A gift certificate. I am an idiot.

Adding Complaint Number 516, my Deutsch is absolutely terrible and awful and I am going to come back to the U.S. speaking no German and no French and crappy English. Goodbye, future philosophy studies.

On the upside, I bought two pens on Thursday to replace the one of Katharina's that ran out of ink (and it is a disposable pen.) They are lovely.

Weekend

Yesterday I had a good day. School was nice, we had the second hour so I got to sleep in 30 minutes, and I went to see "Twilight" at the cinema with Tang. The movie was terrible, the sort of film that prides itself on having a "hot guy" in it and thinks you want to spend two hours looking at close-ups of his face and listening to him engage in unbelievably boring, cliche dialogues. That being said, I understood almost everything. And it was a very large theater with big comfortable seats, and since I had a... a Gutschein! I cannot remember this word in English! It's a thing that you get as a gift and then you don't have to pay, because it's beem paid for you. Well, since I got one for my birthday, I only had to pay €1.30. So I'm glad I went, and it was funny seeing Kristen Stewart, the "Angel from Montgomery" girl, play Bella Swan.

Tang, of course, loved it. She would not stop quoting it afterwards and told me I need to get the main actor's autograph for her when I go back to America! She asked me which guy I thought was "the cutest," and I half-heartedly said "Jasper." Jasper is one of the vampires, pretty much a filler character whose only job is to sit in the corner looking pale and gaunt and surprised. None of the characters were particularly endearing, but they did really look like vampires. I don't really see the appeal in being in love with a vampire.

I did read the book. I know you Twilight fans will probably hate me, but I had some concerns with it. I've thought about writing an essay on this, actually, because it will give me an excuse to read all the books (they are addictive) but also complain cynically about them. I am uncomfortable, first of all, which the amount of control that Edward has over Bella, his girlfriend and the book's protagonist. He decides whether she lives or dies, basically, and throughout the books loses his temper with her (which she responds to by submitting completely, apologizing or insisting, "You're right"), follows her around and spies on her when she is sleeping (which she finds endearing) and attempts to prevent her from seeing her best friend. All of which, well, creep me out. The writing is good enough to make me want to keep reading, and I have fun reading them, but I don't believe these books. I am reading them very much from afar -- when the characters claim that they are really in love, that they will always be together, I don't believe them. Also, the Romeo and Juliet metaphor was boring.

But really, this is to be expected when I read a book that is a vampire romance. Sure, vampires are cool, but I am not so easily charmed by "romances." I am not a romantic. I think the only book that has ever made me say "Awwwww," was Norwegian Wood, a good example of "just a romance" becoming an amazing, touching story that draws you in. I fell in love with Midori while reading this book, and isn't that sort of the purpose of a "novel," that you really believe it and feel what the characters are feeling, no matter how ridiculous that sounds?

In other events, I had a good couple of days. Right now I'm kind of back in my slump. It's brought on by the strangest things -- today, coming across a girl's blog from Iceland (the country that I originally wanted to go to.) I had a moment of "Oh my God, why am I in Germany learning German when I always wanted to go to Iceland and blah blah blah..." Which is ridiculous. Any issues I have are not a result of the country I am in, they're a result of me being immature or unflexible or cynical. It's an issue with me. I am in a really good situation, in a good family, in a mediocre school with kids that seem to like me and teachers that leave me alone. Someday maybe I will like Pforzheim. So then I started feeling very bad that I've started blaming Germany, when anything that bothers me is my fault.

I don't know why, but Flickr's flash uploader is not working. I still have photos backed up since November. I promise I'll get to it, it's just very, very time-consuming since I need to be sitting at my computer to upload them all. I hope to have pictures from Spain on here soon.

Der neuer Austauschuler

We have a new exchange student in 10am. He name is Alaster and he's only here for the week. He's from Australia, and I appreciate having him around mostly because he is so weird, I look like a normal deutsches Mädchen in comparison. On my first day of school, I sat in the back row and was silent and wanted to disappear, because I was really shy. On his first day of school, he came equipped with four or five books of pictures of Melbourne, dozens of photos of him winter-camping with his family and him and his girlfiend dressed up for a school dance, a DVD, and a CD of his favorite Australia-themed music. He passed them out during English class. Then we all asked him questions. Aline was sitting in front of me with Pauli and she said (in German, obviously) "Is he going to the prom here? Do you think he's going to the prom?" The word for "prom" is "graduation dance", so she raised her hand and asked, "In this photo... did you go to... an Australian ball?" It was really cute. Next, Frau van der Wijst asked him, "How are the schools in Australia different from the schools in Germany?" He talked (slurring his words a lot, so I definitely couldn't understand him) about grading, his school, their partner school in China, and all this stuff, for about five minutes. Frau van der Wijst asked him a couple clarifying questions, which he answered with long, extremely complicated answers. It was so funny!

In Deutsch, when asked if he'd been in another German school up until now, he stood up and talked for five minutes about all the places he's been so far in Germany and Europe. Apparently he's doing some exchange program where he gets to travel everywhere and then spend one week in school and then travel more. I've asked him a couple times to clarify further, but it is so difficult to understand his German! When he learned I was American, he spoke in English to me, but I just answered in German and so I think he got the idea, and we don't speak English anymore.

On Tuesday, Mr. Australia was back. He's constantly either sitting with his head on the table or calling out half-hearted answers. He's a year older than me, and he speaks much better German than I do, and I never do things like that. Even in Physics and math, I pay close attention and write down everything the teacher says (copying, probably incorrectly, from the person next to me.) It drives me crazy. He kept remarking that what we're doing in math is so easy.

Today he randomly went up to nice Lukas Leonhard and said, "You know what most people in Australia think of when they think of Germany? NAZIS." And Lukas sort of looked at the floor and said, "Oh," very sadly. It really bothered me.

In a few minutes I am going to my Deutschkurs, which is ending really soon! I'm glad, because sometimes it's really boring and slow. But I had a good day today. I showed some nice people in my class pictures from home, and they loved them. They told me that Maine is beautiful, the pictures of me when I was little are adorable, my dad looks like a French football player, and my brother "has great style." I came home and successfully reserved movie tickets online. It was really good.

Update

Katie, my aquaintance from the Congress-Bundestag orientation, might be coming to visit me in March! Hoping that works out...

Off to a little TV, then packing my bag, then sleeping.

You say I've cheapened a love that's deepened with time. Well, is that such an unspeakable crime?

Things are up and down, always. I realized today that I can't remember the last time I watched TV downstairs with my host parents in the evening; I've been spending more and more evenings on the computer for three hours or more. At first that sounds awful, and makes me feel bad, but I also think that I feel more comfortable here, in the house, as demonstrated by the fact that I no longer feel required to watch TV with the family. Today I ate French Fries with a fork and knife. I am trying.

I read a lot of my journal today, the one from February 2008 until October 2008. I wanted to buy a new journal before I left for Germany, but I am unbelievably happy that I decided not to, because I can read my writing from home, remember it wasn't perfect, and also estimate how long six months ago feels. (On the 17th I will have exactly six months left in Germany.) Six months ago there was a huge gap in my journal-writing. All I have to remind myself of what I was doing last July is a post in which I was convinced I had cancer, and a dream that I was in a medical examination room with Mana and my Mom. My mom probably had cancer, and then I went home and there were all these tumor-like lumps in my feet, and they were moving around under the skin, and I got really freaked out. But then I found these skin flaps on the bottom of my feet, and open them up, and inside my feet were little round balls, maybe cereal. And I remembered putting them there for safekeeping.

It's SO WEIRD to think that my time here is almost halfway over. I have accomplished so little! My time here recently has been spent distracting myself from my thoughts with DVDs and chocolate and alt-country music. I love Conor Oberst's new album, despite the "experimental" aspects which I find a little overdone -- the voices, crazy baking vocals, SO MANY "ready now?"s before the songs. I've also been listening (still) to this Jenny Toomey CD that Jason sent me. It's really wonderful, full of witty and surprising lyrics. She's a lovely singer and a couple songs have almost heartbreaking moments, impossible to capture without hearing them.

That's all at the moment. Tomorrow = school and awkwardness. Friday = seeing "Twilight" at the cinema in German. Weekend = computer and lots of journaling and failing at German and more awkwardness.

I need to stop text messaging my parents, because I do it almost every day and I think it might be ruining my life. Or at least the next six months.

And I'm sorry about the overall negative overtone of this blog. I am not feeling good right now. I want to feel good. I pretend that I am, and I spend so much time making lists in my head of all the worse situations I could be in, but I am taking my mom's advice and really accepting how I feel: I do not feel good.

I had a lovely time in Spain; on New Years we ate Raclette and watched many, many horrible 70s music videos on TV.

Today I'm feeling jealous of Katharina, who is having an amazing typically American experience and whose host family says that "their lives have changed because of her." I sometimes feel really tolerated.

I'm frustrated with my German, my piano ability, and my internet connection.

And I am frustrated that I have to go to school every day in God-forsaken Pforzheim when I could be off having adventures on trains, or at least doing a public policy project on abortion or the war in Afghanistan and possibly learning something, and speaking decent French.

And I'm so scared of "discussions" now I can't even bring myself to ask about guitar lessons, let alone possibly traveling/meeting with people.

And my host family thinks I am lazy and unathletic, and I feel really, really bad. I want to be a good exchange student. Today I half-heartedly tried to call someone from my class at school.

So. I don't know. I will post again, hopefully something more uplifting, and possibly some photos if I ever get them all loaded onto my computer.

Mysteries of the German language

First, a disclaimer: I have been learning German for five months, and I really have no idea what I'm talking about.


I thought you'd perhaps like to learn some German on my semi-educational blog. And also, perhaps you're interested in finding out why German is considered "difficult", or about the nature of the sort-of-weird grammar:

First of all, German has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The coresponding definitive articles are der, die, and das. For example: Der Hund, die Frau, and das Haus. (In case you don't notice, ALL nouns are capitalized in German.) But the definitive articles don't always stay that way, because German also has cases (like Latin): nominative, genitive, dative, and accusitive. This makes it difficult (for me personally) to remember which nouns are which gender, as opposed to in French, in which I was always semi-able to associate articles with words, and thus remember them pretty well. But in German, I might first encounter a word in the dative case, and then later be unable to remember if it coresponds with der or das, which are both the same word in the dative case.

So, first of all, nominitive. The subject of the sentence is always in nominitive. For example: Der Mann rennt. (The mann is running.)

The object of the sentence is usually in accustive. Some verbs take dative, but those are rare. In the accusitive case, der changes to den, and die and das stay the same. Der Mann kauft den Apfel. (The man buys the apple.) The apple is also masculine, so its article changes to den.

Genetive is possesive. I'm not going into it right now, because I actually never learned the genetive. I always get away with saying "the house of" somebody or sticking an s onto someone's name.

Once you get into prepositions, it gets trickier. Some of them take accusitive and some dative, many of them take both, depending on the context. Ich gehe in die Schule. (I'm going to school.) The preposition in takes, in this case, accusitive -- thus, the die stays the same. But if you say "Bleib in der Schule!" -- stay in school! -- the die changes to der, because it takes the dative case in this example. In dative, der and das change to dem, and die changes to der. (Ich fahre mit dem Bus -- I'm going by bus.)


But wait! The fun's not over yet! Now, time for some crazy verbs! There are times when your lovely verb (mitgehen, to go with, in this case) spits in half, and the first half drops to the end of the sentence. When I first starting learning German back on Exchange Street in Portland, ME, this freaked me out. An example: Ich gehe mit. I'm going with (I'm coming too, a little more smoothly put.)

And then, totally simply, the infitive always drops to the end of the sentence. For example: Der Hund muss draußen bleiben. The dog has to stay outside. In english, it literally translates to "the dog has to outside stay," because stay, bleiben, the infitive, always ends the sentence. This was hard for me at first, because I can't make up my sentence as I go along, the way I'm used to -- and if you stick a prepositional phrase in there, it too must come before the verb! I have to go into the city in a couple of minutes! Ich muss in ein paar Minuten in die Stadt gehen! Gehen is at the VERY end.

Another thing that I find difficult are words like that, because, and if, because they do something kind of weird. Examples: Der Hund muss draußen bleiben, weil er zu laut ist. The dog has to stay outside, because he's too loud. After weil, because, the verb (auxilary! not the infitive!) drops to the end!! So the normal sentence would be: Er ist zu laut. He's too loud. And with because: Weil er zu laut ist. The ist drops to the end.

Holidays

I had a really wonderful Christmas. I thought it would be very emotional, but it turns out most of the difficulties were actually leading up to the holiday, the apprehension. I got a couple modest gifts from my host family and a big box from my parents (and there's one from Mana and Pop here too -- only I have to go pick it up from the Zollamt, so I won't actually get it until I get back from Spain on the 11th of January.)

I had a nice chat with my host parents yesterday about Christmas, school, etc. I feel really happy that they have reasonable expectations around my school (i.e. they do NOT expect any passing grades!!) Also, I think Hans-Peter is really starting to get that I do understand him, and I don't care how good his English is; I'm here to learn German. Yesterday we had not one but several conversations, and I'm glad that we are starting to communicate a little, because out of everyone in my family I feel the most out-of-place with him.

I'm feeling excited to go to Spain and a little less scared of two weeks without a computer. I always tell myself that I don't need it, and then when something like this comes up, I'm left feeling a little terrified! It's so ridiculous.

Fröhliche Weihnachten

Merry Christmas, everybody!!

In Germany, most (all?) of the festivities happen on the 24th, as I was informed ten minutes ago. ("So, are we going to open the presents tomorrow... or what?") Ours include: schmucking the Weihnachtsbaum (which I helped with this afternoon; turns out there are a lot of ways to screw up hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree), going to church, singing Lieder, listening to Bach's Weihnachts Oratorium on a CD, opening gifts, and eating Raclette (kind of like cheese fondue, I think. We'll see.)

I'm in the slow process of uploading a month's worth of photos to Flickr. Unfortunately, my computer is too slow to handle the extreme Flash uploader, so it's going slowly. But keep checking back -- I'm putting up photos of sort of baking cookies, Stuttgart, the Schwarzwald, and Nicola's Christmas Story among other things!

That last post sounded so angry

I'm not so angry. I'm feeling, actually, kind of blissfully brain-dead. And I am also going to Spain. So it's not so hard, at the moment.