Nothing special

Today seriously was nothing special - I finally took my Spanish quiz (19.5/20, which bumps me back up to 99.5%; formerly 95.1%), I missed my Biology quiz but found my missing notes (I have to ask my teacher tomorrow why I didn't get any marks on them; the marks usually are for completion and not content, and they were stapled to the back of the Lab report - the lab report is signed off, but the study guide apparently wasn't even looked at :/) and we had a cooking demonstration in Japanese - I mostly read through-out it, but the result was surprisingly good!
As for English ... We had to write an essay comparing "The Green Mile" and "Of Mice and Men", and while I am not fully satisfied with my two page double-spaced thing, I couldn't do any better in the 60 minutes we have. And I finally have stopped caring (so much)!

Maybe I  have told you already, but I printed out the first Math test my German classmates have written - and honestly? I almost cried. It's so complicated! But then again, maybe it would help if I took a look at the stuff they did first... ;) Sinus Funktionen... No idea what the English term would be. Sinus- functions?

I made my last Christmas present; now I only have to find something for the grandparents, as I will be staying with them come January.

And I might be going to the mall with Babette sometime during the holidays! I would definitely like than. She's one of the fellow German students, living outside Kelowna, though. Her hostsister (or one of them, at least) is a very good student of Mr Derksen's and I've seen her a few times around the classroom during lunch.

Talking about Mr D and Media Arts: Today the first 2012 episode of Muse, our school production, aired in the school - the Media Arts and Drama classes work together on one of these episodes, and it's mostly student driven. This episode was - of course - about the alpacalypse apocalypse (does anybody get the Joke? It's stolen from Muse, I have to admit) and it was pretty good!

By chance I went to Mr Kletke's office, the teacher in charge of our San Francisco and asked him ... about Stanford University, as it is a destination on our itinerary - and he told me, that there was a meeting on Monday!
I didn't know that, since I wasn't there the week before, so he handed me the final itinerary.

It looks like this:

Tuedsay, April 30, 2013

• 11:00 p.m. - leave KSS parking lot on chartered bus bound for Vancouver Amtrak Station

Wednesday, May 1, 2013 [Travel Day - train]

• 5:30 a.m. - leave Vancouver on Amtrak bus bound for Seattle
• 9:45 a.m. - leave Seattle on Amtrak train bound for San Francisco

Thurday, May 2, 2013 [Alcatraz/Fisherman's Wharf]

• 9:10 a.m. - arrive at Fisherman's Wharf (Pier 39) in San Francisco
• 9:30 a.m. - arrive at San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf Hostel - secure luggage - freshen up
• 10:30 a.m. - group split into two
• Group A proceeds to Alcatraz (walk) - return by 1:00 p.m.
• Group B proceeds to Fisherman's Wharf (walk) - return by 1:30 p.m.
• 2:20 p.m. - groups stay split 
• Group A proceeds to Fisherman's Wharf (walk) - return by 5:00 p.m.
• Group B proceeds to Alcatraz (walk) - return by 5:00 p.m.
• 6:00 p.m. - group dinner at:
• In N' Out Burger OR
• Other Fisherman's Wharf area eatery
• 8:00 p.m. - hostel check-in
• 'chill' time
• Explore hostel grounds
• 10:00 p.m. lights out

Friday, May 3, 2013 [Silicon Valley Tour]

• 7:00 - 8:00 a.m. - breakfast at hostel
• 8:00 a.m. - 5:15 p.m. - Silicon Valley Tour
• 8:00 a.m. - bus pick-up at hostel
• 9:00 a.m. - Facebook Head Office (15 minute picture stop)
• 9:30 a.m. - Stanford University (guided 60 minute walking tour)
• 11:30 a.m. - Google Head Office (15 minute picture stop)
• 12:00 p.m. - Apple Head Office & Apple Store (30 minutes pic and store stop)
• 1:15 p.m. - Gilroy Premium Outlets (shopping) - leave by 3:45 p.m.
• 5:15 p.m. - arrive back at hostel (pack away shopping) - leave by 5: 35 p.m.
• 6:00 - 10:00 p.m. Professional baseball game (San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers) AT & T Park (game starts at 7:00 p.m.)
• 10:00 - 10:30 p.m. - travel to hostel (public transportation)
• 11:00 p.m. - back at hostel - lights out

Saturday, May 4, 2013 [Golden Gate Bridge, downtown San Francisco]

• 7:00 - 9:00 a.m. - breakfast at hostel
• 10:30 a.m. - ferry to Sausalito
• 11:15 a.m. - 1:45 p.m. - travel to Amoeba Records (public transportation)
• 1:45 - 2:45 p.m. - visit Amoeba Records
• 3:00 - 5:30 p.m. - visit downtown (Union Square & financial district)
• 5:30 - 6:30 p.m. - travel back to Fisherman's Wharf (public transportation)
• 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. - group dinner at Hard Rock Café
• 10:00 p.m. - lights out

Sunday, May 5, 2013 [Travel Day - plane]

• 7:00 - 9:00 a.m. - breakfast at hostel
• 9:00 a.m. - leave hostel for airport (airport shuttle)
• 12:50 p.m. - Westjet flight to Vancouver (arrives in Vancouver at 3:05 p.m.)
• 6:30 p.m. - Westjet flight to Kelowna (arrives in Kelowna at 7:21 p.m.)

I'm seriously so looking forward to this trip, I can hardly describe it.
But it's not yet sure whether we can actually go to the baseball game, as you can't buy tickets yet! :o I wouldn't care if we didn't go - I don't think I'd like baseball, and honestly? One new sport is enough!

Take care, guys, I'm going to bed now.

Julia

I'm moving

Hi guys!

As I have already mentioned, I have a huge announcement to make:

I'm moving. Changing hostfamilies.

My Coordinator will pick me up at 4:05 PM tomorrow, and she will bring me to my new hostfamily.

It just didn't work out here.
I'm constantly feeling intimidated, and we have very few things in common.
After my panic attacks in school, I have talked extensively to a a family friend from Germany, who can understand my situation, my parents, my hostfather and my coordinator, and I have felt that the best decision for me would be to move. I just cannot hit "reset" and start over. That's not in my nature. I feel like I don't hesitate to give trust, but I'm having a hard time giving a refill of that trust well. If you lose it, I can't give you more. Or it takes me a very, very long time to give more trust.

Of course there is more to this matter, but that are not things I want to discuss on my blog.
You can find my whole thoughts on the situation and what's transpired in my Journal, which is already on its way to Germany - so some of you (like Lara, Lydia, Romy, Pizza and anybody else who's interested) will get in in January, as I cannot have it opened before Christmas. I wrote what I'm getting everyone for Christmas inside there!

Anyway, tomorrow my address will change, too.
Please don't send anything to my old address!
People I know (and trust) can contact me tomorrow, but I want to talk to my new hostparents first about giving their address away.

In less than twenty hours I'll be gone.
And I'm feeling more relaxed than in a long time. I feel like I suddenly can breath again.

The worst thing though was packing my things up. I don't know how I ever want to get that all back to Germany!
It's just so much - my suitcase, the big box my parents sent me, the boy my winter shoes came in, the box my hairdrier came in and three bags, as well as my backpack!
It's just so awfully much, you know?
But enough of that,
I hope you're all fine over there!

I got my English Score - 92.3%. Which is pretty good, in my opinion!
Depending on how he counts it - if he has one part names "Tests", like my Spanish class, that counts more than my essays - then it dents my grade. If he doesn't, I'd still have ... 98 or 99%. Which is perfectly acceptable.

I realized today that one of the boys in my Spanish class actually has longer hair than me! And he has a similar shaped face... Creepy. Honestly.

At the moment I'm so afraid that Romney will win the election - he is in the lead. 23 electoral votes or almost 2 million public votes. I'm so absolutely scared. I'm hoping that everybody in the US is being out there and voting - we can't have Mitt Romney climb into office. It'd be a disaster.
I think Joss Whedon, director of the Avengers, sums it up pretty well, what would happen:

Watch that video. It's absolutely brilliant. Really.

 ETA 8:13 PM: Different source, newer statistics: Obama is in the lead! 47 electoral votes, which are important, although he is still about 2 Million popular votes behind Romney, which don't count, though.
But let's just say: Never before has a president of the US won the "throne" without winning the popular vote... Maybe Obama is the first?

ETA 8:33 PM: Obama has won. I can't describe how relieved I am. But he still lost the popular vote, as it seems right now!

ETA 8:47 PM: Obama is pulling up in regards to the popular vote, but he has won. Definitely.

 
Here is a graphic that shows tumblr tags - it'll be probably over, by the time you get there, but I want to have mentioned it.
And I'm honestly going to bed right now!

So okay, yesterday was a rather brilliant day, too.

I got on my biology test written yesterday 99%. And I didn't even prepare! Honestly, a fifth of the questions I didn't know, I guessed and/or went about in the "Ausschlussverfahren" (looking at which not to take). But well, I'm not complaining!
Then our Japanese test was postponed to today (not that I did anything for it, but well), and I have to admit: I cheated. But well, the teacher left the room, what do you expect?
(Admittance two: He was actually still in the room when I cheated)

And then Journalism... We all got a huge "well done" from Mrs Taylor, and of course she highlighted once again that I am only an ESL student...
And then we did impromptus (Stegreifreden). I didn't get to do mine, but we had topics like "Dogs are better cats than dogs", "Why Brownies are better than chips", "Women should join the miliatry" (made by a boy) and "everybody should go out there and vote" (done by our amazing captain Aislinn!).
And they were so funny! They only had 2 minutes to prepare a 2 minute speech, so it was really amazing what they did!

And we ended the lesson with a line debate:
The class is halved and then lined up on two sides of a hall, one side negative and one positive. And then we had the topic "Women are stronger than men". I was on the negative.

But we laughed so much as people of whom we knew that they had different opinions, spewed some bullshit (excuse the language please), especially on our side. Sarcasm was sometimes heavy in the air.
But it was so much fun, I can hardly describe it!

So okay, I'm sending all my love your way - and I'm gonna go to bed now soon, as I am really tired...

Julia