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 School werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label School 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
Montag, 4. März 2013
Recap
So, just in case you're too lazy to read my full post below, here just a short recap of my day:
I started it out with another delicious peanut butter banana wrap, and Tanya made another wrap (with bell pepper, sliced turkey, lettuce and a kind of ranch sauce) for my lunch, and then I started school...
I fixed up our S.W.O.T. analysis for our own project plus for Booster Juice for Entrepreneurship, because we had gotten a really bad grade for it, and then I went to see the counselor, because I decided on the weekend that I would drop Spanish and see whether I could switch into a P.E. class or foods or something, but I had to wait a full hour in the office - there were two new students in front of me, and that took some time.
But I managed to get it switched - Spanish to MMA, and my Spanish teacher has indeed redeemed herself. I felt she'd given me the cold shoulder and had been quite terse, but when I told her why I dropped it (too much stress) she said my new choice, Mixed Martial Arts, would be just the right thing for me.
And she complimented me on my Spanish - we had a presentation and I had forgotten my script at home, so I improvised, and then we were supposed to hand in our scripts. And I'm like "I don't have one," and later she told me that my Spanish was anyway so good and I should just relax, I'm just here for the fun...
Then in Math we had a review period - test is tomorrow, but I'm like not at all worried, because I think I understood everything, and who cares about the grade as long as I'm passing?
I have finally, after six months, arrived at a point where I can just relax and take it easy.
I hope this feeling stays for a bit.
In Creative Writing we did this awesome exercise: We listened to a lot of songs and had to jot down our thoughts about them, what sprang to mind and so on. And from Death Metal over Tibetan Natural Sounds to 80s pop songs (and Pumped Up Kicks) everything was there - even what I called "Church Music" :D
So after school I called up the dancing studio here - and that was the only downer to my day.
The group lessons are only for couples, and the private lessons are too expensive, so no dancing for me!
But Tanya signed me up for a Tai Chi class, which will be on Saturdays, and a Boot Camp from April to June on Mondays, so I will get my sport :)
And tomorrow we will start for real on our big project in Creative Writing!
And now I'm skyping with my mom, so I'm signing off! :)
I started it out with another delicious peanut butter banana wrap, and Tanya made another wrap (with bell pepper, sliced turkey, lettuce and a kind of ranch sauce) for my lunch, and then I started school...
I fixed up our S.W.O.T. analysis for our own project plus for Booster Juice for Entrepreneurship, because we had gotten a really bad grade for it, and then I went to see the counselor, because I decided on the weekend that I would drop Spanish and see whether I could switch into a P.E. class or foods or something, but I had to wait a full hour in the office - there were two new students in front of me, and that took some time.
But I managed to get it switched - Spanish to MMA, and my Spanish teacher has indeed redeemed herself. I felt she'd given me the cold shoulder and had been quite terse, but when I told her why I dropped it (too much stress) she said my new choice, Mixed Martial Arts, would be just the right thing for me.
And she complimented me on my Spanish - we had a presentation and I had forgotten my script at home, so I improvised, and then we were supposed to hand in our scripts. And I'm like "I don't have one," and later she told me that my Spanish was anyway so good and I should just relax, I'm just here for the fun...
Then in Math we had a review period - test is tomorrow, but I'm like not at all worried, because I think I understood everything, and who cares about the grade as long as I'm passing?
I have finally, after six months, arrived at a point where I can just relax and take it easy.
I hope this feeling stays for a bit.
In Creative Writing we did this awesome exercise: We listened to a lot of songs and had to jot down our thoughts about them, what sprang to mind and so on. And from Death Metal over Tibetan Natural Sounds to 80s pop songs (and Pumped Up Kicks) everything was there - even what I called "Church Music" :D
So after school I called up the dancing studio here - and that was the only downer to my day.
The group lessons are only for couples, and the private lessons are too expensive, so no dancing for me!
But Tanya signed me up for a Tai Chi class, which will be on Saturdays, and a Boot Camp from April to June on Mondays, so I will get my sport :)
And tomorrow we will start for real on our big project in Creative Writing!
And now I'm skyping with my mom, so I'm signing off! :)
Being Down
Everybody always stressed how hard the first few months are.
Barely anybody mentioned how incoercible [unbezwingbar] the middle stretch would be.
In all honesty?
Without the San Francisco Trip in April, I would fly home around Easter.
There are of course a couple of reasons for that, and now that I have at least managed to eliminate one of them, I feel better instantaneously.
One reason, for sure, is that right now everything has become normal.
Everyday activities that seemed so exciting and enticing at the beginning of the year are familiar, mundane by now.
That is not to say they are boring - because they aren't, seriously - but rather that they've lost their shiny sheen.
Add to that my annual winter depression, and you have a really bad mixture.
It's the same every winter, but even knowing that didn't make it easier.
I start feeling tired, almost burnt out. I get reclusive and stop caring about my grades so badly. At least on the surface, I believe that underneath it, the stress keeps building up.
Although not as badly, as I have heard from multiple sources that I have become way more relaxed.
I believe I have caught myself again out of that phase, but it is too soon to really draw a conclusion - I might be struck down by the smallest thing tomorrow.
And one of the things pulling me down that I could change, I changed:
I switched out of Spanish.
As much as I enjoyed the language, I didn't enjoy the lesson for a multitude of reasons.
There was the way the teacher treated the students differently.
She seemed abrasive and cold, terse towards me, but warm and joking towards another student.
You never realize how bad it feels to be left out of such joking - even though more than half of the class was left out - until you've been included in it.
I am used to being the "studious", "serious" one. Teachers don't joke with me.
Or at least, they don't usually.
Mr Derksen - well, he jokes with me. He teases me, just like his other students.
I am just another student in his class, not some role model or perfect student. Because I'm not. I'm no less perfect than any of you out there, just as you are no less perfect than me.
But since I like to learn new things and like to participate, teachers have either raised me onto a platform, or ignored me completely.
To me it felt like this Spanish teacher did the latter.
Then there is the way she teaches: She is young, relatively inexperienced, if I may say so, and her lesson isn't structured. She seems to have several ideas of what should teach the students, but she ends up jumping from one exercise to the next, without a clear picture in front of her eyes, a goal to achieve. I'm sure, though, that this will come with time, and only with time.
The last straw was the class.
Nobody is there because they want to learn the language. They all are sitting in the classroom because they need a grade 11 language for university (some unis require a second language).
It was a horrible atmosphere, and all in all I felt really not-challenged.
We had a project presentation today, and I was half an hour late, because I had been at the counselor's to get the course dropping form.
I did the presentation without any notes - and then she wanted us to hand in our scripts.
I had written one, but left it on my dresser at home, so I had improvised and told her I didn't have a script.
After the lesson I went to her and told her I needed her signature for dropping the course.
She looked at me and asked "why?," because of course teachers want to know why a student doesn't want to take their course anymore.
I didn't feel comfortable with saying "because you confuse me and are a bad teacher and that amounts to a lot of stress for me," so all I said was "I'm having real troubles sleeping - I only get 4-5 hours of sleep a night, and so I need to drop a course."
I told her about my other workload, and then it was revealed that that approach had been a wise one:
She looked at me, really concerned, and told me she'd been the same when she entered university and had burnt out really quickly.
She looked at my replacement course, and said "Good choice, Julia."
What is my replacement? Mixed Martial Arts.
So I finally get a bit more sport!
After I had gotten her signature, I went to see the teacher outside in the portable, and he gave me his signature - the only problem: The class is an all boys' class.
Well, and now me.
But you know what? I don't really care.
I'm sure we'll get along somehow, and if not, I can still go to P.E.
All in all, that was a great day to take away that stress factor, and I've been feeling really great.
That enthusiasm though was diminished by the afternoon: I finally got the owner of the Del Buono Dance Studio here on the phone and asked him about Ballroom lessons.
Group lessons are only for couples, and I don't have anybody to go with, and private lessons are $65 per hour.
Waaaay too much.
Tanya gave me a booklet with activities for the spring and early summer here in Glenmore, and I have put my eye on two courses:
One Tai Chi course on Saturday noons, and a Boot Camp that starts in April.
Tanya will register me tomorrow, and I really hope I get into it!
Both sounded pretty awesome, to be honest!
So, I'm pretty happy again - and maybe I can even use part of this stuff up there for my Creative Writing project! :D
Doubly useful!
Hmmm... I just realized I didn't finish the arch I started to span... Okay, so here is the rest:
But this chance was, as so often, not solely my choice. Or at least, it didn't start with me.
I was too blind, too close, to see the root of the problem - or at least one possibility of a root.
But, as I mentioned, I skyped a lot the past weekend.
It started out with Lydia, who's been a great help throughout all of this - and the only one of whom I actually know that they read my blog regularly, aside from my beloved Doro and my Mum, so all the more kudos to her!
So I was skyping with her - and I have to mention that by that time I was already feeling vastly better, if not great - and she said to me "If I'm honest with you, Julia, I think the best thing would be for you to come home now."
Now I didn't react scandalized or angry as some of you might think I would. I just looked at her calmly and maybe a tad tired and said "That's not an option. I don't think I could live with myself if I cut it short."
The thing is, I don't feel anything particular about this subject. I feel indifferent.
I have learned so much, broadened my mind a considerable but, have learned so much about myself, I'm just tired.
I want to go home. As in, go home to the sanctuary I have built up over the last 15 years, with the impregnable walls and my long-time friends and everything I have always known.
I am vastly out of my comfort zone, here, something that I tend to forget as long as I am in good spirits.
But, "I know I can finish this. I know I am strong enough to actually see this through til the end."
So we devised a couple of plans I need to follow to be more happy.
The first one is "Stand up for myself."
Now you might think "But she's always so outspoken, she actually says what she thinks..."
Yes, I do.
But I only speak my mind if I know it won't affect anybody.
I have unlearned to say 'no'.
I bottle up all my anger and disappointment, and am happy.
But the anger and the emotions aren't just gone. Not in the least.
They are there, locked away deep inside me, slowly gnawing away, eating me up inside out.
They erupt in panic attacks and break downs, but never in a truly healthy fashion.
The first step to standing up for myself, not just on the behalf of others or knowledge, but for my feelings, would have been to call off Spanish.
But I didn't think so far, didn't make the connection.
So when I was skyping with Dorothea, she said to me "I remember in the first semester how excited you were about school, how you could hardly wait to get there, how you loved it.
And from what I've seen from your blog, that is gone now. For god's sake, you won't even go to bed because you know that in the morning, you have to drag yourself to school!"
I was backed up by my parents, who both said, "If it makes you unhappy, drop it. You're over there to enjoy your year, not to torture yourself" (okay, I didn't ask for their input so much as I said "I'm dropping Spanish" and watched their reaction...).
I can't yet say anything about the long-term meaning of my choice. But for now at least, I feel unbelievably free and cheerful and great.
So I really hope that it stays this time! :)
Barely anybody mentioned how incoercible [unbezwingbar] the middle stretch would be.
In all honesty?
Without the San Francisco Trip in April, I would fly home around Easter.
There are of course a couple of reasons for that, and now that I have at least managed to eliminate one of them, I feel better instantaneously.
One reason, for sure, is that right now everything has become normal.
Everyday activities that seemed so exciting and enticing at the beginning of the year are familiar, mundane by now.
That is not to say they are boring - because they aren't, seriously - but rather that they've lost their shiny sheen.
Add to that my annual winter depression, and you have a really bad mixture.
It's the same every winter, but even knowing that didn't make it easier.
I start feeling tired, almost burnt out. I get reclusive and stop caring about my grades so badly. At least on the surface, I believe that underneath it, the stress keeps building up.
Although not as badly, as I have heard from multiple sources that I have become way more relaxed.
I believe I have caught myself again out of that phase, but it is too soon to really draw a conclusion - I might be struck down by the smallest thing tomorrow.
And one of the things pulling me down that I could change, I changed:
I switched out of Spanish.
As much as I enjoyed the language, I didn't enjoy the lesson for a multitude of reasons.
There was the way the teacher treated the students differently.
She seemed abrasive and cold, terse towards me, but warm and joking towards another student.
You never realize how bad it feels to be left out of such joking - even though more than half of the class was left out - until you've been included in it.
I am used to being the "studious", "serious" one. Teachers don't joke with me.
Or at least, they don't usually.
Mr Derksen - well, he jokes with me. He teases me, just like his other students.
I am just another student in his class, not some role model or perfect student. Because I'm not. I'm no less perfect than any of you out there, just as you are no less perfect than me.
But since I like to learn new things and like to participate, teachers have either raised me onto a platform, or ignored me completely.
To me it felt like this Spanish teacher did the latter.
Then there is the way she teaches: She is young, relatively inexperienced, if I may say so, and her lesson isn't structured. She seems to have several ideas of what should teach the students, but she ends up jumping from one exercise to the next, without a clear picture in front of her eyes, a goal to achieve. I'm sure, though, that this will come with time, and only with time.
The last straw was the class.
Nobody is there because they want to learn the language. They all are sitting in the classroom because they need a grade 11 language for university (some unis require a second language).
It was a horrible atmosphere, and all in all I felt really not-challenged.
We had a project presentation today, and I was half an hour late, because I had been at the counselor's to get the course dropping form.
I did the presentation without any notes - and then she wanted us to hand in our scripts.
I had written one, but left it on my dresser at home, so I had improvised and told her I didn't have a script.
After the lesson I went to her and told her I needed her signature for dropping the course.
She looked at me and asked "why?," because of course teachers want to know why a student doesn't want to take their course anymore.
I didn't feel comfortable with saying "because you confuse me and are a bad teacher and that amounts to a lot of stress for me," so all I said was "I'm having real troubles sleeping - I only get 4-5 hours of sleep a night, and so I need to drop a course."
I told her about my other workload, and then it was revealed that that approach had been a wise one:
She looked at me, really concerned, and told me she'd been the same when she entered university and had burnt out really quickly.
She looked at my replacement course, and said "Good choice, Julia."
What is my replacement? Mixed Martial Arts.
So I finally get a bit more sport!
After I had gotten her signature, I went to see the teacher outside in the portable, and he gave me his signature - the only problem: The class is an all boys' class.
Well, and now me.
But you know what? I don't really care.
I'm sure we'll get along somehow, and if not, I can still go to P.E.
All in all, that was a great day to take away that stress factor, and I've been feeling really great.
That enthusiasm though was diminished by the afternoon: I finally got the owner of the Del Buono Dance Studio here on the phone and asked him about Ballroom lessons.
Group lessons are only for couples, and I don't have anybody to go with, and private lessons are $65 per hour.
Waaaay too much.
Tanya gave me a booklet with activities for the spring and early summer here in Glenmore, and I have put my eye on two courses:
One Tai Chi course on Saturday noons, and a Boot Camp that starts in April.
Tanya will register me tomorrow, and I really hope I get into it!
Both sounded pretty awesome, to be honest!
So, I'm pretty happy again - and maybe I can even use part of this stuff up there for my Creative Writing project! :D
Doubly useful!
Hmmm... I just realized I didn't finish the arch I started to span... Okay, so here is the rest:
But this chance was, as so often, not solely my choice. Or at least, it didn't start with me.
I was too blind, too close, to see the root of the problem - or at least one possibility of a root.
But, as I mentioned, I skyped a lot the past weekend.
It started out with Lydia, who's been a great help throughout all of this - and the only one of whom I actually know that they read my blog regularly, aside from my beloved Doro and my Mum, so all the more kudos to her!
So I was skyping with her - and I have to mention that by that time I was already feeling vastly better, if not great - and she said to me "If I'm honest with you, Julia, I think the best thing would be for you to come home now."
Now I didn't react scandalized or angry as some of you might think I would. I just looked at her calmly and maybe a tad tired and said "That's not an option. I don't think I could live with myself if I cut it short."
The thing is, I don't feel anything particular about this subject. I feel indifferent.
I have learned so much, broadened my mind a considerable but, have learned so much about myself, I'm just tired.
I want to go home. As in, go home to the sanctuary I have built up over the last 15 years, with the impregnable walls and my long-time friends and everything I have always known.
I am vastly out of my comfort zone, here, something that I tend to forget as long as I am in good spirits.
But, "I know I can finish this. I know I am strong enough to actually see this through til the end."
So we devised a couple of plans I need to follow to be more happy.
The first one is "Stand up for myself."
Now you might think "But she's always so outspoken, she actually says what she thinks..."
Yes, I do.
But I only speak my mind if I know it won't affect anybody.
I have unlearned to say 'no'.
I bottle up all my anger and disappointment, and am happy.
But the anger and the emotions aren't just gone. Not in the least.
They are there, locked away deep inside me, slowly gnawing away, eating me up inside out.
They erupt in panic attacks and break downs, but never in a truly healthy fashion.
The first step to standing up for myself, not just on the behalf of others or knowledge, but for my feelings, would have been to call off Spanish.
But I didn't think so far, didn't make the connection.
So when I was skyping with Dorothea, she said to me "I remember in the first semester how excited you were about school, how you could hardly wait to get there, how you loved it.
And from what I've seen from your blog, that is gone now. For god's sake, you won't even go to bed because you know that in the morning, you have to drag yourself to school!"
I was backed up by my parents, who both said, "If it makes you unhappy, drop it. You're over there to enjoy your year, not to torture yourself" (okay, I didn't ask for their input so much as I said "I'm dropping Spanish" and watched their reaction...).
I can't yet say anything about the long-term meaning of my choice. But for now at least, I feel unbelievably free and cheerful and great.
So I really hope that it stays this time! :)
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
Seventeen
Seventeen - that is how many pages I have written for Math homework over the last four days.
Today alone it took me two hours to finish Math, after I hadn't done anything yesterday (I had done half of it during Math and Entrepreneurship yesterday and the other half today during school). It wasn't hard, it was just a lot, like seriously a lot (# 1-5, 7, 9, 10, all of which had at least a-c if not a-f), but afterwards I felt really awesome!
We went bowling today - and it was fun!
I was overall third after two games, second of all students and first of all girl with 199 after two :) Don't ask me how, I have no idea. Just luck and charm?
I wrote a really, really long letter to Lara - I got carried away a bit, and I switched the keyboard to German, so right now I'm having trouble typing!
And I have one more thing:
If you're feeling bad in any way - self-harm, eating disorder, depression - consider checking out this blog, which I found on my tumblr dash today.
It's really good, and even though I don't have any of these problems, it made me feel better instantly!
Tomorrow is a long day - and what I really have to admit is that I miss Doro. So much!
Even though I didn't see her that often, she was just there - and this assurance is just absent now :/
Anyway, I'm almost falling asleep sitting here, so I'm saying good night!
Good night!
Today alone it took me two hours to finish Math, after I hadn't done anything yesterday (I had done half of it during Math and Entrepreneurship yesterday and the other half today during school). It wasn't hard, it was just a lot, like seriously a lot (# 1-5, 7, 9, 10, all of which had at least a-c if not a-f), but afterwards I felt really awesome!
We went bowling today - and it was fun!
I was overall third after two games, second of all students and first of all girl with 199 after two :) Don't ask me how, I have no idea. Just luck and charm?
I wrote a really, really long letter to Lara - I got carried away a bit, and I switched the keyboard to German, so right now I'm having trouble typing!
And I have one more thing:
If you're feeling bad in any way - self-harm, eating disorder, depression - consider checking out this blog, which I found on my tumblr dash today.
It's really good, and even though I don't have any of these problems, it made me feel better instantly!
Tomorrow is a long day - and what I really have to admit is that I miss Doro. So much!
Even though I didn't see her that often, she was just there - and this assurance is just absent now :/
Anyway, I'm almost falling asleep sitting here, so I'm saying good night!
Good night!
Mittwoch, 27. Februar 2013
Coincidences
Have you ever heard of those?
I have the weirdest time right now:
Back last semester, when there were 8 to 11 Rockets players enrolled at KSS, I didn't really see a single one - and I always watched the masses to see the grey sweaters with the Ogopogo Monster emblem on the right side.
But to no avail - I would glimpse the sweaters, or something that might have been similar sweaters, but never really.
And now, where there are only 4 Rockets left at KSS (the rest graduated already), I keep seeing them everywhere.
Yesterday, for example, I almost ran over Chartier - okay, it would probably better to say that he almost ran be over, since he has something close to a foot and more than 30 pounds on me, but fact is that he was hurrying through the hallway with his eyes lowered, I was hurrying through the hallway with my eyes glued to my kindle (no, I can't even stop reading for that long) and I looked up at the last moment basically and managed to jump into my classroom - but it was close.
And then I was waiting outside for Andy to pick me up - and guess who's standing maybe 15 feet away from me? Two guys clad in grey Rockets sweaters!
And today, while I was supposed to be in class, I excused myself to get my headphones out of my locker, and I think it's obvious whom I met in the completely deserted hallways, right? Chartier and the last Rocket.
Since I embarrassed myself with one question (I asked him what it felt like to be down on ice level when the National Anthem was sung and then clarified I meant standing on the blue line - being the starting line -, which is not something a rookie like Chartier would experience... And I didn't realize it until much, much later, so duh), I only ducked my head and took the stairs two at a time...
But I could have handled that smoother.
Other than that ... school was alright.
Since I'm running on way too little sleep (I just can't go to bed), I handed in the wrong, incomplete version of an assignment and got a C- for it, by far my worst grade this year. I hope I can remedy that tomorrow by presenting the correct version.
And in Creative Writing we formed Palindromes - poems you can read from top to bottom and they are dark, and then you read all the lines in reverse order - starting with the bottom most line and then going upwards (you're still reading the words in the correct order, it's only the lines that have changed).
Here is my attempt. The content isn't superb, but they're hard enough to write as it is, not to mention to find content:
They'd broken up three years ago
Even after having lied that
They loved each other
They didn't
All they did was mock and hurt
We'd thought
That they would get married
It was quite the shock
And now read it from the bottom up! :)
It was really cool to do that!
And that's about it... Nothing interesting...
Have a great day!
Julia
I have the weirdest time right now:
Back last semester, when there were 8 to 11 Rockets players enrolled at KSS, I didn't really see a single one - and I always watched the masses to see the grey sweaters with the Ogopogo Monster emblem on the right side.
But to no avail - I would glimpse the sweaters, or something that might have been similar sweaters, but never really.
And now, where there are only 4 Rockets left at KSS (the rest graduated already), I keep seeing them everywhere.
Yesterday, for example, I almost ran over Chartier - okay, it would probably better to say that he almost ran be over, since he has something close to a foot and more than 30 pounds on me, but fact is that he was hurrying through the hallway with his eyes lowered, I was hurrying through the hallway with my eyes glued to my kindle (no, I can't even stop reading for that long) and I looked up at the last moment basically and managed to jump into my classroom - but it was close.
And then I was waiting outside for Andy to pick me up - and guess who's standing maybe 15 feet away from me? Two guys clad in grey Rockets sweaters!
And today, while I was supposed to be in class, I excused myself to get my headphones out of my locker, and I think it's obvious whom I met in the completely deserted hallways, right? Chartier and the last Rocket.
Since I embarrassed myself with one question (I asked him what it felt like to be down on ice level when the National Anthem was sung and then clarified I meant standing on the blue line - being the starting line -, which is not something a rookie like Chartier would experience... And I didn't realize it until much, much later, so duh), I only ducked my head and took the stairs two at a time...
But I could have handled that smoother.
Other than that ... school was alright.
Since I'm running on way too little sleep (I just can't go to bed), I handed in the wrong, incomplete version of an assignment and got a C- for it, by far my worst grade this year. I hope I can remedy that tomorrow by presenting the correct version.
And in Creative Writing we formed Palindromes - poems you can read from top to bottom and they are dark, and then you read all the lines in reverse order - starting with the bottom most line and then going upwards (you're still reading the words in the correct order, it's only the lines that have changed).
Here is my attempt. The content isn't superb, but they're hard enough to write as it is, not to mention to find content:
They'd broken up three years ago
Even after having lied that
They loved each other
They didn't
All they did was mock and hurt
We'd thought
That they would get married
It was quite the shock
And now read it from the bottom up! :)
It was really cool to do that!
And that's about it... Nothing interesting...
Have a great day!
Julia
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
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!
Freitag, 15. Februar 2013
Short Free Day
Yep, I totally wasted my free day.
First by sleeping insanely late (I woke up at around eight or so, went straight back to sleep, was woken by Jenna and Bob at half past ten, had full intentions to stand up in, like, a minute, and then it was suddenly half past twelve and I was alone at home... Full 11 hours for me!) and then doing a bit of homework and finally starting on the birthday present for Claire - I'm at her birthday party tomorrow, I might have mentioned it.
Something else that was great today:
I finally had my first full-on English dream where I was sure afterwards that they'd spoken English in my dream - in the past after a dream, I could never tell whether it'd been English or German once I'd woken up, but this time I am certain that it was English!
And of course it involved hockey :) What else did you expect?
And now it's half past ten and I'm super tired, so I'm heading off to brush my teeth now.
See ya all again tomorrow!
First by sleeping insanely late (I woke up at around eight or so, went straight back to sleep, was woken by Jenna and Bob at half past ten, had full intentions to stand up in, like, a minute, and then it was suddenly half past twelve and I was alone at home... Full 11 hours for me!) and then doing a bit of homework and finally starting on the birthday present for Claire - I'm at her birthday party tomorrow, I might have mentioned it.
Something else that was great today:
I finally had my first full-on English dream where I was sure afterwards that they'd spoken English in my dream - in the past after a dream, I could never tell whether it'd been English or German once I'd woken up, but this time I am certain that it was English!
And of course it involved hockey :) What else did you expect?
And now it's half past ten and I'm super tired, so I'm heading off to brush my teeth now.
See ya all again tomorrow!
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!
Mittwoch, 13. Februar 2013
Help
EDIT: Before I start, here have a picture I enjoyed very much:
(From the tumblr post Shit WHL Players Say. Also features one of the Rockets and great thoughts on food, bubble wrap factories and The Hobbit... The WHL is the Western Hockey League, which is where the Rockets are playing.)
[EDIT: More laughter. Seriously, check it our, there are some gems!
For example:
And plenty of Rockets, too! All of that, here!
I can understand]
Help, fellow Germans!
I have a huge problem:
Do we actually say "Der Hund bellt"? I never realized how weird this sounds, please tell me I'm getting it wrong! Why would we say "bellt"?
"Bell" isn't a German word, is it?
...
I think I should go to bed. I'm making no sense, am I?
Anyway, today was pretty awesome - I interviewed Rourke during lunch, and even though it was a bit awesome and stilted at points, as neither of us had any idea how to do an interview, he was surprisingly forth-coming - at least considering how unenthusiastic he's been the first couple of times I saw him.
They're playing Everett tomorrow, and guess what?
I got tickets!
I know it's Valentine's day, but what do we say in Bavaria?
An gschenktn Gaul schaut ma ned ins Maul, which sums it up pretty neatly. (Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I won't elaborate further here, but I'm sure you can guess/deduce what that means)
Although I had a pretty lengthy list of questions, it took me about half an hour - most of the answers I got were pretty unsurprising, but very interesting!
School itself was okay - not great, a bit boring, and I still haven't done my Math homework - but I got more than halfway through it during Math itself, so I think I'm gonna do it tomorrow during lunch. Doesn't make a difference whether I'm reading or doing Math, y'know?
In Spanish we finally held our presentations, and I think it wasn't too bad. Not great, but for the effort I put into it, it's gotta be awesome (I mean the relation of effort to outcome. VERY little effort :) )
And remember me bitching about those irresponsible teammates of mine in Entrepreneurship?
Well, let's just say I've been disappointed once more.
Our group was three girls - me, a Chinese international student (she finishes her education here) and a Canadian girl with whom I was at the OC [Okanagan College] for lunch - I might have mentioned it. And I really should learn to listen to my gut, because my gut was telling me "this is not perfect, Julia, this isn't what you were looking for". But since the Canadian girl already had an idea and kinda an outline for the business thingy, I shoved that down. - Not that I didn't really like the idea, I said I was indifferent about it, remember?
Well, today I missed the first part of the lesson because I had to go and squeal about the tickets and stuff, so I went to see Mr M, and when I came back, the girl was nowhere to be seen and CiCi also didn't know where she'd gone. When she finally did come back, she informed us: "I dropped the course."
I'm of course like WTF?! but well... nothing to be done...
CiCi and I asked to join a couple of boys since our teammate had bailed on us, and while they said they had to talk it over with their third teammate who wasn't there today, they believed it wouldn't be a problem.
Well, and that was about my day...
I'm invited to a birthday party on Saturday evening, with Claire, my friend from English, and that's it...
(I bailed on the gym because my right knee was feeling like there was a needle being jabbed repeatedly into the Hoffa's fat pad - like between the kneecap and the meniscus or what do I know, it hurt like hell; and my left knee felt like it was falling apart. I hate my knees, I seriously do.)
So have a great night/day!
[EDIT: More laughter. Seriously, check it our, there are some gems!
For example:
Help, fellow Germans!
I have a huge problem:
Do we actually say "Der Hund bellt"? I never realized how weird this sounds, please tell me I'm getting it wrong! Why would we say "bellt"?
"Bell" isn't a German word, is it?
...
I think I should go to bed. I'm making no sense, am I?
Anyway, today was pretty awesome - I interviewed Rourke during lunch, and even though it was a bit awesome and stilted at points, as neither of us had any idea how to do an interview, he was surprisingly forth-coming - at least considering how unenthusiastic he's been the first couple of times I saw him.
They're playing Everett tomorrow, and guess what?
I got tickets!
I know it's Valentine's day, but what do we say in Bavaria?
An gschenktn Gaul schaut ma ned ins Maul, which sums it up pretty neatly. (Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I won't elaborate further here, but I'm sure you can guess/deduce what that means)
Although I had a pretty lengthy list of questions, it took me about half an hour - most of the answers I got were pretty unsurprising, but very interesting!
School itself was okay - not great, a bit boring, and I still haven't done my Math homework - but I got more than halfway through it during Math itself, so I think I'm gonna do it tomorrow during lunch. Doesn't make a difference whether I'm reading or doing Math, y'know?
In Spanish we finally held our presentations, and I think it wasn't too bad. Not great, but for the effort I put into it, it's gotta be awesome (I mean the relation of effort to outcome. VERY little effort :) )
And remember me bitching about those irresponsible teammates of mine in Entrepreneurship?
Well, let's just say I've been disappointed once more.
Our group was three girls - me, a Chinese international student (she finishes her education here) and a Canadian girl with whom I was at the OC [Okanagan College] for lunch - I might have mentioned it. And I really should learn to listen to my gut, because my gut was telling me "this is not perfect, Julia, this isn't what you were looking for". But since the Canadian girl already had an idea and kinda an outline for the business thingy, I shoved that down. - Not that I didn't really like the idea, I said I was indifferent about it, remember?
Well, today I missed the first part of the lesson because I had to go and squeal about the tickets and stuff, so I went to see Mr M, and when I came back, the girl was nowhere to be seen and CiCi also didn't know where she'd gone. When she finally did come back, she informed us: "I dropped the course."
I'm of course like WTF?! but well... nothing to be done...
CiCi and I asked to join a couple of boys since our teammate had bailed on us, and while they said they had to talk it over with their third teammate who wasn't there today, they believed it wouldn't be a problem.
Well, and that was about my day...
I'm invited to a birthday party on Saturday evening, with Claire, my friend from English, and that's it...
(I bailed on the gym because my right knee was feeling like there was a needle being jabbed repeatedly into the Hoffa's fat pad - like between the kneecap and the meniscus or what do I know, it hurt like hell; and my left knee felt like it was falling apart. I hate my knees, I seriously do.)
So have a great night/day!
Dienstag, 12. Februar 2013
Rattled and Shaken
My week and time in general have been rather great lately - so it was of course inevitable to have that crash rather spectacularly.
It started out with way too little sleep, although I'm not even complaining about that anymore (the only downside here is that I am really tired now but in desperate need of a skyping session :/), and then Creative Writing, which was great as always.
I have realized that I lose the ability to recognize sarcasm though when I'm tired... :D
Math was rather easy, so I probably made a whole bunch of silly mistakes. Who cares? Not me today. (I hope that stays that way)
I lent my notes to the German exchange student that has transferred into our Math class right today, and we left the class ridiculously early after I was finished with my test.
During lunch I talked to Mr W, and I will talk to Rourke Chartier (and trust me it's hard to believe that he is only one year and 20 days - exactly - older than me ...), so I compiled questions in collaboration with Mr M - probably too many to ask, but there's just so much interesting stuff!
Spanish was boring as ever, but we're finally doing our group presentations - and one of our members was absent, so we were unfortunately unable to hold our own. Such a misfortune! (Please do note the sarcasm.)
Entrepreneurship... well, we've got our marketing idea, although I am rather indifferent about it. I can't really tell you anything - our competition might steal our secrets! (Ha. Ha. There are no secrets.)
After school, Andy picked me up after I talked to Mr Smith, the librarian (and OMFG, HE HAS A LAB THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE DUSTIN!!!!!!!!!! Made me miss my poor doggy all that much more), and dropped me off at the gym Marina dragged me to (she offered and I didn't wanna cancel even after I changed hostfamily, and it's a pretty nice gym - and good for me :) I gained about ten to fifteen pound, so I desperately need to go and work out again!) and guess who I saw:
Yes, exactly. Marina.
I wasn't expecting her, to say the least. In all the three months I've been to the gym relatively regularly - especially before Christmas I went every day after school - I had never once seen her. So when I enter the change rooms with a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and spy her sitting on the bench hunched over her shoes at the other end, let's just say I panicked. I didn't even really see her, only her silhouette, but that was enough for my heart beat to spike, the blood to start pounding in my carotid artery (in your neck) and my ears and for my body to react instantly by ducking into one of the cubicles for changing before she could see me and hiding out therein until I was sure the change rooms were deserted.
I might or might not have texted Andy totally rattled... (Spoiler Alert: I did)
Well, I plugged my headphones in, was unbelievably jumpy while changing and then did my best to keep my head down and ignore her in the gym.
She passed by me a couple of times while I was on the stationary bike, and I was insanely aware of her every move, so that was not a pleasant visit.
I talked to Andy about it, about how that reaction wasn't the best and I shouldn't let her over-power me so much even after three months, but well, that was exactly the reason why I wanted to change:
She induced panic in me and made me feel helpless, powerless and small.
And especially without any kind of warning I wasn't able to stand up to her.
I'm usually not at all afraid to speak my mind (although I have become way more self-conscious over the years, I can suppress these second thoughts pretty thoroughly), but in that moment I was caught completely off guard.
So now I know I can expect her, and maybe psyche myself up before hand - and I really should at least greet her nicely, because I don't want anybody to say that I am rude. (I'm usually not, just too absorbed in my head, so sorry).
And all that turmoil is making me kinda homesick - or at least makes me long for home (and yes, there is a difference :) )...
And then of course the Blackhawks went on to lose tonight's game (fortunately in a Shootout, so their Undefeated-in-Regulation-Streak continues) and the Oilers did the same (after having the lead! Urgh, that team!)
So yeah, although my day was rather good, I am a bit down now.
And tired...
So I'm waiting for my mom to skype, and then I'm going to bed.
G'night everybody!
It started out with way too little sleep, although I'm not even complaining about that anymore (the only downside here is that I am really tired now but in desperate need of a skyping session :/), and then Creative Writing, which was great as always.
I have realized that I lose the ability to recognize sarcasm though when I'm tired... :D
Math was rather easy, so I probably made a whole bunch of silly mistakes. Who cares? Not me today. (I hope that stays that way)
I lent my notes to the German exchange student that has transferred into our Math class right today, and we left the class ridiculously early after I was finished with my test.
During lunch I talked to Mr W, and I will talk to Rourke Chartier (and trust me it's hard to believe that he is only one year and 20 days - exactly - older than me ...), so I compiled questions in collaboration with Mr M - probably too many to ask, but there's just so much interesting stuff!
Spanish was boring as ever, but we're finally doing our group presentations - and one of our members was absent, so we were unfortunately unable to hold our own. Such a misfortune! (Please do note the sarcasm.)
Entrepreneurship... well, we've got our marketing idea, although I am rather indifferent about it. I can't really tell you anything - our competition might steal our secrets! (Ha. Ha. There are no secrets.)
After school, Andy picked me up after I talked to Mr Smith, the librarian (and OMFG, HE HAS A LAB THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE DUSTIN!!!!!!!!!! Made me miss my poor doggy all that much more), and dropped me off at the gym Marina dragged me to (she offered and I didn't wanna cancel even after I changed hostfamily, and it's a pretty nice gym - and good for me :) I gained about ten to fifteen pound, so I desperately need to go and work out again!) and guess who I saw:
Yes, exactly. Marina.
I wasn't expecting her, to say the least. In all the three months I've been to the gym relatively regularly - especially before Christmas I went every day after school - I had never once seen her. So when I enter the change rooms with a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach and spy her sitting on the bench hunched over her shoes at the other end, let's just say I panicked. I didn't even really see her, only her silhouette, but that was enough for my heart beat to spike, the blood to start pounding in my carotid artery (in your neck) and my ears and for my body to react instantly by ducking into one of the cubicles for changing before she could see me and hiding out therein until I was sure the change rooms were deserted.
I might or might not have texted Andy totally rattled... (Spoiler Alert: I did)
Well, I plugged my headphones in, was unbelievably jumpy while changing and then did my best to keep my head down and ignore her in the gym.
She passed by me a couple of times while I was on the stationary bike, and I was insanely aware of her every move, so that was not a pleasant visit.
I talked to Andy about it, about how that reaction wasn't the best and I shouldn't let her over-power me so much even after three months, but well, that was exactly the reason why I wanted to change:
She induced panic in me and made me feel helpless, powerless and small.
And especially without any kind of warning I wasn't able to stand up to her.
I'm usually not at all afraid to speak my mind (although I have become way more self-conscious over the years, I can suppress these second thoughts pretty thoroughly), but in that moment I was caught completely off guard.
So now I know I can expect her, and maybe psyche myself up before hand - and I really should at least greet her nicely, because I don't want anybody to say that I am rude. (I'm usually not, just too absorbed in my head, so sorry).
And all that turmoil is making me kinda homesick - or at least makes me long for home (and yes, there is a difference :) )...
And then of course the Blackhawks went on to lose tonight's game (fortunately in a Shootout, so their Undefeated-in-Regulation-Streak continues) and the Oilers did the same (after having the lead! Urgh, that team!)
So yeah, although my day was rather good, I am a bit down now.
And tired...
So I'm waiting for my mom to skype, and then I'm going to bed.
G'night everybody!
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!
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