My new host family. Marlene, me, Jürgen, Tang, and Tobias. Everyone is so nice.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty routine, consisting of school, some failed tests, and a visit to a gymnastics class (I will probably not be returning.) This photo was taken last Friday, when Tang came over and we had Raclette. The next Saturday we went to Calw, the birthplace of Hermann Hesse, since Marlene was running 10 km there!

Hermann-Hesse-Haus, maybe?

After the race.

This weekend, Tang and I went to the Thai restaurant in Durlacher Tor on Friday, then went to Martha's house to play Scrabble. I almost won. Then yesterday, we drove back to Tiefenbronn and went to Tobias's football match, played more games, and listened to many bad songs on the radio. Today I am having a lazy day. We had breakfast, and I went for a short walk and sort of cleaned my room. Marlene is in Tubingen (u or ü?) this weekend, BUT she is taking me to see Slumdog Millionaire sometime in the near future! I'm so excited!

Life is good. The week before Feburary break (or somewhere around there) was definitely a turning point. Changing families was a shock, but I am also really glad that I got the chance to meet these great people. I feel a lot more confident with my German, I don't really mind school, and I am just generally happier. It seems like one day I woke up and I suddenly actually had things to do on the weekends and things to look forward to, and that is NICE. Even when the people in my class still sort of think I'm weird, and some of my teachers actually actively dislike me.

I am looking forward to (hopefully!) a couple days in Prague during April break, and I'm also planning a trip to Thailand a year from now! Things are so good.

Sansibar

I have a Deutsch test on Wednesday about a book: Sansibar oder der Letzte Grund. In English it's called "Flight to Afar." I know nobody cares, but if anyone wants to chat a little about WHY KNUDSEN BRINGS THE FRIGGIN' KLOSTERSCHÜLER TO SWEDEN, I'd appreciate it.

I liked the book. It was slow, but I thought all the characters were really interesting, even though I kept hoping it would turn into more of a novel novel with a more solid, satisfying plot. I'm really scared of the Deutscharbeit -- I have no idea what I'm going to write about! I don't understand the character Knudsen's motives at all!

In my German class, I often feel very dumb.

happy

I am so happy. I just had four good weeks in a row. Highlights include:


Week 1: Hanging out with Verena who LIKES LEONARD COHEN TOO!, feeling really happy and comfortable in my (old) host family and in my school, no tests, guitar lessons, quality time in the library.

Week 2: Having great conversations with Alex, another nice day with Verena, VACATION, Franziska's fun party, borrowed DVDs, a delicious salad buffet.

Week 3: MID-STAY, nice people, complaining about the hard parts of exchange to people who understand, meeting somebody else from Maine and somebody from Boston, the Kölner Dom, modern art, a satisfyingly intellectual conversation about Salvador Dali, cola-beer, music I know.

Week 4: Meeting Marlene and going to the Peter Fox concert and doing Sport, talking to Marlene about exchange, more quality time with people in my class, our crazy performance in the school concert, hanging out with Alisa and going to the zoo, ice cream.


Which isn't to say that I still feel a little stressed about some things: tests in school, my lacking German, and the inevitable weirdness of a new host family. But I just feel good for the first time since getting here. Really happy and really satisfied.

I had to change families becaue of my host father's ski accident. My host family thought they wouldn't have time for me because they would have to be helping him all the time. This was a surprise, but things have been going almost disturbingly smoothly. I really like my new host family, and I think I am going to become very, very fat here because the food is awesome. I came home today and my 18-year-old host sister had made me a big pot of risoto with cheese and cherry tomatoes. This is the kind of thing that happens here. I have two host siblings; Tobias, who is 15, and Marlene, who is 18. They're both great.

Also, people keep leaving the door to the hallway open -- people OTHER THAN ME!

My new bus number is 666; maybe you'll find that amusing. It made me think of when I was in New York with my dad, Isaac, and Leander's family, and we saw the "WE'LL BE THERE FOR YOU" moving truck, with the phone number (212) 666-6666. Good times.

I love having people around all the time. Somehow it makes the day seem much longer, in a good way! On Tuesday, I came home from school, my new host brother Tobias made me a pizza, then Marlene came home and we went jogging and did a sort of pilates-inspired exercise video. Later we went to a little bar in Tiefenbronn and had soda and baguettes with cheese. Wednesday we made artichokes and toast and watched Desperate Housewives. Yesterday we went to see this guy in concert:

He is very, very popular in Germany, and he played in a gigantic stadium. We stood behind hundreds and hundreds of people in a huge mosh pit and I didn't even see him once. Still, it was an experience, and I'm glad I went!

Today I'm playing piano in a concert with my class at school... Hopefully that will go well!

The end.

stuff

I'm making a change here, so please don't send any letters to my address. Thanks.

love, zoe

Off to Bonn...

Wow, my writing seems to be getting progressively worse with each blog entry.

I had a nice week, complete with many school supplies, a big, delicious salad at Karlsruhe's one vegetarian restaurant, a visit to the opera, and sweet potatoes. I was generally very social; in addition to Franziska's slumber party, I hung out with a nice girl named Verena on Wednesday, went to Stuttgart with Alex and Sonja on Thursday, and went for a stroll in Pforzheim's park with two girls from school on Saturday. Today I'm having a very lazy day. It's 2:00 pm and I'm still in my pajamas. Later I have yoga.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Bonn, where I'm having my mid-stay camp. Many of the other Congress-Bundestag kids will be there -- I hope it will be fun! After that, I'm kind of dreading going back to school because there is undoubtedly a stressful math test on the way. I'm not that dumb, so I can't understand how the kids in my math class can possibly understand anything the teacher says! He talks rapidly and never stops to explain anything, he just keeps on going. We are studying the EXACT SAME THING I did last year in math -- really basic trigonometry, and also my favorite theme in math, and I still understand nothing. This is such a mystery.

That's all I have to report!

I deleted that last post because it was irrelevant. My computer is fixed! Yay!

I had a great weekend. On Friday I made a German grammar poster and went to bed early and slept in Saturday morning. Saturday I went to the adorable Pforzheim library, then bought some pens and pencils because I am addicted to German school supplies. I went to Franziska's house, a girl from school, and Aline and Karo were there too. We watched some movies, including Amelie and one that was oddly reminiscent of "The Great Outdoors" -- AAAAAAHHHH!!!! Franziska lives in a beautiful appartment with many plants and high ceilings and she has a bunk bed. We ate toast with cheese and pinapple and a lot of Fanta and chocolate. It was really fun. I hope that I can get together with the nice girls from my school again soon.

I am sort of at a loss as to what to do with the rest of my vacation. I am dying to go back to Heidelberg, but apparently wanting to do this on my own is bizarre. I mentioned my idea to Alex, and his reaction was, "NO, get someone to go with you!!" So instead I will probably be watching some movies and knitting and reading English and being boring. More later.

there is nothing left to fear now now that bigfoot is captured

This will be a short post, becaue I have to get started on an essay I must write for AFS. This is making me way more stressed than it should.

I had a nice weekend. Went to Karla's birthday party, which was in her house, not in Candela. She has just a host mom, an older woman with grown-up children, who seems really nice and lets her do really whatever she wants. I think about nine people stayed over, which would not go in my host family's house (the rule is ONE FRIEND AT A TIME. This is tough because sometimes with people who I don't know so well, like the other exchange students, having more people over kind of breaks the ice a little and is less stressful.)

No run-in with the police. We ate yummy pasta salad with curry paste and played games and watched movies.

I am feeling a little weird about the halfway point of my exchange. Although I feel better about school, etc, I still feel sad a lot of the time (I'm sorry, complaints) and my German leaves something to be desired. I guess mostly, I'm worried about regrets. Right now, this feels so, so normal to me, being here, and I'm afraid I won't even really realize I was here until afterwards. Even though my goal is to take every opportunity, that isn't always easy, especially in school, where I literally have NEVER raised my hand or contributed anything in some of my classes -- therefore many of my teachers believe that I don't speak ANY German. It's silly, but I'm afraid of looking stupid -- my first month here, I was brave about asking people, speaking German, trying everything. And it's like a little of that has worn off, and now I just feel like a non-fluent, weird, nerdy girl.

I just want to bring something back with me after this is over: a couple new friends, conversationally fluent German, more confidence, a bigger world view. And it would be nice if I could come back having seen some of Europe too, because I don't know when I'll be back. I have pretty realistic expectations, and plus, these are all really in my control. I think I just need to step it up a little, try harder in school, and stop writing and reading English every day. So we'll see.

i forgot

TODAY is the official halfway point of my exchange!!

why i am in germany

People often ask me why, of all places, I decided to come to Germany. This is a much more common reaction to learning that I am an exchange student than you might expect. There is an overwhelming attutide of: you could be in France, South America, anywhere? Why here?

Here are the reasons:


1.

"Kafka often made extensive use of a trait special to the German language allowing for long sentences that sometimes can span an entire page. Kafka's sentences then deliver an unexpected impact just before the full stop—that being the finalizing meaning and focus. This is achieved due to the construction of certain sentences in German which require that the verb be positioned at the end of the sentence. Such constructions cannot be duplicated in English, so it is up to the translator to provide the reader with the same effect found in the original text.

"Another virtually insurmountable problem facing the translator is how to deal with the author's intentional use of ambiguous terms or of words that have several meanings. One such instance is found in the first sentence of The Metamorphosis. Another example is Kafka's use of the German noun Verkehr in the final sentence of The Judgment. Literally, Verkehr means intercourse and, as in English, can have either a sexual or non-sexual meaning; in addition, it is used to mean transport or traffic. The sentence can be translated as: 'At that moment an unending stream of traffic crossed over the bridge.' What gives added weight to the obvious double meaning of 'Verkehr' is Kafka's confession to Max Brod that when he wrote that final line, he was thinking of 'a violent ejaculation'. In the English translation, of course, what can 'Verkehr' be but 'traffic'?"

2.


3.