Wins all over the place!

Soooo...
what was today?
I started the day with dismay:
After I had gone jogging yesterday without a jacket in short sleeves, it was snowing today. Actually thick flakes! And they were starting to cover the ground ... :/

So I hurried to the bus, and I don't know whether all the others simply missed it or didn't go to school, but we were two kids. Usually it's about five to seven.

First lesson: Entrepreneurship.
The guy I was complaining about took great care of being polite to me - or so at least it seemed to me. Well, we were both trying to be nice, because we do have to work together for a couple more months.
We split up the tasks for the presentation and showed our PowerPoint Presentation to Mr Kletke, who praised us for it.
And he also praised my Vision and Mission statement, saying "They're good. They're both too long, but they're so good that I wouldn't change it."
It wasn't all my "fault," the boys, I think, added one or two words here or there, but I am proud of my language, and I tried my best to use my skills in a way there, that would have at least a little impact on them.

Second lesson: MMA. Boxing!
After warming up, I was paired up with the most experienced Boxer, who taught me a couple of simple moves.
At the end of the lesson, I "sparred" with my teacher - he was of course holding back, but I was anyway sweating at the end of it.
"Don't just hit my gloves, aim for my head!", which I did. And I got a couple of jabs onto my nose, too, but he pulled them always before they could make real impact.

Lunch was too short. I got only half of my pulled-pork sandwich down before I had to hurry to Math!

We started on the next topic there, Radians. I have never heard of them in German, but it's not too bad. I'll just have to take a real careful look over the holidays.

Creative Writing was mostly free writing time today.
We had one exercise, "6 word stories" (for example: My biggest mistake was loving you. A story in six words. Or, my personal favourite of my own tries: It kills me to see suicides.), and after that we were supposed to work on our big project, but I rather wrote up what had happened yesterday where I ranted on my blog :)

I caught the bus home, didn't go to the mall, and I guess I'll do that on the weekend... I have to prepare for the Dragon's Den challenge!
I remoulded my mouthguard, and it feels a lot better now, to be honest.
Almost comfortable!

It's also not lopsided anymore...

But yeah, now to my blog title:
The Blackhawks kept me on my toes, to start with.

They had a 1-0 lead over the visiting Avalanche (whom they play again on Friday and all in all three times in less than two weeks!), but by the end of the first, it was tied at 1. And by the end of the second, it was 2-1 - for the Avalanche, and Andrew Shaw, who had scored Chicago's first goal, had left the rink due to a big hit.
Second period started great: Avalanche on a powerplay, put out 5 forwards, Bolland gets the puck, feeds it to Toews who scores a beauty. Tied at 2.

Then Sharpy, Patrick Sharp, second line center, is checked into the boards and leaves for the dressing room clutching his left arm (no official announcement as to his condition), but Chicago manages thanks to Daniel Carcillo to extend their point-streak - and their win streak.
Carcillo potted his first of the season with less than 50 seconds (49.3) remaining in the third period.

Now the Blackhawks have a couple of records at the moment:

• longest win-streak in Chicago Blackhawks history (11)
• longest point-streak to begin a season (24 games, 21-0-3)
• Ray Emery, tonight's goal tender for the Hawks, is 10-0-0 this season, the best start any goalie in NHL history has ever had (no goalie has ever started a season with ten wins!)
• They are second place for longest streak with one point - 30 games and counting (they left off last season with 3-0-3, so they're 24-0-6 over all). They only have to catch the Flyers of 78/79, I think, with 35 games in which they recorded at least one point...

And yeah, it was  tight - but they should have lost. Seriously. The odds were so against them - it wasn't just that neither Shaw nor Sharp could finish the game, but Marián Hossa was a late scratch with an undisclosed upper-body injury and Michael Frolik was sick...
So they were four forwards short by the end of it! (As a result Toews was on the ice for a team-high 22:57 minutes out of sixty, followed by Kane with 22:15, and as Toews's Right Wing Hossa and Kane's Center Sharp were out of the game, I think they even saw some ice time together :) which they don't usually this season)

Yeah, and then there was this second hockey game... Kelowna Rockets vs Victoria Royals.

And it should have been an easy victory, as the Rockets have a way better record than the Royals and beat them just a short while ago 7-2 or something like that.
That game... Andy, Tanya and Bob watched it live, and they said it was pretty lame... or at least not one of the best games the Rockets have ever played.

The best players of the game? Okay, Dylan McKinely (I think the best forward on the team?) and Madison Bowey (best defense man of the Rockets, has chances of being a first round draft pick this year.) And then?
Rookies Rourke Chartier and Cole Linaker (that are the two I have a picture with!).
They got the assists in the goal that tied the game at 2 in the second period, and after Bowey managed to tie the game at 3 with only seconds remaining in the third period and there was no goal in OT, Chartier saved the game in the shootout:
After five shooters on both side had all been denied by the goalies, Chartier was the only one to score at all!

And of course, Andy's teasing me ("Chartier got a point and we thought of you!") just because I was able to talk to Chartier and then wanted to share the information I had gotten (to make it settle down properly in my memory), so I was talking a fair bit about him (and Mr Wishlow, but that of course was ignored in favour of teasing me -_-) ... with things like "Guess who was in the penalty box!" ... Deadpan voice: "Chartier?"
Not really funny, sorry. At least not to me.

So, and tomorrow we're doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu! :)

See you then!

Weeeeeeekeeeeeeend!

And it's greatly needed - a lot of tests and stuff and so on and so on...

Well, anyway, everything's fine here, lemme tell you.
I've overcome my bad stretch more or less - the only pressure I still feel is having to choose my subjects for next year. It seems so absolutely early! But it's not - my classmates here got their course choice sheets the day before yesterday!

I don't know what I'm gonna choose, to be honest - as in, I'm not completely sure, and at the moment I feel like I'd prefer to stay at the GN.
We'll keep both options open, though!

Lara's friend, who is also a friend of mine, is getting her exchange partner today!
It's really exciting, and the only sad thing is that she'll be in Canada when I'm back again - in Calgary, to be exact, and if she'd been here while I was still here, too, we could have texted (since you really don't get by without a texting plan, it's so expensive!)... But I really hope everything's gonna go well for her - changing host families is nigh impossible if you are on a traditional exchange, I imagine!
Anyway, school was ... alright today.

We had cultural assembly, and Jan, the German from my Math class, and I went together since we came from the same class and sat with the other Germans. The theatre piece shown was really weird. Until the end I wasn't sure whether it was satirical or serious, and that was really startling.
Usually I love getting out of Math, but today was seriously inconvenient - we were writing a quiz (which I had totally forgotten about), but I could answer everything. It was just a bit rushed, so I wasn't able to confirm my findings :/

Well, the exam was bumped from Monday to Tuesday (yay), and ... I think that was it.
Spanish was even productive today - and I was asked "From which school did you go before?" So I was like "Eeeerr... a normal German one?" And the other girl looks at me "You're German?!" :)
I was mistaken for a Canadian! Yay!
(and my reputation as being the one to ask - I refuse to say know-it-all, because I try not to get into peoples' faces and volunteer too much information - is growing :) not that I mind...)

Anyway, if you're stressed, check out the most relaxing tune ever - it's really great, 8 minutes long, and I've been listening to it for a while now...

And my eyes are drooping now, so I'm signing off - it's anyway already later than I had intended to! :)

See ya!

Julia

P.S.: Even though no-one is interested in it: The Blackhawks are 18-0-3, so they're on a 27-game point streak (they ended last season 3-0-3) and at the moment on an 8-game win streak! And their start this season is a 21-game point streak :o
And 21 is almost 50% of the season (48 games) - 43%, to be exact! :D
Proud to cheer for the team (although the game was incredibly tight - down by one after the first, up by one - 3-2 - after the second and tied after the third... A beautiful pass from Toews allowed Seabrook to win the game - "I didn't know he would pass to me. He didn't even look at me once" I just tuned in to Over Time, as I was still doing my Spanish project before that :) )

Tired Thursday

So, the Blackhawks have extended their no-regulation-loss-streak to 20 out of 48 games, and I can finally go to bed - I am so tired, it is hard to believe!
Oh, and the Oilers are 3-0 after 2 periods, so I'm crossing my fingers there!

School was alright, I guess - it started with Math - and remember me complaining about the amount of work yesterday? Well, it was the homework for yesterday and today. So I didn't have any homework!
Tomorrow is review period and on Monday we have our test. But at least I am less prone to making silly mistakes with this topic!

Second block was Creative Writing. We wrote a journal entry - I am now at 27/14 and then watched Inocente - a documentary which got an Oscar, if I'm not mistaken. It's pretty good, about a homeless artist girl.

Lunch ... was spent reading, and I went to the wrong classroom afterwards - Spanish instead of Entrepreneurship.
In the latter I have tried taking more of the lead in our project - out group was a bit headless ;)
(And can you see how many dashes I am using? It's a testament of how tired I am)

Spanish was ... not too bad. I spent most of my time on facebook, as we had laptops to work on our group project, but who cares? I can do that project on the weekend.

After school we had Journalism, and Mr M just signed off my articles - I have three in the upcoming newspaper!
 We had pizza and Ginger Ale (which is the best drink ever), and it was all around a very nice time.

And then I was just dicking around on the Blackhawks page, because I had nothing better to do, and was like: What the hell, why is it already 1-0? Well, Toews scored 12 seconds into the game :) Finally! I think he went four games or so without a point!

Well, and my eyes are burning because I am so tired, so I'm signing off.

I'm thinking of you!

Julia

Coincidences

Have you ever heard of those?

I have the weirdest time right now:
Back last semester, when there were 8 to 11 Rockets players enrolled at KSS, I didn't really see a single one - and I always watched the masses to see the grey sweaters with the Ogopogo Monster emblem on the right side.
But to no avail - I would glimpse the sweaters, or something that might have been similar sweaters, but never really.
And now, where there are only 4 Rockets left at KSS (the rest graduated already), I keep seeing them everywhere.
Yesterday, for example, I almost ran over Chartier - okay, it would probably better to say that he almost ran be over, since he has something close to a foot and  more than 30 pounds on me, but fact is that he was hurrying through the hallway with his eyes lowered, I was hurrying through the hallway with my eyes glued to my kindle (no, I can't even stop reading for that long) and I looked up at the last moment basically and managed to jump into my classroom - but it was close.
And then I was waiting outside for Andy to pick me up - and guess who's standing maybe 15 feet away from me? Two guys clad in grey Rockets sweaters!
And today, while I was supposed to be in class, I excused myself to get my headphones out of my locker, and I think it's obvious whom I met in the completely deserted hallways, right? Chartier and the last Rocket.

Since I embarrassed myself with one question (I asked him what it felt like to be down on ice level when the National Anthem was sung and then clarified I meant standing on the blue line - being the starting line -, which is not something a rookie like Chartier would experience... And I didn't realize it until much, much later, so duh), I only ducked my head and took the stairs two at a time...
But I could have handled that smoother.

Other than that ... school was alright.
Since I'm running on way too little sleep (I just can't go to bed), I handed in the wrong, incomplete version of an assignment and got a C- for it, by far my worst grade this year. I hope I can remedy that tomorrow by presenting the correct version.

And in Creative Writing we formed Palindromes - poems you can read from top to bottom and they are dark, and then you read all the lines in reverse order - starting with the bottom most line and then going upwards (you're still reading the words in the correct order, it's only the lines that have changed).
Here is my attempt. The content isn't superb, but they're hard enough to write as it is, not to mention to find content:

They'd broken up three years ago
Even after having lied that
They loved each other
They didn't
All they did was mock and hurt
We'd thought
That they would get married
It was quite the shock

And now read it from the bottom up! :)
It was really cool to do that!

And that's about it... Nothing interesting...

Have a great day!

Julia

Just another Manic Monday

Not really, it was a rather chill day.

We had another two poets in English today, Valerie Mason John and Adelene de la Soul, two black women for Black History Month, and they showed us some of their (uncensored - Mr D rocks!) poems.
And then they asked us to perform our poems - and Lolu recited his amazing spoken word poem, and then I volunteered to read Mundane...
Lolu's was of course better received, but I am happy enough as it is (and Lolu's poem is just breath taking, so duh.)

Math was ... boring as ever. I have permanently said goodbye to my 100%, as I simply can't do that in Math (I keep making stupid mistakes like overlooking a minus or writing -4 but instead adding for and some such sh*t). I got 89.65% (44/49) on my last test - class average was 76.31%. Seriously.
I can't complain, can I?

I got half-way through my homework while he was still explaining the topic, but once I caught on, it really wasn't hard.
And he assigned us #1-11 (usually with a-d or a-f) and "Try #14, but most of you won't manage"... and seriously?
It only didn't work out for me because I (surprise, surprise) multiplied by (-1) and forgot to turn one of the minuses into a plus. Wow.
As soon as I caught that mistake it was easy - it was just a Gleichungssystem mit zwei Variablen. An equation system with two variables. Did we do that in grade 8? Or even already in Grade 7?

Lunch I spent in Mr Derksen's room, looking at vids by his son :) With Lolu and Taylor, and it was kinda fun.

Spanish was seriously unexciting (do you see how I'm trying to find different words for boring?), and we're doing another group project. They're so tedious - I don't want to work in groups, why can't she just assign us our topic and let us all work in peace?

And Entrepreneurship... I think we've had one lesson where all five of us were present.
And I'd just like somebody to take the lead (not me, 'cause I'm the youngest and the boys are all three years or so older than me and it was their idea to begin with) and tell me what to do instead of leaving me to hang alone, doing some sh*t and then being all passive-aggressive about how I'm not doing anything.
(I was doing Math since every question of mine resembling "What can I do?" was met either with stony silence or shrugs and seriously unhelpful suggestions)

After school, Andy picked me up, we dropped our bags off at home, took Jenna and Bob with us, dropped Jenna off at arts, dropped Bobby off at her grandparents, went to the mall, got me top up for my phone account, drove home, I went for a walk and Andy had dinner and then left for some meeting of his.
And I kept him updated on the Oilers (his team) and Blackhawks game (my team).
He'd been telling  about how the Oilers were gonna defeat the Hawks all day long, and it really did seem like that was going to happen - the Hawks got a five on four powerplay, only for Keith to stumble in Center Ice, lose the puck and give the Oilers a short handed goal in a seriously unfortunate row of coincidences.

But Patrick Kane answered only 62 seconds later with a Power Play goal - still on the same penalty as the Oilers had scored.
And then in the second, the Oilers managed to get another goal in and keep the Hawks from retaliating.
But fortunately, Kruger managed to pot one in and they actually kept that tie until regulation ran out, and Hoss sealed the deal in Over Time - Hawks still undefeated in regulation, 19 games into their 48 game season (they have now 39 points. Estimated for reaching the play offs is 65 points... I'm crossing my fingers!)

So yeah, that game was seriously exciting - especially since the goal by Kruger seemed like it hadn't gone in (video review from Ontario said it was a good goal, though, so yay!).
You should have heard the United Center, Chicago's stadium, erupt in cheers at the declaration the goal was good!
No wonder it's called Mad House on Madison Street, and other teams are intimidated by how loud it gets in there!

So, have a good night! (and congrats to everybody who has suffered through my inevitable hockey stuff :) )

Julia

Good day

Today was a rather great day! (Again, they're kinda accumulating?)

Although I (again) didn't get nearly enough sleep, I was in a pretty good mood this morning (I don't remember either my alarm clock going off nor me switching it off, but I woke up one minute after it was supposed to have gone off...) and made it to school just fine - my backpack was wonderfully light as I was able to leave my Math book and notebook in my locker (no homework due to test day!), and then we had Spanish.
I got 10/10 on my vocab quiz - which, please excuse me, was totally ridiculous.

We were allowed to complete it in group work, only for her to collect it and mark it. GROUP work - teacher approves cheating!

Anyway, no surprises there! Then we learned a bit more of the new grammar, also not really hard, and then it was Entrepreneurship.

We had to complete an exercise which CiCi and I couldn't take part in, so I wrote an e-mail to the guesthouse in Hermanus, South Africa, my parents and I stayed in when we travelled there, and I exchanged a couple of e-mails with their daughter before that exchange died down, and the mother at least still remembers me! (I just got the return e-mail!) And now I'm close to happy tears, because that was such a beautiful time and everything...

Lunch I spent, as always, in Mr Derksen's room, and we had a great conversation with two other students. Amongst the topics: Teachers who feel threatened by students (cough, coughIrlyPenzicough, cough) and Drama Arts :)

I got the pictures from Mr Wishlow, too - they're pretty blue, for some reason, so I hope Mr Manderioli can work with them!

After lunch, we had a guest speaker in Creative Writing. Professor Jake Kennedy ("Hi, I'm Jake") and his daughter visited us! (Her babysitter was sick)

And he read a couple of poems to us (they were from a series titled "Fuck off, asshole", and every poem ended with the line "Fuck off, asshole". They were poems from him to himself :D ) while his daughter was reading in the corner, and he was really cool.

One funny thing happened though:

Mr D's classroom

Jake was speaking and switched suddenly into this really ... old, big-worded English.
And that's exactly what Mr D always teases me about, and that was what we had talked about with Taylor before the lesson began.
And I was just thinking about it, when I heard Mr D's hissed Julia!, so I turned around and he was just grinning at me and waggling his eyebrows. I had to fight against the laughter so hard, it was really bad!

Well, the lesson was super interesting and we could ask a couple of really awesome questions, but since it took longer than expected, I was late for Math (okay, I might have had one or two more questions for Mr Derksen, and I listened to Lolu perform his spoken word poem - which was so breathtakingly and stunningly amazing - so it was more like half an hour than the five minutes I had intended). We just had a sub and I had a late notice, but I had missed the explanation of our new chapter:
Polynomial Functions.

What did I do? While she was busy explaining examples for the class, I grabbed my textbook and read through the key notes. And then I started on the homework. So I don't really have any notes, but I already finished half of the assigned homework, and it was ... one of the best Math lessons I've had here?
Yeah, Math is pretty boring, unfortunately. We just chew on everything for such a long time!

Andy picked me up and we cancelled my membership in the gym I was going to, because the stress of encountering Marina again would have been too great - illustrated by the fact that I almost had a panic attack (this weird taste on my tongue, body tingeling, heart rate speeding up) when I thought she'd come into the gym (she hadn't).

At home, all of Jenna's friends had already arrived for her birthday party sleep over (one month late, but there was no earlier date), so I dropped my stuff off in my room, played two rounds of Rummy with Bob and then there was Tacos for dinner.

I showered, watched a couple of minutes of the Blackhawks game and was seriously happy:

Explanation: The Blackhawks now have 17 games into the season (more than 1/3) without a regulation loss. They now hold the record for longest point-streak to open an NHL season!
And the LA Kings? They lost twice to the Blackhawks, thus 2/17 of the credit.
In my opinion the best response there is to such news :) (they were the only team to congratulate, though, I think)

And there was also this nice gesture from Marián Hossa, who everybody already feared had a concussion again!

I thought this gesture was just so great ...

On a related note:
The Rockets won 8-3 at Victoria tonight! Go Rockets Go!
Anyway, I don't believe I will get to go to sleep any time soon, so I'll go and tidy up my room!

Have a great weekend!

Julia

Rockets Wednesday

So, I've got about an hour starting from now (11 p.m.) to write my blog entry and finish everything up - mother's orders (plus Andy's orders, so there's no way I can not do it).

I'm super relaxed. Even though we have two tests tomorrow and I am less than well prepared.

I woke up this morning, almost fell back asleep, pulled on my American Eagle Sweater, pulled my Canada Olympics sweater over it, was still freezing, trudged upstairs, had a bowl of cereal, sleep-walked back downstairs, somehow managed to brush my teeth and even left the house at a decent hour. I thought I was late (8:28 a.m. at the bus stop), but I was still the first one!
As always, I read on the way to school, and once there, I grabbed my Spanish books out of my locker, checked whether Mr Wishlow was there (he wasn't, so I left him a note telling him it had been suggested we take the picture of him and Chartier at the rink) and hurried to my Spanish class - the teacher doesn't like us being late, like, not at all.

Didn't matter though, I was there half a minute or so before the bell rang.
We were assigned 6 pages or so of exercises in our work book, and I powered through them because I had Math to do, which I then did. I got pretty far, I dare say!

I took my Math stuff to Entrepreneurship, too, and while the boys in our group said they would come up with a different slogan for our project (they screwed around on fb and the web instead), I was doing Math (and designed a new logo whilst doing that).

Lunch was of course ESL - it's been changed to Wednesdays now, but Ms Snuggs wasn't there, so we had a sub - Mr Kletke's sub, and he still remembered me!

I dashed out of there though as soon as I could, dropped my stuff off in Mr Derksen's room, and went to see Mr Wishlow - I had told him I would drop by near the end of lunch - but he wasn't there again. On my way out, the other teacher in his class room stopped me and said "I have a message for you from Mr Wishlow", which basically just said he would drive me to the rink and he had his camera (it's a really nice camera).

I was so excited to go and see practice I almost squeaked, but I managed to contain myself ... that wouldn't have been dignified...

So I went back to Mr Derksen's room and wrote a bit in my journal - and I'm definitely doing the feelings-analyzation compilation...
In Creative Writing we did a thing on embellishment and adjectives, although I think I didn't use enough...

In the end we listened to a Brit explaining how to start writing your novel.

Math ... I know the stuff, but I keep making stupid mistakes - in the quadratic formula (Mitternachtsformel) I write under the the square root instead of 4ac 2ac and then I wonder why it doesn't work out the way it should, or I keep messing up plus and minus in the same formula...
I so hope I can concentrate tomorrow!

After Math ended, I packed up my school bag and went to Mr Wishlow's room, and he finished up what he was doing - he has a real snake skin hanging in his classroom: "I used to bring him to school while he was alive, and when he died the lady who owned him let me have him and we dissected him in class" - Him being a nine foot Python!

We took his truck to the rink - it was snowing slightly again - and then we walked around the building once until we found an unlocked door ("I usually would take the player's entrance, but they're changing right now...") in the office door. We went through the offices (it's beautiful, let me tell you! Milk-coffee coloured walls and pictures of past Rockets Teams and the Rockets when they won the playoffs...) to the ice and watched some of the guys skate for a moment, Mr Wishlow pointing out the goalie coach (second goalie coach for the LA Kings, when they won the Stanley Cup, he was flown down to coach their goalies and then also got a day with the Cup here in Kelowna!) and the assistant coach Dan Lambert, who played 10 years in Germany, before he talked to somebody, I don't know who, and we went to the shop.

I talked for a moment with the woman there while he got somebody to unlock the press box door - and the media have the most amazing view of the rink. Like, seriously, you can see everything and it's really awesome!

We ventured back downstairs after that, and watched the players take the ice - those that had been on the ice when we'd come in had gone back to the locker room where the guys who still go to school were changing, and they went over what they would do during this practice session.

Mr Wishlow stopped Chartier and another student whose name I didn't catch before they could take the ice and made me stand between them before taking a picture - and let me tell you I felt small - and talked to a couple of guys about school related things, before we watched practice for a moment.

When the last guys had taken the ice, he took me on a tour through the locker room ... it's pretty smelly to be honest, but what do you expect? There aren't any windows, and I still remember the change rooms at the Ritmo Dancing Studio.
The locker room was almost empty. In the middle, there were a couple of boxes - they have to get on the bus early tomorrow because they play in Victoria that afternoon, so most of their stuff was already packed up.

One guy was in the physio-therapist's room, because he's out with an injury, and I was introduced to him and the physio-therapist, but I was introduced to so many people that I not sure who he was - not the player, the player was Mitchell Wheaton, I think. (Everytime I was introduced, Mr Wishlow didn't so much as mention my name, I had to do that myself, but he always remarked that I am an exchange student and that I got into hockey here, but that my knowledge was pretty good :) )

He showed me the equipment room, and then took me up to the gym (pretty impressive, with a dozen or so stationary bikes, agility stuff and weights) and when we left, we encountered Mitch again.
My worries were totally unfounded. They were all super professional, and all the people I met off the ice were super nice. They all asked me things like "Where are you from?", "Where in Germany are you from?", "How do you like Canada?" and it was super great. And the Rockets were way more mature and professional than I had dared to hope - nothing at all like the boys their age back in Germany!

Before we left the locker room,Mr Wishlow got me a couple of things:

Unfortunately not signed, but it's anyway more than I could ask for! (They sell these game pucks with the logo for $5 at the store and I got mine for free - and it's one that's been played, by somebody who has good chances of becoming an NHL star!)

We went back out and watched practice for a bit, Mr Wishlow telling me about his coaching, about the Rockets' coaching, a bit of Trivia about the WHL and the organization and the Rockets and so on, and then on the other side of the ice a white haired guy was waving at us, but Mr Wishlow didn't notice.
The man made his way around to us, and I was introduced - to one of the most influential and knowledgeable people here in Western Canada: To Rockets Owner and WHL chair man Mr Bruce Hamilton - and he was also super nice, and nice and smooth as you would expect from such an influential man.

Unfortunately, Mr Wishlow had to leave then, but I watched a bit more of the practice before Andy picked me up.

So it was a really great afternoon, just Math and Spanish, the two tests we have tomorrow, came a bit too short...
Well, I'll manage. And I'm anyway way more relaxed than I used to be, so I'll draw the last graph tomorrow during Spanish or Entrepreneurship or lunch or so - I'm off to bed now!

Good night! :)

Happy Day

So, after pouring out my heart - I was of course disappointed today...
But let me start at the beginning - it was a pretty awesome day! (And this is gonna be a horribly detailed description of my day, instead of doing my Math stuff, but hey, I have a spare first thing tomorrow, so I can do that then!)

Okay, I woke up before my alarm, although I hadn't gone to bed too early - I'm really looking forward to the stress being over, which is probably after the next Math test.

I climbed out of bed, folded my pyjamas (yes, that's a thing I do now), pulled on my favourite sweater and a pair of jeans as well as some socks (because it's really cold in the mornings, but I can't go to sleep if it's too warm in my room) and made my bed, which is also something I do nowadays.

I ventured upstairs, the only one in the kitchen for a change - not that I was the first one up, that's usually Bob, but she was changing in her room - and made myself a peanut butter toast, because I totally forgot about the porridge in the fridge. Everybody else also flocked into the kitchen and had their breakfast, but I went back downstairs pretty quickly.
I brushed my teeth, packed my school bag (I have enough time in the mornings) and read a bit on my kindle, before going back upstairs to put my jacket and everything on.
And I usually try to leave the house at 8:23-ish, because I like not having to worry about the bus (that comes exactly at 8:30), but when I got upstairs, I realized that, yeah, I needed to make myself some lunch!
I'd totally forgotten about that and made my ham sandwich in record time - 90 seconds.
I got out of the door alright and was, like usually, the first one at the bus stop.
I checked my backpack for my Creative Writing Journal, because I had the nagging suspicion that it had still been lying on my desk when I left my room, and sure enough, it was nowhere to be found. But well, too late, and I anyway have twice as many entries as the rest of the class. That's a great advantage of always having to write my thoughts down.

The bus came pretty quickly after that and I boarded it, iPod on (playing Christmas songs, but I didn't have the heart to change it) sliding into my usual bench.

I propped my bag up next to me and made to get my Kindle out - and guess what was in the back pocket, too? My journal!
So I was in pretty good spirits as I read my usual twenty minutes to school, where I had Spanish first thing - block order is 21-43 - with a review test. I had totally forgotten about that, but wasn't the time to fret.

Since the door to the Spanish classroom was still locked, I headed to drop off my Math book and notebook in my locker (at literally the other end of the school) and pick up my books for Spanish, but the teacher was still nowhere in sight when I get back.
And of course, instead of looking over my notes, I read a bit more.

But she finally arrived (and the bell wasn't switched on, so we got five minutes more) and let us into the classroom.
We had to rearrange our tables from the four-table-groups, facing each other, to facing-the-front, and she distributed the test.
We got the whole 73 minutes or so that were remaining of the class - 20 minutes later, I was done with the test (8 pages or so), had looked it over twice and handed it in. I picked up the vocab sheet on my way back and filled it in, and by the time I was done, hardly half the class was done with the test.
Guess what I did?
I read.

Got a great bit of reading in, but that wasn't the reason I hurried so much. No, the reason was: Everybody around me sniffing. And once I'd become aware of people sniffeling, I couldn't not hear it. It was pure torture, and it made me go crazy after a while. So as soon as I was done with the test, I plugged my iPod back in and drowned out any other noise.

Next thing was Entrepreneurship.
I designed the logo for our company, and then ... chatted a bit with Vroni and exchanged a couple of messages with Lisa.
Great lesson, I'm telling you - and tomorrow we're having a spare, because we worked during that one lunch hour (that I got out of, remember?).
So after Entrepreneurship, I went to see Mr Wishlow because of the Rockets practice, but his room was locked and he was nowhere to be seen. What else could I do but hide out in Mr Derksen's room?
It's what I usually do, after all.
First though, I ran into Mr Manderioli and he gave me the corrected version of my article.

Mr Derksen had a meeting, but he doesn't mind me dropping my stuff off and just sitting there, so that's what I did.
At the beginning of lunch I'd almost been sick with nerves - I detailed why in my post yesterday -, but by then everything was mostly alright and I was able to eat my sandwich while - surprise, surprise - reading, until a boy whose name I didn't catch came in and we talked a bit about worlds and writing. (Building worlds, I mean)

I excused myself shortly before lunch hour ended, and headed back to Mr Wishlow's room, leaving my stuff with Mr Derksen, because that was the next block anyway.

Mr Wishlow was talking to a couple of girls, so I didn't interrupt, just waited until he's finished.
He informed me he'd answered my e-mail, and that the Rockets didn't have practice today because they got the day off (much to my relief), so we re-scheduled for Wednesday.
And just talking to him, talking about NHL teams and the speed of the game and how the TV never quite manages to get it across (it seems a lot slower) as it is in Real Life, settled me enough that I almost skipped back to the English classroom (I'm having a hard time referring to it as Creative Writing - I'm still calling it English).

I exchanged a couple of words with Mr D, before the other students started to trickle in.
Today's topic was a very interesting one for the journal entry - "Voices Inside My Head"
The first thing, of course, that springs to mind there is

Nine out of ten voices in my head insist that I am not insane.
The tenth is humming the title theme of Tetris.

But I managed to spin together two pages of fairly coherent writing, because it's a topic I've thought about a lot, and I am satisfied with what I wrote down.

We got our big project outline, too:
 6 different options for our portfolio kind of thing.

Deadline April 2.
I have chosen Option #1 - Be the Creator

In this project, you are the Creator of an alternate reality, Earth-like? Fantasy? Science Fiction? Inner Space? take your pick. The project MUST include the follwing:

1. Title Page
2. Table of contents with corresponding numbers
3. A description of your alternate reality
4. An overview over the key characters/entities
5. The opening three chapters to a novel or an extended short story set in this alternate reality (2,500-5,000 words)

You may chose to include any of the following:
1. Drawing and description of key characters
2. A map
3. Notes on various apsects of the world you have created
4. Anything else you can think up (discuss with me)

THis project should be handed in as a single, completed project. Your presentation should be logical and neat

So that's what I chose, but other options included outline and first 10,000 or so words of a novel, a collection of poems, a collection of creative non-fiction (lyric essay, poetry, travel meoir, personal memoir, nature writing, feature journalism, etc), a screen play/play/movie script or something else, if it was okayed by him

I'm really excited about this project!
I've chosen to work on an alternate planet fantasy setting I had created for the NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago, and it's been kind of a pet project ever since.
But I want to work on it much more seriously this time and with much more though and I plan to explore the themes of friendship and betrayal mainly, but I'd like to try my hand at showing how other people perceive a character and how the character perceives himself...

Well, the deadline is April 2nd, as I said, and I plan to hand in the full history to my world - or at least what I have already planned out. Only problem?
It's in German.
But what can you do? It's gonna be so awesome!

Last lesson of the day was Math, and the part we had today was pretty easy, so I got all my homework for today done during the lesson, but then I got distracted talking to a girl, so I still need to catch up with my homework for Friday,  technically (out of twenty-five students maybe five have it done). But as I said, I'm gonna do this in my spare tomorrow. Don't have anything better to do, anyway.

Andy picked me up after school and exchanged me for Jenna at home, because Jenna has Arts and Crafts on Mondays.
And guess what? As I left the school, it was snowing!! We had warm (relatively warm, but the weather here  is close to Regensburg's weather) temperatures and all the snow was gone already, and now suddenly tiny snow flakes were whipped into my face!
It was kind of awesome.

As soon as I got into the house, even before I had shut the door behind me, Bobby was shouting at me to get downstairs, and guess what was lying in front of my door?
The package!
Freakin' finally!

My new phone is so awesome to handle, plus there is a new version of temple run which is really great, so I can hardly be happier.
And the Red Paprika Chips?
Hardly have I tasted something so delicious!
Other contents included Nimm 2 Lachgummis, a blank book for my Canadian friends, a fountain pain, some ink and a couple of photos  (Tanya almost wouldn't believe me that the girl in the shot from 2004 with the blond hair was me! :o I guess I've changed a lot?)

Dinner was a stir-fry, and since then I've only been screwing around on the computer, nothing big... But I'm really tired now, so I think I'm going to bed any moment.

So anyway, that's me for today!

Scared

 No worries, no worries, nothing bad has happened - but while this might look like a hockey post at first, it is more of a feelings post (again). But not a nice essay, more just thoughts thrown around.

Late Night

Once again pretty late post ... I just can't help myself.
I have so many excess words, I can't even describe it (isn't that ironic?).
And I don't care what Mr Derksen says, in this case I have to fall in love with my own words, just because I have to get rid of them.

 Today started out pretty uneventful - I had planned on waking up early, but I slept through Tanya, Andy and Bob leaving for Bob's soccer game.
Might be because even though I went to bed right after my post, I couldn't sleep and instead got inspiration for my article. I have that one typed up now, sent to Mr Manderioli for approval/changes and sent an e-mail to Mr Wishlow, because I need clarification on a couple of points.

No, I didn't send the e-mails last night - at least not the second one. That I sent today just after noon, which was basically morning for me.
After waking up, I finished up the birthday present for Claire - a wristband as I have undoubtedly mentioned - and then ... read. A lot (again).

Claire and her mother picked me up at half past five, so I had enough time to shower and send that e-mail to Mr W.

(I had thought Tanya or Andy would have to drive me to the Old Spaghetti Factory and Claire's mom would only drop me off afterwards, but obviously I had been wrong. Good thing I was ready to go!)
We had dinner - delicious dinner - at the aforementioned Old Spaghetti Factory (the very same restaurant that Doro had her last dinner with her family in Canada if I remember correctly) which was pretty healthy. At least for my standards, not gonna lie:
I had a Caesar salad, about half of the portion of Spaghetti with meat sauce (nobody calls it Bolognese here :/) and a scoop of ice cream. It was really good.
In attendance were Claire, her parents, her little sister, her sister's BFF, two friends from fourth grade (they've known each other since forth grade, I mean. They're all in grade eleven) and the little sister and mother of one of the two friends. I didn't feel like I was intruding though, and I had a great conversation with Claire's and Gavin's mothers.
Unfortunately, that conversation ended up being about the KZ, because ... I don't know what we'd been talking about, but the mood went back to good pretty quickly.

I followed hockey with one eye, because in every restaurant there are TVs mounted up on the wall, and since it's hockey season, it's not surprising that they always show hockey.
And the Maple Leafs... well, they were known to be the worst team in the whole NHL, but they beat the Senators (Ottawa) 3-0. (I asked Andy: Didn't they have a goal tending problem? ... Oh, no, it's not that they have just a goal tending problem, it's more like the Maple Leafs are a problem... but they seem to be turning around. And Ottawa just lost it's best defenseman - Achilles tendon cut through 70%, season is over for him)

And then we went to the Bowling Alley, which looked more like a club. They even played DJ Earworm's State of Pop 2013 :D Amazing song!

I came seconds in both games we played - the first time two points behind Claire and the second time one point behind Gavin, but over all, I was first by a pretty great margin.

We had ice cream cake and I was kinda watching the Oilers game on the TV mounted up on above the bowling thingies, seeing as Andy is an Oilers fan and I kinda like them - their "kid line" is rather cute and really fun to watch off the ice (Taylor Hall & Jordan Eberle are living together and made a tour of their home, which is great to watch, and are generally pretty awesome about each other - going on ice cream dates the night before a game, "when are you going to part ways?" - "When Ebs falls in love, I guess. It'll definitely be before me", "How did Jordan react to being named best player in all of 40 years of Team Canada for the World Junior Hockey Championship?" - "He scrawled at the very bottom: And where's Hallsy?"). On the ice, it's sometimes a bit painful, because so many of their passes don't connect or go just that tiny bit wide, and there you can see the advantage the Hawks have with having the same team as last year and being so "seasoned" although their core isn't that much older than Hall and Eberle (Toews & Kane 1988, Eberle 1990, Hall 1991, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 1993), so I wasn't even so surpised when it was 3-1 at the end of the first and 4-1 seven minutes into the second, but then the Oilers seemed to pick up speed and by the time we left the bowling place it was 4-3 and when I got back home they managed to tie it at 4 just when I came in, and then they actually managed to make it 6-4. It was pretty unbelievable - and the Colorado Goalie was first star of the game (honouring the best players of the game) [although I'm seeing right now that they changed that apparently], even though he had let in 5 goals (the fifth goal for the Oilers had been scored on an empty net) - do you know why? Because he might have let five in, but he saved 50. The Oilers got a new franchise record for shots on goal in a single game, with 56 shots on goal.
That's a lot. Seriously.

And I really had to laugh yesterday, even though it's maybe a bit mean, because I saw that the EVR Schüler Mannschaft (that's the teams where the Rockets for example could draft from) lost 0:15. And that, my dear friends, is quite a feat. That wasn't just bad goal tending, that was bad goal tending and bad defense and bad offense.
Seriously. The last time I'd seen such a high score was the Champs for Charity game and the NHL All Star game, where you have the best player just playing for fun.

Well, anyway, since I still have so many words over, I'm gonna go back to writing that one AU (Alternate Universe) for the fandom I am currently obsessed with, which (the AU, not the fandom) can be basically summarized as "Character A and Character B get sent back in time into their high school selves and are the only ones who can remember." Now I only have to figure out how to make them realize that the other one knows about the future, because technically they meet for the first time when A is eighteen and B is nineteen... And before that? Oh... I might just have figured a way out...

So, I'm off!

See ya later,
Julia

We See Thee Rise

Yes, as you can (maybe) deduce from the title, I have the Canadian Anthem stuck in my head.
But more on that a bit later.
And yeah, I do realize that I've been bitching about people being irresponsible twice in the last ten days or so, and now I'm almost irresponsible enough not to post anything. I was really tempted to just forget about it - but I've done that with enough things already, so I can't let this slide, too.

School was alright today - I felt like a total Zombie this morning, but it was okay, and then there was Creative Writing first thing in the morning.
I handed in my "Out of Body Experience" thingy in again, because the first one was way to short (I hadn't know it was for marks!), and then Mr D collected our Journals and let us work on our headline poems - and good thing I'm thinking of it right now, I still need a "so" and a "with" for my poem! (It's always those small words that are the most trouble...)

I got all of yesterday's homework done during the Chapter explanation in Math, and then could even start (and half-way finish) today's homework. But I'll be mainly doing that tomorrow, seeing as we don't have any school!

Lunch ... was spent at Mr Derksen's and he handed me back my journal - and he praised me for it!
I was really proud of it, but reading what I had written out loud showed me the jumps I had in my thought process. I knew they were there, but I had never realized how bad it was! All the ideas seem only half formed, before I jump onto the next thing.

Spanish was alright, too - I got an 86% on my project (which is still an A and thus Awesome, because I hardly did anything) and 100% on today's listening comprehension.
There's a review test - for marks - on Tueday, but I'm not really worried - I got 98.7% or so on my final, so duh.

In Entrepreneurship, CiCi and I are really working with those boys, and they're super nice. I'm of course (as in most of my classes, if not even all of them) the youngest, seeing as I would be in Grade 10 in Germany and my classes this year are Grade 11, Grade 12, Grade 11 and Grade 12!
I don't mind though, and I guess I might even be more mature than most of my class mates? What do I know, maybe I'm just over-analyzing myself all the time, but I believe I appear pretty grown-up already (I've been told it's easy to forget that I am only a teenager when one is talking to me).

After school we had Journalism.
The article on the Rockets and Mr W is gonna be tough, but I'll manage. Not today, though, 'cos I'm pretty tired.

Andy picked me up after school, and we ate pretty quickly after coming home (steak, I believe, and [green] asparagus [Spargel] and potatoes and had delicious Valentine's cake and strawberries) and then I went to the Rockets game (with Andy, :D while the girls and Tanya did a scavenger's hunt all over the house - I didn't realize that the tickets would fall onto Valentine's day, and all of my friends had something else planned :/ ).

It wasn't the most amazing hockey I'd ever seen, but the Rockets beat the Silvertips 4-1 - and I'm still not sure that that one goal actually was a goal. But the referees and all the officials reviewed that play for more than 10 Minutes to determine whether the puck had gone in, and then they decided, yes, it was a goal, so everything afterwards had to be 'replayed'. But since the goal was at 19:29 of the second period, they just played the last 31 seconds (and yes, they actually played those last seconds and the Rockets had a lot of shots on goal) before the third period.
And at least the powerplay clicked, although I still can't get over the fact that the Powerplay is sponsored by Jiffy Lube... kinda unfortunate choice, in my opinion, but maybe you disagree... tumblr has ruined my mind.

And since the Kelowna Rockets (Canada) were playing the Everett Silvertips, they sang (live, as always) both the American National Anthem - and like last time, the whole stadium erupted when everybody screamed "Rockets!" during it - and the Canadian National Anthem.
And now I have the Canadian National Anthem stuck in my head along side with the Rockets goal songs, one of which is a special rendition of Def Leppard's "Rocket" - this link leads directly to the part that they have taken, but I can't find the actual Rockets version - and the other one is this song, 2 Unlimited's "Get Ready For This", which they also use as a means to rile up the crowds whilst waiting for a face-off!

So, and since it's approaching one o'clock quickly here now, I'm off to bed.
Yay!

Good night!

Rattled and Shaken

My week and time in general have been rather great lately - so it was of course inevitable to have that crash rather spectacularly.

It started out with way too little sleep, although I'm not even complaining about that anymore (the only downside here is that I am really tired now but in desperate need of a skyping session :/), and then Creative Writing, which was great as always.
I have realized that I lose the ability to recognize sarcasm though when I'm tired... :D

Math was rather easy, so I probably made a whole bunch of silly mistakes. Who cares? Not me today. (I hope that stays that way)
I lent my notes to the German exchange student that has transferred into our Math class right today, and we left the class ridiculously early after I was finished with my test.

During lunch I talked to Mr W, and I will talk to Rourke Chartier (and trust me it's hard to believe that he is only one year and 20 days - exactly - older than me ...), so I compiled questions in collaboration with Mr M - probably too many to ask, but there's just so much interesting stuff!

Spanish was boring as ever, but we're finally doing our group presentations - and one of our members was absent, so we were unfortunately unable to hold our own. Such a misfortune! (Please do note the sarcasm.)

Entrepreneurship... well, we've got our marketing idea, although I am rather indifferent about it. I can't really tell you anything - our competition might steal our secrets! (Ha. Ha. There are no secrets.)

After school, Andy picked me up after I talked to Mr Smith, the librarian (and OMFG, HE HAS A LAB THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE DUSTIN!!!!!!!!!! Made me miss my poor doggy all that much more), and dropped me off at the gym Marina dragged me to (she offered and I didn't wanna cancel even after I changed hostfamily, and it's a pretty nice gym - and good for me :) I gained about ten to fifteen pound, so I desperately need to go and work out again!) and guess who I saw:

Yes, exactly. Marina.
I wasn't expecting her, to say the least. In all the three months I've been to the gym relatively regularly - especially before Christmas I went every day after school - I had never once seen her. So when I enter the change rooms with a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and spy her sitting on the bench hunched over her shoes at the other end, let's just say I panicked. I didn't even really see her, only her silhouette, but that was enough for my heart beat to spike, the blood to start pounding in my carotid artery (in your neck) and my ears and for my body to react instantly by ducking into one of the cubicles for changing before she could see me and hiding out therein until I was sure the change rooms were deserted.
I might or might not have texted Andy totally rattled... (Spoiler Alert: I did)

Well, I plugged my headphones in, was unbelievably jumpy while changing and then did my best to keep my head down and ignore her in the gym.

She passed by me a couple of times while I was on the stationary bike, and I was insanely aware of her every move, so that was not a pleasant visit.

I talked to Andy about it, about how that reaction wasn't the best and I shouldn't let her over-power me so much even after three months, but well, that was exactly the reason why I wanted to change:
She induced panic in me and made me feel helpless, powerless and small.
And especially without any kind of warning I wasn't able to stand up to her.
I'm usually not at all afraid to speak my mind (although I have become way more self-conscious over the years, I can suppress these second thoughts pretty thoroughly), but in that moment I was caught completely off guard.
So now I know I can expect her, and maybe psyche myself up before hand - and I really should at least greet her nicely, because I don't want anybody to say that I am rude. (I'm usually not, just too absorbed in my head, so sorry).
And all that turmoil is making me kinda homesick - or at least makes me long for home (and yes, there is a difference :) )...

And then of course the Blackhawks went on to lose tonight's game (fortunately in a Shootout, so their Undefeated-in-Regulation-Streak continues) and the Oilers did the same (after having the lead! Urgh, that team!)

So yeah, although my day was rather good, I am a bit down now.
And tired...
So I'm waiting for my mom to skype, and then I'm going to bed.

G'night everybody!

126 Days of no hockey. 510 games lost. Was that all really necessary?

 Here is my article from the January issue that was messed up in print :D

Enjoy!

 

Yes, say the players and owners. As the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) ran out in September, the NHL and the NHLPA met behind the negotiation tables with varying success. More than once inside sources spoke of promising proposals, which were only shot down again in the end.

Finally, after 113 days of meetings, stoppages of contact and 16-hour power session, the two sides reached a ‘tentative agreement on a ten year CBA’. The new deal splits the revenue 50%-50% between owners and players, which is a recession of 7% for the latter group. Other changes include sterner rules regarding the salary cap with punishment for trying to circumvent it by giving players multi-million deals with years of only $1 million tacked to the end to keep the cap hit down.

The deal was almost last minute; only a few days more and the entire season would have had to be cancelled. The NHL set the deadline for an agreement for January 11, reasoning that if they couldn’t start by January 19, the season would be too short. 

The season is shortened as it is with the 30 teams playing 48 games each instead of the usual 82 before the playoffs. What determines this year who plays in the playoffs isn't how long the teams can endure and how well they can preserve their energy. This year what matters is how well the team starts off at the beginning of the season. Since there is less time, more back-to-back games will be played, inviting injury. Some teams also have the advantage of players who are already warmed up, having played in Switzerland like Patrick Kane (Chicago Blackhawks) and Tyler Seguin (Boston Bruins), Germany like Claude Giroux and Daniel Brière (Philadelphia Flyers) or the KHL as several Russian stars such as Alexander Ovechkin (Washington Capitals) or Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh Penguins) have done.

One question, however, remains: Will the fans come back?
The reactions were mixed after the lockout ended two weeks ago. Some fans were overjoyed that hockey was back. Some were, maybe rightly, not so amused with the NHL's antics. 

Gary Bettman, commissioner for the NHL and one of the two main figures involved in the lockout business, has already apologized. So have some of the teams. But will it be enough? Will a simple apology get back fans who have been angered by the second lockout in 8 years?