Time Change to MEZ

Sorry to not have blogged lately. There has been so much work that needed to be done. Let me report from Friday on:

Friday:
On Friday I continued preparing the night sky with stars for the childrens Bible Week in Böblingen. I had to cut out a total of 200 stars. This took quite a while and I got my sisters to help me. After I had them all cut out Tabea's friends helped me glue them on the piece of black fabric. It looked really great. Another thing I started was drawing the animals we need for the Children's Bible week. I magnified it on the computer until it had that size I needed it to be. Then I traced it through the Laptop screen. It was a great idea. I scrolled until I had one page per screen. Therefore I didn't have to do such a big job as it would have been if I had to do it all by hand.

Saturday:
Well, I went to church as usual and then, instead of going to the youth as I had planned, I took a nap, because we got home really late. There have been major problems there. My parents tried to help those people, and therefore we had to wait until 1:30!! That means we got home around 2 and our food was really really well-cooked :) Luckily it still tasted good. If all of that hadn't happened I would have gone to the youth in Freudenstadt. Oh well.
My sister and I made Sabbatschlussandacht together, because we didn't feel like doing it with our parents. We just did three days of lesson study. I am glad that we got to do that, since I am usually behind with it. After that, my "great" coloring started. I finished three animals but it took me until 1 in the morning. This is the reason why I did not blog yesterday either. I used water colors to color them and I looked at the picture from the internet to know what color to use. I really like coloring, that is why I enjoyed doing this a lot. Towards the end I got tired though.
By the way, my room is such a mess, because I didn't have time to clean it up since Thursday. All the rests of the cut-out stars are laying around on my floor. I don't think you have an idea. It is pretty bad.

Sunday:
I woke up "early" due to the one hour that we got extra. Actually I wanted to go back to sleep because I didn't get enough, but I knew that there were a lot of things waiting for me to do them so I just got up. We packed our stuff and got on our way in time. There was so much that needed to be set up!! We decorated from 10 am until 1:30 pm. Posters, fake water, fake forest, real branches, my night sky... just to name a few things that we did.
On our way back home we called my dad to get him to prepare our food. We had the rest of yesterday's lasagna and two pizzas. After my dad looking at the lasagna he found it to be way enough to prepare one pizza. I told my mom that he would do that right after we told him to prepare two. And really, after 5 minutes my dad called back to say that he would just prepare one :)) My mom said, after hanging up, oh well then we will just stick in another one when we get home. It will still be ready in time.
My dad had his "oh you dumbies"-look on his face when he found out. Fact is that, even though we ate salad as well, we finished everything!!! He, of course, blamed it on the telephone call, saying that we all ate until we couldn't eat anymore... let him believe what he wants.
After lunch, my mom and I went for a walk with the dog that my sister takes care of, since she was at a birthday party of a friend of her's. When I came home, I read a little bit and then went to sleep since I was so tired. I didn't expect waking up another time, but I did and I am still awake. Now I will go eat dinner and then hopefully I can go to sleep.
Unfortunately I didn't do any of the coloring I wanted to...

Long Awaited Vacations

Today was a very astonishing day... I didn't know this was going to happen to me. I had started having bad thought last night. This was probably the reason for me feeling so bad today. It turned horrible throughout the day and just before biology I had to cry. I said not one word to the teacher, I just left. Theresa made an appointment for me at the school psychiatrist. I didn't quite know if that was a good idea. Especially since we (the psychiatrist and I) went to talk during biology. I could hardly speak in the beginning, because I knew I would start crying again. Therefore I looked up the ceiling, around in the room... and tried to start talking several times.
The most important result of our talk was that my life is very logical. Everything I do or participate in makes so much sense. For that reason cutting down is not possible. This is what I have known before, but now, I know exactly where there are possibilites for me to cut down! For example, I can ask my teachers in violin and piano how much they think that I can achieve durign the last three months, and how about training for the university after school, so that it isn't that much work now on top of the Abitur. There are also a lot of subjects that won't count for the Abitur, therefore I can do poorly on them. Since I found out about that, by talking to Mr. Peiker, I will now take advantage of that. It is very useful to know what exactly will be ahead of me and only concentrating on the important subjects.
The rest of my day went pretty ok, and I was actually able to smile after I got everything out of me. I feel like a person again. I feel like I am worth something. I feel like someone in this world (besides you) cares for me.
Before I always felt, that everyone puts chores on me, "Kerstin, could you please do this, and that..." there has been very few times someone actually helped me, instead of challenging me even more. I clearly remember my dad telling me, "as long as you still have time to watch movies or read a book, you mustn't stop going to brass and chorus rehearsals" this was back in ninth grade. This is when my life turned the way it still is. Work to the extreme, work until you can't take it anymore. This is extremely unhealthy and therefore I wasn't feeling well ever since school started this summer. It gives me hope and something to look forward to know that I will get worse grades and they do not harm me at all.
Other than that I started working on the decoration for the children's bible week next week. It iwll be a lot of work. I have to cut out 200 stars :D so far I have about 40 :( at least it is something. While doing that I watched a movie. After finishing up this blog I will go to sleep, which I deserved :). It will be my first night in vacation. yuppy yay.

Last lots of Days

Finally I am getting to write my blog. It has been quite a while since I blogged. Let me sum up what I did for the last few days:
Monday:
I got to leave early for my theory lesson in Rottweil, because Mr. Peiker allowed me to do so. This is very nice of him, because I would have never made it in time. It was kind of funny how Mr. Peiker got told that I went to such theory lessons. I told my violin teacher Mrs. Schneider and then she told her husband about it who went to talk to Mr. Peiker. It wasn't even me who took the initiative. Someone else did it for me. I am not used to someone taking care of me and trying to help me having less work. Usually it is the other way round. Everybody puts chores on me.
That was the only significant event that took place on Monday.
Tuesday:
The outstanding event besides teaching and going to school, was that I got to go to sleep early. Shortly after 8 pm I was in bed to make sure that I would be well rested for my German test.
Wednesday (today):
All morning I was writing a German essay. In the beginning it took me so long to think of a way to express my thoughts and therefore I ran out of time towards the end. I wrote a total of ten pages during those 5 hours, I ate all of my food that I brought and drank a lot. Since I drank that much (which I usually don't during tests) I had to go to the bathroom several times. I was the only one to go more than once :) I am proud of it though, because that means that I have a better liquid household now. It makes me healthier. yayay.
I also practiced a lot of piano today and my hands actually got warm. My mom made up a theory: Whenever I like practicing my hands get warm, if I just do it, to have it done, they will stay cold. I think this is not the way it is, but it fits :) Funny right? Usually I don't enjoy practicing piano. It requires so much endurance and patience. I am not allowed to play fast, because that would destroy the smoothness of the piece. You know that my hands are incapable of playing exact, and therefore I have to train them really hard. I mustn't allow them to go fast. While I was playing I sang one-i-and-a, two-i-and-a,... to help me stay in rhythm. It worked, but sometime I got messed up because of that. If I keep doing this, I will get much better in rhythm (hopefully).
Now I still have to do my math homework which is due tomorrow, and I will have to try to remember what our English assignment was. I never get our teachers instructions. I never know what to do, but I am sick of always asking him. I will just do something, and if it is wrong, oh well, I tried.

SDA Conference in Karlsruhe

This weekend was exhausting for me. The good thing is that I got to play the violin a lot. This is really awesome. People liked the music that we made a lot too, so all the hard work paid off. I will try to tell you a little bit about it.
For the whole weekend I was playing first violin. It was so much fun, especially since one of the two professionals in front of us was extremely funny. He joked around pretty much the whole time on Friday. I also saw my new crush, but I am almost 99% sure that he is not interested in me, therefore just forget about it. I thought I might be able to find someone, but I doubt that it will ever happen. I will try to trust in God that he will guide me the way it is best for me.
After we finished rehearsing on Friday we went to a youth hostel for the night. This decision was very smart since there was a lot of traffic jam on our way to Karlsruhe (that delayed us one hour) and we heard that there was some traffic jam on Saturday morning as well. We were in a room of six and we slept with open windows which is why I couldn't fall asleep for a long time. Maybe I woke up around two, or I didn't fall asleep until two, because of some drunkards outside. They were really noisy.
My sister didn't get ready in time in the morning, therefore we were late once again. Luckily I was part of the orchestra which always had to come a little later, so I was on time. yayay. The rest is quickly told. The stage was really hot. Everybody sweat, especially our director :) and we had to stay up there for the whole time. I got to talk to several people during lunch, not to my crush though. I think I will now stop calling him my crush, because I just don't know what to make out of it.
Now I am finally home, but I am tired... (as usual)

So many Problems...

We did it today! We had the unity of our class, probably for the first time in the past 8 years. Why did it work? Because everyone was so upset at our French teacher, because of the test, and the way he treats us. Before class, we all agreed on saying: Je ne sais pas!, je m'excuse, mais je ne sais pas! Meaning: I don't know! I am sorry, I don't know!... it was hilarious sometimes. I couldn't help laughing since the questions were really simple and still no one knew! Oh man, you should have been there to witness this. He dealt really nicely with it and we made pretty clear, that we are now adults and won't just obey to everything a teacher thinks to be the best for us! In the last 5 minutes he threatened us by saying, oh if you do that again, next hour, then I will take serious steps. We all don't want this to happen, but we will be strong if it has to be done! After class we got together and talked about whether to do strike another time or not. I suggested, that we should try working it out with him another time. There is no point to strike in the way we did, without giving it another try to solve the problem. All we want to achieve with this, is that there are only two days where tests can be written. We don't even ask of him to announce his tests, we just ask him to be a little more human, a little more understanding in how much students have to do. We ask for nothing else. Since there was no one else to talk with him, I went to do it. I know I was pretty impolite, but I, myself, got really annoyed, by him not agreeing in one single point, even though it was apparent that I had better arguments.
Some things I told him were: I don't see the point of asking this much from students, it is as much as all the other subjects together! In response to that he made me seem like I was too dumb to learn a page of vocabulary in a decent time, but the fact is, that all of the students take so long, if they want to do a good job - if the definitions are excluded all of this wouldn't be a problem at all, then it would only take about 20 minutes, which is totally agreeable. But the definitions are the time consuming part.
I also told him, that I will no longer put so much effort in my French grade, since I am not even taking the final test in that subject. I am preparing myself for just 8 points in French and I am ok with that, because I said to myself that it will be for my best. If I wouldn't have made this decision then one day soon, I would have gotten into a major crisis. There is just too much to do.
I tried to get him to say that he will talk it over with us, because I don't want my class and myself to strike for another time. I don't care about the steps he will take, not at all, I am just worried about the atmosphere in the class. I want teachers and students to be able to live in peace with each other.
My mom had a pretty good point during lunch. She said, that now, since we pretty much didn't leave him an option to agree without losing his face, he is trapped and has to say no to whatever we suggest. We have to find a solution that still leaves him with the authority he needs, but we can also agree on it! I hope everything will work out in the end. I don't want to be the one causing all the troubles, but nevertheless we found it to be important.
Ok, now for the rest of today, there was nothing major.
I had English during fourth hour. We got our test back. I actually stopped caring about my grade, but what surprise did I find when I looked at my grade - I got 15 points. This came totally unexpectedly. I am glad about that grade, because it will give me the opportunity to compensate my bad French grade which is definitely to come.
After coming home at 3:50, I taught my little recorder kids for two hours. The last two lessons were especially tiring, since they didn't have practiced at home. So I just got over the music with them. Finally I was done with teaching. I thought about going to sleep and just not practicing today, but then I remembered my new list of priorities. There is so much work ahead of me now, and I hope I will get everything done. One hour violin and one hour piano at least and then there are still all of my homeworks ahead of me. If I do everything I will probably be done by midnight the earliest and I am extremely exhausted already. Be sure that I will blog reltalks though. I thank you one more time to point out that Christ has to be our center in order for everything to fall in its place. Wish me strength for all my chores today. I want to be done before midnight. I will blog the final sentece whether I made it or not tonight...
Have fun doing your homework. I hope Chemistry is going all right. You deserve good grades. If you find some time, maybe you can blog about the beginning of Ramadan. I am extremely interested in that. Did you make it through the day, without eating anything? What kind of food did they eat after sunset?

Newly Set Priorities

This was an exhausting day in the morning!!! I woke up kind of late, so therefore I could not go to the SFJ - Schüler für Jesus which I wanted to do today. When my alarm rang, I didn't want to wake up in order to learn my French vocabularies. Instead I went to sleep again until 40 minutes later. I had to wait another ten minutes to get into the bathroom. At 7:10 we left the house. The time was pretty decent, I guess, but it should have been at least 15 minutes earlier, if I had wanted to go to the SFJ.
While driving, my sister learned French vocabs with me. This was a good thing, because guess what happened today... yes, right, we wrote a test. I was barely prepared, because I didn't have much time to study. While taking the test, I wrote a message to my teacher as well, saying that it was not very nice of him to write this test on a Tuesday, because he knew that Alexandra and I had to go to the Music Theory lesson until 7:30, but apparently he didn't care. So after taking the test, a lot of students complained once again, but the manner the test is done and so on - with no result at all. This annoyed me a whole lot. He, my French teacher, honestly thinks, that there is no work to be done beside French!
We argued that he does not have his stuff together sometimes as well, that he doesn't have the test corrected for the next day A LOT OF TIMES. His arguments were so illogical: "I have to prepare my classes for the next day...which sometimes takes me until 10 pm!" We answered, that our homework takes us a lot longer many, many days, but no one cares about that. No one. Guess what he said: This is different.
In this manner arguments were brought back and forth, and at the point, where he ran out of arguments he cut the conversation. I couldn't take it anymore. I started crying. Luckily, Alexandra asked if we could go outside first. I was mad dissapointed. Everything came together. My exhaustion, the teacher not accepting our points, my lack of sleep,...
Even though I felt horribly, I was still able to participate during German. We had two lessons of German today, since our math teacher was gone. Mr. Peiker had said in the beginning of the school year, that every single math hour that would not be held, will be used in order to catch up on German. So this was fair.
During third hour, which was my free hour, I made a list of my priorities. Several times I went outside to cry. I don't remember this ever happening to me. Anyway, now I am at the point where I say, I don't care about French anymore. I will get worse grades for sure, because I won't study very hard for it anymore. I will not dedicate so much of my time in order to achieve an ok grade, where I could rather take the time to prepare myself for me final test in Math, English, German and History. Even though the grade will count towards my Abitur as well, I not only think, but believe, that this was the right decision. I feel it. It brought peace in my life again!
Maybe this is also some sort of resistance. What if everybody's grades will go down for two or more points. Aren't teachers going to question why this happens? Wouldn't they finally wake up and see that this is in no relation to what should be going on? I hope so, but that is not the reason why I will accept bad grades, though.
Also I have decided to not do all of my homework anymore. Homework isn't as important as sleep or music. I hope I can stick to the new list of priorities from now on.

Monday = Stress :)

Monday means "working" non-stop from 7:30 am until 7:15 pm. It is quite stressful sometimes. The good thing is, that generally there are only French, Math and English homeworks, that need to be done at night.
The problem I had today, is that I haven't practiced violin all week, but instead I was procrastinating it (until Sunday, I thought, but it didn't work out that way since we have had final rehearsal) so today during lunch I started practicing violin for the first time this week. Now the week I am refering to, is the "violin week", which goes from Tuesday to Tuesday. I had a hard time, when I was practicing because orchestra playing makes your intonation worse. So I had to work quite a while on intonation and then I had to go to school again.
Since I was so tired it was kind of hard for me to pay attention, especially during music. It is just so boring, and I get everything so fast, because it is just basic knowledge. I feel so stupid if I answer those simple questions and if I do, the others don't have a chance to keep track of what is going on, but I also have to think about my oral grade which counts 50%!! I definitely want to get 15 points and I think I will be able to make it.
In Geography we interpreted a topographical map. That was enjoyable, because I like geography, I like to learn about new things, and reading and interpreting a map might become very useful lateron, so I better pay attention now. Of course I won't need it to the extent that we are discussing it in class, but that doesn't matter, the more I know the better.
After my school in the afternoon, Alexandra and I went to the music theory "class" in Rottweil. We did the modal scales, Dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian,... I have troubles finding out which one is which. This has been one of the first things I made a mistake on, so I better start working on music theory to not fall behind. It was definitely a good decision to do that. I would have never made it without this extra training in Good Ol' Germany :)
So now it is 10:30 and I am all done with my homework (except for math, but the class is cancelled for tomorrow). I will go to sleep now. Hopefully I will be able to blog on reltalks soon.
I wish you a lot of time for your bible study and prayers. I am sure you got all busy and tired so that there is not so much strength left for that. Same here, I always have to keep in mind that my first priority is God/Religion. Sometimes it is extremely hard and I knew that would happen, but I can't help it. Please pray for me, so that I can stick to my priorities the way I want to.

Final Rehearsal

This day was extremely stressful for me. I woke up around 8, but not because I had enough sleep by then, but because I had to. We left the house around 9 to go to Stuttgart for the final rehearsal for Adventus Domini. We actually got there in time, I was amazed. I didn't think we would make it. It is not possibly for my family to arrive on time, but today was one of those very rare times where we made it. From ten on, until 6:10 we practiced. We had 45 minutes of lunch. But that really didn't give me the chance to talk with my new crush. Oh well, it is not that important, it will probably not work out anyway. But one funny thing happened though. I was standing close to the drinks talking to Esther, I don't know if you remember her, or if you have even seen her, but we have been talking-friends for a while now. So we were talking with each other and then Christian came and asked me if I could pour him something to drink. I just moved to the side so that he could fill his own glass. Esther said that this was something dumb to flirt with and she continued saying that it is rather the girls who ask the boys to pour them something to drink. Anyway, afterwards I was drinking another cup and then, before I could react he poured some more water in my cup and it was filled completely. On top of that, I was in a laughing mood, so when I tried to drink, I spilled some liquid, but I had one of my hands under the glass because I KNEW this would happen, there was no other way. So they were both laughing at me and I laughed with them cause it was funny. That is pretty much everyting interesting for today.
The conference is next weekend, and I will see my crush again, hee hee. All the sudden I am not so sure anymore, if it is still my crush, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I will just wait for the things to come.
When we went back we got into a one hour traffic jam, and then at home I had to do all of my homework still. now the only two things left are: Math and German, actually there are also still some French vocabs that I need to study for tomorrow, but I don't know how to do all of that. I will have to decide on two things. I will read German tonight do Math during my free hour tomorrow, and hopefully find some time to learn my vocabs in French as well.
As a result from more than 7 hours of practice my back and left shoulder hurt me. It will go away soon.
Oh you want to know a bad thing? I didn't practice for my violin lesson all week, even though I was so motivated in the beginning of last week. Oh well. I will see what I can make out of it tomorrow, and then there is lunch on Tuesday, too...

Visit on Sabbath

Tomorrow I might meet my new crush :) We will see how it goes. I fear that I will lose a lot of time, but anyway it doesn't matter.
I guess the thing most interesting was the fact that my sister's class teacher and her friend came to the church in Holzhausen. Afterwards they were invited for lunch and "dinner". So now I will let you participate in the events of today. They were totally awesome and I am so happy that all of this happened, because I had a serious talk with Theresa yesterday. There is so much to tell you that I have problems keeping up with everything. Let me go in order:
Actually it started Thursday night when I wanted to really hurt myself, but since I promised you to never do it again, I didn't, even though I really felt the urge. I talked about it with Theresa and she had some interesting points. First of all it scared her that I had such feelings. But then she tried to be analytical and she made me see that I am a very lively person in general, but the fact is that I have a tendency towards being depressed, because of loneliness. So she told me that I should be more social, I should have some hobbies where I have to deal with people, should join in some youth stuff at church or do whatever as long as it has to do with people. This is probably where my problem lies. There is no one I can talk to, I mean really talk to at any time. Lately I had a really strong want to get a boyfriend and you also know about my newest crush (I will see him tomorrow, hopefully). I need someone in my age, or just someone else than my family to talk to. Someone who REALLY cares about me. I know that you do, but now I feel ready for a boyfriend, I am ready to take on the responsibility of a household and everything. I will be as patient as possible and wait for what God will provide for me.
So when I came home from school yesterday, I straightened up my room and since I wanted to clean my windows for a while already, I figured that I would have time for that as well. The sun was shining, it was an absolutely beautiful day. I only wore a T-Shirt and I was still warm!! Isn't that incredible? To be able to clean the outside of the window to the left I had to climb on the roof, which was a lot of fun, but slippery since I only wore socks. hee hee.
For the rest of the day I cleaned here and there and I made a cake as well, I decorated it as neat as possible (it came out pretty ok :)) and then it was Sabbath. I did a little bit of lesson study, I commented on Romans 3 and 4 and then I went to sleep, giving my sister the order to wake me up as soon as she starts her Andacht, with her teacher. She never woke me up, because ... she fall asleep herself. I thought that was really funny.
Today, everything went according to the time schedule. We woke up in time. I actually woke up five or six times during the night. That was extremely weird because I didn't have a lot of sleep lately. We got ready in time. Elli and Markus arrived in time and we got to church in time. The funny thing was that in Holzhausen they had Erntedank today, which we have had last week already. The little kids presented a song, and they were very cute. At one strophe they got some bread and the little girl, about 2 years old, started eating it in front of the audience. She wasn't supposed to and that made it even cuter. Her bigger brother was the only one of the three that were up front to sing. He sang very loud, but off pitch. No one really cared though. He seemed to be very comfortable with all the attention that he got. The little son of my piano teacher was the third one up there. He was very shy, but for the last strophe he started pointing his little finger (chin high) to God (who is in heaven). The bigger brother of the little girl, called Nathanael, pointed his finger up high, but messed up his thumb and index all the time. So it went like that: They sang about God who looks at us, or whatever the text was, and he would raise his little arm - thumb up, and then after noticing that his mother was doing it differently, he would change to his index immediately. This happened almost every single time :)
Oh I forgot to talk about lesson study, which was quite interesting as well. First of all the guy who was supposed to lead the group didn't show up for the first 7 minutes or something. Then he opened the door, sticked his head through and closed it. I figured that he might have been shocked by seeing Markus, the teacher from the Albeck-Gymnasium. So Michael, who took over after a while, went to ask him why he left and he replied that he went to wash his hands :D - so he asked what chapter we were on, which made it clear to everyone that he was not prepared at all. He just asked the questions in the back of each lesson study book. The first one was already a hard one. No one wanted to reply, but unfortunately I had eye contact twice and therefore he asked me what I think over this text. I gave an answer, not knowing what else I could say. After me, no one wanted to say something anymore. This was the reason why Michael took over. He is a Theologist and therefore it was a very inspirational time. We read Ephesians 1, 3-14 and everyone in this group (we were about 10) had to find out three aspects which were really important to him. The results were interesting. I liked the comment of Markus a lot, he summed up the chapter pointing out the main ideas. It was like everything has been said. But even though it seemed like that to me, a lot of things were added afterwards, which were no less important. I am sure you would have liked the atmosphere. Oh, Markus also had to start, even though Marion tried to be smart and change the order around. It didn't matter though. The second one to state her points was Elli. She had troubles reading the text, and instead of saying, ok you don't have to, Michael said, I will get back to you after listening to everyone else and you can formulate your questions in the meanwhile. I thought it was pretty tough, but I noticed when we talked about it during lunch that they were pleased by the fact that they got asked as well.
During all that time I was extremely hungry, my belly rumbled, sometimes more noticeable than others. After a while, my sister asked me: Don't you want to go and drink some water in order to fill your belly, so that it won't be so noisy anymore. I thought that this wasn't necessary, but after 5 minutes my belly convinced me that it was!! So I drank about a half liter of water and it really got less noticeable. Luckily I wasn't the only one who was hungry.
Then, once church had ended, we went home to eat lunch. My mom had prepared some lasagna and I had set the time in advance so that it would be ready once we get home. The whole house smelled like lasagna. It was so yummy. And the five of us only managed to eat half of what my mom prepared, because it was simply too much. While my sister was changing I made the salad and set the table, so that we could start eating ASAP. We were ALL hungry.
In order to get rid of all the calories we decided to go for a walk with the dog. We ended up walking for more than two hours, while talking with each other. My knees hurt really bad towards the end, but I was still able to make it. Tabea got thirsty. But all in all it was enjoyable.
The rest is told quickly: We ate dinner, but not a real dinner, since it was composed of cake and coffee. After that we made Andacht, and then they left. That was about it. Right now I am blogging to share my experiences with you and then I will either go to sleep, practice or talk to you if you will go online soon...

Essay Presentation

Today was a good day. School was regular. Oh yeah, I told you I would tell you about my presentation. I went to my English class before the time and since there was no one there and all the desks were in a different order than what we needed them to be, I put them in order so that class could start right away. Anyway, when our teacher came he said that there are still some "old homeworks" to deal with, meaning our essay :) So I prepared myself, took the sheet out and I wanted to start reading it to the class. Mr. Schätzle asked: Are you reading from your seat? Since I nodded he continued saying: I don't think this can be done from your seat. In return I said that I don't like being up front and that it makes me uncomfortable, but he on his side, didn't take me seriously even though I was. Presenting this essay to the class was expected but still I didn't like being up front. My voice trembled, I was short on breath,...the typical reactions to nervosity. Theresa said lateron that it wasn't noticeable, but I just don't know. One thing I forgot to mention was, that Mr. Schätzle asked the class, what my body language expressed. I thought this to be very funny and therefore whenever something negative was said, I nodded in agreement or I put my thumbs up. My classmates found out that I am shy, uncomfortable,... after a while my teacher noticed what I was doing, and therefore he started smiling. I did too :)
I mean it is good practice to be up front and usually I don't have a problem with it, but today I did and I have not yet figured out why. There is only one explanation I can think of. I am a person who likes to improvise, and since this essay was all typed out and I just had to read it to the class, I got nervous. On top of that, there was no instruction for the students, except for listening to my essay.
I also had a chemistry presentation which didn't bother me at all (probably because I had to improvise the whole time :)).
There is not much to be said about sports. We played games, had some exercise in the beginning (extremely hard one) and then we tested the trust of people: There was a box (or whatever you call it) about 4 feet tall and one person had to climb up, the others stood in front of it, two by two, clinging to each others arms. We had to stand really close, because the person on the box would fall straight into our arms. The first one to do it was Tobias. Afterwards no one else wanted to try. I mean who knows if you wouldn't fall to the floor. Therefore Mr. Umbscheiden said, he was going to do it himself and he is just not that light :) We were all afraid to drop him. He was so heavy, but we made it. I was the last one to do it. It was actually cool.
I guess that is everything important for today.

Caught up on Sleep :)

I don't know what to think about today. There were some positive things along with negative ones. Well let me just tell you everything in order. There is nothing new to say about French except that we didn't discuss our homework but listened to a French song instead. It dealt with Paris waking up, different careers, some cites,... it was hard for me to understand most of it the first time I listened to it, since I wasn't paying attention enough and I was extremely tired as well.
In German I didn't have my homework, which was to read 5 chapters or even more. I just felt like not doing it because of a lack of time therefore I couldn't participate as much as I wanted to. I have to start getting interested in school once again, since it will be for the better for myself. If I continue being this "lazy" it will just get back on me sooner or later through the grades I will receive.
After German I had my spare hour which I used to do my math homework, which I haven't done Monday night. Luckily I got done in time. Towards the end I feared that I wouldn't make it. That would have been really horrible, because our teacher is in such a bad mood right now. The good thing is that I feel like I understand the way it works. I am no longer using formulas that I have learned by heart, but I understand how to use the different things. Unfortunately this is only one of the many topics that I have to know how to solve. One is better than none!!
When I came home, I set the table so that we could have lunch as early as possible, since I wanted to practice violin one more time before going to my lesson. As usual this did not really work out, since today my sisters wanted to be brought to school much earlier. Acutally this was really good, because this way my mom could send me to get some money from the bank for her. Now here is the good news: My violin lesson went great. I feel like I am getting somewhere. My work pays off. What I still have to learn is playing the pieces that are "up to my level" before an audience, because I didn't practice that in a long time. I think this will be my biggest problem - the presentation.
After teaching three of my kids I went to sleep, since my brother had the car and didn't take out my violin and my school stuff. I was glad that I had an "excuse" to go to sleep. I am sure, that if all of my stuff would have been there, I would have started working on my homework. Anyway, I woke up around 9:30 pm since I had slept 5 hours already. I went downstairs to get started with practicing and doing my homework. Surprisingly my brother had not returned home. I got upset and my mom was upset as well, because he was supposed to be home by 5 pm. Since there was nothing else for me to do, I ate an apple and practiced piano for an hour. Right now I think that it is pretty pointless to practice the pieces that I got assigned, since they are too hard for me, and we have to choose different ones... but still, practice is practice.
Now at 11:30 I am finally done with all of my homework that I want to do today. That doesn't mean I am finished though, but there is nothing left due tomorrow.

Music Theory Started!!

Unfortunately, I didn't take the time to blog for the last few days. I am really sorry about that. Now I will try to remember everything that might be important enough to take down.
Saturday:
My day started off as every other regular Sabbath. I woke up kind of late and I had to hurry up to get ready in time. That wasn't the problem at all - actually there was no problem :) My sister even let me come in the bathroom while she was still dressing. So I caught up a few minutes on the countdown.
There were quite a few things to take with us. Starting from the two trombones and two trumpets along with all the supplies for playing brass (music stands, music,...) we had to take our food for lunch with us as well, because we had to eat in church, since there would not be enough time to drive home, eat and take a nap, which is the thing most important to my dad :)
Church ended up really interesting, because the sermon was very useful and applicable. The pastor talked about nature and the beauty God has given to us through his creation. He was the one who reinforced the importance of gardening. It is so healthy for children and teenagers to work outside in order to achieve a better understanding to nature as well as a bondage. He said that there has been a test in an elementary school by some media coverage team. They bought all kinds of different vegetables and fruits and they presented it to the class in elementary school (I don't remember what grade it was but probably something like second graders). Now the job of those kids was to name as many of them as possible. Guess what happened... yes that is right, they just knew the crucial types such as tomato, strawberry, maybe even cucumber but that was about it. One kid even called a pepper some sort of herb or the other way 'round. Anyway it was a disaster.
The second part of the test was of a different kind. I thought that now they were to name candy, but that wasn't it either: They were to name the meals of McDonalds and the surprising outcome was that they could name all the different meals without ANY problems. Isn't this showing in what direction our society is going. For most people the word health does not even exist. I mean, I knew that, but it was just similar to the deluge - it brought it to my attention. We should have some health education offered in schools, because this is creating a lot of problems. This is what politicians should invest in: Better health, less insurance costs for sick people, therefore more money to spend it on some other important issues. So that was one part of the sermon, which I really liked.
After church, we went upstairs to prepare our lunch. We had salad (lettuce, tomatoes, and corn), spagetthi and tomato sauce. We found out that there were two more families who stayed at church as well. That was really nice, so we could socialize a little bit and it was actually interesting and funny. I got to learn about the Nicolatians named in Revelations (which is the only book that mentions them) but unfortunately I forgot most of what they stand for. What I remember though, is that they had some very inappropriate sex-cults.
The next thing we did - once finished with eating - we took a long walk. It was about one hour long and the problem was, that my shoes were just not made to walk long distances so my feet started hurting. I still enjoyed it, because I got to be outside which I haven't managed in a long time.
In the afternoon we had a final runthrough/dress rehearsal. This was not stressful at all. I am really glad for that. One of the points that didn't make it stressful was, because I am no longer a member of the church choir. This is giving me so much more time and it allows me to relax more often than last year.
Now let me tell you a little bit about the Thanksgiving feast at my church. The decoration was extremely neat. It was kind of like a little arbor. There were leaves all around the place in front and some space in the middle. On the left and the right there were all kinds of fruit and vegetables neatly arranged. It looked great! That must have been a lot of work. I will post some pictures of that on photobucket.
The kids were singing and when they did, they were really cute. Some messed up every now and then, some refused to do it in public, but after noticing that it does them no harm they sang along with everybody else. Tabea played a piano piece, and because she wasn't practicing the way she should have, she made a few mistakes, but they weren't major and it was good that she got some practice in presenting music to an audience.There were poems read from different persons, even some of the older kids. And then to close it all up and to have some breaks, the Choir sang and the brass ensemble played some pieces and accompanied the church songs that were sung.
After the official part we started eating bread, grapes and cheese, which is the tradition for Thanksgiving in Germany (or at least in our church). This gives the members of the church the opportunity to talk with each other and to exchange thoughts. Tables have been set up in the "sermon room" as well as in the talking area. There were a lot of people and a lot of kids attending and there was way more food than we could eat :)
Once I got home I talked to my best friend until I went to sleep around 11:45.

Sunday:
I woke up late on Sunday, since I went to sleep late Saturday night and I wasn't all caught up with my sleep from the week. So it was around 10:40 that I got up. I went downstairs to get the clothes from the washing machine. Still in my PJs I hung up all the clothes outside, because it was a sunny day and really warm for October. By hanging up clothes I actually got to be outside for at least a half hour. I was able to take off some of the clothes my mom had hung up in the morning, since they were already dry. I took them to my room and started ironing them while watching a movie. Doing laundry kept my busy until 6 o'clock at night. I didn't expect this to last that long. During that time I also called my best friend so that she could help me with my English homework. I had to write a comment on the question if the auto stereotype of Americans has changed or not through Hurricane Katrina. It was quite interesting to exchange thoughts and sometimes we opposed each other as well, but finally agreed on a final version. All of that took us about one and a half hours and I could see what a good essay looks like. Mine are always casual, but I should try to use higher vocabulary more often in order to perfect my writing skills as much as possible.
Whatelse did I do? Well, I helped my sister practice violin, since she didn't want to. Whenever I help her, she likes it a lot better. I care about her more than about my time because she is the great musician in the family. It isn't me as some might say. I am the hard worker and therefore I achieved a certain level which I will never be able to pass. I also practiced myself, since it was about time to do something concerning my violin studies. Without even noticing it Sunday has passed by and it was late at night (around ten) when I started my last homework which was the essay.
Monday (today):
I went to school as regular. But school was not regular at all. All the teachers seem to be mad. Some of them even try to get some students down. Especially my math teacher puts us down. In math it is not only some students but the entire class that he is doing this to. He believes us to be just a class consisting of 100% dummies. If we are not able to answer his questions right away, and I mean immediately, we are already stupid and if it is the case that you give the wrong answer he will certainly make sure that you know it was wrong, and that you are - oh so stupid by giving such an answer. Most people are afraid now to say something during math and he wonders why there is so little participation. ha ha. I am afraid as well. I don't want to say something wrong and therefore I only raise my hand after securing my solution through my neighbor.
But that wasn't it yet for today. During my free hour I wanted to do some French homework that I still didn't have completed and I wanted to also print out my homework in English. I got two of the three questions answered in French and - as usual - we didn't need it today. Oh, by the way, we got our test back. I made 13 points which is an acceptable grade for the level of that test. You have to consider, that I knew every single word and 70% of the definitions by heart. Just because I have not studied some of the definitions to the point that I knew them by heart I got one mistake (even though it isn't "mandatory" to learn them) the other mistake was a stupid ending of a word, I thought about which one to use and I decided on the wrong one. Oh well. That was me not studying hard enough.
During English I wanted to present our work, and Mr. Schätzle had a look at my essay but since Theresa wasn't feeling very good, I didn't present my essay - this was no longer my priority. After class I had a talk with the teacher and he told me that I still don't participate enough for 15 points. I wondered for myself what else I am expected to do. Therefore I wrote him an email. I mean, when we talked, he told me that I should have presented this essay to the class, but I also told him that maybe no one else would have liked to present his or her essay after hearing mine, especially since it has been perfected by you. So we agreed that I am going to read it to the class on Wednesday. I definitely want 15 points in participation in English. This is the one subject where I think I deserve it. I try very hard to participate as much as I can, but obviously it is not enough. Hopefully I will get clearer instructions over what is expected from in order to receive 15 points.
Now, here is the biggest thing that went on today. After school I went to my first music theory lesson in Rottweil. It was challenging to find the room that it was held. We got there just as I have told the teacher when he called me on Thursday, but the room that it has been in last time was locked. We went to several regular music teachers asking for the room. No one knew. Finally we got to someone who said that it was possible to be upstairs, so we went there and we found them (20 minutes late). Oh well. As expected my hearing was not as good as it used to be and therefore it is very good that I will have some more training in Music theory. It is definitely necessary. The stuff that I have learned in America would not even be sufficient for the audition test that I have to do. It will be harder - or as hard as the AP Test, except that there won't be a curve :( Oh well. There were also some good news. I don't have to do as much for the piano as my teacher said last time. Honestly, I was pretty shocked after hearing what my teacher had planned for me. I am doing piano as a second "subject" and she gave me music that I could have played if piano was my first "subject" not for all of it, but for most of it. So I am really glad that I won't have to work this hard for just the piano. Violin is another story. We didn't even start picking music yet, since there is so much other stuff to get out of the way first.
This should be about it, up till now. I will start working on my homework (finally) and I will also try to practice some more violin.

School Life

Actually there was not that much going on today. I just felt a little bit like a dummy during English today. I guess I am pretty bad at organizing my thoughts and I noticed today, that I can't express my thoughts anymore :( my English is getting worse from week to week.
Our next test will be a composition. Hopefully I have learned by then to structure my thoughts in the way I am supposed to.
As expected we wrote a test in French today. I didn't think it was as easy as our teacher tried to make us believe. Luckily I had studied though (since I study on a regular basis :)) There were a lot of sentences this time. He changed his strategies. I still hope to get 14 points. 15 is impossible. I made at least one mistake.
Whatelse did I do today? Oh yeah, when I came home I straightened up my room. I even got rid of all the dust. So I am prepared for Sabbath tonight and tomorrow...

:(( :(( :((

I could scream!!!!! I could cry... this day was absolutely horrible. This morning I messed up my test in English. My intelligence is just not enough for the expectations of our teacher and the Abitur. I have to face it. I am not as smart as people might think, because I get good grades. I don't deserve them. Finally I got it. It has taken me 13 years to find that out. I just s** at everything right now. On top of that I am lazier than everybody else. Of course I am still doing my duties but I could do more. I am wasting my time watching movies, thinking that they might make me feel better. But actually all they do is making me feel worse, because I know that I shouldn't waste my time like that. I really feel like crying right now.
I just finished practicing piano for 40 minutes. I spent all of those 40 minutes at not even a half a page and it didn't get better at all. It was all in vain. I should just stop having goals. My hands hurt and I am sweating, because I practiced so hard, trying with all methods that I have been exposed to, to get better and it didn't help. My hands are just not well-trained and as sad as it is, I have to face it. They won't get better either. How long have I been trying now, to get them perfectly accurate - 3 years or more... with what kind of result?? They stayed the same. I just really feel it strongly today, because my day was just about horrible. I could laugh over it all, if I was in a different stage of mind but unfortunately I am not.
On top of that, I was kind of unfair to my English teacher. I thought about apologizing, but that would probably not have been appropriate, because students usually don't do that. Well, since I couldn't answer some of the questions in the way they were supposed to be answered, I got disappointed and therefore, when Theresa, Jan and I were talking with the teacher about the test, I couldn't be fair. I hate it, when I am unfair. But I guess this is my personality. Why didn't I just write the email that I wanted to write in the first place.
I will never be able to make it into a music university. So I better start thinking about something else instead.
I will stop now with my self-criticism...
Theresa and I have been really crazy today and I think we both needed it. We went into the Bibliothek and we just started screaming, because of all that was going on. I, for myself, really needed it. It helps me to get over my anger. I do that sometimes in my room as well, when I am really upset and hurt. Yeah, that is exactly what I am. Hurt by my incapability. I have no one right now, to cry with. I wish there would be someone, who would allow me to do so.
What else did I do today: writing my French vocabulary to do well on the test to come this Friday most likely, piano (duh), I also taught two hours of recorder (this is actually something I really enjoy, it is a big challenge to get the students interested in music and it is so much fun to see them getting better from week to week, I guess I could say that I am really proud of my students - not of me teaching :) - since they are doing so well)
What I really missed today was my violin. I think I start depending on my violin. If I don't have the practice time, I am really missing out on a big portion of self-confidence, or stability of my mind. I don't quite know, how to express what I feel, when I have practiced. I feel extremely bad that I gave up my time of violin studies because of a movie that I have already watched. Why do I keep on doing that??
I am really glad for the opportunity to type, because it did make me feel better.

Tag der deutschen Einheit

Today was reunification day in Germany. Therefore all the stores were closed. My mom wanted me to get her some rolls from the bakery, but unfortunately there were none opened. This must be a really important holiday, because usually there are at least some stores who open. We decided to just take some out of our freezer and had a really nice breakfast. After that I did some stuff at the computer and I was a little lazy as well and around one I got to talk to you. This was really cool. I enjoyed the fact that you had some time.
Well, I already told you that we were going swimming. Now this is something that I definitely have to tell you about. We had to be in line for more than an hour, since there were a lot of people having the same idea as we did. My mom wanted to go back as soon as she saw the line, but my dad convinced her of staying. So we waited and waited, because they only let people go in, once others come out.
I thought, that I will be glad with spending time with my family but for some reason I started feeling bad soon after we started swimming. We tried out all of the slides and they were fun! I guess I was just not in the right mood for it. After a while I got hurt as well, because I was too dumb or whatever the problem was (probably too many people pushing) so I will definitely have about 10 bruises or more. Then we continued trying out the stuff they offered outside. It was pretty cold there, but the water was as warm as a bathtub. It felt really good. There were some whirlpools there to massage you (which I tried as well) and there was another pool almost empty. I tried it out at first, but since I went in there after being in the really warm water it was too cold and I went back in the warm water. My family stayed there and invited me to a second try which I did and I have to say that I enjoyed the swimming there the most of the whole time there. I am not so much into slides and everything.
My mom told me about some other massage possibilities and I took advantage of them, since there is no one to massage me at home and my back needs to get better. It hurt a lot. Nevertheless, I continued for another 5 minutes or more. Then I started to get a headache. My mom, who was at the opposite end, told me that my face turned red because of high blood pressure through this massage, but at that time I was so sick of everything that I decided to leave the indoor pool (or whatever you call it) take a shower and get dressed in order to study some more French vocabs. I didn't get that much done, because I was tired and my head hurt me. At least I made an effort.
We left this place around 7 pm and my dad invited us all out. The restaurant we went to was really nice and the food was good, but almost too much. The only bad thing was that it took so long that we got home at 10. I won't do any homework anymore. I will wake up early tomorrow to study some more French... we will most likely write a test tomorrow.
I am very dissatisfied with this day today. I didn't get the chance to practice violin and I really wanted to. This makes me really sad and uncomfortable. I need my practice time to feel good. I just hope that my family enjoyed the time that I spent with them. I will tell you how my French test went. I wanted to get 15 points and I won't be able to achieve this once again. Oh well. I am glad I had another day off!! It was relaxing. :)

Finally Weekend

Actually there is very little interesting to tell you about my last two days. On Friday I asked for clearer instructions concerning the English class test on Wednesday. It will be the first class test this year. I hope I will do fine, it is about analysing a given text in order to find out the author's political standpoint and his view. Our teacher said it is not so important to know whether it is a Liberal, a Democrat or a Re publican, but to know what his opinion is. He also said, that you can't compare a German Liberal to an American Liberal, therefore he doesn't expect from us to know that. He says that politics in America are very different from Germany and he is trying to teach us to be critical and to analyse the opinions of each author before saying I can take this for the truth. I really like the way he does it, because he gets us to think. I just fear that I won't meet his expectations in the class test on Wednesday. Of course I will try my best and I will be satisfied with whatever I deserve, because there is no use of getting upset at yourself.
So today our sermon was extremely interesting. It was a pastor who collects all different kinds of Bibles. He said he has about 800 different ones. I think this is a lot if you consider that some of them way up to 30 pounds. His oldest bible is a hand-written one which is about 1200 years old. It is really incredible what he has in his collection. So everyone was really interested and you didn't notice how the time was flying by. Everyone could have listened for another hour at least (if they weren't hungry anyway).
When we came home we had pizza for lunch and then I finally got my long-awaited Saturday afternoon nap. When I got up at 5, I went downstairs a little bit, but my parents and my sister left to go for a walk with a dog, but my knees hurt me so much, that I could not go with them. It is getting worse and worse in my opinion. I am not writing this blog to complain though. I can still walk and that is all that counts. After sitting for 40 minutes in the same position my legs start hurting me as well. It was really bad during French yesterday and English as well. Hopefully it will get better soon. I will probably decide to go and see a doctor soon. I am off topic, so I will go back to what I did after getting up. I finished commenting on Romans chapter one and then I wrote some letters which were due. I am really glad that I had the time to do so.
My parents came back from their walk with Tabea and we did Andacht. After that we watched an old movie. It was so really cute and positive. "Der kleine Lord" is one of my favorite movies.
Right now I am watching another movie that is dealing with someone who had drugs on him in Turkey. It is really bad how they are dealing with prisoners. I think it is bad. Well, while watching those movies I wrote some French vocabularies, because I don't want to get behind. That is all that went on today.