it's the weekend!
well, actually. the weekend is over, but still.
on saturday i went and celebrated thanksgiving with rotary kids. i suppose the fundamental difference between rotary and afs kids (in my world-wizened opinion) is that when i get together with other afs kids we speak a weird medley of german and english that becomes more and more english as the day progresses. with rotary kids, their was no pretense of speaking german.
but the day was quite nice. it started out with a bus ride and another bus ride (part of the strassenbahn was being fixed) and then a strassenbahn ride. then, i hung out at the train station for a while, met up with a british girls and approached a clutch of people i thought might be exchange students.
they were. and so we introduced ourselves and then the brit and i took a couple of them through a crash-tour of the schloss. somehow we picked up more of them who proceeded to complain a lot and show that the reason why i don't like a lot of americans is because they are loud and annoying. they kept wanting to get on any bus and kept insisting on calling the girl hosting thanksgiving even though we knew where we were going.
so, we ate and talked and i drank really, really disgusting red wine. it was like paint-stripper. not even kidding. then i caught the last bus home and slept for a while.
i have pictures of this but they are not on my camera. forthcoming!
my host sister fell off her horse on saturday and banged herself up pretty badly, so we went to visit her in the hospital today. it's really different from an american hospital in a good way. the patients all wear their own pajamas. there's mineral water in the waiting rooms and really, really explicit books explaining procedures. in the us they draw pictures about anesthesia and surgery-- there were amazingly gory photocopied photos of all sorts of different procedures.
i was quite pleased. i also read a picture book about going to the hospital for kids. (there was only two people allowed to visit at the same time, so i said hello to doerte and then i let willi go sit with her and almut). i'll write more about that later, i promise. there were nurses wearing birkenstock sandals and wool socks. she's doing really well, so there's not much to worry about.
this afternoon we baked the first christmas cookies (pictures and recipes also forthcoming) and i studied for my history test. it's really nice the way history is taught, and i think for the first time i actually understand the cold war and it's ending.
tomorrow is school, followed by a few more days of it. on tuesday i am going shopping for a much needed pair of jeans and maybe a long winter coat. wednesday the christmas markets open and i'm going to meet them. on friday i leave for my second afs camp. on sunday is the first advent, so if i get back in time, i'll go see the concert in the local church.
that's all for now
love
katie
ps-- i'm fooling around with the layout of this blog, so i'm sorry that the pictures are giant.
Posts mit dem Label jeans werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label jeans werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Sonntag, 23. November 2008
Freitag, 14. November 2008
safety pins are none too strong, katie
This is my blog and consequently I can talk about whatever I want. I’ve decided. So, if anyone is actually looking for deep, quality thought today (which, as clearly evidenced by my prior posts, runs rampant), you can scramble off.
Jeans
I can’t do justice to the frustration of trousers. I hate them. With a fiery, burning passion. This is just the first post about them. So prepare yourself.
Recycling
My German teacher took my recycling today. It was very nice. We were reading (it was the strike, so there weren’t a lot of kids) and he was like “katie, come with me.” so, he took me to the recycling bins and told me about where they went. He was very pleased that our school recycled paper.
Essays
I have a love hate relationship with the written word. Mostly it is love, sometimes it is hate. But I write a lot, and I’m writing a lot now, although it’s mostly just summaries of what I did today and what I ate for breakfast and other fascinating things.
I used to write a lot of poetry. Now I’m writing a lot of essays. They are angry essays, silly essays, essays that have way too much ‘voice’—aka the way that I think.
So I decided to put together a portfolio think for college and I’m just so pleased with the corrections that I would like to document them. (Apologies if it offends, mr. l—honestly, it’s the first time I’ve been utterly pleased over something in English in a few days)
My name
Last night on the strassenbahn, I was pretty pleased when ‘what katie did’ and ‘what katie did next’ came up back to back on my shuffle (this is almost as pleasing as the time I got three bouts of “I love the valley, oh!” in a row because I apparently have that song at least three times on my iPod.)
Now, I really like the name Katie. When I introduce myself, I normally give people two options: Katie or Kathryn, if the nick-name offends you. But I hate it (and HATE IT) when people use Kate in some attempt to be ‘chummier’ or because… I don’t know why. Someone explain it to me. If I wanted you to call me Kate, I would have told you my name was Kate.
But I’m not Kate. My name has two syllables. Get used to it, please.
Here, the name Katie is really novel. A lot of teachers have trouble with it. Kaddie. Kartie. Kayyydei. (with a hard eye). It’s kind of funny. And spelling is like a game—is it a C? A K? (my favorite) Two K’s with an umlaut over the a? I think I'm going to keep it
German
German is leaving me this days with largely dude wtf? moments. but whenever I’m really confused, I like to look at the things I make to clarify (I have a chalkboard that I draw the topic of the moment on). Then I don’t feel so bad.
(this is supposed to explain prepositions. i hate german prepositions)
Also, my German class if filled with lols. Like last night an Indian man spent 35 minutes trying to convince me that andefault is a word (in English). Then, we were pretending to have phone conversations. Someone turned down a party invitation. The proper response is the german equivalent of “shame”—instead, the scruffy Spaniard ii said “oh”. the teacher suggested the right word and he said “ich bin schade”.
I don’t know if that’s how you spell it. it was hysterical then, but I guess you had to be there. anyways, language class is ironically when I speak the most English. but it’s nice. talking about the weather gets really old.
School
I’m sort of starting to feel like I fit in. I get smattered with hugs and kisses every morning. I got attacked (a sign of affection) today by one of the boys. The school dynamic is extremely different here; my class is like a tiny family and I find it extremely reassuring.
So, Gym. Unlike in the US, gym here actually requires skill. Like… real skill. We were supposed to test on gymnastics today, which meant doing twisty things around parallel bars and round-offs.
Gym Teacher: What are we going to do about you?
Me: Shrugs
Gym Teacher: Oh, right. You can’t do anything. (She’s serious)
Me: Shrugs
Then I played some basketball.
Well, tonight I'm going to my first German birthday party. I just baked a cake for tomorrow's work day and have to go try and pry it out of the pan (it has some sort of braid decoration on top and i get the feeling it isn't going to stay).
love
katie
Jeans
I can’t do justice to the frustration of trousers. I hate them. With a fiery, burning passion. This is just the first post about them. So prepare yourself.
Recycling
My German teacher took my recycling today. It was very nice. We were reading (it was the strike, so there weren’t a lot of kids) and he was like “katie, come with me.” so, he took me to the recycling bins and told me about where they went. He was very pleased that our school recycled paper.
Essays
I have a love hate relationship with the written word. Mostly it is love, sometimes it is hate. But I write a lot, and I’m writing a lot now, although it’s mostly just summaries of what I did today and what I ate for breakfast and other fascinating things.
I used to write a lot of poetry. Now I’m writing a lot of essays. They are angry essays, silly essays, essays that have way too much ‘voice’—aka the way that I think.
So I decided to put together a portfolio think for college and I’m just so pleased with the corrections that I would like to document them. (Apologies if it offends, mr. l—honestly, it’s the first time I’ve been utterly pleased over something in English in a few days)
My name
Last night on the strassenbahn, I was pretty pleased when ‘what katie did’ and ‘what katie did next’ came up back to back on my shuffle (this is almost as pleasing as the time I got three bouts of “I love the valley, oh!” in a row because I apparently have that song at least three times on my iPod.)
Now, I really like the name Katie. When I introduce myself, I normally give people two options: Katie or Kathryn, if the nick-name offends you. But I hate it (and HATE IT) when people use Kate in some attempt to be ‘chummier’ or because… I don’t know why. Someone explain it to me. If I wanted you to call me Kate, I would have told you my name was Kate.
But I’m not Kate. My name has two syllables. Get used to it, please.
Here, the name Katie is really novel. A lot of teachers have trouble with it. Kaddie. Kartie. Kayyydei. (with a hard eye). It’s kind of funny. And spelling is like a game—is it a C? A K? (my favorite) Two K’s with an umlaut over the a? I think I'm going to keep it
German
German is leaving me this days with largely dude wtf? moments. but whenever I’m really confused, I like to look at the things I make to clarify (I have a chalkboard that I draw the topic of the moment on). Then I don’t feel so bad.
(this is supposed to explain prepositions. i hate german prepositions)
Also, my German class if filled with lols. Like last night an Indian man spent 35 minutes trying to convince me that andefault is a word (in English). Then, we were pretending to have phone conversations. Someone turned down a party invitation. The proper response is the german equivalent of “shame”—instead, the scruffy Spaniard ii said “oh”. the teacher suggested the right word and he said “ich bin schade”.
I don’t know if that’s how you spell it. it was hysterical then, but I guess you had to be there. anyways, language class is ironically when I speak the most English. but it’s nice. talking about the weather gets really old.
School
I’m sort of starting to feel like I fit in. I get smattered with hugs and kisses every morning. I got attacked (a sign of affection) today by one of the boys. The school dynamic is extremely different here; my class is like a tiny family and I find it extremely reassuring.
So, Gym. Unlike in the US, gym here actually requires skill. Like… real skill. We were supposed to test on gymnastics today, which meant doing twisty things around parallel bars and round-offs.
Gym Teacher: What are we going to do about you?
Me: Shrugs
Gym Teacher: Oh, right. You can’t do anything. (She’s serious)
Me: Shrugs
Then I played some basketball.
Well, tonight I'm going to my first German birthday party. I just baked a cake for tomorrow's work day and have to go try and pry it out of the pan (it has some sort of braid decoration on top and i get the feeling it isn't going to stay).
love
katie
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