she lives for the written word (and people come second, or possibly third)

1. yesterday i sort of understood math. i would not hold any high hopes for me actually passing, but it was nice to actually be able to do something. i have no idea what i was doing or if by solving the problem i actually did anything (i have my doubts, honestly), but still. math! and the teacher was so pleased. he came over and pointed in my book and tried to explain it to me. this is why i largely hate math-- the teacher could be totally lying and i'd never know. ever. and he draws these double sided arrows everywhere and i cannot for the life of me figure out why.

so now i feel obligated to do my math homework. I've managed about one problem following the example, but I have no idea what I'm solving for. This is making the problems... difficult. As far as I can see, we just pretend the exponents are general terms and then subtract them and then wiggle our fingers and pretend we have rediscovered x. i don't buy it, so i'm going to throw in the towel pretty soon, i think.

2. tuesday i wrote my first real german test. it is called religion, which i actually for some reason enjoy, although it might just be for the vocabulary. okay, so i flipped the test over and it's a poem. (i think: shit.) and then i have to analyze the poem and determine whether substantive religion is in it.

The first question was to describe the situation in the poem. I wrote that "this poem shows that a man must defend his religion and belief in God to his society. it is a narrative that shows that he has a lot of faith in God, even when others don't. The writer talks about he has faith for God everyday and it makes him stronger." I couldn't remember which possessive pronoun was for he and which was for she, so I just used them interchangeably.

The second question was to write about whether substantive religion was shown in the poem. I wrote that "yes, there is a lot of substantiated religion. It is clear because the man is referring to a society's faith in God through the use of the pronouns "us" and "ours", not just his own. Except this maybe is just his writing-way (I want to say it might be a stylistic mechanism, but unfortunately my German is not that good) and is not intended to indicate the society. Then I made a little bit of detour and talked about Marx and how this is a prime example of how religion should not be, since the man's faith was so devout that it seemed he was not privy to rational thought. (except, i didn't use those words because i didn't know them). Then, an army of souls could be easily controlled by their religion. Then I started going on about the opium of the masses. And then I realized that that was the third question, so I just stuck a random three next to some of my words and hoped for the best. We'll see what I get-- hopefully a smiley face (what I got for my French test, an omg!you totally suck at french, so i'm not even going to try to grade this!) or at least a five. most likely a six.

3. yesterday i wrote my second french test, also known as a complete fail. i'm pretty sure the passage was about sex without complications, or i did a whole lot worse at understanding than i thought. as a fun note, when i write in french now, i do it with german sentence constructions, which are rarely correct in french. i think i am going to drop french. i keep saying that, but i haven't yet. maybe after christmas break, which is 2 MORE SCHOOL DAYS I AM SO PLEASED IT MERITS CAPS LOCKS

4. today was one of those weird days. i got woken up from a really, really deep sleep (normally my body is sort of... tuned? to the time I wake up if it's humane, and it's not so much of a cold start.) but i was really, really sleeping and then i went to school. i am understanding a LOT of the conversations I here and I piped up in religion class today to say something about the seperation of church and state and lack of christmas decorations in the united states. then i had two free hours (one had a substitute who just... walked out after approximately 3 minutes) and then biology, where kids got their tests back, and physics. now, boasting: (be proud, physics teacher and/or father) as soon as physics dips practical-- i.e., we're building a little ferris wheel and we needed to do math to figure out how much power we needed in the engine and stuff and the kids in my group were lost as I bing-bang-powed on the calculator and did the math. the physics teacher was impressed.

then i had sport. we got graded on our lay-ups today (did you know that you have to start with a certain foot/take a certain number of steps/jump within the right distance of the hoop to make a 'proper' lay-up?). i didn't get a grade, but the teacher did her squinty face. so i don't imagine it went that well. at least i didn't trip. after break, we get to play badminton.

today after sport i came home and then rode the train back into the city. i then solved sudoku with my amazing new fountain pen (it is silvery-lilac and was the result of my old fountain pen exploding one time too many) that makes me write like a grown-up. I am pleased because the ink color is called "Koenigsblau" which means royal blue. and i got a haircut! i am sort of pleased because:
a)the hairdresser didn't try to speak to me at all, but still did a really good job;
b)my bangs are crooked. not too crooked, but enough that it's noticable;
c)the haircut took like... 5 minutes (not kidding)...;
d)i was handed the blowdryer and told to dry my hair. I am normally used to the hairdresser drying the hair and all of that, so... it was odd. nice, though.

and now i am trying to make my math homework, which i'm going to safely say i'm not going to finish.

all the love
katie

ps at the bus stop there was a kid practicing his dancing. it was adorable. he kept doing the mental shake-off and restarting when he messed up and i pretended to be very interested in my gloves so as to avoid distracting him.