I hope I haven't forgotten anything.
Church, Openess, and Stuff
I think it was 2 weeks ago when I went to the Friedenskirche's Teens Group, TAW. Truth be told, I was pretty excited because I hoped it would be just as good as the Sunday Service. Unfortunately, it wasn't. What I've noticed about teens here in Germany is that they will rarely make the effort to come up to you and start a conversation. As soon as I stepped in the room that Friday night, I excpeted someone to come up and greet me. In the US, if you go to pratically any church, there are always pepole there to greet you outside--or at least they would have an info desk with a secretary. That concept doesn't really exist here.
I never realized how important the "greeters" position was, until I felt what it would be like for a newcomer to be left in the dark. And I now also understand, to a greater extent, why sometimes my friends aren't willing to try out church with me. Everyone fears lonliness these days, don't they? I don't think being lonely is always a bad thing though; it gives me time to reflect on myself and to think about weird/philosophical things that people who cram their lives with craziness 24/7 don't get.
On another note, we had a really interesting Communion on the Friday I was there--instead of having small, plastic cups for each person, they had 4 tall, silver glasses with grape juice inside. 4 guys stood up front with the huge glasses, and walked around, having each person take a sip. All I could think about the whole time was..."Man, I hope no one in this group smokes!" As the cup presented itself in front of me, I just stopped thinking, stopped breathing, and took a sip. Normally, I don't have problems sharing food or drink with people, but that is only under 2 conditions:
a) they aren't sick;
b) they don't do drugs or smoke.
School
a) So, I still haven't got my report card yet, and I don't know why. But no matter what the grades are, I guess I'm still kind of satisfied with my performance. After all, I am trying my best. Grammar is the hardest right now, but I'm tackling it as much as I can. AP German, I will conquer you somehow.
b) We are getting a new exchange student from Thailand, who will have the exact same classes as me. Awesome, time to share my exchange student advice :D I love it. I hope we will become good friends--she lives right down the street from me, and it would be awesome if we could meet up more often to do stuff together so that I'm not bored.
c) Just to vent it here:
-Someone needs to edit the English textbooks better. Liebe Klett Verlag, bitte. Redaktion? What's that? :)
-I hate it when the student pronounces something correctly, only to have the teacher say that they are wrong. Get your facts straight.
d) I can officially say that German Lit is my favorite class of all time. I actually understand stuff, and the teacher... Oh man, that teacher is so awesome. He ALWAYS takes the time to explain stuff to me, and makes other students help me. It's great. It's all about the expectations, people. Good teachers have high, but not too high expectations. A lot of students don't really seem to like him, but I mean, he's not that bad. If I can understand the Romantic Times Unit, then he's doing something right :)
The shitty teachers blow you off and let you sit alone in a corner, and don't pick you even when you raise your hand.
Oh, and there was actually a kid in the class who told me that he would attempt to have better handwriting so that I could copy the notes correctly. Score!
By the way, please excuse my horrible writing skills and grammar. I have absolutely no motivation to go back and edit what I just wrote, and being in a German environment, it's not a surprise that my English is going downhill.
Karneval..will wait till the next post. I need to go pack for Berlin. Here's a few pictures, though :) The person in the second photo is my 12 year old host brother; I went to the Karneval with my host family, because..well, no little kid wants to miss the free candy, right?
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