Wow, jumpy much?

Announcements, announcements:

First, to all of you who ever wondered how to say “Milk” in German, it’s “Milch”.  And it’s pronounced practically the same exact way. 

To be clear: “milk” is NOT “Lebnigsezten”.

But thanks for the hysterical bout of laughter Sara.  Best Thursday EVER.

Second, wishing you a very Happy Birthday Grandpop!  Hope you enjoyed buckets of Rum Raisin ice cream.  And maybe some Roadrunner Rasberry.  Or Key lime Pie.  Or Pumpkin Pie.  Or…

Oh.  Sorry.  Side tracked again.

But not really.  Remember how I mentioned there’s such a thing as Hazelnut ice cream in Germany?  Turns out there’s Hazelnut yogurt too.  I got ridiculously excited when I found some in the fridge after Gym on Friday. 

Yes.  Yogurt.  Gym class consumed my supply of spare chill pills, thus there were none left to take the edge off of my latest discovery. 

Btdubs:  gym class was actually a soccer gym class.  Yes.  I thought that might explain the need for so many chill pills (chill pill=metaphor for chilling out a bit, fyi…)

On Fridays, I normally just go home, start my blog, and chill a bit.  But this week, out of curiosity, I went to a soccer gym class instead. 

So.  Much.  Fun.  We did some running, a short soccer drill or two, a game similar to “Fishy Fishy cross the sea” but not really, and after that, we just played.

And played and played and played and played.

I was a forward/midfielder rather than goalkeeper (my usual position).  Several good reasons for this:

 One, we had a game on Saturday and I didn’t want to get injured beforehand.

Two, it’s nice to play the field on occasion.

Three, there were a bunch of very tall German men in the class, and I really didn’t feel like losing any teeth.

How cowardly of me. 

Anyway, my real point here is that the Hazelnut yogurt was a welcome reprieve from the language battle that was taking place in my brain.  See, the thing is, I’ve been playing soccer for 15 years, and for most of that time, I’ve been very vocal on the field.  Always shouting and directing and calling the wrong brown-haired ponytail by the wrong name.  It’s never really mattered to me if it was a pick-up game at recess, gym class, practice, a game on TV, etc.  When it comes to soccer, I am just obnoxiously loud. 

And 15 years of English obnoxiousness does not just magically disappear.

Show of hands, how many of you are familiar with the term “muscle memory”?  How many of you actually raised your hands even though you’re reading from a computer screen?

If you raised your hand, you’ve proved my point.  Muscle memory is almost exactly what it sounds like: your muscles remember how to do things.  Or rather, by repeating the motion a whole heck of a lot, your brain forms “neural pathways” or something, which makes the motion more an instinctual reaction, rather than a movement you
have to think about. 

I did a bit of research here, and it turns out that the voice is also a muscle.  You use certain muscles to operate your voice, move your lips, and your jaw.  Thus the whole muscle memory idea can also be applied to speaking. 

Well, that’s my theory at least.  If you think I had it bad with Physics, you
don’t even want to touch the topic of Biology class…

Back to my point though: 15 years of training has cemented in me the instinct to shout and react in English.  That’s 15 years of muscle memory to overcome.  It’s a wonder my brain doesn’t have… a brain attack?... after each time I play a round of soccer here.   I just get so freaking confused in the language sector afterwards. My head was so twisted up yesterday that I couldn't ask, in English or German, "are you biking home now? Or do you still have classes"?  I ended up saying the following sentence, word for word:

“You.  Home.  With bike.  Now”?

Yes.  I sounded like I was an early student of English rather than a somewhat advanced student of German.  Oh the trials of language immersion.

And the joy and hilarity too.

Sorry, another side note:  If this post seems more random and jumpy than usual, it’s because I’ve got my windows thrown wide open to let in the Summer atmosphere.  Clear blue skies, the warm glint of the sun, gentle breeze, and absolutely no snow.

To those of you in the Northeast, all I can say is: HA! 

But, to give you a bit of ammunition against me, they have a saying about April here:  “April, April er macht, was er will”. 

Which translates to: “April, April, he does what he wants”. 

It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that April may invite Jack Frost back for a visit.

 And now back to soccer:  I mentioned earlier that we had game yesterday:  we won!!! And while winning is always a very enjoyable achievmement, it was a 3-0 victory against a rivalry team.

Oh it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, but not so much for the neighbor, cause we beat ‘em into the dust, Tra lala lala la…

I am a totally different person when it comes to soccer.  I must apologize.  There really is just no excuse for me.

OK, I’m done with the whole soccer bit (for now) so for those of you non-sports fans can zone back in now if you like.

School this week was pretty cool.  We worked some more with poems in German, comparing “Spinnerin Nachtlied” to one of the poems we had read earlier.  I also found out that we’ll be starting a book this week:  “Lieutenant Gustl” but Arthur Schnitzler.

I’m just as eager to see how this pans out as you are.

Then, in History, we talked about another one of my favorite people: Machiavelli!!!  My teacher went on a whole tirade about how to pronounce his name and how Italian pronunciation rules work and, huh.

It was pretty awesome.

On Tuesday I had my first legit FREE period in a very long time, so some friends and I went to Woyton. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but Woyton is basically the German equivalent of Starbucks.  Where I live in the US, if you’re going to go out and meet with someone over a cup of coffee, you’ll usually do so at Starbucks, or someplace that offers Starbucks.  Here? You’d probably go to a Woyton.

After Tuesday’s free period, I had math.  Luckily there was only one math class this week.  Sadly, I doodled through a lot of it.  Sorry!  I had a clue what was going on two weeks ago or so, but I haven’t had time to look up an English version of the stuff, thus I am once again lost.  OK.  Next chapter please?

As for the other Math class, it got cancled because all 11^th graders taking Bio had to attend an assembly. 

A very, very, dry and very, very, boring assembly from what I’ve heard.  The kids that were originally glad to skip their normal class suddenly found themselves reappraising that opinion... 

I have never heard so many poor people wishing they were in Economics class instead.

In defense of the assembly, I wasn’t actually there seeing as I don’t have bio, so all the info I have relayed about said assembly comes from second hand accounts.  However, of the all second hand accounts I received, maybe half of one was positive: 

“Well, it ended.  So that was good”.

In Physics on Wednesday… I’m not really certain what we did.  But on Friday we talked about light and I answered a question.

Correctly.

In front of the whole class.

And I said it all in German.  Though admittedly, the entire response was only one word:

“Ja”. 

This is definitely progress.

In my seventh grade German class on Wednesday, my student-teacher had her Final exam, which I think went really really well.  We worked with a poem called “John Maynard” and, although I understood the words themselves, I really don’t understand the poem as a whole.  I am now at the point where I can have a half coherent conversation, but I still can’t understand a seventh grade level poem.  Alright then.  Thursday’s English class was probably the most interesting class of the week.  In it, we read a beautiful speech by the Australian Prime Minister, delivered in 2008.

It was an apology to the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.  It was sincere, it was heartfelt, and it was very, very powerful.  Watch the speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XtUJTbQaN0

It’s a series of 3 videos, each approximately 10 minutes, so if you’d prefer to read the speech (understandable) then you can do so here: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/13/1202760379056.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

I always enjoy English class here because, even though it’s my native language, and thus the work is relatively easy for me, there really is always something entirely new to learn; some entirely new perspective or idea to explore and understand. Take, for instance, the idea of an apology for both Slavery and what we did to the Native Americans.  Now, after some research, it turns out that we did apologize for slavery and for our actions against the Native Americans.  These apologies were, however, rather limited.  They state merely that we realize we were wrong, but do not take any steps towards fixing the issues that remain.  For example, there are still several rather large issues that remain unresolved between our nation and the Native American nations, which, for those of you who do not know, are indeed their own nations.

When you apologize for something, you’re not supposed to qualify the statement.  If you do, well… it’s no longer really an apology, is it?  I dunno.  Perhaps I’m just reading too much into this.  I was up until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning the past few nights, and sleep deprivation does tend to cloud your vision a bit.

That was pretty much it for school.  I did, however, learn a lot about German music in the past week or two.  First, an a cappella group called “The Wise Guys”.  VERY COOL.  I especially enjoy the song “Willst du mit mir gehen?”.  I don’t understand the whole thing, but the essential points are that it’s a guy using some (cheesy?) pickup lines to attract someone. However, the last bit of the song is “I am so cool.  Will you go out with me”.  So really, the song is just about him thinking he’s cool, but not really.

One of the pickup lines is “I’ve forgotten my phone number.  Can I borrow yours?”

Here’s a link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2wW5ih1r80

Then some friends introduced me to some German Rock: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRIiB2WIwcc

And another one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VPHeYKLVfU

Both of them are really good.  Haven’t had time to look at other songs by these artists though, let you know what I find next week.

Last but not least: I was at a friend’s house yesterday, and someone mentioned Pachabel.

Fellow AP Euro students, even if you have retained none of the legit history, you should ALL know what’s coming here…

Pachabel’s Rant.

Yes:  I introduced them to “Pachabel’s Rant”, which is basically pure awesomeness turned into a song about a composer who was horribly mean to Cellists. 

Here’s the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

I was first made aware of this masterpiece in my Junior year AP Euro class.  Our teacher sent it to us the night before the test to ensure that we didn’t study to hard…

It worked.

So… yups.  That’s it for the past week.  On the agenda for this coming week?  Some of the kids in the 11^th grade leave for a three week stint in the US.  I wish them the best of luck, and I know they’ll have a blast!!!

Over and out,

Shannon

PS:  I added the new gadget that lets you follow the blog via email.  You don't have to keep checking back to see if I've posted something new, you'll just get an email and POOF: there's The Blog.

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