not an interesting title

What can I say. Things are normal. My emotional weather seems to be staying pretty predictable. That is to say, unpredictable. Perhaps this is because of my extreme fatigue lingering from the weekend. I was pretty busy, by my standards, out until all hours of the night and morning with friends, and out the next day with more. I saw some interesting things, and had a lot of fun.

Friday night I went with my guest sister to a small house party of sorts by a friend of hers. I won't say how much alcohol was drunk, but I will say that only a very small portion of it was downed by yours truly. I went to bed the next morning, and about six hours later after stumbling downstairs and through breakfast and a shower, I started trying to bake chocolate chip cookies for a sort of baking slash recipe exchange party that night at a friend of mine's. I was missing a few ingredients, so I added some others, and was astonished to discover that they actually turned out alright. Absolutely nothing like the chocolate chip cookies I am accustomed to, but quite tasty. Then I rushed out of the house, barely caught my bus, and was on my way to the Christmas market in Bad Homburg with AFS. It was very cold, and there was surprisingly little to eat there (I had been counting on that), but all in all the afternoon was fun.

After some streetcar mishaps I got to my friends house shortly before nine, and we all just ate, and chatted, and made a Feuerzangenbowle. It was very impressive, and very tasty. We finally crashed around two am, and in the morning we bummed around after breakfast and watched Ratatouille. I was also lent a book: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, in which, after three days I am on page 575 of 593. It's the kind of actually-good love story that makes you want to rip your heart out and cry until you shrivel up as you simultaneously explode with joy and deplore your own bland to nonexistant love life. Well, maybe that's just me. But let me say, this book is way better than it's movie. It also makes me very emotionaly susceptibale to anything negative, and although it has been a captivating and delightful read, I am looking forward to finishing it so I can have my life back and end my emotional trip. Or just so I can sit bored in classes again, either way.

Today was actually quite nice. After the nearly fatal French-class boredom, they watched a movie (the Bucket List) in English class. I read. In the afternoon, I had no art class because the others had math, and two hours later my Ethik class was writing a test. So I went with my lovely American friend into 'the street' by our school, where there are lots of interesting little shops. I finally bought a new diary, a lovely red book that claims to be perfect for everything because it's made with special glue and can be rolled into a cylinder without experiencing bodily harm. Better than ripping out pages from my notebook and sticking them in the back of my old green diary. I had never walked that way before, and it was a lot of fun. We went into a store called Middle Earth, where it smelled like incence and there were lots of books about religion and philosophy. I looked for The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff, but I didn't find it. Then there was another shop with a funny name, that had all sorts of games and toys and masks and facepaint and everything that is fun to look at and to play with. We spent quite a while in there, and I felt rather like a child again. It was refreshing. When I got home it was boring: I ate, and allowed myself to shed a few anquished tears for my book, and then I just talked with people on facebook and tried to straighten out problems with my bank account and my debit card and my money, in order to get Christmas presents for my family.

Oh! One thing that I have not at all mentioned yet: All students in the 12th grade in my school are required to do a Praktikum (basically an internship) during the first two weeks after winter break. I, as a normal, participating member (sort of) of my class, am also doing one. I asked the director of my old Sprachschule, and I think I have a place. I am very excited to see what I will do in a language school. I am hoping to get an insider's view on teaching English as a second language, which has always interested me. I have to write a CV and send it to the school, and then I also have to write certain papers for my school over my expectations and hopes, and then later over my experiences. This is treated as the first big Klausur (exam) grade of the next semester. Not that it matters for me, as I am still not officially getting grades, but I still want to hit it with my best shot. I have begun to write, though rather inconsistantly, as I have only written one so far, about a page double spaced about my day, which my sister then corrects. This is very, very good, and I highly recommend it to any exchange student, especially if you are learning the language only through speaking. I realized a few weeks ago that although I can hold a reasonably intelligent german converstion about just about anything, if I was suddenly asked to write about what I had spoken of, I would be utterly at a loss. So I am hoping that this will improve my literacy and my fluency.

As for the rest of this week, I am looking forward to seeing people in school and to finally getting my French exam back! (I'm unnecessarily nervous; I already know I did badly). After that comes Winter Ferien, a big wide open three weeks with nothing exactly planned yet, except of course Christmas and Sylvester (new years). My other guest sister is coming back from France, and I am excited to meet her. It's hard to believe that I've been here for more than three months already. It's hard to believe it is already almost Christmas... I remember when I started school after Herbst Ferien and saw that we had eight weeks until the next break. It seemed like ages away. I remember when I arrived in Germany and thought that Herbst Ferien was ages away! My how time flies. I'm told that the whole year goes like this, except that it just keeps getting faster. Man, next thing I know I will blink my eyes and be back in the US, with everything feeling like a dream, saying 'wait, did that just happen? But it seemed like such a long time...!' I guess that's a call for me to savor every second that I've got, and sign off the computer.

Until next time!