So I was almost falling asleep (it's really late already) when I realized that I had forgotten to post today! (yesterday)
But anyway, today was ... kinda fun, I got my Math test for which I didn't study back - 44/44, so 100% :) Which is great, as I have no idea what the current topic is about - they're doing things so differently from how we're doing them in Germany!
In MMA we did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu again, and I also participated in the fighting rounds at the end of class - I think I wasn't even so bad!
I talked to Laura during lunch, a very nice conversation :)
And in Entrepreneurship, we distributed the final tasks, because we're presenting in less than 12 hours! :o
So I guess it's really time for me to head to bed ...
good night, guys!
Posts mit dem Label Maths werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Maths werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Freitag, 8. März 2013
Donnerstag, 7. März 2013
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:
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!
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...
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!
Dienstag, 5. März 2013
MMA
Today was my first MMA class!
I was a bit excited yesterday and am again excited tonight - it's a pretty awesome class!
I mean, yeah, I missed three weeks or so of instructions, but I was paired with this really nice guy (remember, it's a class of only boys) who walked me through a couple of moves.
It's something different, especially in Canada where everybody seems to be so touch-shy (except if you know the other person really well and also except if you're greeting them/saying bye).
It's fun, because you do things like sit on the other person's chest while hugging them (starting position) and trying to choke them (end result)... okay, the actual desired result is to make sure the other person can't move anymore, and you achieve that for example by locking your feet around their head, or pinning their arm at their neck and leaning forwards with your full weight, or by stretching their arm until it hurts...
But as you can imagine, it's a bit awkward being the only girl...
I hope I can simply ignore that.
I also got my mouth guard today ... It molded to my teeth, but it keeps reminding me of the mold I got to make the replication of my teeth ... and it keep triggering my gag reflex ...
It's also a bit lopsided, which could be held accountable for the gag reflex, but it's manageable - we need them tomorrow, as we're doing boxing or so - and I'm gonna ask my teacher whether I can reheat it or just have to suffer through it.
I hope I can reheat it!
Anyway, I am in the same class as two of the boys from the Entrepreneurship project, and I don't really get along with one of them.
He is a rugby player, a bit jealous of the Rockets (or so it came across when I mentioned them) and he overreacted like I am only used to from the bitchy girls I can't stand:
Kevin, the other (and more experienced) MMA fighter and I ended up doing most of the work, because all three of the boys tended to chat more than anything.
And the guy clearly hadn't paid attention - we were talking about mats covering the floor, and he was asking us "what?" after we had explained it three times or so, so I said, maybe a bit sharper than intended, "You know, that stuff covering the floors?" And now, in retrospect, it might be that he simply had not anticipated me "speaking up" - I'd tried to be quiet, hold back, but I was just fed up.
So he starts laughing really weirdly, ignores me and says to his friends, as though I had wounded his pride mortally, "Can you believe she just said this?"
Come on, guy. That was intended as a joke, and judging from the initial reactions from the other two, after they had stared for a moment that I had dared speak up, they got it.
Why do you have to get so upset about it?
Am I threatening you? Am I too sure of myself? Or is it because I, a girl two years younger than you, have dared criticize you?
Whatever it is, I hope you get over it soon.
Because otherwise working together will be a pain in the ass.
Excuse my word choice, but it's true.
And I regret not saying exactly that to him, but I think that might have only made it worse. And we still have three months or so of working together in front of us...
Although most of the "working together" was done by Kevin and me.
I just work better with only one person, so I talked to him about what I should do and then did it.
And for some reason, nobody is really volunteering to lead this group - Kevin is doing it rather reluctantly, but I think that guy's reaction has proven that I can't do that job.
I honestly don't know why, but the reaction leads me to believe that I have somehow wounded his pride.
What even?
He has nothing to fear from me, I don't know what his problem is!
I just hope it's resolved soon.
I happen to like both Entrepreneurship and MMA, and I would loathe to have both ruined just because this boy has a problem with me.
Okay, enough rant...
What else is new?
My stamina is gone. As in, completely absent.
I used to be able to run almost half an hour, and today I had troubles after quarter of one. Hmmm.
I have 114 days to get back in shape - I hope it'll be enough!
The next big hurdle will be the holidays...
But I'll power through (I hope).
I got one more "chapter" for my project written, and maybe I'll attempt to whip it into shape until my mom comes online.
I'm skyping everyday at the moment, just because I felt pretty down.
It does, weirdly enough, not facilitate homesickness - I'm feeling better than I have in a long time.
I just need somebody to really talk to, heart-to-heart, because sometimes writing is not enough, and I miss the familiarity I have with my parents.
I talked to Lydia again today - thank you so much for your time! - and I'm feeling really euphoric right now!
Tomorrow is a short day, as there are teacher parent interviews, so we have every class only 62 minutes (it's such a weird number because school finishes exactly at 1.30 p.m.), and I'm gonna catch a bus to the mall afterwards.
I have a couple of things I need, and I expect to spend about $100 - toothpaste, hand lotion, gym shorts, a notebook ... it will amount pretty quickly!
Fortunately, I barely spent anything in February, so I can get away with it, even though I am saving the money for San Francisco. Because I need souvenirs (and birthday presents :) ). Yep, I only have to pay the courses and the necessities, and the rest is all going towards the trip.
I think I'm pretty well within my expected savings - I even have spent way less than anticipated! (As I said, I'm saving it for the big trip)
I'm still waiting for my mum, and even though I got a fair bit of exercise today and am hurting all over, I won't go to bed until I have talked to her.
But at least it's a good ache, a I-have-done-something-good-today ache and not a OMG-shoot-me-now-my-knees-are-killing-me pain. Talking about knees, they were suspiciously quiet today, both during my run and during MMA...
Oh, one thing left:
We had our Math test today.
I didn't really do anything for it - I did my homework, but I had (wrongly) believed that the review questions were optional, which they were not, so I was in a hurry yesterday to get them done, until I got the first two homework stacks back.
10/10, and for neither did I do the review questions... So I didn't do them either today.
Especially as he said "This is a great example."
Thanks, I tried. Just not with the review questions (it's also kinda funny that he told us we would basically fail the test if we did neither the review nor the practice test questions.
Well, I didn't ace my test, but I'm far from failed.) and so I went into this test, had a short panic attack because I didn't recognize one of the terms, made sense of it, solved the exercise which also made sense, so I must have done it right (I hope) and then went back and double checked some of my answers ... So I don't think I failed it, and the most important thing, as I have finally realized, is not that I can prove that I have understood the topic, but that I know that I have understood the topic. It's not as though these marks count...
So, yeah, I'm signing off now because I want to get something done, but I'm sure you'll be back tomorrow - or at least at some point in the future.
Love y'all!
Julia
I was a bit excited yesterday and am again excited tonight - it's a pretty awesome class!
I mean, yeah, I missed three weeks or so of instructions, but I was paired with this really nice guy (remember, it's a class of only boys) who walked me through a couple of moves.
It's something different, especially in Canada where everybody seems to be so touch-shy (except if you know the other person really well and also except if you're greeting them/saying bye).
It's fun, because you do things like sit on the other person's chest while hugging them (starting position) and trying to choke them (end result)... okay, the actual desired result is to make sure the other person can't move anymore, and you achieve that for example by locking your feet around their head, or pinning their arm at their neck and leaning forwards with your full weight, or by stretching their arm until it hurts...
But as you can imagine, it's a bit awkward being the only girl...
I hope I can simply ignore that.
I also got my mouth guard today ... It molded to my teeth, but it keeps reminding me of the mold I got to make the replication of my teeth ... and it keep triggering my gag reflex ...
It's also a bit lopsided, which could be held accountable for the gag reflex, but it's manageable - we need them tomorrow, as we're doing boxing or so - and I'm gonna ask my teacher whether I can reheat it or just have to suffer through it.
I hope I can reheat it!
Anyway, I am in the same class as two of the boys from the Entrepreneurship project, and I don't really get along with one of them.
He is a rugby player, a bit jealous of the Rockets (or so it came across when I mentioned them) and he overreacted like I am only used to from the bitchy girls I can't stand:
Kevin, the other (and more experienced) MMA fighter and I ended up doing most of the work, because all three of the boys tended to chat more than anything.
And the guy clearly hadn't paid attention - we were talking about mats covering the floor, and he was asking us "what?" after we had explained it three times or so, so I said, maybe a bit sharper than intended, "You know, that stuff covering the floors?" And now, in retrospect, it might be that he simply had not anticipated me "speaking up" - I'd tried to be quiet, hold back, but I was just fed up.
So he starts laughing really weirdly, ignores me and says to his friends, as though I had wounded his pride mortally, "Can you believe she just said this?"
Come on, guy. That was intended as a joke, and judging from the initial reactions from the other two, after they had stared for a moment that I had dared speak up, they got it.
Why do you have to get so upset about it?
Am I threatening you? Am I too sure of myself? Or is it because I, a girl two years younger than you, have dared criticize you?
Whatever it is, I hope you get over it soon.
Because otherwise working together will be a pain in the ass.
Excuse my word choice, but it's true.
And I regret not saying exactly that to him, but I think that might have only made it worse. And we still have three months or so of working together in front of us...
Although most of the "working together" was done by Kevin and me.
I just work better with only one person, so I talked to him about what I should do and then did it.
And for some reason, nobody is really volunteering to lead this group - Kevin is doing it rather reluctantly, but I think that guy's reaction has proven that I can't do that job.
I honestly don't know why, but the reaction leads me to believe that I have somehow wounded his pride.
What even?
He has nothing to fear from me, I don't know what his problem is!
I just hope it's resolved soon.
I happen to like both Entrepreneurship and MMA, and I would loathe to have both ruined just because this boy has a problem with me.
Okay, enough rant...
What else is new?
My stamina is gone. As in, completely absent.
I used to be able to run almost half an hour, and today I had troubles after quarter of one. Hmmm.
I have 114 days to get back in shape - I hope it'll be enough!
The next big hurdle will be the holidays...
But I'll power through (I hope).
I got one more "chapter" for my project written, and maybe I'll attempt to whip it into shape until my mom comes online.
I'm skyping everyday at the moment, just because I felt pretty down.
It does, weirdly enough, not facilitate homesickness - I'm feeling better than I have in a long time.
I just need somebody to really talk to, heart-to-heart, because sometimes writing is not enough, and I miss the familiarity I have with my parents.
I talked to Lydia again today - thank you so much for your time! - and I'm feeling really euphoric right now!
Tomorrow is a short day, as there are teacher parent interviews, so we have every class only 62 minutes (it's such a weird number because school finishes exactly at 1.30 p.m.), and I'm gonna catch a bus to the mall afterwards.
I have a couple of things I need, and I expect to spend about $100 - toothpaste, hand lotion, gym shorts, a notebook ... it will amount pretty quickly!
Fortunately, I barely spent anything in February, so I can get away with it, even though I am saving the money for San Francisco. Because I need souvenirs (and birthday presents :) ). Yep, I only have to pay the courses and the necessities, and the rest is all going towards the trip.
I think I'm pretty well within my expected savings - I even have spent way less than anticipated! (As I said, I'm saving it for the big trip)
I'm still waiting for my mum, and even though I got a fair bit of exercise today and am hurting all over, I won't go to bed until I have talked to her.
But at least it's a good ache, a I-have-done-something-good-today ache and not a OMG-shoot-me-now-my-knees-are-killing-me pain. Talking about knees, they were suspiciously quiet today, both during my run and during MMA...
Oh, one thing left:
We had our Math test today.
I didn't really do anything for it - I did my homework, but I had (wrongly) believed that the review questions were optional, which they were not, so I was in a hurry yesterday to get them done, until I got the first two homework stacks back.
10/10, and for neither did I do the review questions... So I didn't do them either today.
Especially as he said "This is a great example."
Thanks, I tried. Just not with the review questions (it's also kinda funny that he told us we would basically fail the test if we did neither the review nor the practice test questions.
Well, I didn't ace my test, but I'm far from failed.) and so I went into this test, had a short panic attack because I didn't recognize one of the terms, made sense of it, solved the exercise which also made sense, so I must have done it right (I hope) and then went back and double checked some of my answers ... So I don't think I failed it, and the most important thing, as I have finally realized, is not that I can prove that I have understood the topic, but that I know that I have understood the topic. It's not as though these marks count...
So, yeah, I'm signing off now because I want to get something done, but I'm sure you'll be back tomorrow - or at least at some point in the future.
Love y'all!
Julia
Freitag, 1. März 2013
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 :) )
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 :) )
Donnerstag, 28. Februar 2013
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
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
Dienstag, 26. Februar 2013
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
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
Samstag, 23. Februar 2013
Sleepy Saturday
There I was last night, spouting about how I wouldn't get much sleep - and then the girls went to sleep by one o'clock!
So I got a decent amount (7 and a half hours), but now I'm really tired...
What I did today:
I woke up, had delicious waffles and syrup and bacon for breakfast, did my Math homework, did my Creative Writing homework (writing up the outline for my project), browsed tumblr, watched the Blackhawks game from last night (although I still haven't finished the last period) and finished the rough draft for the first part of my CW project.
It's become rather lengthy, although I hope I can wring a few more words out of it when I put it into nice form.
For tomorrow I have another journal entry, titled "Dreams and Escapes," and maybe (once I've written it and determined whether it's alright or not) I'll polish that up and include it, too.
I will put my Mundane, one piece I have written, onto a separate sheet of paper, as I don't like any red in my journal, and then I will give it to Mr Derksen to rip it apart (that's something we talked about when I was supposed to be in Math), to polish it up for the Word Ruckus, the poetry event today in a month where a couple of us will be going to (it sounded really awesome, although I don't yet know how I'll get home, as it'll probably last into the night and my family here goes to bed rather early - compared to me sleepless creature at least).
And with ripping apart I mean criticize to make it better :D
So, and now I'm off to bed - I already brushed my teeth to prevent myself from devouring chocolate, and I really need to get used to going to bed earlier again.
Have a great Sunday!
Julia
So I got a decent amount (7 and a half hours), but now I'm really tired...
What I did today:
I woke up, had delicious waffles and syrup and bacon for breakfast, did my Math homework, did my Creative Writing homework (writing up the outline for my project), browsed tumblr, watched the Blackhawks game from last night (although I still haven't finished the last period) and finished the rough draft for the first part of my CW project.
It's become rather lengthy, although I hope I can wring a few more words out of it when I put it into nice form.
For tomorrow I have another journal entry, titled "Dreams and Escapes," and maybe (once I've written it and determined whether it's alright or not) I'll polish that up and include it, too.
I will put my Mundane, one piece I have written, onto a separate sheet of paper, as I don't like any red in my journal, and then I will give it to Mr Derksen to rip it apart (that's something we talked about when I was supposed to be in Math), to polish it up for the Word Ruckus, the poetry event today in a month where a couple of us will be going to (it sounded really awesome, although I don't yet know how I'll get home, as it'll probably last into the night and my family here goes to bed rather early - compared to me sleepless creature at least).
And with ripping apart I mean criticize to make it better :D
So, and now I'm off to bed - I already brushed my teeth to prevent myself from devouring chocolate, and I really need to get used to going to bed earlier again.
Have a great Sunday!
Julia
Freitag, 22. Februar 2013
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:
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
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 |
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
Donnerstag, 21. Februar 2013
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!)
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
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!)
Mittwoch, 20. Februar 2013
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! :)
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! :)
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!
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!
Dienstag, 19. Februar 2013
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
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!
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!
Sonntag, 17. Februar 2013
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.
Freitag, 15. Februar 2013
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!
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!
Montag, 11. Februar 2013
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 whichthe 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:
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!
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
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 #oldschoolI mentioned that to Andy today and he subsequently downloaded the movie and so we started watching it)
— Ryan Olsen (@rolsen94) February 11, 2013
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!
Freitag, 8. Februar 2013
Mixed Thursday
Today truly was a mixed day.
But first of all, I'd like to say:
Everybody who's reading this regularly: I admire you.
My blog is so long and convoluted, I don't know how can read it every day. But unfortunately I can't keep this short, because I have to get rid of all these words, so please enjoy another day of word vomit!
I think I mentioned it here, but I was wondering a few weeks back whether mundane [alltäglich, weltlich, profan, irdisch (mundus = Welt oder so ähnlich, hatte kein Latein in mehr als einem halben Jahr - Yesssss), banal] equals boring.
I found my answer today.
It's been raining this morning, just very, very slightly (nieseln, as we in Bavaria say), for the first time in what feels like months (and probably is if you don't take the snow in consideration but recall that Kelowna is, in fact, almost in a desert), just while I was walking down the street to the bus.
And this, hurrying to the light to cross the street, this was so mundane, an action I do literally every day, that I had an epiphany (or revelation, but epiphany sounds better; stressing is on the pi), and well, it sounds probably really weird, but even though the action itself may be boring, you have to think about the odds of you walking down the street, starting with the fact that earth actually became inhabitable, that vegetation and life started to form, that humans started to evolve, that there are nothing but piles of nothingness (because the farther down you go, from limbs to cells to atoms to the sub-atomic parts, there is always so much more space than matter, that we're essentially nothingness) that can think, feel emotions, express themselves, smell, share their thoughts, relate to others, move, feel, sense.
And the chances of all this happening are so small, so infinitesimal, that no matter your action, nothing actually can be boring.
(Ideas unrepentantly stolen from our English course readings - A short history of nearly everything and Motes of Dust and the resulting essays we had to write)
So, anyway, I started the day philosophically.
Then I had to hurry to the KSS dance room, because I felt so nauseous yesterday that the dance teacher saw me sitting in the hall and told me to come to her room today because she had a few recommendations for me to read to get a grip on that stress (Feeling Good by David Burns, a book on positive thinking), and she was super nice and we talked a bit, and then I had to run to my locker, get my Spanish books and run back to the other side of the school (I'm constantly running back and forth, but at least I have two classes in the hallway where my locker is - and the other two are literally on the other side of the school), and while I was like 2 minutes late, I don't think she put it down as tardy...
Spanish is a waste of time with all this reviewing stuff. But at least I'm not the only one who thinks like this, both a friend from last semester's class and a girl from my Journalism class think the same way. We're totally bored, because we still remember all that stuff!
Our Business teacher was away today (he has the flu, so get well soon, Mr K!), and we had a substitute who I think subbed for my Japanese teacher - at least he remembered me and my goal to study Neurology!
He knows a fair bit about Entrepreneurship (made a bunch of money after giving up teaching), but we mainly chatted (our group) and I found out that I am not the only International student - there is a Chinese girl finishing her studies (in my group; she thought I was Canadian!) and a German boy in the group behind us.
I hung out with the Canadian girl in our group of three for the Dragon's Den competition, and we went to Okanagan college and spent our lunch there, talking. (And laughing at the guy wearing a penis costume for sexual awareness day)
I wasn't even late for Creative Writing, and it was awesome as ever. He told us a story about one of his students - again, but the story is really great (and not everybody was in his English class) - and I was laughing really hard. Despite (or maybe because of) knowing it already.
Math started out with a quiz. It was pretty easy, I dare say, and I finished the assignment-for-marks before everybody else (I started during the test already, although I wasn't the first to do so.)
Let me just copy paste the exchange between my teacher and me/the class from a message to Vroni:
Mein teacher: "Try finding the inverse for this function:
f(x)=x/(x+2) Try finding a solution, in the first block (also in der Parallelklasse) nobody managed."
Inverse bedeutet, du vertauscht x und y und loest das ganze nach y auf. also x=y/(y+2) oder der Graph wird einfach in der Strecke y=x gespiegelt.
Two minutes later: "Mr M, can you take a look at that?"
Mr Murphy: "... y=2x/(1-x)... And we have one correct solution. But you have an unfair advantage. Yes, the German system is about two years ahead of us, and solving functions algebraically (also sie mathematisch aufloesen) has been taken out of the curriculum." Also ich hab voll den fetten Vorteil - und das mit dem Voraus sein stimmt. In dem Grade 12 Kurs ist genau ein Thema, was wir auch in der 12. machen. Alle anderen sind 8.-11.)
I didn't finish the homework though - at least not the one we have to hand in on Tuesday, because we have a review period tomorrow, I have a weekend where I'm gonna meet up with Spencer and study Math and a free day (family day) on Monday. Plenty of time, don't you agree?
After school, it was of course Journalism time.
I finished my article on the You Can Play Project - Gay athletes. Straight allies. Teaming up for respect, which will be published in our sports edition in three weeks, and then more topics were handed out (right now it seems like I will be one of the few students actually getting two articles, just because the YCP Project has to do with sports and ... I'M GONNA WRITE AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE ROCKETS!!!!) and so I am meeting with the liason between the Rockets and KSS tomorrow.
The teacher is in charge of letting teachers know when the Rockets are out of town, making sure that the Rockets have good enough grades and stuff like that - I'm guessing a bit like what the ESL teacher is to us Internationals.
Not all Rockets are Students, of course, but I will talk to this teacher (and I have to amend, hopefully tomorrow, I don't have an appointment or anything) and ask him what his job is and how many Rockets are students and so on, and then I will talk (also probably) to some Rockets themselves, and next Thursday I will take my findings and write an article about it. I'm so excited! (Just in case you couldn't tell from the bold and cursive and capslock...)
On a related note, while the Rockets lost 5-0 yesterday in Spokane, the Hawks beat the Phoenix coyotes (and posted a wonderful video of them training yesterday... here, have some shirtless hockey players do Yoga and play soccer and football :D) 6-2 in a feast, extending their "undefeated in regulation streak" to 11 games out of 11 and giving them 20 points out of possible 22, which is league best :D
And my second favourite player is currently second best in all of the league in regards to points (8 goals, 10 assists, three behind the leader, who has 10 goals, 11 assists)...
And yeah, that's about it...
I think.
One funny thing from the NHL: last year, my second favourite Philadelphia Flyer was checked into the boards, and while he was trying to regain his balance, he slashed the wrist of the commentator (who is sitting between the benches of the two teams) and destroyed his watch! (Luckily, it was only the watch - another commentator on ice level didn't have so much luck and got a puck in the face - and kept commentating while he was bleeding rather profusely and was being tended to! He at least didn't look so ridiculous as the linesman who got a puck into his behind side in the last Hawks game :D)
Well, on Tuesday we're writing that Maths Chapter one exam (and yes, we will have had only 6 lessons by then, but nobody really complains), Wednesday is god know what, Thursday is our Spanish test (review test; I'm so bored, can't we just get a start on the Grade 11 course?!) and Friday is ... free!
So only three days of school and hopefully lots of sleep!
And talking about sleep, I'm heading to bed now.
(I had the weirdest sleep last night - I remember waking up at least five times, around two, half past three, quarter past four, half past five, quarter to six, maybe even more - glancing at the clock and falling back asleep - into the same dream where we had to make sure the apocalypse occurred [or maybe didn't? I think we had to make sure it did ocurr] so we were playing a kind of hockey against a team with polar bears and then the bad knights who wanted to stop the apocalypse, came, with ridiculous [read: scary] guns and we were all really scared and fled into the bunker which was made of glass and when I realized that I launched myself into the arms of the next person coming into the bunker - I knew the bunker was safe, but I didn't know whether everybody would make it in time, and it looked like a green house - who happened to be Marián Hossa, Blackhawks forward, and I think I might have played with the rest of the Hawks... And then I woke up for the last time, five past seven. I could have slept for ten more minutes! But my dreams are really weird as of late...)
Good night!
But first of all, I'd like to say:
Everybody who's reading this regularly: I admire you.
My blog is so long and convoluted, I don't know how can read it every day. But unfortunately I can't keep this short, because I have to get rid of all these words, so please enjoy another day of word vomit!
I think I mentioned it here, but I was wondering a few weeks back whether mundane [alltäglich, weltlich, profan, irdisch (mundus = Welt oder so ähnlich, hatte kein Latein in mehr als einem halben Jahr - Yesssss), banal] equals boring.
I found my answer today.
It's been raining this morning, just very, very slightly (nieseln, as we in Bavaria say), for the first time in what feels like months (and probably is if you don't take the snow in consideration but recall that Kelowna is, in fact, almost in a desert), just while I was walking down the street to the bus.
And this, hurrying to the light to cross the street, this was so mundane, an action I do literally every day, that I had an epiphany (or revelation, but epiphany sounds better; stressing is on the pi), and well, it sounds probably really weird, but even though the action itself may be boring, you have to think about the odds of you walking down the street, starting with the fact that earth actually became inhabitable, that vegetation and life started to form, that humans started to evolve, that there are nothing but piles of nothingness (because the farther down you go, from limbs to cells to atoms to the sub-atomic parts, there is always so much more space than matter, that we're essentially nothingness) that can think, feel emotions, express themselves, smell, share their thoughts, relate to others, move, feel, sense.
And the chances of all this happening are so small, so infinitesimal, that no matter your action, nothing actually can be boring.
(Ideas unrepentantly stolen from our English course readings - A short history of nearly everything and Motes of Dust and the resulting essays we had to write)
So, anyway, I started the day philosophically.
Then I had to hurry to the KSS dance room, because I felt so nauseous yesterday that the dance teacher saw me sitting in the hall and told me to come to her room today because she had a few recommendations for me to read to get a grip on that stress (Feeling Good by David Burns, a book on positive thinking), and she was super nice and we talked a bit, and then I had to run to my locker, get my Spanish books and run back to the other side of the school (I'm constantly running back and forth, but at least I have two classes in the hallway where my locker is - and the other two are literally on the other side of the school), and while I was like 2 minutes late, I don't think she put it down as tardy...
Spanish is a waste of time with all this reviewing stuff. But at least I'm not the only one who thinks like this, both a friend from last semester's class and a girl from my Journalism class think the same way. We're totally bored, because we still remember all that stuff!
Our Business teacher was away today (he has the flu, so get well soon, Mr K!), and we had a substitute who I think subbed for my Japanese teacher - at least he remembered me and my goal to study Neurology!
He knows a fair bit about Entrepreneurship (made a bunch of money after giving up teaching), but we mainly chatted (our group) and I found out that I am not the only International student - there is a Chinese girl finishing her studies (in my group; she thought I was Canadian!) and a German boy in the group behind us.
I hung out with the Canadian girl in our group of three for the Dragon's Den competition, and we went to Okanagan college and spent our lunch there, talking. (And laughing at the guy wearing a penis costume for sexual awareness day)
I wasn't even late for Creative Writing, and it was awesome as ever. He told us a story about one of his students - again, but the story is really great (and not everybody was in his English class) - and I was laughing really hard. Despite (or maybe because of) knowing it already.
Math started out with a quiz. It was pretty easy, I dare say, and I finished the assignment-for-marks before everybody else (I started during the test already, although I wasn't the first to do so.)
Let me just copy paste the exchange between my teacher and me/the class from a message to Vroni:
Mein teacher: "Try finding the inverse for this function:
f(x)=x/(x+2) Try finding a solution, in the first block (also in der Parallelklasse) nobody managed."
Inverse bedeutet, du vertauscht x und y und loest das ganze nach y auf. also x=y/(y+2) oder der Graph wird einfach in der Strecke y=x gespiegelt.
Two minutes later: "Mr M, can you take a look at that?"
Mr Murphy: "... y=2x/(1-x)... And we have one correct solution. But you have an unfair advantage. Yes, the German system is about two years ahead of us, and solving functions algebraically (also sie mathematisch aufloesen) has been taken out of the curriculum." Also ich hab voll den fetten Vorteil - und das mit dem Voraus sein stimmt. In dem Grade 12 Kurs ist genau ein Thema, was wir auch in der 12. machen. Alle anderen sind 8.-11.)
I didn't finish the homework though - at least not the one we have to hand in on Tuesday, because we have a review period tomorrow, I have a weekend where I'm gonna meet up with Spencer and study Math and a free day (family day) on Monday. Plenty of time, don't you agree?
After school, it was of course Journalism time.
I finished my article on the You Can Play Project - Gay athletes. Straight allies. Teaming up for respect, which will be published in our sports edition in three weeks, and then more topics were handed out (right now it seems like I will be one of the few students actually getting two articles, just because the YCP Project has to do with sports and ... I'M GONNA WRITE AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE ROCKETS!!!!) and so I am meeting with the liason between the Rockets and KSS tomorrow.
The teacher is in charge of letting teachers know when the Rockets are out of town, making sure that the Rockets have good enough grades and stuff like that - I'm guessing a bit like what the ESL teacher is to us Internationals.
Not all Rockets are Students, of course, but I will talk to this teacher (and I have to amend, hopefully tomorrow, I don't have an appointment or anything) and ask him what his job is and how many Rockets are students and so on, and then I will talk (also probably) to some Rockets themselves, and next Thursday I will take my findings and write an article about it. I'm so excited! (Just in case you couldn't tell from the bold and cursive and capslock...)
On a related note, while the Rockets lost 5-0 yesterday in Spokane, the Hawks beat the Phoenix coyotes (and posted a wonderful video of them training yesterday... here, have some shirtless hockey players do Yoga and play soccer and football :D) 6-2 in a feast, extending their "undefeated in regulation streak" to 11 games out of 11 and giving them 20 points out of possible 22, which is league best :D
And my second favourite player is currently second best in all of the league in regards to points (8 goals, 10 assists, three behind the leader, who has 10 goals, 11 assists)...
And yeah, that's about it...
I think.
One funny thing from the NHL: last year, my second favourite Philadelphia Flyer was checked into the boards, and while he was trying to regain his balance, he slashed the wrist of the commentator (who is sitting between the benches of the two teams) and destroyed his watch! (Luckily, it was only the watch - another commentator on ice level didn't have so much luck and got a puck in the face - and kept commentating while he was bleeding rather profusely and was being tended to! He at least didn't look so ridiculous as the linesman who got a puck into his behind side in the last Hawks game :D)
Well, on Tuesday we're writing that Maths Chapter one exam (and yes, we will have had only 6 lessons by then, but nobody really complains), Wednesday is god know what, Thursday is our Spanish test (review test; I'm so bored, can't we just get a start on the Grade 11 course?!) and Friday is ... free!
So only three days of school and hopefully lots of sleep!
And talking about sleep, I'm heading to bed now.
(I had the weirdest sleep last night - I remember waking up at least five times, around two, half past three, quarter past four, half past five, quarter to six, maybe even more - glancing at the clock and falling back asleep - into the same dream where we had to make sure the apocalypse occurred [or maybe didn't? I think we had to make sure it did ocurr] so we were playing a kind of hockey against a team with polar bears and then the bad knights who wanted to stop the apocalypse, came, with ridiculous [read: scary] guns and we were all really scared and fled into the bunker which was made of glass and when I realized that I launched myself into the arms of the next person coming into the bunker - I knew the bunker was safe, but I didn't know whether everybody would make it in time, and it looked like a green house - who happened to be Marián Hossa, Blackhawks forward, and I think I might have played with the rest of the Hawks... And then I woke up for the last time, five past seven. I could have slept for ten more minutes! But my dreams are really weird as of late...)
Good night!
Mittwoch, 6. Februar 2013
Two Steps Forward One Step Back
At least that's what it feels like.
Every time I make progress, I also take at least one setback.
Today it was Maths. I was just sitting there, when suddenly waves of nausea began hitting me, so I excused myself from the class and sat in the hallway, but every time I just so much as thought about going back to the class, I got sick again. It's not as though it matters, because the stuff we're doing is pretty easy and I essentially only missed a working period, but it was pretty inconvenient.
I blame it on the emotional turmoil, sleep deprivation (an average of 4 hours a night is not enough) and the stress of Maths - Math is the subject I need to excel at, because I need it in Germany ...
Otherwise... I'm not working with the same group of students as for the Biz Day for the Dragon's Den Challenge, but with two girls who seem super nice, motivated and even have already an idea for what to do!
I think I at least am more compatible with them than with those other two.
We're doing a pretty dumb project in Spanish for Review, but maybe that's just me thinking that because I just had it last semester.
The best part of my day was (of course) Creative Writing.
A) the teacher and B) we did 'describing a scene' today, and our group of 3 had "Ocean and Cliff" and I got a "well done" from Mr D! (unfortunately, I don't think I can take him back with me, Lywe, I think he likes Canada a lot)
Creative Writing is such an informal yet informative class, I really love it.
And we're pretty different - one kid has bleached hair with a red fringe, then we have guy with a lot of piercings, black hair and a green strand of hair, some rather shy people, a few drama students, one guy from my Biology class, a hockey player (not for the Rockets, though) from my old English class, Aislinn (the girl who introduced me to Tim Hortons, Item of Canadian National Pride) from Debate (and she said I should just stop by once, a few people really missed me :o For me it felt like failure, although I know that the choice was the right one - especially with Maths I wouldn't have been able to achieve the level of writing I would have liked) and a couple of other students (four internationals, 3 Germans and a Norwegian, and they're clustered around the table behind me, occasionally talking in German, and that throws me every time).
And then there was the Pep Rally, which was the reason all of our classes were only 60-odd minutes long.
We're hosting the West Canada Championship (or whatever) in ... Basketball? so they tried to get us to cheer for the team, gathered everybody in the gym and introduced their cheerleading chants to us, made idiots out of themselves in funny games (seriously) and had the microphone amped up too loud...
Well, some uninterrupted reading time, and as I said, all our classes were shorter due to it!
My evening was spent - how else? - doing Maths, but it wasn't too hard. There's a quiz tomorrow, but I don't think it'll get too hard.
As long as I can remember that y=f(x) and g(x)=af(b(x-h))+k and (x, y) ---> (1/bx+h, ay+k) and although it might be g(x)=f(x+4), it isn't translated four units to the right but for units to the left, because it's x-h, so h is -4 in this case, and that even though it b might be 3 it's not a horizontal stretch by a factor of three but by a factor of 1/3, and if a is negative, the graph is reflected in the x-axis and if b is negative the graph is reflected in the y-axis, and that the inverse of a function doesn't have to be a function but is always a relation and is reflected in y=x and yeah... I think that's about it....
It'll be alright, I think, it won't even be multiple choice if I understood it correctly!
So, and I'm definitely headed to bed now, my eyes are drooping shut!
Love y'all,
Julia
(whose mind is buzzing with Maths, but in kinda a good way)
Every time I make progress, I also take at least one setback.
Today it was Maths. I was just sitting there, when suddenly waves of nausea began hitting me, so I excused myself from the class and sat in the hallway, but every time I just so much as thought about going back to the class, I got sick again. It's not as though it matters, because the stuff we're doing is pretty easy and I essentially only missed a working period, but it was pretty inconvenient.
I blame it on the emotional turmoil, sleep deprivation (an average of 4 hours a night is not enough) and the stress of Maths - Math is the subject I need to excel at, because I need it in Germany ...
Otherwise... I'm not working with the same group of students as for the Biz Day for the Dragon's Den Challenge, but with two girls who seem super nice, motivated and even have already an idea for what to do!
I think I at least am more compatible with them than with those other two.
We're doing a pretty dumb project in Spanish for Review, but maybe that's just me thinking that because I just had it last semester.
The best part of my day was (of course) Creative Writing.
A) the teacher and B) we did 'describing a scene' today, and our group of 3 had "Ocean and Cliff" and I got a "well done" from Mr D! (unfortunately, I don't think I can take him back with me, Lywe, I think he likes Canada a lot)
Creative Writing is such an informal yet informative class, I really love it.
And we're pretty different - one kid has bleached hair with a red fringe, then we have guy with a lot of piercings, black hair and a green strand of hair, some rather shy people, a few drama students, one guy from my Biology class, a hockey player (not for the Rockets, though) from my old English class, Aislinn (the girl who introduced me to Tim Hortons, Item of Canadian National Pride) from Debate (and she said I should just stop by once, a few people really missed me :o For me it felt like failure, although I know that the choice was the right one - especially with Maths I wouldn't have been able to achieve the level of writing I would have liked) and a couple of other students (four internationals, 3 Germans and a Norwegian, and they're clustered around the table behind me, occasionally talking in German, and that throws me every time).
And then there was the Pep Rally, which was the reason all of our classes were only 60-odd minutes long.
We're hosting the West Canada Championship (or whatever) in ... Basketball? so they tried to get us to cheer for the team, gathered everybody in the gym and introduced their cheerleading chants to us, made idiots out of themselves in funny games (seriously) and had the microphone amped up too loud...
Well, some uninterrupted reading time, and as I said, all our classes were shorter due to it!
My evening was spent - how else? - doing Maths, but it wasn't too hard. There's a quiz tomorrow, but I don't think it'll get too hard.
As long as I can remember that y=f(x) and g(x)=af(b(x-h))+k and (x, y) ---> (1/bx+h, ay+k) and although it might be g(x)=f(x+4), it isn't translated four units to the right but for units to the left, because it's x-h, so h is -4 in this case, and that even though it b might be 3 it's not a horizontal stretch by a factor of three but by a factor of 1/3, and if a is negative, the graph is reflected in the x-axis and if b is negative the graph is reflected in the y-axis, and that the inverse of a function doesn't have to be a function but is always a relation and is reflected in y=x and yeah... I think that's about it....
It'll be alright, I think, it won't even be multiple choice if I understood it correctly!
So, and I'm definitely headed to bed now, my eyes are drooping shut!
Love y'all,
Julia
(whose mind is buzzing with Maths, but in kinda a good way)
I Believe I Can Fly
I'm so happy and elated that I might just take off!
Today has been a great day - mostly!
Okay, so I'm operating on waaay too little sleep, first off all - I just don't seem to manage to go to bed early, and I'm doing 1.5 to 2 hours of Maths a day. It's not that it's hard, it's just that it's a lot and we have to draw a lot, which takes time.
But anyway, so I woke up, wonderfully sleep-deprived - just enough so that I'm not falling-asleep-standing tired, but hui-I-might-not-be-completely-filled-up-on-sleep tired. I love that feeling, I have to admit.
But I should sneak a couple of hours in at some point, because the longer this goes on, the crankier and more exhausted I get... But at the moment everything's still fine!
First lesson: Spanish. Spanish is still super boring, because we're only doing review stuff, and only a few students had Spanish 10 last semester, so the majority has forgotten almost everything. Seriously. -_-
Second lesson: Entrepreneurship. I hate people I can't rely on. For our project we had to sell things during lunch. And I had gotten cups and straws for $10, while my other two 'co-workers' promised to get lemonade powder so that we could sell lemonade.
The thing is, I wouldn't even have had to do it, because of the ESL meeting, but I said I'll do it anyway. I had come up with the idea, and I had chipped in with the cups and everything.
And they didn't provide their end of the deal.
They got it figured out, but I have been the idiot trying to save everybody's ass often enough, so I just said "find a solution, I'll figure out how to pay my San Francisco trip", because my name had disappeared from the schoolcashonline account that is used to make any kind of payment.
It was apparently just a technical inconvenience, so I finally paid up. (Great thing nr. 1)
I helped them set the table up, and then excused myself to go to ESL.
I figured out that I already knew the new ESL teacher - our old one is on maternity leave - because I talked to her in the ESL room during lunch and she's one of the chaperones for the San Francisco trip! (GTNr 2)
She's super nice and genuinely so, while our old ESL teacher kinda gave me the feeling she wasn't taking us seriously. I hate that (and she strongly favoured the Mexican students and those in her ESL English class).
Third block: Creative Writing, and I used the free writing time to ponder the question of the school (It's like silent reading just that we're writing, and I absolutely love it).
I didn't come to a conclusion, and felt totally lost, so I resolved to asking Mr D for a bit of time after school, because he's brilliant to throw ideas around with.
We did a funny exercise: We got clay (that plastic stuff we used in kindergarten to mould stuff [Knete]) and he closed the blinds and switched off the lights, so that we were sitting in pitch black darkness (the blinds are pretty decent ones, better than usual blinds here, like the Rollos at home), and then we had to mould - a duck!
Mine got a price for general horribleness and was put up as one of the three worst ducks in the whole class, and I was crying because I was laughing so hard as Mr D was making fun of my duck. I really thought it was hilarious - and doesn't that say a lot about my growth here, because a year or two ago I would have burst into tears because I was hurt he would say such a thing? No, but art isn't my strength when I can see and bereft of my most important sense, what do you expect?
Anyway, it was an exercise to show us how our other senses are sharpened when one sense is gone.
Pretty great lesson, imo, and at the end I was like
"Mr D, do you maybe have a few minutes after school, I have a question?"
He: "Sorry, no, I have a meeting after school..."
Me: "Oh, so ... I dunno, should I come by tomorrow during lunch? Or something?"
He: "I could write you a late notice; why don't you just tell me now?"
So I reported my dilemma with the school, explained why I didn't really like the GN where I went to (teachers pretty narrow-minded [at least some of them and especially compared to Canada], teachers making me feel dumb for wanting to know more, year mates talking behind my back about me being a suck-up and a show-off [Maybe I'll make a post about that, too, I thought what he said was pretty great and would be good for me to remember], me being bored, my fear of falling back into my pattern of stressing myself ["When you got stressed, your personality changed visibly" - "Seriously? I never noticed" - "You start obsessing over details, asking questions trying to regain control over the little details where you can have control. You still ask those same questions, but you're way more relaxed"]) and we bounced a few ideas back and forth.
We settled on one option I don't want to detail here, because it's not sure whether it'll work out, but those needing to know will find an e-mail in their inbox in the near future!
So I missed almost half of my Math class, but I was feeling so much better afterwards. I hadn't even realized how much it had been weighing me down!
Math ... was pretty unremarkable, because we actually have already done that stuff; the only problem I am facing there is that we had a totally different approach, but I need to comply by the Ministry standards here.
After school, since I had some time to kill like always, I went to inquire about my final grades before we get our report cards tomorrow (technically today).
Spanish: Final Exam - 98.1%, Final Mark - 100.7%. Best mark in her two classes, I am proud to say! (I love the advantage Latin has given me)
In Japanese I didn't actually get my grade, but my teacher told me I had done "very well" and had an A overall.
I'm looking forward to the report cards tomorrow!
I'm not actually finished with my homework, because there was the most-anticipated and strongest game in the NHL at the moment on, but it's mainly drawing some stuff, and I might use it to lull me to sleep.
It's tedious, repeating all that stuff over and over again, but what can you do?
We had tacos for dinner - absolutely delicious, let me tell you!
So... that was my day.
Below follows only a bit of hockey, because I need to get rid of all these feels!
So, the match-up tonight was Blackhawks vs San Jose Sharks.
The Blackhawks have 7 wins in 9 games, and only two Shootout losses, which don't count as real losses - shootouts (SO), as I detailed in my last post (If I'm not wrong) come after overtime (OT), and as soon as it is tied and has to go to overtime, both teams get one point, and the winning team gets a second one. So the Hawks have had a start of six wins in succession and have had at least one point in every single one of their games. (People also say, they're undefeated in regulation, meaning nobody has yet defeated them during the regular 60 minutes).
The Sharks have a similar record - they started out with 7 wins in 7 games, making just as the Hawks a new franchise record, but then they got a shootout loss and, yesterday, their first regulation loss - which made the Hawks the only team so far to be undefeated in regulation and also giving them the lead in the league.
San Jose was pretty close behind, though - only one point.
I have to admit that I had given up the game after five minutes of play when the Sharks were up 2-0. Coach Q of the Blackhawks called a time-out, gathered his team and gave his goalie a moment to calm down, and after that, the Hawks were on fire.
Rookie Brandon Saad, who had been pretty good in all the past games after replacing a guy who twisted his knee in his first or second game on the top line with Jonathan Toews (Captain) and Marián Hossa (one of the top goal scorers and second in points, just behind Patrick Kane), finally got his long-awaited first goal, and that was kinda all it took for the Hawks to light it up.
The Sharks scored to make it 1-3 only 38 seconds after Saad's goal though, and I was ready to tear my hair out. 8 seconds later? 2-3. 42 seconds later? 3-3.
With the two best teams in the league who have both had great defensive play, having 6 goals in not even 13 minutes was kinda a miracle for the announcer who went nuts.
Thankfully, the scoring abated after that. Second period? Patrick Kane scores - which was pretty lucky.
They were playing four-on-four because one of the Hawks, Jamal Mayers, had gotten a legal hit but Duncan Keith (Defenseman) wasn't pleased about it and started a fight with the player who had hit Mayer, for which he got 19 (!!) penalty minutes. The perpetrator was thought to have delivered an illegal blow and was ejected from the game until they did video review.
So Kane had the puck, was skating towards the net, when the Sharks stole it from him - only to have the captain himself fish it out from between his feet in a move of total beauty, send it to Kane and see it dumped into the net. The goalie (fun fact: He was the goal tender in the Hawks' net when they won the Stanley Cup in 2010, and one of the opposing players was Patrick Sharp's best friend, before he got traded) never stood a chance.
And later in the third period, the Sharks pulled their goalie in order to get one more skater on the ice, and Kaner recorded an empty-netter (again with an assist from Toews), so the Hawks won it comfortably 5-3 after falling behind 0-2.
Now they are the league leaders without a regulation loss and three points on their next opponent.
I'm really, really happy, although that game was killing me - I was trying to do my Math homework, and I constantly got distracted because it was so nerve-wracking!
And now I seriously need to head to bed.
Love y'all,
Julia
Today has been a great day - mostly!
Okay, so I'm operating on waaay too little sleep, first off all - I just don't seem to manage to go to bed early, and I'm doing 1.5 to 2 hours of Maths a day. It's not that it's hard, it's just that it's a lot and we have to draw a lot, which takes time.
But anyway, so I woke up, wonderfully sleep-deprived - just enough so that I'm not falling-asleep-standing tired, but hui-I-might-not-be-completely-filled-up-on-sleep tired. I love that feeling, I have to admit.
But I should sneak a couple of hours in at some point, because the longer this goes on, the crankier and more exhausted I get... But at the moment everything's still fine!
First lesson: Spanish. Spanish is still super boring, because we're only doing review stuff, and only a few students had Spanish 10 last semester, so the majority has forgotten almost everything. Seriously. -_-
Second lesson: Entrepreneurship. I hate people I can't rely on. For our project we had to sell things during lunch. And I had gotten cups and straws for $10, while my other two 'co-workers' promised to get lemonade powder so that we could sell lemonade.
The thing is, I wouldn't even have had to do it, because of the ESL meeting, but I said I'll do it anyway. I had come up with the idea, and I had chipped in with the cups and everything.
And they didn't provide their end of the deal.
They got it figured out, but I have been the idiot trying to save everybody's ass often enough, so I just said "find a solution, I'll figure out how to pay my San Francisco trip", because my name had disappeared from the schoolcashonline account that is used to make any kind of payment.
It was apparently just a technical inconvenience, so I finally paid up. (Great thing nr. 1)
I helped them set the table up, and then excused myself to go to ESL.
I figured out that I already knew the new ESL teacher - our old one is on maternity leave - because I talked to her in the ESL room during lunch and she's one of the chaperones for the San Francisco trip! (GTNr 2)
She's super nice and genuinely so, while our old ESL teacher kinda gave me the feeling she wasn't taking us seriously. I hate that (and she strongly favoured the Mexican students and those in her ESL English class).
Third block: Creative Writing, and I used the free writing time to ponder the question of the school (It's like silent reading just that we're writing, and I absolutely love it).
I didn't come to a conclusion, and felt totally lost, so I resolved to asking Mr D for a bit of time after school, because he's brilliant to throw ideas around with.
We did a funny exercise: We got clay (that plastic stuff we used in kindergarten to mould stuff [Knete]) and he closed the blinds and switched off the lights, so that we were sitting in pitch black darkness (the blinds are pretty decent ones, better than usual blinds here, like the Rollos at home), and then we had to mould - a duck!
Mine got a price for general horribleness and was put up as one of the three worst ducks in the whole class, and I was crying because I was laughing so hard as Mr D was making fun of my duck. I really thought it was hilarious - and doesn't that say a lot about my growth here, because a year or two ago I would have burst into tears because I was hurt he would say such a thing? No, but art isn't my strength when I can see and bereft of my most important sense, what do you expect?
Anyway, it was an exercise to show us how our other senses are sharpened when one sense is gone.
Pretty great lesson, imo, and at the end I was like
"Mr D, do you maybe have a few minutes after school, I have a question?"
He: "Sorry, no, I have a meeting after school..."
Me: "Oh, so ... I dunno, should I come by tomorrow during lunch? Or something?"
He: "I could write you a late notice; why don't you just tell me now?"
So I reported my dilemma with the school, explained why I didn't really like the GN where I went to (teachers pretty narrow-minded [at least some of them and especially compared to Canada], teachers making me feel dumb for wanting to know more, year mates talking behind my back about me being a suck-up and a show-off [Maybe I'll make a post about that, too, I thought what he said was pretty great and would be good for me to remember], me being bored, my fear of falling back into my pattern of stressing myself ["When you got stressed, your personality changed visibly" - "Seriously? I never noticed" - "You start obsessing over details, asking questions trying to regain control over the little details where you can have control. You still ask those same questions, but you're way more relaxed"]) and we bounced a few ideas back and forth.
We settled on one option I don't want to detail here, because it's not sure whether it'll work out, but those needing to know will find an e-mail in their inbox in the near future!
So I missed almost half of my Math class, but I was feeling so much better afterwards. I hadn't even realized how much it had been weighing me down!
Math ... was pretty unremarkable, because we actually have already done that stuff; the only problem I am facing there is that we had a totally different approach, but I need to comply by the Ministry standards here.
After school, since I had some time to kill like always, I went to inquire about my final grades before we get our report cards tomorrow (technically today).
Spanish: Final Exam - 98.1%, Final Mark - 100.7%. Best mark in her two classes, I am proud to say! (I love the advantage Latin has given me)
In Japanese I didn't actually get my grade, but my teacher told me I had done "very well" and had an A overall.
I'm looking forward to the report cards tomorrow!
I'm not actually finished with my homework, because there was the most-anticipated and strongest game in the NHL at the moment on, but it's mainly drawing some stuff, and I might use it to lull me to sleep.
It's tedious, repeating all that stuff over and over again, but what can you do?
We had tacos for dinner - absolutely delicious, let me tell you!
So... that was my day.
Below follows only a bit of hockey, because I need to get rid of all these feels!
So, the match-up tonight was Blackhawks vs San Jose Sharks.
The Blackhawks have 7 wins in 9 games, and only two Shootout losses, which don't count as real losses - shootouts (SO), as I detailed in my last post (If I'm not wrong) come after overtime (OT), and as soon as it is tied and has to go to overtime, both teams get one point, and the winning team gets a second one. So the Hawks have had a start of six wins in succession and have had at least one point in every single one of their games. (People also say, they're undefeated in regulation, meaning nobody has yet defeated them during the regular 60 minutes).
The Sharks have a similar record - they started out with 7 wins in 7 games, making just as the Hawks a new franchise record, but then they got a shootout loss and, yesterday, their first regulation loss - which made the Hawks the only team so far to be undefeated in regulation and also giving them the lead in the league.
San Jose was pretty close behind, though - only one point.
I have to admit that I had given up the game after five minutes of play when the Sharks were up 2-0. Coach Q of the Blackhawks called a time-out, gathered his team and gave his goalie a moment to calm down, and after that, the Hawks were on fire.
Rookie Brandon Saad, who had been pretty good in all the past games after replacing a guy who twisted his knee in his first or second game on the top line with Jonathan Toews (Captain) and Marián Hossa (one of the top goal scorers and second in points, just behind Patrick Kane), finally got his long-awaited first goal, and that was kinda all it took for the Hawks to light it up.
The Sharks scored to make it 1-3 only 38 seconds after Saad's goal though, and I was ready to tear my hair out. 8 seconds later? 2-3. 42 seconds later? 3-3.
With the two best teams in the league who have both had great defensive play, having 6 goals in not even 13 minutes was kinda a miracle for the announcer who went nuts.
Thankfully, the scoring abated after that. Second period? Patrick Kane scores - which was pretty lucky.
They were playing four-on-four because one of the Hawks, Jamal Mayers, had gotten a legal hit but Duncan Keith (Defenseman) wasn't pleased about it and started a fight with the player who had hit Mayer, for which he got 19 (!!) penalty minutes. The perpetrator was thought to have delivered an illegal blow and was ejected from the game until they did video review.
So Kane had the puck, was skating towards the net, when the Sharks stole it from him - only to have the captain himself fish it out from between his feet in a move of total beauty, send it to Kane and see it dumped into the net. The goalie (fun fact: He was the goal tender in the Hawks' net when they won the Stanley Cup in 2010, and one of the opposing players was Patrick Sharp's best friend, before he got traded) never stood a chance.
And later in the third period, the Sharks pulled their goalie in order to get one more skater on the ice, and Kaner recorded an empty-netter (again with an assist from Toews), so the Hawks won it comfortably 5-3 after falling behind 0-2.
Now they are the league leaders without a regulation loss and three points on their next opponent.
I'm really, really happy, although that game was killing me - I was trying to do my Math homework, and I constantly got distracted because it was so nerve-wracking!
And now I seriously need to head to bed.
Love y'all,
Julia
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