Testing Thursday

Today was, once again, a really great day - the only thing was I went to bed way too late again (I got caught on youtube, but I will explain that in a second), so I almost fell asleep again when my alarm went off.

This morning, we had Entrepreneurship first - we met our mentor for the Dragon's Den project, and she was super nice (she won with her group when they participated), so we talked about our project ... and I really have to try harder not to take the lead automatically, especially when there are three boys with me who are all two or three years older ... but old habits are hard to break :)

Then Spanish ... we got into the room and there was a youtube video pulled up on the screen.
And when the teacher said "This has nothing to do with with Spanish, but I want you to listen to it anyway," I started to get a suspicion what it was ... and I was right.
It was the video I had watched the night before.

And that video?
I hate poetry. It confuses me. A lot. But that video was an animation of spoken word, and it is honestly the most amazing and touching piece I've ever heard. It hits exactly where it hurts the most, and last night I honestly cried at the end. I had troubles in school trying not to cry.

Even if you don't listen to/watch any of the videos I post, please, PLEASE watch this one. Please. It will be worth your time (that video has almost two million hits since the day before yesterday)

Here it is:
To This Day

It's pretty fast, so if you want to read it, here is a transcription.

My favourite parts are:
to this day
despite a loving husband
she doesn’t think she’s beautiful
[...]
and they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom

and

he tried to kill himself in grade ten
when a kid who still could go home to his mom and dad
had the audacity to tell him “get over it” as if depression
is something that can be remedied
by any of the contents found in a first aid kit


And just ... it's the most amazing thing I've ever heard.

We wrote our Spanish Vocab test (10/10 :) ) and then we did stuff out of the Workbook again (we finally learned the preterit!).

During lunch, I hurried to Mr Derksen's room - I had anyway planned on telling him about that video, because we are having a poet tomorrow, but when I showed him that video, he told me "I know that one - it's already a couple of years old."
The animation though is new.
And he showed it in class, and I once again had to suppress my tears. It's just so amazing.
We spent the rest of class talking, with two other students. It was really interesting :)

I went to Mr Wishlow's room to get the flashdrive with the pictures from yesterday - he wasn't there, but the other teacher in the room handed me the card. It was one I had never seen before - pretty big.

I told her to relay a message to Mr Wishlow that I would get it back to him tomorrow.

In Math I quickly realized: I had lost my homework. My only hope was I had left them at home and not actually lost them. Problem: It was due today. (Spoiler: They are at home)
He told me I could hand it in tomorrow.

I think the test didn't go badly - I don't know, and as I mentioned yesterday, I make so many stupid mistakes. But at least I didn't struggle with any of the questions :)

I was finished halfway through the class or so (second overall) and then I ... read. What else?

Creative Writing was really great today again.
We listened to two of Shane Koyczan, the vid above and another one, and they were both so great...
And then we wrote our own spoken word poem thingies (good that I wrote that, I still have to make a good copy of mine), and it was a great lesson.

But when I headed for Journalism at the end of the day, there was a note stuck to the door, informing us that Mr Manderioli was sick so the meeting was adjourned to next Thursday.

Wow. I had re-written my first article into a 472 word piece yesterday evening and cranked out about 350 words for a second article (I couldn't make it shorter, no way!), and now apparently our deadline was shifted one week back (deadline was today)...
Well, better for me!
The only downside was that I didn't know where I could get a card reader - but when in doubt, ask Mr Derksen. (He's gonna get me one for tomorrow :) )
I took the bus for the first time this semester, even this year, home, and that was it.

So I spent my afternoon listening to the video (although afternoon is a bit of a stretch - I came home by 4 o'clock and dinner was at 5.30), reading a couple of articles at NHL.com and browsing facebook, tumblr and twitter, and then after dinner I listened to the video a bit more, because it's just so enthralling, and wrote a long overdue e-mail. (It was waiting in my inbox for more than two weeks!).
Now I only owe one more person an e-mail.

Okay, that's it, I'm gonna do my spoken word poem now!

Have a great day!
(And please listen to the video!)

Tuesday's taste

Yep, the title is completely nonsensical. I just needed something, and it's really hard to come up with these titles!

School was pretty good today - I almost fell asleep again after my alarm went off, but managed to get out of bed, make myself some porridge and trudge to school, after exchanging a couple of e-mails with a few friends from back home.

In school I almost continued right where I'd let off - we had a spare and I did my Math stuff in almost-record time (30 minutes) and then ... well, chatted on facebook.
Spanish wasn't too bad, either - we did some dumb vocab games, but nothing too bad.

During lunch I saw the dance teacher whom I had talked to during my panic attack in Math some two weeks or so ago, and she wrote an e-mail to our librarians to check for a book she'd recommended me.

Math ... was ... kinda difficult.
I hate that graphing stuff, and I have arrived at a point where I am so tired that I keep messing up the easiest things!
At least I know where my problem lies, so I will probably talk to Mr Murphy about it tomorrow and get him to explain to me what effect exactly the different transformations have on a square-root function.

I have gotten myself exactly into the kind of trouble I was always scared of: I lost the train in class. Not badly, but I am really confused...
It should be clarifiable (that's not a word, I know, but do you understand what I mean?) easily...

Creative Writing was, as always, the absolute best.
We finally finished our headline poems - and you can definitely see why I didn't become a poet - but didn't write a Journal entry... sadly.

I had an idea yesterday, stemming from a conversation I'd had with a girl from my Math class where she'd pointed out that my grammar is probably better than most native speakers'. And I wondered why.

I ran my idea by my hostfather, but I though Mr Derksen might have an opinion, too, and also he might have the knowledge to agree or disagree with me - but when I explained to him, what I had in mind, he looked at me kinda dubiously and said things like "well, double spaced ten pages should be alright".
And I'm just like "WTF?! 10 Pages?! I don't want to clog my journal up like that!"
The thing was: we were talking about two completely different things.
I was talking about a normal journal entry, while he was thinking I was talking about the big project!

So, well, I started jotting things down for a compilation of my analytical feelings texts, and I think I might do that. A collection of me-centered pieces focused on my exchange year would probably be an easy thing to do.
I'd start with a timeline, laying out the bare framework and explaining what happened when, and then picking out things and elaborating on them.
It's gonna be a big project, but it's gotta be 20 to 30 pages, so that should work out just fine.
And if I realize it doesn't, I should be able to switch to my fantasy world.

After school,waiting for Andy to pick me up, I hung around Mr Derksen's room and talked to him about ... languages? I think that was it ... It's just so great to have somebody who listens attentively and gives you his thoughts - and also things he's seen in you - that I can hardly describe it.

For example, he warned us in class not to fall in love with our own words.
And I know that I can't write a short piece, I always make it so long, so I asked him whether I fall in love with my own words. He looked at me, shook his head and explained "No, it's different with you. You don't fall in love with your words, you love the sound of language and you get lost in the process. You fall in love with the thoughts, not the words."
Do you know what I mean?
I'm just so fascinated by the language and its intricacies and the way you can express things ... I don't think in pictures.
I know a lot of people say when they read, they have this movie running in their head.
I don't.
There is only a voice that reads everything I read out loud in my head (I wrote a piece on that in my journal), but if I want to have an image of what I'm reading, I actually have to sit down and concentrate really hard.

I have a bad visual imagination, on which I blame my inability to draw. I need a visual representation, which is probably one of the reasons I love fanfiction so much - you have the actors, so you don't have to make up your own images. If I have to do it, the faces are usually pretty blank, or based on somebody I know.

When I write, I don't - or rarely - write out what I see in front of my 'inner eye'. I write what I like to hear out loud, phrases that combine into a nice sound, but there are no pictures.

I write for the sake of getting my thoughts in order, for the sake of actually thinking, because I tend to get distracted in my own head, and for the sake of the melody the words form. I can't express it, I'm sorry. It's not really a melody, it's more of a flow, something so abstract that I can't put it into words.

And since I read for the sake of hearing the words, typos and grammar mistakes are killing me. Seriously, there is little more annoying to my mind.
(Okay, one thing might be noise. I am so tired and stressed out, that the slightest sound is making me want to crawl out of my own skin, especially bad is chewing, or people sniffing up their noses... I might have mentioned that yesterday?)

After school, Andy picked me up and we went to one of the dance studios around town, because I want to get back into the swing, but unfortunately it was closed...
I'll have to call it at one point.

The evening I spent hanging out in the kitchen and showing Tanya a couple of recipes I have found online that look delicious, telling Tanya about the Harlem Shake - do you know it? It's so funny, and even more awesome to experience such a meme live! - and thinking about my project for Creative Writing - instead of doing my homework.

So I'm kinda lagging behind in Math right now (although algebraically solving equations really isn't that hard) and we have a Math test on Thursday, as well as a vocab test in Spanish.

On Friday, a professor of poetry from the UBCO (University of British Columbia Okanagan) will come by our CW class, which I'm really looking forward to.

I wanted to watch the Blackhawks game, but it was on TV, so I spent the first two periods listening and the third watching upstairs with Andy.

The Hawks won again!
In a shootout, but a win nonetheless, which means they have now tied the league record for most games with at least one point (as soon as it goes to overtime, each team automatically gets a point and they're battling only for the second one) and have now one point in a third of all their games this season!
Yes, a third of the season is already over (16 games), and the Hawks are 13-0-3 (Wins - Losses - Overtime/Shootout losses, in the Hawks' case three shootout losses)... And I am so jealous - everybody over 18 in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin can take part in a lottery to win a road trip with the Hawks!
Aaaanyway, I'm headed to bed now - as I mentioned, I am really tired...

I might play another round of Temple Run - they released a new version and it's so awesome - but other than that I'm beat!

Good night!

Laughing so hard here

All in all today was a really great day:

I mean, it had a bad start - I went to bed waaaay too late (4 o'clock) (or too early, depends on how you look at it) and of course forgot to unset my alarm, so I was woken up at 7.15 am. and three hours is so not enough, I can't even describe it.
Unfortunately, it was already pretty bright outside, so by the time I managed to find my phone and switch it off (and I'm still not convinced I actually opened my eyes to do so), I had little hopes of falling back asleep. I blinked, and suddenly it was half past ten, which seems to be my usual wake-up time now.

I had some Cheerios for breakfast (because who am I kidding, you all love to know what I'm eating, right?) and then finally did my homework (I mean, I started on it Friday, but it's pretty tough to get yourself to do any homework when you have a long weekend), but it was only Maths and not really hard, except that I proved once again that I am too stupid to actually read the instructions (so half of my solutions were incorrect, but I fixed that :D ).

Jenna had a friend over for a science project, and then another friend with whom we went geo-caching, and it was really fun - although my toes were frozen by the end of it and it was all around really cold...
And even though my knees were (mostly) totally fine during the hike, my right knee is kinda trying to kill me right now - or at least that's what it feels like. And of course my bandages which the doctor says don't help usually manage to alleviate at least some of the pain are in my locker at school :/
Well, I'll survive :D

Before we left, Tanya made another smoothie for us, and it was mostly orange! I don't know what was in it, I'm guessing banana and strawberry (it was delicious), but the colour looked dangerous!

Dinner was ham with mashed potatoes and broccoli, and then we looked at the pictures Andy and Tanya took in México (Mexican people pronounce it Mechico, for you German speakers out there! But only in México itself :) ) and then Andy and I watched the first half of Slapshot, which is the hockey movie out there - or what am I writing, it probably deserves capitalisation - The Hockey Movie out there, and everybody who knows their share about hockey has seen it (according to Andy - he also told me that when he was traveling with the teams in a medical function, they would always on every road trip watch Slapshot on the bus, and that seems to be true as I found these tweets just today (the rockets returning from their trip to Everett:

I hope @rolsen94 pays particular attention to this movie on @kelowna_rockets bus. Exam to follow. #slapshot #oldschool
— Regan Bartel (@Reganrant) February 11, 2013

@reganrant already liking this movie #classichockey #oldschool
— Ryan Olsen (@rolsen94) February 11, 2013

I mentioned that to Andy today and he subsequently downloaded the movie and so we started watching it)

And yeah, the movie is pretty old (mid-70s?) and hilarious - not quite my kind of humor, but still so incredibly funny :D I like it!
It's about a really bad hockey team in a dying town, and well ... the team is struggling, and they get these new brothers on the team which are total fighters, and the crowd just loves them, even though some people on the team are less than pleased... And the team gets the notice that this is their last season because the owner can't afford them anymore, so they try to be as good as they can... And there is a lot of swearing. It's really funny :D
("Dave is a killer!" - "Dave is a mess" :D Nobody will understand that, but it's just hilarious! ... Seriously though, just reading these two sentences makes me giggle so much...)

So I'm in high spirits and not even the Math test tomorrow can bring me down :D

See ya 'round, guys!

Semester Two

I honestly can't believe that Semester two starts tomorrow already ... and that Dorothea is flying home. It just seems so surreal...

I still need to clean out my binder, get rid of all the old papers...

I'm glad to be back 'home' here :D
But the parcel I was talking about? It's not the one I was waiting for. It's not for me at all.
But then again, small parcels usually take longer than big ones, for some reason. And it might be caught in customs...

So, here have a gemstone from the LA Kings twitter:

The "box" they're talking about is a glass cage also know as the penalty box where a player has to spend two minutes if he violates the rules :D


And the Oilers just lost to the San Jose Sharks in a Shootout -_- That means the Sharks are league leaders now - I'm now just hoping for a Hawks win tomorrow and a Sharks loss in regulation in the next game - then the Hawks are league leaders again! (But it's not as though that really matters - as long as the Hawks stay on top of their conference, it's the Stanley Cup final when they have to concern themselves with the Sharks - if ever ... so I'm crossing my fingers. They'll manage, I hope!)
I had a most ugly experience on tumblr today:
People tag their hate against other teams, so I was looking at the Blackhawks tag and it was really ugly. The stuff some of the 'fans' are sprouting there is beyond nice and fair. Things like "I would crash this player's flight" are a no-go, seriously, especially after the plane of a Russian team crashed and most of the players (or even all of them?) died. Marián Hossa, Hawks forward, for example wears a 37 sown onto his glove to honor his friend who died.
So I was kindly (and I was really nice) asking a few of them to remove their hate or at least not tag it anymore, and see the response I got:

Yep, isn't that a lovely reply? (The 'I know it's a bit late' is in regards to the game in question having been played yesterday)
But what was I expecting with that url?
Another guy replied something along the lines of "Don't take yourself too seriously it was only a loss you're not that important", totally missing my point (I sent exactly the same message).

From now on I'm staying away from the team tags, because it's really ugly what's going on in there. Another girl, however, replied with

Thanks I appreciate the sweet way of asking: )
Had anyone else come at me this way I would have had no problem..
It’s not that I hate the hawks.. it’s that they are my teams biggest rival ever… so you know.. it causes so much emotion…
I can’t promise I won’t tag anything but I’ll try… might get heated tomorrow night but we will see!!
Good luck to your team.. although they don’t really need any luck! Haha

And I've been messaging back and forth with her.
And one more girl was complaining about "Bandwagon fans", so fans who only came to the sport after the Hawks won the Cup, so I asked her what those fans were, and we had a nice conversation (she's the first American born in a family from Bavaria :D)

So it wasn't all bad.

Good night!

Keyed up

I'm all weirdly keyed up - hungry but too full from dinner still, tired but my mind is running too fast, bored and not wanting to do anything.

I hate days like this. Or evenings like this.
The day wasn't even so bad, actually...

But first, I wanted to say thank you to everybody reading this blog. You guys "killed" the 4000 yesterday - now there have been more than 4000 clicks in January.
Thank you so much, this is a new record!
(The last 'high-score' was November with 3,689 clicks.)

And I would like you to know: We have reached exactly half-time. Not until I'm coming home, that isn't until another week, but until school is out. School officially ends on 06/28, and that's exactly 150 days from today.
And school officially started 09/01, which is exactly 150 days from today.

Actually, my half-time was already a few days ago, because school didn't start until the 09/04 because of a holiday (labour day) and will end already on 06/27, because the de-facto last day is only for teachers and administrators.
But who cares?

So, back to my day:
I was at Dorothea's from 9.30 to 4.30, might have converted her to hockey, just as I converted her to Sherlock (muahahah), had yummi roast pork for dinner and a pretty relaxed evening...
And then the Rockets lost against Kamloops in overtime, and the Canucks lost, too. Not that I am a Canucks fan or anything, but Vancouver? I am geographically forced to root for them over the L.A. Kings.
Although the Canucks have a longstanding rivalry with the Blackhawks... And the Kings have two players I think are pretty cool...

I also watched like two minutes of the Cariolina Hurricanes - Boston Bruins game, and what can I say? It was really disappointing. I like hockey, as I have mentioned, because of the speed, grace and fluidity. And none of this was present in that game.
Passes didn't connect en masse, there were unnecessary turn-overs, then Eric Staal, the Captain, took an unnecessary penalty, the Bruins scored and Jeff-always-smiling-Skinner engaged an opposing player in a fight. Nobody knows why, but he seemed pretty enraged. Since there were 7 seconds left in the period, they were both sent from the ice...

I'm so looking forward to the next Hawks game, although it's probably gonna kill me. I'm expecting it to be very enthralling, because I really want them to do well.

And I'm not just rooting for them because they're so good at the moment. No, I was a fan even before this lockout started, and they had two not-so-stellar seasons after winning the Stanley Cup. So. Duh.

Have a good night!

Cooking Endeavour

Yep, I finally did my cooking!
Unfortunately, my host family wasn't there (they're still in Mexico), so I'll probably have to do it again.

I made "Schinkennudeln", or Pasta with ham.

This is what my workspace looked like:

Onion and ham. And a laptop...

Yes, my cooking of course coincided with the sixth Blackhawks game this season. And I  have now been forbidden to ever again stir noodles while a Hawks game is on - they were up 1-0, really strong in the first period, dominated the game, and then in the second managed to get 4 (!) penalties of 2 minutes, resulting in one 5-on-3 (or two-man advantage) for the Red Wings, but they managed to kill their penalties (it was beautiful). They killed those penalties, only to allow a goal early in the third right while I was turned away to stir my stupid nudles. And since both hockey players and fans are really superstitious, I'm not allowed to do that again. Clearly bad luck.

But the Hawks managed to keep the game tied and won it in overtime. So they're now off to the best start in Franchise History - no Blackhawks team before them has managed this. They're the league leaders, too, but the San Jose Sharks have only played 5 games (as opposed to the Hawks six) and are undefeated so far ... well, they're playing each other next week, I think.

And on Friday the Hawks play the Vancouver Canucks - a long standing rivalry aftera play-off series, if I'm not mistaken. It's surely gonna be fun to watch. It's on National Television, so no rewinds :/ But I get to watch it on the big TV!

Oh, and here is my finished meal (It actually did taste like home, so much better than the Obatzder which I tried to make...)

And tomorrow I'm off to Dorothea's! From 9.30 to some point in the afternoon/evening :D
She's got five days left. That's so unbelievable... and tomorrow I will have reached exact;y half time until school ends. That's also really weird. A weird thought.


I went to bad really early - in the morning. I had meant to go to bed at around midnight (because, no classes, hello? I'm not going to bed too early!), but somehow it ended up being three o'clock!
And of course I woke up at around eight. Luckily, I've become pretty adept (hah, I like that word... wanted to use it for ages) at going back to sleep, but I gave up at around half past nine or so...
For Breakfast/Brunch/Lunch (I skipped breakfast, ok? I went straight to lunch at around ... one o'clock?) there was cheese melt. For me one and a half tuna and cheese melt and one ham and cheese melt. I think I liked the ham one better.

And I have really weird capitalization... I always capitalize (or want to, at least) Hockey and Hockey Player, and I also capitalized Ham. For no good reason.
Am I finally missing German with all it's nouns capitalized?
But with German and English in lower case letters? Das ist sehr deutsch. Das ist ein englisches Wort. (That is very German. That is an English word)

I have written another two letters (not telling to whom), one in German and one in English... would you like to know who the recipients are? Well, I'm not telling! Haha!

I just remembered that I still owe you a recap of my classes... Let's see when I can get around to that...

So, have a great night (or day, depending on where you are/when you are reading this)

Julia

Just like home

... Yep, just like home:
I'm sitting in the living room, the TV is on (with Undercover Boss, and I think it's the same as in Germany... :) Well, with Canadian or American [I don't know; didn't pay attention] factories), I have my laptop on my stomach and am reading.

It's quite relaxing, but I'm also missing Bob and Jenna  ... :)
Well, never thought I'd adapt that quickly to having siblings :D
School wasn't bad; the Japanese quiz has been delayed till Monday 'cos the Sensei wasn't happy with the exam, I wrote 50 minutes of Biology (and I don't know how it went, but there were 5 questions where I was more or less guessing; four of them contained stuff we had never talked about, the book never talked about - I'm sure about that, I read the book this morning - and that was no where to be found, but aside from that it wasn't too bad... Note that I am cautious with these predictions, because I still remember how it turned out the last time I said something went well), I proof read my English exam - 961 words, my guess was pretty good... although it was only 878 words yesterday, but I changed and clarified a few things - and did a work booklet on Shawshank Redemption, which is an amazing movie, had a photo shooting for my article about bilingualism, was ten minutes late to Spanish because of it (but Mr M gave me a note, so it was no problem) and watched La Misma Luna in Spanish... Yes, it's just like in Germany :)
But we have one final spurt towards exams left, so that's kinda different...

I haven't really done anything else, so I'm signing out for now!

Not quite so productive

... Nope, today wasn't as great as yesterday - I mean, it wasn't bad, although it started out pretty ... well...
I woke up after nine hours of sleep and felt like I'd slept maybe two, so I can't say great...

But I managed to do Biology first thing in the morning, and then I actually started on the practice SAT test, and remember me mentioning that one course? Well, it's a Doctorate, so not an undergraduate program, and do you know how I found that out?
I was browsing the University finder, having clicked on the University of Illinois at Chicago instead of the University of Chicago, and then I realized that it was a different University, but I had gotten curious, so I looked whether they maybe had a similar program. And what does the website say?

University of Illinois at Chicago is the only University in Illinois offering a Neuroscience Major, which is what I want to do, so I researched that a bit, and yes, that was it...

Other than that? Nothing much...
So sorry!
Oh, I did start packing - I'm moving to the grandparents' house, in case I haven't mentioned, because my family is going to Mexico. I'm not going because a) they had already booked, b) it's pretty expensive and c) I can't miss finals - and I don't really wan to miss so much school and leave... so yeah.

Well, good night, guys!

ETA: Okay, there is one more thing which I probably should have mentioned.

I wrote that epically long piece on how I'm feeling, right? Well, it's pretty much shifted completely, and it's all the fault of my stupid, stupid unconscious brain.
I dreamt, a few nights ago already, that I was on the plane back home, and ... it was a very disconcerting feeling once I woke up, because I had been perfectly fine in my dream, and even looking forward to coming home, something I have been trying to avoid very hard.

So, yeah, I'm pretty melancholic right now...
Not even Chelsea Dagger and What makes you beautiful can change that at the moment, and those two usually help :/

Being productive

Yes, hard to believe, but I have actually been more productive today than in the last few weeks...
I mean, I managed to not just reblog stuff in tumblr I like (although I did do that today, too) and read (which I also did; one hundred and nine thousand words of glorious and awesome), but I also did my laundry (folded it, okay), tidied up my room, did my Biology homework (so I only have to write it neatly, but all the answers are assembled; and anyway, that's my way of learning, I just answer again the questions we have to hand in ... does that even count as studying then?), finished my journalism article and started thinking about the next article.

Yes, I could have done more. I could have started on the next article (have to have it finished by Thursday at the very latest, actually Monday would be better, so I'll try to do that tomorrow), I could have gone through my blog for all the important entries I keep talking about in the link above, I could have written more of my story and I'm supposed to beta six chapters for a friend... But tomorrow is a day, too, and I'm not staying up too late today, so duh. Deal with it.

And since I don't have anything better to do:
Have some links I collected over the last few days on tumblr! :)
You might like them.

Okay, this is not actually from tumblr but rather from Dorothea, but enjoy anyway... It's a bit sad, though... And talking about Doro: Today in West Kelowna she said it was -17°C! MINUS SEVENTEEN DEGREES!!! Can you even believe it? I can't! Here a post about the rights everybody has - very interesting, and stuff I at least sometimes forget, like

• You have a right not to justify yourself to others.
• You have a right not to take responsibility for someone else’s problem.
• You have a right, sometimes, to inconvenience or disappoint others.

Pretty great post, if you ask me.

With the deadpan response underneath the post on tumblr:

I present to you: Canada ---- … is this not commonplace in other countries? Weird o_O

Things parents forget to tell their children - also a really amazing post - read it! And then this post: What would be hardest to explain to somebody from the fifties? The answer ... if you think about it like that, yes, we are crazy!

eleven used to be all bouncy and cute and adorable and now he’s becoming more and more broken and dark like nine and ten were towards their ends and that makes me nervous

I knew immediately what she was talking about, but I think the poster below nailed it: Second poster: take a minute to imagine how bizzarre this post sounds to other people Third poster:    icant                             
it just sounds like you’re really emotional about math imdone
Fourth poster: i just really love math guys


You might wonder what this is about... Well, the Doctor in Doctor Who is called just "The Doctor, so in order to refer to the different reincarnations (the actor changes every time the Doctor dies), you refer to the number of the actor playing him.
So, Nine is the ninth Doctor, played by Christopher Eccleston, Ten is the tenth Doctor played by David Tennant and Eleven is the current Doctor, Matt Smith.
And they all... their personality changed over the course of the show, so I guess the concern is valid.
But just thinking about how it must sound to not-fandom-insiders... :D

And one more thing:
this
It says:

Fan: I want to be an author when I grow up. Am I insane?
Neil Gaiman: Yes. Growing up is highly overrated.
Just be an author.

And I guess we're headed for a new monthly-view record:
We already have more than half as many as in the month with the most clicks!
Okay, have a good night!

123

First of all: Skip my introduction. I welcome you to read it, but if you want to go straight to my post, click this.

Today is, for those interested, in fact my 123rd post on this blog!
It's an awesome number, although I do hope to crack the 234, which is even more awesome. Why? Well, for one it's my birthdate, April 23rd, and two it's two prime numbers (2, 3) and the square of the first number, and both square numbers and prime numbers are something really beautiful.

Anyway...

You might have noticed, but I'm kind of remodeling my blog with a "Welcome Site", although Blogger doesn't let you do it per se, so I have to circumvent it with this little box up there.

Other changes?
Well, the labels can be found in a list at the side in alphabetical order, I have a page view statistics thing, the "About Me" page is totally new (and still being reworked, so have patience with me. I'm trying to compile a list with the post I imagine will be most read - my farewell book, my Vancouver trip with the multitude of pictures, my Christmas post, the feeling stuff), and I'm trying out a few new things.

I'm also trying to decide whether to stop posting once my exchange year is settled, or if I should continue; I guess I'll make it dependent whether or not I'll be taken by the University I have on top of my wishlist - or rather whether I'll be going abroad for my studies. If yes, I might keep posting, I'm guessing there are a few folks out there interested in studying abroad; or I might leave this blog as it is and make a new one so that future exchange students can find this here and ... not things muddled by a student.

I definitely will keep posting though, because I believe it's really great, for me at least, even if it's only me rambling. But it gives my day structure :).

Okay, about today.

Last day of holidays

Hi there!

I'm really freakishly tired, but also really freakishly happy, and yeah...
Okay, first things first: You might have noticed, but there is now a new tab at the very top, right next to my "About Me" (which is still in German if I'm not wrong. Sorry about that). It's called "My Feels" and clicking it will lead you to all my post tagged Feelings or Feels, and I will be posting about how I'm feeling (of course, what else), about how time flies and how I experience the passage of time. By clicking that tab, you can find all my feely posts in one place, and I might just go though all my older posts and see what I said there about how I feel. Yeah. Check back there to see how I am maturing (haha) over time.

So, my day... was kind of hazy.
It started out, believe it or not, a short while before I posted my last post about my feelings. Since I'm not always sure how much is too much in the online world, I had my parents check the entry on whether or not I could publish it (I didn't change anything, it was fully approved), and by the time I posted it, it must have been two thirty or so.
By that time I also was already chatting with a class-mate from one of my extra-curriculars back home, and we ended up writing on facebook until about half past four (seriously), and then I wanted to wait for my parents to Skype, because there were a few things I needed to get off my chest, things I can't discuss on my blog because that would be rude, and so I stayed up and wrote some more. I am so creative in the last time, I don't know what's happened! Maybe it is the sleep thing :D
So, okay, by the time I got my Mom on Skype, it was already a quarter to five. I was just about to go to bed, actually, because hello, quarter to five? but then she did appear, and we skyped for two hours. During that time, my dad appeared, helped me fix my laptop problem (it was firefox taking up too much Arbeitsspeicher, sorry, don't know the English word) and well...

At around six I cleared all my cookies and everything, resulting in me being logged out of all of my social media sites, so I log back into twitter, and I recently started following a bunch of hockey players (who's surprised? I bet nobody), and I was just glancing over the tweets, when one particular caught my eye. It said

@88PKane @tylerseguin92 [two Hockey players from the NHL for Biel; Kane is one of my absolute favourites] Had a great time on and off the ice with u guys in Biel.I wish u good luck on the upcoming year,we will be watching

And I was like: What the heck? I mean, Seguin's contract ran out shortly before Christmas, and he'd already returned to Boston, but Kane was signed with Biel until the lockout ended ... only possible solution: The lockout is over!

And sure enough, looking over my twitter dash, it quickly became apparent that yes, the NHL and NHLPA had indeed reached a tentative agreement sometime around 5 a.m. New York time, after 16 (!) hours of negotiations, and the season will start on the 15th if everything goes well or on the 19th if not.

And it was just so amazing, my parents had to listen to me squeal... And then I texted Andy at ten past six, waking him up (I hadn't known he had is phone on loud!), but he said he didn't mind - the lockout's over and TSN has been bringing news about that all day.
So I wrapped Skype, squealed a bit more, and then went to watch TSN.

Yep, and if you wonder where sleep was, it's here: 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. It's why I'm tired, but just the fact that the lockout is over was enough to keep me going all day.

I was even semi-productive in regards to schoolwork, but right now instead of compiling the itinerary for the USA trip for my Spanish project, what am I doing?
Writing The-Lockout-Is-Over-Stories. Wow. Did I mention I was really creative? It's been ages since the words flowed like they did today, and I find myself really reluctant to stop right now...

Well, have a great first school day, guys,
Love you all,

Julia

'Cause I'm halfway gone

... Okay, I'm not, but that's kind of what came to mind thinking about what to name this entry.
The line is from Lifehouse, "Halfway Gone".
And looking at Dorothea's day-count, it's a bit scary (be warned that there is a lot of feeeeeels under the cut, and a fair bit of me psycho-analyzing myself, so enter at your own risk)

On Hold?

I might just put my blog on hold until something exciting happens, because all that I did today was sleep (till 11 o'clock, I hope I have finally caught up on my sleep, but judging from how tired I am, I don't think so... or my body is using the opportunity to store the sleep), read, finally settle my debt with my hostfather (got a new phone, had to pay :) ) and yeah... that was pretty much it.

Tomorrow, New Year's Eve, I will introduce Dinner For One, as a typical German tradition, to my hostsisters and their aunt - I don't know about the majority of Germans, but at least my family and I always watch Dinner For One oder Der 100. Geburtstag der Miss Sofie when we are in Ischgl, skiing, and since it is a German clip with English text, I don't see why not. The girls probably are gonna think it's totally boring, though, but I'm willing to deal with that.
Some of the exchange students are heading to a party at Big White or at least down town, but for those of you who remember me at our first Unterstufenball it might not be a surprise that I have opted to stay at home (decided to stay at home; sorry I had to use that fancy word :)) - I started shivering, feeling nauseous and got a headache, because there were so many people I didn't know and the music was so loud, so I'm kinda looking forward to just staying at home.

Can you believe that nobody here knows our chips flavour? They've never even heard of Ungarische Art, so I need my mom to include some of those in my next parcel. I think I've mentioned already that it will come a bit sooner than expected, haven't I?

Well, have a really good night,

Julia

Two nights left

Okay, seriously short post, because I hurt my wrist pushing myself off the floor just a moment ago and am typing with my left hand now.

Today was really lazy; I slept till ten (9.5h! Yay!) and then read, watched a few videos, played wii and Rommee with Bob and then wrapped my last two presents.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve!
And we had the grandparents and Tanya's sister with her partner over for dinner, and it was really nice.

I had said Dorothea would give me Photos, right? She did give them to me, yesterday, but apparently I lost the flash drive in one of the Sears shop when I frantically searching for my phone. I've kinda given up any hope of finding the stick again, but I will look for it, okay?

Well, have a good night! And if you want to, you can leave what you got for Christmas in a comment - I'd be very interested!

Julia

The Lockout

So, about the lockout....
Warning: 
Under the cut, you can find me being crazy about this one sport Canadians seem to love so much. Read at your own risk.

Snow Flakes

So, it's been pretty much snowing since sometime last week (I wasn't here, so I don't know), and it's nicely chilly outside. Not so much that you'd be actually freezing, but if it gets a lot colder, I will need to search for my mitts and touque, but with -6 they're not quite necessary :)
Well, a few boys at Doro's school (if I remember correctly) are still wearing shorts!

Anyway, Bobbie had a concert today - she's in the school choir and they had a musical today, and all the tunes were so catchy that they're still stuck in my head -_- and they keep reminding me of something, but I just can't put my finger on it.

There was a small girl sitting next to me, and god was she spoilt. Seriously. It's so unbelievable how many children are really spoilt - none of them seem to have heard the word "no" before. :/ She just didn't accept her cousin's "no"!

What I did like about the performance was how relaxed everybody was - I never realized how much pressure was put upon us by our teachers until the kids were acting up, talking and nobody cared. Good, the teacher did try to shush them, but to little to no avail - they just kept laughing and chattering.

Afterwards, we were at Tim Hortons, and I got a blueberry muffin and a small hot chocolate. Memo to me: Next time, take a xtra small one.

So I'm skyping with my parents right now, so I'm signing out again!

Playing the Piano

I just have to share that right now - chances are, there will be another blogpost, but that doesn't mean I can wait that long to tell you that:

I finally jumped over my shadow and asked the music teachers at KSS whether I can use the piano when it is free. And they said yes! I also had a nice conversation - in German! - with one of the teachers, who is actually Chinese :) He even could say München and not Munchen or Muncen :D

So I got to play the piano. And it felt seriously wonderful - I almost cried because it was such a relief after 1 and a half month of no playing... The teacher said I could come in any time, as long as the piano is unused. I'm so freaking happy right now!

Well, what are my plans for the holidays? People keep asking me that.

Here's a lost (also makes it easier for me to keep track)

• go skiing
• meet Ashley
• finish Biology work booklets
• learn Japanese
• finish Spanish presentation
• read
• celebrate Christmas
• celebrate New Year's day
• get caught up with my Journal
• look at universities and scholarships (yes, I am seriously doing that. The counselor here are just really great, so I intend to make full use of that)
• write two Journalism articles (NHL Lockout and Bilinguality and its benefits)

Wow... that's kind of a long list... Well, I still need to do two more Christmas presents, so I'm singing out.

Tired Ramblings

It's 3 a.m., I'm tired, my head aches, I can't breathe through my nose and my left ear feels weird. Why can't I sleep?

My room looks like a bomb detonated in it. But how can my room be tidy when my mind is utter chaos?

We have a Japanese test tomorrow, which I totally forgot about.
I don't want to. No, seriously, I'm just not feeling well.

Gah. Why do I always have these downs after having such a good time with the girls, or anybody?

One Hundred!!

Okay, I know I already made a post today, but here is a second one.
And this is a special post:

This Is My 100th Post!!!

Well, and we have only 10 days left till Christmas! Okay, you guys in Germany have only eight (seriously, you're nine hours ahead of us and celebrating a day sooner, so you have two days less!!) to count towards, and that's like really unfair!

Okay, so that were enough exclamation marks for a full post, I guess.

I'm feeling like bursting - I ate so much chocolate, it's hard to believe.
The girls and I were fetched by family friends, and we went to Boston Pizza, where I had Chicken Bites - I had pizza for lunch, and pizza once a day is really enough. It was delicious, though.
Afterwards, went to another friends house in Winfield, where we got pop - I settled with Pepsi, and the caffeine isn't letting me calm down now, although it at least didn't have any sugar - caffeine and sugar is always a dangerous combination for me.
Then we went up to yet another friends house, taking a look at his display of Christmas lights - impressive, I have to admit, and I was a bit miffed that I hadn't taken a camera, but I can't change that now.
We got Candy Canes, and went back to the friends of the friends' house, where the girls and I got sweets, and then the former went to watch a movie (Santa Paws) while I stayed with the grown-ups.
I ate waaay too much chocolate, seriously. Who is gonna clean the mess of me from the walls?
We got back to the house by 10 o'clock, and now I am tired, but also hyped up.
Bwah.

And since Christmas is fast approaching, I have something to get you into the right mind set - aren't hockey teams adorable?

Belfast Giants: All I Want For Christmas Is You

Chicago Blackhawks: Sing-Along Holiday Album

Aaaaand: Last but not least the

Edmonton Oil Kings: All I Want For Christmas Is You (again)

But it's all just HILARIOUS!

Have a very good night, and of course, a laugh, too!

Appreciation Post

Okay, first of all: I hardly can believe it.
I have 100 days already behind me, and only 200 left - exactly one third of my year is over now.
Somehow, it feels as though I got the idea to do my exchange year just yesterday - while in fact I had it (for the first time) in seventh grade and then again in eighth. Where has time gone? Why is it flying so fast? And wasn't I just sitting in Austria, compiling my resumée for my application for YFU - and I can't tell you how glad I am to have gone with kulturLife instead. You don't hear the best of things about YFU, so even though it is cheaper, it is exactly that: cheaper. Not less expensive. I wouldn't trade my organisation here and my school and my teachers and my hostfamily for anything.

And the other thing I have to 'celebrate' is: My blog just hit the 18.000 clicks! Wow, guys, it's making me really proud that so many of you are reading this stuff! (Or just clicking on it, although I really hope it's the former rather than the latter.) Keep it coming! :D

So, what have I done on this lazy Monday?

It was rather slow-paced - except for the copious amounts of homework I have gotten from my teachers!


First of all, Japanese. I took my test, feeling not prepared at all, but I don't think it went badly. I don't know, we haven't yet gotten it back (of course not). Then he heaped the Chapter 6 Manga, the Chapter 6 Workbooklet, the Chapter 6 Exam Preparation Sheet and some more practice stuff on me. When does he think I will be able to do that? Like, our days are planned from 8 am to 10 pm, I won't have any time for schoolwork, and Saturday I will most likely catch up on my sleep and Sunday is the German Christmas Concert!

Anyway. Second lesson: Spanish: It was rather enjoyable, but I got almost even more homework than in Japanese. But at least Spanish is somewhat easier. We have at least the same writing system, and knowing Latin isn't something bad, either.

English: Mr Derksen actually was ill, but instead of starting on my homework pile I opted to read. Not that I regret it, I was like really tired, but still.

Biology: Well... we did dissect our pigs today. Foetal pigs. With the umbilical cord (Nabelschnur) still attached. And they were smelly. But I think the worst smell was the preservative (Konservierungsmittel) mixed with Latex Gloves and Febreeze. Especially the latter was horrible. And I couldn't get the Latex smell out of my hands!

But now I can say, I touched the intestine of a pig. And the umbilical cord. And the liver. And the pancreas. And the gallbladder. And the small intestine. The big intestine actually was green!

Well, I couldn't take any photos, because a) it was really gross and b) I forgot my mini-SDHC at home. So, not memory card, no photos.

Well, talking about technology: I managed to bust my kindle USB-cable. Luckily, my phone has the same charger (mini-USB, as far as I know), but it's not really dead; there just was a problem with my laptop, as it didn't want to recognize my kindle. It wouldn't even let my kindle charge, and I was in the middle of filling it with delicious new stories! :)

Well, I rebooted my laptop and now all my problems are gone. So before freaking out, reboot. It actually does help.

I also finally got all my stuff for Vancouver together.
I still have that nagging feeling that I have forgotten something, but all that's missing is my wash stuff.
I have
Skihose&-jacke
Winterstiefel
High Heels
Anzug (Hose, Shirt, Jacket)
PJs
Shirts
Jeans
Longsleeves
Chocolate!
Toque,
Skihandschuhe
Handschuhe
Block
Pencilcase
Spanishbook 
Tuch
Kindle
Ladekabel
Handy
Ipod
Ladekabel
Steckdosenadapter

(Sorry for the Denglish mix, I just copy&pasted it from my conversation with Doro!)
And I guess I'm gonna head to bed in the foreseeable future. I want to catch at least seven hours of sleep, and it is already 9:20 pm. And my alarm clock will ring at 5 am.
Juhu.
Who again thought this was a good idea?

Have a nice week!
You'll hear from me on Saturday again! (Or, if you're lucky, on Friday already, but according to my stats and the comments it doesn't matter anyway... Have I gotten so boring?)

Julia