&etc.

&LetsGo!

2011-06-23T13:45:00.000+02:00

Hello again!

I never really drew this blog to a close, but that's fine with me. The journey's never really over, is it? In any case, after a year back in the states, I'm back in Europe. I have moved to a different blog, though. Follow my travels this summer at &Let'sGo- thanks for continuing to read!

Patriotism

2010-06-28T14:33:00.000+02:00

While we`re on the subject of football, I may as well go right on to talking about patriotism- in Germany the two go hand-in-hand.

Germany is not a very patriotic country. It's just not. I've been here almost a year now and couldn't sing more than a few words of the German national anthem. In regular times, it's not uncommon to go a few days without seeing a single German flag. Germany doesn't have a collection of hymns and songs praising its purple mountains majesties, it's grand ol' flag, it fields of grain, pilgrim's pride, its Redwood forests... well, you get the point.

For the last few weeks, though, that's been completely different.

I think it's refreshing. I think it's quite important to love one's country- I don't mean the Germans don't love Germany, just that they don't show it as much. Sure, plenty of Germans think that America's pride is excessive and uncalled for, but I really do believe that a sense of 'team spirit' is healthy for a country.

I guess it has something to do with Germany's history- unfortunately, the name of the country still is a little stigmatic, and excessive national pride could be percieved as recoursive. Germans are much more proud of their region or city- city pride is quite present.

Because of the world cup, though, there are German flags everywhere- on every corner, on every car, worn as capes, on beer cans, in store windows... it's a nice reminder to me not to take the chance of living in a foreign country for granted.

Fußball

2010-06-28T14:04:00.001+02:00

So.

I was actually going to write about baseball, but I should probably write about baseball first...

We played "baseball" in Gym the other day... it was pretty funny. Our gym teacher explained the rules in great detail:

1. There are to be four bases. There will be no home base. The runner must run to first, second, third, and fourth (where third base usually is), and then he has scored a point. The runner must not return to his starting position.
2. The ball shall be white. A field hockey ball will suffice.
3. The bat may or may not be a novelty miniature bat- if it says "baseball", it qualifies.
4. The catcher is a third party. The catcher shall not belong to a team.
5. There shall be no strikes, fouls, or balls. Batters shall have three attempts.
6. A batter will be out when hit with a ball. Teams will switch after a batter has been hit with a ball. Throwing is acceptable.
7. A batter may run around the bases as often as he wishes.

These are the official baseball rules.

That being said, Germans can play soccer!

America recently lost to Ghana. It wasn`t a bad game, though- 2-1, and lost in the second overtime. Not a bad deal, all things considered!

Germany won yesterday against England, 4-1- that was a very good game. I had expected Germany to win, but not by so large a margin. As I was saying to the lovely Soraya, I made a few observations:

1. Short after your first goal, England shot a second goal that wasn't counted. It was in though, England was gypped. That being said, the US shot a goal on England in the group stage that wasn't counted, either...
2. England played terrible in the first and last 20 or 30 minutes. In between, though, they looked really good.
3. Germany really did play better. Germany's guys are also REALLY fast....
4. Props to England for being the only country loud enough to out-sing the vuvuzelas.

Germany will be playing Argentina (who beat Mexico yesterday) next Saturday. I think Germany will win, but they'll need a little luck- Germany scores its points on break-aways, not in planned plays. I think it will be a high-scoring match, too- Argentina has great strikers.

I'm not going to pretend to be a soccer expert (I've never interested myself in soccer before this year), but I'd say either the winner of this match or Brazil will win the World Cup.

Some scattered updates...

2010-06-28T12:51:00.000+02:00

Alright, I'm going to throw in a few scattered updates here- don't bother reading them all, or break them up into a few days- I do use this blog as a journal just as much as a blog, so these are mostly just for me.

First off- mein Abschlussbericht. I won't lie, I do not write this well. A friend of mine offered to proofread it, and she did a nice job. That being said, the whole thing is a little scatterbrained and disorganized.... na ja. In any case:

Wenn ich auf das zweite Halbjahr zurückblicke, kann ich kaum glauben wie schnell es vorbei ging. Es scheint mir als es gestern gewesen wäre, als ich letztens hier in diesem Stuhl saß und mein Halbzeitbericht schrieb. Genau wie damals, schreibe ich jetzt mit Bedauern- ich bin traurig, dass das Jahr zuende geht.

Natürlich freue ich mich auf meine Famille und Freunde zuhause, aber trotzdem werde ich meine Zeit hier in Deutschland vermissen. Als ich hierher gekommen bin, hatte ich feste Pläne wieder in die USA zu fliegen- meine Familie war einen Anker, sozusagen. Aber jetzt ist nichts fest- natürlich werde ich nach Deutschland zurückkommen, aber höchstwahrscheinlich werde ich viele von meinen guten Freunden hier in Deutschland nicht wieder sehen.

Na ja. Manche Dinge kann man nicht ändern. Zum Glück habe ich viele Erinnerungen gesammelt, die ich nicht vergessen werde.

Im zweiten Halbjahr habe ich ziemlich viel Zeit mit meinen Freunden verbracht. Ich habe auch mehr mit anderen Amerikanern zu tun gehabt- im ersten Halbjahr habe ich dies vermieden, sodass ich besser Deutsch lernen würde.

Ein merkwürdiges Wochenende war vor ein paar Monaten- ich bin nach Köthen, in Sachsen-Anhalt, mit Todd gefahren. Dort haben wir bei einer Solarenergiekonferenz in der Universität Sachsen-Anhalt teilgenommen. Ich fand es eine besonders tolle Gelegenheit, weil es Ingenieurwissenschaften, mein gewünschte Studiumfach, und Reisen durch Deutschland einbezog. Es war interessant, einen Überblick über Alternativeenergie in Deutschland zu bekommen.

Glücklicherweise durfte ich noch ein paar Reisen machen- mit meiner Familie bin ich an Ostern nach Schweden gefahren, mit Todd bin ich vor einem Monat nach Braunschweig gefahren, und kürzlich bin ich mit PPP nach Berlin gereist.

Natürlich, waren alle meine Reisen zwischen Schule und Alltagsleben in Lübeck. Schule ist immer noch eine Hauptsache, und ich lerne fleißig weiter. Wir hatten in den letzten paar Monaten die Fächer Chemie und Physik, die mir besonders gut gefallen haben. Gerade jetzt arbeiten wir an unserem Klassenspiel für nächstes Jahr- obwohl ich nicht mitspielen darf, schaue ich zu und helfe bei den Produktionen gerne.

Letzten Monat hatte ich auch die einzigartige Gelegenheit ein Praktikum zu machen. Ich arbeitete bei GABLER, eine U-Boot Firma hier in Lübeck.

Ich hatte die Gelegenheit mehere Abteilungen von der Firma zu sehen. In meiner ersten Woche war ich in dem PR, Marketing, und danach in Auftragsabwicklung / Versand gewsen. Meiner zweiten Woche habe ich in der Qualitätskontrolle verbracht, und ich habe mein Praktikum diese Woche in der Montage beendete.

Jetzt bin ich jedoch wieder in die Schule. Da das Wetter wieder schön ist, machen wir jetzt Sport draußen- ich fand es super witzig wenn unsere Sportlehrerin versuchte Baseball zu erklären, und noch witziger als die Deutschen versucht haben es zu spielen. Davon abgesehen, spiele ich ab und zu Fußball mit meinen Freunden und ich bin wirklich furchtbar schlecht.

Fußball ist auch etwas merkwürdiges- ich bin froh, dass ich die Weltmeisterschaft hier in Deutschland erleben darf. Die Stimmung ist einzigartig, die Spiele sind lustig und ich habe eine ganz neue Wertschätzung von Fußball bekommen.

In Bezug auf meine Hobbys, spiele ich immer noch in einer Bigband, habe an einem fortgeschrittenen Tanzkurs teilgenommen und übe ich weiter Klavier. Mit der Bigband hatte ich ein paar echt tolle Konzerte in den letzten paar Wochen und ich bin mehr als zufrieden mit den Fortschritten die ich in meinen Tanzkurs gemacht habe.

Im Großen und Ganzen, habe ich definitiv ganz viel hier in Deutschland gelernt: Deutsch sprechen, Klavier spielen, Tanzen, sogar Fußball zu mögen (obwohl nicht ganz so viel wie Football) und vieles mehr. Genau so wichtig sind jedoch die Beziehungen die ich aufgebaut habe, die Kultur, die ich ein bisschen kennen gelernt habe, und die Erinnerungen, die ich nie vergessen werde.

Sentiments

2010-06-24T23:46:00.000+02:00

I'm just going to repost something right out of Claire's blog- it's a good piece of writing, and what she says is worth taking note of. Thanks Claire!

Tonight was one of those times that you tell yourself "Don't forget this". So I thought I'd write about it. Short and quick before I get into bed.

Today a family friend, Saskia, came back from a year in the US. A group of about 20 of us waited to greet her at the airport.

But before she came out...A teen guy walked out with the same look I did on my first day. His host family was waiting to meet him for the first time. I was in aww. At first I smiled and laughed, as if watching a family movie of myself. But my smile quickly faded. Realizing that seeing him was confronting me with my year. That was me. That was a scared young girl arriving in the first foreign country in her life. That was me arriving at a huge train station after dark and looking around frantically to where my host family may be waiting. There was me 10 months ago.

Then Saskia came out. Flabergasted and unable to speak German, she didn't know how to react to leaving one life for the next. In a matter of minutes, I saw my year flash in front of me. I saw my first moment in Germany. And through Saskia, I saw my last.

We all headed to Saskias house for a welcoming party. But my head was a blur. I cried in my host Moms and sisters arms knowing this party made me realize how close I am to the end. I realized my year has flashed behind me.

The party ended up being amazing. But coming home at 11, riding in the dark of the countryside with my family, seeing the planes fly over and the trains pass where all you could make out was lit up windows, I realized how much moments like that mean to me. Simple moments where I think with all my heart "I'm happy"- as easy as that. The end is coming, and its sad, but the ride is so enjoyable that one just has to close their eyes and act like the end isn't coming.

http://clairegoestodeutschland.blogspot.com/

I've begun to count my own "simple moments"- the kind words, the caring glances, the simple gestures of my friends; the beauty of the German country, the charm of Luebeck, the warm summer evening that ends just too well- over and over again I'm reminded of my astounding luck. The little things may be little, but they make a world of a difference.

I'm happy to be here.

America Won!

2010-06-23T18:01:00.001+02:00

America won!

Quite unlike America, people actually care about soccer in Germany, and America just won in the last minute against Algeria! That means we'll be moving on to the next round.

The German game starts in a few hours- if they win, they'll be moving on as well! Hoorah!

Edit: Germany won against Ghana, too! That means they're moving along as well. Next up: Germany v. England and America v. Ghana!

Berlin Photopost!

2010-06-22T14:42:00.000+02:00

So I'm a terrible photographer. I really don't like taking pictures at all. I bring my camera just about everywhere with me, but I never actually pull it out of my pocket.

Thankfully, everyone has a camera these days, and there are websites like Facebook. Almost all of the photos that I'm putting here come from either Erin, Rachel, or Mariah's albums. Thanks girls!

Ashamed

2010-06-21T22:24:00.000+02:00

So I broke my promise. I said I'd get a post out over the weekend, I didn't do it... I'm very sorry. Sorry! Entschuldigung!

I have to say, though, that I wasn't home all weekend long. I went out on Saturday to Sophie's birthday party, ended up sleeping at Christoph's house, headed into Hamburg on Sunday to meet Devin's parents, met up my class and watched Faust I in theatre, and then got back to Luebeck around 12:40 am. At that point the busses weren't running anymore, so I slept at Geo's, and then went to school today.

In any case, I haven't been around too much, and certainly not around a computer. Sorry again.

I should probably throw a note in here about last weekend. We had our End of Stay camp in Berlin- all 50 CBYX scholars met up and stayed in a hostel from Thursday til Sunday. We did the whole tourist thing- took the city tour, saw the big sights, and all that jazz. On Friday we were an audience to the Bundestag, Germany's parliamentary unit, and afterwards we went to the American embassy.

The embassy was really cool.

It was funny- you went in, and everything was very serious. Jackets were checked, bags were searched, everything was x-rayed, everybody went through a metal detector, some were patted down... and then, after we were through security, we were very solemnly led into a big courtyard.

The courtyard was basically a beach party.

There was a DJ, a little stage, drinks and refreshments, and lots and lots of kids. The little things really made the difference- they had imported sodas from the US that you can't find in Germany, the wall outlets were American, the doorknobs were American, even the toilets were American. It was just like being in America!

I was also very impressed with the German ambassador. I must say, his German wasn't too good, and it was very, very accented, but he had a huge personality. He really knew how to stir up a crowd, how to get a message across, and how to make everyone feel at home. I liked him!

Another cool thing about Berlin was the dome on top of the Bundestag building. Designed to symbolize the transparency of the government, the whole building is made of glass, including an enormous, spiraling dome. There was a headphone tour, too, and you could walk up the spiral rampway and hear about the Berlin skyline as you went. We had perfect timing, too- the sun went down just as we had gotten to the top. I'll post some photos of that in the next post.

Berlin

2010-06-17T23:44:00.000+02:00

Sorry for the absence, everybody. I've become quite aware of the little time I have left here, and somehow I can't seem to find time for anything anymore... I will write something in here by this weekend, I promise! I would just do it, and not offer this filler post, but by setting a goal in writing I force myself to do it.

In any case, go Celtics! Basketball has been overshadowed by the World Cup here in Germany, but it's certainly not forgotten. Show those Lakers what we've got!

Beer

2010-06-08T17:30:00.000+02:00

I figure now that college apps are out of the way, I can write a post about beer. But, just for safety's sake, I'll put in a little disclaimer:

Dear employer, admissions officer, scholarship distributor, police officer, or anybody else who may be scouring the internet for information about my moral fiber-
The beers on this list were consumed in Germany, where the drinking age is 16. No laws were broken, no standards were defiled, and no hops were harmed in the consumption of these beers.

Hopefully that does it.

Anyway, I've had the opportunity to sample a nice collection of beers here in Germany, and these are some of my findings. This is by all means an incomplete list and the opinions are simply my opinions, and I am definitely no expert. It's also in no logical order and the beers weren't tested with any sort of standard- some were drunk from a bottle, some from a can, many from a glass... that being said, los geht's!

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Astra (St. Pauli (Hamburg))- Pale Lager, slightly bitter, like most North German beers. Actually has a quite nice taste, drinks smoothly, and is very cheap. Mostly a party beer, drunk mostly by kids, from what I’ve seen, considering its price, association with St. Pauli, and alcohol content (motto is “Brewed with love… and more alcohol”). Definitely a good beer, but not my first choice.

Beck’s (Bremen)- Another Pale Lager from North Germany. Beck’s is a Pils. Beck’s is a little sweet with a bitter aftertaste. While it’s very, very smooth, the taste is a little –watery- something is lacking in Beck’s. While I’m not a big fan of Beck’s, but it’s definitely one of the most popular beers around here.

Becks Gold (Bremen)- Often called a woman’s beer, Anke’s beer of choice. I’m not a big fan, leave’s a funny, chemical aftertaste to me. Anke likes it, though, so it must have some redeeming qualities.

Carlsberg (Denmark)- Another Lager. While technically not a German beer, I happened to pick up a case of Carlsberg on the way back from Sweden. The motto is “Possibly the best beer in the world”- while its not entirely true, it’s definitely not a bad beer. Carlsberg is definitely a good beer. Carlsberg has a strong taste and a bit of a bite, but it’s not unpleasant. It is a little more carbonated than most beers, which can be annoying when being drunk from the can, but when poured into a glass the extra carbonation settles out and it’s just right. Carlsberg also has a nice aftertaste that leaves you not wanting to eat or drink anything else for a while.

Carlsberg Sort Guld (Denmark)- I’m not sure what kind of beer Sort Guld is, but it’s definitely darker, stronger, and bolder. Carlsberg Sort Guld has a very smoky flavor- it’s too overpowering to be eaten with most foods, in my opinion, and more than one or two makes you feel sick. That being said, I really enjoy Sort Guld. Its extremely strong flavor is definitely enjoyable by itself. Sort Guld is quite creamy.

Flensburger (Flensburg)- Another North GermanPils. Flensburger is also quite popular here in Luebeck, but I don’t like it. It is heavily spiced and has a grassy taste. Maybe it’s just too strong for me. Does have a very nice, lacy head, though. Has a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste.

Krombacher (Kreuztal)- Pils. Krombacher is usually my beer of choice here in Luebeck. While not my favorite beer, it is my favorite widely available beer. Krombacher is quite creamy, doesn’t have the grassy smell of other North German Pils, and has a solid character. Has a good, solid taste and the right level of carbonation. Enjoyable from bottle or glass.

Warsteiner (Warstein)- Pils. At the beginning of my year here, I liked Wasteiner a lot. I’ve grown to like it less, though- it lacks the flavor of other Pils and is simply too watery. That was probably its appeal at the beginning of the year, though- a little weaker in intensity than other beers, it’s a good one to start out with. Very light, pretty thin.

Wolters (Braunschweig)- Another very good Pils. Unfortunately I’ve only tried one, and that was from the bottle, but I’d welcome the chance to try another. Not widely available. Has a distinct, solid taste- a mix between herbal and sweet. Does have a fairly strong, herbal smell. I would not call it a light beer, but certainly drinkable. Not very carbonated, as a result feels a little heavier than expected, but nevertheless refreshing.

5.0 (Braunschweig)- Another party beer. Extremely cheap, only sold in .5L cans, 5.0% alcohol. The brand makes four types- Pils, Weizen, Lemon, and Export. I haven’t tried the Lemon or Export. The Weizen is pretty bad, it’s quite weak. Weizen should definitely not be drunk from a can. The Pils is okay for the price. It has a solid flavor, but it’s nothing special. Don’t seek it out unless you specifically want cheap beer.

Wikinger Bier- A very weak beer that’s served in a very funny looking 1L can with a Viking on it. Funny to look at, but as far as beer goes nothing special. Okay, I’ll even go far enough to say it’s bad.

Jever (Jever)- North German Pils. I hate Jever. From the bottle it’s terrible. Just throwing it out there. I’ve had it a few times, and it’s always tasted terribly skunked. I’ve also had Jever from tap, that was better, but still not my favorite beer, and still had a skunky smell. Jever has an incredibly strong, herbal taste and a bitter aftertaste. It’s worth trying, though- I do know a few people who swear by Jever, and it is certainly unique.

Loewenbraeu Oktoberfest (Muenchen)- This is an Oktoberfest beer and very good. I really like the beers from the Loewenbraeu brewery. It’s simple but solid and drinks smoothly. Very refreshing. Has a dry aftertaste.

Loewenbraeu Triumphator (Muenchen)- This is a doppelbock beer with a surprising 7.6% alcohol. I’ve only had it from tap, but from tap served cold it was hands down the best beer I’ve had here in Germany. The beer is a red copper color and it doesn’t have much of a head. The taste is very complex but perfectly balanced- it has a disguised fruity taste and also hints of pepper. Smells like malt and toffee. Has a medium body and a rich taste. Once again, a very good beer.

Franziskaner Weissbier (Muenchen)- A Weizen, typical of Munich. A very well known brand. Not as good as Loewenbraeu, but still a solid beer. Considerably carbonated and keeps a nice, creamy head. Crisp and smooth.

Richmodis Koelsch (Richmodis)- I’ve only had one Koelsch, and it was from the bottle, warm. Nonetheless, it was pretty good. Not my favorite beer, but definitely something worth trying. Has a dry, sort of smoky flavor. Not something you can drink too fast.

Koenig Pilsner (Duisburg)- Pilsner. Actually the first beer I had here in Germany. A good, solid beer, but not my favorite. A pretty light beer- I enjoyed it at the beginning of the year for the same reason I enjoyed Warsteiner, I think. Very smooth, but not much flavor, slightly bitter, medium carbonation. Slightly smoky aftertaste. Good, but nothing special.

Bitburger (Bitburg)- North German Pilsner. I’ve only had one of these, too, and I’m pretty sure it was skunked. It was bad, and had almost a chemical taste. It was pretty heavy. That being said, Bitburger is a very popular beer here in Luebeck. Sorry I can’t give a better review.

Paulaner Premium Pils (Muenchen)- A good beer, but weak compared to North German Pils. Light, dry, crisp. Well balanced. Actually a very good beer, just… not my favorite. Worth trying, though.

Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier Dunkel (Muenchen)- I’d seek this one out. Is a very nice looking beer. Nice and creamy. Smells good, has a nice head, drinks smoothly. Tastes of hefe and berley with a hint of something sweet. Leaves a pleasant wheaty aftertaste in mouth. Definitely worth trying.

Erdinger Dunkel (Erding)- A very dark beer, and very good. Another one I’d seek out. Very dark and cloudy, has a caramel smell. Has a crisp bite and a yeasty finish. Tastes good right from the bottle. Has a very beer-like taste, with few additives. Another one of my favorites.

Tucher Pilsener (Nuernberg)- Weak for a Pilsner. While not bad, there are so many other good Pils that this one isn’t worth seeking out. The bite is just a little too strong, the flavor is just a little too bitter, the aftertaste is just a little too lasting. Skip this one.

Tucher Weizen (Nuernberg)- Much better than the Pils, but doesn’t really taste like a Weizen. Has a very distinct character, malty and citrusy at the same time. Again, don’t drink this beer looking for a Weizen. Enjoyable nonetheless, feels good in the mouth, has a nice carbonation. A good beer for grilling.

Mixed beers:

Beck’s Ice / Lime / Whatever else Beck’s has for mixes- Way, way, way to sweet for me. I get a headache and a bellyache from just one of these things. Basically just sugarwater.

Radler- Not actually a beer brand, Radler just means beer and lemonade. Good for grill parties, drinking after working, etc. Enjoyable, refreshing, and best when cold. It’s beer an lemonade, for God’s sake… it’s got to be good! Krombacher has a nice variety.

Cab- An acronym for Cola and Beer. Also too sweet for my taste. Nothing special.

Schoefferhofer Grapefruit- I’ve heard it described as a “breakfast beer”. Schoefferhof Grapefruit is a mix of beer and grapefruit juice and is by far my favorite of mixed beers. Fruity, sweet, and very good. One is just enough, more is too much sugar, but one is perfect and refreshing.

Graduation

2010-06-05T20:20:00.000+02:00

Congrats on graduating, Lynnfield '10! You're the finest class Lynnfield has ever had. I'm looking forward to catching up when I'm back in the states!

Mr. Mike

2010-06-02T21:10:00.000+02:00

I was in Braunschweig last weekend with Todd and Mike. Here's a link to Mike's blog, in case you're interested... you can see German's Eurovision winner there! Eurovision is a similar concept to American Idol- okay, it's not really, but I don't want to get into specifics here.

In any case, Braunschweig is great. It may be my favorite German city. What's more is that I got to play Ultimate with some of Mike's friends. We played Americans vs. Germans, and even gave the Jerrys an extra player... we still crushed them 9-2. I guess they just couldn't keep up with our chicanery.

That being said, German's aren't very good frisbee players. It's not exactly a mainstream sport here- this weekend was the first time I've touched a frisbee in ten months.

A few fun facts:
Braunschweig is in Niedersachsen and has about 250k inhabitants. The city itself is much bigger than Luebeck, though. Luebeck has about 240k inhabitants.

My host-grandmother hails from Braunschweig.

Braunschweig has three breweries- 5.0, Wolters, and a third which probably isn't worth mentioning.

Braunschweig is a the biggest rival of Hanover, but Todd, Mike, and Isurmise that a secret rivalry between Braunschweig and Berlin exists for various reasons.

Braunschweig is "the Lion city"! There's only one lion, though.

Mon Accent

2010-06-02T20:29:00.000+02:00

The American accent is a pretty controversial topic among anyone who cares about it. I've heard so much about it- that it's a great accent to have, that Germans would kill for an Ami accent, and that it sounds cool, but also that it's terrible, an assault on the language, and is the worst kind of accent.

About two months ago my German was good enough that I could start to think about my accent. I've made little corrections here and there, but by and large it's still pretty strong. Many, many people have told me that it's not as strong as many other Americans they've met, but what does that mean?

Sunday was a first, though- I was riding the train home, looking for anybody who had a group ticket that wanted to share (it's much cheaper to ride in a group). I ended up joining up with a thirty-five-ish year old pair of sisters and their mother. We established pretty quickly that I was an American:

Mother: I take it from you're accent that you're foreign. English?
Me: Nope, American. Out of Boston.
Sister #1: For an American, your accent is hardly noticeable.
Mother: Well, it's definitely there, there's no mistaking that. But it's nice.
Sister #2: Nice? His accent is downright erotic!

That was a first.

Quickie Update

2010-05-27T16:10:00.000+02:00

So I don't really have too much to say, just wanted to check in-

The last two weeks I've been working at Gabler. Last week I spent time in Marketing, PR, and sales. I did a lot of translations and some work with databases- I'm pretty sure I talked about that in the last post.

This week I've been in Quality Control. It's pretty interesting- I've learned the fundamentals of reading schematic diagrams, how to use a dozen different measuring devices, and gotten a good look at the inside of a submarine company. It's quite impressive- just about every piece is custom built, including screws, nuts, washers, and all the little pieces you'd normally expect to come from stock.

Today I'm going to play volleyball with some friends.

Tomorrow I'll be going to a university in Sachsen-Anhalt to learn about the future of solar energy- there's an overnight conference there, I'll be chilling with Todd.

Saturday I'll be going to Braunschweig!

Okay. The short post is finished!

GABLER GmbH

2010-05-20T14:32:00.000+02:00

I'll talk about GABLER in just a second. First, I want to point out something that's been bothering me.

Why we say, "Should I try and save a spot for you?" or, "Go and buy me a few turnips?" Do we actually say these things? Or are those just bad habits I've picked up? Especially with try- I don't understand the replacement of "to" with "and", especially considering how ubiquitous the first person + infinitive construction is. Why should "try" be different? "Try and do" doesn't make any sense at all, when you really stop to think about it...

Okay. GABLER. I started my Praktikum (which, once again, is similar to an internship) on Monday, and I'm working at a firm called GABLER here in Luebeck. GABLER builds submarines and thermoform machines- machines that make plastic trays, cups, joghurt containers, etc. You can find GABLER's website here.

On Monday and Tuesday I was over in Advertising and PR, yesterday and today I've been in Sales. I think next week I mosey on to Quality Control, but I'm not sure.

I've actually been doing a lot of translation work here, in several different departments. People have heard that there's an American in the house and call up 'der Praktikant'. I don't mind, though- it's nice to be useful.

For the last two days I've been doing a little bit of database management and updating, too- GABLER has three databases and only one is really up to date. I've been updating prices in the other two. I wouldn't say it's exciting, but it's not bad work, either.

Today I had even had an extra project- I was given a printout with a bunch of costs and variables and had to duplicate the processes- so, for instance, I'd be given X and Z and have to calculate variable Y which connects the two, and then program it into excel. That was actually pretty fun, and at the end of the day I had a pretty impressive looking Excel spreadsheet that could calculate revenues, profits, percent profits, total costs, material costs, and human labor from just a few of the variables. I'm not sure how well I explained that, but in any case, it was rewarding.

Surfin' Safari

2010-05-16T23:23:00.000+02:00

Wollen wir zum Strand?
Tja, aber erstmal chillen... ganz entspannt, ne?

I'm not sure how many times I heard that, but it was definitely more than a bajillion.

Nelia told me that Mrs. Janus is mad at me for not updating more often, so I'll put in just one more post tonight before bet.

On Friday we (the Hamburg/Berlin crew) went to another beach and played more volleyball. This time, though, we went to a big Surf Fest in Pelzerhaken. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of it, but I can tell you it was great.

See, surfing is very popular here in Germany. Much much more popular than in Boston, in any case. They don't have any waves, though- the Ostsee is completely flat. They get around this by windsurfing and kitesurfing. I could be wrong, but I don't remember either one of these being particularly popular in the US.

In any case, at this surf festival there were at least twenty vendors of boards, sails, and masts. Everyone could try out all the new products free of charge, and the water was pretty full of surfers. Personally, I find water pretty wet (and consequently, quite eklig), so I stayed out of it, but it looked like a good time for everyone who was there.

I met up with the other Tim and Anininine, Lasse, Christoph, and Joelle from my class, too. They're all surfers, but they stopped in for a few rounds of volleyball. Afterwards we had a quite lovely beach party until early in the morning. It was one of the most ridiculous, fun times I think I've ever had- I know Annine stole my hat and wouldn't give it back, there was more volleyball, much revelry, shisha (I don't smoke), music, and at least one existential conversation on the lifeguard tower. Eventually we were told by the beach security that we weren't allowed on the beach after 8:00 PM, but they were cool and turned a blind eye and let us carry on.

The rest of the crew that I came up with went home around 3:00, I ended up staying there for the night with the others- at four in the morning I didn't see much point in going home. Luckily, Tim had a seat free in his car. It wasn't comfortable at all, but at least it was warm.

The next day was definitely a chill-day. I don't think any of us slept too well in the car, so none of us had much energy. I got up around 10:00 anyway (I had to stretch out a bit) and wandered the beach, and on the way back was invited to two breakfasts- one from a teacher at our school, the other from some random guy who hadn't quite sobered up from the night before. Of course, I accepted both offers graciously. A breakfast isn't something one should give up!

After a third breakfast with Joelli, Tim, and Annine, we spent most of the day in the back of Tim's car. Like I said, we were pretty exhausted. We threw open the trunk, folded up the back seat, and threw a bunch of sleeping bags in back an pretty much just sat around listening to Jack Johnson, enjoying the sea breezes and making small talk with the people who passed by- ganz gechillt, ganz entspannt.

Am Strand

2010-05-16T22:43:00.000+02:00

SO.

Because of Ascension Day, this was a long weekend for Germany (Thursday & Friday schulfrei!). On Wednesday I went out with a few friends on a quasi-Kneipentour- we started with cocktails at Ohana, went on to the Sternschnuppe, and ended up at Cole Street. It was a good time!

It really went down the next day, though- the whole Hamburg/Berlin crew came up to Luebeck. More specifically, Basti, Simon, David, Sophie, Udo, and Flo from Berlin, and Merle, Jan, and Marie from Hamburg. Most of these people were either in Hitzacker or Bergwerk or both.

We went to a beach on the Ostsee (Baltic Sea) on Thursday and set up a volleyball net. It was just a little bit cold, but a lot of fun. David and Basti are both really great players- they're both in Germany's Vierte Liga- I think that's about the level of the North Shore Spirit baseball team, for comparisons sake, or maybe one better.

Pefect form, in every sense of the word ;)

The nice thing about the sub-perfect weather is that we literally had the beach to ourselves. And, after playing a little, it was plenty warm enough.

Big News!

2010-05-15T22:43:00.000+02:00

So I haven't had much time to post too much here- in the last few weeks I've been on my computer pretty often, doing a lot with colleges and scholarships. BUT I finally have a decision!

I've registered for the University of Southern California class of 2014. Hooray!

Now, it could turn out that UPenn pulls me from the waitlist, in which case I might be going there, but in either case I've got something set up for next year. That's good!

I had been worrying about this- I didn't receive my aid package from USC until earlier this week, and it was already way past the May 1 SIR deadline... in any case, everything worked out.

Hopefully I'll get around to write a little more here now... thanks for your patience!
Tim

Video Post

2010-04-25T22:25:00.002+02:00

So unfortunately Blogger doesn't let me upload videos (or if it does, I haven't figured out how). In any case, I have a video here for you- this is the chorus from Bergwerk. I dedicate this song to Madame, because she's the best!

From

Narcissus

2010-04-20T23:29:00.000+02:00

In Greek mythology Echo was a wood nymph who loved a youth by the name of Narcissus. He was a beautiful creature loved by many but Narcissus loved no one. He enjoyed attention, praise and envy. In Narcissus' eyes nobody matched him and as such he considered none were worthy of him.
Echo's passion for Narcissus was equaled only by her passion for talking as she always had to have the last word. One day she enabled the escape of the goddess Juno's adulterous husband by engaging Juno in conversation. On finding out Echo's treachery Juno cursed Echo by removing her voice with the exception that she could only speak that which was spoken to her.

Echo often waited in the woods to see Narcissus hoping for a chance to be noticed. One day as she lingered in the bushes he heard her footsteps and called out “Who's here?” Echo replied “Here!” Narcissus called again "Come", Echo replied "Come!". Narcissus called once more “Why do you shun me?... Let us join one another.” Echo was overjoyed that Narcissus had asked her to join him. She longed to tell him who she was and of all the love she had for him in her heart but she could not speak. She ran towards him and threw herself upon him.

Narcissus became angry “Hands off! I would rather die than you should have me!” and threw Echo to the ground. Echo left the woods a ruin, her heart broken. Ashamed she ran away to live in the mountains yearning for a love that would never be returned. The grief killed her. Her body became one with the mountain stone. All that remained was her voice which replied in kind when others spoke.

Narcissus continued to attract many nymphs all of whom he briefly entertained before scorning and refusing them. The gods grew tired of his behaviour and cursed Narcissus. They wanted him to know what it felt like to love and never be loved. They made it so there was only one whom he would love, someone who was not real and could never love him back.

One day whilst out enjoying the sunshine Narcissus came upon a pool of water. As he gazed into it he caught a glimpse of what he thought was a beautiful water spirit. He did not recognise his own reflection and was immediately enamoured. Narcissus bent down his head to kiss the vision. As he did so the reflection mimicked his actions. Taking this as a sign of reciprocation Narcissus reached into the pool to draw the water spirit to him. The water displaced and the vision was gone. He panicked, where had his love gone? When the water became calm the water spirit returned. “Why, beautiful being, do you shun me? Surely my face is not one to repel you. The nymphs love me, and you yourself look not indifferent upon me. When I stretch forth my arms you do the same; and you smile upon me and answer my beckonings with the like.” Again he reached out and again his love disappeared. Frightened to touch the water Narcissus lay still by the pool gazing in to the eyes of his vision.

He cried in frustration. As he did so Echo also cried. He did not move, he did not eat or drink, he only suffered. As he pined he became gaunt loosing his beauty. The nymphs that loved him pleaded with him to come away from the pool. As they did so Echo also pleaded with him. He was transfixed; he wanted to stay there forever. Narcissus like Echo died with grief. His body disappeared and where his body once lay a flower grew in it's place. The nymphs mourned his death and as they mourned Echo also mourned.

http://www.echo.me.uk/legend.htm

What's interesting is the way German and English have used this myth.

In English, we have the word "Narcissist", which is defined as this:

The term narcissism refers to the personality trait of self-esteem, which includes the set of character traits concerned with self-image ego. The terms narcissism, ', and ' are often used as pejoratives, denoting vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness. ...

In German, there's the word "Narzisse". Unlike the English word, though, "Narzisse" means daffodil- the flower that Narcissus became after his body disappeared.

I think it's interesting how a root word can evolve into two words with such wildly different meanings.

"Narzisse" are also called Osterblume, Ostergloeckchen, Maerzenbecher, Osterglocke, or Trompetenblume. A skilled botanist could probably identify differences between all of these, but they are all species of daffodils.

Tea Partys, Plumbers, and Hangings? Oh my!

2010-04-13T23:59:00.001+02:00

I try to keep this blog pretty non-controversial, but I stumbled onto a piece of good writing today that I can't help but to share (thanks Zach):

"It’s one thing to be ignorant. It’s another to take pride in it. And it’s quite another to venture b...eyond that into full-blown stupidity. It’s not often that you get to use the word “stupidity” in a non-ad hominem context, but now — with the majority of Republicans believing Obama is a socialist without having any idea what socialism is, over a third believing he is foreign-born, and featured Tea Party speakers calling for the hanging of a US senator (Patty Murray) — it’s becoming harder and harder to euphemize some of things we’re witnessing as anything but."

The rest of the article was too contentious for my taste, so I am not going to link to it- I don't want it's views to be reflected on me, and it gets a little too... bitchy, for lack of a better word. This paragraph, though, seemed to have a kernel of truth- true, I'm not in the US any more, and I'm really not completely caught up. In the last few days, though, I've been following a few news sites, and I'm not liking a lot of what I'm seeing.

Why is Sarah Palin still around? And what's more, when did so much of America become anti-intellectual? When was Colin Powell replaced by Joe the Plumber?

I feel like we could have a field day in US World History on this one...

Mr. Mike

2010-04-13T20:58:00.000+02:00

I'm going to go ahead and borrow something from a friend of mine's blog- Mike Kalunzy is a great guy, a fellow Camp Onway-er, and also here in Germany, chilling in Braunschweig. You can find his whole blog here.

I'm actually going to take two of his posts- they're both very insightful about the German language, and are worth reading for anyone interested in learning it. My comments are italicized in black, his posts are in purple.

The first:

beugen: to decline or conjugate (grammar)

I keep running up against this notion of noun classes and grammatical gender. Why do some languages have grammatical gender? Does it simplify language or make it easier to learn and understand? Gender is just plain confusing! In German you have to learn 3 articles for three different genders and then each gender in the 4 different cases and then the appropriate declinations for adjectives with either definite/indefinite/or no article. The list goes on and on. I have yet to find a decent explanation as to why this is all necessary.

My own thoughts- yes! This is very true, and, subsequently, German is an impossibly difficult language to master. I have bemoaned grammatical gender many, many a time. It is sometimes useful, though- for example, when there are two nouns of a separate gender in a sentence, they may both be referred to in subsequent sentences with pronouns, and the antecedent doesn't need to be repeated. For example, in English, it's confusing to say, "The bird sat on the chair. It was blue." It is ambiguous- it could refer to the chair or the bird.

Of course, this only works sometimes in German. Sometimes the two nouns will both be of the same gender, in which case we still need antecedents.

In German the problem is compounded by the fact that the language applies grammatical gender as opposed to natural gender. The latter is when the gender of the noun agrees with the natural gender of the object. For example die Frau: the woman. Die is the feminine article. German throws a wrench in the works by calling obviously feminine nouns such as the girl, das Mädchen. That is grammatical gender. I.E the gender of the noun doesn’t have to make sense.

For most English speakers, a language (seemingly) devoid of gender, all of this is very confusing. Learning articles is a chore that just has to be dealt with when learning vocabulary. The word Frau doesn’t exists. It’s die Frau.

My point with all this is to illuminate the fact, that although grammatical gender in German is a pain, it also exists in English in a few number of cases. For example, oftentimes when countries, ships or cars are referred to, the pronoun she or her is used. While not required, it is a manifestation of gender in the English language.

Just an observation.

This is important to note- I think in English, when we use a gender to describe something that is traditionally genderless (countries, ships, cars, etc.), it's an emotional technique. The application of a gender is supposed to draw a response- it's a sort of poetry in prose, designed at affecting the feelings of the audience.

For German, this means one of two things:

1. The German language is naturally poetic, or,

2. German is just plain hard. Punkt.

In any case, the whole topic here reminded me of a study I read about sometime last year:

"[When] describing the word key (feminine in Spanish and masculine in German), Spanish speakers produced adjectives such as intricate, little, lovely, shiny, and tiny, and German speakers generated adjectives such as hard, metal, jagged, and useful." (Sera, Berge & Del Pintado, 1994)

What this suggests is that grammatical gender does indeed have a purpose: it helps unify the speakers in a language on a conceptual representation of nouns. Even without a natural gender, feminine and masculine nouns are consequently lent metaphorical characteristics.

This conclusion would lead me to strike Point 2 above, and concede that while grammatical gender is infuriating to learn, it really does lead to a poetic language-among native speakers, that is.

-MEK & TRM

The second:

One of my favorite things about the German language is how it simply deals with common diseases and medical conditions. In English, for example, most diseases are referred to be their scientific and medical names.

Pnemonia

Diabetes

Diarrhea

In German:

die Lungenentzündung: Lung inflamation

die Zuckerkrankheit: sugar disease

der Durchfall: ~fall through

It's not just medical terms that are like this, there are hundreds of words. "A twig", translated literally, is "a thin stick". "A bruise" translated literally is "a blue spot". "Fenders" are "shit wings", "power outlet" is a "stick-in box", "Vacuum" is a "dust-sucker". In some ways, German really does make sense!

-MEK & TIM

A good read about languages (I haven't read it completely myself, only chapters here and there, but it's very interesting!):

Crosslinguistic Influence in Language and Cognition, by Scott Jarvisand Aneta Pavlenko. You can find a lot of it on Google Books, here.

Die Projektwoche

2010-04-13T00:26:00.000+02:00

I figure I can post real quickly about the projektwoche (project week) before I go to bed. I'll get to Bergwerk and Sweden some other time this week- hopefully Bergwerk tomorrow.

The week before our vacation was a Projektwoche- what that means is that the Oberstufe (grades 9-12) got to go in a little later to school every day and had our choice of "projects". I chose two- Bandprojekt and American Films You Should Know. It's actually pretty ironic- Herr Wiegandt, my English teacher, asked if I would help lead the class. I said sure, gladly. Anyone who knows me, though, knows that I don't know anything about films, American or otherwise. I'm lucky if I can stay awake through a whole movie, much less critique it.

Anyway, we ended up watching three films in the week- American Graffiti, Apollo 13, and Witness. American Graffiti was pretty cool- I'd recommend it just for kicks and giggles for a dull rainy day. Everyone knows Apollo 13 already (actually, everyone probably know American Graffiti already, and it's just me who doesn't... whichever). I had never even heard of Witness, that was Mr. Wiegandt's vorschlag, but it was a pretty good film. It was about an Amish boy who witnesses a murder- it's a thriller, but it takes a look at the Amish community. I liked it.

In the Bandprojekt, we started a rock band, and on the last day we had a little concert. I had originally thought that it would be a blues/boogies woogie kind of band, but it turned into rock. Since there's no place for a trombone in rock music (usually), I ended up playing keys and singing. It worked out well, though- we had three songs, and at the end of the week I think we sounded all right. I was happy with it, at least. Somebody took a movie- when I get back to school I'll try to track it down, and maybe upload it.

Okay, time for bed. Gute Nacht!

Nazi Gegendemonstration

2010-04-13T00:11:00.000+02:00

Okay, let's go back to March 27, 2010.

In short, the Nazi party (extreme right) had planned a march through Luebeck, like every year, and the Luebeck left (and non-political anti-Nazis) wanted to stop it. It was a pretty big deal, so I decided to go and check it out- I invited Todd to join me.

Here's a news article (in German), if you'd like to check it out:

There were about 250 neo-Nazis, 2500 anti-protesters, and 2000 police officers (mostly state police officers).

It's important to note that the Nazis have a right to march and to rally. Just like in the US, political parties are allowed to peacefully meet. The anti-demonstrators were formed of three organized groups- the organized Left, Luebecks churches, and trade unions. In addition were a handful of non-political anti-Nazi recruits- I guess Todd and I would belong to this last group. The goal of the anti-demonstrators was to blockade all of the surface streets into the Altstadt, or the central part of Luebeck. The goal of the police was to keep everything non-violent, and ultimately to try and separate the protesters and the anti-protesters as much as possible.

In the end, the police and the Left were both pretty successful- Todd and I went down to the Hauptbanhof at 10:00 and literally everything was stopped. The police had taken over the train station, keeping Nazis from coming in and anti-Nazis from leaving, the bridge leading into the Luebeck altstadt was literally covered with police vehicles and a large number of the protesters were separated from the action. The Nazis did end up marching outside of Luebeck, but their planned march route was disrupted by the blockades assembled by anti-demonstrators. I think I read somewhere that eight people were arrested in the whole day, which isn't too shabby for so big a deal.

Todd and I didn't actually see any Nazis (like I said, the cops did a nice job of separating the Nazis and the anti-Nazis), but we did see a lot of excited people, lots of cops, and got a feel for the German political mood.

Backtracking...

2010-04-12T22:25:00.000+02:00

Man I've been busy lately. I'm just going to throw out some thoughts here so I don't forget what I ought to go back and touch upon, and then later I'll clarify. Some stuff I've been up to:

Anti-Nazi Demo
Projectwoche
Bergwerk Musikfreizeit
Sweden!

Right now I've got one more vacation week, and then I'll be going back to school next Monday. I've been writing scholarship apps all day, and I've got more for tomorrow... some vacation. After tomorrow I should be able to get out a little more, though- a few days work, a few days play. We'll see.

This post is dedicated to Mrs. Janus! She's the best and should have a wonderful day!

Extrem Wichtig!

2010-04-12T22:00:00.002+02:00

Before I get to anything else that's been going on in the last few months, there's something very very important I need to say!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!

Have a lovely year!

Featherweight

2010-03-18T13:31:00.001+01:00

I just heard Featherweight's new album, it's good stuff! Some good friends of mine- Vic, Zach, and Tim- are in this band. Check it out here, and consider donating!

Okay, I'm going to Frankfurt. I'll be back Monday! Have a nice weekend!

#100!

2010-03-16T19:15:00.000+01:00

So here's my 100th post, it seems fitting to write it in Deutsch. This was the Zwischenbericht (sort of like a Midyear-Report) that I sent to AFS. It's a few weeks old, but you can check it out anyway- I know not everyone on this blog can speak German, but at least a good fraction can. Viel Spass!

Timothy Miller

USA

Seit September habe ich hier in Lübeck gewohnt. Hier habe ich ein neues Leben erschafft: ich bin ein Mitglied von einer neuen Familie geworden, ich habe Freunde gefunden, ich habe Erfolg in der Schule gehabt, und ich habe mich in mein neues Land verliebt.

Familie

Ich habe bis jetzt überhaupt keine Probleme mit meiner Gastfamilie gehabt. Ganz in Gegenteil kann ich nicht wirklich erklären, wie zufrieden ich bin. Ich bin der älteste von sechs Kindern. Am Anfang des Jahres, war es meine Familie, die mir Deutsch beigebracht hatte. Mimi (6) und Stine (9) waren immer glücklich, mich zu verbessern. Dass ich immer Kinderbücher las, fanden sie auch ganz lustig. Noch besser war drei Wochen später, wenn mein Deutsch gut genug geworden war, die Kinderbücher vorzulesen. Stine malt immer ganz viele Bilder für mich, und sagt dass ich die Bilder nach Hause in die USA bringen soll, und Mimi nannte mich „Mein Tim“. Ich habe keine Zweifel, dass ich mich an diese Mädchen ein Leben lang erinnern werde.

Hannes (10) ist mein einziger Bruder. Eigentlich sind wir einander ähnlich: Hannes findet Verkehrsmittel, wissenschaftliche Experimenten, und Music voll cool. Hannes und ich passen wohl gut zusammen: Ich habe ihm Blues auf seiner Cello beigebracht, er zeigt mir immer was er neu gelernt hat, und wir spielen mit seinen Legos zusammen. Ich glaube, dass es Hannes sehr freut, einen Bruder zu haben.

Mia (13) nervt. Aber ich nerve sie zurück. Sie ist wie eine wirkliche Schwester; sie soll nerven. Das is die Weise, die es sein soll. Sie klaut immer meine Hausschuhe, aber so ist es gerecht- normalerweise habe ich irgendwie angefangen. Mia ist cool.

Lotta (16) ist erstmal in November angekommen. Davor war sie in Iowa, in den USA. Lotta und ich passen auch voll gut zusammen. Zugegeben, wir haben nicht nicht so viel Zeit zusammen verbrachte wie Mia, Hannes und ich, aber trotzdem hilft Lotta mir mit meinen deutschen Hausaufgaben, und ich korrigiere ihre Französisch und Englisch. Wir sind ein gutes Team!

Meine Eltern, Alex und Anke, sind auch wundervolle Menschen. Alex ist ein Querdenker und ein Problemlöser, Anke ist eine Mutter und eine Denkerin. Viele Tage haben Alex und ich zusammen gearbeitet, Holz für unsere Öffnen zu spalten, und vielen Nächten haben Anke und ich bis spät in der Nacht über Bücher, Philosophie, und Ideen gesprochen. Alex und Anke sind immer total nett zu mir, und wir sind gute Freunde.

Eigentlich gibt es kein Wort das gut genug erklären kann, wie glücklich ich in meiner Familie bin. Wenn ich „Familie“ sage, meine ich es wirklich, dass wir eine Familie sind.

Freunde

Ich finde es nicht schwierig, Freunde in Deutschland zu finden. Für mein erstes Paar Wochen hier habe ich viel zeit mit anderen AFS Schülern in meinem Sprachkurs verbracht. Danach habe ich viele gute Freunde in meinem Jahrgang gefunden. Immer noch treffe ich manchmal mit meinen AFS Freunde, besonders mit Geo, der auch aus den USA kommt. Meine Freunde und ich gehen gerne in die Disko, das Kino, oder einfach in die Stadt. Letzte Woche habe ich ein Paar Freunde eingeladen, mit mir zu einer Superbowl-Party zu gehen.

Ich habe auch Freunde in meiner Bigband gefunden und auch ein paar Freunde ziemlich spontan kennen gelernt. Zum Beispiel, in den Winterferien war ich mit meiner Familie auf einer Musikfreizeit. Da habe ich auch viele Freunde gefunden. Da habe ich auch meine Freundin, Sinja, kennen gelernt. Von ihr lerne ich viel Deutsch, da wir fast jede Nacht chatten. Auf dieser Weise entwickelt sich mein Deutsch viel schneller.

Schule

Schule ist ziemlich leicht. Eigentlich find ich es zu leicht: ich habe viele von meinen Fächern schon in den USA gehabt. Ich glaube, dass mein größtes Bedauern von diesem Jahr ist das ich in die 11te, anstatt in die 12te Klasse gegangen bin. Trotzdem bin ich gluecklich in die 11te- dieses Bedauern ist auch nicht so gross. Meine Klassenkameraden sind aber voll lustig, und ich fühle, dass ich eine wahre Rolle in meiner Klasse habe. Unsere Schule hat einen Laden, den ich mit Kristin, eine Freundin, führe. Ich bin auch für die Finanzen verantwortlich.

Ich gehe auf die Freie Waldorfschule Lübeck. Sie ist ein Bisschen anders als normale Gymnasien: die Waldorfschule hat unter ihrem Kursangebot Handarbeit und auch andere besondere Fächer zu bieten. Dass ich Tischlern lernen kann, zum Beispiel, finde ich echt cool. Dieses Jahr habe ich auch HTML, Plasticien, und Kunst Geschichte gelernt, zusätzlich zu meinen normalen Stunden: Mathe, Englisch, Französisch, Deutsch, etc. Ich habe auch die Gelegenheit, ein Praktikum zu machen. Ich habe schon mit einer Firma in Lübeck gesprochen, und ich freue mich schon darauf, dass ich in Mai bei einer U-Bootbaufirma arbeiten kann.

Trotzdem würde ich gerne ein echtes Gymnasium ausprobieren. Ich habe es mir übergelegt, vielleicht ein Quasi-Midstay zu machen. Da ich ein PPP Stipendiat bin, hatte ich nicht die Gelegenheit, ein normales Midstay zu machen. Nächste Woche werde ich AFS fragen, ob ich mit einem Freund von einer anderen Stadt für einige Wochen wohnen darf, damit ich auch ein Midstay erleben kann.

Sprache

Offensichtlich ist mein Deutsch viel weniger als perfekt (Geo hat mir viel mit meiner Grammatik in diesem Bericht geholfen). Trotzdem bin ich glücklich, mit allem das ich schon gelernt habe. Ich bin hier mit gar keinen Deutschkenntnissen angekommen, aber jetzt kann ich Bücher lesen, meine Lehrer verstehen, Berichte schreiben, und, hauptsachlich, mit Leuten reden. Ich weiß, dass ich auf meine Aussprache, Akzent, und Grammatik arbeiten muss, aber ich mach mir keine Sorgen darum, weil ich noch ein halbes Jahr um Deutsch zu lernen habe.

Ich bin stolz auf mich selbst, weil ich schon im Dezember ein ziemlich kompliziertes Buch für die Schule gelesen hatte. Jetzt lese ich gerne Bücher auf Deutsch auf Spaß.

Ich bin auch stolz auf mich selbst, weil ich normalerweise mit meinen Freunden aus den USA die auch hier in Deutschland sind Deutsch spreche. Manchmal ist es auch einfacher: mein Englisch ist ja immer noch besser als mein Deutsch, aber meine Gedanke sind oft auf Deutsch, und auch wenn sie auf Englisch sind haben sie einen deutschen Satzbau.

Hobbys

Ich bin immer beschäftigt. Noch ein Bedauern, das ich zu diesem Jahr habe ist, dass ich nicht alle meine Bewerbungen für Universitäten und Stipendien vorher geschrieben hatte. Das heißt, dass ich ziemlich oft Bewerbungen jetzt schreiben muss. Deshalb habe ich nicht so viel Zeit, wie ich haben möchte.

Trotzdem kann ich viel unternehmen: ich spiele in drei Bands, ich spiele Badminton, und ich verbringe Zeit mit meinen Freunden. In meinen Bands spiele ich Posaune, und normalerweise alle zwei Monate haben wir ein Konzert. Da meine Gastfamilie ein Klavier hat, versuche ich Klavier zu lernen. Fast jeden Tag übe ich ein Bisschen, und ich glaube, dass ich einigen Erfolg gehabt habe.

Alex und ich spielen jeden Montag Badminton, und wenn ich die Gelegenheit habe, spiele ich auch manchmal in der Woche mit Freunden.

Chez moi koche ich, lese ich, spiele mit Hannes und Mia, und spalte gerne Holz. Ich habe fast sieben Dinosaurier!

Tim

Letter to Harry

2010-03-16T19:03:00.002+01:00

Earlier today I got a letter from Harry, who's one of my best buds in the US. I figured I'd share some of the things I wrote back- the bold texts are excerpts from Harry's letter to me.

Hey, man! How's it going?

Hello! Life is good, everything is going well. It’s great to hear from you.

How are you? Are you taking over Germany yet?

I tried to take over Germany but I got distracted by beer, beautiful women, delicious food, and great people. Then I realized that if taking over a country would be so demanding that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it, it’s probably better just to enjoy the time I’ve got here. So no dramatic country-stealing heists, sorry.

Are you dreaming in German yet?

I actually dreamed in German my first two weeks here, and I still dream in German now. The only difference is that now I understand what everyone’s saying in my dreams… that’s important!

Big congrats, by the way, on UCLA.

Thanks for the congratulations! I’m not sure if I’m going there yet, but it’s really nice to know that in the worst-case-scenario I have somewhere to go. I got into Marquette a few months ago, with practically a full scholarship, but as winter went on I realized that I have absolutely no desire to study somewhere so cold as Milwaukee- if I didn’t get in anywhere else, I would even consider doing another year at LHS. So yeah, it’s nice to have somewhere to turn too.

The play ended this past Saturday.

I had a nice convo with Ali the other day about the play- it sounds like in the end it came together pretty well. I heard the crew pulled through, Sean told me that they earned the Stagemanager’s award, and Ali said the acting was impressive. Good work to all of you! I missed the Festival- that’s always such a good time, regardless of who wins or loses. Festival people are just cool people.

School is fine. I feel like you would have finally enjoyed English this year. Mr. I is the man.

I’m glad to hear school is good. I’ve heard good things about Mr. I. From what I’ve heard, he sounds like my Deutsch teacher, Herr Schlauss- Herr Schlauss is also wicked cool. His lesson is almost entirely a lecture- he tries to make it interactive, but with some notable exceptions it’s usually him on the main-stage. We just finished comparing texts from Kant and Schiller, and a while back we did some work with Kleist- I really like the German philosophers. German is a good language for philosophy! Somehow, though, I always find myself comparing them to Voltaire (who’s the man), or Descartes. French is pretty cool too. You’d probably enjoy Herr Schlauss, too- he gives you a lot to think about.

Finally I’ve been able to get a little back in the swing of French- until last month, I literally could not put three words together in a sentence. I could still read it perfectly well, and I could still understand it very well, but when I tried to speak it always came out German. I’m still having trouble- I’m nowhere near as fluid as I was when I left- but now I have hope. I was really afraid about losing it earlier this year. I love French!

I actually have no doubt that my grammar has gotten much better when I’m writing. Madame would be proud! I’ve learned a lot of little things that are starting to stack up- I would like to keep studying French in college, I think.

It’s actually funny- my teacher here is appalled at my American accent (in French. Apparently my accent is much less noticeable when I speak German) (she’s French, by the way. Her German is also sometimes less than perfect). I don’t know if I’m making progress in that field, but I can definitely tell where I’m wrong. The word “mais”, for example- I’ve always said it like “may”, but it’s really more like “meh”. Or “ai”, as in “j’ai”, that’s also more of a “eh”. Everything I say is too hard.

Physics sucks. (not a quote)

We just started Physics on Monday- we have it every day for two hours for the next few weeks. I think somewhere on my blog I explained the way the Epoch schedule works… but anyway, the class started Physics last year, so I’m a little behind, but I took out a textbook and I’ll probably be caught up by the end of the week.

I miss you a ton, dude.

I’ve been missing the Fantastic Four (and a woman!) recently. I was actually just talking about you guys to a friend of mine the other day. I’ve realized that when I talk about High School, it sounds totally ridiculous. I try to explain to people about the Mez, and how I used to go up there and chill in my hammock during Math and English, but somehow I don’t come clear. Or our Chemistry class and how ridiculous it was: poke wars, oxidizers, experiments, Triff’s mad skills, goldfish… or about the terribly depressed and pitifully pitiful Mr. Tarr, or about the adventures of French Class, with Jeopardy and cookies and Communists. I think, though, that these kinds of memories are ones that you need to share with the people who lived them with you- so yes, I miss you all too.

With your permission, I would like to take over Team Trix for the year

Not only would I do you have my permission and my blessing, but also my thanks for taking over Team Trix- that’s really important to me, that Team Trix lives on.

I hope you're living it up in Deutschland!

I am! I’m doing really great, as I said. My German has come along considerably in the last month or two- I can definitely carry on a conversation without trouble. German is an incredibly complex language (there are 16 possibilities for the word “the”), and my grammar is really terrible, and everyone can tell that I am a foreigner, but I can understand just about everything and everyone can just about understand my crappy German- and that’s what’s really important. I’m working on my accent and starting to get a hand on the grammar, though, so I’m still making progress.

Outside of school, I’ve been keeping really busy. I’m playing in two Jazz Ensembles (down from three at the beginning of the year), taking a standards- dance course and a swing dance course, and play badminton with my host father.

In April I’ll be flying to Sweden for vacation with my family, and then in May I have a three-week internship at a submarine building company. I’ve got a lot going on, but it’s better that way.

Liebe Grüße-

Tim

Stuff

2010-03-14T20:19:00.000+01:00

A few thoughts-

1. Today is Pi Day in America! Since Germany only has twelve months and writes its dates sillily, Pi Day hasn't been invented here yet.

2. Today is Lord Todd Norton's birthday. Alles gut zum Geburtstag, Todd!

3. The people at the Luebeck Library said that I'm not allowed to get a library card because I don't have a German ID, but I'm going to try again later this week. Maybe I'll get a nicer lady behind the counter. Geo has one, after all.

4. I got accepted to UCLA!

5. I read an article in the paper that reminded me of Harry- I know his usual magazine is The Week, but for some reason I associate Wired with him, too. Anyway, Wired nominated the internet for a Nobel Peace Prize. Yeah, the internet. Weird.

6. I found a dance partner for my swing class! Coincidentally, she too is named Sinja.

7. I gave a presentation in French class on Friday. I think it was well written, but the teacher commented once again on my American accent. It's "tres, tres fort". I don't think I'll ever figure out a French accent.

8. I'm not too concerned about the French accent right now. Just a German accent would be nice. That's not happening any time soon either, though.

9. I'm procrastinating. I really ought to be writing a report on calculating vectors.

Ciao for now!

April Showers

2010-03-14T16:52:00.000+01:00

April showers came a month early.

Luebeck's been rainy recently, but it's starting to warm up. It's been hovering between 0 and 7 degrees Celsius for the last week or so, and the forecast is rainy for all of next week. Most of the snow is gone, which is good, but now everything is wet. Just one day of sun, though, and we can burn up the wet and everything will be beautiful- I'm sure of it.

I had a good weekend! On Friday I was at the Walli with some friends- we saw a concert there that was pretty good. The band was Dub Spencer and Trance Hill- it was a soft rock/reggae kind of sound. I hadn't heard of them before, but it was a good time. The cool this about the Walli, though, is that you always meet someone. I went with a few friends, ended up meeting up with half dozen more, saw a few German AFers in the crowd, and ended up spending half the night talking with some random guy about the anti-Nazi march in a few weeks that he's helping to plan. Der Walli a pretty Ossie place- everyone's either a goth, and emo, or a radical leftist, but all in all a good crowd.

Last night I watched "Das Wunder von Bern" with Geo and Anke. The lady at the history museum in Bonn (or was it Koeln?) had recommended it, and it was a good pick. Anyone who's looking for a good German film should take a look.

On second thought, this place looks a lot sketchier than it really is...

Tanzen!

2010-03-10T21:07:00.000+01:00

So I've been taking a Standards dance class for the last few weeks. It includes:

Jive
Salsa
Disco Fox
Cha-Cha-Cha (or is it just Cha-Cha? I never knew)
Foxtrot
Waltz (fast & slow)

There might be one that I forgot, but that's about it. It's a fun class, but very slow. It's a big group of kids, though, so I can understand why they need to proceed slowly.

Today I also started a four-week Swing class. That's really cool, and it's a much smaller group. It's definitely a better way to learn. BUT I have a predicament! I need a partner! Today I danced with a lady who's husband was sick- we got along very well- but for the next three weeks I need a partner. Problem is, nobody is free on Wednesdays. Plus, whoever I do find will need to learn everything from the beginning. That won't be so hard, but still... we'll see what happens.

Have a nice Wednesday, everyone!

A German Haircut

2010-03-09T21:44:00.001+01:00

So this was like a badass haircut.

First things first, I've never had an hour-and-a-half long haircut before. Ever. In Germany, in the USA, in my basement- ever. Until today.

Anyway, I got to the studio at 5- the girl was waiting for me (I had called ahead). She took my coat and sat me right down, and then offered me something to drink. That's standard here- every time I go to the friseur I'm offered coffee, water, or tea. I think that's kind of cool- we should have drinks in our haircutteries, too.

The girl (Sarah) proceeded to rinse, shampoo, and then condition my hair with TWO different conditioners. So much conditioner habe ich noch nie gesehen! Then after she dried it off, she put some more stuff in my hair! I asked what it was, she replied bluntly "Haar Wasser". Hair water? What's that supposed to mean?

It's not very important what hair water is, though, because once the hair water was in she gave me a scalp massage for a good twenty minutes. I guess she has to show a good head-massage on her test this week too, but whatever the case was, I'm not complaining. I've never had a head-message in a haircuttery in the US, either.

After that was done she proceeded to cut my hair. I think she did a good job, but she sure took a long time. When that was finished, the hair-master of the salon came and looked over the work, evened a few things out, gave her approval, and went on her way.

Sarah told me that if I wanted, I could come back in a few weeks and get another free haircut.

In any case, I'd say I lucked out. Mia has given her tentative approval, Hannes declares my haircut "ganz witzig", and I'm happy with it. Success!

The Haircut Yet-To-Come

2010-03-08T21:18:00.000+01:00

Hello!

After school today I went into Luebeck to get my phone fixed (I crushed it under my hip while ice skating Saturday). That wasn't very exciting, though. What was exciting was afterward: as I was walking to the bus station, I began to wonder if I should just go ahead and get my haircut- I had been planning on getting it cut for a while, I had some money in my pocket and some time to kill, and I was already in the city... I just didn't really want to spend the money. I had hoped that Alena would cut my hair by the midstay camp two weeks ago, but we ran out of time, and I had to go home hairy-headed. Anyway, as I pondered over whether or not to go zum Friseur, a girl came up to me. She explained that she was a hair-styling student and had her final test on Friday, and wanted to get some practice in before then. She proceeded to ask if I wanted a free haircut- I said yes- and then she gave me her name and the address of her studio, and told me to come in tomorrow.

How cool is that? Sometimes life just works. Hoorah!

Vermissen

2010-03-07T20:45:00.000+01:00

Things I Miss:

-Salsa
-Toaster Oven
-Triggor
-Driving around in Sean's car doing absolutely nothing
-Tortilla chips
-My Mezz
-That velvet jacket I had
-The Salvation Army
-The Fantastic Four
-Jazz Combo/Concert Band/Band Trips
-Working
-The Mobil
-The workroom
-Driving
-The fan over our stove
-Ties
-My family & friends

Things I'll Miss Once I'm Back in the US
-Bread
-Broetchen
-The piano
-Busses
-Beer
-Karlchen (sometimes. Sometimes he's just a pain.)
-Decken (super-blankets!)
-Gouda
-German cake
-Bigband
-My family & friends
-German windows & frische Luft!
-Bio-
-Woodburning-ovens
-German
-1- and 2- euro pieces
-Diskos

A Haiku Garden...

2010-03-02T15:47:00.002+01:00

Caused in part by the snowflakes drifting past the window, vectors in Math dissolved into a lovely haiku dialog. Anna Rosa accompanied me in my drifting thoughts. Here's what our crumpled notes said:

Ein neue Eiszeit
Eisbaeren in den Strassen
Luebeck's Wetter sucks.

Luebeck is ugly
and I can't do maths
wanna go away

Ich will Gras, Voegel,
Sonne, Meer, und weissen Strand.
Wo ist der Fruehling?

Ich weiss es auch nicht.
Es ist Maerz und es schneit noch!
Das ist so haesslich!

Suchen wir mal, ja?
Vielleicht hat er sich versteckt.
Fliegen wir suedlich!

I wish everyone sunny skies and a warm day!
Tim

Money in the Deutschland

2010-03-02T15:21:00.002+01:00

Anonymous left a comment on my blog a bit ago- he asked:

I am interested in becoming an exchange student in Germany myself, and I've got a question you might be able to answer.

How are you handling your money? As in, are you using traveler checks, an ATM card, a debit card...?

For anyone who's interested in becoming an exchange student, this is a good question- that's why I'm answering this in a post, and not just the comments. I'd like to apologize for waiting so long to answer this, though. Sorry Mr. Anonymous!

In any case, I opened up an ATM account in the US, and put my mother's name on it as well. This way, I can access my money from (pretty much) any ATM in Germany, and my mother can transfer money from my savings account into that account as necessary. ATM's give you good enough exchange rates, and if you have a nice bank they have low or no fees. I would recommend this option.

American credit cards won't get you far in Germany- all Germans have an EZ card. I'm not sure what it stands for, but in any case it's a little different. Expect to have to withdraw cash from ATMs and then pay with it- even for big purchases.

Nobody uses checks in Germany. Don't bring them. You'll get laughed at.

Also: Germany is really expensive. In addition to the exchange rate, food is expensive, transportation can be expensive, traveling is definitely expensive, and clothing is very very expensive. Plus, you begin to pick up costs that you may not have covered in the US- a good exercise is to keep track of everything you pay for in the US for a month (and everything your parents pay for you) and then multiply that by 1.5 or so. That's probably about right.

I think.

Anyway, save up enough money beforehand that you have more than you need, not less!

le Skiurlaub

2010-03-01T20:43:00.000+01:00

Good morning, America! Good evening, Deutschland!

Yesterday I got back from my Midstay Camp, but that's not what I'm talking about in this post. I'm going to ask you all to backtrack deep into the Ides of February.

One more of the dozens of cool things about the Waldorfschule is that it has a February vacation. Nobody in Schleswig-Holstein (my state) has a February vacation. Waldorf just kicks ass.

Anyway, after school on Friday we drove down to Munich. That's a loooong drive. We started around 5:00 pm, got to Wurzeburg and picked up Sinja around 2:00, and finally ended up in Munich around 5:00 am. I think. At that point I was pretty out of it.

In Muenchen we hooked up with Christian, Ina, and their kids, Oskar and Olivia, and then eventually finished our drive together to Lenggries.

We lived in this cute little cottage for the week. It was out of the way of everything; it was literally in the middle of the woods on the base of the mountain. You did need to drive from there to the slopes, but it wasn't more than a ten minute drive. It was a very nice location.

The skiing was good! There were two sides of the mountain, 34 km of pistes, and 18 lifts, including a gondola. Plus it was a mountain in the Alps- regardless of whether it was good or bad, it is, being able to say "I've been skiing in the Alps" is instant cred.

I spent most of the time skiing with the Sinja. That was really fun- even after she realized I have zero ski technique, we still skiied all the little wooded trails and mogul trails and tight little passages we could find. We found some pretty cool shortcuts between different parts of the mountain, and I think I've become a better skiier. I still have zero technique, but that's okay.

Sinja left on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I rented a snowboard for the day. I didn't have enough money to take a real lesson, but I asked a few people to help me out, and (for the most part) everyone lent me ten or twenty minutes to teach me something new. By the end of the day I could get down the bunny hill, but not too much more. I'm glad I tried, though- I've always wondered about that.

Evening were spent in our Cottage- we were something like 20 people; Lotta brought Ruth along, Mia brought Greta, Sinja war dabei, Hannes's friend Konstantin and his whole family was there (including an Amerikanerin au pair), Christian and Ina's family was there, the Baake horde, and some friends of Ina's... it was a real party. We played Maxchen (without drinking), doppelkopf, and did a lot of reading. Very relaxing!

Here are some photos of stuff!

2010-02-22T22:25:00.000+01:00

I always feel silly when I apologize for not posting more, but at the same time I feel compelled to apologize.

I got back Saturday from our Skiurlaub in Langries. I'm not sure how much I said before, but I went skiing with my family, Sinja, Christian & Ina's Family (Ina is Anke's sister), and another family from Hitzacker. We all stayed in this cozy little cottage in the mountains. Langries is about an hour south of Munich; the mountains are the Alps.

I do have pictures, and I will write but not right now. I'm trying to finish up packing- the rest of this week I'm spending in Bad Honnef, not so far from Koelln. There's a CBYX meeting there, until Sunday.

I guess I've been particularly bad in February- only two posts, and one of them is this lame half-assed excuse for a post. Then again, February is short, and I was/will be away for half of it. People keep telling me that they enjoy the updates, though, so I will keep updating- don't worry! I promise that by a week from today I'll have a real post. There- it's in text, now I can't make excuses.

Today's Anke's birthday- Happy Birthday Anke!

Have a nice week, everyone!

Schulfrei? Boah!

2010-02-02T23:40:00.001+01:00

Good evening ladies and gentlemen!

Tomorrow we don't have school! That's apparently a big deal here. Actually, the whole state doesn't have school. Schleswig-Holstein is school-free tomorrow! And in Niedersachsen, people aren't even supposed to leave their houses. A little snow is a big deal!

It's not really the snow, though- it's the streets. For the last week or two, it's snowed a little every day. I believe I said something earlier, but I'm really not impressed with snow removal in Luebeck (I can't speak for other cities). It's just the way it is, though- people accept it with minimal grumbling. Still, though- the streets in front of the Waldorfschool are completely unplowed- yesterday I helped push three stuck cars out of their parking places in the space of fifteen minutes.

I guess it is excusable, though- I've heard that last winter had almost no snow. In Lynnfield, we're all set up for snow removal, so it happens relatively fast. I guess the snowy streets doesn't really reflect anything in Luebeck- it just means that the city is undermanned for a job too big.

Last post I said I'd put up a picture of the Regal I finished in carpentry- here it is!

It's not much, but it's still cool that it's a subject in school. I'm working on a new one now.

Here's a picture from a box I made in Kartonage, way back when. That was also cool- we made the paper, the stalk, actually just about everything, and then assembled it all together in a good looking box. I had a second one, a suesses kleines shaechtelchen, but I sent it away for Christmas.

Last post I talked about the Waldorfschule being built all askew- here's a few photos of that, too. I don't have many, because I really don't think a camera is allowed in school... I'll get more one day. In the meantime, check these out:

Here's a pretty typical chalkboard. They're not all like this, but some are. Notice also the advent wreath (this photo is a little old)- every classroom had one. We would never put advent wreaths in school in the US.

A doorframe, skimping on right angles. Notice too the doorframe in the background- it's just as abstract.

My classroom. None of the rooms are totally square- the whole classroom is bowed outward, and the interior walls are also uneven. Check out the windows, too- no screens! They swing into the classroom, and when the windows are open it feels like we're learning outside- the whole wall opens up directly to outdoors. Right now, this means that in the breaks there's always snowball fights between people in the classroom and people two stories lower, outside. That's pretty funny to watch.

A hallway. Also not straight. Also note the polyhedral lights and the sponged Waldorf-colored walls.

A table in a common area. This photo makes it look like a pretty regular hexagon, but any other angle it's pretty warped, giving the feel of a long, stretched out hexagon.

Notice that in all the photos, everything is wood. Absolutely no plastic, minimal metal, no laminate- all natural!

Anyway, that's Waldorf. Neat stuff, huh?

I'd like to say thanks to whoever it was that entered me into Lexiophiles' Top International Exchange and Experience Blogs contest. Thanks! For everyone else, if you like this blog, here's a link- just click it and vote for &etc- it's about halfway down the list. Or, if you like, you can use your computer's search function (ctrl + f, then type &etc) and you won't need to scroll through all the other entries.. Thanks for your support!

Hello!

2010-01-31T21:57:00.000+01:00

SO.

Finally done with the Elks scholarship- that's good. I still have to write a halbzeitbericht soon, but I can worry about that later.

January went by fast! Like, really fast! New Years seems like just yesterday... I do not approve. Why is everything so fast?

Today it snowed alot. I read in the newspaper that this January was the coldest January in 13 years, and earlier this week I read that this winter was the coldest winter (so far) in 16 years. Just my luck, right? Cold cold cold... but like I said earlier, at least it's getting brighter! Anke was telling me about how in the summer it will stay bright until 11 at night... that sounds just lovely.

I didn't do too much this weekend; I spent most of it applying for that Elks scholarship. Friday, though, I went to Parkhaus, one of Luebeck's discos. I've been there a few times before, but this time it seemed like everyone was there. I know I've said it before, but Luebeck is cool like that- it's plenty big enough that there's always something to do, but it's small enough that you meet people coincidentally all the time.

In the Waldorfschule we just finished Projective Geometry, which is a kind of strange Waldorf math. The focus was on predicting the image of an original shape or picture onto a perpendicular plane. It kind of cool, actually. I'm not sure how useful it is, but it's certainly a good exercise in mental imaging. It forces thought.

Last week I also started carpentry, which is richtig geil. I built a little display stand last week, and this week I want to start a similar one, but without right angles- a little more askew, a little more Waldorf. We'll see how it works. I'll post photos soon.

Happy Sunday!

2010-01-24T16:57:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone!

It's once again bitingly cold outside. I believe it was -13 this morning, and now it's -10, or somewhere around there. In any case, it's very cold. On the bright side, it's almost five and it's still a little light out! Technically sunset was at 4:43, but dusk isn't over until 5:23. Things are looking good!

Last Thursday I started a standards dance course, which is pretty cool. I didn't actually learn anything new that first day- most of the ground steps I learned at Hitzacker- but I'm looking forward to the continuation of the class. There's a swing dance class in March that I want to take, too. Swing dance always looked like fun.

Lotta is cooking Lasagna and it smells really good. I'm hungry.

Good luck kids!

2010-01-18T21:44:00.000+01:00

Today I hit rock bottom. I got back a french test- it wasn't bad, but the errors were absolute fail-errors. For one, I had written "ventana" when I meant "fenêtre"- I think that when I wrote it I got "fenêtre" confused with "Fenster" and assumed it was German... I don't know. And then later I wrote "gato" instead of "chat"- I'm not even sure where that came from. There was also a "manchmal" on there instead of "quelquefois", and a "name" instead of "nom". Fail fail fail... I'm so confused.

And then even worse! Valerie asked me for help with her English homework, and I tried to say the sentence "Hannah must use crutches to walk". I couldn't say "must" for the life of me, though- ever attempt came out as "musst", the german word, which sounds like "moost". Eventually Hannah corrected me. Hannah who's a German.

Fail.

Anyway, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all you LHS kids best of luck on your midterms. Don't study too hard! Any honors history kids in grades 9-11, ask a senior for a history review guide. James, Vic, Sean, Mikey, and I, or some combination of that group, made some badass ones every year, they should still be very helpful.

Hopefully everyone will be less confused on their tests than I was!

Ciao.

Hitzacker (ehrlich!)

2010-01-17T22:12:00.004+01:00

So I guess I failed with my last post- I planned to talk about Hitzacker and comment that nothing had happened since then, but I'm just a big stinky liar. I'll talk about Hitzacker in this one, though!

For anyone who's forgotten, Hitzacker was the Musikfreizeit that we went to over Christmas vacation. Musikfreizeit translates literally to "Music free time", but that's kind of vague... It was basically a week-long music camp. There were about 150 people there, all ages. Probably 30 or 40 were between 15 and 25.

side note: there's a heavy metal band called Mastodon. All of its songs are about hunting whales. I immediately thought of English 11H with Mrs. O.

I've been having a lot of trouble concentrating lately, but it's okay, because then I end up finding awesome whaling bands.

So Hitzacker. Everybody chooses a schedule they're interested in, and they follow that schedule for the week. Everyone starts off the day with breakfast together, and then a Plenum (another word that may or may not be used in English... it sounds greek though. I actually don't even know if it's German. Heck, now that I'm thinking about it I don't even know for sure what it means- the first time I heard it I just thought of the word "plebian" and assumed that ple- has to do with common people... plenum just means a gathering of people? It's kind of cool to be able to dissect words and derive a meaning even when you don't know what language the word is in. That being said, Plenum could just as easily mean something totally different entirely and I just failed. Maybe it means "after breakfast time", but I think not. In any case, language is cool!)

Regardless of what the definition of Plenum is, what it means is basically a big campy meeting. In addition to wake-up-in-the-morning type singalong songs and people that seem unreasonably happy for 9:00, there's also a rundown of important events and notifications. The Plenums were actually very well done, too- by the time they're finished, everybody has ohrwurms and is awake, and the too-happy-for-9:00 people seem justified in their jubilation, namely because everybody is happy.

Ohrwurm is a fantastic word in German that we don't have in el Muttersprache. Ein Punkt fuer Deutsch! It translates literally to "earworm", and it means "a song that is stuck in one's head". It's surprising how often you hear the term.

Following Plenum I went to Jazz Combo. After that was lunch, and then siesta. Siesta ist ein Punkt Spanisch- es ist viel besser als "Mittagsschlafs". After siesta was a standard-dance course, that was cool. I'd like to say that I'm a master salsa dancer now, but that's not quite true. I do know the basic step, though! That's got to count for something.

Next was a coffeebreak, and then chorus, and then Bigband (jazz ensemble). The day ended with dinner and then an evening Plenum.

That's just the day, though. Nighttime is just as important! Hitzacker was basically music by day, party by night, and I think that's a very good way to live. It's good that Hitzacker was only a week long, though, because in the whole week I got about 15 hours of sleep, and that's not a good way to live. Nevertheless, it was really fun.

In my attempt to explain what the week was about, I'm afraid I've missed the main point- Hitzacker was a really fantastic time because of the people there. I'd really like to go back next year and rendezvous with everyone- it was really surprising how quickly and how well everybody hit it off with each other.

Anyway, I've got a few pics (compliments to Mia on most of them- I was bad and didn't take any pictures that week).

My combo, playing Who Shot the Sherrif

the Thema was the Carribean, I think it was well-played.

Yo ho, a pirate's life for me...

Hannes is quite dashing, to say the least.

Jugendchor!

Sinja and me on a treasure hunt!

And more Jugendchor- Basti is to my left, Arne to my right, and they were my roommates. Cool kids.

Bigband

That's all for now, folks!

Hitzacker (endlich)

2010-01-17T22:12:00.000+01:00

Hey there everyone.

It's been a while, sorry. I've been busy, and, to be honest, not all that much too interesting has gone down in the last week or two.

School is back, snow is still here, vacation is over. It's been a little warmer- usually it hovers around -2 or -3 degrees (27ish F), and it snows every once in a while. We've got about six inches now.

Street plowing isn't nearly as thorough as in the US, but nobody really seems to care. That being said, on the way to pick up Leone en route to school last week we got pretty stuck, but a bit after a little push and shove we figured it all out. It meant I didn't need to go to my first half hour of German.

One of the lovely advantages of not-so-plowed streets is auto-sledding. It's like waterskiing, except there's no water and it's cold and you're on a sled on your bum and not your feet and there's no boat and no skiis. It is just a fun, though! We did that today, good stuff. The car got stuck again, but it's cool because Alex has a bamf tractor that was essentially born to extract autos from snowbanks. And to carry wood.

Friday was the last day of my German epoch. I think I've already explained what that means, but just to be sure I'll clarify- the Waldorfschule has an epoch system (I think that's also a word in English, but to be perfectly honest I'm not sure any more). What this means is that for 4-6 weeks we have a hauptunterricht, or main lesson, two hours every day. After that we have assorted core classes.

Anyway, the German epoch is over. I'm not going to lie, I went into the epoch pretty disheartened- I hated the normal Deutsch classes, and the thought of two hours every day was agonizing. Now, though, I'm a little sad to see it go. Somewhere in the middle of the epoch I think I crossed an invisible border of verstandis, and after that point I really enjoyed the texts and stories that we read and analyzed in class. There's not really an equivalent at LHS- it's not a german language class, and it's not quite a german literature class. I guess it's like an analytical-literature and philosophy class. Whichever. Ich fand es gut.

We also had a math test on Friday which I kicked butt on- I was really proud because I wrote my last answer as 5 * sqrt(2), and the given answer was sqrt(50). Not that that really matters, but it's the little things in life that make it what it is, right? Nice job, Mr. Tarr!

This weekend I went with a few friends to Riverboat, a disko in Luebeck. I liked it a lot there. The music wasn't as good as at Parkhaus, the other disko I've been to, but the mood was better. It was a pretty classy place, for a disco. It's also cool, because I was planning on meeting just three friends, but I ended up running into ten other kids I knew. It's nice when things work out.

My hair is too long again. I need a haircut.

Foto post!

2010-01-03T18:10:00.000+01:00

I've got a few more nice photos from Winter Ferien that I'll put here, and then I'll get to Hitzacker musikfreizeit later- I didn't take any photos that week, I need to get some from Mia.

Anyway, these are nice:

Alex, auf den See

Schlitten fahren!

Marzipan is best eaten with apples

25th!

2010-01-03T18:00:00.000+01:00

On the 25th we had a really fantastic Thanksgiving/Christmas dinner, compliment of my folks. Sven came, and he, Anke and I spent much of the day cooking. It all payed off, though- the meal was fantastic.

The stuffing called for air-dried bread; we didn't want to wait.

Some good looking birds (and Bio!)

Mia with her new camera

A feast!

Weihnachten

2010-01-03T17:51:00.000+01:00

So now I have a lot to write about. I figure it makes sense to start at the beginning and end at the end, so we'll go back to Weihnachten- Christmas. I know, a whole year ago...

Brief interlude- I've been looking at some of my writing recently and noticed that I tend to write "anyway" just about every other sentence. I also have a hyphen obsession. And I use semicolons more often that appropriate. And I end sentences with ",though." pretty often, too. I'll try to work on these things.

Hokay. Weihnachten translates to "night of incense" literally, but it just means Christmas. Christmas in Germany is celebrated on the 24th, and a little differently. For one, there are no stockings. I'm pretty sure (but not certain) that that's because the stockings in the US is a perversion of the St. Nicholas day tradition of putting shoes out for Mr. Nick. We already had that here, though, so we don't need stockings.

On the 24th I played with a brass orchester in Travemuende, a suburb of Luebeck. It was right on the coast of the Baltic, so that was very pretty. We just played carols (many of which I had never heard), but it was very nice. The saxophone player in my big band was also there with her family- none of them were playing, but they come every year- and we had hot chocolate in a little cafe beforehand. Her daughters were both very nice, and it was a very good time.

It's kind of a funny story how I ended up performing- a few days beforehand I had been Christmas shopping in Luebeck not so far from the Musikschule where my bigband practices. I really needed to use the bathroom, so I went there. A guy was there who had led one of our rehearsals when our normal director is sick, and he recognized me, and asked if I was interested in playing. I said yes, and that was that. Later, after playing, he informed me that I had earned 40 euro ($60) for performing, which was also pretty cool. Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos of the event. Here's one, but it doesn't show much:

After Travemuende, I met up the Baakes in their church, where there was more carol singing. Anke's mother was also there; she spent Weihnachten and the next few days with us.

The Baake family tradition is to make animal fodder, and then go into the woods and sing songs around a candle hanging on a pine tree. After singing, we spread the animal fodder around the tree and walk back to the house. In front of the house was a big sack filled with presents... the Weihnachtsman was there!

The Baakes have a real Christmas tree with real candles (Hannes made them!), and it's very very pretty. Anyway, we pulled the sack inside and each took turns opening a present in front of the tree. I got some nice work gloves, a groovy pirate hat, a German cookbook, a few grammar books, and ten pairs of socks. I desperately needed the socks! Later on, Sven (Anke's brother) gave me a book of German carols, with sheet music for all of them. It's a pretty cool book.

The Weihnachtman's sack

The rest of the day was more relaxing, singing, and talking. Mia played with her new Speigelreflex Canon Camera, Hannes played with a remote control helicopter, Alex also played with Hannes' helicopter, and everything was good. A wunderschoen day.

Francais!

2010-01-02T22:23:00.000+01:00

I have just about the best french class ever invented.

I got back today from the musikfreizeit (more about that later) with pretty mixed feelings. Elation, yeah, because it was such a good time, but also sad because when everybody else said their goodbyes knowing that they'd probably meet each other again next year, I said mine knowing that chances are good that we'd never meet again. On top of that, I was (and still am) drop dead tired.

In any case, as soon as I got in the door Lotta informed me that my french class had sent me a package. How amazing is that?

Anyway, I've been thinking about that. Why is French class so special? Aside from the fact that Madame is simply the best and the french students kick ass, French is also just about the only class in LHS that stays mostly together year to year... french power! Honestly, though, I think it's that continuity that makes French class the favorite class of so many people, even those that don't like the french language.

That, and the fact that Madame is the best.

In any case, a big thank you to all you guys. Collette, especially- I couldn't think of a better care package than one including your amazing cookies. You truly are the epitome of woman.

I'd also like to say that I love Mentos (pronounced men - toss here in el deutschland), the candle that Chris the Commy sent smells just my grandparents' house (that's a good thing, Chris), and Alex thinks my Lynnfield hat is pretty damn cool.

And thanks, everyone, for your well wishes. I really appreciate it... French 5 is the best!

bah!

2009-12-27T12:58:00.000+01:00

Hello there!

I want to apologize; I had a really wonderful Weihnachten, but I can't write about it right now. These last few days have been monopolized by family, friends, and UPenn's app. And now, we're headed out the door for our Musikweek! I promise to tell you all about that- and Weihnachten- as soon as I get back... pretty sure that's the second of January.

Guten Rutsch!
Happy new year!

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost)

2009-12-22T14:24:00.001+01:00

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

Informatik

2009-12-15T12:55:00.001+01:00

For the last two weeks and the rest of this week I've had Informatik as my HKTU unterricht. I'm actually in class right now. We've been designing websites and learning HTML, which is pretty cool. I doubt I'll actually do anything with the website, but I think it turned out nicely. If you'd like to take a look, you can find it here.

In a fit of productivity, Tim pulls off noch ein post!

2009-12-13T18:29:00.000+01:00

So yes, enough with backtracking. Or at least, enough with so far backtracking. Yesterday, I met up with Devin, Rachel, and Todd in Hamburg. Devin, Rachel, and Todd are all AFS USA. Two other girls- Alejandra and Marethe (or something like that), also joined us, and even Lotta and Mia joined us for a while. We did some Christmas shopping and sight seeing, and we checked out Hamburg's Weihnachtsmarkt. It's got nothing on Luebeck's.

Unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures of that. I'm waiting for Devin to put his on Facebook, and then maybe I can add them. We'll see. What I do have, though:

A relatively epic photo of the Rathaus, albeit a little blurry.

The remains of our dinner. Merethe's pants ripped, so the girls went off an looked for some jeans. Us men, meanwhile, had much more important things to do. Todd happened to have a coupon for a free jar of Bruschetta, from REWE, a grocery store here. We got the Bruschetta, but then we realized that you can't eat bruschetta without baguette. So then we grabbed a baguette from the bakery. THEN we realized that our meal would be that much classier with a bottle of wine, so we found a nice Italian red and a few cups. Then we figured that we had come this far, we may as well go all out and grab a candle, for effect. Finally, we shared a very lovely candlelit meal of baguette and bruschetta with Italian wine on the streets of Hamburg. Pretty classy.

Later, Todd, Rachel, Devin, and Marethe came back to Luebeck to spent the night at my house. We raided the supermarket, grabbed some quesadilla stuff, eggs, peppers, and a few drinks, hit up the movie store, picked up some badass Viking beer and Feuerzangenbowle, and then came here. 16 quesadillas, a couple glasses of distilled Viking, a classic deutsch film, and some friends together makes for a pretty good night.

BUT this morning is snowed! I'm not too happy about that, but I guess it was inevitable. It had to happen sometime. And I can't lie- while snow is cold, wet, dirty, and not fun, at least it looks nice.

Advent in Deutschland

2009-12-13T18:05:00.000+01:00

I suppose now that I'm back on my blog writing stuff down I ought to mention Advent here in Deutschland. It's much bigger deal than in the US- the advent wreath is omnipresent (even in school!), people wish you a schoenes Advent as a farewell, and sometimes we all sit and eat cookies and sing advent songs. It's kinda nice.

In school, first thing every Tuesday during Advent we all sing some Advent songs. With the exception of a stark few, I'm very impressed with the impromptu chorus made out of the Oberstufe (grades 9-13).

There are some things very specific to Advent time:

The big cookies are called Lebkuchen, and they're pretty much the cookie of the season. The little round balls in this photo are Marzipan Kartoffeln- translated literally, marzipan potatoes. There's no potato in them, though, they just look like little potatoes. They're super sweet. Marzipan is around all year here in Luebeck, but there's certainly more come Advent. Also- clementines (here called Mandarinen) are another advent-specific treat. I like clementines.

Luebeck has one of the most famous Weihnachtsmarkts in Germany- the whole center of town is lined with stalls selling food- usually bratwurst, candy, sweets, or baked goods- drinks- usually Gluehwein or Punsch, fortified with Rum or Amaretto, and handmade arts and crafts things. It's fun just to walk through the city and take it all in.

By far the best part of the Weihnachtsmarkt, though, is Mutzen- think fried dough, except baby-sized, and German. It doesn't get much more delicious than that.

Also, check out my sweet hat in this last photo. Thanks to my family back at home for sending that package! The raisins are all gone, but my trombone is beautifully clean and my ears are warm once more.

Geo and I went and did some Christmas shopping last Friday, and on the advice of Anke we looked in Heilige Geist, an old hospital-turned-Weihnachtsmarkt during the Christmas season.

It was very nice, and there was an amazing amount of variety in there. From alpaca sweaters to salmon-leather belts to the biggest spoon ever invented, it was all there.

Anyway. Luebeck is very beautiful!

Heute ist Sonntag

2009-12-13T17:42:00.001+01:00

Hallo! Ich habe leider für zu lang nichts geschrieben...

Some very important things have happened, though! Very important indeed- shoes, candy, the whole show. On the fifth, we all cleaned up our shoes for St. Nick. Mine were particularly dirty- Alex is rebuilding the bathroom and I helped in take a wall out, and half of the wall turned into shoe dust. From this photo you can see the difference.

Anyway, once we all had our shoes gut-geputzt we stood them all by the door, along with cookies for Nikolaus and some straw for his donkey.

In the morning, the shoes were filled with delicious treats!

Mmyes. That's pretty cool. Later that day (the 6th), there was an AFS chapter meeting, and I actually got to meet Nikolaus and his friend Knecht Rubrecht himself! Mr. Ruby hit me a few times with a stick, but then they gave me a present, so alles war wieder gut.

Here's a nice photo of Vincent and me. Geo's in the back, too, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it's a nice photo of him.

And now, lots and lots of words of the day!

2009-12-07T19:25:00.003+01:00

COMPLIMENTS of ALICIA HULL, another fantastic AFS-USAer.

I'll give you a real update soon, I promise!! In the meantime, Deutsch crash course:

There are a few good words and "special things" about germany you should know, less than a vocab unit in your german class, that would make adjusting here so much easier. here goes.

PHRASES AND OTHER THINGS

Ich muss pissen. - I have to piss. I have to drain the lizard. I have to "insert dirty word for peeing."es gibt..... - There is.....
genau - quite possibly the most popular word in deutschland. means "exactly"
echt/ wirklich - really
geil - horny. Sometimes. More often, it means awesome.
scheisse - Shit. except grandma's and teachers say it too. And Germans also say shit. And shit, but like shite. They've got all sorts of fun words.
poopsen - fart. not poop.
Wie geil?!? - how cool is that!?!

** Nothing is open on sunday in germany. So if you happen to have an accident involving your arm and a bandsaw, you better hope you have it on a weekday... otherwise...well yeah, you'll be the awkward one-armed person in the room.**

** Everyone rides bike. Get it out of your head that this is a recreational activity. This is one of the main forms of transportation in germany. seriously.**

VERBS

müssen (must, have to)
können (can)
dürfen (allowed to)
möchten (would like to)
sollen (should)

kommen (come)
gehen (to go)
laufen (to run - medium speed)
rennen (to run - very fast...sprinting?)

machen (to do, make)
glauben (to believe)
denken (to think)
versuchen (to try)
finden (to find - an opinion)

haben (to have)
geben (to give)
nehmen (to take)

suchen (to search for)
erklären (to explain)

aussehen (to look like)
klingen (to sound)
riechen (to smell)
sagen (to say)
schreiben (to write)
lesen (to read)

verboten (forbidden)
weinen (to cry)
sein (to be)
schlagen (to hit)

ADJECTIVES

komisch - weird
seltsam - strange
anderes - other-ish
unterschiedlich - different
geil - dictionaries will say "horny" but every person will say "awesome".
lustig - funny
witzig - comical/funny
schön - pretty
hässlich - ugly
sauer - sour
süß - sweet
chic - chic
jung - young
alt - old
reif - mature
besser - better
perfekt - perfect
normal - normal
schwer - hard/heavy
schwierig - difficult/hard

kompliziert - complicated
einfach - simple or simply
langweilig - boring
interessant - interesting
wichtig - important
hammer - usually goes with gut to mean really cool/ awesome "hammer gut!" or "hammer geil"
schwul - gay.

Xmas in the US

2009-12-07T19:22:00.000+01:00

Okay, two fake posts, and then I'll put up a real post later tonight.

FIRST: a short presentation I wrote (and then gave in German) for an AFS meeting. For all of you in the US, it may be quite boring. It's basically just what you do every year.

ANYWAY.

Christmas in America.

Before we start, let’s get one thing straight. Mr. Santa Claus, the celebrity among celebrities around Christmas time, ISN’T EVEN AMERICAN.

He’s a poser. In fact, he’s not even real. He was invented by the Spaniards, right after the developed the California coast. San Louis Obisbo, San Fransisco, Santa Anna, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, BAM! Santa Claus. They couldn’t stop at making cities, they had to make a magic man that flies around the world and sits in chimneys, too.

Actually that’s not true. Mr. Claus actually originated a little closer to here- his legend stems from the story of the bishop Nikolaus, aus Turkei. But with a title like Santa, we need to extrapolate these things, you know? Anyway… Mr. Claus is the symbol of Christmas in America- his jolly face, button nose, fat belly, sack full of goodies, and his reindeer-driven sleigh are omnipresent come the Christmas season.

But we’ll get to that later. First, there are a few things you should know.

The US is more than 75% Christian. We also have Jewish people, though, so the Christmas season is never limited to just Christmas- for every couple Christmas trees, you have a menorah or two. Also, Christmas Caroling isn’t complete without the yearly rendition of “My Dreidel” or “Shalom Chaverim”. I’m pretty sure “Shalom Chaverim” isn’t a Hannukah song, but I’m not totally sure. Maybe it is.

Anyway, you know it’s Christmastime when the electricity bills start to rise. Not only do the heaters start coming on for the winter, but every house also puts a bajillion and fourty-four Christmas lights outside their house. Lining the gutter, draping the roof, along the walkway, in the massive stuffed reindeer out front- Lights, lights, lights!

You can also tell it’s Christmas time when people start putting up Christmas trees. Like here in El Deutschland, we have Christmas trees- usually pine, conical, and decorated with loverly ornaments, lights, popcorn, and topped with a star or angel.

Christmas starts with the day after Thanksgiving (okay, who am I kidding. It starts the day after 4th of July) and culminates on the 25th, Christmas Day. Usually, small children across the country unwrap their presents the morning of Christmas. Santa Claus, the aforemention fat chimney-raiding man, distributes these presents underneath the Christmas tree and in stockings, which are hung by the fire with care.

Oftentimes, families either go to the Christmas Vigil Mass, at midnight of Christmas Eve, or to a Christmas Mass the morning of Christmas. Afterall, Christmas originated as a celebration of Baby Jesus’ birth. Usually churches have nativity scenes set up during the advent season, and on Christmas the baby Jesus is placed in the manger.

While not widely observed, the official end of the Christmas season is Epiphany, 12 days after Christmas. Auf Deutsch, Epiphany heiBt Der Tag der Heilige Drei Konige, and it celebrates the arrival of the Three Kings to Jesus.
And to close up this presentation, I think it would be just fantastic if we could all sing a Christmas Carol or two together.

(Now we sing Jingle Bells)

FIN

Turkey Day

2009-11-26T19:00:00.000+01:00

Hey guys, I just logged onto Facebook and found out it's Thanksgiving... sooooo....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tim

Weird stuff...

2009-11-23T21:36:00.000+01:00

So I'm mostly writing this down for my sake, but you can read it too, if it pleases you.

I had just finished writing an essay and was about to submit it to on an online essay forum for peer review, but then the forum told me that before I could submit another one of my essays I had to make corrections on two more essays- it's a good system- you only get feedback if you give feedback. Anyway, I corrected one, and then read another one. It was about dreaming, and very intriguing. Anyway, I was wandering through Wikipedia, following links, and I came across sleep paralysis.

I had forgotten until now, which is partly why I want to write it down, so I don't forget again, but last week I had a funny dream.

When I do dream, I always know that I'm dreaming. Always. Usually I don't remember them, but when I do, they're pretty cool. With full consciousness, I also have full control: If I don't like you and you're in my dream, poof! No more. If I don't like where the dream is, poof! it's somewhere better now.

Anyway, last week my dream was at a high school reunion, 10 or 15 years from now. It started off pretty normal, chilling with the guys, etc. Then I saw the father of one of my friends, but my friend wasn't there. I asked his dad where he was, and he responded by saying he had died, and invited me to follow him. I followed him, and he led me into a smaller conference room, where there were six or eight other people I hadn't seen before, in suits, gathered around a table. The father of my friend explained to me that his son had died after experiencing something very popular, and he was trying to expose that very popular thing and demonstrate its accountability for his son's- and, he said, other peoples'- deaths. Anyway, he then handed me an ipod and asked me to put the headphones on, so I obliged.

Now, keep in mind that this whole time I was totally aware that I asleep and dreaming, and totally in control of my dream the whole time, and intensely curious what this guy was about to show me.

Anyway, he played a song that I know very well, and for the first eight or ten seconds nothing happened. Then I was totally paralyzed- I woke up, and was aware that I was awake, but was completely paralyzed. I had full waking consciousness (not really any different from dreaming consciousness, except I wasn't in control of my surroundings any more)- the only things abnormal were that I was totally paralyzed and I could still hear the song playing. I panicked- it's scary to not be able to move- and started to hyperventilate. I was lying face up on my bed, looking at the ceiling, arms by my side (sort of like the Petrificus curse in the Harry Potter movies). I was really freaked out- I think it's the only time I've ever hyperventilated from fear.

Anyway, then the song ended and I could move again. It was some weirdass stuff, though. Very weird. I didn't like it.

Hallo!

2009-11-23T17:32:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone.

On Donnerstag I had a concert with the Luebeck Swing & Fun Band. That was pretty sweet. We played some great songs, here are my favorites:

"I Wish"- richtig fantastisch, with some fantastic Bone parts. LHS Jazz band could take this on for the last concert of the year, if it's feeling daring. Really a fun song.
"Spain"- a very cool song, with cool Sax & Bone parts alike. Very catchy.
"Thieves in the Temple"- Also very cool, and a little simpler. Sweet bone parts. LHS Ensemble really should play this, it's very cool.
"Summertime"- A standard, and fun to solo on
"Chicken"- Fast and catchy
"Sam's Boogie"- another really simple one, would be great for solo practice for the Ensemble.

These songs are really great, check out the links if you've got time.

The set was very long- like, two and a half hours. I don't think I could have played much more, my lips were pretty numb after that. Anyway... some photos to follow.

I should be finishing up my USC and UCLA & USB apps today or tomorrow, and then there's only UPenn, but that can wait til January. Of course, then there's scholarships.... :( it goes on.

Ciao!

Munchen II

2009-11-18T19:17:00.001+01:00

So.

I had some free time Friday night, so I did some wandering around the city, looking for something to do. There was a poster on a wall by the subway that said there was a Jazz Jam, so I followed the signs and ended up at the University- which, Nelia, happens to also be called LMU, except it's Ludwig Maximilian Universitat, not Loyola Marymount University. Fast, though.

Anyway. There was a strike and a student demonstration, there- Christian told me later that it was because the Stadt wanted to raise fees for going to university, and the students didn't like that. I can see why. Anyway, the building was totally taken over by students- I don't think I saw a single person over 25 there that night. There was a big central hall, with maybe 200 students in it, and they had a big demonstration in there talking about their rights and their plan of action and their objections and all sorts of fun stuff. It was funny, though, how absolutely un-American that was: every single student had a beer in hand, and ninety percent were smoking.

Anyway. In all the hallways kids had set up little booths either with information on the strike or with food, so I have some nice literature now.

In the other end of the building the jazz band was setting up. Check out the guy's sweet bass in this picture... it was very cool. Anyway, they weren't ready right when I got there, so I left and bought a beer, and talked to some of the students in one of the main halls. Anyway, by the time they did get going they were really good. It was these three in the photo, but later a trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and another guitar came. They played a lot of songs I knew, too, which was cool. They opened with Chameleon!

Anyway, they were literally playing in a hallway- it wasn't a concert hall or anything. After they started playing, kids started flowing in. By 10:30 it had gotten sort of crazy- not like, out of control, but just in the sense that I had no idea what was going on. I mean, everyone was still smoking and drinking, but all the sudden there were dogs running around, and everyone was dancing, and some guy was yipping into a portable microphone, and then the lights went out, and there were fire dancers, and then fire dancers with more fire... I have no idea where all of the stuff came from, but it was a really good time. A really great night. I took a video, here's a link.

From Munich

Munchen I

2009-11-18T18:54:00.000+01:00

Sorry guys, I meant to post Monday about my weekend in Munich, but it just didn't happen. Sorry.

Anyways. I'm not going to lie, Munich was pretty sweet. South Germany has a totally different character than the North. Based on my short and sweet three-day visit there, I'd say it's more like the US.

We stayed with Anke's sister, Ina, and her husband, Christian, and her children, Oskar and Olivia. They live right in the city, in the student district. I really liked their neighborhood- filled with small niche shops and cafes, and just a few blocks away from the university, it had a very cool character.

The first day Ina treated Lotta and I to a traditional Munich breakfast, and it was fantastic. White Wurst with sweet mustard, Brezeln (pretzles), a cheese dip, meats, and vegetables. I was surprised to learn that the White Wurst is traditionally only eaten for breakfast, and even more surprised to hear that breakfast is served with beer. Go figure.

Ina made it very clear that food is very important in Munich. It seems like every ten minutes is Brot Zeit (bread time), and it's time to stop and get a snack. Sounds like a good way of living for me. Anyway, Ina showed us some of the city, and we got a brief tour of some of the most important things. We were treated to a beautiful blue sky, and it was warm and sunny almost the whole weekend. There's a goofy picture of me below, when we stopped for a drink after a little sightseeing. My hair isn't red, that's just glare.

The Rathaus

I thought the poster above was funny... everything you need, right? Upper left is Lotta, with Oskar, and left is just hilarious.

Okay! I'll make another post for the rest. Ciao!

2009-11-12T12:54:00.001+01:00

Hey guys, I'm going to Munich. Be back Monday.

Tim

Que pasa?

2009-11-09T22:04:00.003+01:00

I think it's really funny- in the US, I think just about everyone would know what you mean when you say "Que pasa?". Here, though, I say that and people look at me in wide-eyed horror.

Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But it really goes to show that the US is a veritable mischmasch (our German word of the day) of cultures and languages. Here, only Jochen has any idea what I'm talking about.

Today I finished my suesses klienes schaechtelchen! It's ganz pupsiges. Maybe tomorrow you can have a picture.

I was thinking about New England the other day- I don't really think that our leaves are brighter than anywhere else, I think that it's just the quality of light that makes them so famous. The leaves here in Germany get very bright, but because it's a perpetual fog they don't appear so. New England's unique indian summers are why we're famous for foliage, I think- we have sun! Or, at least, a little more than some other places.

That being said, all the leaves are gone here, now. We've had snow, too, but it only lasted for a day, thank goodness.

German weather this time of year is a little depressing. It rains almost every day and gets dark around 4.30, if not earlier. I just need to keep in mind that it's always dark this time of year, though, regardless of whether I'm in Germany or Boston. And it's not too too kalt yet, so that's good!

Anyway. I can't find the song of the day! It's Desengano, by Los Panchos... maybe you can find it on iTunes or something. Sorry folks. In the meantime, this is pretty cool.

Okay. Bis Morgen!

Was ist eine Zicke?

2009-11-06T20:54:00.000+01:00

Zicke ist eine woman-goat.

Song of the day is Wonderful World, by Sam Cooke. I oughta say though, that I haven't been watching the music videos that I've been posting- Anke thought that the video with the fat man was hysterical, and I had no idea what she was talking about... anyway, I only know that I like the music, the videos may or may not be terrible.

Speaking of videos, here's one for you that I have seen: Wurstfachverkaeuferin, by Helge Schneider.

You know what's richtig schrecklich? I have school tomorrow. And it's a Saturday.

Lame.

Oh! The word of the day can be Wurstfachverkaeuferin- it means Specialized Sausage Shop Assistant.

Hokay, so here's the plan...

2009-11-05T16:12:00.000+01:00

Word of the day is Streichholzschachtel- it means matchbox. I think it should be a minus point for Deutsch, but Anke likes it. We're keeping track of which words are better and English and which are better in Deutsch. So far it's tied 7-7, with a -1 for the Netherlands. Streichholzschachtel didn't score, but Schaechtelchen was a point for Deutsch. Another good one is Blümchen- a small flower. But it's not bloom-chen- it's a brighter oo and not a ch like chop but a ch like Blümchen. Get it?

I said I would talk about my school, so here goes:

Rather than a quarter, semester, or trimester school calendar, the Waldorfschule has an epoch system; one academic concentration and one handcraft or technical concentration is taught for two and one half hours daily for four to six weeks, twice a year. Core classes, which are listed below, are taught throughout the year. At the end of the year, Timothy will have a three-week work-study with a local industry.

Freie Waldorfschule Lübeck Core Classes:

French
German
English
Math
Music
Eurythmie
Religion
Sport

Freie Waldorfshule Lübeck Epoch Classes:

(4 weeks/year)

Ceramics
Kartonage (paper/box making)
Political Economics
Web Design
Carpentry
Microscope Science
Art
Drama

(8-9 weeks/year)
German
Geography
Biology
Physics
Chemistry
History
Math (12 weeks)

Mmmkay. Song of the day is Slam, by Pendulum. It's a fantastic song to work out to, to run to, to bike to, or to drive to, but it's no good for just sitting down and listening to. Anyway... you can find it here.

Le Petit Prince

2009-11-02T17:36:00.002+01:00

I just realized that I forgot to talk about Le Petit Prince! For some reason I thought I had already written something, but I guess not.

Anyway, it was very, very good. It was done in a very modern sort of style, with a minimalistic set. There were four actors, three from France. I was very proud of myself, because I understood most all of it- of course, it helps that I've read it before.

Le Petit Prince especially did a very good job, I think. It must be a terribly hard part to play, considering that the Prince isn't a human. He's not even a child. He's a symbol- he must represent innocence, trust, and at the same time wisdom. That's a tough role to play. Nonetheless, the actor did a great job.

Throughout the play there were little musical bits, oftentimes accentuating pantomime. In the beginning, for instance, when the Prince asks Saint-Exupery to draw a mouton, Saint-Exupery responded by drawing with his finger in the air. Another player was backstage, and as Saint-Exupery drew, he mimicked his penstrokes with the violin- as Saint-Exupery drew a line up, the violin got higher, and vice verca. I suppose it's hard to explain. Anyway, it was very effective.

All in all, a fantastic play!

While we're at it, you can have a second song of the day: Le Vent Nous Portera, from Noir Désir. You can find it here. I should add that if you do listen to it, don't watch the music video- I like the music, but the video is pretty doof.

Lotta ist zuruck!

2009-11-02T17:24:00.001+01:00

It doesn't really make sense for me to say "Lotta is zuruck" because I had never met her before, but nonetheless, Lotta is back home. We haven't talked too much yet, but I'm sure we will and I'm sure she's a perfectly lovely girl because all of this Baake family is pretty fantastic and it would be very strange if there was just one terrible child among a crop of good ones. So, that being said, it's nice that she's home!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while- I've been trying to finish up my Stanford applications, and I've been really busy... anyway. All is submitted now! Fertig! Hoorah!

Song of the day is In the Cold, Cold Night, by the White Stripes (you can hear it here, wenn du willst) I love this song, and I love the White stripes. Most of their stuff is so simple, but very nice.

Anyway. On Halloween I went with Anke, Mia, and Friederike into Hamburg where we saw Mendelssohn's oratory "Elias" performed by quartet, choir, and orchestra. It was really fantastic- a very good piece. I ended up scrapping one of my Stanford essays and rewriting it, talking about Mr. Mendelssohn. Or at least mentioning him, anyway.

Today I split some wood. I kind of like splitting wood, though- it's a very rewarding thing to do. It's nice to feel self-sufficient. Besides, splitting wood is just about one of the manliest things that a guy can do. Maybe splitting wood with an axe shirtless would be manlier, but it's too cold to be shirtless and after a few logs with an axe I'm sure that I would really rather have the wood splitter than those last few manliness-points.

Anyway. Tomorrow I'll tell you about my school schedule. I was going to tell you today, but this post is finished now, so that won't be possible.

Bis bald!
Tim

Autobahn

2009-10-27T23:36:00.001+01:00

Tomorrow I'm going to see Le Petit Prince in theatre! Pretty excited about that.

The song of the day is Hey You, by Pink Floyd, because it's an awesome song. I've never been a huge Pink Floyd fan, but this song is one of my favorites.

The German topic of the day is the Autobahn. Everyone's heard of the autobahn, and we all associate it with Germany, so I think it's worth talking about.

First off, there's not just one Autobahn, contrary to what some people might believe. Saying "autobahn" in Germany is like saying highway- it literally means "motorway". And not all of the autobahns are speed-limit free- many of them, or parts of them, are sub-100 km zones.

While I've been told that there are larger ones, the autobahns that I have been on so far are actually smaller than most highways in the US- usually they're two lanes in each direction, divided by a barrier. The lanes are narrower, too, which is sometimes a little nerve-racking.

Driving is much, much more active here. In the US, you get on the highway and might stay in your lane for 200 miles before you need to do anything. Here, driving always has a direction- it might sound strange to say it, but driving in the US almost has no relative direction- of course, the car is moving in a direction, but in comparison to the other cars your car is essentially still. In Germany, every car is a different speed.

The left lane is explicitly for passing, and that rule is followed exactly. When you wish to pass somebody, your path looks like a C- you merge left, move forward, merge right. When you wish to pass several cars that aren't all bumper to bumper, you merge left, pass, and merge right for every car, making a nice half-helix trail. I think it's more common to simply switch lanes in the US than to actually pass and then move back.

Again contrary to popular belief, not everybody goes very very fast on the autobahn. 120 kmh- a little more than 70 mph- is probably about average, with many people going 100 - 140. That's not to say people don't go fast, though- I recently rode to Gromitz with Bruna's mother, and we probably hit 165 (103 mph). Even at that speed, there were a few cars that veritably zoomed past, completely disappearing out of sight in seconds. They must have been going at least 220, I reckon.

Anke drives a big blue Opel Vivaro. I think it would be pretty funny seeing that car going 220, but I don't think Anke would be willing to see.

Lundi lundi

2009-10-26T23:26:00.001+01:00

The word of the day is Krizelkrazel, which is wonderfully fun to say and it means scribbling!

J'ai eu mon premier classe de Francais aujourd'hui. J'attendais ce classe pour longtemps; j'ai voulu savoir si je peut encore parler en Francais. Et je peut! Mais c'est beaucoup plus difficile; maintenant quand je cherche pour un mot, le mot en allemagne vient premier, et il faut que je pense pour longtemps de trouver le mot en Francais.

La difficulte de mon classe est plus ou moins egal avec mon classe aus Etats-Unis. Nous practiquons plus l'accent und grammaire ici, mais je crois que j'ai un grosser vocabulaire. Maintenant, nous lisons Sous le Ciel de Marseilles. Il faut que j'acheter un copie.

Excuse my schreklich French... I really think that in a few more classes it will start flowing again. It's really hard for me right now- I still can remember my french, but I need a trigger, first. My teacher was impressed with my use of the subjonctif, though. I had forgotten what the subjontif was, but I guess I did something right. Props to you, Madame!

Today I baked Curbiskerne from my pumpkin. Anke didn't believe that they could be eaten, but they really are still delicious, even here in Deutschland.

Kurbisse!

2009-10-25T22:21:00.000+01:00

So! Ich habe eine Kurbislaterne geschnizt! It's the same as last year's, nearly, but it was good last year.

Mechtild, the regional AFS contact, invited all of the AFS kids for the Luebeck and the Keil to her house for some phat pumpkin carving action. We also made apple juice and sang Elvis songs and played chess. It was pretty sweet.

It's kind of funny, seeing some of the Germans and the South Americans and the Asians- well, everyone except the Americans, really- try to carve pumpkins. America really is the only place in the world where pumpkin carving is really common, I guess. Some of the kids were terrified at the idea of actually reaching into the pumpkin guts and pulling out the phlegm I guess that is sort of intimidating, though.

Geo, Vincent, Hans, Mechtild's husband, and I played Chess. Vince the Prince came out on top against me two games out of three, but I fared well against the others.

Oh! And today we made Kastanienmaennchen! They're kind of cute.

pumpkins!

2009-10-24T13:30:00.001+02:00

I'm going on a weekend-long pumpkin carving adventure. So... later.

in this post, I actually say something!

2009-10-22T17:26:00.001+02:00

HOKAY. So here's the plan:

In this post I'll tell you what I've been up to, because I really haven't recently.

SO.

When we went to Italy, we flew into Pisa. We did see the leaning tower, as I'm sure you saw from my photos. It was kind funny- as soon as we stepped out of our car in Pisa a half dozen scalpers started trying to sell us Rolex watches and Coach purses and other fun things that were more than likely not Rolex or Coach. We also got a parking ticket... souvenir!

We stayed with Denio and Almuth, who are family friends of the Baake's. They lived in the mountains, quite literally, in a town called Castello Nova. Almuth used to live in Germany, but from what I understand she married Denio and they lived in Germany for a few years and then went back to Denio's native Italy. Anyway, they both spoke very good German, and Almuth had pretty good English.

It was very neat, staying with them- they were so stereotypically and wonderfully Italian. They had a little vineyard, and an olive tree grove, and grew all their own herbs and vegetables. The first night Denio made pizzas, with fresh mozzarella cheese, rosemary from the garden, and thin Italian crust, and it was served with rot Wein.

The next day we went into Florence. Florence is a very great city- we wandered through some of the more touristy places, as we also went into the anatomical museum I mentioned in the last post. We had mozeralla and tomato panini for lunch und es hat geschmeckt sehr gut.

The next day hannes, Alex and I helped lay out nets under the olive trees- in about a week, when the olives are good and ripe, Denio will harvest them, knocking them off the branches and into the nets. Then he can press and process them into olive oil. I thought it was very neat- half of everything we ate came was selbst gemach- homemade. The olive oil, the vegetables, hte nuts, the mushrooms, they had wine, but it wasn't yet ready, the bread was made at home- it was all fresh and delicious.

Italy was warmer than here in Germany, but not too much warmer. It was brisk. Mia, Hannes, and Alex swam in the pool, but they're crazy Germans. Eleven degrees was too cold for me.

Anyway. Tuesday we got back and celebrated Anke's mother's Geburtstag, and I got to meet her. She's a very nice and very interesting lady. The cake was good, too.

Yesterday I worked on college apps and cut wood, and today I made quesadillas! Here's a pic:

Schwach Dollar

2009-10-22T12:37:00.001+02:00

Euro kostet wieder mehr als 1,50 Dollar

Frankfurt/Main - Der Euro hat die Marke von 1,50 US-Dollar geknackt. In der Spitze kostete er gestern Nachmittag 1,5017 Dollar; das war der höchste Stand seit dem Juli 2008. Damals hatte der Euro mit 1,6038 Dollar einen Rokordstand erreicht. Verbraucher und Urlauber profitieren vom harten Euro; exportorientierte deutsche Firmen leiden unter der Dollarschwäche.

The good news: I understood this article completely. The bad news: This article.

Italien... ein mehr Fotopost

2009-10-22T00:49:00.001+02:00

Italien war shön.

We had this cute little 4-seater car. It was French, ich denke.

Hannes!

Here's Hannes, Mia, and Friederika, in the Anatomical Museum Florentino. I would have taken more pictures there, but it wasn't really allowed... it was very cool, though- first was a huge collection of animals, stuffed and displayed, and then was an anatomical wax exhibit, with hundreds of anatomically correct and gruesomely realistic bodies and organs. Harry would have loved this place.

Florence.

I never was a coffee fan, but as the saying goes, When in Rome, do as the Romans do. The saying didn't change the coffee, though. It was still bad. Left is Denio's wine cask- I thought that was neat- they made their own wine from their own grapes. Es war gut!

The view from Denio and Almuth's backyard

Hannes, Alex and I helped Denio lay down nets under the olive trees- they had a pretty little grove, and next week they harvest. The nets catch the olives when they fall.

These things are everywhere. They're cute.

Gelato in Castelello Nova!

I got a kick out of this- in the airport there was a little arcade, and there was one of those games where you need to line up a cylinder with a tube and push out the prize. I guess cigs are a wonderful prize in Italy.

Okay, that's all for now! Bis bald.

More Fotos

2009-10-17T00:01:00.000+02:00

Heute haben wir some fine art from Hannes und Stine. The Saturn is mine. Tomorrow I'm going to Italy! I'll be back on Tuesday.

schönes wochenende!!!

Foto post!

2009-10-12T23:28:00.000+02:00

I have gotten very good at snapping photos one-handed while riding my bike. Here's Lubeck by day.

Karstadt's impressive badminton racket selection.

Mia, Hannes, and Stine's head, flying kites.

Lubeck in the very early morning. This one was also taken from a moving bike.

The front and back of Charlottenburg castle in Berlin, modeled after Versailles.

The first Hooters in Germany.

Another photo from a moving bike. Pretty proud of this one.

This is what the traffic light for pedestrians looks like in East Berlin. In West Berlin, it looks just like the ones we have in the US.

And of course, the Wall.

Berlin!

2009-10-11T22:58:00.000+02:00

Hallo!

My tests are over! No more SAT for me. Hopefully I'll have some more time to post, sorry for the absence.

SO.

Alex, Hannes and I went to Berlin- we left on Friday and came back earlier today. The trip was fun! I was expecting a longer drive, but it was only a few hours. We stayed with Alex's Bruder, Martin. We didn't get in until late Friday night, so we had dinner (Thai) and then turned in.

Saturday I had to wake up early for my tests. It was neat, though, because I met Claire at the testing center- Claire is another CBYX/AFS kid. You can check her out here, if you like.

The tests weren't so bad. Math I feel pretty good about. I could have used five more minutes for Chem, but it wasn't too bad. I felt like English Lit went okay, but I never have any idea on those- the questions are all so subjective. But who knows? Maybe it'll be like my Critical Reading, and be fantastic. Maybe not. The way I see it, worrying makes no difference. I'll find out when I find out.

After the tests Martin showed us the city- we had brought our bikes along. I have a lot of pictures, I'll post them tomorrow.

Berlin is kind of cool in that it has so many flavors- no only is there East and West, but there's also the French sector, the Russian sector, the American sector, and the British sector. You can really find everything there. Touring it by bike was the right way to go, too. And, what do you know, we ran into Claire again, this time with Jack, who she's staying with this weekend. Jack is another AFS-USA student. In a city with 3.4 million people, what are the chances of that?

This week is all vacations for Schleswig Holstein, but I still need to go to my language school. :( Too bad. One of the kids in my class wanted to jam sometime this week though, so that should be fun. Other than that, I still have all my college apps to worry about, so I'm keeping busy.

Mmmkay. That's all for now. Berlin pics tomorrow!

ich bin exhausted

2009-10-06T22:45:00.000+02:00

Today was really tiring, and I have a feeling all week will be tiring. Don't expect to see too many posts this week.

My SAT II's- Chemistry, Math, and English Lit- are in Berlin this weekend, and every day I'm studying Chem und Math a lot. I've also been trying to finish college essays, but that's on hold for now.

For the last week I've been trying to get mein Monatsfahrkarte, and every time I think I can get it it seems I run into another problem. A Monatsfahrkarte is basically an unlimited-use bus ticket, for one month. Except I'm buying twelve months worth, because it's cheaper to do that than ten months separately.

Anyway. I need to print another picture for Stadtverkehr Lubeck.

Today after the language course I had sport! There's a funny thing about sport- not only am I one of only six kids in the class (and the only guy), but our teacher is Ms. Penny. They're like the same person. They look the same, they talk the same (albeit in different languages), they dress the same. It's weird.

Sport is also much more of a workout that gym in the US. By the time it's over, I'm exhausted.

Oh! And today was Stine's Geburtstag. She also got a bike. Anke and Alex gave me a light and some fenders to put on my bike today, too, so now I'm all set. Alex was worried about me biking to school, because here in Germany it's a law that you have a light when you ride at night.

Camera batteries died again. I still have some new ones, though, so I'll change them tomorrow. Batteries here are expensive, though! They're very pricey.

Also today I had bigband- we played I Wish, Birdland, Thieves in the Temple, and Spain. If anyone from the LHS jazz ensemble reads this, suggest Thieves in the Temple to TC. It's a really fun song, and not too hard. It would have been amazing back in the days of Bone Power (it has a trombone feature), but I'm sure that you'll make it sound wunderbar.

mmmkay. Back to studying. We'll see when I get to post next.

Tut mir leid!

2009-10-04T20:40:00.000+02:00

Sorry I haven't been posting- I had gone to an AFS Post Orientation Orientation camp this weekend, and there wasn't internet access. I wrote posts anyway, but couldn't put them online- I've back dated them, so you can check them out, if you so please.

This morning Alex and Anke picked Vincent and me up from the camp. We stopped at the beach on the way home, and it was kind of funny- the tide was out, and all over the beach were jellyfish that hadn't swum out fast enough, stuck in a little puddle in the sand. We didn't stay too long, though, because it was a little cold.

It was nice to come home- I was really exhausted, and it was nice to take a nap in my own bed.

That was kind of weird to say... my own bed is in Germany. Go figure.

Alex, Hannes, Mia, und Stine and I all went flying kites after I woke up from my nap. I'll post some pictures later. It was pretty good, but the wind was inconsistent- when it was good it was good, when it was bad it was bad. It sprinkled a little, but then there was a nice rainbow. They have nice rainbows here in Germany.

Dinner was ziti and meat sauce! Nom nom nom.

But now I go back to college essays and chemistry.

Later!

AFS Late Orientation Camp

2009-10-03T20:58:00.000+02:00

So.

Camp was not bad.

Cons:
Bad timing. It would have made more sense to do it last weekend- this weekend kids are finally starting to get busy, last weekend there wasn't much going on. Also, this weekend was the only weekend of the extremely small Okotberfest here in Lubeck.

The camp was in English! I don't know why, but there was very very little German spoken at the camp, even by the leaders. I would have welcomed the chance to practice my German, but... oh well.

Dinners were very small. Most of us bought candy bars after dinner.

I didn't get much sleep, but that's to be expected- it's not really a con, it's just the way things are when you put a bunch of kids together.

Many of the workshops focused more on our home countries than Germany- I feel like I learned more about Italy and Canada from the girls in my group than I learned about this country.

Pros:
We all got to meet each other- everyone from the Lubeck chapter and the Kiel chapter was there, 17 kids total, so we have all have a bigger network.

The leaders were all kids, 17 or 18 years old, which was nice.

The location- a Jugundherberge (Youth Hostile, and I'm sure I spelled that wrong) was very nice.

One of the games we played, Ein Apfel und ein Ei, was really fun- they split us all into groups and gave each group one apple and one egg, and then dropped us off in Scharbeutz (which I also spelled wrong), a nearby town. There, we were told to trade the apple for something and cook the egg. This was problematic, because it wasn't very nice weather, so nobody was outside, and only one or two of us spoke any considerable amount of German.

Anyway, we did pretty well. My group, which was me, Kita, and an Italian girl, ended up going to twelve houses- we traded our apple for three candies, we offered to trade our three candies for two pens, but the man just gave us the pens, we traded the pens for a shell, but the lady told us to keep the pens, we traded the shell for some honey, we gave the candies to a lady and she cooked our egg, we traded the pens again for a candle, and then traded the candle for the lamp. By the end of the day we had turned an apple and an uncooked egg into a jar of honey, a lamp, and a hardboiled egg. Not too bad.

The other houses told us to go away. But in general, people were very nice!

And the last pro- Vincent. Or Phat V. Or Vince the Prince. Vincent is a student for China- he's in my Fremdsprache course- and he's pretty cool. Spending the weekend with him was fun.

Freitag

2009-10-02T20:33:00.000+02:00

So. We have an AFS Late-Orientation-Camp this weekend. That’s why you’re getting this post and the last one and maybe the next one very late. Blame it on AFS.

Anyway, Fremdspracheschule in the morning, and then Cesar, Bruna, Vincent and I went to the ZOP were we were supposed to meet Geo, but he was MIA. Anyway, we went into town and got some delicious food before we left for Ponitz, where we were picked up by someone from the camp.

So far, the camp isn’t really anything new. It’s just the rules again, and ice breakers, and talking about how we feel. I’m a little disappointed, though, because it’s almost entirely in English- I would have really appreciated the chance to practice my German. It’s getting better every day- I’m starting to understand more- so I think it’s a shame that they don’t use it so much here.

Anyway. It’s fun, although I can’t help missing what I would have been doing in Lubeck- I had been invited to some things this weekend. Oh well. Next time.

Sometime I need to talk about Vince the Prince, but now I need to go to bed… hopefully if I forget, I’ll see this post and talk about him one day.

Until then!
Tim

Fremdspracheschule

2009-10-01T20:28:00.000+02:00

Thursdays mean no Waldorfschule, so it was only the Fremdspracheshule today. The Fremdspracheschule is kind of cool- yes, it is a little slow, but it’s neat because the class is really Deutsch being taught in Deutsch. There’s more than a dozen languages in that class, and not even half of the class speaks English, so the teacher can’t teach in another language. Surprisingly, though, it works.

Before taking this class- and living here- I always wondered how on earth people like Cleopatra and Squanto ever figured out enough English to speak with the settlers and Mrrs. Lewis & Clark. I mean, it’s easy to conceive learning nouns- point and name. But verbs, especially more abstract ones, always seemed hard to learn. It’s possible, though! I promise! We even manage to have some interesting conversations- we talked, in Deutsch, along with some Greek and Latin queue words, and lots of charades, about mythology for more than half an hour. It was fun.

After school today I went into town. First stop was Karstadt (I hope, last time I spelled it wrong). I had to buy some new Federballe, and I also picked up a squash ball. Here’s a pic of the racket selection- probably nobody will appreciate this except maybe my dad, but it really is impossible to find nice badminton stuff in the US. This isn’t even that big of a store, either!

I also bought a book of short stories- English on one page, German on the other. We’ll see how I do with that.

My last stop was at Wandels Apotheke, a drug store. I haven’t needed it yet, but I picked up some Vitamin D- I’ve been told that I’ll need them in the winter. Then it started to rain, so I went home.

Also! I tried to teach Hannes the baseline of Chameleon today. Hannes likes everything, so he had fun. Maybe if he gets it good we can play with it a little more. It’s a lot of fun, playing with Hannes on his Cello.

Okay, enough for today.

Gute Nacht!

Fertig!

2009-09-30T22:43:00.000+02:00

SO today I finished the last of my three Stanford essays.

Actually only two are completely done, but the other one is mostly done. So that's good.

I still need to write the Common App essay for Stanford, though. It goes on.

Today's a Wednesday, which means no Deutsche als Fremdsprache schule, so today I was at the Waldorfschule all day. First period we learned about the history of Israel, which was interesting, seeing as I haven't had a world history class in years. Then Math, which I can actually follow, and Religion, but I did the math challenge problems in Religion. Then was Deutsche, which is terrible because it's a real lecture, and it's about German politics, so I can't follow much of anything. Then English, which was a test that I think I did well on, and finally Ceramics.

That's not very exciting, though.

What is exciting is that on Monday I was invited to Marios' Geburtstag, and yesterday some girls invited me to the disko this weekend with them. Unfortunately, I'll be taking an SAT during the Geburstag and I'll be at an AFS camp this weekend. Typical. BUT it's nice to have some friends.

Dienstag...

2009-09-29T22:50:00.000+02:00

SO.

Today was rainy in the morning, but then it got sunny! Hoorah!

Monday was gloomy all day, but it never rained.

Today I had a bigband rehearsal- we played I Wish, Thieves in the Temple, Bluesy Basie, and Misty.

Yesterday I played badminton.

Badminton is always really fun.

Tomorrow I have a full school day.

Today I had just sport, and we played Volleyball.

Germans call Volleyball "wallyball"

My band director called Stevie Wonder "Stevie Vonda"

I think that's funny.

Travemunde Strand

2009-09-28T18:31:00.001+02:00

SO.

Today Vincent and Geo and I went to the Strand (beach) in Travemunde. Travemunde actually has an umlaut over the "u", but umlauts are a real pain to put into text with an Amerikanisch computer. Quite literally, Travemunde means "Mouth of the Trave". The Trave is one of two rivers, the other being the Wakenitz, that surround Lübeck. See, Lübeck is actually an island, squished in between the rivers. Here's a pretty picture:

While we're at it, and just for the record, here's a map, showing where exactly Lübeck is:

The pink area is Schleswig-Holstein, the state Lübeck is in, and the red is me.

Anyway. Back to Travemunde. Travemunde is a borough of Lubeck, and it was formed by Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, to defend the Trave river. It was later fortified by the Danes, and in 1329 it passed into the possession of the Free City of Lübeck. It's the largest German port on the Baltic Sea, and is home to- this one is for you, Grandma Ree- the oldest lighthouse on the Baltic coast.

Well, anyway. That's enough history for now. Vincent and Geo and I met at the ZOB and took a bus to Travemunde. We walked along the beach there, people watched, ate some Brats, drank König Pilsener, but we just called it Kopi because that's better. Here are some photos:

I thought it was really funny how the clock tower on the Bahnhof had a really pretty old analog clock, and then big fat numbers underneath it.

The new lighthouse

Geo on the beach

This is Europe.

The public trampoline... we need some of these.

Lunch!

And last but not least... Vincent!

Mimi ist sechs!

2009-09-26T21:04:00.000+02:00

So.

I really like that word- the Germans say it alot- because S's are Z's here, so it's more like Zo. And it's very emphatic, too: ZO.

S's are Z's, and Z's are ts's, and W's are V's, and V's are F's, and E's are actually pronounced. Always. It's very confusing.

Well anyway. Today was Mimi's birthday- she turned six. In the morning we had a big breakfast, and then she opened some gifts- she got a cool new bike! She also got some fun clothes for her babydoll and some bike stuff.

I left around 11 to go see my bigband- they were playing in the square by the Rathaus, or the City Hall. This is the first time I've gotten to hear them play, aside from the one rehearsal I've been to so far. I was really impressed, they're very good. It's like Lexington High Jazz Ensemble, but older. That was fun. I also ate some delicious nuts. They were delicious.

Mimi had some friends over for her party, and they played a bunch of games and ate cake and vegetables.

A breakfast feast!

Brötchen ist German bread- it's harder than American bread. Germans like their bread hard. There's also Croissants in there. Those are soft.

Mimi and her new bike!

Delicious nuts.

The Pirate Party was campaigning near the Rathaus. That's right. We have a Pirate Party.

ein neuer Federballschläger

2009-09-25T23:30:00.000+02:00

So.

Today is Friday! This week went by so fast, I can't believe it. Deutsche als Fremdsprache in the morning, and then I went to the Waldorfschule but I didn't have class so I went into Lübeck- I needed to buy a badminton racket.

There's a big sport store in Lübeck called Karlstadt Sport. There's a bunch of other Karlstadt stores, I guess it's some sort of chain. Anyway, there were like, twenty different kinds of rackets here. In the US, it's impossible to find anything but toy badminton anything- rackets, birdies, whichever. It was nice to be able to find something.

I also picked up a side-by-side English & Deutsche book of short stories. We'll see how that goes.

And I have some pictures today!

Here's a German bus- I ride one of these every day, several times a day.

__%Here's the Western store, where Westerners buy their clothes.

and here are Amerikanisch Kleidungs...

a pretty epic backdrop, if you ask me

me, riding my bike home.

and one of the pretty bridges I get to pass on my way to and from school every day.

That's all for now! Have a nice weekend.

oh no Karl!

2009-09-24T21:10:00.000+02:00

So today wir haben good news and bad news. The good news is mine, the bad news is not mine. I guess I lucked out this time.

The bad news first: Karlchen ist kaput.

Mia's cat is named Karlchen, or Karl for short. Karl is a very nice cat that mostly keeps to himself and likes to be petted, like most cats. The Baake's have another cat, too, but he mostly lives next door.

This morning Hannes went out to feet Karl, but noticed something was wrong. He got Anke, who brought Karl inside, amid a string of very mild obscenities that were very well deserved: poor Karl was a mess- he was all bloody, one leg was completely crushed, and he was crying. Poor cat.

We think he was hit by a car, and it's lucky that he survived. Anyway, Anke took him to the animal doctor, where he was operated on. He just came home earlier today, minus one leg. Anke und Alex set up a nice little corner for him to stay in, but he likes sitting on the chair more. I don't blame him, it's a nice chair.

The good news is that I got my visa! I'm a legal resident of Germany now, until July 14. Hooray!

(that's my visa photo. exciting, huh?)

Die Bell

2009-09-23T21:59:00.000+02:00

When somebody is behind you on a bike and they'd like to pass, they ring their bell. This sounds very normal, but we don't actually do it in the US. Sometimes kids get horns on their bikes, but more often than not there is nothing, and the rider just yells "passing" or something.

But in the morning, when you haven't quite woken up, bells are very nice. They're not mean, they aren't saying "you're in my way", they're just saying "hallo, be careful"! I think that they're much more friendly. And they're pretty too. It's nice to hear bells in the morning.

Musik

2009-09-22T22:19:00.000+02:00

So today I went to my first jazz band rehearsal. They call it "bigband", because saying brass band refers to Bavairan music. Anyway. It's a very mixed group, but it's all cool. There's around three trumpet players, four trombone players, a bunch of saxes, and a regular rhythm section. I'm the youngest one in the group, and the oldest is probably 70. All in all, the median age is probably 35, but there are two or three university-aged students there, too.

But the music is great! It's my level, which is good- I'll admit, I was really nervous going in, especially when I saw that (mostly) everyone was older. We played some songs that I had played before- Night in Tunisia, Cute, Bluesy Basie- and a bunch of new ones- Chicken, Misty, Jailbird-something, and more. It was really good to get the horn moving again, I'm really glad that Anke found this group. They have a concert on Saturday that I think I'll go to, but not play in, but then after that I can rehearse with them every Tuesday. We have a gig in November.

While talking about music, Mia has been practicing her Cello and the piece that she's playing is always, unconditionally, without question stuck in my head. Or stuck in my ear, as the Germans would say. I think everyone in this house has it memorized by now. At least it's a pretty piece.

Hannes also plays Cello, so sometimes we fool around with duets- Cello is also (usually) bass clef, so I can read along. It's fun.

I'd write more, but I'm really tired... so now I'm going to sleep. Maybe tomorrow.

Gute nacht, everybody.

El Layout

2009-09-21T20:34:00.002+02:00

Sorry to anyone who is only reading the auto-notes on Facebook of this blog, this post won't make sense. If you'd like to see the real blog, it's at afstim.blogspot.com.

Well anyway, I think I like this layout now. It's wider, so it lets you see all of most of my photos... while I think the last layout looked a little cleaner, this one is more functional. So I think I'm done fooling around with that... also, I think the visitor counter with country codes is really cool- I borrowed that from your blog, Mike, so thanks for that.

Anyway.

Today was pretty chill- I rode my bike to the Waldorfschule, and then dropped it off there and took the bus to my Deutsche Fremdsprache (German as a foreign language) class. I'm taking the bus to that class every day now- it's about a 40 minute commute when I make the connection at Kaufhof (I think that's the name of the station) and a 60 minute commute when I don't.

The Deutsche Fremdsprache was it for classes, though- I'm not sure why there wasn't class at the Waldorfschule in the afternoon, but there wasn't. Herr Wiegant was kind enough to relay that message to Anke who then relayed it to me. Instead of going right to class I toured Lubeck for a while, and then took a bus back to Schule so I could ride my Fahrrad (bike) home. I didn't have my camera, so no pictures today.

If I did have my camera, though, the picture I would have posted would have been of my meal! I ate at a small little restaurant in downtown Lübeck, and it was damned good. It's weird- food in supermarkets is generally a little more expensive, but at restaurants- or at least, regular, not superfancy restaurants- it's cheaper. My lovely meal today was champignons with beef gravy, carrots and kartoffel (potatoes- but kartoffel is a much more fun word) with chicken, a side salad, and a rum pastry for desert. With that came a bottle of Bionade, a non-alcoholic carbonated fermented drink. And the total? 5.20 euro.

Now you might want start to say that I could get a five-dolla footlong for less than that. That's true, but could I get a drink? Or maybe you'd say I could get a KFC combo meal, with a drink, for less. That's true too, but my meal came with real silverware, a fancy white plate, and it wasn't made out of fried dead babies. Mine wins, sorry KFC.

Anyway. Food is cheaper here. A slice of cheesecake is .85, in the US it'd be 4.50. Ja.

After lunch I took the bus back to the Waldorfschule, and then rode my bike home.

Sort of.

I actually rode my bike everywhere but home for two hours, and then suddenly I was there. I couldn't retrace my path now if I tried.

It's really okay being lost here, though, as long as you don't have too much of a schedule- everything is so pretty, I wouldn't have minded being lost for five hours. The bike path runs along the river, and it's just gorgeous.

Another thing I really like- I don't know if they have this in the US, but if they do I haven't heard of it- garden lots. What I mean by that is this: supposing somebody lives in a flat or an apartment here and doesn't have yardspace of their own to grow things, they can lease a lot from the town and plant things there. All along the bike trail there are these gardens- the river is on one side, the gardens on the other. And they're all very cute; they each have a nice little one-room cottage and are nicely cared for, with flowers and vegetables and trees and shrubs. They're very nice.

Anyway. Biking is fun.

Die Gute Liste

2009-09-20T21:04:00.002+02:00

Some FANTASTISCH things about Germany:

1. Keine Moskitos
2. Busse
3. Fahrrad-freundliche Straßen
4. Brot

Apfel & Diesel

2009-09-19T13:22:00.000+02:00

Today was pretty low-key. I got to wake up late and then laze around, and had hot pumpkin soup for lunch.

Soup is a great word. Equally great is the German word: Suppe. They're both just fun to say. Soup... suppe... soup! Kürbis Suppe!

Germany smells nice. The Baake's have at least a half dozen apple trees on their property, probably more. Many of the apples have fallen, and on warm days the whole yard smells sweet. It's very pleasant.

I mowed the lawn today- Nicko would be jealous, meine familie has an old riding-mower. Mowing the lawn is sort of relaxing, I think. It's productive, but you don't actually do anything. I dunno. Maybe it's just me.

We went down to the lake today, too, which was very pretty. Here are a few pics.

Eine Woche

2009-09-19T11:55:00.003+02:00

It's officially been one week here in Germany.

That seems so small, compared to a year. One week. It's seemed so much longer!

That being said, this week has been great. I think that many potential foreign exchange students are intimidated more by that first week than by anything else, and the idea is daunting: not only a new school and new home, but a new family, and a new language- that's intense.

To be honest, though, the transition was not hard. This week was a very pleasant surprise- everyone is nice, living with my family comes naturally, the school is welcoming. No, I can't speak the language, and no, I don't understand most of what is happening around me, but it's okay- as long as you can go with the flow, falling into a new life is not too hard.

Or maybe I just have it easy.

I got a haircut today! The haircutter didn't speak English, but with the little deutsch I know and some charades we figured it out.

A few things to consider...

2009-09-19T11:52:00.005+02:00

Here are Bruna and Cesar, other AFSers. We're all on the train to Hamburg.

The Rathaus? I think that's how we spell it.

My German class... fun!

Sorry for the crappy photo... in Germany, playing the Cello cool enough to land a cigarette ad! I think that's pretty sweet.

More later.

Facebook

2009-09-18T12:03:00.000+02:00

Okay. I had originally said that I would keep off Facebook for two months, so that I could more completely immerse myself in Deutschland.

It's been a week.

BUT I do have an excuse! The reason that I think it would be better if I did log onto facebook again is not to talk to people back home (sorry, that sounds mean, but you know what I mean), but, rather, because people use Facebook here, too, to communicate and plan events. If I don't use Facebook, I'm closing the door on that many more opportunities to meet other AFSers and also people here in Lubeck. So... basically, what I'm saying is that Facebook will help me to more totally immerse myself. I think.

I nearly forgot!

2009-09-17T21:48:00.004+02:00

The word for "forgot" sounds like "fergessen", but it probably has a v and maybe a u. I'm not very good at spelling here. I need to write this, though, because, ironically, I always forget forgot.

Anyway, I said yesterday I'd have pictures. Here they are.

EDIT: some pictures get cut-off by the layout- all of them are clickable, though, for a more complete image. Also, here's the album: http://picasaweb.google.com/home

.

The girls are my host sisters, Mimi and Stine. The single house (not the row of house) is where I'm living, and the last picture is of a light switch. All the lightswitches are like that. They're kind of cool.

Okay, gute nacht!

Busy busy busy

2009-09-17T21:14:00.002+02:00

Actually, contrary to the title, today wasn't actually that busy. It was productive, though. I unlocked my phone, set it up with simyo, a German phone network, figured out my debit card, got a bike (actually Anke got the bike for me) and more!

There was German Klasse again today in the morning, but no Waldorfshule after that. There are a few kids in my German Klasse who are also here mit AFS:

Kittaporn, Thailand- Kitta and I are carpooling together often, because we both go to the Waldorfschule. Kitta is staying with Johanna, one of Lotta's friends.

Vincent, China- Vincent speak very good English, but he's having a hard time with Deutsch. I think English is much more compatible with Deutsch that Chinese is, I'm lucky.

Bruna, Paraguay- I haven't talked to Bruna too much, but she's nice.

Cesar, Uruguay- Cesar was in our German Klasse, but he was too good, so he moved up a level. German will be his sixth language- the kid is crazy.

Anyway, we're all going to try to go to Hamburg tomorrow- I have HKTU at the Waldorfschule after German (sculpting again), but after that Vincent and Kitta and I will take a train into Hamburg and meet Bruna and Cesar there. Hopefully.

Mein Gastfamilie ordered a simcard from simyo, a pay-as-you-go phone company, for me. I had to unlock my phone before it worked with the simcard, though, and AT&T was just not being nice. Eventually the internets provided good enough, though, and I figured out what I needed to do.

The internets did fail me though! I had really hoped that I could call AT&T and my bank with Skype, but I couldn't. For some reason I though calls to businesses were free. Guess not.

Anyway, now that my phone and debit are taken care of I should be all set. More importantly, I shouldn't need to make any more long-distance calls. I feel bad making calls to the US on the family's phone, but the phone card I have (simplink passport) doesn't work at all. Which is a shame.

Anke had put an ad in the school newspaper asking for a bike, which was very nice of her. My family has really been super- they've thought of everything. In addition to getting the bike and the phone, they labeled everything in the house with sticky notes before I code here (komode, tisch, stuhl, hocker, fenster, bad, tür, etc.) and made a big Wilkommen sign for me. I really couldn't ask for a nicer home.

Waldorfschule

2009-09-16T22:14:00.002+02:00

Hallo! Today there was no German class, so I spent the whole day at the Waldorfschule. My schedule looked something like this:

Deutsche stunde
Religion
Mathe
Englisch
Deutsche
Mittagessen (Lunch)
Sculpting

Some things to thing about:

1. My grade is about 20 people, in big classes we are all together and in small classes we are split into zwei oder drei groups.
2. There is at least a fifteen minute break between every class.
3. The campus is open; students can leave during breaks, at lunch, or when they have no more classes.
4. My sculpting teacher was a kliene-Doc O
5. Germans dress essentially the same way as Americans, but with straight leg jeans instead of boot cut.
6. Everyone rides their bike to schule, there is no parking lot because students don't have cars.
7. All grades 1-13 are in the same building.
8. The school has a garden and woolpigs!
9. Woolpigs are pigs with wool. Go figure.
10. In Englisch class we played the board game Scotland Yard, so that we could learn about London.

Yesterday I had Sportwahld (I think that's how it was spelled)- Gym. Gym is optional, though, so there were only four people. We played two-on-two basketball, it was very fun. It was a really good workout.

I bought new batteries today! Tomorrow I will take some pictures for you.

But now it's late. Gute nacht!