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! :)
Posts mit dem Label Schule werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Schule werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Montag, 4. März 2013
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 :) )
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! :)
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!
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!
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!
Samstag, 9. Februar 2013
Feel so good
I got rid of a lot of words today, so I hope this won't be too long...
I slept in till 10.30 (awesome), then did my Journal homework for English, writing four pages just about what Mr W told me (and I'm pretty sure I forgot a bunch of things, 'cos it was pretty informal talking and I only took notes about the stuff I can use in the newspaper) and the rest of the day was spent on tumblr and in the end chatting with a Thai girl on gchat :)
And our conversation is 8 word pages/3,775 words long - I wrote the majority, because I was writing her a story! :D
So I'm super tired now,
good night!
Julia
I slept in till 10.30 (awesome), then did my Journal homework for English, writing four pages just about what Mr W told me (and I'm pretty sure I forgot a bunch of things, 'cos it was pretty informal talking and I only took notes about the stuff I can use in the newspaper) and the rest of the day was spent on tumblr and in the end chatting with a Thai girl on gchat :)
And our conversation is 8 word pages/3,775 words long - I wrote the majority, because I was writing her a story! :D
So I'm super tired now,
good night!
Julia
Mittwoch, 6. Februar 2013
Two Steps Forward One Step Back
At least that's what it feels like.
Every time I make progress, I also take at least one setback.
Today it was Maths. I was just sitting there, when suddenly waves of nausea began hitting me, so I excused myself from the class and sat in the hallway, but every time I just so much as thought about going back to the class, I got sick again. It's not as though it matters, because the stuff we're doing is pretty easy and I essentially only missed a working period, but it was pretty inconvenient.
I blame it on the emotional turmoil, sleep deprivation (an average of 4 hours a night is not enough) and the stress of Maths - Math is the subject I need to excel at, because I need it in Germany ...
Otherwise... I'm not working with the same group of students as for the Biz Day for the Dragon's Den Challenge, but with two girls who seem super nice, motivated and even have already an idea for what to do!
I think I at least am more compatible with them than with those other two.
We're doing a pretty dumb project in Spanish for Review, but maybe that's just me thinking that because I just had it last semester.
The best part of my day was (of course) Creative Writing.
A) the teacher and B) we did 'describing a scene' today, and our group of 3 had "Ocean and Cliff" and I got a "well done" from Mr D! (unfortunately, I don't think I can take him back with me, Lywe, I think he likes Canada a lot)
Creative Writing is such an informal yet informative class, I really love it.
And we're pretty different - one kid has bleached hair with a red fringe, then we have guy with a lot of piercings, black hair and a green strand of hair, some rather shy people, a few drama students, one guy from my Biology class, a hockey player (not for the Rockets, though) from my old English class, Aislinn (the girl who introduced me to Tim Hortons, Item of Canadian National Pride) from Debate (and she said I should just stop by once, a few people really missed me :o For me it felt like failure, although I know that the choice was the right one - especially with Maths I wouldn't have been able to achieve the level of writing I would have liked) and a couple of other students (four internationals, 3 Germans and a Norwegian, and they're clustered around the table behind me, occasionally talking in German, and that throws me every time).
And then there was the Pep Rally, which was the reason all of our classes were only 60-odd minutes long.
We're hosting the West Canada Championship (or whatever) in ... Basketball? so they tried to get us to cheer for the team, gathered everybody in the gym and introduced their cheerleading chants to us, made idiots out of themselves in funny games (seriously) and had the microphone amped up too loud...
Well, some uninterrupted reading time, and as I said, all our classes were shorter due to it!
My evening was spent - how else? - doing Maths, but it wasn't too hard. There's a quiz tomorrow, but I don't think it'll get too hard.
As long as I can remember that y=f(x) and g(x)=af(b(x-h))+k and (x, y) ---> (1/bx+h, ay+k) and although it might be g(x)=f(x+4), it isn't translated four units to the right but for units to the left, because it's x-h, so h is -4 in this case, and that even though it b might be 3 it's not a horizontal stretch by a factor of three but by a factor of 1/3, and if a is negative, the graph is reflected in the x-axis and if b is negative the graph is reflected in the y-axis, and that the inverse of a function doesn't have to be a function but is always a relation and is reflected in y=x and yeah... I think that's about it....
It'll be alright, I think, it won't even be multiple choice if I understood it correctly!
So, and I'm definitely headed to bed now, my eyes are drooping shut!
Love y'all,
Julia
(whose mind is buzzing with Maths, but in kinda a good way)
Every time I make progress, I also take at least one setback.
Today it was Maths. I was just sitting there, when suddenly waves of nausea began hitting me, so I excused myself from the class and sat in the hallway, but every time I just so much as thought about going back to the class, I got sick again. It's not as though it matters, because the stuff we're doing is pretty easy and I essentially only missed a working period, but it was pretty inconvenient.
I blame it on the emotional turmoil, sleep deprivation (an average of 4 hours a night is not enough) and the stress of Maths - Math is the subject I need to excel at, because I need it in Germany ...
Otherwise... I'm not working with the same group of students as for the Biz Day for the Dragon's Den Challenge, but with two girls who seem super nice, motivated and even have already an idea for what to do!
I think I at least am more compatible with them than with those other two.
We're doing a pretty dumb project in Spanish for Review, but maybe that's just me thinking that because I just had it last semester.
The best part of my day was (of course) Creative Writing.
A) the teacher and B) we did 'describing a scene' today, and our group of 3 had "Ocean and Cliff" and I got a "well done" from Mr D! (unfortunately, I don't think I can take him back with me, Lywe, I think he likes Canada a lot)
Creative Writing is such an informal yet informative class, I really love it.
And we're pretty different - one kid has bleached hair with a red fringe, then we have guy with a lot of piercings, black hair and a green strand of hair, some rather shy people, a few drama students, one guy from my Biology class, a hockey player (not for the Rockets, though) from my old English class, Aislinn (the girl who introduced me to Tim Hortons, Item of Canadian National Pride) from Debate (and she said I should just stop by once, a few people really missed me :o For me it felt like failure, although I know that the choice was the right one - especially with Maths I wouldn't have been able to achieve the level of writing I would have liked) and a couple of other students (four internationals, 3 Germans and a Norwegian, and they're clustered around the table behind me, occasionally talking in German, and that throws me every time).
And then there was the Pep Rally, which was the reason all of our classes were only 60-odd minutes long.
We're hosting the West Canada Championship (or whatever) in ... Basketball? so they tried to get us to cheer for the team, gathered everybody in the gym and introduced their cheerleading chants to us, made idiots out of themselves in funny games (seriously) and had the microphone amped up too loud...
Well, some uninterrupted reading time, and as I said, all our classes were shorter due to it!
My evening was spent - how else? - doing Maths, but it wasn't too hard. There's a quiz tomorrow, but I don't think it'll get too hard.
As long as I can remember that y=f(x) and g(x)=af(b(x-h))+k and (x, y) ---> (1/bx+h, ay+k) and although it might be g(x)=f(x+4), it isn't translated four units to the right but for units to the left, because it's x-h, so h is -4 in this case, and that even though it b might be 3 it's not a horizontal stretch by a factor of three but by a factor of 1/3, and if a is negative, the graph is reflected in the x-axis and if b is negative the graph is reflected in the y-axis, and that the inverse of a function doesn't have to be a function but is always a relation and is reflected in y=x and yeah... I think that's about it....
It'll be alright, I think, it won't even be multiple choice if I understood it correctly!
So, and I'm definitely headed to bed now, my eyes are drooping shut!
Love y'all,
Julia
(whose mind is buzzing with Maths, but in kinda a good way)
I Believe I Can Fly
I'm so happy and elated that I might just take off!
Today has been a great day - mostly!
Okay, so I'm operating on waaay too little sleep, first off all - I just don't seem to manage to go to bed early, and I'm doing 1.5 to 2 hours of Maths a day. It's not that it's hard, it's just that it's a lot and we have to draw a lot, which takes time.
But anyway, so I woke up, wonderfully sleep-deprived - just enough so that I'm not falling-asleep-standing tired, but hui-I-might-not-be-completely-filled-up-on-sleep tired. I love that feeling, I have to admit.
But I should sneak a couple of hours in at some point, because the longer this goes on, the crankier and more exhausted I get... But at the moment everything's still fine!
First lesson: Spanish. Spanish is still super boring, because we're only doing review stuff, and only a few students had Spanish 10 last semester, so the majority has forgotten almost everything. Seriously. -_-
Second lesson: Entrepreneurship. I hate people I can't rely on. For our project we had to sell things during lunch. And I had gotten cups and straws for $10, while my other two 'co-workers' promised to get lemonade powder so that we could sell lemonade.
The thing is, I wouldn't even have had to do it, because of the ESL meeting, but I said I'll do it anyway. I had come up with the idea, and I had chipped in with the cups and everything.
And they didn't provide their end of the deal.
They got it figured out, but I have been the idiot trying to save everybody's ass often enough, so I just said "find a solution, I'll figure out how to pay my San Francisco trip", because my name had disappeared from the schoolcashonline account that is used to make any kind of payment.
It was apparently just a technical inconvenience, so I finally paid up. (Great thing nr. 1)
I helped them set the table up, and then excused myself to go to ESL.
I figured out that I already knew the new ESL teacher - our old one is on maternity leave - because I talked to her in the ESL room during lunch and she's one of the chaperones for the San Francisco trip! (GTNr 2)
She's super nice and genuinely so, while our old ESL teacher kinda gave me the feeling she wasn't taking us seriously. I hate that (and she strongly favoured the Mexican students and those in her ESL English class).
Third block: Creative Writing, and I used the free writing time to ponder the question of the school (It's like silent reading just that we're writing, and I absolutely love it).
I didn't come to a conclusion, and felt totally lost, so I resolved to asking Mr D for a bit of time after school, because he's brilliant to throw ideas around with.
We did a funny exercise: We got clay (that plastic stuff we used in kindergarten to mould stuff [Knete]) and he closed the blinds and switched off the lights, so that we were sitting in pitch black darkness (the blinds are pretty decent ones, better than usual blinds here, like the Rollos at home), and then we had to mould - a duck!
Mine got a price for general horribleness and was put up as one of the three worst ducks in the whole class, and I was crying because I was laughing so hard as Mr D was making fun of my duck. I really thought it was hilarious - and doesn't that say a lot about my growth here, because a year or two ago I would have burst into tears because I was hurt he would say such a thing? No, but art isn't my strength when I can see and bereft of my most important sense, what do you expect?
Anyway, it was an exercise to show us how our other senses are sharpened when one sense is gone.
Pretty great lesson, imo, and at the end I was like
"Mr D, do you maybe have a few minutes after school, I have a question?"
He: "Sorry, no, I have a meeting after school..."
Me: "Oh, so ... I dunno, should I come by tomorrow during lunch? Or something?"
He: "I could write you a late notice; why don't you just tell me now?"
So I reported my dilemma with the school, explained why I didn't really like the GN where I went to (teachers pretty narrow-minded [at least some of them and especially compared to Canada], teachers making me feel dumb for wanting to know more, year mates talking behind my back about me being a suck-up and a show-off [Maybe I'll make a post about that, too, I thought what he said was pretty great and would be good for me to remember], me being bored, my fear of falling back into my pattern of stressing myself ["When you got stressed, your personality changed visibly" - "Seriously? I never noticed" - "You start obsessing over details, asking questions trying to regain control over the little details where you can have control. You still ask those same questions, but you're way more relaxed"]) and we bounced a few ideas back and forth.
We settled on one option I don't want to detail here, because it's not sure whether it'll work out, but those needing to know will find an e-mail in their inbox in the near future!
So I missed almost half of my Math class, but I was feeling so much better afterwards. I hadn't even realized how much it had been weighing me down!
Math ... was pretty unremarkable, because we actually have already done that stuff; the only problem I am facing there is that we had a totally different approach, but I need to comply by the Ministry standards here.
After school, since I had some time to kill like always, I went to inquire about my final grades before we get our report cards tomorrow (technically today).
Spanish: Final Exam - 98.1%, Final Mark - 100.7%. Best mark in her two classes, I am proud to say! (I love the advantage Latin has given me)
In Japanese I didn't actually get my grade, but my teacher told me I had done "very well" and had an A overall.
I'm looking forward to the report cards tomorrow!
I'm not actually finished with my homework, because there was the most-anticipated and strongest game in the NHL at the moment on, but it's mainly drawing some stuff, and I might use it to lull me to sleep.
It's tedious, repeating all that stuff over and over again, but what can you do?
We had tacos for dinner - absolutely delicious, let me tell you!
So... that was my day.
Below follows only a bit of hockey, because I need to get rid of all these feels!
So, the match-up tonight was Blackhawks vs San Jose Sharks.
The Blackhawks have 7 wins in 9 games, and only two Shootout losses, which don't count as real losses - shootouts (SO), as I detailed in my last post (If I'm not wrong) come after overtime (OT), and as soon as it is tied and has to go to overtime, both teams get one point, and the winning team gets a second one. So the Hawks have had a start of six wins in succession and have had at least one point in every single one of their games. (People also say, they're undefeated in regulation, meaning nobody has yet defeated them during the regular 60 minutes).
The Sharks have a similar record - they started out with 7 wins in 7 games, making just as the Hawks a new franchise record, but then they got a shootout loss and, yesterday, their first regulation loss - which made the Hawks the only team so far to be undefeated in regulation and also giving them the lead in the league.
San Jose was pretty close behind, though - only one point.
I have to admit that I had given up the game after five minutes of play when the Sharks were up 2-0. Coach Q of the Blackhawks called a time-out, gathered his team and gave his goalie a moment to calm down, and after that, the Hawks were on fire.
Rookie Brandon Saad, who had been pretty good in all the past games after replacing a guy who twisted his knee in his first or second game on the top line with Jonathan Toews (Captain) and Marián Hossa (one of the top goal scorers and second in points, just behind Patrick Kane), finally got his long-awaited first goal, and that was kinda all it took for the Hawks to light it up.
The Sharks scored to make it 1-3 only 38 seconds after Saad's goal though, and I was ready to tear my hair out. 8 seconds later? 2-3. 42 seconds later? 3-3.
With the two best teams in the league who have both had great defensive play, having 6 goals in not even 13 minutes was kinda a miracle for the announcer who went nuts.
Thankfully, the scoring abated after that. Second period? Patrick Kane scores - which was pretty lucky.
They were playing four-on-four because one of the Hawks, Jamal Mayers, had gotten a legal hit but Duncan Keith (Defenseman) wasn't pleased about it and started a fight with the player who had hit Mayer, for which he got 19 (!!) penalty minutes. The perpetrator was thought to have delivered an illegal blow and was ejected from the game until they did video review.
So Kane had the puck, was skating towards the net, when the Sharks stole it from him - only to have the captain himself fish it out from between his feet in a move of total beauty, send it to Kane and see it dumped into the net. The goalie (fun fact: He was the goal tender in the Hawks' net when they won the Stanley Cup in 2010, and one of the opposing players was Patrick Sharp's best friend, before he got traded) never stood a chance.
And later in the third period, the Sharks pulled their goalie in order to get one more skater on the ice, and Kaner recorded an empty-netter (again with an assist from Toews), so the Hawks won it comfortably 5-3 after falling behind 0-2.
Now they are the league leaders without a regulation loss and three points on their next opponent.
I'm really, really happy, although that game was killing me - I was trying to do my Math homework, and I constantly got distracted because it was so nerve-wracking!
And now I seriously need to head to bed.
Love y'all,
Julia
Today has been a great day - mostly!
Okay, so I'm operating on waaay too little sleep, first off all - I just don't seem to manage to go to bed early, and I'm doing 1.5 to 2 hours of Maths a day. It's not that it's hard, it's just that it's a lot and we have to draw a lot, which takes time.
But anyway, so I woke up, wonderfully sleep-deprived - just enough so that I'm not falling-asleep-standing tired, but hui-I-might-not-be-completely-filled-up-on-sleep tired. I love that feeling, I have to admit.
But I should sneak a couple of hours in at some point, because the longer this goes on, the crankier and more exhausted I get... But at the moment everything's still fine!
First lesson: Spanish. Spanish is still super boring, because we're only doing review stuff, and only a few students had Spanish 10 last semester, so the majority has forgotten almost everything. Seriously. -_-
Second lesson: Entrepreneurship. I hate people I can't rely on. For our project we had to sell things during lunch. And I had gotten cups and straws for $10, while my other two 'co-workers' promised to get lemonade powder so that we could sell lemonade.
The thing is, I wouldn't even have had to do it, because of the ESL meeting, but I said I'll do it anyway. I had come up with the idea, and I had chipped in with the cups and everything.
And they didn't provide their end of the deal.
They got it figured out, but I have been the idiot trying to save everybody's ass often enough, so I just said "find a solution, I'll figure out how to pay my San Francisco trip", because my name had disappeared from the schoolcashonline account that is used to make any kind of payment.
It was apparently just a technical inconvenience, so I finally paid up. (Great thing nr. 1)
I helped them set the table up, and then excused myself to go to ESL.
I figured out that I already knew the new ESL teacher - our old one is on maternity leave - because I talked to her in the ESL room during lunch and she's one of the chaperones for the San Francisco trip! (GTNr 2)
She's super nice and genuinely so, while our old ESL teacher kinda gave me the feeling she wasn't taking us seriously. I hate that (and she strongly favoured the Mexican students and those in her ESL English class).
Third block: Creative Writing, and I used the free writing time to ponder the question of the school (It's like silent reading just that we're writing, and I absolutely love it).
I didn't come to a conclusion, and felt totally lost, so I resolved to asking Mr D for a bit of time after school, because he's brilliant to throw ideas around with.
We did a funny exercise: We got clay (that plastic stuff we used in kindergarten to mould stuff [Knete]) and he closed the blinds and switched off the lights, so that we were sitting in pitch black darkness (the blinds are pretty decent ones, better than usual blinds here, like the Rollos at home), and then we had to mould - a duck!
Mine got a price for general horribleness and was put up as one of the three worst ducks in the whole class, and I was crying because I was laughing so hard as Mr D was making fun of my duck. I really thought it was hilarious - and doesn't that say a lot about my growth here, because a year or two ago I would have burst into tears because I was hurt he would say such a thing? No, but art isn't my strength when I can see and bereft of my most important sense, what do you expect?
Anyway, it was an exercise to show us how our other senses are sharpened when one sense is gone.
Pretty great lesson, imo, and at the end I was like
"Mr D, do you maybe have a few minutes after school, I have a question?"
He: "Sorry, no, I have a meeting after school..."
Me: "Oh, so ... I dunno, should I come by tomorrow during lunch? Or something?"
He: "I could write you a late notice; why don't you just tell me now?"
So I reported my dilemma with the school, explained why I didn't really like the GN where I went to (teachers pretty narrow-minded [at least some of them and especially compared to Canada], teachers making me feel dumb for wanting to know more, year mates talking behind my back about me being a suck-up and a show-off [Maybe I'll make a post about that, too, I thought what he said was pretty great and would be good for me to remember], me being bored, my fear of falling back into my pattern of stressing myself ["When you got stressed, your personality changed visibly" - "Seriously? I never noticed" - "You start obsessing over details, asking questions trying to regain control over the little details where you can have control. You still ask those same questions, but you're way more relaxed"]) and we bounced a few ideas back and forth.
We settled on one option I don't want to detail here, because it's not sure whether it'll work out, but those needing to know will find an e-mail in their inbox in the near future!
So I missed almost half of my Math class, but I was feeling so much better afterwards. I hadn't even realized how much it had been weighing me down!
Math ... was pretty unremarkable, because we actually have already done that stuff; the only problem I am facing there is that we had a totally different approach, but I need to comply by the Ministry standards here.
After school, since I had some time to kill like always, I went to inquire about my final grades before we get our report cards tomorrow (technically today).
Spanish: Final Exam - 98.1%, Final Mark - 100.7%. Best mark in her two classes, I am proud to say! (I love the advantage Latin has given me)
In Japanese I didn't actually get my grade, but my teacher told me I had done "very well" and had an A overall.
I'm looking forward to the report cards tomorrow!
I'm not actually finished with my homework, because there was the most-anticipated and strongest game in the NHL at the moment on, but it's mainly drawing some stuff, and I might use it to lull me to sleep.
It's tedious, repeating all that stuff over and over again, but what can you do?
We had tacos for dinner - absolutely delicious, let me tell you!
So... that was my day.
Below follows only a bit of hockey, because I need to get rid of all these feels!
So, the match-up tonight was Blackhawks vs San Jose Sharks.
The Blackhawks have 7 wins in 9 games, and only two Shootout losses, which don't count as real losses - shootouts (SO), as I detailed in my last post (If I'm not wrong) come after overtime (OT), and as soon as it is tied and has to go to overtime, both teams get one point, and the winning team gets a second one. So the Hawks have had a start of six wins in succession and have had at least one point in every single one of their games. (People also say, they're undefeated in regulation, meaning nobody has yet defeated them during the regular 60 minutes).
The Sharks have a similar record - they started out with 7 wins in 7 games, making just as the Hawks a new franchise record, but then they got a shootout loss and, yesterday, their first regulation loss - which made the Hawks the only team so far to be undefeated in regulation and also giving them the lead in the league.
San Jose was pretty close behind, though - only one point.
I have to admit that I had given up the game after five minutes of play when the Sharks were up 2-0. Coach Q of the Blackhawks called a time-out, gathered his team and gave his goalie a moment to calm down, and after that, the Hawks were on fire.
Rookie Brandon Saad, who had been pretty good in all the past games after replacing a guy who twisted his knee in his first or second game on the top line with Jonathan Toews (Captain) and Marián Hossa (one of the top goal scorers and second in points, just behind Patrick Kane), finally got his long-awaited first goal, and that was kinda all it took for the Hawks to light it up.
The Sharks scored to make it 1-3 only 38 seconds after Saad's goal though, and I was ready to tear my hair out. 8 seconds later? 2-3. 42 seconds later? 3-3.
With the two best teams in the league who have both had great defensive play, having 6 goals in not even 13 minutes was kinda a miracle for the announcer who went nuts.
Thankfully, the scoring abated after that. Second period? Patrick Kane scores - which was pretty lucky.
They were playing four-on-four because one of the Hawks, Jamal Mayers, had gotten a legal hit but Duncan Keith (Defenseman) wasn't pleased about it and started a fight with the player who had hit Mayer, for which he got 19 (!!) penalty minutes. The perpetrator was thought to have delivered an illegal blow and was ejected from the game until they did video review.
So Kane had the puck, was skating towards the net, when the Sharks stole it from him - only to have the captain himself fish it out from between his feet in a move of total beauty, send it to Kane and see it dumped into the net. The goalie (fun fact: He was the goal tender in the Hawks' net when they won the Stanley Cup in 2010, and one of the opposing players was Patrick Sharp's best friend, before he got traded) never stood a chance.
And later in the third period, the Sharks pulled their goalie in order to get one more skater on the ice, and Kaner recorded an empty-netter (again with an assist from Toews), so the Hawks won it comfortably 5-3 after falling behind 0-2.
Now they are the league leaders without a regulation loss and three points on their next opponent.
I'm really, really happy, although that game was killing me - I was trying to do my Math homework, and I constantly got distracted because it was so nerve-wracking!
And now I seriously need to head to bed.
Love y'all,
Julia
Sonntag, 3. Februar 2013
RECAP: Semester 1
So, I finally got around to writing my recap of my Semester one courses!
Be prepared for a really long post with a lot of stuff about the Canadian school system.
She came across as really nice and energized, open and friendly on most days.
As a native Portuguese speaker, she had what I think is a pretty neutral Spanish without much of an accent, and she clearly knew a lot about the culture and the informal ways of speaking.
On some days she was a bit short with the students, and although she had said she would always welcome more questions, I felt unwelcomed and cut-off on some days. Not on all, remember, on most days she was very willing to explain things to me and/or listen to me ramble about things I had discovered.
I also realize that I tend to be long-winded with questions, so I can understand why she didn't have as much patience as would be needed for dealing with me.
She took care that everyone was on the same page and reviewed all the stuff we did extensively.
I oftentimes felt bored, but since she allowed me to do my own thing (i.e. reading, homework for other classes, extra work) it wasn't too bad.
She did a lot of group and partner work exercises and also a lot of oral work.
I thought it was a bit weird that we were able to get more than 100% (I know what I'm talking about here, okay, I got 225% on oral participation).
I am now able to talk about myself, my feelings (to an extent), at least in the present, about sports, my family, my house, my friends, my pet and being sick.
We could have done more, I think, especially on the cultural part (when I think back to Latin and how much "Kulturgeschichte" culture history we did there), so the balance was a bit askew in that regard, but on the other hand: Less to study for me!
I liked it.
We've often only done worksheets while he researched/prepared stuff for his Cross Country class.
He easily got distracted and left us to our own devices during tests several times. Even during the final exam, although there not a single student took advantage of it (the same cannot be said about the normal tests, although he kinda guilt-tripped us into not-cheating).
I can attest that subtitles in another language are about the opposite of what you want, because people don't listen to the words but only read the text. Our vocabulary was nowhere near big enough to actually watch movies, though.
We worked with worksheets a lot, and he didn't even compile his own tests most of the time; and for our vocabulary tests, we were allowed to use "cheat-sheets" where the Hiragana or Katakana words were written out.
His teaching was too relaxed for my liking, it was more like a club than a regular course.
I know how to do the basic small-talk like introducing myself, commenting on my family and things like that, but on my own on Japan? I'd be absolutely helpless.
We watched way too many movies. Seriously. (For example: Kamikaze Girl, some weird death metal movie I forgot the title of, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbour Totoro, and probably one or two more which I can't remember right now)
I liked him, but he sometimes came across as more interested in flirting with the female students he'd apparently taught in grade 10 already (at least I think it was flirting, but more so playful ... he's married with two kids).
But I have to admit, this self-oriented learning has taught me a lot about how to approach learning, although it took a while to get used to it, I have to admit.
Without the final exam (as I don't know the score there yet) I had the highest mark in my class and the second highest in all three of his - so I really can't complain.
So, anyway, he's probably in his mid to late thirties, two children, lived in Japan and Bolivia, taught some time in India, has a Master in Creative Writing and is generally pretty awesome. You can talk to him about almost anything, and he actually listens to students, which is something I'm pretty sensitive to - like, I usually know when a person is nodding off or when they're actually paying attention.
His teaching style was more like giving a topic/thing to work on and then walk around and help individual students. I don't think we did actual "Frontalunterricht" once (leo.org says it's ex-cathedra teaching... Never heard that before), and we watched a couple of movies - but as opposed to Japanese, we actually worked with them. We read "Of Mice and Men" and then watched "Of Mice and Men" and "The Green Mile" and had to compare them in written form. Another thing we watched was "Shawshank Redemption" where we also had to write something about. But that was more about ideas and underlying stuff in the movie.
His teaching was diverse but not confusing, which I really appreciated.
And of course, it always helps if you like the teacher ;)
It has forced me to think about how I see the world, how I interpret stuff, which are skills/insights you don't usually learn in school (and which you can't actually learn, it's more like stumble over it on accident by yourself).
The 'tangible' things I learnt include Interpreting a Text, Finding Symbolism, Selling Somebody What You Think Is Happening In the Text, Writing a Paragraph, Writing an Essay and Comparing Texts And/Or Movies.
This course, and the teacher, has been the best so far, and I don't think anything can top this - except maybe Creative Writing, taught by Mr Derksen.
It has given me confidence in my own skills, and somebody to talk to whenever I have problems.
I can't say so much about him as a teacher, though, because Journalism is just me writing by myself and running it by him and then correcting any mistakes I might have had.
So yeah, that was my first Semester :)
I hope you enjoyed reading this at least a bit; a lot of work went into it!
Any questions, just leave a comment and I'll update it - and I'll also link to it from my about me beginning site! :D
Take care, guys,
Julia
Be prepared for a really long post with a lot of stuff about the Canadian school system.
Spanish 10
The Teacher
Our teacher was a woman at the end of her thirties/beginning of her forties I think.She came across as really nice and energized, open and friendly on most days.
As a native Portuguese speaker, she had what I think is a pretty neutral Spanish without much of an accent, and she clearly knew a lot about the culture and the informal ways of speaking.
On some days she was a bit short with the students, and although she had said she would always welcome more questions, I felt unwelcomed and cut-off on some days. Not on all, remember, on most days she was very willing to explain things to me and/or listen to me ramble about things I had discovered.
I also realize that I tend to be long-winded with questions, so I can understand why she didn't have as much patience as would be needed for dealing with me.
The Teaching Style
Her teaching style was very nice and accommodating to every student.She took care that everyone was on the same page and reviewed all the stuff we did extensively.
I oftentimes felt bored, but since she allowed me to do my own thing (i.e. reading, homework for other classes, extra work) it wasn't too bad.
She did a lot of group and partner work exercises and also a lot of oral work.
I thought it was a bit weird that we were able to get more than 100% (I know what I'm talking about here, okay, I got 225% on oral participation).
The Content
The course was pretty easy, although I think that might have had to do with the fact that I have taken Latin for four years and pick up languages relatively easy.I am now able to talk about myself, my feelings (to an extent), at least in the present, about sports, my family, my house, my friends, my pet and being sick.
We could have done more, I think, especially on the cultural part (when I think back to Latin and how much "Kulturgeschichte" culture history we did there), so the balance was a bit askew in that regard, but on the other hand: Less to study for me!
All in All
All in all I enjoyed taking this course; it was pretty easy and allowed for a good grade without a lot of work. With having the subject every single day, there was little time to actually forget things, and we did enough worksheets to keep everything in mind.I liked it.
Japanese 10
The Teacher
Our teacher was a Canadian 51 year old man who was pretty relaxed, so not really my kind of teacher.We've often only done worksheets while he researched/prepared stuff for his Cross Country class.
He easily got distracted and left us to our own devices during tests several times. Even during the final exam, although there not a single student took advantage of it (the same cannot be said about the normal tests, although he kinda guilt-tripped us into not-cheating).
The Teaching Style
As I said, he got distracted very easily and seemed to believe in mangas with subtitles being able to teach us Japanese.I can attest that subtitles in another language are about the opposite of what you want, because people don't listen to the words but only read the text. Our vocabulary was nowhere near big enough to actually watch movies, though.
We worked with worksheets a lot, and he didn't even compile his own tests most of the time; and for our vocabulary tests, we were allowed to use "cheat-sheets" where the Hiragana or Katakana words were written out.
His teaching was too relaxed for my liking, it was more like a club than a regular course.
The Content
The textbook we were using was sub-par, which affected the amount of learning we got done rather severely. I would have wished for more actual note-taking (I think I took a total of two pages or so) and not only verbal vocab learning.I know how to do the basic small-talk like introducing myself, commenting on my family and things like that, but on my own on Japan? I'd be absolutely helpless.
All in All
All in all I regret taking that course. I could have spent this block so much more efficiently and interestingly, and more often than not it felt like I had a spare.We watched way too many movies. Seriously. (For example: Kamikaze Girl, some weird death metal movie I forgot the title of, Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbour Totoro, and probably one or two more which I can't remember right now)
Biology 12
The Teacher
Our teacher was a probably mid-thirties, and his parents had been from ... Germany! (If I remember correctly. We talked a bit about it) They fled during the war, but he grew up in the US and in Canada.I liked him, but he sometimes came across as more interested in flirting with the female students he'd apparently taught in grade 10 already (at least I think it was flirting, but more so playful ... he's married with two kids).
The Teaching Style
He made his own life pretty easy by printing out the notes, going through them with us and then letting us fill in the learning outcomes.But I have to admit, this self-oriented learning has taught me a lot about how to approach learning, although it took a while to get used to it, I have to admit.
The Content
The content spanned a lot - and I really enjoyed what we did. It was really interesting, the book was pretty good (from what I can tell) and I think I have retained quite a bit.All in All
All in all I'm really glad I took the course. We'd touched on most of the stuff in Germany already, so I had something like a base of knowledge, which made learning the new stuff relatively easy.Without the final exam (as I don't know the score there yet) I had the highest mark in my class and the second highest in all three of his - so I really can't complain.
English 11
The Teacher
Hands down my favourite person here (aside from my host family of course) and the best teacher I've ever had. Seriously.So, anyway, he's probably in his mid to late thirties, two children, lived in Japan and Bolivia, taught some time in India, has a Master in Creative Writing and is generally pretty awesome. You can talk to him about almost anything, and he actually listens to students, which is something I'm pretty sensitive to - like, I usually know when a person is nodding off or when they're actually paying attention.
The Teaching Style
He never raises his voice. He goes around and talks to the individual students, and after some time they quiet down automatically. The atmosphere in the class room is built on mutual respect, which is pretty awesome.His teaching style was more like giving a topic/thing to work on and then walk around and help individual students. I don't think we did actual "Frontalunterricht" once (leo.org says it's ex-cathedra teaching... Never heard that before), and we watched a couple of movies - but as opposed to Japanese, we actually worked with them. We read "Of Mice and Men" and then watched "Of Mice and Men" and "The Green Mile" and had to compare them in written form. Another thing we watched was "Shawshank Redemption" where we also had to write something about. But that was more about ideas and underlying stuff in the movie.
His teaching was diverse but not confusing, which I really appreciated.
And of course, it always helps if you like the teacher ;)
The Content
English might just be the course that has taught me the most.It has forced me to think about how I see the world, how I interpret stuff, which are skills/insights you don't usually learn in school (and which you can't actually learn, it's more like stumble over it on accident by yourself).
The 'tangible' things I learnt include Interpreting a Text, Finding Symbolism, Selling Somebody What You Think Is Happening In the Text, Writing a Paragraph, Writing an Essay and Comparing Texts And/Or Movies.
All in All
All in all I'm unbelievably glad I was upgraded from ESL 10, which I had initially chosen.This course, and the teacher, has been the best so far, and I don't think anything can top this - except maybe Creative Writing, taught by Mr Derksen.
It has given me confidence in my own skills, and somebody to talk to whenever I have problems.
Journalism 11
The Teacher
Our teacher is of Italian roots, and I think he still speaks Italian. But at the beginning especially it was nice to have somebody who could at least understand a bit how I was feeling.I can't say so much about him as a teacher, though, because Journalism is just me writing by myself and running it by him and then correcting any mistakes I might have had.
All in All
All in all I'm kinda glad I didn't take that course inside the timetable. Spanish was a better investment of my time, I think, even though it would have been neat to learn how to use PageMaker and PhotoShop a bit more indepth :)So yeah, that was my first Semester :)
I hope you enjoyed reading this at least a bit; a lot of work went into it!
Any questions, just leave a comment and I'll update it - and I'll also link to it from my about me beginning site! :D
Take care, guys,
Julia
Montag, 7. Januar 2013
Drowning in Snow
Yes, we are.
I left the house without a toque (for those wondering, that is a toque:
I think the rest of the world says hat, but we say toque here, and hat is more that thing with brims) because it was only -1 out there, and by the time I was at the bus stop (literally 45 seconds later since I didn't have to wait at the red light to cross the street) I had half an inch of snow on my head ... okay, maybe half a centimeter to a centimeter, but still.
And since Canadians apparently don't believe in clearing their streets of snow (I know I said I wouldn't compare, but heck, that's really hard here) but rather have the snow accumulate and form a thick layer, our bus was late. I don't know how late exactly, but usually we get to the school by 8:45, and today it was at least, at the very least, 9:05 - school starts at 9 a.m. sharp, and warning bell goes off five minutes before that. Nobody was surprised, though.
School was ... not bad.
We were in the library in Spanish, working on our projects, although I was more spamming Jade about the end of the lockout (my bad, I'm not even sorry), so now I'm still not finished with Spanish - it's gonna be a long night, but I love working late nights, so duh. I can still sleep tomorrow!
In Japanese we learnt the days of the week, and we'll have a quiz on that first thing tomorrow.
Biology was ... well, we had a substitute, so no test for me or Kristen, but I actually wanted to ask Mr Kruger a few things... before I can write the test, obviously. I didn't understand one of the questions, and duh.
English... well, we're still kinda analyzing poems and stories, and he reminded us that we have two and a half weeks left till finals. And it's just ... two and a half weeks. That's like nothing. And we will be writing a mock-provincial exam, a twelfth grade exam, that will count as our big exam - 20% of our final mark. :o
Yeah, and that was it ... Nothing else happened. So I'll go back to avoiding doing Spanish! :)
But I really need to get that done, no joking, and I should write my Journalism paper, too ... I'm glad I hadn't started writing, because I'm covering the lockout, and it's over now, so good for me! :)
Love you all and take care!
I left the house without a toque (for those wondering, that is a toque:
 |
| (c) first and foremost to toewslake.tumblr.com, and second to Jonathan Toews, who is in this shot :) #NHLisback! |
And since Canadians apparently don't believe in clearing their streets of snow (I know I said I wouldn't compare, but heck, that's really hard here) but rather have the snow accumulate and form a thick layer, our bus was late. I don't know how late exactly, but usually we get to the school by 8:45, and today it was at least, at the very least, 9:05 - school starts at 9 a.m. sharp, and warning bell goes off five minutes before that. Nobody was surprised, though.
School was ... not bad.
We were in the library in Spanish, working on our projects, although I was more spamming Jade about the end of the lockout (my bad, I'm not even sorry), so now I'm still not finished with Spanish - it's gonna be a long night, but I love working late nights, so duh. I can still sleep tomorrow!
In Japanese we learnt the days of the week, and we'll have a quiz on that first thing tomorrow.
Biology was ... well, we had a substitute, so no test for me or Kristen, but I actually wanted to ask Mr Kruger a few things... before I can write the test, obviously. I didn't understand one of the questions, and duh.
English... well, we're still kinda analyzing poems and stories, and he reminded us that we have two and a half weeks left till finals. And it's just ... two and a half weeks. That's like nothing. And we will be writing a mock-provincial exam, a twelfth grade exam, that will count as our big exam - 20% of our final mark. :o
Yeah, and that was it ... Nothing else happened. So I'll go back to avoiding doing Spanish! :)
But I really need to get that done, no joking, and I should write my Journalism paper, too ... I'm glad I hadn't started writing, because I'm covering the lockout, and it's over now, so good for me! :)
Love you all and take care!
Sonntag, 30. Dezember 2012
Game Day
Okay, so today I finally was halfway productive - I finally caught up on my sleep (hopefully) by sleeping almost 12 hours, I started on my Journalism article, I ordered a few more things off amazon.de to give my mom all the more reasons to send that package soon and ... I played Rommee with Bobby and with Bobbie, Jenna and Andy. And it was really very enjoyable!
In the evening, we watched Percy Jackson - a good movie, although I missed the beginning.
I don't know whether I mentioned it yesterday already, but my lazy days will be over the day after tomorrow, so I need to enjoy them as much as possible!
Babette and I will, as I probably have already mentioned, meet up in the mall on Thursday, and she will come back to my place after, so I'll probably end up showing her a game off my Gold Standards, because we plan to attend a Rockets game in the near future, and I need to show her how awesome that sport is!
That's it for today, guys, I'll be back tomorrow!
In the evening, we watched Percy Jackson - a good movie, although I missed the beginning.
I don't know whether I mentioned it yesterday already, but my lazy days will be over the day after tomorrow, so I need to enjoy them as much as possible!
Babette and I will, as I probably have already mentioned, meet up in the mall on Thursday, and she will come back to my place after, so I'll probably end up showing her a game off my Gold Standards, because we plan to attend a Rockets game in the near future, and I need to show her how awesome that sport is!
That's it for today, guys, I'll be back tomorrow!
Sonntag, 25. November 2012
Ill
Where I was tired yesterday, I am ill today.
I have been feeling sick all morning, and while I thought it might have been caffeine on an empty stomach, I have realized that I may just as well be sick.
Which means: I have accomplished nothing today, and am right now writing my Journalism stuff.
I always write best when I am sick/tired.
I have also taken the Bayrischen Mathematik Test, so the Bavarian Maths Test, a test all tenth graders have to take.
It must have been abysmal in my old school, but I didn't think it was so hard. Okay, there is one exercise, which I just can't find the solution to and regarding another I was metaphorically blind, but it wasn't overly hard.
I have tried solving it again on the Computer, but with out a solution, which is why I have sent it to my Maths teacher.
I hope you're having a better day than I am!
I have been feeling sick all morning, and while I thought it might have been caffeine on an empty stomach, I have realized that I may just as well be sick.
Which means: I have accomplished nothing today, and am right now writing my Journalism stuff.
I always write best when I am sick/tired.
I have also taken the Bayrischen Mathematik Test, so the Bavarian Maths Test, a test all tenth graders have to take.
It must have been abysmal in my old school, but I didn't think it was so hard. Okay, there is one exercise, which I just can't find the solution to and regarding another I was metaphorically blind, but it wasn't overly hard.
I have tried solving it again on the Computer, but with out a solution, which is why I have sent it to my Maths teacher.
I hope you're having a better day than I am!
Dienstag, 20. November 2012
The Debate letdown
I am seriously considering dropping debate at the end of the semester. It is a full year course, but I don not feel like I can handle the amount of work and maintain my level of fun.
Yeah. Maybe you can read it already from this opening, but the test didn't go over optimally, and I don't even know why. :/
Well, but the day didn't have only bad things (and I realize once again: I can't make short posts. I am literally incapable of doing so.):
First: Porridge is awesome. Really. The more often I eat it, the more I like it.
Then: Biology was great. English was hilarious! I absolutely love it, and I kind of repeat myself.
And then: ESL.
We didn't get our Hockey tickets yet, but we got our insurance card and - I got handed a yellow stapled pack of notes - not so much a pack, but two pages, but well.
What is it? The itinerary and information for the San Francisco trip!
Yes, I will be most likely going to San Francisco!
Due to my enrollment in "Entrepreneurship 12", I qualify for the San Francisco business trip!
I will give you more information tomorrow, after I have talked to Ms White, because I'm not sure I can even leave the country being an exchange student!
So, and anything I might have forgotten I will tell you tomorrow!
Good night!
Yeah. Maybe you can read it already from this opening, but the test didn't go over optimally, and I don't even know why. :/
Well, but the day didn't have only bad things (and I realize once again: I can't make short posts. I am literally incapable of doing so.):
First: Porridge is awesome. Really. The more often I eat it, the more I like it.
Then: Biology was great. English was hilarious! I absolutely love it, and I kind of repeat myself.
And then: ESL.
We didn't get our Hockey tickets yet, but we got our insurance card and - I got handed a yellow stapled pack of notes - not so much a pack, but two pages, but well.
What is it? The itinerary and information for the San Francisco trip!
Yes, I will be most likely going to San Francisco!
Due to my enrollment in "Entrepreneurship 12", I qualify for the San Francisco business trip!
I will give you more information tomorrow, after I have talked to Ms White, because I'm not sure I can even leave the country being an exchange student!
So, and anything I might have forgotten I will tell you tomorrow!
Good night!
Montag, 19. November 2012
Two Tests
... And of course I worried way to much. Seems to be my default state, don't you agree?
Anyway, Japanese was pretty easy - but I had learnt for that, so. Well.
Have I mentioned recently that I LOVE English?
Probably, but I can't emphasize it enough. It's just so absolutely brilliant, it's hard to describe.
I'm so sorry for you over there who have to struggle through some particularly bad teachers!
Debate and Speech ... well, I learnt way too much for it. Honestly. I didn't know she considered me a Junior - in the debate I am a Senior, as I am Grade 11, but she considers all Grade 10s Juniors, all Grade 12 Seniors, all 11 without previous practice Juniors, and those with practice Seniors. Pretty confusing, I know, but the test was really easy. Next week we're having a multiple choice test on our next chapter of reading. Should be manageable. And I had my impromptu today!
So I had 2 minutes to prepare a two minute speech... My topic was "That it is more important to see than to hear".
I don't know how I have done, but I don't think I did too badly! :)
(I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but I really feel bad when I have to correct a teacher/a native speaker in regards to their English/grammar. And that happens more often than you think. And yes, I am a grammar Nazi. I'm sorry. For those who don't know the term: 2. a – A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by everyone whenever possible. b – One who attempts to persuade or force others to use proper grammar and spelling. c – One who uses proper grammar and spelling to subtly mock or deride those who do not; an exhibitor of grammatical superiority. d – One who advocates linguistic clarity; an opponent of 1337-speak. e – One who corrects others' grammar; the spelling police. ~ Definition from Urban Dictonary. But yeah,it's pretty embarrassing... Although I think I actually have an advantage with having actually learnt English as a second language... :))
And that was everything interesting for today. Hannah, an exchange student from my English course, and I are thinking about taking up Tennis - that would be pretty cool, huh?
And Mum? We have to Skype again, if you haven't already read your mails!
I'm tyding up my room, but just get online and yeah... I'll notice you! :*
I have a serious craving for peanut butter toast/bagel... I am hungry! That's the disadvantage of eating early :/
So guys, one thing left:
My mum's 'forwarding' greetings from a lot of people who say they read my blog, but they don't dare write a comment:
I LOVE comments. Honestly. And there's no such things as embarrassing comments. I'm happy about everything, from a short "Schoener Blog" to a long and thoughtfull comment which I haven't yet received, but don't feel pressured. I'd just love to hear from you!
Or feel free to drop a line into my facebook, or my e-mail (it's firstname.lastname@online.de)
Well, guys, I'm leaving for now. As I have mentioned, I have a room to tidy!
Anyway, Japanese was pretty easy - but I had learnt for that, so. Well.
Have I mentioned recently that I LOVE English?
Probably, but I can't emphasize it enough. It's just so absolutely brilliant, it's hard to describe.
I'm so sorry for you over there who have to struggle through some particularly bad teachers!
Debate and Speech ... well, I learnt way too much for it. Honestly. I didn't know she considered me a Junior - in the debate I am a Senior, as I am Grade 11, but she considers all Grade 10s Juniors, all Grade 12 Seniors, all 11 without previous practice Juniors, and those with practice Seniors. Pretty confusing, I know, but the test was really easy. Next week we're having a multiple choice test on our next chapter of reading. Should be manageable. And I had my impromptu today!
So I had 2 minutes to prepare a two minute speech... My topic was "That it is more important to see than to hear".
I don't know how I have done, but I don't think I did too badly! :)
(I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but I really feel bad when I have to correct a teacher/a native speaker in regards to their English/grammar. And that happens more often than you think. And yes, I am a grammar Nazi. I'm sorry. For those who don't know the term: 2. a – A person who believes proper grammar (and spelling) should be used by everyone whenever possible. b – One who attempts to persuade or force others to use proper grammar and spelling. c – One who uses proper grammar and spelling to subtly mock or deride those who do not; an exhibitor of grammatical superiority. d – One who advocates linguistic clarity; an opponent of 1337-speak. e – One who corrects others' grammar; the spelling police. ~ Definition from Urban Dictonary. But yeah,it's pretty embarrassing... Although I think I actually have an advantage with having actually learnt English as a second language... :))
And that was everything interesting for today. Hannah, an exchange student from my English course, and I are thinking about taking up Tennis - that would be pretty cool, huh?
And Mum? We have to Skype again, if you haven't already read your mails!
I'm tyding up my room, but just get online and yeah... I'll notice you! :*
I have a serious craving for peanut butter toast/bagel... I am hungry! That's the disadvantage of eating early :/
So guys, one thing left:
My mum's 'forwarding' greetings from a lot of people who say they read my blog, but they don't dare write a comment:
I LOVE comments. Honestly. And there's no such things as embarrassing comments. I'm happy about everything, from a short "Schoener Blog" to a long and thoughtfull comment which I haven't yet received, but don't feel pressured. I'd just love to hear from you!
Or feel free to drop a line into my facebook, or my e-mail (it's firstname.lastname@online.de)
Well, guys, I'm leaving for now. As I have mentioned, I have a room to tidy!
Sonntag, 18. November 2012
A short weekend
Okay, so my weekend was waaay too short, I'm telling you...
Yesterday I slept pretty long, then we went to Steph's soccer game (she lost, but just barely!), during which I finished highlighting all the important stuff in my Debate and Speech booklet, and fetched Doro from Queensway Exchange afterwards.
Doro and I then proceeded to spend a whole afternoon talking, with me doing my Biology stuff (I'm almost finished, yay!) and her knitting - yes, that's right, Doro's taken up my mom's favourite sport, as she shows here, and after dinner, which was tacos (very similar to our wraps, so I volunteered to do my family's "traditional" wraps, which my mum and me had so often we couldn't see them anymore afterwards while my dad was in South Africa), we tried watching "Sherlock Holmes (2009 film)", the Guy Ritchie movie with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, but we got so bored that we watched clips from the 'Ellen' show instead.
And they were so funny, I couldn't breath and was crying because I was laughing so much!
We went to sleep by one o'clock, I guess...
And today I caught the bus with her to Queensway again, where her hostmum picked us up, dropped me off at the fitness centre (HUGE kudos to her!) and then drove Doro home.
I caught the bus one and a half hours later back to Queensway, where Andy fetched me, because I would have had to wait 30 mins at the station, which is not optimal for a lonely young lady...
The afternoon I spent learning my katakana - I guess I have them down pretty well now, but I'm definitely not looking forward to the exam tomorrow.
And my parcel arrived in Germany! I don't think I already mentioned that, but well. It did. Arrive, I mean.
It was pretty quick; I sent it only two weeks ago. Or rather, tomorrow it would be two weeks.
I just hope my mom abides by my wishes and doesn't open it before Christmas - at least in regards to my Journal.
A pro pos Journal... I really should take two hours and write up what's happened and how I feel.
I don't know whether it's homesickness, but I fell kinda empty. Could be winter depression, or pressure from school, I don't know...
Skyping at the moment only makes matters worse. I always feel down afterwards, and although I actually look forward to doing it, I can't concentrate during the session. I don't know. I feel like I felt in the first few weeks - maybe I'm fully arriving in Canada right now!
On Wednesday we get our report cards and we go curling and yeah... I'm looking forward to that. But till then I have to survive three tests... So I'd be really grateful if you crossed your fingers for me!
Well, and now I'm very tired, so I'll get my kindle and read for another 15 mins, before I go to sleep.
Have a good week, everybody!
I love you all so much!
Julia.
P.S.: If you keep that up, I might very well have a new hit count this month! This is so great!
So, und no a kurze Deifelei af bayrisch:
I komm mim Weg, wia de boaden Madln erzogn wern, ned klar. De Sochen, de si de kloane da beiden Madln assenimmt; mei Eltern hättn mi ungfähr a gonzes Joahr in mei Zimma gsteckt. Oder de Oider da boaden: Mia kemma hoam, ois is still. Wos is bassiert? De wollt an Guglakaunt hom. Fürd Meil. Muada sogt ne. Spada am seim Obend, nam Ignorieren am Disch, Dürnknallen und überhaupt ned sehr guadem Verhoitn: Sie greagt ehrer Akaunt. Des is ned nur inkonsequent, sondan a no bestärkend in ehram Verhoidn. Super. Naja, i holt mei Maul und strei hold immer wieder mui so an Satz ei, dass se mit so am Verhoidn in der großen weidn Woit ned weit kumma wird. Aber des is ned mei Aufgam de boiden afn richtgen Weg zu bringa. Und jetzt gute Nacht, i hoff es kennts des entziffern, i hob bloss a bissl Schiess vorm Gugl Übersetza!
So, and no a short Deifelei af Bavarian:
I come mim way wern wia de Boaden Madln erzogn, ned clear. De Sochen, de si de Runt since leaving takes two Madln, my parents gsteckt hättn Wed ungfähr a gonzes Joahr in my Zimma. Or de Oider Boaden as: Mia kemma hoam, ois is silent. Wos is bassiert? De want to Guglakaunt hom forD Meil. Muada SOGT ne. Spada at seim commensurate, nam Ignore at Disch Dürnknallen and even ned very guadem Verhoitn: You greagt PROFESSORS Akaunt. Ned is the only inconsistent sondan empowering in a no Ehram Verhoidn. Super. Well, I bring my mouth and coat again mui hold Sun egg to set that with so se on Verhoidn in great weidn Woit ned is Kumma far. But the is de ned my Aufgam boiden afn richtgen way to Bringa. And now good night, i hope it kennts of decipher, i just picked a bissl Shooting front Gugl Übersetza!
Please forgive me mz horrible attempts at Bavarian, I just wanted to answer to one of the lettern I received from Anna and Sophia!
Yesterday I slept pretty long, then we went to Steph's soccer game (she lost, but just barely!), during which I finished highlighting all the important stuff in my Debate and Speech booklet, and fetched Doro from Queensway Exchange afterwards.
Doro and I then proceeded to spend a whole afternoon talking, with me doing my Biology stuff (I'm almost finished, yay!) and her knitting - yes, that's right, Doro's taken up my mom's favourite sport, as she shows here, and after dinner, which was tacos (very similar to our wraps, so I volunteered to do my family's "traditional" wraps, which my mum and me had so often we couldn't see them anymore afterwards while my dad was in South Africa), we tried watching "Sherlock Holmes (2009 film)", the Guy Ritchie movie with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, but we got so bored that we watched clips from the 'Ellen' show instead.
And they were so funny, I couldn't breath and was crying because I was laughing so much!
We went to sleep by one o'clock, I guess...
And today I caught the bus with her to Queensway again, where her hostmum picked us up, dropped me off at the fitness centre (HUGE kudos to her!) and then drove Doro home.
I caught the bus one and a half hours later back to Queensway, where Andy fetched me, because I would have had to wait 30 mins at the station, which is not optimal for a lonely young lady...
The afternoon I spent learning my katakana - I guess I have them down pretty well now, but I'm definitely not looking forward to the exam tomorrow.
And my parcel arrived in Germany! I don't think I already mentioned that, but well. It did. Arrive, I mean.
It was pretty quick; I sent it only two weeks ago. Or rather, tomorrow it would be two weeks.
I just hope my mom abides by my wishes and doesn't open it before Christmas - at least in regards to my Journal.
A pro pos Journal... I really should take two hours and write up what's happened and how I feel.
I don't know whether it's homesickness, but I fell kinda empty. Could be winter depression, or pressure from school, I don't know...
Skyping at the moment only makes matters worse. I always feel down afterwards, and although I actually look forward to doing it, I can't concentrate during the session. I don't know. I feel like I felt in the first few weeks - maybe I'm fully arriving in Canada right now!
On Wednesday we get our report cards and we go curling and yeah... I'm looking forward to that. But till then I have to survive three tests... So I'd be really grateful if you crossed your fingers for me!
Well, and now I'm very tired, so I'll get my kindle and read for another 15 mins, before I go to sleep.
Have a good week, everybody!
I love you all so much!
Julia.
P.S.: If you keep that up, I might very well have a new hit count this month! This is so great!
So, und no a kurze Deifelei af bayrisch:
I komm mim Weg, wia de boaden Madln erzogn wern, ned klar. De Sochen, de si de kloane da beiden Madln assenimmt; mei Eltern hättn mi ungfähr a gonzes Joahr in mei Zimma gsteckt. Oder de Oider da boaden: Mia kemma hoam, ois is still. Wos is bassiert? De wollt an Guglakaunt hom. Fürd Meil. Muada sogt ne. Spada am seim Obend, nam Ignorieren am Disch, Dürnknallen und überhaupt ned sehr guadem Verhoitn: Sie greagt ehrer Akaunt. Des is ned nur inkonsequent, sondan a no bestärkend in ehram Verhoidn. Super. Naja, i holt mei Maul und strei hold immer wieder mui so an Satz ei, dass se mit so am Verhoidn in der großen weidn Woit ned weit kumma wird. Aber des is ned mei Aufgam de boiden afn richtgen Weg zu bringa. Und jetzt gute Nacht, i hoff es kennts des entziffern, i hob bloss a bissl Schiess vorm Gugl Übersetza!
So, and no a short Deifelei af Bavarian:
I come mim way wern wia de Boaden Madln erzogn, ned clear. De Sochen, de si de Runt since leaving takes two Madln, my parents gsteckt hättn Wed ungfähr a gonzes Joahr in my Zimma. Or de Oider Boaden as: Mia kemma hoam, ois is silent. Wos is bassiert? De want to Guglakaunt hom forD Meil. Muada SOGT ne. Spada at seim commensurate, nam Ignore at Disch Dürnknallen and even ned very guadem Verhoitn: You greagt PROFESSORS Akaunt. Ned is the only inconsistent sondan empowering in a no Ehram Verhoidn. Super. Well, I bring my mouth and coat again mui hold Sun egg to set that with so se on Verhoidn in great weidn Woit ned is Kumma far. But the is de ned my Aufgam boiden afn richtgen way to Bringa. And now good night, i hope it kennts of decipher, i just picked a bissl Shooting front Gugl Übersetza!
Please forgive me mz horrible attempts at Bavarian, I just wanted to answer to one of the lettern I received from Anna and Sophia!
Freitag, 9. November 2012
I'msotiredIcan'teventhinkofatitle!
Okay, here is another blogpost - let's see how long I can keep this one-a-day up! :)
First of all: PIA, I answered your question below your comment! I had no other way of contacting you, and I really hope you read this!
Second: As always, thanks to everybody who commented - special kudos to you - and also a thanks to everybody who read it - no special kudos to you. Sorry.
And the most special kudos and cookies are going to ... LyWe! And of course, my Mom.
So, todaaaay.... started out with skyping. With my parents, and our neighbours. And I'm really, really sorry for Google's bad translator qualities! :)
And it started with these pictures:
So it was really really cold today. Totally. It still has minus 1 degree! :o
I went to school packed in layers: A sleeveless shirt, a long sleeved shirt, my bench jacket and my winter jacket, along with hat, gloves and winterboots - and I still was cold during the assembly!
We had every lesson only 60 minutes to account for the 45 minutes we had assembly, and that ... well, it wasn't that great.
We all went outside, then somebody played a tune on the bagpipes [Dudelsack] and then we sang Oh Canada - I almost know the lyrics by now! - and a war Veteran read something, In Flander's Fields was read, a few other things, too, and then we sang God Save the Queen, had a minute of silence and after that everybody went back inside.
It took me two hours to warm up again!
I got my Journalism grade - a B. A B+, but still a B. 84%, which is kind of pissing me off. But well, for the effort I put into it, it's alright.
I'll probably drop it for the second semester - I just don't have the time to write as many articles as there are required, and it's not quite my style of writing.
After school ... Oh, I met a new girl by chance: I was sitting down next to her on the bus, as it is pretty full, and we realized we had the same bus stop!
So yeah. I hope I can meet her again on Tuesday. She was nice.
Talking about Tuesday... No, wait, let me do this chronologically:
For dinner we went to Fatburgers, and I really like them!
And afterwards, we went to the mall. Now me legs are hurting, but overall it was very enjoyable - and Steph reminds me totally of myself at that age... :)
Anyway, tomorrow Bobbie (Steph) has a soccer game, and Jenna on Sunday, so we're gonna watch those. And I will ask at the H2O Centre whether they found my scarf - I really hope they did, and if I really lost it on Monday, they're gonna throw it out on the coming Monday, which would be bad.
I hope I can go to the H2O Centre while the girls are playing soccer in the coming weeks. It would be really great.
And also tomorrow Steph's auntie comes to babysit her, as everybody else will be gone. I'm looking forward to meeting her!
On Tuesday, we have a very stressy day.
We have a Japanese exam on the Kanji for the school types:
小学校 - primary school
中学校 - Middle school
高校 - High school
年生 - Grade
So, for example:
高校一年生 would be high school grade one, so tenth grade. It's spoken Koko Ichi Nen Sei
わたしは 高校二年生 です Watashiwa Koko Ni Nen Sei des. Verbatim [woertlich] As for me high school grade one, or I am grade ten.
I actually do like Japanese!
And we're gonna write a Spanish test on all our Veggies and Fruit!
And I got the mail for the Vancouver Trip!
I want to sign up, but it's first come, first served, and they only have 106 seats on the buses! I really hope I can go, although it's $400!
So, and since I'm drop dead tired now, I'll stop here.
Have a nice weekend!
Julia
First of all: PIA, I answered your question below your comment! I had no other way of contacting you, and I really hope you read this!
Second: As always, thanks to everybody who commented - special kudos to you - and also a thanks to everybody who read it - no special kudos to you. Sorry.
And the most special kudos and cookies are going to ... LyWe! And of course, my Mom.
So, todaaaay.... started out with skyping. With my parents, and our neighbours. And I'm really, really sorry for Google's bad translator qualities! :)
And it started with these pictures:
So it was really really cold today. Totally. It still has minus 1 degree! :o
I went to school packed in layers: A sleeveless shirt, a long sleeved shirt, my bench jacket and my winter jacket, along with hat, gloves and winterboots - and I still was cold during the assembly!
We had every lesson only 60 minutes to account for the 45 minutes we had assembly, and that ... well, it wasn't that great.
We all went outside, then somebody played a tune on the bagpipes [Dudelsack] and then we sang Oh Canada - I almost know the lyrics by now! - and a war Veteran read something, In Flander's Fields was read, a few other things, too, and then we sang God Save the Queen, had a minute of silence and after that everybody went back inside.
It took me two hours to warm up again!
I got my Journalism grade - a B. A B+, but still a B. 84%, which is kind of pissing me off. But well, for the effort I put into it, it's alright.
I'll probably drop it for the second semester - I just don't have the time to write as many articles as there are required, and it's not quite my style of writing.
After school ... Oh, I met a new girl by chance: I was sitting down next to her on the bus, as it is pretty full, and we realized we had the same bus stop!
So yeah. I hope I can meet her again on Tuesday. She was nice.
Talking about Tuesday... No, wait, let me do this chronologically:
For dinner we went to Fatburgers, and I really like them!
And afterwards, we went to the mall. Now me legs are hurting, but overall it was very enjoyable - and Steph reminds me totally of myself at that age... :)
Anyway, tomorrow Bobbie (Steph) has a soccer game, and Jenna on Sunday, so we're gonna watch those. And I will ask at the H2O Centre whether they found my scarf - I really hope they did, and if I really lost it on Monday, they're gonna throw it out on the coming Monday, which would be bad.
I hope I can go to the H2O Centre while the girls are playing soccer in the coming weeks. It would be really great.
And also tomorrow Steph's auntie comes to babysit her, as everybody else will be gone. I'm looking forward to meeting her!
On Tuesday, we have a very stressy day.
We have a Japanese exam on the Kanji for the school types:
小学校 - primary school
中学校 - Middle school
高校 - High school
年生 - Grade
So, for example:
高校一年生 would be high school grade one, so tenth grade. It's spoken Koko Ichi Nen Sei
わたしは 高校二年生 です Watashiwa Koko Ni Nen Sei des. Verbatim [woertlich] As for me high school grade one, or I am grade ten.
I actually do like Japanese!
And we're gonna write a Spanish test on all our Veggies and Fruit!
And I got the mail for the Vancouver Trip!
I want to sign up, but it's first come, first served, and they only have 106 seats on the buses! I really hope I can go, although it's $400!
So, and since I'm drop dead tired now, I'll stop here.
Have a nice weekend!
Julia
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