Sunday,

Over and out,

Shannon

Except not really....

As a PS: This blog has several purposes: for me to keep track of my adventures and progress yes, but also to entertain, and to keep in touch with people at home.  Of the three, I find that latter two to be of utmost importance.  Please, don’t hesitate to tell me what you like or dislike.  If you’ve a question: ask it!!  If I don’t know the answer right away, all I have to do to find it is walk around the corner.  Much easier for me to do that, than for you to take a plane from wherever you are to Oldenburg.  Especially since Oldenburg doesn’t have an airport.  Makes landing a bit tricky…

On the serious side, this is an exchange.  The point is to learn; two heads are better than one, and a hundred heads are better than two.  The more you all ask, the more we all learn.