Weekly Post #13

Hey everybody!

I hope everybody had a beautiful trick-or-treat.

25. October 2014:

On saturday my mom, justus, and I spent the day at Kathrine's house (a family friend). We spent the day talking with Kathrine and her daughter, playing games on the wii, and playing with plush donkies. We ended up playing candy crush, which I am again hopelessly addicted to, mario cart, and winter olymics. I can't believe how hard the winter olymics game is, even though it's supposed to be for kids of all ages.

26. October 2014:

On sunday I traveled 2 hours to my old town, Warendorf, to visit a few people from my orientation course. I got to see Anna, Alison, Liam, and Lisa all in one day. I loved seeing these guys again. We didn't end up doing anything because it was a sunday. But I felt like even if it wasn't a sunday we wouldn't have needed to go out and do something. I even think it was better that we didn't do anything, that way we got to chat more. We spent almost the whole time around Alison's dinning room kitchen just talking. Luckily I got to visit on sunday because now Alison and Liam are both at least 3 hours away. I never would have thought I would have become so close with the people in my orientation class so quickly. But I guess when you get several travel nerds in the same room in a different place all for the first time, we can bond pretty quickly. We also ended up playing German sorry. Which, I was told, right before we played that it goes pretty quickly and its much easier than the American sorry. Don't be fooled people. The only difference is you can actually roll your own die. It still takes like 5 hours to finish.

27. October 2014:

On monday I finally got to school on time with the bus. I think I have finally mastered the system of public transit to get me to and from my school. It's a huge relief to know I will not loose my way to school any time soon. I also had my math klausur on monday. I definately thought I was more prepared for this klausur than I actually was. I realised with math how much more in depth the German school system goes on each topic covered. I also believe there is a different method for solving problems, which I have about 45% down. Additionally they use commas instead of periods, and their ones look like an upside down v, which always makes me take a step back to think for a moment. I always have to double check my work just for these two things, because I slip back into my American math ways. I art we also started making our hands out of wire. When we were first given this assignment I thought, "man my teacher is going to take one look and say, 'is that supposed to be a ball of string for a cat to play with?'" I actually really like working with wire. I also think my hand will not turn out as a ball of string.

28. October 2014:

On tuesday I finally got the general concept of one of the texts we read in my geography class. I believe it was about sink holes and land slides. Even though I didn't have to be at school until 3rd hour, during my two free periods I ended up falling asleep on our old new break room couch. I do believe this is the first time I have ever actually fallen asleep in school. After school I ended up playing a lot with Justus. He now even has one of my special plush bears to keep him company at night. In return he gave me one of his plush dalmations, and we made a plan to collect 1 million plush animals together.

29. October 2014:

On wednesday I felt like I could understand a bit more in my classes. The problem now is that it's easier for me to zone out in classes. It is so easy to zone out when you have absolutely no idea of what the class is talking about. But now that I have been theire for a couple of months and can understand a bit more, I need to stop day dreaming. After school my mom and I picked up some gyros before we headed over to the animal center. Today we didn't do battle with 11 cats. Instead I got to cuddle with a couple of tiny little kittens. I never realised that a tiny kitten is a stomach with paws, until I picked one up. One of them kept on mewing, and I couldn't resist but pick him up.

30. October 2014:

On thursday I went with my mom to work, because it was take your kid to work day. My mom works for verizon. Which is all over the world, so of course we got to video conference with some kids in Frankfurt, and in Reading, England. I think that it is so cool that wherever the workers my go, they don't necessarily have to quit their job. They either just change offices, or they work from home. We also got a tour of the huge computer system beneith the actual office. One of the rooms was about the size of the room for the very first computer, but now this room contains a whole system of programs and computers.

31. October 2014:

On friday during my free periods I ended up going into Mengeda with Lottif to pick up some things for Caroline's Halloween Party. I got to borrow Maja's bike for the trip. Let me tell you, America is doing something wrong with our bikes. This bike was a breeze to ride. Maybe if we had bikes like this more people would ride bikes in America. Right after my free periods I had math. By the time math was over my head was spinning, because I felt like I right back at block one with understanding. Luckily that evening I got to go to the party at Caroline's house. It was a nice party. A bunch of people were there from my class. They were all really nice and tried to include me as much as possible. I guess the zombie thing is also a huge thing for people to dress up as. Unfortunately I got a headache and ended up going home early.

Thanks for reading!

Sandra